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The Mongol question has suddenly become of first-rate world importance. The Mongols, an ancient but little-known people who once ruled the whole of Asia, are now divided between four states. Many of them live in the Soviet Union, citizens of the Buryat-Mongol republic in Siberia or of the Kalmyk Autonomous Region on the lower Volga. Others, more numerous, are Chinese subjects inhabiting the provinces outside the Great Wall, Jehol, Chahar, Kan-su, etc. Others again, living in so-called Inner Mongolia, are divided between China and the Japanese vassal state of Manchukuo. But over the traditional home lands of the Mongols, the steppes, mountains and rivers north of the Gobi and stretching almost to Lake Baikal, so-called Outer Mongolia, flies the red flag of the Independent People's Republic of Mongolia.
It is Japanese policy to gather the Mongols living outside the People's Republic, those in Inner Mongolia and Manchukuo, and launch them in an attack on the People's Republic. In this way, the Japanese hope to turn the line of Soviet defences in Siberia under the cloak of a struggle for Mongol "freedom."
Every worker has, therefore, good reason for wanting to know what is the People's Republic. Though Outer Mongolia did not become a republic until 1924 it won its final independence in 1921, when the Russian White Guardists led by Ungern-Sternberg, and paid by the Japanese, were defeated and broken up by a national rising organized and led by the Mongolian People's Party, now called the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party.
The revolution was a Mongolian one, its chief forces the Mongolian Red Army, only small Soviet Red Army forces giving help. As soon as the country was freed from invaders the Soviet forces withdrew and from that day to this have never crossed the Mongolian frontier.
A number of brilliant fighters and revolutionaries arose from the Mongols, mostly from the poorer Arats (nomad working people), though the first great Mongol leader, Sukhebatoz, who died in 1923, was from the former ruling classes.
From the heroes of those days, however, were formed the present leaders of the People's Republic, Amer, the president; Gendun, the Prime Minister, a poor nomad by origin, whose name is already immortal among the Mongols; )cmid, the present commander-in-chief of the Red Army; rind Choibalsan, former heroic soldier, now Minister for Cattle-raising and Agriculture.
The Mongols are nomads, and before their revolution were under the domination of feudal chiefs, both lay and clerical. The revolution destroyed the power of the feudal nobility and Buddhist lamas, as well as driving out the Chinese and Russian merchants who were rapidly enslaving the people to foreign capital. A great democratic revolution placed power in the hands of the people (Arats), nationalized the land, minerals, forests and water, annulled debts, separated church and state, gave the people their own army, nationalized foreign trade, abolished all titles and introduced complete equality—national, religious, racial and sex—for all the working people.
The constitution adopted by the Republic in 1924 contained this important phrase: "In view of the fact that the real people all over the world aim at fundamentally destroying present capitalism and reaching socialism and communism, the foreign policy of our People's Republic must correspond to the interests of the revolutionary masses and main tasks of the oppressed small nations and really revolutionary nations of the whole world."
The People's Republic, though not itself a socialist republic, has, therefore, always maintained the closest friendship with the peoples of the Soviet Union.
The path of the new Republic has not always been smooth, and many mistakes have been made. In 1927 the leadership in the Government and People's Party had passed to the right wing, who held up the anti-feudal revolution and aimed at a capitalist development with Japanese and American help. Thanks to the energy of Gendun, then secretary of the People's Party, and a small group of comrades, they were defeated and leadership passed to the left wing in the Party. The left also made mistakes, thinking it would be possible to bring the nomad Mongols directly to socialism, to destroy the power of the monasteries, and so on.
The clerical question in Mongolia is of great importance. Out of a population of just over 700,000, more than 90,000 live in the Buddhist monasteries, each of which is the centre of a so-called commune (djassa). The attempt to make the monks return to secular life by force, the mechanical formation of collective farms and ranches among people who could not understand them, led finally to the Government losing the confidence of many of the people.
Comrade Gendun again fought bitterly and almost alone for sanity. At the end of 1932 he was victorious and a new leadership in the Government and People's Party was elected. The collective farms and compulsion in religious questions were abandoned, and the policy of gradually preparing the transition to a non-capitalist development replaced the attempt to emplant socialism by force.
Tremendous progress in education, health and general culture has now been made. Co-operation in marketing and distribution extends throughout the country and the Government has also a special commercial organization for dealing with private traders. The first factories have begun working at the capital, Ulan-Bator-Khoto, and there is now a small, well-organized Mongol working class, which may become a guarantee of the eventual triumph of non-capitalist development. There is an efficient motor transport system throughout the country, and much work has been done towards eliminating cattle disease.
The Red Army of the People's Republic is now a highly disciplined, mechanized force, able to conduct extensive combined operations of motorized forces, cavalry, artillery and aeroplanes. Its leadership is excellent and should the Japanese either themselves invade the country or send in mercenaries led by the princes and monks of Inner Mongolia, they will find that no "walk-over" such as they experienced in Manchuria will be possible. They will be faced by a whole people ready and eager to fight for its national existence.
The Mongolian People's Republic is a democratic state, a dictatorship of the people against the parasites and feudal hangers-on. It is creating prosperity for its people and is a fact of great significance in the history of Eastern peoples.


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I write this for Nigeria, beautiful but troubled land that houses my umbilical cord…
So, the other day I was watching a video clip of a Nigerian caught in the claws of the UK immigration. He had just alighted from a plane, clutching a fake passport and a detailed script for responding to pesky questions by UK immigration officials. The interview with the UK officials is at once funny and sad. If you have the time, you may watch the tragi-comedy here. When he is told he would be sent back home to Nigeria he breaks down in copious tears, kneels down and begs for relief. This warrior truly doesn't want to go home for reasons different from the tissue of lies he has offered. The terror in his eyes hurts to behold. He looks like he is in his early thirties but he has definitely been schooled in the immigration laws of the UK; he loudly claims to be fifteen – a vulnerable minor in need of protection. He is clearly not fifteen but skeptical authorities decide to take him to a home where he would stay until his age is determined. He absconds and disappears into the catacombs of London never to be seen again. You cheer for this warrior until you realize that lacking any discernible skills his life is not going to be much better in London (English subtitles mock his halting English, humiliating hints of an abusive Nigerian educational system). Who knows, maybe his offspring will live a better life. Our leaders should be shot. Yes, our leaders should be shot. I am not only referring to our political leaders. When the history of Africa's troubled journey is accurately chronicled, the world will come to realize the horror of the self-serving perfidy of Africa's intellectual leaders. We are the new self-serving colonialists perpetuating black-on-black crime on our own people. Ask the underclass of South Africa now attending to the narcissism of their black elite.
The degree of narcissism and self-absorption is mind-boggling. Many of our intellectual leaders are, like their political brethren, indifferent to personal responsibility. For them, flowery words are perfect substitutes for good character. Many will forever remember how the great fraud Philip Emeagwali wormed his way into credible history books as the "Father of the Internet." Why, his face is permanently etched on a Nigerian postage stamp as a great son of Africa, this man who defrauds thousands daily by claiming that his graduate term paper makes him the founder of the Internet. His lies and exaggerations are copiously chronicled here by Sahara Reporters. If you need only the abridged Cliff notes, click on this. Please do not google "Emeagwali fraud," your computer will crash from the e-rage. There are extremely reliable rumors that this trickster was set to receive Nigeria's highest honor in 2010 until news of his hoax went viral on the Internet. Using his sordidly self-serving website here, Emeagwali continues to ply his sick trade in America as a Black History Month pimp where folks desperate for black heroes uncritically accept his daring lies and obfuscations. By the way, whatever happened to the Nigerian government's vow to investigate Philip Emeagwali?
When it comes to matters of immigration, I must concede that it is complicated; I generally make no judgment about how and why folks move from place to place. Right now, young people are doing daring things to escape what are admittedly harsh conditions in Africa. Hundreds die annually crossing roiling seas just to escape the disastrous consequences of their leaders' perfidy. What they are doing is no different from what the colonialists did in coming to America. The face of immigration is browning, that is the only difference. This earth belongs to all of us, and you live where you can afford to.
The eighties and the nineties were particularly brutal years for Nigerians. Waves of murderous dictators took turns making life miserable for the people – and enriching themselves and their families in the process. Writers and artists were vulnerable. Many fought ferociously and were just as ferociously attacked for their beliefs and words. Many lost their lives and many are forever broken by the savagery that was visited upon them. The books of these brave warriors document their harrowing experiences in the hands of dictators. It is the truth. Well, not all of it is the truth. As in every instance, there are those who would take advantage of situations for self-serving reasons. Every now and then, a celebrated writer gets caught in the web of lies and exaggerations. There is the sad case of Ishmael Beah, author of the memoir, A Long Way Gone, a bestseller about Beah's days as a child-soldier. That book ran into difficulties when some dogged researchers did some homework and came up with the compelling conclusion that the book is mostly reams of lies and exaggerations (see some links here). What is particularly tragic here is that Beah's book is, in my humble opinion, a very good and important book; it could have been marketed as fiction, but no, I imagine that Beah and his agent concluded that the only way it would sell would be to claim fantastic adventures that have spurious basis in fact. The West's hunger for child-soldier stories is insatiable and many alleged child-soldiers are wailing all the way to their suburban banks in Europe and America.
So the other day, I was doing some research on the acclaimed Nigerian writer Chris Abani and I came across these comic howlers on his Wikipedia page:
"Christopher Abani (or Chris Abani) (born December 27, 1966) is a Nigerian author. Abani's first novel, Masters of the Board, was about a Neo-Nazi takeover of Nigeria. The book earned one reviewer to praise Abani as "Africa's answer to Frederick Forsyth." The Nigerian government, however, believed the book to be a blueprint for an actual coup, and sent the 18-year-old Abani to prison in 1985. After serving six months in jail, he was released, but he went on to perform in a guerilla theatre group. This action led to his arrest and imprisonment at Kiri Kiri, a notorious prison. He was released again, but after writing his play Song of a Broken Flute he was arrested for a third time, sentenced to death, and sent to the Kalakuta Prison, where he was jailed with other political prisoners and inmates on death row. His father is Igbo, while his mother was English born."
"He spent some of his prison time in solitary confinement, but was freed in 1991. He lived in exile in London until a friend was murdered there in 1999; he then fled to the United States."
Kalakuta prison! Who knows of such a prison? Based on these tales, in 2003, Abani is offered and happily accepts to be a recipient of the Hellman/Hammett grants awarded to 28 "brave" writers from all over the world. Here is Abani's citation:
"Chris Abani (Nigeria), poet and novelist, was arrested in 1985 and again in 1987 when plots of his novels were said to be plans for attempts to overthrow the government. He spent six months in prison in 1985. In 1987, he was held in Kiri-Kiri Maximum Security Prison for a year and tortured. On his release, Mr. Abani entered Imo State University. Inspired by Wole Soyinka's use of theater as protest, Mr. Abani formed a theater group that wrote and performed anti-government sketches. In 1990, he wrote a play, Song of the Broken Flute, for the University's commencement exercises which the military head of state and military governor were scheduled to attend. The play, a series of monologues that decried government corruption and its effects on the people, landed him back in prison on treason charges. Released after 18 months, he graduated from Imo State University and joined the national service. Several attempts on his life while in boot camp prompted him to flee to England. He lived there quietly until publication of his prison memoir in 1997, when he began speaking out. As a result, the Nigerian government applied to have him extradited to stand trial for treason again. In December 1999, following the doorstep murder of his next-door neighbor, the only other Nigerian in the building, Mr. Abani left England for the United States. He now lives in California and is a doctoral student in literature at the University of Southern California."
The story gets hilarious and changes with each re-telling. No one bothers to check. To be fair to his fellow writers, this award caused quite an uproar on krazitivity an online listserv of writers. He was put to task and he offered some defense of sorts before promptly disappearing out of sight. In the defense he pointedly avoids mention of the alleged death sentence. There were many responses, restrained, polite but expressing robust incredulity. The artist and poet Olu Oguibe asked for independent verification pointing out accurately that as an activist and student union leader himself he did not remember these tales; he did remember the late Chima Ubani who suffered eerily similar travails in the hands of the Nigerian government. He has since expanded on his skepticism, with even more profound analysis on my Facebook page. The writer Nnorom Azuonye offered a compelling deconstruction of Abani's 2003 defense here.
It is one thing for Abani to tell a lie and then move on with his life. It is another thing for him to continue to perpetuate the same lie at the expense of Africa. It is obnoxious and offensive, and if he was white, it would be considered racist. Since the confrontation/intervention in 2003, Abani has gone on to conduct moving interviews and given speeches expanding in graphic detail his alleged experiences. As I said earlier, the details get more fantastic in the re-telling and details and dates change each time. It is comic really. Watching Abani in 2008 here on TED, you wonder if he has delusions of grandeur, the man really believes all this stuff. You have to read this piece and watch the video clip. There is this piece of brilliant fiction where Abani talks about ending up in solitary on Nigeria's "death row" and witnessing the execution of "John James,"a 14-year old prisoner. "John James didn't really understand death row and believed they'd get out. "They killed him. They handcuffed him to a chair, nailed his penis to a table, and let him bleed to death. That's how I ended up in solitary, because I made my feelings known." So many questions: How come no one has publicly called him on these lies? THAT is the real scandal. And the damage to Nigeria is needless. Such a brilliant writer, weaving unnecessary lies! Where is the outrage? Read this and marvel at Abani's abilities to weave utter fiction. And yes, I have made up my mind, Abani is lying through all his teeth; he definitely lives in pure fantasy-land. Google Abani and there are all these Westerners fawning over him, they did not even bother to check the facts – reverse racism feeds some of our African intellectuals' wallets. Read this interview and be royally teed. And here is another load of bullcrap. Abani ought to offer apologies for doing this to Nigeria and Africa.
These are questions I pose directly to Chris Abani: Were you really sentenced to death in Nigeria for your involvement in the Mamman Vatsa coup? Do you have copies of the extradition documents from the Nigerian government? Produce something, a newspaper clipping, anything and I will personally apologize to you for doubting you. It is amazing that up until now, no one has ever seen fit to call Abani on his lies and exaggerations. His appalling conduct threatens to distort permanently Nigeria's already tortured history. There have been private complaints about his narcissistic behavior, yet no one has seen fit to come forth and complain about this outrage. The simplest explanation is that Abani is a hugely talented and influential writer; people, especially his peers are reluctant to confront him publicly because they do not want to be seen as raining on a talented writer's parade. Words are powerful. In the hands of the gifted they can move armies to awesome destruction. It is not always a good thing. Words woven into lies can do major structural damage and trust becomes collateral damage. It is truly very simple; Abani should go to Nigeria, visit Kirikiri prisons like the writer and activist Ogaga Ifowodo recently did, show the world his cell and ask the authorities to give him copies of his incarceration documents. They are all there waiting for him. Failing that, he should shut up and keep writing. We will buy his books and love him regardless. Yes, will the real Christopher Abani stand up? In the name of Africa, I say stand up, speak the truth and sit down.

subset: commoncrawl


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Composite plate safety shoes offer lightweight, metal-free puncture resistance.
The CSA White rectangle with orange Greek letter omega - indicates soles that provide resistance to electric shock. Such certified footwear contains a sole and heel design assembly that, at the point of manufacturing, has electrical insulating properties to withstand 18,000 Volts and a leakage current not exceeding 1mA for 60 seconds.
Metal toe or steel toe safety shoes provide protection against impact and compression.
The CSA Green Triangle indicates sole puncture protection with a Grade 1 Protective toe to withstand impacts up to 125 joules. Sole puncture protection is designed to withstand a force of not less than 1200 Newtons.
Safety shoes with a composite toe are lighter weight and metal-free, while still providing all the protection of a steel toe.


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Your Finances: Credit card fraud alerts help foil potential criminal activity
Thieves don't take summers off, and neither should you.
This past Sunday, as I was out doing errands, I received a phone call from one of my credit cards companies.
They called because they were concerned about a recent transaction on my card. Out of an abundance of caution, I explained to the caller that I was going to hang up and call the number on the back of my card, so I could be certain I was talking with my credit card company.
By the time I was done with the call, they had confirmed there had been attempted fraud, so they canceled my card and were sending me a new one.
It seemed like this was an isolated incident; however, to be on the safe side, I went ahead and placed a fraud alert on my credit reports.
A fraud alert is a free service provided by all three major credit reporting agencies that alerts creditors to follow a certain procedures before opening new accounts in your name or making changes to your existing accounts. One toll-free call to any one of the following credit reporting agencies will establish a fraud alert with all three agencies.
By placing the fraud alert, you are entitled to a free copy of your credit report from each of the three credit reporting agencies.
It is a good idea to ask them to only print the last four digits of your Social Security number on the reports as an extra precaution.
When you receive your report, review it for inquires by companies you did not initiate and, of course, accounts you did not open. Also check balances on your current account for accuracy. Additionally, verify that your Social Security number, initials, address and employer information is correct.
The fraud alert will stay active for at least the next 90 days. When you have a "fraud alert" on your report, businesses must verify your identity before issuing new credit cards or lines of credit. Therefore, if the crooks are trying to open up new accounts in your name, it will make the process more difficult — and hopefully impossible.
Keep in mind that a fraud alert will not prevent further identity theft, but may deter it.
-- Laura Medigovich is a certified financial planner and vice president for M&T Bank's Hudson Valley region. The views expressed by the author are her own and are not endorsed by M&T Bank, M&T Securities or their affiliates.


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Illinois Budget 1.30.09
Here are the top Illinois stories coming today from GateHouse News Service. Stories are available at www.gatehousenewsservice.com. Please check www.gatehousenewsservice.com/regional_news/midwest/illinois/news in the evening for changes to story lineup, including breaking news.
If your paper has a story, digest item, opinion piece or standalone photo to share, please e-mail it to firstname.lastname@example.com.
Casey Laughman: (217) 816-3343, email@example.com
What'd he say? Word clouds of the governors
Friday's front page of the day: The Peoria Journal Star.
GateHouse newspapers go big on the Web for impeachment.
Global epidemic has a local impact for AIDS fighters
PEORIA – Mike Maginn, 54, and his father, Ray, 83, collect old refrigerators, washers, dryers, televisions and beds and deliver them to people pushed into poverty, some to the brink of homelessness, by HIV/AIDS. "It's getting harder and harder for us to do these pickups," Maginn said, laughing about the physical part of his job. The cerebral part of his work, as executive director of Central Illinois FRIENDS of PWA (which stands for People with AIDS), includes lobbying state and federal legislators, working on grant proposals, managing a $650,000 annual budget, designing new programs and services, fundraising, listening and caring. By Clare Howard of the Peoria Journal Star.
For Sunday:
STATEHOUSE INSIDER: By Doug Finke of the State Capitol bureau. Will be posted this evening for use Sunday.
QUINN'S CHALLENGES: The mood is jubilant. Fresh off of seeing Rod Blagojevich become Illinois' first governor impeached and removed from office, new Gov. Pat Quinn is getting a warm welcome at the Statehouse with the hope of brighter days to come. But Quinn faces serious challenges that could quickly sour that mood. By Ryan Keith of the State Capitol bureau. Will be posted this evening for use Sunday.
QUINN ANALYSIS: What can Illinoisans expect to change under Gov. Pat Quinn? Look for an austere budget, probably a tax increase. Quinn will meet frequently with constitutional officers and legislators, he'll re-open state parks. But how many reforms can the old reformer make? Quinn's always been the outsider gadfly; the folks running the Legislature are, just as always, machine pols. By Chuck Sweeny of the Rockford Register Star. Will be posted this evening for use Sunday.
State Briefs. News from around the state. Will be posted this evening.
EARLY PRIMARY: New Gov. Pat Quinn says he wants to push Illinois' primary election much further back in the year to shorten the campaign season and help officials better focus on the serious work facing them. By Adriana Colindres of the State Capitol bureau. Early version posted; will be updated.
QUINN TRANSITION: In his first full day in office, Gov. Pat Quinn signs an executive order putting the ethics commission he created under the governor's control and talks more about his transition, from opening the governor's mansion to a Lincoln birthday party to reviewing personnel and budget matters. By Eric Naing and Andrew Thomason of the State Capitol bureau. Will be posted this evening.
Courses promote talks on evolution and creationism
SPRINGFIELD – Two hundred years after the birth of Charles Darwin, author of "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," the debate continues about how we came to be. To help people sort out their feelings and ideas about our origins, Springfield College/Benedictine University and the University of Illinois at Springfield have been offering a course on evolution and creationism. By Chris Young of the State Journal-Register.
License suspension doesn't always stick
PEORIA – State law holds that drivers who refuse to take a Breathalyzer test after being stopped by police lose their license for a year, regardless of whether charges are filed in court or if they ultimately are acquitted. That's how it's stated in the Illinois secretary of state's "Rules of the Road" driving instruction book. That's not how it actually works, though, a fact that came to the public's attention this week after Tazewell County State's Attorney Stewart Umholtz declined to prosecute a Pekin police officer arrested in December on charges of driving under the influence. By Andy Kravetz of the Peoria Journal Star.
Wind farms take shape in Illinois fields
LINCOLN – Traveling along Interstate 155 not far from its junction with Interstate 55, wind turbines — nearly as tall as a football field is long — create a striking vertical presence on a decidedly horizontal landscape. By Chris Young of the State Journal-Register.
Caterpillar announces mass layoffs
PEORIA – Caterpillar Inc. said Friday it will lay off more than 2,000 full-time production employees from three Illinois facilities. More than 400 support and management personnel also will be let go, the company said. The layoffs will begin April 13, the company said. Under federal labor law, the company must give 60 days notice of a mass layoff. By Paul Gordon of the Peoria Journal Star.
Lego robot nets Lego trophy
BRIMFIELD – It's safe to say Ben Delaney has a rediscovered appreciation for tiny, plastic building blocks. The 12-year-old had long put away or sold his Lego sets from his younger years but last year found a new application - the robotics kind. Ben is one of nearly a dozen fifth- through eighth-graders at his school who last fall formed the "Brimbots," the school's first Lego League team, organized to design and build a robot to complete a series of tasks and compete against other schools' creations. Last month, the Brimbots took their combine-looking vehicle to a regional competition for the robot challenge, winning first prize and propelling them to the state competition in Arlington Heights about two weeks ago. By Dave Haney of the Peoria Journal Star.
Original Mötley Crüe back on tour
ROCKFORD – To Nikki Sixx, there's a simple reason why Mötley Crüe is still going strong after nearly three decades. "We just refuse to die," said the Crüe's bass player during a phone interview last week. "I think bands have cycles. We lived through (bad) cycles. I believe we're still doing good work. That's what Aerosmith did, that's what the Rolling Stones did." Mötley Crüe's 27-year odyssey as one of rock's most celebrated acts brings its debauchery, mayhem and catalog of hits to the Rockford MetroCentre on Sunday, Feb. 15. By Paul Anthony Arco of the Rockford Register Star.
BRITT: Toon on the economy.
Wood on Words: Before the big game, learn about 'super' and 'bowl'
Apparently the plan is to actually play the game after two weeks of just talking about Super Bowl XLIII. "Super," most useful as a prefix, also can be an abbreviation of "superintendent." Informally, it's also a modifier meaning "outstanding; exceptionally fine" or "great, extreme or excessive." Appropriately enough, it's super overused in these contexts.
Elizabeth Davies: The library has it all
I have a confession to make: There's an overdue library book under my bed. If you are my librarian, that confession shouldn't come as any surprise. In fact, I'm fairly certain the library is thinking of naming its next addition "The Elizabeth Davies Overdue Fine Center."
Dave Bakke: C'mon, Springfield, name something after Obama
Hempstead, N.Y., has done it. St. Louis has done it. Opa-Locka, Fla., did it. Naquera, Spain, is trying to do it. Tacoma, Wash., might do it. So might Cleveland. Do what? Name a street or school for Barack Obama. So what about Springfield?
Editorial: A well-deserved end to Blagojevich's tenure
No question about it, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich - the "former" already fits and feels right - is quite a persuasive guy. Indeed, in the unlikely event any Illinois senators were still on the fence regarding impeachment before Blagovich's plea-for-mercy speech on Thursday, they were plenty convinced afterwards that he had to go. An editorial from the Peoria Journal Star.
SUNDAY QUICK SHOTS: By Matt Trowbridge of the Rockford Register Star. Will be posted this evening for use Sunday.
INSIDE THE LINES: Peoria Journal Star Sports Editor Bill Liesse takes an irreverent look at the Super Bowl. Will be posted this evening.
Follow on Illinois-Minnesota. By John Supinie. Will be posted this evening.
For Sunday:
Preview of Sunday's Iowa-Illinois game. With preview capsule. Will be posted Saturday evening.
For Monday:
GAME COVERAGE: Iowa at Illinois, Sunday. Tipoff 1 p.m. By John Supinie.
BILL LIESSE: Column from Sunday's Iowa-Illinois game.


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TN can do more with organ donations
The story of Beverly Loyd, a Crossville, Tenn., woman who received a liver transplant earlier this year, has many things to tell us as Tennesseans as we head into the holiday that symbolizes generosity, hope and compassion.
Loyd, a former nurse who contracted hepatitis C during an emergency surgery more than 30 years ago nearly died last spring, not only because her own liver was failing, but because she was underinsured and because healthy organs available for transplant are in such tight supply.
That story appeared in this newspaper on Dec. 22 and raised several questions. We have heard much this year about the problems of being uninsured or underinsured. We should be talking more about organ donations — and why we don't participate.
As the story noted, only 35 percent of Tennesseans sign up to be organ donors when they apply for or renew their driver's license. This contributed to Loyd's predicament, as she became stuck between hospitals that compete for organs and the ability to perform transplants.
What seems to be a sensible and simple decision to save lives occurs far too seldom here. There may be a variety of reasons, but if you ask medical experts, you will find that there are many myths about organ donation that can get in the way of common sense.
As the Mayo Clinic notes, people wrongly assume:
? That if they are registered to donate and go into the hospital for urgent treatment, doctors will be less likely to work hard to save them.
? That organ donation is against their religion. Donation is consistent with tenets of Roman Catholicism, Islam, most branches of Judaism and most Protestant faiths.
? That you are too old or not healthy enough. In both cases, there are specific medical criteria that health professionals use to determine whether the organs are usable after your death — not before.
? That wealthy people can "buy" their way to the top of the transplant-recipient list. This is absolutely untrue.
Registering as an organ donor is one of the easiest ways that you can help a lot of people. Individual donors can help as many as 50 people who need organs, not to mention their loved ones who want them to stay around for a while.
This holiday, go to www.donatelifetn.org or call 877-552-5050, and keep the spirit of the season.


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[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/02/24/art.getty.john.roberts.jpg caption="Chief Justice John Roberts on Thursday offered an unusually brief summary of the problems facing the U.S. court system."]Washington (CNN) - A year ago, U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts said he was "tired" of urging lawmakers to live up to their pledge to raise judges' salaries. No increase has come, but in his latest annual year-end report released Thursday, the head of the federal judiciary found little to talk about, offering an unusually brief summary of the problems facing the courts.
"Many of those needs remain to be addressed," said Roberts. "This year, however, when the political branches are faced with so many difficult issues, and when so many of our fellow citizens have been touched by hardship, the public might welcome a year-end report limited to what is essential: The courts are operating soundly."
Roberts and his predecessor, William Rehnquist, regularly used their Supreme Court position to urge action on salaries, the increasing workload of the courts, and increased security in the nation's courtrooms. Recent year-end reports have contained more pointed criticism of congressional inaction on the salary dispute, but Roberts' brief comments this year were especially muted. As chief justice, he has administrative oversight over the entire federal court system. He is also the highest paid federal judge.
Last year the 54-year-old chief justice wrote, "I must renew the judiciary's modest petition: Simply provide cost-of-living increases that have been unfairly denied. We have done our part - it is long past time for Congress to do its."
Those so-called COLAs were approved in May, but not an overall salary increase. House and Senate committees have approved a 30-percent pay hike, but Congress as a whole has not acted on the proposal. The last time judges received a substantial pay increase was 1991, but they have received periodic increases designed to keep pace with inflation.
Some members of Congress are cool to the idea of increased pay for federal judges - among the highest paid federal employees. They also enjoy lifetime job security, and can retire at 65 with full salary after 15 years on the bench. Congressional salaries are roughly even with those of trial, or district court judges.
In a reflection of the sagging economy, Roberts noted bankruptcy filings this year were up 35 percent over 2008, to more than 1.4 million.
Immigration courts also saw a record-level number of cases, up 21 percent from last year. Roberts said the growth resulted mostly from improper entry by aliens and visa fraud. Almost 27,000 people faced serious federal immigration charges this year. Three-quarters of those defendants were charged with illegal re-entry after being previously kicked out of the U.S.
One issue the chief justice did not raise in his report was the slow pace of filling judicial vacancies by the Obama administration. The president has nominated only 30 people for the federal bench, winning confirmation of only 10 judges - three on the appeals courts, and seven district court judges. There are 99 current vacancies as of Thursday, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S Courts.
By comparison, President George W. Bush had 22 judges confirmed in his first year.
The slow pace can be traced to the Republican minority in the Senate, which has successfully blocked floor votes for a number of pending judicial nominations. Such vacancies in the long run can create backlogs in hearing cases, and strain financial and manpower resources.
Here are the annual salaries of federal judges with proposed increases from congressional committees:
–Chief Justice John Roberts: current $223,500, proposed increase to $279,900
–Other Supreme Court justices: current $213,900, proposed increase to $267,900
–Appeals or Circuit judges: current $184,500, proposed increase to $231,100
–District court judges: current $174,000, proposed increase to $218,000
"Cost of living increase"? Is that really necessary, when they are earning six-figure salaries?
I would be happy earning a third of what Justice Roberts makes.
Johnny boy knew what the pay was when he took the job, just another whiny incompetent Republican.
Justice Roberts is a smart man. He didn't say a word about the fact that the federal courts will soon be clogged with Circus trials in 2010 for the murdering terrorists who planned 9/11. I wonder what he really thinks about Obama spending hundreds of millions on the Circus trials when the judges could probably all get their pay increases for a fraction of the cost?
Judge Roberts even blew Obama's swearing in, so why expect any thing out of him.
They deserve an increase.
It is pretty ridiculous when you take into consideration the fact that the president after leaving office will still be paid the equivalent salary of a cabinet member for the rest of his life after only 4 years of service. These men are expected to be among the best of the best lawyers and should be paid more in line with that designation.
Well 30% is approximately 10 times the average pay increase for the average American. Many Americans have not had pay increases in several years, with some having to take pay CUTS to keep their jobs.
What an arrogant system we have in this country. I do believe that certain jobs call for highly educated talent and that those who have the talent and skills should be compensated appropriately, but 30%?
Ridiculous. Especially in light of the issues of law that are not being properly addressed, such as the constitutionality of allowing imigrants to come here and educate their children, receive medical care and social security off the hard working Americans tax dollar.
Sorry folks, I can't feel badly for people who make salaries in exess of 200k/year not getting an increase last year/this year. I didn't get one either.
Maybe we could all get together with Obama on the WH lawn and cry into our beers.
Last time, I heard, all jurists or lawyers volunteer to become to Judges and go through the vetting process!
I am not aware of any lawyer being forced(!) to become a State or lower court Federal judge, much less, a U.S. Supreme Court judge (and appointed for life, no less)!
If your salaries, and the honor of serving the United States of America, isn't high enough for you, then, I believe, that any and all judges should resign their current positions and go into corporate law, and make several times the money you make now.
So, bye-bye, to any and all of you, "Justices", and good riddance!
I am a career service government employee and we have not even got a partial cost of living increase in 3 years. Next year may be cuts. Mr chief judge, zip it – you loser. Naturally as a Repog he is concerned first with how much $$ he can make. His increase is more than I take home.
We do need more judges, but the same bunch blocking the other nominiations would never allow it.
Typical Republican. The country is hurting, and he wants more money for himself.
Justice Roberts states the need of pay increase. Too bad he can't live in the shoes of those who are unemployeed, lost their homes and feed their children. Enjoy what you have and pray for those who go without!
When the median income of Americans is under $50,000, Roberts is reflecting the same greed of Wall Street. He works hard, during his short work year, and has incurred much cost in financing his education. However, he cannot see the effects of his judgments on most Americans who live in peril daily because of the economic inequities in this country today. Let him live on the median income for a year and then see how it affects his judgments. Or, let him continue to favor the wealthy and strive to join them in their exploitation of the workers in their greed for excess wealth.
Some day the tax payers should be allowed to have a say on congressional and other government pay. After all, no other workers get to set their own wages and benefits.
He's still thinking how he botch the swearing in of President Obama.
Cost of living has nothing to do with a salary that's over $200,000. Just one more example of Republican hypocrisy and elitist entitlement.
What's he supposed to say? 6 Catholic judges, we're being ruled by a POPE, not a democracy.
Cost of living increases for government employees, the military and now judges want one. I thought the powers that be just told the senior citizens that there has been no inflation and therefore COLAs for them are not coming for social security. It seems that the government is never on the same page with common folk America.
It's a big boat....no raises for the citizens...and now....the elite..imagine!
He didn't have much to say that made sense during the year.
Cry me a river. We've got massive unemployment, escalating tax burdens, and 40 million uninsured Americans. But, it is unthinkful not to give raises to a group of 12 political appointees who "work" maybe 2 full months a year.
He is just saving his energy for the impending Obama impeachment.
A president who has such a gaggle of thugs and criminals around him will eventually find himself in Federal prison.
Roberts is a revolting symptom of a judicial system that's way too partisan. The need to take politics out of our courts has never been more strikingly evident than in the Roberts court.
Maybe Roberts is wise to not complain about judge's salaries when 15% to 20% of Americans are unemployed. Besides, judge's salaries are not so bad when compared to the earnings of middle income Americans.
This guy casnnot even do recite the President's oath of Office without scrrewing it up and he wants a pay raise?
Congressional Democrats have already spent the requested judicial Cost of Living Adjustments on their porkulous stimulous fiasco and pay increases for themselves!


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Many of the homes on the market today, possibly your dream home, are not listed on the Internet. As specialists in this area, we have access to all properties currently for sale and often others that are not officially listed, but still available for sale.
Fill out the form below and we will contact you.


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Artists on Artists Lecture Series
Joan Jonas on Bridget Riley
November 13, 2006, Dia Chelsea
Joan Jonas was born in 1936 in New York, where she currently lives and works. Jonas has had major retrospectives at the Queens Museum of Art, New York (2003); the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1994); and Stadtsgalerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany (2000); and was represented in Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany (2002). Her most recent one-person museum exhibition was held at the Jeu de Paume in Paris in 2005. She is currently working on a show for the spring of 2007 at MACBA, Barcelona. Her most rece


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Take Five with The Alternate Side: Metz
When Metz visited The Alternate Side late last year, the hard-thrashing trio was, without doubt, the loudest group to ever take over Studio A. That brutal drive, hardcore brio and sinewy muscularity which uplifts Metz's smartly-crafted songs — or more suitably, missiles — is splashed across the band's self-titled debut album, out now on Sub Pop. The three ferocious Canadians — guitarist/singer Alex Edkins, drummer Hayden Manzies and bassist Chris Slorach — might know how to make pummelling rock, but they're also savvy enough to understand that a real melodic structure elevates that seething wall of noise, displaying the artistry within the assault.
Metz kicks off a European tour this week, they'll begin a North American tour on April 8 in Montréal, and they'll storm their way to New York to play Bowery Ballroom on April 17. Hear the thunderous Metz session and listen to Eric Holland's conversation with the trio, today at 11 a.m. on 91.5 WNYE and also online. To read interview highlights and see more in-studio videos, head to The Alternate Side.


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Checking out the stuff we bought at the Korean market over the weekend. First off, the wild sweet rice.
This is what the grains looked like out of the package. I washed and steamed it.
The rice has a slightly sweet taste. Maybe that's why it's called sweet rice (duh!). In keeping with the theme, I opened a can of prepared soybeans with chestnuts (see similar post back in June 2011 here).
Ingredients include (besides the black soybeans and chestnuts) sugar, seaweed, salt, and MSG. I guess I was channeling Darth Vader or something. 😉
Turns out, the "sesame" leaves I bought were actually perilla leaves. No wonder they tasted similar.
The Cat ate them with her zhou (aka jook or congee). I used them as greens for a fried SPAM sandwich.
The leaves had a definite herby, minty taste. Very pleasant.
Even though the leaves turned out to be something else, I wouldn't mind buying these again. Both The Cat and The Mouse enjoyed the leaves.
Enjoy. Eat well.
The Mouse


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Could you help out a comp-sci student from Germany?
Dear database experts,
my name is Anna and I'm a comp-sci student from Germany, currently in the process of writing my Bachelor's Thesis on the use of mobile devices for monitoring and administrating RDBMS. I'm conducting a survey among database experts to get a better feel for what DBAs are already using today, what they'd like to use in the future and what devices and operating systems are most revalent among DBAs.
If you are currently a DBA, I would be absolutely thrilled if you could spare 5 minutes to complete the following survey!
The survey is of course completely anonymous!
Many thanks in advance and warm regards,


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Three recent posts have shared a common theme: systems failure.
In The Inevitable Collapse of Systems, failure comes about from adding increasing layers of complexity. To begin with, introducing more advanced capabilities can lead to dramatic improvements in a system. But those advanced capabilities then enable you to do more… and more… and more. And then you start stretching the system beyond its natural limits. Any financial organisation – be it a bank or a government – that spends more than it receives on the basis of predicted future earnings are increasing their risk of collapse. When the predictions are made on top of other predictions, the risk rises exponentially.
In Institutions will always resist change, failure comes from trying to prevent a system from changing.The media industry is the current most obvious example. Few people have the luxury of being paid a recurring license for their work. The carpenter is not entitled to a fee every time someone sits on the chair, let alone when they resell it on eBay. For a moment in time, it was possible to control distribution of popular music. An industry arose and profited well from those conditions. Now the conditions have changed.
In The best person in the job? people are beginning to question whether or not we need more diversity at the top of systems, where the decisions get made. The UK government is facing an election. Just before parliament was dissolved to begin the election process, a bunch of new legislations were rushed through and approved, without proper debate and many of the 300 MPs – the people doing the voting on behalf of 60 million people who will be affected by the legislation – saying they don't understand the content of what they are voting on. That is not a good sign.
Systems collapse when you either try to stretch them beyond their natural boundaries, or you try to create artificial boundaries to contain them and bend them to your will. History shows either strategy carries a high risk of catastrophic failure. History also shows it tends to be a small group of people making the decisions that affect so many others.
Enter social media.
…it's astonishing that the Twitter data is so basic but powerful compared to the teeming complexity of the HSX prediction market; there, bettors typically rely on lots of variables, such as Hollywood's voluminous exit polls and focus group results, and intuitions about past performance, which the market then aggregates.
That quote is from a recent article on www.fastcompany.com about how simply tracking the words thousands of people are using on Twitter can help predict the success of a film as accurately as a complicated algorithm developed a few experts.
…you don't need a hit to survive. There is a place in the middle, that is not very far away from the tail, where you can at least make a living. That mid-way haven is called 1,000 True Fans. It is an alternate destination for an artist to aim for.
That quote is from Kevin Kelly's 1'000 True Fans. Whilst it focuses on The Long Tail economic model that applies to most forms of media, it talks about the dirty little secret the Music Publishing Industry doesn't want to discuss. That artists can make a good enough living if they are good at what they are do, just like everyone else, without needing a recording deal. (Hat tip to Ian Blyth for tipping me off about this statistic whilst sharing a fine bottle of wine 🙂 )
Anyone can propose a particular bill or piece of legislation. If enough signatories are gathered, it is automatically put to an online vote, and if carried, parliament is compelled to discuss it. There is no obligation for MPs to vote for or against the motion, but they are compelled to discuss and vote on the subject, guaranteeing that an issue that is popular cannot be ignored.
That quote is from the January edition of Wired UK – Let's Reboot Britain – which discussed various suggestions for improving the country's prospects. The quote is from an article by Jamie Murray Wells who proposed four ideas for making government a little more democratic, as opposed to just being democratically elected.
All three quotes are from ideas involving social media.
The power of social media is that people are finding their voices, regardless of status. That diverse range of thought and opinion can be connected and tapped into in ways that were inconceivable barely a decade ago. Systems that learn how to leverage social media when making fundamental decisions will be far better protected from failure than those that don't.


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Is Obama shutting down a power plant near you?
Six years ago, President Obama threatened thousands of hard-working Americans livelihoods with two sentences. "So if somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them…"
And now, the President is trying to make good on his promise. The EPA's new climate regulations would close down enough electrical generation capacity to reliably power 44.7 million homes. That's enough power for twenty-one states west of the Mississippi.
More than 72 gigawatts (GW) of electrical generating capacity have already, or are now set to retire because of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) regulations. The regulations causing these closures include the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (colloquially called MATS, or Utility MACT)[1], proposed Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR)[2], and the proposed regulation of carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants.
To put 72 GW in perspective, that is enough electrical generation capacity to reliably power 44.7 million homes[3]—or every home in every state west of the Mississippi River, excluding Texas.[4] In other words, EPA is shutting down enough generating capacity to power every home in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana.
Over 94 percent these retirements will come from generating units at coal-fired power plants, shuttering over one-fifth of the U.S.'s coal-fired generating capacity.[5] While some of the effected units will be converted to use new fuels, American families and businesses will pay the price with higher utility bills and less reliability for their electricity.
This report is an update of a report we first issued in October 2011.[6] In the original report, we calculated that 28.3 GW of generating capacity would close as a result of EPA's regulations. At the time, we warned, "…This number will grow as plant operators continue to release their EPA compliance plans." Unfortunately, this statement has proven to be true and will continue to grow in the future as new EPA regulations continue to be released. This latest update shows that 72.7 GW of electrical generating capacity will now close—a 44.4 GW increase.
To calculate the impact of EPA's rules, we first assumed that EPA's modeling of the regulations correctly predicted which power plants would close as a result of the regulations. Then, we looked at statements, filings, and announcements from electrical generators where they stated they would be closing power plants and in which they cited EPA's regulations as the precipitating cause of the plant closures. We then compared EPA's modeling outputs with the announcements and created a master list of plant closures as the result of EPA regulations (the master list is below).
Combining actual announcements with EPA's modeling shows that EPA's modeling grossly underestimates the actual number of closures. Originally, EPA calculated that only 9.5 GW of electrical generating capacity would close as a result of its MACT and CSAPR rules. Before President Obama's newly proposed regulations on existing power plants even begin take effect, however, it is clear that actual number will now be much higher. We predict that over 72 GW of power generating capacity will likely close—over seven times the amount originally predicted by EPA modeling. Worse, as utilities continue to assess how to comply with EPA's finalized rules, there will again likely be further plant closure announcements in the future. In our original 2011 report there were 30 states with projected power plant closures. Today, that number has risen to 37.
NERC is Concerned about Reliability even though It Underestimates the Amount of Closures
It should be further noted that the North American Reliability Corporation's (NERC) original modeling of the MACT rule and original CSAPR rules estimated that under the worst case, or "strict" scenarios, 16.3 GW of electricity capacity would be closed due to the regulations, and the Department of Energy's (DOE) "stringent" test showed that only 21 GW of generating capacity would be closed. [7] More recently, however, NERC has admitted that, "Since January 2011, the introduction and implementation of several environmental regulations combined with increased natural gas availability has contributed to the closure of nearly 43 GW of baseload capacity."[8] NERC has shown concern that the closures will cause electricity reliability problems.
According to their 2013 Summer Reliability Assessment, some areas of the country have not been able to build enough generation capacity to meet recent load growth. A major reason for this is uncertainty surrounding environmental regulations.[9] Because of these deficiencies, some areas will see their generation reserve margins fall below target levels that can jeopardize power reliability. According to NERC, "Insufficient reserves during peak hours could lead to increased risk of entering emergency operating conditions, including the possibility of curtailment…and even rotating outages of firm load."[10]
How much greater will the reliability problems be, given that retirements appear to be higher than initial NERC estimates, and additional burdensome regulations are continually being added?
Announced and EPA Projected Retirements Are Significantly Higher than DOE's Worst Case Scenarios
As noted in our previous update, public statements and the Utility MACT itself showed that EPA relies heavily on a DOE study claiming that even under a theoretical "stringent" test, EPA Utility MACT and CSAPR regulations would only close 21 GW of generation. EPA then claimed this study proves regulations will not threaten reliability. Our analysis, however, shows that with the addition of President Obama's newest proposed rules, EPA projections and operator announcements will total more than 72 GW of generation retirements—over 50 GW more than DOE's supposedly ultra-strict test scenario.
In fact, the initial reliability assessment released by the EPA with their new CO2 restrictions on existing power plants even points out that regions in the Southeast and Northeast may experience effects from the regulation that "…raise concerns over reliability."[11]
EPA Regulations are Already Causing Electricity Prices to Dramatically Rise
Unfortunately, recent EPA regulations are already greatly reducing U.S. coal power capacity and raising electricity prices for homes and businesses across the country. According to Dr. Julio Friedman, Assistant Secretary for Clean Coal at the U.S. Department of Energy, wholesale electricity prices could end up rising as much as 80 percent from the effects of these rules.[12]
This past winter demonstrated in real time the value of the existing coal fleet. During the winter of 2014, coal was the only fuel with the ability to meet demand increases for electricity, providing 92 percent of incremental electricity in January/February, 2014 versus the same months in 2013. Americans were harmed as the relentless cold indicated that prudent utility practices require large, baseload coal plants to stabilize the grid, keep society functioning, and maintain electricity availability. Many regions suffered; for example, in late January and early February 2014 some locations in the Midwest experienced gas prices as high as $35/MMBtu, and the Chicago Citygate price exceeded $40/MMBtu. Those figures are nearly 10 times higher than EIA's estimated average price of $4.46/MMBtu for natural gas in 2014.
The result of these and ongoing EPA rules, if put into force, will be no new coal-fired plants in the United States and massive closures of existing coal plants. Since coal is our single largest source of electricity generation, replacing these units will require the construction of higher-cost renewable generating technologies and/or natural gas units that will need massive infrastructure improvements to meet the higher demand. And, consumers will need to pay for these changes. Those added costs will make utility bills unaffordable for many families and force industry to curb production, relocate, or shut down altogether slowing any further recovery in an already lagging economy.
This list is derived from three sources: (1) EPA's parsed modeling files, which identify the power-plant units that EPA models say will close as a result of either the Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) or Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS Rule); (2) news releases or press stories where a power-plant operator says a unit will or is likely to close due to EPA regulations; and (3) filings with state public utility commissions where a power-plant operator says a unit will or is likely to close due to EPA regulations. This list does not include the EPA's parsed modeling files for the 111(d) rule. All sources are publically available information. Note that many of the plants originally projected to close by EPA modeling have already been retired.
Process to Identify Units Closed by EPA Regulation
Individual power plants often have multiple boilers, called "units," that generate electricity. EPA, in addition to overall modeling, models the impact that the Agency believes its regulations will have on each unit, at each power plant in America. EPA lists these results in "parsed files." When producing parsed files for a regulation, EPA will first create a business-as-usual "base" case parsed file where the Agency details what it believes will happen absent EPA's new regulation. Next, EPA creates a "policy" or "remedy" case parsed file showing how EPA believes plants will respond to a regulation. Thus, one can find the difference between these two cases, and figure out the impact EPA believes a regulation will have, by comparing the policy/remedy case parsed file to the base case parsed file. As such, the following steps were CSAPR and MATS Rule:
- For CSAPR, data from the parsed files for the CSAPR's base case and remedy case were put on a single spreadsheet. The combined results were organized by plant name. Each plant listed in both the base case and remedy case was removed. Thus, the resulting list only shows those plants that EPA believes will close because of the
CSAPR. Plants projected to close under CSAPR rules were retained in this update despite the uncertain legal status of the rule. Regardless of the legal status, many of the plants that were originally projected by EPA modeling to be impacted have already been retired or converted. In these instances, some of the citations will reflect the public statements or announcements made stating these impacts rather than the original EPA modeling.
- For the MATS Rule, data from the parsed files for the MATS Rule's base case and policy case were put on a single spreadsheet. The combined results were organized by plant name. Each plant listed in both the base case and policy case was removed.
Thus, the resulting list only shows those plants that EPA believes will close because of the MATS Rule.
- The resulting base case-free CSAPR list and MATS Rule list were then put on a single spreadsheet. The combined results were organized by plant name. In each instance where the CSAPR and the MATS Rule independently said the same plant would retire, one of the entries was deleted so as to not double-count it. The citation was modified to attribute the unit closure to both the CSAPR and MATS Rule.
Ensuring that Retirements are Result of EPA Regulation
All retirements announced by plant owners in news releases or through public filings on this list were due to EPA regulation. In each such case, the source cited directly identifies EPA regulations as the sole or main reason for the power plant's retirement.
Avoiding Double-Counting
If a unit was identified to close by both EPA parsed files and public announcements, then the duplicate entry was released. The unit's citation was modified to indicate that both EPA and public announcements slated the unit for retirement.
Why is this list's total retired capacity higher than EPA's total?
The total retired capacity for this list is higher than EPA's total because this list includes EPA's projected unit retirements and unit retirements announced by power-plant operators. No unit cited by both sources was double counted.
Does this list include plants that will close even without the CSAPR or MATS Rule?
No. The parsed file results used in this list do not include business-as-usual base case results. In other words, if EPA modeled a unit to close even if the CSAPR or MATS Rule were not implemented, then that unit was not included.
EPA said only 4.7 GW will close, so why are these numbers higher?
The 4.7 GW retired coal-plant capacity figure is from the EPA Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) for the MATS Rule alone. The CSAPR RIA projects an additional 4.8 GW of coal-plant capacity to retire due to the CSAPR. When combined, the RIA's project 9.5 GW of coal-plant capacity to retire due to the MATS Rule and CSAPR. As noted above, additional plant retirements are due to actually announced retirements.
When a power-plant operator announces that it is closing a certain unit, how do you know that is because of EPA regulations?
In each case where a retirement is attributed to public announcements, the cited source material lists EPA regulations as the sole or main reason for the plant's retirement.
Some groups have said EPA regulations will retire up to 103 GW of coal-fired generation, but this list only shows 72 GW. Does this mean those projections are wrong?[13]
No. If anything this list gives more credibility to those higher retirement projections. This list is very conservative; it merely shows what units EPA says its regulations will close, plus specific units that plant-operators have said will close because of EPA regulations. Those analyses that show higher power-plant retirements than this list lay out what the final overall impact of EPA's regulation will be. On the other hand, this list focuses just on the currently disclosed impact. Thus, this list will likely grow far higher, especially as states realize what will be needed to comply with recently announced 111(d) regulations. However, because this list already finds many more retirements than EPA projected, the Agency's claim that its regulations will have minimal impact on electric generation are clearly incorrect.
EPA has said that other projections showing a high coal generation retirements were based on incorrect assumptions. Is that the case for this list?
No. The only modeling in this list is from EPA. Thus, any mistaken assumption would be EPA's mistaken assumption. Otherwise, the remaining data is from actual public announcements detailing the imminent or highly possible closure of specific units at specific power plants. Since our initial release in 2011 it is evident that any claims of incorrect assumptions regarding coal plants were unfounded.
Does this list account for other EPA regulations that may impact power plants?
This list only includes the parsed files for EPA's CSAPR and MATS Rule modeling. No other specific EPA models were consulted to compile this list. While some of the public statements from power plant operators cite specific EPA regulations like CSAPR, MATS and 111(d), many times the statements are more general and broadly cite EPA as the catalyst for retirement. Regardless, all of the publically announced plant retirements listed are due to EPA regulations.
[1] Environmental Protection Agency, Regulatory Impact Analysis of the Proposed Toxics Rule, Mar. 2011, http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/utility/ria_toxics_rule.pdf.
[2] Environmental Protection Agency, Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) for the final Transport Rule, http://www.epa.gov/airtransport/pdfs/FinalRIA.pdf. *** Note: At the time of this release, CSAPR is in legal limbo. In 2011, The D.C. Circuit issued a stay on CSAPR, but the D.C. Circuit's opinion was vacated by the Supreme Court in 2014. EPA has filed a motion to have the stay on CSAPR lifted, but the D.C. Circuit has not yet ruled on the motion according to EPA's website: http://www.epa.gov/airtransport/CSAPR/bulletins.html
[3] Assuming the 72 GW is made up solely of coal retirements with an 80 percent capacity factor
[4] http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/53000.html.
[5] Energy Information Agency, "Existing Net Summer Capacity by Energy Source and Producer Type, 2002 through 2012 (Megawatts)", http://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_04_02_a.html
[6] Institute for Energy Research, IER Identifies Coal Fired Power Plants Likely to Close as Result of EPA Regulations, Oct. 7, 2011,http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/2011/10/07/ier-identifies-coal-fired-power-plants-likely-to-close-as-result-of-epa-regulations/.
[7] see North American Electric Reliability Corp, 2011 Long-Term Reliability Assessment, Nov. 2011, http://www.nerc.com/files/2011LTRA_Final.pdf.
[8] North American Reliability Corporation, "2014 Summer Reliability Assessment", May 2014,http://www.nerc.com/pa/RAPA/ra/Reliability%20Assessments%20DL/2014SRA.pdf.
[9] North American Reliability Corporation, "2013 Summer Reliability Assessment", May 2013, http://www.nerc.com/pa/RAPA/ra/Reliability%20Assessments%20DL/2013SRA_Final.pdf.
[10] ibid.
[11] Environmental Protection Agency, "Technical Support Document: Resource Adequacy and Reliability Analysis,"http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-06/documents/20140602tsd-resource-adequacy-reliability.pdf. Pg. 6.
[12] Aaron Larson, "CCS Could Increase Coal-Fired Electric Generation Costs By 70%–80%," Power Magazine, February 13, 2014.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of the Big Bend power plant emits plumes of smoke and steam. TECO Energy-owned Tampa Electric still generates 55 percent of its electricity using coal. Source: SKIP O'ROURKE | Times (2002).


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Mt. Tom, one of the state's remaining coal-fired power plants, will close for good by October.
The plant's owner, GDF Suez Energy North America, notified the facility's 28 employees Monday, spokeswoman Carol Churchill said. The 146-megawatt plant in Holyoke has stopped making electricity, but workers probably will remain employed until Oct. 1.
"It's a difficult market for an old plant and a coal plant like Mt. Tom to compete in," Churchill said. "It has been operating pretty sporadically."
Coal plants are increasingly being squeezed out as cheaper fuels, particularly natural gas, are used to generate electricity.
News of Mt. Tom's closing came one day after the coal-burning Salem Harbor Power Station was shuttered, as scheduled. The Salem plant's owners plan to reopen it as a natural gas-burning facility in 2016. Brayton Point in Somerset, which also uses coal, is expected to close in 2017.
Representatives of ISO New England, the region's grid operator, said the agency has not received a formal retirement request for Mt. Tom, but does not expect an immediate impact from its loss.
Churchill said that GDF Suez is considering what to do with the property.
"We are evaluating uses, including a solar site," she said.
Erin Ailworth can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow her on Twitter @ailworth.


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Pembroke, ON — When compared with the rest of Canada the Ontario government's $4.8 billion underfunding for hospitals like Pembroke Regional Hospital, means skeleton hospital staffing and much less care for Pembroke patients, a report released today has found. The report (Fewer Hands, Less Hospital Care) compares funding, staffing, nursing, and readmissions in Ontario and other provinces.
Based on the latest figures from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), Ontario government funding for hospitals is $1,395.73 per capita. The rest of Canada, excluding Ontario, spends $1,749.69 per capita. In other words, provincial and territorial governments outside of Ontario spend $353.96 more per person on hospitals than Ontario does. That is a whopping 25.3 per cent more than Ontario.
Overall there would be an additional 45,500 hospital employees, 15,200 of them nurses, in Ontario if funding was on par with the average for the rest of Canada.
The Fewer Hands, Less Hospital Care report found that for Pembroke, Ontario's level of funding results in 16 fewer nurses and 47 fewer people providing care in the hospital. Notably, Pembroke has higher than average readmissions.
"The $4.8 billion shortfall in hospital funding in Ontario is counted in 6 hours less nursing care per patient in our hospital. Our hospitals have significantly higher readmission rates than the rest of the country because of our radically shortened lengths of stays," says Michael Hurley, president of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU/CUPE).
CIHI data shows that per capita expenditures on hospitals has declined for the last three years with real hospital funding cut by 10 per cent. Ontario has fallen a long way behind other provinces since the Liberals were elected in 2003 — and especially since the beginning of Liberal austerity in 2010.
This gap, has significant consequences for local communities and patients, says Hurley with "thousands of patients turned away from hospital or sent home while still acutely ill and thousands more dying from hospital-acquired infections due in part to overcrowding. All the while shifting system costs to individuals, forcing them and their families to travel hundreds of kilometres for treatment. We call on the provincial government to fund our hospitals at the average of the rest of Canada."
Average Ontario hospital funding for the population the size of Pembroke in 2005/6 would have been about $0.69 million less than average funding for the same population outside of Ontario. But by 2015/16 the funding shortfall for a population the size of the City of Pembroke would have exploded to $5.1 million.
For more information please contact:
Michael Hurley, President, Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU/CUPE): 416-884-0770
Stella Yeadon, CUPE Communications: 416-559-9300


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Mâle, Émile
Mâle, Émile āmēl´ mäl [key], 1862–1954, French art historian. Mâle pioneered the study of French art of the Middle Ages, its forms, and especially the Eastern sources of sculptural iconography of the cathedrals of France. He was a director of the Académie de France à Rome and a member of the Académie Française. Among Mâle's major works are L'Art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France (1913, tr. The Gothic Image, 1958) and L'Art religieux du XIIe au XVIIIe siècle (1945, tr. 1949).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: European Art, 1600 to the Present: Biographies


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Perfect Elitist Enslavement with a belief of Freedom.
A branch of the Elitist Character is being able to form/ mold/ shape your 'personality' with traits of Your Choice – lol – which is the choice that money is able to spare when you have your life essentially 'solved' to not be begging for money on the streets or working and actually 'earning your money.' I'm going to be writing about what came to be a mix of an elitist-intellectual-revolutionary/antagonist/libertine character that was mostly sought to be 'lived' within my life through and as this kind of fascination to become 'acculturated' in the drug scene. Yes, in common sense, a person that is barely able to make money to live cannot possibly suddenly be trying to be fascinated by the effects that chemicals create inside your body, trying to reach some form of bliss/ enlightenment with particular substances, read books and information about it, watch movies on the topic or just hold on a continuous habit of indulging in them, which obviously requires one to have More money than the required to Live in order to pay for pills/ drugs to make You Happy. This is depicted quite well in a book by Brett Easton Ellis Less than Zero.
I went to the supermarket yesterday and noticed three guys being quite excited about getting a bottle of Jack Daniels while overhearing one of them saying 'this place should be run by someone like my dad,' complaining about the 'slowness' of the service to get the bottle, which was barely a 3 minute wait. I could imagine/project or almost predict their entire evening with a bottle of Jack Daniels, most likely ending up puking it out on the toilet, feeling like shit the next day and going with a massive hangover to their top-elitist university nearby. Yes, this is a ubiquitous pattern nowadays, a 'lifestyle,' and no it is not criticizing or judging it, this is what we have become: once you have money to cover your basic needs, You SEEK for something more than surviving – because that is already covered.
So this is an aspect of the elitist character, because there are many other conditions that lead to drug consumption, which is also the opposite polarity of poverty, which you can read her "Huffing makes me Forget My Tummy Aches" based on the street kids that sniff cement or glue in order to mitigate hunger – as well as the toxic paint Romanian kids would sniff in that documentary that I also recommend watching if you haven' Children Underground. That's another point to walk in itself, but what I'll share is from the perspective/ side I got to live in and be most 'acquainted' with – so to speak.
Drug Culture
I made up a conclusion of why Black Metal/ Death Metal brewed mostly in Scandinavian countries – later on in a then flourishing/stable America – that have the best and most stable economy and general well-being, in which I created a hypothesis that because everything was just 'too fine' and 'happy' in their world, they had to create some form of opposition to balance out the dread of having everything being seemingly fine inside, but the hell inside was not sorted out, as well as becoming aware of the obvious disparity it is to live in a 'First world' like that and having wars, poverty, starvation, abuse in any other place in the world; yes, it is enough to already label us all Mad people to not see the obvious polarized 'nature' we've accepted and allowed ourselves to be and become. This is a similar point in our capitalist societies wherein we are absolutely living in a virtual world wherein things like Depression and Social Phobia have become a lifestyle – and I realize it's not only a past-century thing, it's always existed in humanity and the 'crazy' people were mostly out skirted in order to not cause any problems to the so-called healthy rest of the population – you can read that in 'Stultifera Navis' the First Chapter in Michel Foucault's Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. (1988) wherein madness was certainly something that should be kept 'away' – nowadays, we've embraced it and called it a lifestyle fueled with designer drugs. Wow, really, wow. And why? Because Drugs = Addictions = Constant and Certain Profit Making = Lots of Money.
All of this is mixed into a cultural set of identification to a form of escapism due to how Alienated we've become from any form of actual understanding of how everything that enables life to be Lived is produced, what it is to work on our own sustenance. Instead we have focused on and then focusing on things that will give you a mental high in the comfort of your 4 walls room, which is how the majority of people are living as in this world.
I remember when going to the family doctor when I was a child, he would always have all these pens, notepads, rulers, sticks for your tongue and virtually everything plastic made around the area had names of medicines on them. I am sure you are quite aware of this and I questioned it at the time and my mother explained how the companies would give the doctors money/ commissions if they would sell a particular brand of medicine. I took it as normal since it was quite obvious that we were being sold many things all over the place, so it seemed when simply becoming aware of all the billboards on the streets and the suggestive ways in which to BUY our happiness, our health, our improvement, our sanity.
This morning I began hearing more than watching The Marketing of Madness and I say I begun because I've barely gotten to the 3rd part out of 18, but as I was hearing, all this entire network of information was suddenly here for me to realize that I must now write about this. Why? I have had a strange fascination for drugs and madness and this goes as far as when I was a little girl and they would joke-threat me to take me to the Batán, which is/was the most well known mental hospital in a smaller city nearby where I lived. Why? I just liked playing crazy, it became a form of entertainment that's for sure, it was something staged in order to attract people's attention, well to freak out my parents and sisters mostly. To me insane people were quite 'free' according to my schemes, which is what mostly fascinated me – why? Hell, All I know is that from the moment I got cable TV – as I've mentioned several times in the past, it was the 'opening of myself to the world' at the key-point age of 7 years old, I was more aware of the eccentricity of musicians and I would definitely always hear around the house how 'artists take drugs / get high to look so careless/ free/ expressive' which is what to everyone's eyes would Justify their behavior as 'careless' = free. Before that, just playing 'crazy' was something that could give me a thrill for doing something 'out of the ordinary' which I'll open up in posts to come.
This is quite an extensive topic that I've been writing about here and there throughout this process, but it's been not that long ago when I was busy with some other character that this entire insanity-point came up again, along with realizing the fascination I had with certain 'alternative cultures' based on what I grew up reading, watching on TV, learning from 'artist's biographies' of how most of them had some form of insanity, drug addiction or plain disturbance, which is how I almost lead myself to touch upon those fields within a self-aware act of investigating madness and drugs, then defining all of this to be of my preference/likeness = self brainwashing. Why would that be? again, for the reason that I had the time, had the money to not be living only on survival mode and explore my own 'personal fascinations' for a while, enough time to now be able to write about everything that I saw, witness, tried out and have realized now when it comes to see how everything that I had thought to be quite a 'rebellious act' of the type of stuff that I was into/ that I liked, came to be just another polarity in the system that required my courageous fascination with things that I deemed as 'forbidden' in order to entertain myself further, leading me then into spirituality/ seeking god and wanting to mix both. I mean I was quite into researching DMT and Entheogens and all these 'awakening' procedures as well as the effects LSD had to 'see beyond the veil' and whatnot. My experimentation was not to get Lost or evade my reality, but to find some form of 'divinity,' lol this is the ultimate mindfuck that anyone can fall for in this world wherein you can buy anything you want, give it a meaning and call that a talisman for protection – same with drugs: take it, feel good, realize that you re not 'mad' or 'crazy' but just an 'Awakened' person, yep and there you go: specialness + drugs + money + boredom = perfect slaves on drugs – or as Thom Yorke would write 'a pig in a cage on antibiotics.'
Now, the personal endeavor to write about this is because I immediately noticed there were still reactions when hearing all these drug names, all the movies, books, relationships came to mind and I realized that I had not opened this point up mostly as a point of reservedness and morality according to how it would be seen as 'insane' to have some fascination for madness and drugs – both together were like a perfect cocktail for self-debauchery, that is quite ubiquitous in our current culture/ media, which is where I got it all from in the first place. Idolizing junkies is precisely not what I would want to continue perpetuating as a fluffy reaction within me – yes, there are feelings attached to this entire topic – why? That's what I will find out as I continue writing here – a sense of freedom in a constrictive world? A sense of 'limitless expression'? As a result of writing out this, I experimented for sure that there are threads to be walked in order to stop keeping this fascination as part of my little-secrets to keep this bit of a world that I still wanted to be defined by, somehow, because of the entire participation in emotions and feeling when touching upon all things madness, drugs, eccentric behavior and the 'inextricable human mind,' which is part of my ability to now be quite thankful to Understand my Mind and be aware of how one can virtually pick any point of fascination according to what one is exposed to, and use it only as a constant point to re-fuel an energetic relationship toward it. This entire aspect is one of those parts of a personality that I became quite infatuated with while developing my emotional/ feeling body, so this is relevant, absolutely relevant to walk.
So, I'll continue with going sharing part of the personal story and writing out Self Forgiveness, Self Corrective Statements and Realizations about such 'fascinations' as mere treats for the mind, which certainly must be stopped so that I expose the entire thing for what it is: just another way to entertain ourselves and pay for it while becoming 'hooked on drugs' which is virtually getting 'hooked on Energy' wherein the Mind is the only one that benefits.
The Marketing of Madness
Big Bucks, Big Pharma: Marketing Disease & Pushing Drugs
Bellevue Inside Out – YouTube
2012 Cure for Cancer & Prozac Nation: a Profit-driven Reality
2011 Why is Society based on Alcohol?
2010 Media Creates Bi-Polar People – YouTube
- SELF-enJOY-MEnt: DAY 220
Day 220: The Greatest Cult in History
*Watch Curiosity Season 2 Episode 4 'Brainwashed' (or read this blog) to See the Devastating effects of Brainwashing
Blogs on Drugs and Madness:
Addictions in the Equal Money System « Equal Money for ALL as LIFE
Weep-on US with Drugs and Golden Bullets
"Huffing makes me Forget My Tummy Aches"
Dysfunctional Minds «
63. The Perfect Drug
109. We Hate Love! We Love Hate! –
125. An Alternative Pop Culture Child: raised by MTV
110.The Mad judging the Crazy «
2012 Desensitizing: A Culture of Indifference «
Day 42: Toxic Fun–Drugs as Enslavement «
166.Absinthe-Minded Comfort Zone «
War On Drugs « Equal Money for ALL as LIFE
It's Fried-day Night, Mr. Self Destruct


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Cala Sabbia - Antonella Morgillo. 100% pp small brimmed hat, woven and stitched, with application of natural stones, completely packaged and embroidered by hand. Materials, accessories and processes made in Italy.
Available, ships in 2/3 days
By clicking on "Visit the Designer store" you will be redirected to the Brand's site. Ob-Fashion does not receive any compensation from the sale of the product, which is done directly by the Brand and according to its sales policies.
Antonella Morgillo, born in Caserta in the 80ies, is founder and designer of the self-name inspired brand. The Barbonic origins and the artisan history of her landscape have developed in her a strong love and passion for handmade decorations. After completing her studies at Instituto d'arte di San Leucio, she moved to Milan to get her master at NABA. She then started working in the studios of Italian brand Romeo Gigli, specializing, meanwhile, in the artisanal sector of accessories that brought her to collaborate with Ermenegildo Zegna, Fratelli Rossetti, Mila Shon brands and many others in Milan. Filled with experience, knowledge and practical skills Antonella finally creates her brand. Originality, detail and creativity give birth to never meaningless creations. Antonella is constantly searching for something new but with a strong and sincere connection to traditions and the glorious past of her land. Past and present, hand in hand, is the meaning center of her work: the world is changing and goes through the new but always according and shaking a hand to the past. Better if it was glorious. Antonella Morgillo head creations are made for modern women, expression of freedom and strong personality, enriched by accessories. All the materials used tell of a story that inspire a brand new concept of fashion accordingly to the excellence of Italian manifacturing. Hats portfolio is part of a dream: frame beauty and memories, accessories and women creativity turn into a binomial path. Hats become part of a "no time space" but with a defined and bold identity: it is the deal in between historical craftsmanship and women freedom.


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Here is a report on my first Match Clustering effort.
Background info:
- I used a download of my AncestryDNA Matches above 20cM (I only had a few real 3rd cousins (3C) and below, and I just left them in.
- I have made extensive use of the Notes for as many Matches as I can – all of my almost 1,000 Hints; and maybe 1/4, so far, of all my 4C and closer. NB: AncestryDNA uses 20cM as the threshold for 4C designations, but many Matches in this group are 5C and 6C and I've found some who are 7C and 8C, with larger than average shared segments over 20cM.
- For every Match I can, I put the Shorthand CA ID and/or Shorthand TG ID in the Note box for that Match. See the Explanation of Header row below for links that explain these IDs.
- For each Match, I also put a line in each Note which includes a summary of the CA and TG IDs found in all the Match's Shared Matches (SM). So even a Match with a Private Tree, or No Tree, or scrawny Tree, or can't-find-anything-in-it large Tree, will get a line summarizing their SMs. This summary often provides a very specific "pointer" to a CA and/or TG. And this added info is very helpful in analyzing Clusters.
When I ran the Cluster Matrix, I developed this summary report:
Next is a spreadsheet with the 86 Clusters, re-sorted on the CA.
Explanation of Header row:
Cluster – the Cluster # in the Cluster Spreadsheet presented to me.
First & Last – the Match # range included in this Cluster (Matches go from 1 to 3571)
SMs – the number of Shared Matches in each Cluster – a wide range…
CA – the CA ID (an Ahnentafel # – see this blogpost). When various Matches had CAs from different generations, but all on the same line, I used the most distant CA – Walking the Ancestor Back. A few Clusters had multiple CA lines, but I used CAs that Walked Back or were repeated several times.
Gen – as a convenience, I noted the generations back to the CA
TGs – the TG ID (see this blogpost). I all cases (I think) the last two numbers in each TG ID (being the TG grandparent) are in agreement with the CA ID. A number of Clusters have multiple TGs.
NB: The CAs and TGs come from my typed Notes for some Matches (I just haven't gotten to all 3,571 of them, yet). The Notes are based on valid data – from the Match or GEDmatch (i.e. not guesses by me), but I'm fully aware that some of it is not conclusive; and another, closer and/or different, CA may be found. The TGs should not change, but often a Match will have multiple TGs, and only one would apply to the specific Cluster or CA.
Figure 1. Summary of 86 Clusters
A few notes on this data:
- I am sure that, eventually, the Clusters at the top of this table will be found to link to more distant Ancestors – I just haven't found them yet.
- I am sure that, eventually, the two Clusters in Gens 10 and 11 will wind up with different, closer CAs – I just haven't found them yet (there are relatively few Matches in each of these Clusters)
- For the bottom 9 Clusters, I do have TGs, so I can use Matches from other companies (already included in these TGs in my Master Spreadsheet), to find likely (or at least possible) CAs. It's just that no CAs have been determined yet at AncestryDNA for the Matches in these Clusters.
- In Gen 9, CA 856 is my prolific and well documented HIGGINBOTHAM Ancestor; and I've Walked this Ancestor Back in at least two TGs. There are several lines from this Ancestor who intermarried.
- In Gen 8, Cluster 61, over 100 Matches – this was a brick wall at Gen 5, until I found several dozen Matches in Gen 6-8 with CUMMINS/CUMMINGS Ancestry, which I have subsequently researched into one Tree – also a prolific line. And a new branch of my Tree!
- I'm sure there will be unfolding stories about other of these Clusters – I'm excited to see the way this is trending.
[22AC] Segment-ology: Match Cluster Report 1 – by Jim Bartlett 20190214


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Editor's note: Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist and CNN political contributor, was a political consultant for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992 and was counselor to Clinton in the White House. For a rival view, read here
Paul Begala says Coleman's challenge to results of the recount could deprive his state of a senator for months.
(CNN) -- You know you're low when you have lower ethical standards than a convicted felon, but that's where former Sen. Norm Coleman finds himself.
His fellow former senator, Ted Stevens of Alaska, decided not to contest his narrow defeat.
Stevens had little realistic chance of overturning the result, and Alaska needed both its senators as hundreds of billions of dollars were being spent by Congress. Even though he betrayed the public trust, Stevens' last public act put his state first.
Not so for Coleman, of Minnesota, who has gone to court to block Al Franken from taking office as the newly elected senator. The case could drag on for weeks or even months -- and all the while, Minnesota will be fighting for federal funds with one senator tied behind its back.
When initial election night reports suggested a narrow Coleman win, Coleman said if he were trailing, he would forgo a recount and called on Franken to do so. "If you ask me what I would do," he said, "I would step back. I just think the need for the healing process is so important."
But apparently the healing process is less important to former Sen. Coleman now than it was in November. Of course, that's not the first example of former Sen. Coleman employing situational ethics.
He was, after all, a self-professed Clinton-Gore Democrat who morphed into a Bush-Cheney Republican. He decried unscrupulous trial lawyers who file lawsuits on behalf of consumers -- and now has filed a lawsuit seeking to have the courts giveth what the voters hath taken away.
While former Sen. Coleman litigates, Minnesota misses out. Sen. Amy Klobuchar is doing all she can, but right now, Minnesota has only one more vote in the Senate than Burkina Faso.
Give it up, former Sen. Coleman. You're like one of those Japanese soldiers hiding in the caves in the 1970s; like one of those doctors who keeps shocking the dead patient 30 minutes after he flat-lines; like a pathetic, creepy stalker.
You had a count, then a recount. Hundreds of Minnesotans participated. Each ballot was painstakingly and publicly examined.
A bipartisan state canvassing board supervised the whole process and declared that Franken has won. It's over.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul Begala.
All About Norm Coleman • Al Franken • Minnesota


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The University of Alabama at Birmingham will welcome students back to campus with a wealth of free activities, including a Marching Blazers preview, movies, an athletics primer, a free concert by pop star Andy Grammer and more. The first day of class is Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012.
A full schedule of student events happening during the three-week "Fire Up for Fall" back-to-school celebration is online at www.uab.edu/students.
Freshmen will move into campus residence halls on Saturday, Aug. 11. From 7:30 to 8:30 p.m., the UAB Marching Blazers will give a season preview performance on the Campus Green, between 14th and 16th streets on University Boulevard.
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On Monday, Aug. 13, all students and the general public are invited to see pop/rock/soul star Andy Grammer free in the "Blazing on the Green" fall concert. UAB student group Festival Expressions will open the show at 7 p.m., with Grammer taking the stage at approximately 7:50 p.m. on the Campus Green. The concert is sponsored by Undergraduate Student Government, Blaze Productions and the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center. Grammer got his start as a street performer in Santa Monica, California. In 2011 he was named "An Artist to Watch" by Billboard magazine, and he performed on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and "Live with Regis & Kelly," toured with Natasha Bedingfield and Colbie Caillat, shared the stage with Taylor Swift and was the first male pop star since Jason Mraz in 2003 to reach the Top 5 at Adult Pop Radio for his first single, "Keep Your Head Up."