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Blog Soup
by Stan Faryna
I read a lot of blogs. Maybe, too many. I comment on a lot of blog posts. Maybe, too many. If you are a Triberrati, you do too.
A Triberrati is a blogger that stands out in the Triberr community. Triberr is a web app that connects bloggers and helps them to curate each other on Twitter. You can learn all about Triberr by reading any of the following posts about it.
1. James St. John, Triberr: They Want To Change The World
2. Yomar Lopez, How Triberr Changes The Competitive Landscape
3. Neicole Crepeau, Friday Fives: Tips For Using Triberr
Gary Portnoy, Where everybody knows your name (Cheers theme song)
Earth Date 2011.10.21
Just some of the blogs that I commented on this week:
1. What Should a Business Blog Look Like? by Jon Buscall
2. Are You Missing Out on the Real Value of Social Media? by Anthony Iannarino
3. Jack, The Deer Hunter Kills Blogs and Animals by Jack Steiner
4. Post Cards In A Digital Age by Murray Lunn
5. Who Owns You by Janet Callaway
6. The Ferarri of Tomorrow is Beyond Insane by Richard Darrel
7. Who wants to be first? by James St. John
8. All Together Now: Everyone Say FOCUS! by Stacey Herbert
9. Just for Today by Sandi Amorim
10. 7 Tips To Keep Blog Content Fresh by Jayme Soulati
11. Create An Online Conversation by Gini Dietrich
12. How I became the Freddy Kreuger of Blogging by Danny Iny
13. Is Your Startup Story Worth $10,000? by Lisa Barone
14. Suck Less, One Step At a Time by Michael Schechter
15. The power of visualization by Seth Godin
The Philosophy of Beauty, Part One
Moveable Feasts, Scooby Snacks, Etcetera
1. What Should a Business Blog Look Like? by Jon Buscall
Jon seems to be complaining that blogs look terribly similar.
My comment:
What is the purpose of a business blog? What is it's function?
Common sense will say that the purpose of a business blog is to do business. Depending upon the business to be doing, a business blog seeks to present it's service(s) or product(s) to more than one buyer. To be noticed among other offers (complementary, competitive, or otherwise, a business blog must immediately stand out from all those other blogs in one way or another. This immediacy shall not be dictated by words (which take time and attention to evaluate). Thus the design decision to be made whether to offend (stab you in the eyes) or please the senses in some approximation of the Beautiful.
An excellent example of an offensive, modern business blog design is Penelope Trunk's blog: http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/
I am not saying Penelope's blog design is bad design. In fact, I find this blog design to be clever, effective and powerful. It solves some of the most common blog problems with the same abrupt, hard, and shocking visual style that echoes Penelope Trunk's editorial style. In my humble opinion, Penelope's blog design is a successful execution of online brand.
Unfortunately, I have not yet come across an equally powerful example of a beautiful design for a business blog. But I think these blog designs are going in the right direction and they are not spending big bucks.
1. Keri Jaehnig's blog
2. Rob Duncan's blog
3. Jeffrey Zeldman's blog
Despite all the enthusiasm and talk about brand, UX, and the importance of social media and blogging, the unquestioned trend is for business bloggers to cheap out when it comes to blog design.
What should I infer by you cheaping out?
1.That you're not serious about your business and/or your customer.
2.That you don't know how to do business?
3.That you don't know what you are doing?
4.That you don't have the resources to do business?
5.All of the above?
Most of the people who will come to your blog, however, do not have an informed opinion about brand, design, marketing, and business in general. That doesn't mean they won't have an subconscious response to your design. Or lack thereof.
A wow-ing blog design could cost you from twenty thousand to a million dollars if done by a reputable design company. If your blog brings you six digits per year ($100k/year), best practices recommend that you spend about $6000/year on blog design and layout.
Some of you may flinch at that number – especially since blogging and DIY seems to go together like a hand in a glove. But when's the last time you showed up to a million dollar contract signing in pajamas made by your own hand? Or your sister's friend's grandmother? [grin]
Are you dressed for success? Or a sleepover?
That said, I know of several young, professional designers that would be happy to help you totally redesign your blog for $1000-$3,000 on a payment schedule. Email me if you want me to connect you with them: stan(dot)faryna(at)gmail(dot)com
Disqus was not accepting comments at the time of my comment.
2. Are You Missing Out on the Real Value of Social Media? by Anthony Iannarino
If you are living behind the screen and not going out and meeting the people with whom you are friends on social media, you are missing out on the real value.
The real value in social media isn't measured in your Klout score, the number of followers you have on Twitter, or the number of friends you have on Facebook.
That's what Anthony Iannarino is saying.
My comment:
Anthony is not wrong to recommend that we should meet up with the people with whom we connect with online. If the opportunity presents itself, meet ups will strengthen and deepen your online connections.
On the other hand, I do not believe that online connection must be as shallow and superficial as Anthony Iannarino might be suggesting them to be. To paraphrase Nietzsche, online communities are dead – if and only if Anthony is right.
While it would be naive to think that all of your followers on Twitter and all of your friends on Facebook consider you with intimate concern, I find myself deeply engaged with 20 people that I only know through online connection. And, perhaps, 100 in all.
The question has come up often across the years: Can online people be friends? Can people work together never having met face to face? Can they inspire, uplift, and serve each other? Can online communities have impact on the world?
The overwhelming beautiful, good, and true answer has been yes.
If there is a line between online and offline relationships, it is the line you have drawn in the sand. In other words, you have divided your own heart.
Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty. Hosea 10:2
And when a line is drawn in the sand and the cannons are fired, the only appropriate response of gentlemen and ladies is El Degüello – of course.
3. Jack, The Deer Hunter Kills Blogs and Animals by Jack Steiner
Jack wants to spiff up his blog design.
My comment:
The blog design bug seems to have bitten our friend Jack Steiner. And not just him. The bug is going around.
This all takes me back to 1996 when web design was in its awkward infancy. Browser standards were just a pipe dream. DIY was all the rage. And since there was so much bad design going on out there, people weren't embarrassed to put it out there much like what happens in a nudist colony.
That is not a dig against Jack or anyone else. Ok, I admit that I've always been entertained and amused by the DIY design movement, but I understand very well the want for beautiful solutions. For beauty ever points to even greater things – the good and the true, namely.
Bottom line: you either have good taste or you don't. And it will show.
Beyond good taste, things are happening so fast on the social web. Technology is changing. Can you keep up? The DIY designer often doesn't have the fundamentals of design (or information design) down – complementary colors, visual path, etc.
Can you also think beyond the desktop? Design is about solving problems. It's about crafting beautiful solutions that anticipate and respond to your users' needs. How does your DIY design respond to the various array of devices, browsers, and technologies?
I can recommend Ethan Marcote's book, Responsive Web Design, if you really want to tumble down this rabbit's hole.
The problem with multiple blogging platforms (like the previous lack of browser and html standards) is that development and design comes at a premium price. Not because developers and designers are greedy and evil per se, but it really takes them a lot of hours to figure things out and make it all work. This, of course, is all the work that goes beyond their education and experience as developers, designers, and UX architects.
Anyway, at the time of publication of his blog post, Jack had a very simple, white layout going. And I thought that was acceptable. I recommended that he increase the font size to 16 pt. Readability is one of the top five priorities in blog design.
That's all I'm saying. Unless we're going to talk business. [grin]
4. Post Cards In A Digital Age by Murray Lunn
Murray is delighted when he gets a postcard from Davy of GhostBloggers.net – an online business that he has done business with in the past.
My comment:
Post cards and cards are an awesome way to strengthen the online connection! I can't recommend them enough!
My address is as follows (hint, hint):
Stan Faryna
Stirbei Voda Nr. 71, Ap.4,6
Sector 1
Bucharest, Romania 010105
Did I mention that my 42nd birthday is coming up? October 22nd, in fact.
Oh – I'm looking at a card right this minute. It's from Christian Hollingsworth.
Christian writes:
Thank you for being a defender of all things good in this world, Stan.
Your friend and brother,
Christian Hollingsworth
You rock, Christian!
5. Who Owns You by Janet Callaway
Janet asks important questions. Are you ready to be honest?
Do your possessions own you?
Does social media own you?
Do insufficient funds own you?
My comment:
Here is an answer from my heart: http://wp.me/pbg0R-sv
What I didn't write:
But I also hear this answer whispering to me from the depth of beauty:
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
Exodus 20: 3-6
I do not present this citation as a dogma to simply embrace or reject, but as gentle meditation on what owns us, why, and how.
6. The Ferarri of Tomorrow is Beyond Insane by Richard Darrel
Richard gushes over the Ferrari design proposal by korean students Kim Cheong Ju, Ahn Dre, and Lee Sahnseok of Hongik University.
My comment:
Ferrari captures, inspires, and fuels the imagination. If there were ever a modern adaption of Homer's Iliad, I imagine Achilles kicking up dust across the Trojan plain. In a Ferrari.
Imagine that with me for a moment. Ah! Do you see that awesomeness? The beauty?!
Can you tell that I am a fan of Ferrari?
But I also think of Janet Callaway's blog post, Who Owns You, and my complete answer. Everything considered, a Ferrari may be a unicorn, but it does not end world hunger or thirst. It does not roll down like Justice from heaven. Nor does it fall like Mercy – blessing both. Those who are merciful and those who receive mercy.
And with sadness, I have to consider that the imagination and ambitions of young men and women are wasted on unicorns and not the love for others that a humble man once asked of us – a man that was crucified, died, and resurrected for our salvation.
Now you have deeper insight about my birthday wish.
7. Who wants to be first? by James St. John
Christopher Columbus was a man of great patience, fortitude, and courage – not only imagination. The homepage of my previous company told the story of Discovery. Columbus suffered much and, in fact, the discovery of America was a failure for him and his investors. It was not a triumph. I imagine that the Admiral died feeling great loneliness, despair, and with a heart torn to a thousand pieces.
Few would follow in such footsteps. For bold footsteps as those are a poor imitation of the heavy, trembling steps of Christ carrying the cross. To his crucifixion!
They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha. John 19:17
I don't contradict you, James. When I say imitation, I have much admiration for the imitation. But as much admiration as I have fear for it too.
History is a handmaiden of God and her affections are not purchased cheaply.
That said, what shall we do first, my friend! For there is some solace in fellowship. Let us inspire the world to love, joy through love (not pride), hope through love (not envy), and much more.
8. All Together Now: Everyone Say FOCUS! by Stacey Herbert
Stacey has been missing in action for the longest time. But she's back. It's a comeback and she's mixing up commerce with community.
My comment:
It's great to have you back. I was worried about you.
In my opinion there's nothing wrong with mixing commerce and community. Commerce is essential to real world communities – even villages.
Myself, I'm developing a project for rural poverty that proposes to mix commerce, community, and culture.
If you would leave an encouraging comment regarding my changemaker project, I would be grateful.
9. Just for Today by Sandi Amorim
be who you BE.
That's what Sandi is saying.
My comment.
This blog post is dripping with joi de vivre. Even @TheJackB was moved! Now that's something!
But why is it that I'm the only one that "liked" your awesome blog post? [grin]
Celebration cannot just be fleeting smiling of the heart, true celebration must animate us to joyful and self-giving action. Like clicking the "like" button! [smile]
10. 7 Tips To Keep Blog Content Fresh by Jayme Soulati
Jayme is saying, don't be lazy. Don't rehash or repurpose the content of other bloggers. Put some elbow grease into your blogging.
My comment:
These are good strategies for building content for your blog posts.
It's good to have you back, Jayme!
If I restate your 7 points in blog soup – is that a bad thing? Forgive me for asking, but I grow old and oh how some questions are not so easily answered. Not by this rabbit. And not questions like these.
For the quarrel of spirit and nature , as C.S. Lewis write about, makes a din that shuts out Prufrock's songs of mermaids – the same songs to which Prufrock is also deaf.
I grow old. I grow old… I shall wear my trousers rolled. T.S. Eliot
The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock is here.
Disqus didn't take my comment. It turns out the Disqus' servers are a bit too impatient. They drop requests like a pigeon… [sigh]
11. Create An Online Conversation by Gini Dietrich
Stories give people a reason to care about you and your business. If they care, doing business with them becomes a possibility. That's why you need to create or drive the online conversation with stories, recommendations, and compelling narratives.
I think that's what Gini is saying. Gini?
My comment:
Gini Dietrich is such a pro, she makes it sound easy. Pros do that. They do or say things so well, it looks easy. Whether it's PR, marketing, writing, design, etc., anyone awesome at what they do, makes it look like what they do is a no-brainer. That would be the furtherest thing from the truth.
If you can afford it, I recommend you go to Gini and get all the juicy details.
12. How I became the Freddy Kreuger of Blogging by Danny Iny
Danny has received comments like:
"Wow, Danny, you're like the Freddy Krueger of blogging – wherever I turn, you're there!"
My comment:
Danny, I love your writing style. This may have been my first visit to Firepole Marketing…
And I have to suspect that your awesome writing skills had a lot more impact in building your guest blogging venues than shooting off an email on a whimsy. Actually, it sounds like there was nothing whimsical about what you did. I'm not convinced that all of your readers understand that.
Then we get to your strategy for creating presence within micro-networks (aka community infiltration). Again, there's nothing whimsical about that either. You got a whole lot of madness and method going on – especially if you are charting it on Excel.
This will be a sensitive topic for some. But it is almost exactly the same strategy employed by some of the more savvy corporations, governments, and top PR professionals.
13. Is Your Startup Story Worth $10,000? by Lisa Barone
Lisa Barone is spreading the world about Hiscox's MyStartUpStory Contest.
My comment:
I would like to see Yomar Lopez and James St. John take their NJAB podcast story and go for the 10Gs. But there's a lot of good people out there with awesome ideas. Don't not get in on this!
14. Suck Less, One Step At a Time by Michael Schechter
Michael Schechter elaborates on Cody Fink's blog post, Keep it Memorable, Stupid.
My comment:
Cody's post provides considerable insight. He's thought long and hard about these things – whether or not he admits to it.
Michael's digest is great for those who's attention span grinds to a halt at 250 words. That's not a dig at Michael. Summarizing Cody's rambling style is a service.
Sucking Less, One Step At a Time has real pith and bite to it. Thanks, Michael.
15. The power of visualization by Seth Godin
"Data is not useful until it becomes information, and that's because data is hard for human beings to digest."
My comment:
I like to poke Seth Godin with a stick. Because he throws out no-brainers – not powerful insights. Great insights illuminate, reveal, and explode the truth a la Foucault.
But since we started this blog soup about blog design, Seth Godin gets the last word this time.
Honestly, I just wanted to talk more about my previous blog post and give away. I wanted to think outloud about the possibility that people may not get excited or inspired by what I'm doing for Nisha.
If you haven't seen it, check it out.
Luxurious decorations for your castle or estate http://wp.me/pbg0R-sv
Anyway, a link to Seth Godin's blog post came floating down the brown Danube and I had that prescient and uncomfortable feeling that Seth is going to grab the 15th spot on this edition of blog soup.
Writes Seth:
"We repeatedly underestimate how important a story is to help us make sense of the world."
What Seth didn't write:
We repeatedly underestimate the role of design in helping us tell a story, making it memorable, and punctuating the take aways.
Does your blog design help your reader visualize your story as a blogger and the stories that you tell?
If you think that this blog post sucks, let me know in your comment and don't forget to include a link to YOUR favorite blog post.
If you think this blog post rocks, tell me why it rocks in the comment. "Awesome,""Great post," etc. works for me. Don't forget to include a link to YOUR most recent blog post.
If you're in the mood, stop by my party and wish me a happy birthday here.
Stan Faryna
21 October 2011
Bucharest, Romania
P.S. Special Thanks to Bonnie Squires for her kind words about me in her most recent blog post.
More Blog Soup
1. Blog Soup: 2011.10.06 http://wp.me/pbg0R-r7
2. Blog Soup: 2011.09.22 http://wp.me/pbg0R-pF
3. Blog Soup: 2011:10:10 http://wp.me/pbg0R-rO
4. Blog Soup. 2011:10:13 http://wp.me/pbg0R-s9
5. Blog Soup. 2011.10.17 http://wp.me/pbg0R-sq
Faryna Podcasts
1. Why do I blog: http://wp.me/pbg0R-kX
2. If Tomorrow Was Your Last Day: http://wp.me/pbg0R-la
3. Money Can't Buy Happiness: http://wp.me/pbg0R-lv
4. The First Duty of Love is to Listen: http://wp.me/pbg0R-lO
5. Are You Ready for Love? http://wp.me/pbg0R-lX
6. Reading The Desiderata. http://wp.me/pbg0R-mr
7. What is Love? http://wp.me/pbg0R-mw
8. Confessions of a Freak-Geek-Misfit. http://wp.me/pbg0R-nJ
9. Do you love strongly? http://wp.me/pbg0R-nY
10. Empty-handed, Less Traveled Roads. http://wp.me/pbg0R-on
11. The Economics of Friendship. http://wp.me/pbg0R-oU
12. Do Not Be Afraid. http://wp.me/pbg0R-p9


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FIFA has suspended Nigeria from international competition after football leaders were fired by the government following the team's World Cup exit.
FIFA announced the ban, which means no Nigerian team -- including club sides -- can play internationally, on Wednesday.
It was the world governing body's response to a court order which compelled the Nigerian Minister of Sports to appoint a senior member of the civil service to take over the running of the Nigeria Football Federation.
A statement from FIFA's emergency committee said: "The FIFA Emergency Committee has decided today, July 9, 2014, to suspend the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) with immediate effect, on account of government interference.''
The statement continued: "The decision follows a letter sent by FIFA to the NFF on July 4, 2014, in which it expressed its great concern after the NFF was served with court proceedings and consequently an order preventing the president of the NFF, the NFF Executive Committee members and the NFF Congress from running the affairs of Nigerian football was granted by a High Court of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
"The said court order compelled the Nigerian Minister of Sports to appoint a senior member of the civil service to manage the NFF until the matter was heard in court, without giving any date for such a hearing.
"The authorities then appointed a person who decided to convene an extraordinary general assembly on July 5 2014. This extraordinary general assembly was convened in violation of the NFF statutes.
"Originally, an elective congress had been planned by the NFF to take place on August 26, 2014.
"The suspension will be lifted once the court actions have been withdrawn and the properly elected NFF Executive Committee, the NFF general assembly and the NFF administration are able to work without any interference in their affairs.''
The first impact of FIFA's move will be felt by Nigeria's women, who will be prevented from taking part in the FIFA Under-20 Women's World Cup in Canada next month -- should the suspension not be lifted by July 15.
The statement added: "As a result of this decision, no team from Nigeria of any sort [including clubs] can have any international sporting contact [art. 14 par. 3 of the FIFA Statutes].
"During the period of suspension, the NFF may not be represented in any regional, continental or international competitions, including at club level, or in friendly matches.
"In addition, neither the NFF nor any of its members or officials may benefit from any FIFA or CAF development programmes, courses or training during the suspension period.''
Nigeria's men reached the second round of the World Cup finals in Brazil after finishing second in Group F behind semifinalists Argentina, but bowed out after a 2-0 defeat by France in the round of 16.

subset: commoncrawl


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If you agree—and only if you agree—Progressive Insurance will give you a device to install in your car that will rat you out for jack-rabbit starts and slamming on the brakes. * It's a small thing that plugs into your on-board diagnostic system, and it transmits as you drive. If your little minder shows that you don't act like Dale Earnhardt Jr. behind the wheel, you'll save up to 30 percent on your auto insurance. Although there's no official penalty for letting the company find out that you regularly lay down rubber, in fact you'll pay more for coverage than will tamer drivers. You'll also be acting to tame your own behavior by raising the price of recklessness.
Progressive's driving spy is a sneaky example of the "precommitment device," a technique that people use to bind themselves to their preferred desires, and a subject I have been studying for my new book about the problem of self-control, We Have Met the Enemy.
People have all kinds of desires, of course—even boring people like me, for whom a midlife crisis means not a red sports car but a nifty new Apple router. And all of us prefer some of our desires to others. For instance, you may want to knock back a few martinis at lunch on Thursday or sleep with your wife's younger sister the next time you see her. But you probably also want to keep your job and stay out of divorce court. For obvious reasons these latter desires are the ones you prefer. The problem is, how to adhere to them?
Enter precommitment. On Wednesday, for example, looking ahead, you order a nice healthy salad to be delivered Thursday—and then you eat it at your desk, far from any sources of gin or vermouth. As for your sister-in-law, whenever you're supposed to visit you find an excuse to stay away, thereby sheltering yourself from temptation.
But of course you could still ignore the salad on the desk and go out and drink your lunch, or you could take the radioactive sister-in-law to a concert. Most commitment techniques—including marriage—are just too easily circumvented.
That's why truly binding precommitment devices are so interesting. The first known practitioner of such voluntary bondage was wily Odysseus, en route home from the Trojan War. As his ship approached the Sirens, he was determined to hear their song without, well, going overboard. Necessity being the mother of invention, he invented history's first precommitment device. "You must bind me tight with chafing ropes," our hero instructs in Robert Fagles' translation, "so I cannot move a muscle, bound to the spot, erect at the mast-block, lashed by ropes to the mast. And if I plead, commanding you to set me free, then lash me faster. …"
What a moment! The Odyssey is really all about self-control, and Odysseus' foresight and skill at managing desire explains why he—and he alone—survives the harrowing journey back to Ithaca. His actions in this instance set the standard for all who would later enlist others to compel themselves to follow their own commands.
Once you become aware of precommitment (the term was coined by economist Robert Strotz in 1956), it crops up everywhere. Thomas De Quincey, for example, tells us that Coleridge hired strong men to keep him out of opium dens—a practice that persists to this day in the "sobriety minders" who are hired to help celebrities keep their noses clean. The adventures of one real-life minder, however embellished, even became the basis of a TV show, The Cleaner. Following World War I, a disillusioned Ludwig Wittgenstein took great pains to give away his fortune irrevocably, just as armies in the past have burned their boats to make retreat impossible.
And let's not forget Young Frankenstein, in which Gene Wilder asks to be locked in a room with the monster. "Love is the only thing that can save this poor creature," he tells his aides, "and I am going to convince him that he is loved even at the cost of my own life. No matter what you hear in there, no matter how cruelly I beg you, no matter how terribly I may scream, do not open this door or you will undo everything I have worked for. Do you understand? Do not open this door."
A minute later of course, he's begging to be let out—but that's the point. Precommitment works by putting the wrong choice beyond reach. And best of all, it's voluntary.
The evidence is all around us that Americans are struggling—and often failing—to uphold their preferred desires. Hardly anyone wants to be fat, after all, yet two-thirds of us are. A large proportion of smokers have tried to quit. Most procrastinators would prefer to escape their dilatory impulses but struggle to overcome their powerful wish to avoid work.
The problem is that short-term rewards are just so much more seductive than long-term goals. And besides, what's one little dessert, one more puff, or just a few more minutes at World of Warcraft when your thesis isn't due for another year? People often understand how weak they are in this way, which is why (for example) they support the Social Security system, a giant precommitment device whereby we subject ourselves to taxation in order to forestall destitution that we could easily prevent if only we could save for ourselves.
How can you use precommitment to keep yourself from giving in to unwanted desires? You're probably already doing so—for example, by asking your significant other, on the way to a restaurant, not to let you order dessert when you get there. Dan Ariely, that tireless student of human irrationality, has collected several interesting precommitment anecdotes from regular people, including one who placed her credit card in a container of water in the freezer, thereby requiring a cooling off—er, that is, warming up—period before use, and another who, before a date with a guy she knew she shouldn't sleep with, wore her "granniest" underwear—presumably to deter herself from disrobing. In this she was unwittingly following the advice of St. Jerome, who argued that the determined virgin, "by a deliberate squalor … makes haste to spoil her natural good looks." Jerome's friend Paula, who ran a convent near his monastery in Bethlehem, evidently took the same view of cleanliness and chastity, warning, "A clean body and a clean dress mean an unclean soul."
Most of us really ought to make more use of such techniques, as Dean Karlan and John Romalis did. The two economists each agreed to lose 38 pounds in six months or forfeit half his annual income to the other. They made a similar deal to keep the weight off afterward. This all worked well enough that Karlan later went on to found stickK.com, a Web site that allows you to provide a credit card number and make a legally binding agreement to do (or not do) a certain thing. If you fail—and you can appoint a referee to decide—then you forfeit the money, which the site will give to a friend or enemy you've chosen. (You can also choose a charity you like—or one you hate, such as the George W. Bush or Bill Clinton library, which might be even more motivating.)
As a libertarian-leaning Democrat, I've tried to think of ways the government might help us with precommitment. Some states and Canadian provinces already allow gamblers to bar themselves from casinos for a period of years. In British Columbia, some gamblers on the self-exclusion registry got in anyway and lost several hundred thousand dollars. They sued the province and the casinos for failing to do what Jenny Holzer said: "Protect me from what I want."
What if we took this kind of thing further? One possibility might be to let people sign up to pay extra taxes based on the change in their weight. Health costs are largely socialized anyway, and there is precedent in the private sector, where insurers setting term-life premiums often take account of smoking, cholesterol, and other factors that individuals can influence. Another idea would be to require a driver's license or other I.D. for the purchase of cigarettes or alcohol. The state would offer to emblazon these "NO TOBACCO," for example, until the next renewal, perhaps three years later. During that time stores couldn't sell you the stuff.
Modern life is a wonderful thing, rife with freedom and opportunity, but it comes with the problem of self-control. That's a nice problem, since I can't think of anyone else I'd want to be in charge. Yet most of us are probably kidding ourselves if we think willpower alone can do the job. Much better to make like Odysseus and face the music in safety.
Correction, Jan. 21, 2011: Thisarticle originally said the device from Progressive Insurance would rat you out for speeding. But while the device records your speed, it doesn't know where you are, and the company says it can't tell if you were violating any speed limit. Customers install the device only if they want to. (Return to the corrected sentence.) Like Slate on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.


text:
Tom Ford, Rihanna lead London Fashion Week lineup
LONDON (AP) — Shorts and bare legs in February? A dark man's suit draped with baby blue fur? Gaggles of photographers on the prowl for a standout model?
All that action on London's streets can mean only one thing: Fashion Week is in town.
Friday's runway shows — the first of many in the five-day style extravaganza — may be relatively few, but the flocks of fashion editors, buyers and bloggers who have arrived in London for the trade event are only too happy to dress the part.
Hot on the heels of New York Fashion Week, the biannual event in the British capital boasts a lineup that features industry leaders Burberry and Vivienne Westwood, as well as young talents Christopher Kane, Mary Katrantzou and others.
This season they will be joined for the first time by celebrity designer Tom Ford, who's staging his first proper catwalk show in the capital; singer Rihanna, who will debut her first design collection for British high street chain River Island; and L'Wren Scott, the American designer and partner of Mick Jagger.
The newcomers certainly add star power to London Fashion Week, but it's the slew of exciting young designers based in the capital that keeps the international fashion pack coming back for more.
"The buyers who come to London don't go to just one or two shows — they go to nearly every show, every day. You miss the show, you miss the hot new trend," said Caroline Rush, chief executive of the British Fashion Council.
Fashion is a 21 billion-pound (US$33 billion) industry in Britain, and its significance has been growing every year. Last summer, models and designer clothes by the likes of the Alexander McQueen house and Victoria Beckham even got featured at the London Olympics closing ceremony — a show of how much emphasis officials are placing on the business.
Rush and her colleagues devote particular attention to nurturing ambitious, talented young designers in London. After all, they could be the next Kane or Katrantzou — young guns who have burst onto the international scene within just a few seasons.
The youngest of the "big four" fashion weeks, London had generally been regarded as the irreverent, idiosyncratic sibling to the slick productions in Milan, Paris and New York. For some time, it was more a place for edgy fashion college graduates than a destination for elite fashion buyers.
Yet these days London Fashion Week is a professional, pulled-together affair. Burberry packs in the crowds — and the celebrities — with an extravagant catwalk display, while growing corporate sponsorship has seen editors and buyers whizzed from show to show in shiny black Mercedes. The week generates over 100 million pounds ($160 million) worth of orders, and attracts some 5,000 fashion fans from around the world.
"Before, people used to skip London. Now people make a point of coming," said Carmen Borgonovo, fashion director of luxury online retailer my-wardrobe.com.
One of the highlights will be the first official catwalk collection by Ford, who has dressed everyone from Michelle Obama to James Bond star Daniel Craig. The former design chief at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent had previously only staged exclusive presentations here.
Meanwhile, the British Fashion Council is calling Rihanna's designs for River Island the "most anticipated collaboration of 2013."
"This has been something I wanted to do ever since I started loving fashion," the singer said in a video posted on British Vogue's website. "Every time I saw something on a rack there was something I wanted to do to change it, and so I thought that the only way I could do that is by designing the perfect thing for me."
In all, almost 60 runway previews for autumn 2013 will run from Friday to Tuesday.
London Fashion Week will be followed by designer shows in Milan and Paris.


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Design and Craft:
This ceramic bowl is handmade and each piece is unique. The colors of the product you receive may vary marginally from the colors seen on our website, due to the differences in displays of computers/laptops/phones.
Product Details:
- Size : 16 cm x 16 cm x 7 cm (LxWxH)
- Material : Ceramics
Care Instructions:
- Dishwasher, Microwave and Oven safe
- Cleaning with a soft sponge is recommended
- Avoid using hard scrub


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Children across the world are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Santa Claus Monday evening; luckily, in 2013 we have numerous ways to track the Jolly Old Elf during Christmas Eve.
As usual, the North American Aerospace Defense Command is tracking Santa via radar this season and displaying Saint Nick's location online.
But this year, NORAD has partnered with Microsoft and Bing to show Santa's every moment instead of Google, the Can-American organization's online partner since 2004.
Not to be outdone by its search rival, Google is also tracking Santa's midnight ride on its own.
If you've got little ones focused on tracking Santa Monday morning into the evening, here's a basic guide to all the ways you can track Santa tonight.
Santa on the Web
Norad may have a new online partner, but the military-grade Santa Tracker is still available at NoradSanta.org. Here you will be greeted with a Bing Map similar to Google's version in previous years. You can see where Santa has been, thanks to the gift icons that dot the map, and the Tracker offers a breakdown of where Saint Nick was last spotted and his next scheduled location.
A running counter shows how many gifts Santa has delivered this year. If you click on a present on the map, a pop-up window will show a YouTube video, if available, about Santa's journey in that region and some facts about the location from Wikipedia.
Clicking on the "Watch Santa!" button will take you to the latest videos showing Santa's journey, posted to Google's YouTube—proving that even the military can't completely escape Google's online power. Norad's site also features a map of Santa's North Pole village that contains games, music, and other activities.
Google may have been discharged from Norad, but the search giant is still tracking Santa at Google.com/santatracker. When you first land on the site, in true Google style, you are treated to a data dashboard showing Santa's previous location, next scheduled stop, time until arrival, total number of presents delivered, distance traveled, and his latest status update.
You can also click on the Santa icon to see his journey on the map without the dashboard cluttering up the display.
Google also offers on the site three Christmas themed video games called Jetpack, Present Drop, and Racer. And, as Google has offered in previous years, you can create a personalized phone call from Santa to any North American phone number between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. local time. All of these features are available by clicking the "Santa Tracker" box in the bottom left corner of the site.
Santa's major stops are signified with a gift-themed Google Maps marker. Clicking on a location shows you its name, Santa's time of arrival at that location, the current weather (courtesy of the Weather Channel), and the number of presents delivered there.
You can also access photos of the place pulled from Google Maps' partnership with Panoramio, and data from Wikipedia. Unfortunately, you can't enter your own location into the map to see when Santa is scheduled to arrive in your neck of the woods. But maybe Google will include that feature in next year's map.
Mobile Trackers
If you want to track Santa while you're on the go, you can choose from Norad's app for Android and iOS by Visionbox or Google's Santa Tracker for Android.
Norad's app hasn't changed much and, similar to previous years, features a tracking map as well as a game. This year the game is called Thin Ice.
Google's Santa Tracker app for Android isn't really an app at all and only features links to opening Google Maps or Google Earth on your Android device to track Santa. Google offers no accessory games or other features.
For iOS users who prefer Google's Santa, you can still use Google.com/santatracker on your iPad or iPhone and it will work just fine. You can also place an icon for the site on your homescreen by tapping the 'Action' key in Safari and selecting "Add to Home Screen."
Desktop Chrome browser
Google has also created a Chrome extension you can add to your browser.
The Santa Tracker extension gives you a summary of how many miles Santa has traveled and clicking on the browser icon shows you the tracker dashboard with vital Santa stats.
Social network trackers
Getting social with Santa this year is pretty similar to other years. You can get updates on Santa's location via Twitter with @NoradSanta. Norad's Santa is also on Facebook. Google+ users can get Santa-centric updates all day Monday from the Google Maps G+ page.
Google Earth
You can track Santa using Google Earth on both PCs and mobile devices. This will show you an animated version of Santa flying across specific locations. You can find a link to the Santa Tracker in Google Earth's Tour Guide feature.
Android users can get a direct link to Santa's journey on Google Earth mobile using the Santa Tracker app for Android.
Technology offers many ways to follow Santa's journey around the globe Monday night, but here's a word of warning for parents with particularly observant children. The Microsoft/Norad Santa and Google's Santa are not flying on the same itinerary, so you may want to stick with one Santa in order to avoid any repeat Santa landings.


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Maryland's new gun control law will not head to voters now that organizers of a petition drive to halt the law failed to turn in any signatures before Friday night's deadline.
"This means there were no successful petitions this year," Stephen Ackerman from the Secretary of State's Office said in an email.
A referendum would have delayed the gun law until after the November 2014 election, and the petition drive's failure was welcomed by gun control groups.
"This is a great day for Maryland," said Vincent DeMarco, president of Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence. "We are thrilled that the new law will take effect as planned and we look forward to making it a model for the nation on how to prevent gun violence."
Yet a promised court challenge still looms from the National Rifle Association and other gun groups, a coalition that urged gun-rights supporters to avoid the petition and instead back legal action.
Maryland's new law, proposed by Gov. Martin O'Malley and signed in May, is one of the most sweeping responses to the December Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooting that killed 27 and sparked a nationwide push for tougher gun laws.
Under the law, the sale of 45 different types of assault rifles will be banned, as will sales of magazines that hold more than 10 bullets and handguns that only accept such larger magazines. Handgun buyers will need a new license that requires fingerprinting a background check in Maryland's newly bolstered background check system. More people – particularly those considered dangerous from mental illnesses – would be barred from gun ownership, and gun owners could face criminal penalties for not reporting lost firearms to police.
Polls conducted in Maryland after Newtown showed support for major provisions of the law: 71 percent of voters favor limiting magazine capacity to 10 bullets, and 62 percent support an assault weapons ban.
A half-dozen gun groups and the NRA announced in April that they would not endorse a petition drive to challenge the law. They said the Second Amendment right to gun ownership should not be put to a public vote.
Instead, they said they would focus energy on the promised NRA-backed lawsuit and campaigns to unseat lawmakers who voted for gun control.
Outgoing NRA President David Keene said in an interview last week that NRA lawyers "are still not sure" when the organization would file suit challenging the constitutionality of Maryland's ban on the sale of assault-style rifles, among other provisions. The NRA has endorsed lawsuits this year against new gun laws in New York and Colorado.
Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler issued a 25-page letter in early May outlining why Maryland's new gun law is constitutional, laying the framework for the anticipated lawsuit.
Sue Payne, the Montgomery County woman leading the effort to petition the law to referendum did not respond to requests for comment. She told a radio show Saturday night that her group was about 1,000 signatures short of the 18,759 required. She said she found even more delivered to her P.O. box Saturday morning.
"We really gave it the best effort," Payne said in the radio interview. "Another day or two we could have done it."
Payne said that a group of Republican lawmakers deliberately discouraged people against signing it, and that those legislators would be targeted in the next election.


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More on Haskell DSL
September 09, 2007
In an earlier post, partial make replacement, I developed a small Haskell based DSL to express GNU make like rules. In this post, I take the idea further to support multiple dependencies per target.
testO = (return ["test.c", "test.h"]) ->> ccompile >>- "test.o"
testExe = testO ->> link >>- "test.exe"
main = testExe
The above example, expresses in a simple way, that test.o depends on test.c and test.h and can be "made" using ccompile (C compilation). Similarly, test.exe depends on test.o and can be generated by linking test.o. Checkout the Hmake module (30 lines, including the definition of ccompile and link) and try it out yourself. It now properly checks if a target is out of date with its dependency before trying to build to the target.
Compare the above with the elaborate topological sort based ermake implementation (232 lines) using erlang.
With the Haskell module above, one can even build multiple targets in parallel by using forkIO (part of the Concurrent Haskell).


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Greatest of Chiefs, and a Sun
Throughout the past 25 years, a number of fair players have worn a Peoria Midwest League baseball uniform.
What sometimes can be forgotten is just how many great players have come through Meinen and O'Brien fields. The Peoria Chiefs' 25th anniversary team, announced Monday, recognizes the greatest of those.
Team members travel the spectrum of baseball — from a few guaranteed Hall of Famers to prospects still on the rise.
"It's a pretty impressive team," Chiefs president Rocky Vonachen said. "You always hear the big names — (Greg) Maddux, (Mark) Grace, (Joe) Girardi — but now it's some of the younger guys, too — Sean Gallagher, Brad Thompson. It's neat to see all those names on the list."
The all-anniversary team was chosen by online balloting, in-person voting at central-Illinois Circle K stores and a panel of current and former Chiefs front-office personnel.
Both former Peoria players to have their numbers retired by the organization, first basemen Grace and Wally Joyner, are on the team. Joyner, the only member of the team from the Peoria Suns' only season (1983), is the designated hitter.
The rest of the infield features Albert Pujols at third base, Pablo Ozuna at shortstop and Eric Patterson at second base.
The outfield features three Chiefs who went on to play for the Chicago Cubs: Rafael Palmiero, Jerome Walton and Dwight Smith. East Peoria native Girardi is the catcher.
Maddux, the first member of the Chiefs to play for the Cubs, anchors the starting rotation. Gallagher, Dan Haren, Rick Ankiel and Tyler Johnson round out the starters.
The bullpen features the all-time saves record-holder — Travis Welch, with 48 — and the single-season record-holder, Gene Stechschulte, with 33. Other relievers on the team are Thompson, Heathcliff Slocumb and Ed Campusano.
Placido Polanco, Jack Wilson, Yadier Molina, Brendan Ryan, Kerry Robinson and Daric Barton made the team as bench players.
Danny Shaeffer, manager of the 2002 MWL champs, is the all-time team manager. He is joined on the coaching staff by former Chiefs managers Jim Tracy (1987-88) and Jody Davis (2006).
The team will be celebrated throughout the remainder of the season. A baseball-card set that features team members will be given to the first 1,500 fans at the Aug. 19 home game against Clinton.
The Chiefs tried to bring in some of the team members for an appearance, but schedule conflicts prevented that.
"We talked about bringing some (St. Louis) Cardinals players in, but they had an off day that ended up being a make-up game," Vonachen said. "Unless they are playing in Chicago or St. Louis with a noon game, it is tough to get them here and back."


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WASHINGTON — Rene Carlos Vos, an arms dealer in Alexandria, Va., began hanging around the Washington headquarters of the National Rifle Association in the mid-1980s. The NRA's staff were intrigued to see the garrulous, back-slapping Vos in the group's seventh-floor suite, home to its lobbying operation and the chief congressional lobbyist, Wayne LaPierre.
Vos and LaPierre struck those who saw them huddle together as an odd couple. Vos took to cowboy boots and neatly pressed western wear.
"He came off like something of a dandy and a hustler, glad-handing with everybody," recalled Johnny Aquilino, a former NRA communications director.
LaPierre, by contrast, was remote and quiet, a hand-wringer with an obsessive interest in the intricacies of the legislative process who wore wrinkled suits and carried sheaves of paper — the congressional record, vote counts, handwritten notes — around the organization's headquarters on 16th Street NW, Washington.
But the two men struck up a partnership. Vos would be temporarily hired as a lobbyist for the NRA, helping LaPierre press the gun lobby's agenda on Capitol Hill. And when Vos formed the company Blue Sky Productions, which would become involved in importing tens of millions of dollars of military rifles, LaPierre signed on as his partner, state and federal records show.
Together, the two friends would play an instrumental role in the early growth of America's civilian market for military-style weapons.
The legislative changes that LaPierre supported as the NRA's chief lobbyist in the mid-1980s opened the door to the import of military-surplus weapons, which effectively had been banned for two decades. The legislation helped make a new, more powerful class of firearms more readily available to civilian gun owners and begin to shift the profile of American gun ownership.
The arms deal put together by Vos' company — a $58 million venture to import 50-year-old American-made M-1 rifles from South Korea back to the United States — proved so lucrative that other gun merchants immediately tried to follow their lead. Other importers would seek to bring in more military weapons, not just American but also foreign-made arms like Russian Kalashnikovs and Israeli Uzis, and new business associations sprung up to represent their interests in Washington.
The Blue Sky deal may have helped whet the appetite of American consumers for more and more military-style weapons. Before long, American manufacturers stepped up domestic production of such firearms, including semi-automatic assault rifles and high-capacity pistols, to meet the burgeoning demand.
Some in the gun industry say this transformation was inevitable, regardless of the Blue Sky deal, as technology evolved. Just as cell phones became lighter and more powerful, they say, so did firearms.
But Josh Sugarmann of the Washington-based Violence Policy Center says that the 200,000 rifles imported by Blue Sky were "basically the first of the military weapons marketed to the civilian population. If you were going to draw an 'assault weapons timeline,' it would start with the M-1 and eventually end up where we are today."
By 2012, nearly 1 million of what gun advocates call "modern sporting rifles" were coming into the U.S. market from foreign and domestic sources in a single year.
LaPierre would watch this transformation from up close. He would become the NRA's top official and best-known champion, shedding his retiring personality and frumpy appearance for fiery speeches and well-tailored suits. And in recent weeks, he led the successful effort to turn back new legislation in Congress to restrict assault weapons. LaPierre declined repeated requests to comment for this article.
Vos, however, would not live long enough to witness his legacy. He died in 1987 in a plane crash while federal investigators were examining his activities as part of a grand jury probe into the Blue Sky deal.
The modern tale of military-style weapons in America opens on Capitol Hill, in mid-1984, when Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., introduced an amendment that would open a loophole in the long-standing restrictions on importing military firearms. Dole's top aide on gun issues at the time, Richard "Pete" Velde, said the senator drafted and sponsored the legislation without any pressure from private interest groups.
FBI investigators, however, later noted that the NRA was at the center of efforts to open the U.S. market to military imports, and LaPierre said in a 1988 interview with The Washington Post that he had lobbied on the amendment personally. Former NRA executive vice president J. Warren Cassidy recalled that LaPierre's work on Capitol Hill for NRA priorities was tireless. "His hobby was lobbying," Cassidy recalled.
The Dole amendment would, for the first time, allow the import of surplus U.S. military weapons if they qualified as "curios and relics," meaning they had been manufactured at least 50 years earlier or had historical or artistic significance.
The passage of the amendment immediately caught the attention of arms dealers, who realized that big profits could be made in purchasing large quantities of old U.S. military surplus weapons and selling them to American customers.
A former congressman from New York, John Murphy, was among those who saw the potential. In an interview last month, Murphy recalled being contacted by a Korean-born California businessman, Dong H. Choi, who told him South Korean officials were interested in selling surplus M-1 rifles provided to their country in the 1950s under a U.S. lend-lease program.
The deal Choi described looked promising. For $13 million, importers could purchase 200,000 surplus M-1 rifles and eventually see profits in excess of $40 million. "It was a very good deal," said Murphy, who described himself in the interview as an adviser to the subsequent import deal. "The curio and relic law was the basis of the importation," he recalled.
As a platoon leader during the Korean conflict, Murphy had developed high regard for his M-1 Garand rifle. "It became known as the best weapon on the battlefield. It had power," he said. The rifles would be attractive to sportsmen and veterans, Murphy thought. And collectors would want to mount the 50-year-old M-1 rifles "over the fireplace to show kids what grandpa carried during the war," he said.
But there were limits to what Murphy could do to promote the deal. He'd become well known for his 1980 conviction arising from the Abscam congressional corruption probe. So Murphy said he contacted people in Washington familiar with importing and shipping weapons. Among those who came on board was Richard "Preacher" Whitner, a former aide to Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and an expert in the international arms trade who had lobbied for defense contractors, and Alabama congressman Bill Dickinson, who in the 1980s was the ranking Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee.
The group looked to Dickinson's longtime friend Vos to help arrange the deal and distribute the weapons once they arrived in the United States.
Vos' business was the retail sale of guns. He ran a well-known store in Alexandria that traded as Old Town Armory.
In September 1985, Vos formed a new company, Blue Sky Productions. Virginia incorporation records list his only partner in the enterprise as LaPierre.
A month later, Vos submitted a firearms license application to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and listed LaPierre as "secretary treasurer" of Blue Sky. The application, signed by Vos, said Blue Sky would engage in "importation of surplus weapons, plus items of current manufacture."
LaPierre later told his boss, Cassidy, that he been asked to join Blue Sky by Vos "and that he did sign some papers, but he said he did not really know anything about it," Cassidy recalled. LaPierre said in the 1988 Post interview that he thought Blue Sky Productions was set up to organize rock concerts.
In June 1986, Vos traveled to South Korea to negotiate a contract to import the M-1 rifles. Murphy, Whitner and others in Washington monitored the effort from afar, Murphy said, and they grew concerned when they received reports from Seoul that Vos was changing the agreed terms of the deal to further benefit himself.
Two months later, a deal with the Koreans was signed and the first shipment of weapons was sent from Seoul, bound for Vos' gun store in Alexandria, according to federal records.
But before they arrived, U.S. Customs officials seized the shipment of 40,000 rifles at the port of San Francisco. Federal records show that an anonymous tipster had reported that the weapons had been acquired through bribery and that the import records were inaccurate.
Customs officials found no evidence to support the bribery accusation. But they concluded that, even if the weapons were "curios and relics" under terms of the 1984 Dole amendment, their shipment to the U.S. would violate another law, the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, which prohibited the import of weapons provided to a foreign country under a U.S. military aid program. A deputy ATF counsel in Washington, Jack Patterson, sided with customs officials and revoked the Blue Sky import permit. The weapons were seized.
In response, members of Congress and Blue Sky's other influential allies in Washington sprung into action, pressing on behalf of the deal. It was the strongest political pressure Patterson said he had ever had seen during more than two decades with the ATF.
"It stirred up a hornets nest," he recounted in a recent interview.
As the weapons sat at a San Francisco warehouse, the Justice Department launched an investigation into the transaction, and a federal grand jury was convened in Washington. The FBI took the lead but other parts of the Justice Department were also engaged, including the newly formed Foreign Corrupt Practices office, and the Public Integrity Section, which reviews allegations of unethical behavior by U.S. public officials, along with the ATF, then part of Treasury.
According to FBI files, investigators were concerned not only about the bribery allegations but about whether there were improprieties in the issuance of the import license.
The investigators' interest, however, went beyond the deal to the genesis of the "curios and relics" loophole, the NRA's role in the legislation and potential benefits for arms traders. An FBI report, released under the Freedom of Information Act, noted that "the idea for the Curios and Relics Act originated at the NRA. The importation of military surplus to the United States had been illegal since 1968 and the NRA wanted to reopen the market." It noted there had been "a lot of interest within the industry concerning the Curios and Relics Act and its ramifications."
Retired ATF special agent Dick Pedersen, who was the lead ATF investigator looking into the import transaction, said in a recent interview that he had concerns about the role that members of Congress and NRA officials might have played in the import deal and about the high-level political pressure that had been brought to bear on its behalf.
"I remember thinking, 'This whole thing stinks,' " he said. He added, "It didn't pass the smell test."
By the time, the FBI and ATF had opened their investigation into the deal, LaPierre had already ended his involvement in Blue Sky.
"My understanding was that LaPierre had discontinued the association and was gone as soon as there was a whiff of controversy," Murphy said. Even before that, Murphy said he never saw LaPierre play a role in the import deal.
When the investigation became public, LaPierre came into Cassidy's eighth-floor office at NRA headquarters near tears, according to Cassidy. "He told me, 'I had nothing to do with this thing,' " Cassidy recalled. Cassidy added, "He did tell me he resigned from Blue Sky."
LaPierre told federal investigators in the 1980s that he left Blue Sky shortly after it was set up. He said in the 1988 Post interview that he told Vos he would not be involved in the deal and that such an investment might have created an appearance of a conflict of interest because of LaPierre's position at the NRA. There is no evidence that LaPierre invested in Blue Sky.
Vos had also parted ways with Blue Sky before the probe started. Murphy, Whitner and others involved in the transaction were upset over his freelancing in negotiating the import deal with the Koreans. They ejected him from the enterprise, according to Murphy and accounts provided to the FBI. A letter to the ATF reported that Blue Sky's assets had been acquired by a group of partners that included Whitner, Choi and others.
But that was not the end of the story for Vos. Federal investigators offered him immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony about the role played by members of Congress and about allegations of bribery in Korea, according to Justice Department documents in the case obtained by the Violence Policy Center through the Freedom of Information Act.
As the probe proceeded, Vos felt "that he was under a great deal of pressure," according to federal investigators. A close friend told them that Vos had recently broken up with his girlfriend and was also "trying to protect his friends" as the grand jury probe intensified.
During the summer of 1987, Vos said he wanted to take up a new hobby and learn to fly. He hired a well-regarded training pilot at Northern Virginia's Dulles International Airport, Gerda Ruhnke, as his instructor.
On a clear November morning, during his maiden flight as a student pilot, his single-engine Cessna, flying smoothly over Warrenton, Va., suddenly nose-dived, crashed into a driveway and burst into flames. Both Vos and his instructor were killed.
The National Transportation Safety Board was never able to determine the cause of the crash.
Without Vos' testimony, the grand jury was unable to pursue the case, and it was closed within a year. No charges were filed.
On Capitol Hill, meantime, the importers' allies had gone to work on legislation to make the M-1 rifle deal legal. Murphy laughs about it today, recalling how he helped line up nearly 80 members of Congress in support.
The legislation would amend the Arms Export Control Act to "provide that military firearms of U.S. manufacture" could be imported to the United States if they were "eligible for importation as curios and relics and are owned by the foreign government."
The measure was tailor-made for Blue Sky. The change specifically applied to deals that had received import permits from the Treasury Department on or after July 1, 1986 — Blue Sky had received its permit that July — and instructed that these permits be immediately reissued if they had been suspended, as had the Blue Sky permit.
When Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, an Ohio Democrat and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, learned about the language buried in an appropriations bill, he called foul.
On the floor of the Senate, he railed against the latest legislative fix, detailing the history of the Blue Sky deal all the way back to the Dole amendment.
"This is a provision designed to help one group of people make millions of dollars . . . when conduct by persons associated with this group is the subject of a criminal investigation," Metzenbaum said.
Despite his objections, the appropriations bill with the gun amendment was approved by Congress and signed in to law by President Ronald Reagan.
The legislation included language granting federal agencies the power to object if the measure interfered with any ongoing criminal investigation. After a review of the Korea deal by John Bolton, an assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration, and no objections from the State and Defense departments, Treasury officials signed off on the imports.
Blue Sky had the green light to bring 200,000 M-1 military rifles into the U.S. market.
Today, amid government reports that M-1 carbine rifles and newer military weapons are being used by violent criminals, the Obama administration has been pushing to limit imports. The administration has ongoing concerns about importing large numbers of M-1 rifles because of reports that those weapons have found their way into the hands of violent drug cartels, said an official familiar with the administration's ongoing deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak about the matter.
As part of the anti-violence initiative announced by President Barack Obama after the Newtown, Conn., shootings, he called on Congress to tighten the rules on importing military-style weapons. He specifically urged that the "curios or relics" loophole not be used as a way for buyers "to acquire fully functional and powerful military weapons."
The NRA opposes that proposal.


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Several San Diego Chargers fans beat a man wearing a Broncos jersey, in San Diego, Sunday night after the second-round AFC playoff game, shown in a video posted on the Internet.
The 18-second clip was posted to YouTube around 7:30 p.m. and showed people in Chargers gear kicking, punching and stomping a man wearing a Broncos jersey.
The info box for the video states the Broncos fan showed up to the area in the Highlands of San Diego and was beaten for doing so.
Police can be seen in the video trying to stop the attack.
A dispatcher for the National City Police Department said arrests were made, but did not have additional information.


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Degree Road Map
Four-Year Roadmap
Degree Roadmaps are available in the Online Catalog. Follow these steps:
- Go to the Online Catalog Degrees and Programs page to locate your area of study.
- Click on your area of study link.
- Click on the Roadmap tab at the top (see image below).
Consult With Your Advisor
As part of the planning process, it is highly recommended that you consult regularly with your major advisor and/or advising services. Students must meet all degree requirements as specified in their catalog. There are general education, major, and university requirements.
The Roadmap suggests taking courses in specific semesters. However, there may be semesters when a course is not offered or you are unable to enroll in it. Meet with your advisor to determine how best to adjust your plan.
Contact Information
For additional information regarding your Four-Year Roadmap, contact the Department office housing your major.
If you are unable to identify the department, please contact the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Studies at (559) 278-4468.


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Today I went out and passed AIIM's Certified Information Professional exam. There are a lot of thoughts I want to share around this action, but it is going to take a couple of posts. In this post I am going to cover the Why. Later I will cover the What.
The first thing I want to say is that working for AIIM is not the reason I took the exam. My original goal had been to listen to feedback from others before I took the exam. It was always in my 2012 plans. Joining AIIM just moved me from the laggard position to that of the evaluator.
After all, if I was going to be the lead Information Professional at AIIM I should at least check out the certification sooner rather than later.
The Big Gap
Last year I was working on an effort to define certification paths within the Technology Solutions side of my old company, Washington Consulting, Inc. There were lots of technical certifications for developers and those specializing in products like Documentum and SharePoint. There were also good certifications for project managers and business analysts.
What was missing was a way for an Information Professional to demonstrate mastery of their craft in a way that could be marketed. That is how you get people to hire you in consulting. You market yourself to look like a better value than the competition.
The reason that I felt the gap so keenly was that I had no certification that was applicable. I could keep taking Documentum certifications until the end of time, but that didn't really reflect what I did anymore. I was consulting on strategy and how Content Management should be effectively deployed as part of the bigger picture. I was advising people on how to effectively use SharePoint, the cloud, and records management. Managing large amount of data had become the norm and not the exception.
A technology-specific certification just no longer cut it for my career path or the paths of several of my colleagues.
Being an Information Professional
I have talked in the past about the need for us as Information professionals to evolve what we do so that it is looked upon as a mature profession. While I can't find the post (I swear it was out there somewhere), it was in the context of discussing standards. Having standards, like CMIS, in our field is one way to show that we understand our field enough to call it a profession.
Another item is having an agreed upon body of knowledge that can be tested against. When you look at Information Management, it seems like it could be tough to nail down. If you look at it closer, the problem is no different than the one that faced project managers a few decades ago.
Project managers solved the problem by creating the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification. Today, possession of a PMP is required by many large organizations for their internal project managers and the consultants that they hire.
So when AIIM released the CIP exam this past fall, I was extremely curious but wasn't about to recommend it to anyone until I had been able to judge the exam. I just didn't have the time or business reason to take the exam. That said, I see it as potentially addressing the gap for us Information Professionals.
While I wasn't sure, and am still not, if there was sufficient training out there to handle the entire breadth of the exam, the certification didn't come out of a void. AIIM has been developing and delivering training programs for years on most of the areas tested. To be honest, if you are battle-scarred like me, you shouldn't need a lot of training to pass any exam.
More on that when I talk about the exam itself.


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Aging Baby Boomers: Is Illinois prepared?
Note layer/chart at bottom of story
That "long beautiful hair" baby boomers celebrated in the '60s Broadway musical is now going gray, and state government is trying to figure out how to manage it.
By 2030, 18 percent of Illinoisans will be 65 or older, an increase of nearly 60 percent from 2005, according to the Census Bureau. Those boomers, from pensioners to prisoners, are expected to strain already tight state services.
"There are a lot of issues out there in terms of older persons that the state is going to be confronted with," said Charles Johnson, director of the Illinois Department on Aging. "We're trying to do all that we can to deal with those issues right now."
Demographers define the baby boom generation as those born between 1946 -- the year after World War II ended -- and 1964. During those years, birth rates in Illinois and the nation hit an all-time high. As that population bulge moved from infancy through adolescence and adulthood, it left its mark on everything from popular culture to fashion to the stock market. That influence will continue as the boomers approach senior citizen status.
Expenditures by the Department on Aging increased from $298 million in Fiscal 2002 to $421 million in Fiscal 2006, according to state comptroller records. As the number of people eligible to receive department services continue to increase, Johnson said, he expects budgets will continue to rise.
Over the past several years, Aging has expanded its community care program, which is designed to keep older Illinoisans healthier and out of nursing homes as long as possible, Johnson said. Initiatives include nutrition and prescription drug programs for seniors and helping families care for older parents.
Another major issue that older people will face is housing.
"As property taxes go up, people cannot afford to maintain the houses that they're in," Johnson said.
The department has worked with the state Department of Healthcare and Family Services and other agencies on a supportive living program, which has built about 70 apartment-style facilities to provide an alternative to nursing homes for low-income residents 65 and older, as well as younger disabled residents.
For those who can remain in their own houses, Johnson said, "there are things we can do to make the home environment safer and adaptable to people as they age." Those include assessing homes of older residents to see if grab bars are needed in bathrooms or throw rugs should be removed because they could cause falls.
As well as trying to protect seniors inside the home, the department also is looking outdoors.
"We have been encouraging people all across the state, as we get ready for an aging population, to do things to enhance mobility," Johnson said. "As we develop new communities, we hope that people will begin to look at sidewalks as a way for people to get around, especially in urban areas, without walking in the street."
The department also encourages larger street signs and urges communities to install walk lights that count down the number of seconds left to cross streets safely, he said.
Fiscal Focus, a publication of the state comptroller's office, advises that in coming years, "Illinois can expect, and should plan for, increases in Medicaid spending, particularly as the baby boom generation becomes dependent on long-term care."
Medicaid, which is designed to help low-income Americans of all ages with medical costs, also provides nursing home care and mental health treatment for low-income seniors.
In Fiscal 2006, older enrollees made up 16.4 percent of the state's Medicaid population and accounted for nearly one-fourth of Medicaid spending, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Also of concern to Illinois government is its unfunded liability for state employee pensions, which is estimated to be $41 billion. Various proposals for the current state budget are aimed at drawing down that debt before more payments come due.
And putting the state further behind the eight ball are the boomers behind bars.
Inmates age 55 and older normally make up about 4 percent of the inmate population, according to Januari Smith, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Corrections.
Although the percentage of older prisoners has not increased dramatically, their number has climbed while the inmate population has quadrupled during the last three decades, according to the department's Web site. As prisoners serve longer sentences, the number and percentage of older inmates will increase.
A geriatric care center at Dixon Correctional Center now acts as a nursing home for more than 80 inmates who are 55 and older, and Corrections is exploring funding sources to expand it.
Dana Heupel can be reached at 788-1518 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Year Total Population # 65 and older % 65 and older
1970 11,113,976 1,088,911 9.8%
1980 11,427,409 1,261,885 11.0%
1990 11,430,602 1,261,885 12.5%
2000 12,419,293 1,500,025 12.1%
2010* 12,916,894 1,600,863 12.4%
2020* 13,236,720 1,998,764 15.0%
2030* 13,432,892 2,412,177 18.0%
* = Estimated
Source: Fiscal Focus/U.S. Census Bureau


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During the last week of August, I had blogged about how to get your on-premise database to your SQL Server instance running on an Azure virtual machine. I had run into a few issues while trying to run the wizard provided by Management Studio.
The First Stumble
This error is easy to circumvent and pretty much mentioned in the online documentation. The error message would read as:
Failed to locate a SQL Server of version 12.0.2000 or later installed on the remote machine. Please verify that a SQL Server of the same or higher version than the source SQL Server is installed on the remote machine.
The above error is self-explanatory. There is a requirement that the source database engine version be lower or equal to the version of the SQL Server instance running on Azure. Eg. You cannot deploy a database from a SQL Server 2014 instance to a SQL Server 2012 instance running on an Azure VM.
The Second Stumble
The second common error that you might run into is:
The Cloud Adapter port configuration is not valid. Verify the virtual machine endpoint configurations.
The above error will be encountered when the endpoint is not configured for the Azure virtual to accept connections from the outer realm! This can be easily rectified by adding a TCP endpoint to your Azure virtual machine for 11435 which is the port that the SQL Server Cloud Adapter Service is listening on. This is also mentioned in the online documentation. Once you have created the endpoint for your Azure virtual for your on-premise server to connect with the Cloud Adapter service, your endpoint configuration should look like the one in the screenshot below:
The Third Stumble
The next issue could be with permissions/authentication or it might not be as easy as it seems.
Cloud Adapter operation failed due to invalid authentication. Verify the virtual machine name, user name, and password.
So the first thing to check if you have the correct account name and password. If it is due to an authentication error, then the application event log of the Azure Virtual Machine will show the following error with the source as SQL Server Cloud Adapter service as shown in Screenshot 2. The text of the error message is mentioned below.
Access denied for user <user name>
The other error that you might encounter is when the SQL Server Cloud Adapter service tries to enumerate the database engines installed on the virtual machine. The error would still be talking about the authentication which is reported by the management studio wizard but a little investigation into the application event logs of the virtual machine will show the following error:
[Error] <ip address> Exception in GetSqlInstances(): SQL Server WMI provider is not available on <machine name>.. Stack trace: at Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Wmi.ManagedComputer.TryConnect()
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Wmi.WmiSmoObject.get_Proxy()
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Wmi.WmiSmoObject.EnumChildren(String childTypeName, WmiCollectionBase coll)
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Wmi.ServerInstanceCollection.InitializeChildCollection()
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.CloudAdapter.Tasks.GetSqlInstances()
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.CloudAdapter.CloudAdapter.GetSqlInstances(String username, String password). Inner Exception: Invalid namespace .
The above error clearly states that the GetSqlInstances() method failed. Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Wmi namespace contains classes that provide programmatic access to the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) from an SMO application. I had talked about needing the shared management objects in an earlier post. The SQL Server 2014 WMI provider is also required which is available by installing the client connectivity components from any SQL Server 2014 setup including SQL Server Express. The components that I had installed were:
a. Client Tools Connectivity
b. Client Tools Backwards Compatibility
If you are not sure if you have the WMI provider, then look for the file "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\120\Shared\sqlmgmproviderxpsp2up.mof". This is the SQL Server 2014 MOF file. Another way to test if the WMI provider is working without running the wizard every time and have it fail is to run the PowerShell commands below on your Azure Virtual Machine. This script will tell you where the instance enumeration being performed by the deployment wizard will work or fail.
[System.reflection.assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo") [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SqlServer.SqlWmiManagement") $m = New-Object ('Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Wmi.ManagedComputer') '.' foreach ($svi in $m.ServerInstances) { $svi.Name; }
This post was intended to document that common issues that you might run into while deploying a database from an on-premise SQL Server instance to a SQL Server instance running on an Azure Virtual Machine.


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Professor of the Practice Emeritus of Art, Art History and Visual Studies
Personal Linkhttps://scholars.duke.edu/individual/per4758642
William Noland works in sculpture, photography and video. An Emeritus Professor of the Practice of Visual Art, he oversees William Noland Studios in Hillsborough, North Carolina. While at Duke, he served as a contributing photographer and editorial advisor for the journalistic/literary quarterly DoubleTake. He was the recipient of Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation Grants for photography in 1997, 1999 and 2002, and for video in 2005. He received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture in 1987 and a Fulbright Scholar Award in Photography in 1995.


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Talk about job dedication! A fitness trainer is making headlines this week after he decided to stop exercising and eating healthy so he could gain 75 pounds to show the world how anyone can come back and get fit. The interesting story...
Imagine being fit--really fit--and then stopping your healthy eating and exercise completely and gaining 75 pounds ... to prove a point.
Personal trainer Drew Manning decided to give up his healthy lifestyle and start subsisting of a diet on fast food and sugary drinks for six months to show his clients how to work their way back to health.
He writes about the experience in his new book, Fit2Fat2Fit: The Unexpected Lessons from Gaining and Losing 75 lbs on Purpose, and blogged about the journey here.
Interestingly, as he saw his cholesterol and glucose skyrocket, he was most impacted by the emotional component of weight gain: "His self-confidence, that completely went away and depleted," his wife said, noting that he was "becoming lethargic, lazy, not helping around the house."
"I was in denial at first until she kept pointing out the things I was doing," Manning said on "Good Morning America." "But I did become lazier. … I had less energy so I did become exhausted and I kept seeing how it affected our relationship because of that. And so that's where the biggest surprise was, the emotional [part]."
What do you think of this health stunt?
P.S. The amazing thing that losing just a little weight can do for your health. And, the thing that helped Eva Longoria lose belly fat.


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The Rutherford Weinstein Law Group, PLLC blog, covering legal news as well as items of interest to clients, potential clients, and anyone else who happens to view the page. . . . www.knoxlawyers.com
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
What's wrong with this picture?
Not for nothing, but it does strike me that this deepening division in the Democratic party benefits -- wait for it -- the Republicans. Why? When push comes to shove the Repubs can hold their base, as they did in the last two presidentials, as well as in the mid-terms. The Dems, however, are so divided that only chaos will result. Result [and prediction]: Repubs will hold onto their congrssional majorities in 2006. If the Dems continue this exercise in mass denial, we'll have another "northeastern liberal" [or some such] running in 2008, and the White House will be lost again. The Republicans couldn't have done better if they had planned it. Hmmm, did they plan it?
Who knows, but I, for one, am sick to death of going down in flames, but feeling good about myself in the process. If I don't win, I can't govern. I can't win unless I am a centrist candidate. Polarizing the party plays directly into Repub hands.
The left wing of the Democratic party better get its collective head out of, er, the clouds, or they'll have it handed to them come election day.
By the way, I wouldn't be the least surprised if Lieberman runs as an Independent, kicks Lamont's ass in the general, and then sticks it to the Democratic party forever. I wouldn't blame him. And I say that as a loyal Democrat.
17 comments:
TO: Doug Weinstein
RE: Mad Dogs & [Kos]Democrats
I'm reminded of the business of how mad dogs will snap at themselves.
This seems to be what the Democrats, as lead by Kos, are doing. I was beginning to notice it a couple of years ago when the radical feminists and radical animal rights people began 'biting' at each other at some rally in Tennessee or Kentucky or some place thereabouts.
I figured that in due time, given its head, the party would do such to itself.
Now we see it coming to fruition.
[Each one of us, ultimately, chooses the high or the low road -- that is, we rise above the madness of our particular culture and discover our true identity and destiny, or else we identify with our insane culture and revel in it. -- David Kupelian]
- nothing said...
This country needs a two party system and it seems that there will be just one party because the American people do take their votes very serious and will only vote for people who are going to be serious with this war. To hear them chanting "Bring them home" was a gift for a Republican spin doctor for a political add this fall. The Democratic party needs to grow up and just face the issue that 9/11 happened because Islamic Fascist hate the west and it doesn't matter if you are from Iraq, Saudi Arabia or a Shia in Iran, that they all have the same goal and is to destroy the liberty and freedom that breeds the Great Satan. The Democratic Party needs to put out a plan to defeat them with our military and not the NYPD. I am a Republican but I'm an American first and waiting for some ideas from the Democrats because as of right now the Republicans can't get anything done because they are paralyzed because they are afraid what the media is going to say and that is know way to fight a war.
- Chris said...
I posted this on RedState. In short, when the Dems choose to become a Vanguard Party and show the Deviationists the door, people start to leave. Just when Nancy Pelosi was warming up the Speaker's chair, too.
Doug, you knew it was going to happen. Markos, Michael Moore and that crowd have too much invested in BUSH IS HITLER to let it go. The notion of Lieberman having valid reasons to reach across the aisle on issues of national security is unacceptable to those who have the notion of the Democrats as a Vanguard Party.
Markos, meet Mr. Beria...
Nice analysis. I'm not sure why the consequences of the Democratic divide has not been brought up more in the media. To me it's huge. It could dramatically transorm (undermine?) the Democratic party. Here's the formula 30% Dems, 25% Reps, 45% Indies. Run as a socially moderate Independent who's tough on defense and fiscally moderate and split the dems, grab 1/4 of the Reps and most of the Indies (well over 50%!). I have never been able to figure out why the Dems do not know who Indies are or how they vote. Anyway if this works for Joe - lookout - more will follow. The formula only gets better as 1) Dems go farther from mainstream, 2) voters become more disenchanted with both parties.
Doug writes: "When are American liberal/Democrat-voting Jews going to get the picture?"
That'd be a start. Show them the door. After all, they've caused nothing but confusion and disarray in the party. They get us into defending their commercial interests or worse offending muslims with their zionist false nation.
Cindy Sheehan is right that they've done nothing but get the US in trouble. We've had to fight three wars over them. The future of this party is smart progressive professionals and hard working hispanic and islamic families, not old rich jews and their troublemaking ways.
Good riddence Joe!
That last comment had to have been written by Karl Rove.
Um, if the Democrats are throwing out their centrists, isn't that making the party less, rather than more, divided?
You may want to ask why it is that, if the fringe anti-war left is purging the party, none of the other Democrats in the Senate who supported the Iraq war are facing primary challenges. (Hint: did any of them kiss President Bush or repeatedly go on Fox News to praise him and attack other Democrats?)
Blackfacing anyone who is deemed as corrupting the pureness of the ideology isn't going to help the Democrats purge their party of the National Socialists.
Something odd about uber-rich white 'liberals' who will vote for a candiate whose supporters 'blackface' all dissenters. It was nasty when it the National Socialists treated Secretary of State Rice as a Aunt Jemima but blackfacing Lieberman within their own party speaks volumes as to the length rich white Liberals will go to to retain power. Some Progressive thought is the purity of their ideology.
And to think, Joe was a working-class man too.
A previous poster asks:
Um, if the Democrats are throwing out their centrists, isn't that making the party less, rather than more, divided?
Less divided, more marginalized.
You may want to ask why it is that, if the fringe anti-war left is purging the party, none of the other Democrats in the Senate who supported the Iraq war are facing primary challenges.
How do you eat an.... er, donkey? One bite at a time. The Kos Krowd was 0-fer up until now (still are, when pitted against Republicans in actual elections)... if they start succeeding, their standard of ideological "purity" will rise.
The big question is: who will write that standard? The evidence indicates that it will be an old chicken coming home to roost: racism. This species of collectivism has always been Leftist in philosophical origin; when the horrors of WWII became too well documented, the Left redefined terms in order to paint Hitler and other racists as "right-wing". That old lie has been unravelling for some time (in the form of affirmative action, race quotas etc.) and it looks like the final and nastiest bird is returning to the coop: anti-Semitism.
I hope moderate Democrats can keep the party out of such hands... but in the long run, that will take no less than the repudiation of the Left at its ideological core.
Good luck with that.
- docweasel said...
I think they _are_ reducing divisions in the party, and at the same time they are going to chase more trad Dems groups out of the fold as the Dem consensus starts to mirror the Moore/MoveOn/Kos whiphand that punishes dissenters. Wait until they really go after Hillary, that's the purge they are slavering for, and when they enter that fight they are likely to cause a REAL schism when the big-money establishment grown-ups bump heads with the insane moonbats that post on Kos and their ilk.
Look for the Dem party to end up like Spinal Tap, in the scene where the manager says "I don't see our appeal as shrinking, I see it as being more selective". This will be the Dems- more unity, less appeal to the average voter. At least everyone will know what they are all about instead of the Clinton 'stealth liberal' tactic.
Ask McGovern, Mondale and Dukakis how that worked out.
- Cascajun said...
"...and the White House will be lost again."
Uhh, I think you mean STOLEN again. Heh!
There are 14 at least vaguely flippable Senate races this year -- eight Democratic, six Republican. The Democrats need to win every single one to get a single-seat majority in the Senate.
Kos wants to make it one election tougher, by having Lieberman stripped of his caucus rights and committee assignments for "disloyalty", leaving him nowhere to go but the Republican caucus.
Whose side is Kos on, really?
- gawker said...
If 60% of the country is against the war, how is voting against a pro-war politician the work of a marginalized fringe?
- James Stephenson said...
I keep seeing this 60% against the war crap. Where does this number originate? That is a question I want answered. If it were really 60%, and Ned was running on that one issue in a hugely liberal state, would he not have gotten 60% of the vote there?
Think about that gawker, and answer that one question. The difference between Lieberman and Lamont was the war, Lieberman was for it, and in a liberal state got 48% of the vote.
How can 60% of Americans be against the war, and I know for a fact 80% of the Southerners are for it, if the anti-war candidate can barely get 51%?
- submandave said...
The "60% of Americans are against the war" comes from the same statistical font of wisdom that informs us that more women are abused on Superbowl Sunday than any other day. It only takes one person to say it at the right time and enough people hearing it to so desparately want it to be true for a "statistic" like this to become "truth."
Actually the "60%" probably started with some poll that showed the 60% of Americans would like the troops to come home or don't approve of Bush's handling or think it was wrong to invade. This doesn't, however, mean that 60% believe all all these things. Likewise, I honestly want the troops to come home tomorrow, but I also understand that it is impossible. What's the old sayign about wishing in one hand and doing something else in the other to see which one fills up first?
If there had been polling during the Civl War there would have been about a dozen times where Lincoln's handling of the war might very well have received 70 or even 80% dissapproval. That doesn't mean that most of those people would have demanded an end to the war. Any prolonged conflict will see support erode but that can be a very superficial thing.
To Whom It May Concern:
We don't have a monopoly on wisdom: anyone who says they want to be a Democrat should be allowed to be a Democrat. That means pro-lifers; pro-school choicers; blue-collar Catholics; people who support Israel; Southern Baptists; our countrymen in uniform. Anybody.
Former Democrat