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How many illegal immigrants does Obama want to cover...? The # of uninsured that Democrats keep touting at town hall meetings is as artificial as this KEYNESIAN economy they are inflating for us.
One of the problems in the debate is that "insurance" is a misnomer. No one would expect his homeowners insurance company to foot the bill for, e.g. mowing the lawn, nor his auto insurance company to pay for tuneups. But we all think our health "insurance" should most of the cost for doctor visitsto get a prescription for antibiotics or for annual physicals.
Our system is basically one of prepaid health care. Looking at it in that fashion shows that the uninsured are gaming the system by getting care anyway at the emergency room or taking out a policy when they perceive they have a health problem. No wonder that the insurance companies don't cover prexisting conditions. (Although there is certainly plenty of gaming on the insurance and provider side as well).
A high deductible, catastrophic-type policy, required of everyone, would both make this more like real insurance and solve the free-rider problem.
The anonymous David Drake
Judge Posner, I think most of your comment is fair, but am beginning to worry about your continued remarks about conservative groups being irrational or wrong. ( Duh, I'm a conservative. ) To say that people in opposition, who, of course could be from any political stripe but let's be serious, are uninformed is a tedious exercise in rhetoric.
Do you know all the facts about the insurance market? All the economics needed to address this issue? Do you have complete information on this problem? No, no, no. Everyone's uninformed. We do the best with the information we have which is why we are all, indeed, rational.
The anonymous Admiral
If the medical licensing authorities in this country would simply remove unnecessary obstacles which prevent thousands of foreign doctors from qualifying to practice medicine in the US, the supply of medical services would become elastic.
But the current collection of MDs know they need to limit their numbers to maintain "healthy" profit margins.
In addition, so called medical tourism could play a role in augmenting the supply of medical services.
Finally, let's not forget that, since much of the medical testing and treatment in this country is not even necessary, we have, in effect, been wasting testing on treatment on patients that don't need it. This waste may well be transformed into valid testing and treatment when new patients enter the system.
Anon 12:47,
All physicians are not the same, the technology doesn't do the work and there is no benefit to anyone in doing unnecessary testing. The public demands it and physicians don't want to be humiliated in the witnwss chair by some witless tort lawyer. I suggest that you go abroad for your medical care where it will be less expensive and you won't have tp communicate with your physician and there will be no testing unless you take along your own testing tools.
Medicine is an art and some are better at it than others. Pretty difficult to practice the art if you don't understand the language or the culture.
Thec regulators wanted to turn physicians into businessmen and the hospitals into corporate organizations. That happened and you got what you wanted.
Be careful what you wish for.
Since there is a shortage of general practice physicians (or family doctors) it also makes sense to eliminate many states' (including Illinois) curtailment of the use of nurse practioners and physicians assistants.
These lower-cost health care providers can provide the day-to-day frontline health servicers most people need and would stop many insured people from having to go to the ER for basic medical care because they cannot wait a week to get in to see their doctor.
Also, not to nit-pick, but when you talk about getting rid of the health-care deduction for employer-based insurance it sounds like the costs the employer picks up would no longer be an "ordinary and necessary" business expense deductible as a cost to the employer.
More precisely, I think you mean that the premiums paid by the employer should no longer be exempt from the employees' incomes. Employees (unless self-employed) don't even account for their employer-paid health care premiums as an above-the-line deduction on their income tax returns. Many employees don't even know how much of their compensation comes from employer-paid premiums.
Finally, since Obama criticized McCain's campaign plan to tax employer-paid premiums (offset by a pretty generous $5,000 tax credit) and took a blood-oath not to raise middle-class taxes, he would face a double-whammy in political costs for now pushing for this reasonable proposal.
I don't see anything other than modest reform at the edges being feasible here.
Here's a doctor speaking out against "Obamacare."
here's the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ3EI2F8XX8
When it comes to making REASONABLE cuts to social security, the Democrats hug the FDR statue while AARP does anything and everything to cry and obstruct any type of cost cutting reform. THESE SAME PEOPLE are now trying to ration out healthcare to the elderly with their death panels. AARP is flat out lying to their people right now, all because a communist ideology has taken over its organization. The same thing happened to the ACLU years ago. Both had good intentions originally but have been bought by and are run completely by Communists intent on destroying the USA.
These people are lunatics and they need to be stopped.
شات الشلة
دردشة تعب قلبي
@ Anonymous 2:21
Was that with a straight face or not? Hard to tell on the internet when someone's playing a part. Hope you were.
Make no mistake, AARP is a front, a shill operation, for its Washington, D.C. executive leadership and United Health Insurance Company. End of story.
Brian Davis
Austin, Texas
About all nurse practioners and physician assitants can do is either refer the patient to a physician or to the ER. Your assumption again is that all medicine is the same like 2+2 is always 4. Very bad assumtion on your part and dangerous to your health. There are quite a few false assumptions floating around on the whole subject and everyone is an expert. Football games are sort of that way too.
This still makes sense to me:
Let me ask everyone a question: Do you consider price and discount when buying Tylenol and Pepcid? I answer in the affirmative.
Here's another question: Do you consider price when considering brain surgery? I answer in the negative.
Therefore, I suggest splitting health care costs into two categories:
1) Medical goods that a consumer could price and shop accordingly on.
2) Medical goods that a consumer cannot price and shop accordingly on.
Once you do this, you can split up medical costs into:
1) Costs subject to a deductible.
2) Catastrophic Costs.
And, further, you can say the following:
For 1) You don't want third party payers, since you want the consumers to shop for the best price.
For 2) You can have a third party payer. In fact, you can have one: the Federal Government.
Now, here's Milton Friedman's plan:
"A more radical reform would, first, end both Medicare and Medicaid, at least for new entrants, and replace them by providing every family in the United States with catastrophic insurance (i.e., a major medical policy with a high deductible). Second, it would end tax exemption of employer-provided medical care. And, third, it would remove the restrictive regulations that are now imposed on medical insurance—hard to justify with universal catastrophic insurance.
This reform would solve the problem of the currently medically uninsured, eliminate most of the bureaucratic structure, free medical practitioners from an increasingly heavy burden of paperwork and regulation, and lead many employers and employees to convert employer-provided medical care into a higher cash wage. The taxpayer would save money because total government costs would plummet. The family would be relieved of one of its major concerns—the possibility of being impoverished by a major medical catastrophe—and most could readily finance the remaining medical costs. Families would once again have an incentive to monitor the providers of medical care and to establish the kind of personal relations with them that were once customary. The demonstrated efficiency of private enterprise would have a chance to improve the quality and lower the cost of medical care. The first question asked of a patient entering a hospital might once again become "What's wrong?" not "What's your insurance?"
I would add a Democratic Party addition to this plan: You could relate the deductible to income.
That's my plan. Everyone covered.
I would add the following: I've no idea what the correct amount of money that we should spend on health care should be. That's why I would like some portion of our medical bills to be subject to our own choice.
Posner, without quite saying as much, gets close to the nub of the problem with legislated "health insurance reform" of the sort currently floating around on Capitol Hill. The supposed legislative fix pays no heed to risk pooling, underwriting of risk, adverse selection, or moral hazard. Whatever the majority in Congress is proposing, it surely ain't insurance.
Massive compulsory wealth redistribution, perhaps?
Anon 8:18,
I'm with you 100% up until: "I would add a Democratic Party addition to this plan: You could relate the deductible to income."
This is the "rag-bag" that Friedman was referring to when talking about his Negative Income Tax. There's no need to have a deductible related to income when we already have several other measures that compensate in this exactly same direction: income tax brackets, EITC, public assisted fill-in-the-blank, etc.
In my Google Reader feed of this post, there are a bunch of random keyword type ads. These haven't appeared in any other post in my Google Reader, or any other post on this blog. Maybe you got hacked?
See below:
"Repealing the deductibility of employer-supplied medical benefits from federal income tax, and instituting a means test for Medicare, would reduce the demand for, and therefore total cost, of medical services and reduce the federal deficit as well, since Medicare costs the federal government more than $300 billion a year. Since Medicare would cover fewer people, there would be less need to institute procedures designed to limit expense by limiting treatments--something people fear, whether rationally or not.
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It is doubtful whether any other measure consistent with American culture and values would reduce medical costs substantially, though one can imagine a series of modest reforms that might add up to a net savings, including limiting liability for medical malpractice, imposing large deductibles for medical treatment for injuries experienced in dangerous recreational activities, reducing highway speed limits, and taxing fattening foods and beverages. None of these is likely to figure in any health reform enacted by Congress at the present time, however."
Again, solutions are usually simple though not always easy. Ask the hospitals and the physicians to agree to care for anyone with a combined income of about 80 thousand gross per year or less
certified by the IRS, for free. They are doing it now so no one loses and everyone wins and there is no big government intervention.
I'm for a Guaranteed Income. If you have a Guaranteed Income, it would be possible to do as you say, in my mind. However, without such a system, people could be impoverished by a deductible, if they're poor enough. So, I don't agree with your point.
On the other hand, if you are saying that there are other ways to solve this problem, then I'm fine with your point. However, I don't see how any such help is other than a rag-bag solution in fact.
A few reasons why the auto and fire insurance analogies do not hold up re health insurance:
1) You can avoid the premiums by not buying a car or a house.
2) The frequency of claims is a totally different order of magnitude.
3) We have fire codes and extensive driving rules that greatly reduce insurance claims. A great deal of police cost is dedicated to enforcing the driving rules. We have no parallel behavior regulation for health insurance.
4) Every household has to pay the full cost of their own auto and fire insurance premiums with after tax dollars.
The odd continued life of the false statement that one can get medical treatment in an emergency room is very puzzling. This is not true in any real sense, and certainly it jeopardizes the mission of the ER. It does not treat or prevent disease but intervenes, on a crisis and emergency basis, in accidents or conditions like a heart attack. Some of the latter cardiac events may be the result of lack of care. And young adults need preventive care and accidental care and are foolish not to have insurance if they can afford it. The entire conservative opposition to mandatory health insurance seems most irrational.
Social Security is going to pop. Medicare and Medicaid are bankrupt. Our government had to take over our banking and mortgage industries. Obama is set to run $10 trillion in deficits over these 4 years.
And people are fighting for public healthcare. You people are insane.
I want to second the comment at
"Posted by Anonymous at August 17, 2009 11:49 PM"
It seems someone has hacked the RSS feed with ads for gambling sites.
Anon 4:58 pm,
With all due respect, you don't know what you are talkimg about. I see hundreds of patients per week in the ER with complaints like "My left knee has been hurting for six months", I swallowed my chewing gum", "I have a cough", "I had a fight with my boyfriend". These people are diagnosed and treated on the spot just as if they were in a physician's office, the only difference being that the physician's office usually has no technology for diagnosis so they send the patients to hospitals (where the ERs are) where they do have the technology). The reality is that these patients are better off in the ER. In addition, there are not anywhere near enough primary care physicians to give care to the insured now. What do you think it will be like with millions more insured. You will be cared for by non-physicians who are limited in their knowledge and skills. You better stay healthy or have a physician in the family.
In the final analysis, what the American people need and deserve is a Health Care/Insurance System that that allows any patient "affordable" access when ever they get sick or injured, when ever or where ever it is needed and whether one is employed or not. Without the controlling limitations now in effect placed there by the Private Insurers in order to maximise margins. Currently, there are some sixteen thousand Insurance companies out there offering health insurance, offering a myriad number of policies. Some good, some bad. And one wonders why Doctors and Health Care Providers are going nuts trying to figure out whether one is treatable under any of these myriad number of policies. The "single payer system" solves this and creates a uniform Health Care System across the board for all Americans. Not just the Wealthy, the Healthy or the employed.
As for the hyper-inflation that has occured in the last thirty years or so in the Health Care Industry resulting in the inflated prices we now pay today (which is one of the main problems), how come no one has raised the issue/question of "Conspiracy" both within and without the Industry to drive prices up and create even greater profit margins. Hmm ...
The comments to this entry are closed.


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I've been tip-toeing around the idea of a politic of desire, and I just started to get a handle on it when I spoke last November at the Transcending Boundaries Conference (TBC). They'd asked me to talk on the conference theme which was, that year, "beyond the binary." I was in the throes of deadlines for my memoir, and I had no fucking idea of what to write. The night before I was supposed to give my keynote, I skipped out on a performance by my friend, Kelli Dunham, and sat in my room writing notes on hotel stationery until maybe three in the morning.
The next day, I got dressed in my Battlestar Galactica Colonial Fleet fatigues—I was being old lady Starbuck—I needed her madness and her courage to help me get through the talk, which I delievered haltingly. It was new, and I was saying some of these words for the first time—or they were going in the order they were going in for the first time. I needn't have worried. The audience at the conference could not have been more encouraging or welcoming.
Much of what I talked about in the keynote is going to wind up in My New Gender Workbook, due out from Routledge Press in November 2012. Short deadline. So I'd like to have a conversation with you about this notion of a politic of desire. Yes, I'll check this blog at least once daily and I'll dialogue with you about the subject. I think it's an important one, and I think your voice is going to be instrumental in making the notion real and accessible.
So... if you like, please have a read of the text I dictated from those scribbled notes.
OK—let's give it a stab at talking together, here in the comment section. Be gentle with me, it's a way early draft. And thank you for your participation.
kiss kiss
Auntie Kate

subset: commoncrawl


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Shayne Looper: The bible through red, white and blue lenses
There is no reference to America in the Bible, though some prophecy buffs have tried hard to find one. I tried too, when I was a young Christian. Surely, I thought, the United States of America, the most powerful country in the world — the good guys, the nation of truth and justice — must come into the story somewhere. If nothing else, one of those apocalyptic images in the Book of Revelation must represent the good old U.S. of A.
I no longer hope to find any reference, direct or indirect, to the U.S. in the Bible, not even in the Revelation. I don't expect to find the U.S. in the Bible, but I do expect to find the U.S. in me as I read the Bible.
Our culture conditions what we see (and, just as importantly, what we don't see) when we read any text, including the Bible. That's not just true of U.S. culture, but of any culture — German, Chinese, African, Latin — and of every culture. The more contact points a society has with Semitic culture during biblical times, the easier it will be for its members to understand the Bible. The fewer contact points, the more room there will be for misunderstanding — for reading cultural assumptions into the biblical text.
We all look through the lens of our cultural experiences and values when we read a text. Unless we are very careful (and even that is no guarantee) we will interject our assumptions into the text. The best we can do is remember our susceptibility to such misreadings, and so approach the text with humility and dependence on God.
Our cultural experiences and values provide the lens through which we read. My lens happens to be colored red, white and blue. The scriptural light is refracted and sometimes shaded by the lens through which I look; and I, for the most part, am not even aware of it.
Here's an example. I read the Bible, as I suspect most Americans do, through a democracy refraction. I think of democracy as the highest form of government: Everybody gets a vote, and every vote counts. So, when I come to something in Scripture that suggests I don't get a vote — for example, that God will act according to his good pleasure whether I like it or not — I have trouble seeing it. My brain automatically corrects what seems to be a visual distortion. This makes it hard for me to understand (or even see) the Bible's strong emphasis on the sovereignty of God.
Being an American born in the mid-20th century, I look through a lens that was ground to see progress. Because science and technology have steadily advanced, we Americans assume everything is advancing, including morals, values, and justice. We believe in progress. First century Bible cultures did not. We'd find it hard to believe in a God who wasn't committed to our social advancement. People living in a biblical culture would find it hard to believe in one who was.
Americans also read the Bible through a lens ground by radical individualism, and we take it for granted that the first Bible readers wore the same lens. That lens magnifies God's love for individuals, but it fails to bring his love for the church and the world into focus.
Our lens also distorts biblical passages related to honor and shame. In biblical cultures, shame was corporate. In our culture, it is individual. In biblical cultures, having a sense of shame was a healthy thing (as in, "Have you no shame?"). In our culture, it is an indicator of mental illness. Our culture is an innocence/guilt culture, as E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O'Brien point out in Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes. But the biblical writers lived in an honor/shame culture, which dramatically affected the way they wrote and read Scripture.
If all this is true, can we ever hope to understand the Bible? Yes, but we must read humbly, knowing there's more there than we see. We must read collectively, with people from backgrounds other than our own. And we must read confidently, knowing that God will help us see what we need to see so that we can do what we ought to do.
— Shayne Looper is the pastor of Lockwood Community Church in Branch County (Mich.). Read more at shaynelooper.com.


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America's history etched in hardwood
The story of our architecture is literally written in wood – underfoot in planks polished by thousands of footsteps; on walls enriched with carved hardwood mouldings and paneling; even on ceilings, where load-bearing structural beams have assumed decorative roles, too.
May 25, 2012 - 12:11 am
Wood is one of the oldest building materials we know, and one of the most beloved. It's a love affair that has lasted – like hardwood itself – through the centuries, from the log cabins of earliest America into the early 21st century.
The story of our architecture is literally written in wood – underfoot in planks polished by thousands of footsteps; on walls enriched with carved hardwood mouldings and paneling; even on ceilings, where load-bearing structural beams have assumed decorative roles, too.
"We are a country blessed from the beginning with an abundance and variety of hardwoods," says Linda Jovanovich, executive vice president of the American Hardwood Information Center. "But there are other reasons so much hardwood has been used in the building of America.
"Hardwoods are versatile," Jovanovich adds. "They come in many species, colors, and patterns of graining. They're easy to work – hence all the exquisite carvings. And they last. Hardwoods are durable, which is why we still have wonderful old homes and public buildings that date back to the beginning of this country." Or look as if they do.
Built in l908, The Hermitage Museum sits in 12 acres of gardens along the Lafayette River in Norfolk, Va. But it could have come from l7th-century England, with its wide-planked oak floors and wealth of hand-carved oak mouldings, wall paneling and doors.
Originally built as a summer home by wealthy New Yorkers William and Florence Sloane, the Hermitage is a 40-room work of art, thanks to the remarkable skills of three master wood craftsmen, who for three years, lived and worked in a turreted wood shop on the property while the house was under construction.
Now the Hermitage's heavy oak-and-iron doors are open to the public as a school of visual arts and a renowned museum with art and furnishings from the l7th to early 20th centuries. Learn more at the Hermitage Museum.
Down in Galveston, Texas, the Bishop's Palace (aka Gresham House) would stand out, even if its fairytale towers didn't soar more than three stories above the landscape.
The spectacular mansion is a paean to beautiful hardwoods, from the oak-paneled entry hall, with its l4-foot ceilings, to the black walnut bookcases in the library. It also features an inlaid oak and cherry hall floor and a soaring oak staircase, which was carved and shipped from a famed woodcarving center in Cincinnati.
Originally built by Colonel Walter Gresham for his wife and their nine children and completed in 1892, the spectacular mansion later housed the local Bishop, becoming known as the Bishop's "Palace" – though "fortress" might be more fitting. Through the Great Storm of 1900, this dazzling structure stood virtually unscathed, and remains Galveston's grandest and best-known building. See more at www.galveston.com/bishopspalace.
Not all hardwood installations must be old to be noteworthy. Skip ahead to the 21st century and 2005, when the Music Center of Strathmore in Baltimore debuted its state-of-the-art acoustics.
Acousticians had suggested that the new hall be built using as much natural material as possible. The result: a rich combination of yellow and red birch wood that sweeps across the center's vast floor and up its soaring walls. Their reasons were more than sound-deep.
"A hard surface is a hard surface," explains Mark Grabowski, Strathmore executive vice president. "We could have used cement – many of Europe's Old Master concert halls were built of cement. But we are talking about 'psycho-acoustics.' People just feel that natural wood makes the sound warmer and richer."
Critics agree: The Strathmore has been applauded by the Washington Post as "The best place in the Mid-Atlantic for listening to classical music." Ditto for other kinds of music, from jazz and pop to country and rock! "Wood sets the envelope for the music," Grabowski says. See what he means at www.strathmore.org.
In historic homes and modern cultural sites all across this country, the stage has been set by American Hardwoods. Warm to the touch, soothing to the ear, comforting to both eye and psyche, timeless hardwood will go on creating the environments Americans most want to be in. Visit www.HardwoodInfo.com and see why our love affair with hardwood has lasted so long.


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– And More Possible Than Ever Before
As it does every year, the Iranian regime is marking Qods (Jerusalem) Day,[1] calling for the elimination of Israel. Ramazan Sharif, public relations director for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and head of the Headquarters for the Intifada and Jerusalem, announced that this year Tehran will hold Qods Day in 70 countries around the world.[2]
Under the pressure of increasing regional isolation and as a result of the nuclear crisis, the Iranian regime, headed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, is attempting to draw attention away from itself by calling on Muslims to unite against Israel to bring about its destruction. As Iranian Culture Minister Mohammad Hosseini said, "The oppressing Zionists must know that the Muslim ummah, and the Iranian people in particular, will always support the rights of the Palestinian nation, and will continue to do so until the Zionist regime is completely annihilated."[3]
As part of this propaganda campaign, the regime invited the public to participate en masse in Qods Day marches across Iran, and clarified that this year, the holiday's focus would be on support for the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. Accordingly, regime supporter Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani warned that "participation in a Qods Day march is concrete evidence of support for Syria and defense of Jerusalem."[4] Likewise, Majlis member Sharif Hosseini said: "Today, Syria is another Palestine, and the Iranian people must stand beside it this year, as a focus of the marches."[5] Majlis National Security Committee chairman Ala Al-Din Boroujerdi stated, "With God's help, the [West's and Israel's] plot [against Syria] will boomerang on the Zionist regime, and there is no doubt that this illegitimate regime will be destroyed."[6]
This report will review the main statements on the issue by regime officials and regime organs:
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei: Israel Will Be Destroyed; We Will Triumph Over The U.S.
In a pre-Qods Day speech on August 15, 2012, to veterans of the Iran-Iraq War, Khamenei stated that Israel was the source of the Middle East's problems. He then called on the Muslims to abandon their sectarian disputes, which he explained were the fruit of plots by Israel and the West aimed at perpetuating the occupation of Palestine. Portraying the Arab world's calls to Iran to refrain from interfering in the Palestinian issue as a betrayal of the Palestinians, he exhorted all Muslims to rally to the aid of the Palestinians as a religious duty. He also said that he anticipated the restoration of Palestine to its rightful owners, the Palestinians, and added that Iran would triumph over the U.S. in the nuclear issue. The following are the main points of his statements:
"The victory of the Islamic Revolution set an historic obstacle in the path of the attempt by those seeking domination to cause the occupation of Palestine to be forgotten. As part of this [attempt], they brought up for discussion the issue of the Shi'ite-Sunni conflict and the Shi'ite Crescent – while the Palestinian nation has for 60 years been under pressure from these people…
"The [claim] that Iran, which revived and rebuilt the Palestinian cause, is a danger to the Islamic world, and the silence about the catastrophes that the Zionists are perpetrating – are these not betrayal? For us, the issue of Jerusalem is not tactical, but draws on deep Islamic belief. We view rescuing this Islamic state from the talons of the regime of the Zionist occupiers and their international supporters as a religious duty – and the other Islamic nations and governments must treat the Palestinian issue the same way.
Source: Fars (Iran), August 15, 2012
"As the morning star once rose on the Islamic Revolution's victory [in Iran]… it will again rise, [this time,] on the cause of Palestine, and this Islamic land will undoubtedly be restored to the Palestinian nation, [while] the superfluous, mendacious and false Zionist [regime] will be eradicated from the geographical landscape…
"Today, the Iranian nation faces challenges vis-Ã -vis the U.S., and if it displays [steadfastness] like the veterans [of the Iran-Iraq war], then, without any doubt and according to the honest promises of God, it will triumph."[7]
Kayhan: The Liberation Of Palestine Is Imminent – And More Possible Than Ever Before
In its August 16, 2012 editorial titled "The Obstacles to the Collapse of Israel Have Been Removed," the Kayhan daily stated that the liberation of Palestine was closer and more achievable than before, following the fall of the Western-linked regimes and the weakening of the U.S.'s status in the region. It went on to claim that there is a Palestinian, not Jewish, majority between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. The following are highlights of the editorial:
"The declaration of one day in the Islamic calendar as Qods Day [by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979] was the beginning of a very important change – not only for the fate of Palestine, but for the fate of the [entire] Islamic world. Accordingly, even after the liberation of Jerusalem and Palestine, this day will retain its importance for the Muslim nations…
"With an historical look at the roots of the current changes in the Arab region [i.e. the Middle East], we understand that Iran's [Islamic] Revolution laid the cornerstone of these changes, and that the declaration of World Qods Day, and the invitation to Muslims to again find their identity, played a central role in the spread of the resistance school of thought.
"Thus, Palestine played a dual role. On the one hand, the wretchedness that afflicted the Palestinians, especially in the last three decades, was not only due to the Zionist regime and the U.S., but also due to the Arab regimes in the region – particularly the previous Egyptian regime and the Saudi regime – and therefore, confronting the oppression of the Palestinians is based on confronting the Arab regimes that are the allies of the Zionist regime. On the other hand, the defense of Palestine's ideals is not perceived by the Arab young people only in the sense of liberating Palestine, but also in the sense of liberating all the Islamic lands from the Western regimes and the Zionist regime. Accordingly, it would be no exaggeration to state that everything started with the declaration of Qods Day…
"Today, more than at any other time, the liberation of Palestine is possible and imminent. This is because the Muslims are nearly united around the Palestinian focus, because the regimes that are allies of the West have significantly weakened, and because the Muslim awakening against the West's schemes is intensifying. The influence of the West, and particularly of the U.S., in the Islamic countries is very much weakened, and the young people have entered the arena of the defense of Palestine and the independence of the other Islamic countries, regardless of whether their governments agree. In addition, the Zionist regime is facing serious challenges from within.
"According to statistics published by the Zionist regime, the Jewish population of Palestine stands at 4.5 million, and according to Tel Aviv press reports, 1.5 million of these people have dual citizenship, such that that 1.5 million of all Israeli Jews live year-round outside the lands of Palestine and are in Palestine for [only] a week to a month out of the year. Thus, the true population of the Jews in the oppressive Israeli regime does not exceed three million. This is while the current Palestinian population of the 27,000 square km of the lands of Palestine tops 4.5 million, of which over a million live in the 1948 lands. So, if the [makeup] of the population determines the identity of the lands, then Palestine has an Arab Muslim majority, despite the loss of some 5 million of its natural residents between 1948 and 1967."[8]
IRGC PR Director: Israel – A Western Deception Against Humanity, An "Insult To The Nations That Obtained Their Independence Through Struggle"
In an August 5 speech, Ramazan Sharif, IRGC public relations director and head of the Headquarters of the Intifada and Jerusalem, stated: "The country called Israel is a great deception that the U.S., England, and the Zionists have imposed on humanity. The existence of the Zionist regime is an insult to the nations that obtained their independence through struggle, resistance, and steadfastness against the arrogant and the imperialists.
"Today, an Israeli passport is something shameful and scorned in the world, and the people of the world are no longer willing to tolerate the Zionist regime amongst them; [the Zionists] are [now] completely isolated. Today, the name of Israel worldwide arouses the most significant hatred in the world. The shameful, calamitous measures being carried out by this child-murdering regime against the helpless Palestinian people stain the entire world.
"Soon, and with God's help, the [problem of the] loathsome [existence of] this cancerous growth will be resolved once and for all, by means of the motto 'ongoing intifada, steady resistance, and an exalted, progressive Islamic awakening and movement of the revolutionary fervor of the uprising nations.'"[9]
Ramazan Sharif. Source: Resalat (Iran), August 6, 2012
© The Middle East Media Research Institute All Rights Reserved.
[1] In 1979, the founder of Iran's Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, declared that the last Friday of Ramadan would henceforth be Qods Day (this year it falls on August 17, 2012), and that this holiday would express the Iranian aspiration for the liberation of the lands of Palestine from Israel. Committee for Supporting the Intifada in Palestine Director-General Hossein Sheikholeslam, who is also advisor to Majlis speaker Ali Larijani, explained: "Qods Day is the day when millions of sons of the Muslim peoples, in Iran and in the Islamic countries, are in the arena of confrontation with the arrogance [i.e. the West, headed by the U.S.] and the Zionist regime, and call unanimously, with divine inspiration and while fasting [during Ramadan], for the destruction of the regime occupying Jerusalem and for the victory of the Intifada of the Palestinian people." IRNA (Iran), July 29, 2012.
[2] Mehr (Iran), August 14, 2012.
[3] Mho.farhang.gov.ir, August 15, 2012. Calling on the Iranian people to participate in Qods Day marches, Ramazan Sharif said: "The Iranian people's zealous and proud participation in World Qods Day… along with the international community, will give the signal of death to the Zionist regime." ISNA (Iran), July 27, 2012. Defense Minister Ahmad Wahidi said, in a similar vein, that the participation of millions in Qods Day would pave the way to the liberation of Jerusalem, and called on the Muslim countries to form a strategic alliance with the Palestinian people in order to force Israel to surrender. Yjc.ir, August 14, 2012.
[4] IRNA (Iran), August 14, 2012.
[5] Mehr (Iran), August 15, 2012.
[6] Boroujerdi also claimed that "Hizbullah and Hamas are the ideological offspring of Khomeini and [Supreme] Leader [Ali Khamenei], and their victory over the Zionist regime stems from their divine vision." IRNA (Iran), August 13, 2012.
[7] Mehr (Iran), August 15, 2012.
[8] Kayhan (Iran), August 16, 2012.
[9] Sepahnews.com, August 5, 2012


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Dust Bowl
Dust Bowl, the name given to areas of the U.S. prairie states that suffered ecological devastation in the 1930s and then to a lesser extent in the mid-1950s. The problem began during World War I, when the high price of wheat and the needs of Allied troops encouraged farmers to grow more wheat by plowing and seeding areas in prairie states, such as Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, which were formerly used only for grazing. After years of adequate yields, livestock were returned to graze the areas, and their hooves pulverized the unprotected soil. In 1934 strong winds blew the soil into huge clouds called
black blizzards,and in the succeeding years, from December to May, the dust storms recurred. Crops and pasture lands were ruined by the harsh storms, which also proved a severe health hazard. The uprooting, poverty, and human suffering caused during this period is notably portrayed in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Through later governmental intervention and methods of erosion-prevention farming, the Dust Bowl phenomenon has been virtually eliminated, thus left a historic reference.
See D. Worster, Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s (1979); T. Egan, The Worst Hard Time (2005); K. Burns, dir., The Dust Bowl (documentary, 2012).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: U.S. Physical Geography


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Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Privacy Policy
Last revised: 4/28/2014
This Privacy Policy applies to your use of the following websites: www.jacksonhole.com, www.tetonvillagesports.com, www.estore.jacksonhole.com, www.hobacksports.com and http://www.jhrl.com (each a "Site" and collectively the "Sites"), which are owned and provided by Jackson Hole Mountain Resorts (including its affiliates). We value and respect your privacy, and this privacy policy (the "Privacy Policy") is designed to assist you in understanding how we collect, use, and protect your information. Our Terms and Conditions available at wwwjacksonhole.com/terms-and-conditions.html describe the terms and conditions that govern your access to and use of our Sites, are incorporated herein by reference, and form an essential part of this Privacy Policy. YOUR USE OF THE SITES SIGNIFIES YOUR CONSENT TO BE LEGALLY BOUND BY BOTH THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLICABLE TO THE SITES AND THIS PRIVACY POLICY.. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY, PLEASE DO NOT USE THE SITES OR PROVIDE ANY INFORMATION TO US.
The Information we Collect
We may collect several different types of personally identifiable information ("Personal Information") which may include but is not limited to your:
· name
· e-mail address
· gender
· date of birth
· mailing address
· credit card number
You may choose not to provide your Personal Information; however providing Personal Information is a pre-requisite for certain activities and services available through the Sites, such as creating an account, renting equipment, registering for certain classes or staying at the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (the "Resort").
How we Collect your Personal Information
We may collect your Personal Information in any of the ways set forth below (each a "Channel"):
• Online. In order to use certain functions or features of the Sites, you will need to create an account. As a prerequisite to account registration, you will need to provide certain types of Personal Information. You may also make reservations to stay at the Resort, register for ski lessons, and conduct other types of transactions on or through the Sites, in which case you will need to provide payment and billing information.
• In Person. You may physically provide us with your Personal Information in a variety of different ways. For example, if you stay at the Resort, you may be required to provide Personal Information to reserve your stay or check in. We may also condition participation in certain activities at the Resort, such as ski lessons, on the provision of certain Personal Information.
• Contests. From time to time, we may run contests and/or sweepstakes, via a Site, through social media, or at the Resort ("Contests"). If you participate in any Contests, we will collect certain Personal Information from you in order to administer the Contest.
• From Third Parties. We may, from time-to-time, receive certain Personal Information that you have provided to a third party to whom you have provided your consent to share your Personal Information with us for marketing purposes, such as opt-in email list providers.
Usage Information
We may also collect certain non-personally identifiable and/or aggregate information as a result of your use of, and interaction with, the Sites ("Usage Information"). We may also use certain web measurement and tracking technologies such as cookies, web server logs, or other statistics programs to collect Usage Information and track and record how you use the Sites. This data is anonymous and does not personally identify you. Usage Information helps us measure the success of the Site and its features or pages and to improve your online experience. Your browser may have an option that allows you to accept cookies, reject cookies, or receive notification when a cookie is sent, but you should note that the use of such restrictive browser settings may limit your use of the Website. In addition, we may use pixel tags, web beacons and other technologies, placed within our Sites and our marketing channels, provided by our advertising partners, to measure and monitor visits to certain pages within, interactions with, the effectiveness of, and otherwise manage, our Sites and online advertising. Usage Information enables the tailoring of advertisements and offers specifically to you. In addition to such tailoring, we use Usage Information to ensure that our online presence operates properly and efficiently for you and for your individual customer experience, to evaluate the use and benefit of such presence, and to support our Sites and our marketing efforts. Currently our Sites do not respond to Do Not Track features enabled through your browser. We do not use spy ware, adware or any other similarly intrusive software. Collectively, Usage Information and Personal Information are referred to in this Privacy Policy as "Information."
Use of Information Collected
By providing your Information to us, whatever the Channel you use, you consent to our use of your Information in the following ways:
· to provide the services, products or classes that you request;
· to combine with or enhance information provided by third parties;
· to contact you, respond to your inquiries, and send you information;
· to notify you of special offers and other services that we believe may be of interest to you;
· to analyze, manage and improve the Sites;
· to notify you of important new changes to the Sites;
· to help us diagnose problems with our server or other technical issues relating to the performance of the Sites; or
· for marketing purposes in compliance with applicable laws.
It is our policy to require only the Personal Information necessary to complete the specific transaction that you request. We do not condition your participation in any specific activity on our Sites, or the receipt of any products or services, on the disclosure of more Personal Information than is reasonably necessary.
Disclosure of your Information
We may disclose the Information we collect from and about you: (a) when we have reason to believe that such disclosure is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) our rights or property, customers or other users of the Sites, or anyone else who could be harmed by such activities, or is appropriate or necessary to enforce the Terms and Conditions, take precautions against liability, investigate and defend against any third-party claims or allegations, and/or protect the security or integrity of the Sites; (b) to respond to judicial process and provide Information to law enforcement agencies in connection with an investigation on matters related to public safety, as permitted by law, or otherwise as required by law, or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with state and federal laws; (c) to our business partners for research, analytical and marketing purposes, such as analyzing usage patterns for certain content, services, advertisements, promotions, and/or functionality on the Sites and/or to our subsidiaries, affiliated companies, or other businesses or persons for the purpose of processing such Information on our behalf; or (d) otherwise with your consent. We may sell or buy other businesses or entities. In such event, we may transfer or assign the Information we have collected as part of such merger, acquisition, sale, or other change of control. In such transactions, your Personal Information may be included in the transferred business assets. Also, in the unlikely event of our bankruptcy, insolvency, reorganization, receivership, or assignment for the benefit of creditors, or the application of laws or equitable principles affecting creditors' rights generally, we may not be able to control how your Personal Information is treated, transferred, or used and your Personal Information may be included in the transferred assets. We may use your Usage Information to identify and develop products and services that may be of interest to you and/or share Information with certain third parties for direct marketing purposes with respect to special offers, products, services, programs, promotions, surveys, publications, invitations or other opportunities that may be of interest to certain demographic groups. We do not sell your Personal Information, to third parties and have no intention of doing so in the future. Under the laws of some jurisdictions, you may be entitled to request disclosure regarding how we share your Information with third parties for direct marketing purposes ("Information-Sharing Disclosure"). To the extent required by applicable law, we shall provide the Information-Sharing Disclosure to you upon rightful request made in writing to Chief Marketing Officer, PO Box 290, Teton Village, WY 83025. Except as explained above, we will not share any of your Personal Information with any third party, unless we have received your express permission to do so.
Opting Out
You may opt-out of receiving communications from us at any time by clicking on the link provided at the bottom of each email communication.
Linked Sites
Our Sites may contain links to other websites (such as those of our travel partners or advertisers), which may have privacy policies that differ from our own ("Third Party Sites"). We are not responsible for the collection, use or disclosure of information collected through such Third Party Sites and expressly disclaim any liability related to such collection, use or disclosure. We are also not responsible for any information or content contained on such Third Party Sites. Links to Third Party Sites are provided solely as a convenience. Your browsing, use and interaction on any Third Party Sites, including Third Party Sites or Forums (as defined below) which have a link to the Website, are subject to the applicable Third Party Site's own rules and policies. Accordingly, you should review the privacy policy posted on any Third Party Site that you may access through, or which links to our Site(s).
Special Disclosure Considerations for Social Media
Our Sites may permit you to participate in certain online activities, such as blogs, message boards or other forums, or may include links to certain Third Party Sites that provide social media functionality, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram ("each a "Forum"). You should be aware that if you voluntarily disclose any Information (e.g., name, email address, personal photographs) on a Forum, such information may be collected and used by others and may result in unsolicited messages or an increased risk of fraud. We have no control over this use of your Information and are not be responsible for it. In addition, if a Forum is provided by a Third Party Site, such Forum will likely be subject to its own additional rules and policies. You are responsible for your conduct on any Forum and for complying with any such rules or policies.
Protecting Children's Privacy
Except for the "Kid's Programs" portion of a Site, the Sites are not designed for or directed to children under the age of 13 and we ask that children under the age of 13 not submit any personal information. With respect to the "Kid's Programs" portion of a Site, we may collect certain personal information related to minors who wish to reserve space in one of our Kid's Program activities or rent equipment, including the name, email address, and mailing address of such minors but we will only accept such information from (a) the minor's legal parent or guardian, who has (b) created a Customer Account. We expressly request that no child under the age of 13 provide such information on their own behalf. We will not use such information for marketing purposes.
Security Procedures
We take commercially reasonable precautions and have implemented commercially reasonable technical measures intended to protect against the risks of unauthorized access to, erroneous disclosure of, and unlawful interception of Personal Information submitted via the Sites. However, your email transmissions and/or other communications containing Personal Information may be unlawfully intercepted or accessed by third parties and/or the Sites may be subject to hostile network attacks or administrative errors. We cannot and do not guarantee the security of any information transmitted over the Internet. Once we receive your Personal Information, we take steps that we believe are commercially reasonable to limit access to your Personal Information to only those employees and service providers whom we determine need access to the Personal Information to provide the requested products, services, offers or opportunities that may be of interest to you. However, even after we receive your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee that your Personal Information will not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed as a result of a breach of our commercially reasonable efforts or as a result of any other event beyond our reasonable control. Accordingly, we cannot and do not guarantee that your Personal Information is completely secure and safe from such risks. FOR THE AVOIDANCE OF DOUBT, WE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, WITH RESPECT TO ENSURING, GUARANTEEING OR OTHERWISE OFFERING ANY DEFINITIVE PROMISE OF SECURITY IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR INFORMATION.
Special Note to International Users
By using the Sites, you agree and acknowledge that the Sites are hosted in the United States. If you are attempting to access a Site from a physical location within the European Union, Asia, or any other region with laws or regulations governing personal data collection, use, and disclosure that differ from United States laws, please be advised that through your continued use of the Site, which is governed by U.S. law, this Privacy Policy, and the Terms and Conditions, you are transferring your Personal Information to the United States and you consent to the application of the laws of the United States and/or the State of Wyoming with respect to any dispute arising from or related to the Privacy Policy and/or your use of the Site, other than such rules, regulations, case law, and/or international treaties that would result in the application of the laws of a jurisdiction other than the United States or the State of Wyoming, and the exclusive jurisdiction of the District Court for Teton County, Wyoming, Ninth Judicial District.
Changes and Updates to the Privacy Policy
From time to time, we may revise this Privacy Policy. To help you stay current of any changes, we we note the date the Privacy Policy was last updated above. Your use of the Sites following the posting of any revised version of the Privacy Policy shall be deemed acceptance of the revised Privacy Policy, so we strongly recommend that you check the Privacy Policy periodically. In the event we make a material change to how we use your Personal Information, we will provide you with advance notice of such change and provide you with an opportunity to opt out of such use.
If you disagree with any of the terms of this Privacy Policy at any time, your sole remedy is to terminate your use of the Sites. Continued use of the Sites constitutes your agreement to the current version of the Privacy Policy in effect.
If any part of this Privacy Policy is determined to be invalid or unenforceable pursuant to applicable law, then the invalid or unenforceable provision will be deemed superseded by a valid, enforceable provision that most closely matches the intent of the original provision and the remainder of this Privacy Policy shall continue in full force and effect.
If you have any further questions about this Privacy Policy, please e-mail or call us (307-733-2292; 888-DEEP-SNO).


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After L.A. cops released a trove of photographs from the alleged serial killer's home, the first image has been positively identified. Christine Pelisek talks to the police and victim's family.
One of the hundreds of photos seized from the home of alleged Grim Sleeper serial killer Lonnie Franklin Jr. was identified today by the Los Angeles Police Department as Janecia Peters—one of the killer's known victims.
"We marked her as identified so she was taken off the website," says Los Angeles Police Department detective Dennis Kilcoyne. "The family was contacted to attend the previewing and they couldn't make it. We asked them to view it and when they did, they got a hold of us and we took it down… I am not happy we had it on there but I feel bad for the family but obviously it adds to her connection to Lonnie certainly."
The photo of 25-year-old Peters, who is the last known victim of the Grim Sleeper, was one of hundreds of photographs taken from Franklin's home in July. Franklin is charged with 10 murders, including that of Peters, and one attempted murder in South Los Angeles dating back to 1985. Franklin has pleaded not guilty; on Friday, his lawyer declined to comment.
Police believe those in the color photographs, most of which are pictures of women and teenage girls, may be even more victims of the alleged killer. Some of the pictures, which were taken by the 58-year-old Franklin before his arrest, show women who range from teenagers to women in their sixties, exposing their breasts or fully nude. Some photographs show women who look like they may be asleep, unconscious, or dead. The photographs were taken in cars, in Franklin's motor home, and in his backyard garage.
The image of Peters depicts a young African-American woman with her head tilted upward. She is wearing earrings and a gold necklace. It is unclear where the photo was taken.
"Peters is the first one that has been identified and taken off the website," says Kilcoyne. "She is the first one we are confident with."
Peters' sister Shamika Smith confirmed to The Daily Beast that photo number 119 is that of her sister.
"119 is her," says Smith. "I recognize her face. There was no doubt in anyone's mind he killed her."
A homeless man collecting cans from a dumpster off Western Avenue discovered the lifeless nude body of Peters near a discarded Christmas tree on January 1, 2007. She'd been stuffed in a black garbage bag wrapped tightly with a twist tie. Peters' murder case was transferred from LAPD's 77th Division to the elite Robbery/Homicide unit downtown in 2007 when DNA found on the twist tie positively matched the human detritus found on victims in 2002, 2003, and in the '80s.
Gallery: Photos Found in Grim Sleeper Suspect's Home
Last July, Franklin, a mechanic with a history of car theft, was arrested as he walked out of his modest mint-green home, which he shared with his wife of 32 years. Investigators had found that DNA taken from a slice of pizza he had been eating earlier positively matched DNA taken from semen and saliva found on the victims. Franklin was tracked down through familial DNA testing after his 28-year-old son was arrested on a weapons charge in the summer of 2009, and had to give up a DNA swab.
"119 is her," says Smith. "I recognize her face. There was no doubt in anyone's mind he killed her."
Franklin, a pensioner who collected a $1,658 monthly pension from the city, had been living in the epicenter of the killings since the early '80s when he was working as a trash collector for the city's Department of Sanitation. Many of the Grim Sleeper killings occurred during the same years Franklin claimed he was injured on duty.
The Grim Sleeper serial killer was thought to have operated only in the 1980s, but struck again in 2002, 2003 and 2007. Most of the victims were shot with a .25 caliber pistol, and their bodies were found along Western Avenue in South Los Angeles, discarded like trash. Most had been sexually assaulted.
Christine Pelisek is staff reporter for The Daily Beast, covering crime. She previously was a reporter at the LA Weekly, where she covered crime for the last five years. In 2008, she won three Los Angeles Press Club awards, one for her investigative story on the Grim Sleeper.


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Even people who aren't Apple fans recognize the company's distinctive, iconic logo; it ranks up there with the Nike swoosh or NBC peacock. But most probably aren't familiar with the story behind the design. First created in 1977, the Apple logo was the handiwork of Rob Janoff, an art director at advertising and public relations firm Regis McKenna.
In a lengthy interview with Creative Bits's Ivan Raszl, Janoff talks about the history behind his classic design, including dispelling many of the rumors around it, such as the significance of the apple's bite. Says Janoff:
Anyway, when I explain the real reason why I did the bite it's kind of a let down. But I'll tell you. I designed it with a bite for scale, so people get that it was an apple not a cherry. Also it was kind of iconic about taking a bite out of an apple. Something that everyone can experience.
Janoff also talks about how Steve Jobs liked the design, how the Apple logo has evolved over the years, and the keys to good logo design.
For me, though, one of the things I think makes Apple's logo so iconic is that it's used sparingly. As I type this on my MacBook, an iPod and iPhone on the desk before me, the only Apple logo visible to my eyes is the small one in the top left-hand corner of my computer display. Apple doesn't beat you over the head with its logo, but it does use it effectively, and that's part of the reason it's so imprinted upon our memory.


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Just an Announcement of some changes coming with the UNYG Blog
Nothing for you to worry about, but there will be some changes coming.
We have been publishing this free blog information on how to find your Upstate New York ancestors for several years now, by using Google's Blogger Blog service. It has been free to produce other than the time invested. Thank you very much Google.
However, there are many features that we want to provide for you, still all going to be Free, don't panic. \grin/
But we will be converting this Blog over to WordPress which will give us the ability to provide a far better user experience with this Blog's information and access to tons of other really cool things.
This will not be happening right away, but we have the new domain and will be experimenting some until we figure out how to migrate all of the archived articles from here, over to the new website.
We know you are going to LOVE IT. This Blog sometimes loads so slowly that people get discouraged and leave, and I don't blame them. We're going to fix that with the new website.
Stay tuned. (We think that the end result should be rather seamless to you, but when it happens you will see our all new design!)
Here is a rather disturbing piece of news that was in the Washington Post. It has to do with laptops and other digital devices being seized at the border and should be of great concern to genealogists traveling abroad for genealogy research..Read about it on our sister Blog, Genealogy Miscellanea .
Visit our main website at www.unyg.com


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John Galliano invited to return to fashion
Staff Writer
Columbus Monthly
NEW YORK (AP) — John Galliano has been invited to return to fashion in the studio of Oscar de la Renta.
De la Renta invited Galliano to spend time in his office over the next three weeks, according to a statement released Friday by de la Renta's company.
Galliano was dismissed as creative director of Christian Dior and left his own label two years ago after an anti-Semitic rant at a Paris cafe was captured on video. A French court also convicted him on two other complaints of anti-Semitic behavior.
Galliano said he is an alcoholic and has been in recovery for the past two years. De la Renta said he has known Galliano for years and is "a great admirer of his talent."


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Possibly for the last time, we return to my annual round-up of books I have read about the animation industry in Japan. This year I have published several extensive reviews of some of my anime reading, including Marc Steinberg's Anime's Media Mix, Nobuyuki Tsugata's Before the Dawn of TV Anime, Liliane Lurcat's Alone With Goldorak, and Tobin's book on the Pokemon phenomenon.
Behind the scenes, I have also been wading away through Japanese-language works on the subject, including two accounts of anime in China, Tomoyuki Aosaka's Contents Business in China: Fluctuating Markets, Emerging Industry, and Homare Endo's The New Breed of Chinese 'Dongman': Japanese Cartoons and Comics Animate China. Both authors must write in a tense environment, with evidence pointing to a strong potential market for Japanese animation and comics in China, but also to a strong anti-Japanese feeling all over China. It's a fascinating dichotomy, where there is minimal evidence of anime and manga in Chinese stores, but anecdotal evidence everywhere you look that illegal downloaders and torrenters form a significant silent population. Meanwhile, even though only 35 foreign films are permitted in Chinese cinemas each year, you can guarantee that two of the slots otherwise reserved for Tom Cruise, or James Cameron, or Pixar, or whoever will go to the year's Conan the Boy Detective film and the year's One Piece movie. Anime and manga in China are not only on a critical cusp, but have been teetering there for the last decade and could still fall either way.
There was also an account of the life and work of Osamu Dezaki, and another about the achievements of Akiyuki Shinbo, adding welcome detail to the public profiles of two prolific directors. At the edge of the anime field, Yasuo Nagayama published an interesting "occasionalist" history of science fiction in Japan, concentrating not on the texts themselves but on the events that surrounded them. In the wrong hands, this could have all too easily turned into a tedious account of things that happened at conventions, but Nagayama keeps closely to his methodology, discussing not only the fan politics of the Japanese con scene, but also the effects of media fads and scares, and the public performances of popularity every time certain anime break box office records.
A few books disappointed me. A new work that purported to offer an insiders' view of Sazae-san had nowhere near the detail I was hoping for, and Mitsuhisa Ishikawa's account of his "revolution" at Production IG lacked the kind of nitty-gritty details that I personally go for. Much more fun was to be had in a series of books about the Japanese animation business, particularly the wonderful Otaku Marketing by the Nomura Research Institute, which offers hard data about the various types of otaku to be found in numerous consumer sectors, and how best to sell them stuff. Another book on the industry, This is the Anime Business, by Makoto Tada offered a run-down of the ten secret "Rules of the Devil" recited at the Dentsu corporation by its loyal minions. They are, apparently, a secret handbook to understanding the way the best animation studios work, too:
Rule 1: Work is something you should create not something that should be given.
Rule 2: Work is something where you take initiative and not something you do passively.
Rule 3: Tackle an important job. A small job will make you small.
Rule 4: Target a difficult job. You can progress by accomplishing it.
Rule 5: Once you tackle, don't let it go. Hold on like grim death, until you achieve the target.
Rule 6: Drag the people around you. It will be worlds apart between the one who drags and who is dragged in a long term.
Rule 7: Plan. If you have a long-term plan, patience, devices, correct effort and hope will be born.
Rule 8: Have confidence. Without confidence, your work does not have punch or tenacity or even depth.
Rule 9: Use your brain in full all the time. Be always on the alert. Don't slip your guard. That is what service is.
Rule 10: Don't be afraid of friction. Friction is the mother of progress and manure of drive. Otherwise you will be obsequious and irresolute.
If it seems like I am reading less anime books than usual this year, it's because this year saw me come to the end of the long writing process on my doctorate. I handed it in back in July, and the prospect of reading it so terrified my superviser that he ran away to China. As a result, it's still languishing at the faculty waiting for the committee to get its act together; I didn't help matters by running for China myself for four months this year, making it a little difficult to turn up for my viva; I shall have to sort out all of that in the new year, or else I shall never be Dr Clements. Meanwhile, the book version, some 60,000 words longer (in fact, as one wag commented, a whole other PhD worth of stuff) makes its way through the peer review process at the British Film Institute. I am just about to deliver the second draft of that, and with any luck you should see the published result – ANIME: A History of the Japanese Animation Industry, published in late 2013. As the name implies it is a massive chronicle of animation in Japan since the year 1909 (yes, 1909, you will have to read it to find out why), based almost entirely on the Japanese-language testimonials of the actual creators, rather than the speculations of foreign pundits. If you are the kind of person who has read this far on this blog, then I think you will like it very much.


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If you've been following this project you'll know that we've been doing an online card sort recently to help inform the information architecture for drupal.org. To date we have had more than 200 people participate in this card sort exercise, which is a tremendous effort and a bucketload of data! Thank you all!
In particular we were interested in understanding how we group and label different types of content, and whether the language (as in terminology) varied between insiders and outsiders.
The card sort is still running but we have done an initial analysis of the results to date – the findings are not really so surprising, but nonetheless, useful to have available.
Essentially, what we found is that insiders and outsiders generally use similar words to group and label content where that content is not particularly specific to Drupal, or doesn't involve 'Drupal-Speak'
So, for example, for both insiders and outsiders there were lots of occasions where a significant majority of users grouped terms into the same category, for example:
- 'Local User Groups' was grouped into 'Community'
- 'Installation Documentation' was grouped into 'Documentation'
- 'General Concepts' was grouped into 'Getting Started'
- 'Getting started' was grouped into 'Beginner/New/Getting Started' and 'Documentation' – both equally split in this way in both groups!
- 'Features and Mission of the Drupal Project' was grouped into 'About'
- 'Administer Drupal' was grouped into 'Documentation'
However, when it came to content items or terminology that was particular to (or used in a particular way within) the Drupal community, the split became more apparent. Drupal 'insiders' familiarity with the current structure of the drupal.org website also seemed to come into play – in fact, sometimes people actually responded with a specific URL! (eg. groups.drupal.org). Examples of these kinds of content include:
- Contributed Modules – responses from 'outsiders' were all over the place and didn't show much of a trend at all. Terms included community, customise, design, development, features, modules, enhancing Drupal, understanding Drupal, getting involved, mastering and more. On the other hand, 'Insiders' showed two very strong categories – Download (where modules reside in the current IA) and Developer
- Core Project – most 'outsiders' put this in a category called 'About Drupal', where as 'insiders' unsurprisingly used the same cateogories as for Contributed Modules (both are considered 'downloads' in the current IA
- Themes – again, the categories suggested by 'outsiders' was wide ranging, but most commonly suggested was 'Customise' and 'Themes', were as by FAR the most common category suggested by 'insiders' was 'Downloads'.
- Same for Translations, which clearly went into a 'Downloads' category for 'insiders' but left 'outsiders' perplexed – again, no clear trend emerged from them and suggested categories ranged from Customise, to Advanced Help to Projects.
You may also have noticed that, in general, suggested categories were quite broad – there was extensive use made of the categories 'About', 'Community', 'Documentation', 'Developing/Developers/Development', 'Get Involved'.
So, what does this mean for our project?
A card sort is never intended to 'set' the information architecture, but is rather used as a 'probe' into the existing and potential audience to get a sense of how they make sense of the content that you are trying to organise. We are not going to take the labels suggested by most participants and map the content to those labels and call that our IA, but we have learned some very valuable lessons. Including:
- We need to be very careful and aware of Drupal-speak – it causes no end of confusion for people who are not familiar with Drupal. This doesn't mean that we abandon it – after all, it is part of the efficiency of communicating within the community. But we need to make sure that we don't use it for major 'sign posts' in the information architecture and that when we do use it, we add 'supports' for new players (outsiders)
- Opportunities for cross-referencing – there were several instances where a piece of content showed more than one 'trending' category, for example the inclusion of 'getting started' content in both a 'beginners/getting started' category as well as a 'documentation' category. There are several instances like this where we can ensure that content is cross-referenced from one section (or sub-site) to another based on expectations shown in the card sort data.
- Category naming – for example, a term like 'Community' is not currently represented on the Drupal.org website but are widely expected by both 'insiders' and 'outsiders' alike. This supports the consolidation of the more 'social' aspects of Drupal (groups, forums etc.) into a major section labeled 'Community'.
Going forward
We will use the insight we have gained to date from this card sort to help inform the proposed Information Architecture for the Drupal.org website, which of course we will continue to share with you as we proceed.
It is *possible* that we may conduct a further card sort in the near future, however this one will be a 'closed' sort, where you will be asked to place content into a set of pre-defined categories. I'm only half convinced that this is a good approach (having had mixed success with closed card sorts in the past… ), so I'd be interested in any thoughts you have about whether this would be an interesting and useful exercise.
I'm glad to hear that several of you really enjoyed participating in this exercise and I do thank you for taking the time to do so.


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Seventeen interns hit the streets of New York City (and their dorms!) to ask girls which One Direction guy they want as their boyfriend, which one they'd want to makeout with, and who they would kick to the curb. Everyone has a favorite 1D dude, but surprisingly, not everyone knows how to pronounce their names! (Poor Niall...) Watch the video below to see what everyone had to say.
Go to seventeen.com/1d for more amazing 1D features including hot photos, quizzes, and exclusive interviews.


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Good morning and welcome to the Freedom New Mexico Tuesday briefing.
Coming together
The community comes together at noon today during the joint City of Clovis/Curry County luncheon at the Clovis Civic Center.
Quirky quote
"It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up." — Muhammad Ali
Easter caution
The New Mexico Department of Health and the New Mexico Livestock Board is advising families to avoid potential exposure to Salmonella by not giving baby chicks and ducklings to children as Easter gifts.
In the last five years, New Mexico has had 15 Salmonella cases related to
baby chicks. Many of the cases were in young children.
Today in history
On this day in 1995, a massive explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City kills 168 people and injures hundreds more.
The bomb, contained in a Ryder truck parked outside the front of the building, went off at 9:02 a.m. as people were preparing for the workday.
Among the victims of America's worst incident of domestic terrorism were 19 children who were in the daycare center on the first floor of the building.
Today — Partly cloudy. Windy. Highs in the upper 70s to lower 80s.
Tonight — Partly cloudy. Colder. Lows in the lower to mid 40s.
On the horizon — Wednesday mostly sunny. Highs in the mid 70s to lower 80s. A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms on Friday.


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April 16, 2009— -- This is the second in a series on Columbine, 10 Years Later
Two years ago today, Seung-Hui Cho slaughtered 32 students at Virginia Tech, claiming to have been inspired by the two teenagers who carried out the Columbine shootings, calling them "martyrs" in delusional diatribe he videotaped for the world.
"You had a hundred billion ways to have avoided today," he said on video aired on national television. "But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."
In 1999, when Eric Harris seduced his friend Dylan Klebold to open fire at Colorado's Columbine High School, killing 13 and injuring 24, no one had a definitive profile of the school shooter.
Today -- as the 10th anniversary of the Columbine tragedy on April 20 approaches-- experts say they can't predict which teens will go on a suicide-driven rampage..
"Not all psychotics or psychopaths are going to kill and most are not dangerous," said veteran FBI behavioral scientist Kenneth V. Lanning.
In 2000, The National Institute of Justice joined forces with the Secret Service and the Department of Education to assess ways to prevent school shootings.
Looking at 37 school shootings to find patterns in school-aged assassins, the study concluded that all are male and most are loners, with some kind of grievance. More than half had revenge as a motive.
"But that's typical of almost every adolescent," Lanning told ABCNews.com.
"The biggest problem with school shooters is the false positives and false negatives," he said. "How many people in any school have all these characteristics and will never shoot anybody."
Reports from the Department of Education show schools to be largely safe. But high-profile shootings have caused anxiety among parents, students and their teachers.
Contrary to public perception, school shootings declined after 1993, although there were copycat incidents from 1997 to 1999 "stimulated" by unprecedented media coverage, according to the National School Safety Center.
Still, they continue to capture the nation's imagination with images of vengeful outcasts, trench coats and bullied loners.
Some of the conclusions of the federal report were borne out in the Virginia Tech tragedy: shooters tend not to snap, but usually plan months or years in advance and often tell a friend or classmate.
Cho reportedly began planning his attack more than a month before the 2007 massacre, when he purchased his first gun. His video, made in combat gear, appears to have been made at least six days before the attack.
School Killers: Cho, Harris, Klebold
Harris and Klebold also planned in advance, with journals and "basement tapes" chronicling their plan to blow up Columbine High School.
But the comparisons end there.
And when the public throws around words interchangeably -- like psychotic and psychopath -- they underscore the need for better mental health education.
"When we see a person go off the deep end in a shooting, we look in hindsight and piece it together," Lanning said. "Frequently all the warning signs were there and we should have known. But you get warning signs one and two from the mother, three and four from the teacher, five and six from the counselor and probation officer."
Schools need to find better ways to accumulate information and share, within the boundaries of privacy.
"I can't just pick up any Tom, Dick or Harry under the sun," Lanning said. "I'd get sued. The bottom line is this is what American society struggles with all the time, balancing public safety with freedom and rights."
The most iconic of all school shooters -- Harris and Klebold at Columbine and Cho at Virginia Tech -- could not have been more different, according to most experts.
Cho, 23, was mentally ill and delusional -- a psychotic, mental health experts have said. As early as 2005, two female students at Virginia Tech complained about the anxious son of Korean immigrants, and a state court declared him to be at risk for suicide, referring him for psychiatric treatment.
Like the Columbine killers, Cho took his own life in the rampage, but mental health experts have said he may have suffered from bipolar depression or schizophrenia
Unlike Cho, Harris was a psychopath -- controlling, manipulative and sadistic, according to journalists, psychologists and law enforcement experts who studied the case. Psychopaths are in touch with reality and rational, and nearly always well-liked and charming, according to experts.
Klebold was a lonely depressive, full of mood swings and suppressed emotional rage, according to psychiatrists involved in the case.
But together, the Columbine pair was a "deadly dyad," according to Dave Cullen, a journalist who has covered the tragedy a decade and published a book, "Columbine," this month to coincide with the 10th anniversary.
Parents Say Bullying to Blame
Neither the Chos, nor the Columbine families ever talked freely with the press about their sons' actions. But in 2004, on the fifth anniversary of the tragedy, Tom and Sue Klebold, who still live in Littleton, Colo., responded to an article in the New York Times.
The Klebolds told reporter David Brooks that they objected to the way their son had been described as "depressive" and blamed the toxic atmosphere of teasing at the high school.
But Cullen said that unlike Cho, who was not well-liked and kept to himself, Harris and Klebold had an active social life and were bullies, rather than bullied.
"We always get the wrong answer because we phrase the question wrong," Cullen said.
"Everyone says, 'Why did they do it?' That gets you in trouble. There isn't one thing to explain Columbine," he said. "Why Eric did it and why Dylan did it -- they are polar opposites. You can't fuse it into one.
"It's the same thing with school shooters," he said. "We still go the same route and look for a profile and think we've got one -- outcast, loners and bullies. In two-thirds of cases, they don't apply. There are three or four or five profiles."
According to former FBI psychiatrist Frank Ochberg, who worked in hostage negotiations in the 1970s, Cullen's book "hit the nail on the head."
"The general public has its own idea about evil and how it gets created, distilled and powered," Ochberg told ABCNews.com. "We have so many archtypes."
Harris was a "budding psychopath, a person without a conscience," he said. "He got his satisfaction by dominating."
"Psychopaths don't feel guilty because they are blind to guilt," Ochberg said. Harris also had sadistic tendencies, which propelled him to "seek vengeance."
Klebold, on the other hand, was depressed, with pent up anger and "mood regulation problems," but together, they had "violent creativity," Ochberg said.
"Eric needed Dylan's emotionality and impulsiveness, and Dylan needed Eric's cold psychopathy," according to Ochberg.
While Klebold longed to end his life, as seen in his journals, for Harris, suicide was not a concern, according to Ochberg.
"His life wasn't as important as his appetite," he said. "He turned a comic book fantasy into reality. The purpose was not to kill himself, but it was an option, He needed power."
Psychotics: Mentally Ill, Delusional
According to FBI trainer Lanning, psychopathy and psychosis can overlap, but the public wrongly uses the terms interchangeably.
Psychotics are mentally ill, delusional and out of touch with reality; psychopaths can be "wheeler-dealers and manipulators," he said.
Most psychotics are not violent, but their nature is unpredictable, he said.
"Neither is necessarily a killer," said Lanning. "But society tends to focus on those common violent crimes."
Whether psychopaths -- sometimes called sociopaths -- lack a moral compass is up for debate, according to Lanning.
"They have a conscience," he said. "It's just that it's their own, not society's.
"A sex offender may kidnap and rape and mutilate women, but if you put him in prison next to the guy who fondles children, he thinks he's a sick pervert," he said.
Some sub-cultures admire the character of psychopaths.
"If you're a con artist and cheating people out of their savings, the best character to be is a psychopath," Lanning said.
When raised in a nurturing family, they tend to be thrill-seekers -- race car drivers and mountain climbers, "which is more acceptable," he said.
In fiction, they are self-focused characters like J.R. Ewing from television's "Dallas" and Scarlett O'Hara from "Gone With the Wind."
Still, one of the lessons of Columbine and Virginia Tech is understanding the complexity of the human psyche and the difficulty of identifying which teens will cross the line and become a killers.
"Remember Charles Atlas?" asked Lanning, who cites a comic book ad that featured a 90-pound weakling who gets sand kicked in his face, builds his body up and seeks revenge.
"The idea of avenging through physical force for slights against is the age-old dream of adolescent boys," he said. "You are an outcast, you get picked on and you want to get even."
ABC's information specialist Nicholas Tucker contributed to this report.


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Hello all,
As I mentioned last post, for my directed study in Cultural Heritage Management I am working with Griffith University's Indigenous Research Network to attempt to find answers to some of the many concerns and issues that arose as part of Griffith's whole of university approach to the development and implementation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander undergraduate curricula.
My current work with the New South Wales Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water (NSW DECCW) in their Environmental Protection and Regulation Group (EPRG) based in Coffs Harbour has seen me back to witness the roll out of the new Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Consultation Requirements for Proponents – Part 6 National and Wildlife Act 1974, released for immediate implementation on the 12/04/2010. The consultation workshops as part of the review prior to the release of the new requirements was commenced in early 2008 during my last period of employment with the Department.
The new requirements came from a long process and included the release of interim guidelines in 2005 as well as the extensive consultation with Aboriginal stakeholders and others across the NSW. The purpose was to provide a level of legal regulation around the consultation expected with Aboriginal groups prior to proposed impact to Aboriginal objects or places.
The new guidelines which are available on the DECCW website provides only regulation of proposed development that may require an Aboriginal Heritage Impact Permit (AHIP) it is not binding on the other planning process that have the potential to impact Aboriginal cultural heritage in NSW, though they are strongly recommended as a best practice procedure.
How well the new requirements will identify and engage with the appropriate people to speak for Country in any proposed development will have to be seen as times goes on.


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"I said, 'I do not fear those pants / With nobody inside them.' I said, and said, and said those words. / I said them. But I lied them."
—Dr. Seuss
The devastating realization came in H&M. Specifically, in a pair of size 36 dress pants. I'd never bought pants at H&M before, and suddenly asked myself: how could a 36-inch waist suddenly be so damn tight?
ShareI've never been slim — I played offensive line in high school — but I'm no cow either. (I'm happily a "Russell Crowe" body type.) So I immediately went across the street, bought a tailor's measuring tape, and trudged from shop to shop, trying on various brands' casual dress pants. It took just two hours to tear my self-esteem to smithereens and raise some serious questions about what I later learned is called "vanity sizing."
Your pants have been deceiving you for years. And the lies are compounding:
The pants manufacturers are trying to flatter us. And this flattery works: Alfani's 36-inch "Garrett" pant was 38.5 inches, just like the Calvin Klein "Dylan" pants — which I loved and purchased. A 39-inch pair from Haggar (a brand name that out-testosterones even "Garrett") was incredibly comfortable. Dockers, meanwhile, teased "Leave yourself some wiggle room" with its "Individual Fit Waistline," and they weren't kidding: despite having a clear size listed, the 36-inchers were 39.5 inches. And part of the reason they were so comfy is that I felt good about myself, no matter whether I deserved it.
However, the temple for waisted male self-esteem is Old Navy, where I easily slid into a size 34 pair of the brand's Dress Pant. Where no other 34s had been hospitable, Old Navy's fit snugly. The final measurement? Five inches larger than the label. You can eat all the slow-churn ice cream and brats you want, and still consider yourself slender in these.
Related: Latest Suits for Men, Including Jackets & Blazers
I enjoyed many of these pants, as I mentioned, but I'm still perturbed. This isn't the subjective business of mediums, larges and extra-larges — nor is it the murky business of women's sizes, what with its black-hole size zero. This is science, damnit. Numbers! Should inches be different than miles per hour? Do highway signs make us feel better by informing us that Chicago is but 45 miles away when it's really 72? Multiplication tables don't yield to make us feel better about badness at math; why should pants make us feel better about badness at health? Are we all so many emperors with no clothes?
The mind-screw of broken pride aside — like Humpty Dumpty, it cannot be put back together, now that you know the truth — down-waisting is genuine cause for concern. A recent report published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that men with larger waists were twice at risk of death compared with their smaller-waist peers. Men whose waists measured 47 inches or larger were twice as likely to die. Yet, most men only know their waist size by their pants — so if those pants are up to five inches smaller than the reality, some men may be wrongly dismissing health dangers.
But vanity waist sizing is so entrenched, it couldn't possibly be changed overnight, at least not without a government mandate. The only solution seems to be a gradual, year-by-year shaving of quarter-inch by quarter-inch until, in 2021, men's pants finally correspond with the label numbers — conveniently just in time for the New World Order's switch to mandatory full jumpsuits.
PANTS THAT DON'T LIE: Esquire's Guide to Denim & Jeans >>
ONCE YOUR PANTS FIT: Learn the Proper Way to Tie a Tie >>


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As many Internet users know, more and more TV shows and movies are becoming available online and their video quality is steadily improving. In an economy where people are saving money wherever they can, online entertainment could become a serious competitor to costly satellite or cable TV.
"We are starting to see the beginning of cord cutting," said Glenn Britt, chief executive of Time Warner Cable Inc., the AP reports. "People will choose not to buy subscription video if they can get the same stuff for free."
Time Warner Cable, the country's second-largest cable operator, lost 119,000 basic video customers in their fourth quarter. There are no specific numbers available however on how many people actually gave up cable and how many moved to a different provider.
Pay TV businesses may not be in trouble yet, but customers do have more options. For example, Netflix, an online DVD rental service, streams movies to its subscribers online and has even considered offering HBO original series. Hulu.com offers streaming video of TV shows and movies from NBC, Fox, and other networks and studios. Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, runs a similar site called Fancast. And YouTube, a video-sharing website, reached an agreement with MGM, Lions Gate Entertainment, and CBS in November 2008, allowing the companies to post full-length films and television shows.
So as people continue to pinch their pennies, some are choosing their broadband over their cable bill, which has reached an average of nearly $85. This is up 21 percent from 2006, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
"You've got these factors aligning at the right time," said Bobby Tulsiani, senior analyst at Forrester Research. This time there is a real, viable alternative" to cable.
Do you prefer cable or computer entertainment? Please add your comments below.
Matt Bartosik, former blogger of The Chicago Traveler and editor of Off the Rocks' next issue, is addicted to both broadcast and online media.