text:
Franken's Odds of Winning Recount May Be Long — or Short
Nov. 10, 2008 , at 12:58 PM
Votes counted in Minnesota's senate race: 2,833,089
Votes separating Norm Coleman and Al Franken: 221
Determining a candidate's odds of winning a recount is a function of three parameters. The first parameter is the margin separating the leading and trailing candidates. In Minnesota, this margin is apparently 221 votes — although it has changed several times since results first came in on Tuesday night (it was originally more than 700), and it may change again before results are finalized this week. But let's assume that 221 is the correct number for the time being.
The second parameter is what I call the Correctable Error Rate (CER). This is the percentage of ballots that were not counted originally, but which will be counted given a hand recount.
The third parameter is the percentage of recounted ballots which are resolved for the trailing candidate — in this case, Al Franken. It might seem natural to assume that this number is 50.0%, but there is good reason to think that it might not be. More in this in a moment.
But for now, let's get back to estimating that other parameter, the Correctable Error Rate. There are essentially two reasons why a vote might be missed in a machine count. The first is if the voter undervotes the ballot, and the second is if he overvotes it.
An overvote occurs when a machine — in this case, Minnesota's optical ballot scanners — registers a vote for two or more candidates in a given race. When this occurs, the machine throws both votes out, meaning that no vote is recorded in that race. An overvote is always — or almost always — unintentional. It may occur, for instance, when a voter initially selects one candidate and then crosses his name out before picking the other one (see example from the Minnesota Secretary of State below). It might also occur if, say, a voter fully fills in the oval beside one candidate, but then leaves a stray pen mark beside another candidate's name.
An undervote is just the opposite — it occurs when the machine is unable to record a vote for any candidate in that race. This is probably the more common error, and may occur if the voter fails to follow the ballot's instructions in any number of ways, such as by placing an 'X' by the candidate's name rather than filling in his oval, or using his own pen or pencil rather than the one provided to him. Unlike an overvote, however, an undervote may oftentimes be intentional — the voter may simply skip a race that he is not interested in.
The Associated Press has reported that there were approximately 25,000 ballots — or about 0.9 percent of the total cast in Minnesota — in which a vote was recorded for the presidency but not for Minnesota's senate race. This figure might be either too high or too low as an estimate of the true error rate in Minnesota. On the one hand, in many or perhaps even most of these cases, the voter may have left the senate race blank intentionally. On the other hand, this total is not inclusive of certain other types of errors, such as when the voter undervoted both the presidency and the senate race (as might occur when the voter was systematically making the same error in all the races on his ballot), or when the machine recorded a vote, but did so for the wrong candidate (this particular error should be fairly rare, but may happen occasionally).
For what it is worth, an 0.9 percent error rate would be fairly consistent with other studies of optical scanning systems, which are considered among the more reliable voting technologies (they are almost certainly the most reliable fully auditable voting system). These error rates are relatively low, in part, because most optical scanning systems can quickly read a ballot before it is handed to the poll worker, alerting a voter to potential overvotes or undervotes — a process known as 'precinct scan'. In Minnesota, the vast majority of counties have such precinct scanning systems, but they may be applied inconsistently — it appears that in most precincts, for instance, the machines were programmed to alert the voter to an overvote, but not to an undervote. If a precinct scan check is not applied, or the poll worker is too busy or distracted to alert the voter, error rates using optical scanning systems be at least twice as high.
Still, I would guess that 0.9 percent is toward the higher end of the plausible range for what I am calling the Correctable Error Rate — the fraction of ballots that will be resolved differently when recounted by hand than when initially counted by machine. Many undervotes, as mentioned above, may be intentional. Among those that aren't, moreover, the voter's intent might not be sufficiently easy to determine even upon a hand recount. I would guess that somewhere between 7,500 and 25,000 ballots (or about 0.25 percent to 0.90 percent of the total vote) will actually be reclassified during the hand recount. Moreover, about 15 percent of these votes will be counted for third-party candidate Dean Barkley, rendering them essentially meaningless.
If the Correctable Error Rate in fact falls somewhere in this range, than Franken's chances of winning a recount are not very strong — provided that a misclassified ballot is equally likely to favor Franken or Coleman. By using a binomial distribution, we can estimate Franken's chances of gaining at least 221 votes given various CER's:
Correctable      Odds of Franken
Error Rate       Winning Recount*
0.10%            0.00%
1.50%            12.52%
* Assuming equal distribution of Franken, Coleman errors.
If, for instance, 25,000 votes or about 0.9 percent of the total are reclassified during the recount, than Franken's odds of winning are only about 7 percent. If only 0.5 percent of the total vote is reclassified, then his odds of winning are not much more than 2 percent.
Until now, however, we have been assuming that ballot tabulation errors are equally likely to favor Franken and Coleman — but this is probably not the case. Why not? There is substantial evidence that undervotes and overvotes are significantly more common among what we might call vulnerable voters — in particular, minorities, elderly voters, low-income and low-education voters, and first-time voters. A 2001 study for the House Committee on Government Reform, found that undervoted ballots were more than twice as common in minority-heavy, low-income precincts than in predominately white, upper-income precincts — even when using the relatively reliable, precinct-based optical scanning system that Minnesota uses. (The discrepancies are significantly higher when using less reliable technologies like punch cards.)
How might these demographics play out in Minnesota? According to exit polls, elderly voters split their votes almost exactly evenly between Franken and Coleman (Coleman's strength came from middle-aged voters, not older or younger ones). There was little relationship, moreover, between education levels and voter preferences.
Among other groups of vulnerable voters, however, Franken sigificantly outperformed Coleman. Franken led by 15 points among voters making $50,000 or less, while Coleman led by 3 among voters making between $50,000 and $100,000, and by 16 among voters making $100,000 or more. Coleman won white voters by 3 points, but Franken won among minorities by 40 points. And while there is no direct evidence of this in the exit polls, it is likely that Franken performed significantly better than Coleman among first-time voters.
Assume that minorities are 50% more likely than white voters to have undervoted the ballot; this is arguably a conservative assumption. If this is the case, than about 51.0% of reclassified ballots (excluding those cast for third parties) are likely to be resolved in Franken's favor. Alternatively, suppose that voters making $50,000 or less are 50% more likely than wealthier voters to have undervoted the ballot. In this case, 51.3% of reclassified ballots would go to Franken. This might not seem like a big deal, but as you'll see in a moment, it makes a huge amount of difference.
If, over the long run, we expect Franken to win 51% of corrected ballots, his odds of winning the recount may be quite strong — in fact, he may be the prohibitive favorite depending on the number of recounted ballots:
3.00%            100.00%
* Assuming 51% of corrected ballots resolved for Franken over long-run.
Let me go ahead and give you an entire matrices' worth of data given various assumptions about the Correctable Error Rate and the fraction of correctable errors resolved in Franken's behalf — the numbers in the table represent Franken's odds of winning the recount:
The values in bright yellow represent the ones that I consider to have stemmed from the most reasonable assumptions — that is, a relatively low CER, but a slight majority of corrected ballots being resolved in Franken's favor. As you can see, this is not very helpful — given different sets of "reasonable" assumptions, Franken is anywhere from the prohibitive underdog in the recount to the prohibitive favorite! The average value contained within the yellow region, however, is 44.3 percent, which is pretty close to where things are trading on Intrade right now.
A couple of additional notes before we close out. Firstly, it's very important that Franken's deficit is is down to 221 votes, rather than the 700 or so that it appeared to be originally. Suppose that the Corretable Error Rate is 0.75%, and that Franken wins 50.5% of corrected ballots; we have him winning the recount 39.3% of the time under these assumptions. If, however, Franken had to make up 700 votes rather than 221, his win percentage under these assumptions would be just 0.008% percent — about a 13,000-to-1 longshot.
Secondly, in this article we have been thinking of ballot tabulation errors as essentially discrete and random events — that is, there is no instrinsic relationship between your likelihood of having your vote miscounted and that of the person standing in line in front of you. There may be a separate class of errors, however, which we might call malfunctions: those which, presumably because of faulty technology, might affect a large number of ballots at once. If ballot tabulation errors are not independent of one another but instead are "clustered", than the odds for the trailing candidate to prevail in a recount may be higher than implied by the charts above.
Senate (275 posts) Minnesota (115) Recounts (63) Voting Systems (3) Vote Tabulation (2)


text:
Searching for an African Identity via Turkana Desert
Immanuel Amojong Lokwei - Editor, Moderator! The Forum March 7, 2012 March 7, 2012 6 Minutes
Is the question about what an African Identity is of littler importance now than it was, let's say, before the 21st century? How much less important then would an inquiry on an identity supposed to represent a smaller fraction of "Africans" be? An identity limited and defined by its own cultural bounds and yet still caught up in its own time; the last century. This is the Turkana identity.
As many of you would probably know, African-ness as a cultural concept and a form of identity is a balanced summation of thousands of micro-identities within the African territory. An ideal African identity would be the totality of this equation without one of the many culturally specific and unique identities in Africa being left out.
But is the question of Turkana identity, let alone the broad and almost abstract African identity, that easy to deal with? Can understanding Turkana identity help in understanding the African identity? What is the connection between these two identities, and how can I be persuaded or feel compelled me to have an affinity with either or both of these identities?
There are two reasons why I entreat these questions. The first is the shock I felt when a Kenyan friend living in America acted very indifferently to the topic of Race Identity when it popped up in our conversation. His argument was that no one who is reasonable enough in this technologically equipped era bothers themselves with such outdated trivialities such as Race Identity. The second reason is that a Jamaican friend asked me whether I also identified as black or just African.
While the first friend's reaction implied that we should do away with racial dichotomies, the second friend's question was even more provoking in that it suggested that there could be a distinction between identifying oneself as black and as an African. In my mind, African-ness and Blackness are two sides of the coin. Choosing between them is a matter of preference, as I see no real distinction between the two.
The Kenyan friend's reaction nearly threatened my very existence in a way. Never before had it crossed my mind that I could doubt my subscription to an African identity and that I could even cancel it like a Netflix account and see myself in terms other than those that imply African-ness.
Efforts to understand my Turkana identity, in the hope that moving from a particular, more concrete and immediate aspect like Turkana culture would enable me to understand what the meaning of the broad African identity is—these efforts met with little success.
First I thought Turkana identity could be equated to the main cultural activities that all or most Turkana people do. But their (Turkana people) nomadic lifestyle is fairly diverse, and not specific to the Turkana as a people. You could not say that there is a special nomadic activity that makes one a Turkana. The same activity could be found in other nomadic communities or slightly different activity (e.g. ritual) but same central meaning of this activity across multiple cultures.
Second, I sought to look at our history after failing to pinpoint an activity that is centrally and uniquely Turkana. But our history has suffered a double-tragedy. Its narrative over time has been changed and part of it lost, since it relied heavily on oral transmission and as you can testify memory is not the best of media out there. The rest of the story that early inscribers of history (mainly "outsiders") were able to document from our living ancestors was lost in translation. What we have is but fragmented history: a history supposed to be history. Our belief in documented history has failed us—we need to recognize that this form of history is but one version and does not represent the whole and true history of Turkana.
Then I thought perhaps starting from the abstract concept of African identity might help understand the Turkana one. But again I encountered the same challenges. An African Identity is usually invoked in relation to certain historical episodes.
As you would expect, African Identity is a collection of diverse historical episodes. But it is quite hard to see the connections between one episode and the other under this huge umbrella of African Identity. For instance what has Maninka Empire to do with Turkana's decentralized political-structure? Maybe little depending on your point of view with regard to this issue.
Subscribers of African identity share in the glory of any beautiful or great feats conducted by fellow subscribers, both individual and tribes as a collective. The use of historical events to explain what an African identity is, is inadequate in that these historical events do not capture the meaning that the actors of different epochs had placed on specific historical events. Furthermore, these events do not represent common activities that occur through out in all African communities. I am a Turkana and am not familiar with the values (except maybe musical) that say, indigenous West African drummers see in their music. This value could be more than just musical harmony; it could go beyond cultural-musical connections.
At this point I felt that my fate of never finding an answer was sealed. Fortunately, there are no dead-ends in a desert (refer back to the title of this article). And then…
There is one fact that struck my mind, and it revived my belief in African and Turkana identities, despite my hesitancy to claim that I really know what an African or Turkana identity is. Let's call this fact "undeniable consequences of being," either Turkana or African.
Existence of racism, witnessing or becoming a victim of it, this experience stamps one's conviction that they are of a particular identity. This also applies to Turkana identity. When other tribes, for instance our rivals the Pokots, point at you and say "We are coming for you", you don't need analysis of history to know who is the "who" being referred to and why. Thus this consequence of ethnical tension becomes the pillar of faith and conviction of what a Turkana identity is. For the tribes perpetrating this ethnic tension, my identity is their tool to identify and isolate me, whether in a crowd or even when shepherding in the bushes. Amazingly, this tool has served them well since they've always been consistent in isolating me whenever they felt the urge.
When one experiences many times these "undeniable consequences of being", there is a higher likelihood of identifying strongly with the state of being (African, Turkana, etc.… identities). But when times are relatively non-incidental, non-incidental for instance in the sense that there are very few "undeniable consequence of being" a Turkana, one is less attached to these dichotomies.
So the African and Turkana identities become a part-time subscription when the consequences of these identities are minimal but a full time occupation in hard times (whether one likes it or not, identifies himself/herself as part of these identities or not). And so you buy in into other people's way of isolating you out.
This brings us to one of our final points that African and Turkana identities are only for those who suffer the consequences of these states of being. Someone could suffer as either being a spectator, when they feel a dissonance at the perception of the "undeniable consequence of being" these identities, or he or she could suffer as a victim.
Therefore ethnical struggle of Turkana people and racial sidelining of the African people become the primary (perhaps the only ones) factors that ground my faith in subscribing to these identities that actually hurt my existence.
This method of affirming one's identities might seem negative since it is dependent on the acts of the perpetrators of racial and ethnic antagonism. But does it not capture the crisis involved with racial and ethnical dichotomies? How could one have a positive African or tribal identity that does not rely on analysis of history and perceptions and acts of ill-willed perpetrators of these dichotomies; a free-willed or a biological African or Turkana identity that depends solely on the inherent qualities of these identities? For now, I will rest content with this negative strategy of affirming my identities.
The arguments of this article should not be interpreted to mean that perpetrators of ethnical and racial violence are doing me a favor; that without them I lose my identities and faith in these identities. These arguments rather aim to point out that ethnical and racial dichotomies are mostly necessary in tense ethnical and racial environments. They do not hope yet to comment on the relevancy of these identities in harmonious and peaceful environments.
Enjoy this tune by Famara – Toubab man (African in a White skin!!!).
Previous Post The Power of Song: Transforming Societies thru Art and Education
Next Post Turkanas for Pokots Liberation: De-Domesticating Pastoralism

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This video includes in-depth professional unbiased reviews by the PhoneWorld team. Review is based on our opinion about Huawei P8 LITE Review (also called ALICE) after some serious testing, user ratings, price comparisons and head to head match-up.
This review will help you discover whether this mobile phone is right for you or not.


text:
enum {
	ERROR,
	WARN,
	INFO,
	DEBUG,
	LOG_BUTT,
};

extern void debug_print(int level, const char *file, int line, const char *fmt, ...);
#define DEBUG(level, fmt, ...) debug_print(level, __FUNCTION__, __LINE__, fmt, ## __VA_ARGS__)

#define DEBUG_ERROR(fmt, ...) 	DEBUG(ERROR, fmt, ## __VA_ARGS__)
#define DEBUG_INFO(fmt, ...) 	DEBUG(INFO, fmt, ## __VA_ARGS__)
#define DEBUG_WARN(fmt, ...) 	DEBUG(WARN, fmt, ## __VA_ARGS__)
#define DEBUG_DBG(fmt, ...) 	DEBUG(DEBUG, fmt, ## __VA_ARGS__)

extern void debug_set_log_level(int level);

#endif

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Massive earthquake centered in the Caribbean; tsunami advisory lifted for US territories
There is no longer a tsunami threat for the Caribbean and Central America after a magnitude-7.6 earthquake struck 27 miles (43 kilometers) off the coast of Honduras, the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said Wednesday.
Waves reaching 0.3 to 1 meter above the tide level had been possible, but the agency said the threat had passed.
The earthquake struck east of Great Swan Island, Honduras, at the relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometers, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.
Juan Jose Reyes, Director of Early Warning Systems of the Honduran disaster prevention agency COPECO, had urged people from low-lying coastal areas, especially the small offshore Islas de la Bahía islands to seek refuge, particularly if the tide suddenly is drawn out -- a telltale sign that a tsunami is imminent.
"If you notice that the (sea) disappears, you have to go to (a) high place," he said at a briefing with reporters in the capital Tegucigalpa.
"Pay attention to the alerts, to the authorities." He said the warning was not intended to increase panic but rather "to inform (people) objectively so that measures can be taken."
'Check on family members'
What appeared to be the periodic wail of a tsunami warning system was heard throughout a 10-minute a video posted to Facebook by Edison Usher. In the clip, Usher says he was standing near a taxi stand less than 200 meters from the shore in Belize City.
"Check on your family members that live close to the sea," he says during the video. "Don't take nothing for granted."
Other residents of the Belizian city were evacuating to inland areas in case the tsunami hit, Silvino Riverol, a resident of the inland town of Orange Walk told CNN.
"They going to Belmopan City towards the west which is high elevation and inland. I went to try to get video of the sea but the Police stopped me from going farther into the city."
He said that his area was not at risk but others had been advised to evacuate their homes.
"I live in Orange Walk Town so we are safe and away from the coast. It's mostly the folks from (Belize City) and southern coastal towns that are being told to evacuate by NEMO (the National Emergency Management Organization).
"My family from the city say the sea seems to be drying up. So I'm guessing that the water will return."
Tsunamis can travel over 800 kilometers per hour (500 miles) at the deepest point of the water, but they slow as they near the shore, eventually hitting the shore at around 30 to 50 kph (20 to 30 mph). The energy of the wave's speed is transferred to height and sheer force as it nears shore.
In recent years, tsunamis have been responsible for significant numbers of deaths and environmental destruction.
™ & © 2018 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.


text:
Tag Archives: multiculturalism
Alex Jones Joined #GamerGate, The Pope Thinks Trans Folks = Nukes & The Week Isn't Over Yet.
I like how he differentiates "3rd wave", as if he has no prob w/the first two
I'm really having trouble deciding which of these revelations is more amazing, really. I mean, Alex Jones is pretty much his own punchline at this point. Looking into it further it looks like Jones also appealed to the hashtag shortly after it began, which is unsurprising because the dude has been riding internet trending topics shamelessly for years. Also apparently the dude that maintains his wiki also maintains Gamergate's as well and was digging up dirt on Wikipedia editors supportive of Zoe and Anita (sound familiar?). What is it with Wikipedia vandals and Alex Jones, anyway?
So yeah, this current video posted to the tag is by one of PrisonPlanet's staff, Paul Joseph Watson. Watson is a snarling pasty toad that was apparently cursed by leprechauns to speak only in right-wing buzzwords until he can find true love and become a real boy. He also has just the most punchable face in a crew that seems to take great pleasure in being awful.
seriously look at this toolbag
He sardonically repeats the words "multiculturalism" and "social engineering" and some gibberish obsesssion he has about feminists ignoring rape by non-white people or something like a terrible party magician trying to hypnotize you. He talks about "joyless" feminists, but the only point in his video where I cracked a smile was when he laughably insisted there was such a thing as "organized misandry". Also, he manages to invoke Godwin's Law within ten seconds of his smarmy diatribe which has to be a record or some sort of drinking game.
Speaking of constantly terrible analogies and Nazi comparisons, Pope Francis apparently thinks us trans folk are as dangerous to life on earth as nuclear weapons and people that advocate gender theory are literally Hitler youth. Yeah, the "cool pope" said that. Good times.
leaked photo of the transgender agenda
In his recently published report "This Economy Kills", he talks of how each era has "Herods" that "destroy, that plot designs of death, that disfigure the face of man and woman, destroying creation." To give perspective, Herod was the king that killed all the little boys in his kingdom in an attempt to hunt down and murder baby Jesus. This is the level of discourse he opens up with.
literally gender theory
"Let's think of the nuclear arms, of the possibility to annihilate in a few instants a very high number of human beings," he continues. "Let's think also of genetic manipulation, of the manipulation of life, or of the gender theory, that does not recognize the order of creation."
"With this attitude, man commits a new sin, that against God the Creator," the pope says. "The true custody of creation does not have anything to do with the ideologies that consider man like an accident, like a problem to eliminate."
"God has placed man and woman and the summit of creation and has entrusted them with the earth," Francis says. "The design of the Creator is written in nature."
That's like the mother lode of terrible loaded analogies. Basically it's fancy pope-speak for the whole trans-Frankenstein "meddling with God's creation/what hath science wrought" boogieman, taken to it's logical extreme.
He also compares literature that includes gender theory as "akin to Hitler Youth propaganda" and "a form of colonization" which is hilarious. Maybe the leader of the Catholic Church, literally the most prominent force in violent genocidal Western colonization in history, should shut the fuck up about throwing around such accusations until he cleans his own damn house. Go fuck yourself, Popebro.
For what it's worth tho, as far as shitty scaremongering things to say about us, at least this one is so cartoonish it makes us sound badass. I am become trans, the destroyer of worlds.
Tags: alex jones, congressional wikipedia vandalism, cultural marxism, GamerGate, multiculturalism, nuclear annihilation, nuclear weapons, paul joseph watson, Pope Francis, transgender, transphobia, wikipedia vandalism
Categories Acts Of Bloggery, Alex Jones, Conspiracy, Fear Of A Trans Planet, GamerGate, LGBT, Occult, Religion, Trans/Gay/Androgyny Agenda, Video Games


text:
Eugen Wörle (Bregenz, 3 de enero de 1909 – Viena, 14 de diciembre de 1996) fue un diseñador y arquitecto austríaco considerado como uno de los últimos representantes del llamado segundo modernismo vienés.

Biografía

Estudió en la Academia de Bellas Artes de Viena y se graduó siendo alumno de Clemens Holzmeister, para quien trabajó posteriormente. Desde 1930 y hasta 1934 trabajó en el estudio de Ernst Lichtblau, y a partir de 1936 y hasta 1957 se asoció con Max Fellerer. El equipo recibió numerosos e importantes encargos durante el periodo de reconstrucción de la postguerra en Austria, incluyendo la renovación del edificio del Parlamento.

En 1935 entró a formar parte de la Asociación Central de Arquitectos Austríacos, de la que se convertiría en presidente en 1961, el mismo año en el que también fue elegido presidente de la Cámara de Ingenieros Civiles. Asimismo, fue miembro de los CIAM en Austria y de la Österreichischer Werkbund. También desempeñó una notable actividad como diseñador, elaborando prototipos de muebles, lámparas y otros objetos.

Cuando falleció Fellerer, Wörle se hizo cargo de la dirección del estudio, y empezó a colaborar con otros arquitectos. En 1956 recibió el Premio Ciudad de Viena para la Arquitectura. Falleció con 87 años en Viena.

Referencias

Arquitectos de Austria del siglo XX
Nacidos en Bregenz

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


re's your memory, Sam?" "But I didn't find it," ses Sam.
"No, you bought it," ses Peter, "and if you don't go shares we'll split on you--see? Then you can't sell it anyway, and perhaps you won't even get the reward. We can be at Orange Villa as soon as wot you can."
"Sooner," ses Ginger, nodding. "But there's no need to do that. If 'e don't go shares I'll slip round to the police-station fust thing in the morning."
"You know the way there all right," ses Sam, very bitter.
"And we don't want none o' your back-answers," ses Ginger. "Are you going shares or not?"
"Wot about the money I paid for it?" ses Sam, "and my trouble?"
Ginger and Peter sat down on the bed to talk it over, and at last, arter calling themselves a lot o' bad names for being too kind-'earted, they offered 'im five pounds each for their share in the locket.
"And that means you've got your share for next to nothing, Sam," ses Ginger.
"Some people wouldn't 'ave given you any-thing," ses Peter.


After being hidden from public view for months, two steel masterpieces created by world-renowned sculpture artist Albert Paley and West Coast Choppers founder Jesse James were revealed at FABTECH 2017 last week in Chicago's McCormick Place.
The two steel sculptures are the result of a unique collaboration between Paley and James to each start one sculpture, switch halfway, and then finish the other's piece. The months-long collaboration, known as the Paley-James Project, sparked from the artists' shared love of steel and fire as well as the desire to pay it forward.
The sculptures will now be auctioned at Chicago's Wright Auction House at noon this Friday, November 17, with proceeds supporting grants and educational opportunities for careers in metalworking trades at FABTECH's co-sponsor organizations.
While the sculptures have been publicly hidden, the entire journey of the Paley-James Project and the sculptures' creation has been captured on film by Rochester, New York-based WXXI. The PBS station is turning the footage into a 60-minute documentary of the project, which will air in early 2018 on PBS stations nationwide.
The Paley-James Project is sponsored by ESAB (an AISC member) and FABTECH's five co-sponsor organizations: American Welding Society, Chemical Coaters Association International, Fabricators & Manufacturers Association International, Precision Metalforming Association and SME.
To learn more about the Paley-James Project and watch segments from the documentary, visit http://interactive.wxxi.org/paleyjames.
FABTECH 2017 hosted more than 1,700 exhibiting companies and a total of 44,935 attendees from 120 countries to celebrate manufacturing's industrial evolution. To learn more about FABTECH 2017 and FABTECH 2018, which will be held in Atlanta, go to www.fabtechexpo.com.


text:
By Gustavo Maya (A)theologies, New Books March 27, 2017
From Empire to Shire: Rod Dreher's Nostalgia for Middle-Earth
At the end of the fourth chapter of The Benedict Option, author Rod Dreher invites Christians to become hobbits. He writes:
Losing political power might just be the thing that saves the church's soul. Ceasing to believe that the fate of the American Empire is in our hands frees us to put them to work for the Kingdom of God in our own little shire.
This remarkable pair of sentences is meant to highlight the positive spiritual effects that a shift of focus can bring about as conservative Christians lose political power. Christians can set aside their imperial ambitions and instead live like the denizens of Tolkien's Middle-earth, in small tightly-knit communities adhering to traditional values and enjoying the ordinary pleasures of life (in right measure of course).
("Shire," of course, is not a word exclusive to Tolkien, but for most of Dreher's American audience this will be the first association we make. And Dreher refers frequently to Tolkien and fellow inkling C.S. Lewis—both admirers of things medieval and Christian— throughout The Benedict Option.)
It is a charming notion: from empire to shire.
But recall that Mordor was the closest thing to an empire in Tolkien's imaginary world. Sauron and his host of orcs spread like a disease throughout Middle-earth—battling, conquering, colonizing, enslaving, pillaging, extracting, industrializing, and polluting—in order to extend his unjust rule over every land and people.
In effect, Dreher urges conservative Christians who once identified with Mordor to reorient themselves—their identities, commitments, and communities—toward the shire.
Although they are not yet martyrs, Dreher asserts, that time is soon coming. Though they have been, most recently commanders of empire, Christians are about to be masticated by the imperial gods of sex, tech, and capital. It's an impressive sleight of hand, especially given the recent election. But it betrays Dreher's perspective.
Not all Christians, or for that matter Americans, have had a hand in running the American Empire. Black and brown Christians have generally not thought of themselves as responsible for the empire. Notably, African Americans and Latinos have been denied citizenship, and the rights of citizens, much less have they had political power. Too often they have merely tried to survive and resist Empire's demands, domination, and death.
Dreher speaks as someone who has lost status and power and laments its loss—he and his people need to regroup and organize their resistance to the insurgency. But that is not a perspective that most Christians of color will share. That's not to say that black and brown Christians are completely at ease with recent cultural and political developments. Responses vary. But for the most part, they do not speak from a place of lost cultural primacy and political power—that is reserved for the majority of white Christian conservatives.
Note also Dreher's uncritical stance toward imperialism. He doesn't question whether Christians should have wielded imperial power at all, nor does he discuss the long history of Western philosophical and theological reflection on empire and how to restrain the arbitrary power of ruling authorities.
Christ, after all, was a victim of the Roman Empire. Attempting to maintain imperial control over Palestine, a colonial possession, Roman authorities charged Jesus with conspiring a revolt and subjected him to torture and execution. According to scripture, the Romans did this to placate the region and maintain "law and order" (a familiar refrain).
The relationship between empire and colony is by its nature unjust and requires the continual exercise of violence. You might think Christians would be ill at ease wielding such power, but you would be mistaken. For theologians like John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas, for example, the fusion of church and state under Emperor Constantine marks the moment of the church's decline—a kind of fall, or original sin.
Even if you don't accept the narrative of decline, Constantine's conversion initiated a centuries-long debate among Christians regarding political authority.
Eusebius embraced imperial power. Augustine emptied secular politics of divine significance. Popes and monarchs battled for power. We might mention the Investiture Controversy, or the papal bull Unam Sanctum. Dante wrote a treatise defending the unique ends of the religious and political authorities. Luther and Calvin also espoused strong views, as did the radical reformers. We might add John Milton to the list.
With the "discovery" of the new world came the division of lands and the extension of European authority over the natives. The Church allowed Catholic monarchs to colonize the Americas under the guise of "evangelism." From there we might discuss the spread of the British Empire to the Americas, the founding of the colonies, and the arrival of religious dissenters. We might mention the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution, and the U.S. Constitution and the federal disestablishment of religion.
We would be remiss if we skipped over the atrocities of slavery and the legal and theological arguments made in its favor: the denial of citizenship and humanity to African slaves. The Civil War ended slavery, with Christians aligned on both sides of the battle, reading the same Bible and praying to the same God, as Lincoln famously declared.
In response to Reconstruction, white southerners struck back with a vengeance. Segregation under Jim Crow and the accompanying deadly violence were justified by those who insisted that the mixing of races was against God's design. The Civil Rights Movement asserted God-given dignity in the face of dehumanization.
But I haven't done justice to the tradition. I've omitted much, and of course, no part of it is uncontested. That's the point. Every text, figure, and event is subject to interpretation, debate, and reevaluation. But I simply wanted to offer a sense of the range of Christian disagreement regarding politics, empire, slavery, and race.
Dreher might argue that I'm making too much out of too little. Perhaps his use of the phrase "American Empire" was mere rhetoric. But as he reminds us, "Ideas, as we will see, have consequences." You can't simply throw around ideas like empire in view of the tradition (a concept favored by Dreher) of reflection on such ideas in Western civilization (another favored concept).
Rhetoric matters. Or more precisely, concepts and language matter. "The medium is the message," to quote Dreher quoting Marshall McLuhan. If living in the truth is as important to Dreher as he claims, perhaps getting our own history matters. My argument, however, doesn't hinge on the importance of a single line. It's merely indicative of Dreher's stance toward political authority when conservative Christians happen to wield it.
His view of conservative Christian political authority pervades the book and surfaces at moments when Dreher laments its loss.
Take for instance the story of Lance Kinzer, a Republican legislator in Kansas. Kinzer attempted to pass religious liberty legislation that would protect wedding vendors, wedding cake makers, and the like from anti-discrimination laws. In a deeply red state, Kinzer thought it would be a cake walk (pardon the pun). To his shock, it wasn't. Kinzer observed that the "social conservative-Big Business coalition politics was frayed to the breaking point." He goes on:
It was disorienting. I had conversations with people I felt I had carried a lot of water for and considered friends at a deep political level, who, in very public, very aggressive ways, were trying to undermine some fairly benign religious liberty protections.
Kinzer is served up as an example of the powerlessness and hostility conservative Christians face. But couldn't it also serve as an example of their loss of the power to legislate at whim according to their religious and moral views? Or as an example that they now have to persuade the others over whom they wield power and whose consent is also needed if their political authority is to be legitimate?
What shocked Kinzer is that "Big Business" turned on him and that his powerful friends opposed him. (One wonders whether Dreher has considered that alignments like these are what upset people about Christian conservatism and encourage younger generations to identify as "nones.") It's the loss of power that he laments. Kinzer isn't an example of anti-Christian hostility—he was attempting to provide conservative Christians with an added protection.
Denying extra protection is not the same as discrimination or hostility. Laws fail to pass all the time. Such is politics.
Examples like this, of the loss of overwhelming conservative Christian political power, pervade The Benedict Option. They are offered as proof that America is now a "post-Christian nation," finally succumbing to the acids of modernism, liberalism, secularism, libertinism, feminism, and every other intimidating –ism. For Dreher, the problem is that the West has lost a sense of the God-given natural order that grounds a universal and eternal morality. In its place is the radically-free, autonomous individual determining right and wrong according to whim and arbitrary will. Dreher laments these metaphysical, anthropological, and moral developments. We need to be reoriented, he argues, toward the will of God.
It's a beguiling picture. But he's only able to tell his story by leaving out most of the history of debates within the Christian tradition itself (as I've outlined above), a diversity of views that Dreher conceals by his quite selective historical retrieval.
(I might also add that Dreher glosses over tensions within his own account: Christians argued for nominalism, church reform, science, and democracy; Charles Taylor supports multiculturalism; Wendell Berry, who is influenced by Romanticism, doesn't oppose same-sex marriage.)
It's plausible that certain understandings of secularism or liberalism are the results of faithful, theologically-orthodox views. Secularism, understood as the disestablishment of the church, has been building for centuries as a development internal to Christianity. With the Wars of Religion, Christians began refraining from biblical and theological appeals on matters of public concern since they could no longer take them for granted as common ground. None of this means necessarily, of course, that everything decried by Dreher under the labels "secularism" or "liberalism" come from the Christian tradition, but certainly many do. All of this might also mean that the certainty with which Dreher holds his natural-law views is subject to doubt.
As the debate from Constantine to Martin Luther King, Jr. demonstrates, God's will for creation is often hard to discern. We see "through a glass darkly" and "know in part" as it were. We might think we know God's will but are later surprised to discover that we were wrong. Christians holding something like Dreher's metaphysical, anthropological, and moral views argued in favor of empire, slavery, and white supremacy. They thought there was a divinely-ordained order to creation and that they had infallible access to it. They were wrong.
None of this means that Dreher holds these views, but it does mean that a longer view of the tradition places his form of reasoning and his certainty into doubt. Given the fuller history I've very briefly sketched, we should also be on alert when Dreher conflates conservative, traditional, orthodox, and biblical Christianity and appoints himself as the true inheritor of the tradition. These are hardly the same thing.
Inventing Orthodoxy
Dreher seems to use "conservative," "traditional," "orthodox," and "biblical" more or less interchangeably. On the first page of the book, he tells us that he gradually came to realize that conservative enthusiasm for the market undermined traditionalist concern for the family. Later, he makes clear that he is a conservative Christian writing for other conservative Christians. But how did his previous realization alter, if at all, his understanding of conservatism and his commitment to it? We're never told directly how Dreher reconciled his conservative ideals with traditional values, but since he repeatedly refers to conservative Christians throughout his text, we're led to assume that he no longer sees a conflict.
Has he adjusted his views on conservatism? Is he no longer comfortable with political conservatism but perfectly fine with theological conservatism? On page four, Dreher writes, "To avoid political confusion, I use the word "orthodox"—small "o"—to refer to theologically traditional Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox Christians." Besides the fact that "orthodox" and "Orthodox" are used inconsistently at various points in the text, here he clearly distinguishes the political from the theological. But what exactly is the relation between the two? Is "conservative Christian" a theological or political label? At times, it appears that theology does the work. At others, however, politics appears to be in the drivers' seat. It would have been helpful if he had clarified what he meant.
Note also Dreher's definition of orthodoxy. Orthodox, as its Greek etymology suggests, has to do with right thinking. Historically, this has been a doctrinal matter. Which theological views do Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox Christians affirm together? Anyone with the slightest bit of theological training would know that these traditions differ greatly (undermining the claim that the Reformation shattered religious unity).
As best I can tell something like the Nicene Creed—for which we can thank Emperor Constantine—expresses the theological commitments they have in common. Dreher clearly means something more by "theologically traditional" than the commitments of the Nicene Creed. He wants a metaphysical view of creation that grounds a universal and unchanging morality. If that's the case, he's going beyond what the various Christian traditions have jointly affirmed as orthodoxy.
It'd be fair to call such a position traditional in the sense that some members of the Christian tradition have held it, but unfair to call it the orthodox view since Christians have differed on such matters.
"Tradition" is also a fraught term. Is it an unchanging canon of authoritative texts and practices? Or is it an ongoing argument about the goods that constitute the tradition itself? The former would be what the church historian Jaroslav Pelikan called traditionalism, which he characterized as the dead faith of the living. The latter would be closer to Pelikan's notion of tradition as the living faith of the dead.
The two notions of tradition differ significantly. Dreher appears to favor the canon-like version. It's not beside the point that Alasdair MacIntyre, one of the inspirations behind The Benedict Option and whom Dreher credits for the title, has himself been caught vacillating between the two notions of tradition. Identifying which notion is operative at any given moment gives us a better grasp of the weaknesses of the argument.
As Jeffrey Stout argues in Democracy and Tradition,
Yet once the ambiguity of the term "tradition" is made plain, it becomes obvious that the debate over the new traditionalism is best construed not as a debate between traditional and modern varieties of ethical discourse, but rather as a debate involving at least two traditions or strands of modern ethical discourse: a tradition dedicated to a very narrow conception of how traditions ought ideally to operate and a tradition dedicated to the project of loosening up that conception democratically and dialogically.
This applies equally to Dreher. He may be more modern than he acknowledges.
What about the phrase "biblical Christianity"? It's a mistake to refer to biblical Christianity in the singular as if it were one thing. To do so overlooks the fact of two thousand years of Christian disagreement over the meaning of biblical texts. For instance, does the bible speak with one mind about Dreher's favored institution, the family? Doesn't Jesus in Matthew 12 appear to undermine the importance of the biological family in favor of the spiritual one?
This is just one example of where biblical Christianity might not align as clearly with the conservative, traditional, or orthodox variants as Dreher would have it. On this point, what's also striking about The Benedict Option is its dearth of engagement with scripture beyond a few verses that serve as proof-texts. Despite appeals to biblical Christianity, the Bible itself an afterthought to Dreher's larger project.
In the end, Dreher distorts the Christian theological tradition by telling a one-sided narrative that fits a narrow political agenda. By brushing aside the diversity of faithful Christian thought and doing away with important distinctions, he's able to paint his views, and his views alone, as orthodox.
But history is messier, tradition more complicated, orthodoxy more capacious, scripture more foreign.
Our theological and political tradition is more accurately characterized as one of argument, discussion, and disagreement. This tradition isn't in competition with God's will—no one knows with absolute certainty God's will at any given moment. Christian theology at its best has been about discerning God's will for the times, to attempt to answer Christ's question "Who do you say I am?" anew for every generation.
Dreher is uncomfortable with this. He's certain of the answers. Everyone else just needs to get on board. Those who disagree doom themselves to oblivion.
But there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in Dreher's philosophy. There are theological and political options in between the two extremes of theistic natural law and secular relativism, as if natural lawyers and relativists agreed among themselves.
Unlike those at the extremes, who know the answer before the question is asked, those of us occupying the middle ground have to do the hard work of discernment until kingdom come.
It was as true for Paul, Aquinas, and Martin Luther King as it is for us today. Though we might agree with Dreher's call to reemphasize catechesis and formation within churches, an obvious if neglected goal, we have reason to doubt his historical narrative, social analysis, and moral theory.
benedict optionempirej.r.r. tolkienorthodoxypolitical theologyrod drehertradition
Gustavo Maya
Gustavo Maya is a doctoral candidate in religion at Princeton University. He has degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary and UC Berkeley School of Law. He is currently writing a dissertation on the religion and politics of Cesar Chavez and the farmworker movement. His interests include religious ethics, law and religion, political theology, and Chicano/Latino studies.
Latest Posts By Gustavo Maya
Previous articleHow a Mormon Spring Break Ritual Came to Include a Whole Lot of "Hare Krishna, Hare Rama"
Next articleChristianity as American Horror Story in Joyce Carol Oates' Newest Novel
The "Religion" Episode: Aziz Ansari and the Cultural Politics of Muslim Self-Representation
Catholic Citizenship: Massimo Faggioli on the Role of Public Theologians Today
Rejecting the Stranger: Why Rod Dreher's Vision of Communal Christian Life Is Not So Benedictine After All


My name is Jack and I like to read, eat, and sleep.
My name is Max and I like to read, play with legos, and sleep.
My name is Jasper the video game master and I am a video game geek, I like to draw, game, sleep nonstop until 10, and watch movies.
Hanukkah is the jewish festival of lights. It is eight days long and you light a candle each day.
Christmas is celebrated on December 25th and everyone gives each other presents! During dinner a wide varitey of food is shared.


text:
Thoughts To Melt To by Disco Puppet: An EP for the Pendulum of Solitude
May 13, 2020 May 13, 2020 Surbhi Mittal disco puppet, experimental, indie music
If the true mark of an experimental musician is their ability to be unpredictable, there is no better experimental artist in the independent music scene than Disco Puppet. Since the time he started his journey into the world of electronica in 2016, every work released by Shoumik Biswas, the man behind Disco Puppet, is uniquely differentiated in an increasingly homogenising industry. Whether it is the garbled fuzziness of Princess This or the melancholic folksiness of Aranyer Dinratri, the landscape of Shoumik's talent is boundless.
On May 3, 2020, in the midst of a nationwide lockdown that has lasted for over a month, Disco Puppet released his latest EP "Thoughts to Melt To". A departure from his usual works, this EP is a darker sound that leans heavily towards the drum heavy sound of the 80s. Disco Puppet is one of Shoumik's many music projects, although in recent years it is the one he has given most attention to. The effortlessness with which Shoumik combines drum samples with electronic instruments, makes evident his experience as a genre-defying musician.
The lockdown has driven many of us crazy, ridden with anxiety, depression and other demons that we chose to ignore but that caught up with us in the state of solitude we find ourselves in. Shoumik is no different, except that he found it in himself to channel the melancholia into the EP, produced at his home studio. As with the voices in one's head, the EP constantly swings between sounds of jovial nature and depths of melancholic nostalgia.
The first song in the EP, 'Peace Lily Parody' is a perfect prelude to the sometimes intense, often nostalgic journey that you are about to embark on. Quite literally it feels like you're standing at the beginning of a path in your imagination and the melody is the sound of your footsteps as you walk deeper into the labyrinth. Here once again Shoumik shows his ease in working with melodic percussion set to the sound of drums. The next track in the EP, 'Don't be Sad, The Boogie Man's back', sounds like a song right out of an 80s alternative album with its dead beat vocals set to a simple drum pattern. While it sounds like a simple track to process, the recreation of such an ambience with a home studio is a feat reflective of how far Shoumik has come on his musical journey.
In a Red Bull interview from 2014, when asked about his relationship with electronic music, he reflected that it wasn't always great but somewhere along the way they became great friends. Glad are we about that given the unique sound that the friendship has produced over the last few years. 'Nosty Boy', a song accompanied by a video, and 'Romeo & Juliet' are masterpieces of the EP. Marrying different universes that seemingly co-exist in the artistic world of Disco Puppet, these two songs are perfect companions for the swinging pendulum of living in a lockdown. They go effortlessly from the hum drum of monotony reflected in almost mechanical samples to moments marked by absolutely euphoric drumming.
The last song on the EP, 'Temporary Paradise', showcases the EP's true sound – a deep and unsettling anxiety stemming from being by oneself, which we as a collective, have learnt to live with. Even in composing a melancholic symphony, Shoumik brings about the essence of beauty. This essence of beauty that permeates across Shoumik's work is what keeps us going back to the artist. Any piece of art, including music, is impactful if it reveals more of itself every time you interact with it. 'Thoughts to Melt To' does that, revealing to you with each listen, the many layers of thoughtfulness that have gone into composing it.
← An Amalgamation of Techno and House: Future Bounce by EJJH
Dhruv Kapoor's EP 'Heartbreak Paradise' Is About The Dichotomy Of Love →
Fellow Swimmers' "Morning Deathstar" is a Mellifluous Experience
December 20, 2019 Sourajit
"Superpower 2020" – Lifafa's Return Is Even Better Than You Expected
May 25, 2021 May 25, 2021 Kartik Sundar
The future of Rock is safe in the hands of Parvaaz
October 18, 2019 October 21, 2019 Akshay Kapoor


writing | What! No Tea and Scones?
The semi-colon (;) has to be one of the most confounding punctuation marks in the English language. An early strategy of mine – in the days when I lacked the motivation to look-up any rules – had been to avoid using them altogether. A full stop, or so I thought, would have done the same job equally well. So, what business did I have making life more difficult than it already was by messing about with semi-colons? Why take the trunk road when you could take the PLUS highway and break existing speed-limit laws in relative comfort?
A reader asked if I could possibly do a posting on colons (:) and semi-colons (;). In deference to that request, I have decided to postpone my posting on gapping and bracketing commas to a later date. However, I will only attempt to deal with colons in this posting; semi-colons are quite involved and will require an entire and separate posting.
Labu is the cook. Labi is the chauffeur.
Labu is the cook, Labi is the chauffeur.
I used to think I knew how to use commas (,). They are marks you put after words where you want to indicate a pause, right? Well, not exactly! Huh? How then do you use commas?
They didn't really have much of a choice. There simply hadn't been enough sales to meet the overheads; not for well over a year. It was a small wonder that they retained us for as long as they did. Personally, I would have made the same decision; only difference is, I would have done it much sooner. Under the circumstances, I guess bearing a grudge would not be very appropriate. This was why I didn't torch the place down on my last day at work.


text:
Nissan North America, Inc., Receipt of Petition for Decision of Inconsequential Noncompliance
Topics: Nissan Titan
Claude H. Harris
[Federal Register: December 21, 2010 (Volume 75, Number 244)]
[Notices]
[Page 80109-80110]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr21de10-101]
[[Page 80109]]
[Docket No. NHTSA-2010-0171; Notice 1]
Nissan North America, Inc., Receipt of Petition for Decision of
Inconsequential Noncompliance
Nissan North America, Inc. (Nissan) \1\ has determined that certain
model year 2008 through 2010 Nissan Titan trucks do not fully comply
with the requirements of paragraph S19.2.2(b) of Federal Motor Vehicle
Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 208, Occupant Crash Protection. Nissan has
filed an appropriate report pursuant to 49 CFR part 573, Defect and
Noncompliance Responsibility and Reports, dated August 18, 2010.
\1\ Nissan North America, Inc., is a state of Tennessee
corporation that manufacturers and imports motor vehicles and motor
vehicle equipment.
Pursuant to 49 U.S.C. 30118(d) and 30120(h) (see implementing rule
at 49 CFR part 556), Nissan has petitioned for an exemption from the
notification and remedy requirements of 49 U.S.C. Chapter 301 on the
basis that this noncompliance is inconsequential to motor vehicle
This notice of receipt of Nissan's petition is published under 49
U.S.C. 30118 and 30120 and does not represent any agency decision or
other exercise of judgment concerning the merits of the petition.
Nissan estimates that approximately 102,254 model year 2008 through
2010 Nissan Titan trucks that were manufactured from April 10, 2007,
through August 6, 2010, are affected.
Paragraph S19.2.2 of FMVSS No. 208 requires in pertinent part:
S19.2.2 The vehicle shall be equipped with at least one telltale
which emits light whenever the passenger air bag system is
deactivated and does not emit light whenever the passenger air bag
system is activated, except that the telltale(s) need not illuminate
when the passenger seat is unoccupied. Each telltale:* * *
(b) Shall have the identifying words ``PASSENGER AIR BAG OFF''
or ``PASS AIR BAG OFF'' on the telltale or within 25 mm (1.0 in) of
the telltale; and* * *
Nissan states that the noncompliance is that the label identifying
the amber air bag status telltale lamp for the front outboard passenger
seating position is identified with the words ``PASSENGER AIR BAG''
instead of ``PASSENGER AIR BAG OFF.''
Nissan believes the noncompliance is inconsequential to motor
vehicle safety for the following reasons:
1. The passenger air bag system on the subject vehicles operates as
designed and automatically deactivates the passenger air bag when it is
appropriate in accordance with the requirements in S19.2 of FMV55 No.
208. That is, the system requires no input from the operator to perform
its intended function. Further, the front passenger airbag status
telltale operates correctly and illuminates when the passenger air bag
is deactivated as required by the standard.
2. The meaning of the air bag status telltale alone (without the
identifying words) is unequivocal to the vehicle occupants. The
telltale remains off when the passenger air bag is in the normal mode.
When the passenger air bag is deactivated, the telltale is illuminated,
showing an icon representing an air bag with an X drawn over it. This
clearly represents a deactivated air bag. Nissan notes that in certain
other markets, the telltale alone is deemed sufficient with no
identifying words required next to the telltale. The identifying words
``passenger side air bag'' (without the word ``OFF'') do not confuse
the otherwise clear and readily apparent meaning of the telltale.
3. Information provided in several locations in the vehicle owner's
manual further reduces any possibility of operator confusion. If the
meaning of telltale is unclear, the operator can refer to multiple
explanations in the owner's manual.
4. Telltale Function is also described in Quick Reference Guide.
5. There have been no customer complaints, injuries, or accidents
related to the word ``OFF'' missing from the label. Nissan has searched
its databases and has found no cases of misunderstanding the telltale.
6. Nissan conducted an informal survey at Nissan's National
Headquarters Building in Franklin, Tennessee. The building houses
mostly business personnel (sales marketing, finance) and not design
engineers that would have special understanding of the air bag systems.
As employees were approaching the building to begin their workday, they
were asked to participate in a survey regarding the Titan and that the
survey would take about 30 seconds of their time. The participants
represented a good cross-section of the general population by age,
gender and race. The subject Titan pickup truck was equipped with the
required yellow passenger side air bag status telltale that contained
the ``no air bag'' symbol, but did not display the word ``OFF''. The
passenger air bag telltale was illuminated. Survey participants were
asked to describe the meaning of the telltale. Sixty people
participated in the survey. Of the sixty people, 58 responded correctly
that the telltale indicated the passenger side airbag was in suppressed
mode. The survey shows that people understand the meaning of the
passenger air bag telltale even with the word ``OFF'' missing. We note
also that adding the word ``OFF'' did not help the two respondents to
understand the meaning of the telltale. They would have needed to
consult the Owner's Manual. Nissan acknowledges that this was an ad hoc
survey that may not meet rigid statistical standards, nevertheless, we
believe it is predictive of the results that would be obtained from a
larger, controlled survey.
7. A decision to grant this petition would be consistent with
arguably similar prior requests related to labeling issues. For
example, NHTSA has previously granted petitions related to certain tire
and tire placard labeling errors.
Nissan also states that it has taken steps to correct the non-
compliance in future production.
Supported by the above stated reasons, Nissan believes that the
described FMVSS No. 208 noncompliance is inconsequential to motor
vehicle safety, and that its petition, to exempt it from providing
recall notification of noncompliance as required by 49 U.S.C. 30118 and
remedying the recall noncompliance as required by 49 U.S.C. 30120,
should be granted.
NHTSA notes that the statutory provisions (49 U.S.C. 30118(d) and
30120(h)) that permit manufacturers to file petitions for a
determination of inconsequentiality allow NHTSA to exempt manufacturers
only from the duties found in sections 30118 and 30120, respectively,
to notify owners, purchasers, and dealers of a defect or noncompliance
and to remedy the defect or noncompliance.
Interested persons are invited to submit written data, views, and
arguments on this petition. Comments must refer to the docket and
notice number cited at the beginning of this notice and be submitted by
any of the following methods:
a. By mail addressed to: U.S. Department of Transportation, Docket
Operations, M-30, West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New
Jersey Avenue, SE., Washington, DC 20590.
b. By hand delivery to U.S. Department of Transportation, Docket
Jersey Avenue, SE., Washington, DC 20590. The Docket Section is open
on weekdays from 10 am to 5 pm except Federal Holidays.
c. Electronically: by logging onto the Federal Docket Management
System (FDMS) Web site at http://www.regulations.gov/. Follow the
online instructions for submitting comments. Comments may also be faxed
to 1-202-493-2251.
Comments must be written in the English language, and be no greater
than 15 pages in length, although there is no limit to the length of
necessary attachments to the comments. If comments are submitted in
hard copy form, please ensure that two copies are provided. If you wish
to receive confirmation that your comments were received, please
enclose a stamped, self-addressed postcard with the comments. Note that
all comments received will be posted without change to http://
www.regulations.gov, including any personal information provided.
Documents submitted to a docket may be viewed by anyone at the
address and times given above. The documents may also be viewed on the
Internet at  http://www.regulations.gov by following the online
instructions for accessing the dockets. DOT's complete Privacy Act
Statement is available for review in the Federal Register published on
April 11, 2000 (65 FR 19477-78).
The petition, supporting materials, and all comments received
before the close of business on the closing date indicated below will
be filed and will be considered. All comments and supporting materials
received after the closing date will also be filed and will be
considered to the extent possible. When the petition is granted or
denied, notice of the decision will be published in the Federal
Register pursuant to the authority indicated below.
Comment closing date: January 20, 2011.
Authority:  (49 U.S.C. 30118, 30120: delegations of authority at
CFR 1.50 and 501.8)
Issued on: December 15, 2010.
Claude H. Harris,
Acting Associate Administrator for Enforcement.
[FR Doc. 2010-32013 Filed 12-20-10; 8:45 am]


text:
Don't Waste Your Vote on the Corporate Agenda
Most progressives will vote for Clinton to keep Trump out of the White House. That's understandable, but even more important is building an alternative to pro-capitalist parties. That's why I'll be voting for Jill Stein.
By Kshama Sawant
Socialist Alternative Seattle City Council Member
Originally published in The Nation (September 21, 2016)
Presidential-election years aren't usually characterized by explosive social movements. Too often, a presidential election sucks all the oxygen out of the political space, shifting the discussion away from the needs of ordinary people and toward the false choice between a corporate Democrat and a yet more horrifying Republican.
But this year has proven different, with tens of thousands of people becoming politically active for the first time. Just in the last month, we've seen Native Americans rallying at Standing Rock against the Dakota pipeline with the largest gathering of tribes in a century. This bold stand has drawn attention to this nation's historic and ongoing disregard for both treaty rights and the rapidly advancing crisis of climate change. And in the latest telling character note of this election, among the courageous protesters at Standing Rock for whom arrest warrants have been issued is Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
In recent weeks, we've seen massive support for San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and his refusal to stand for the national anthem. What's particularly striking has been the weakness of the right in trying to stop him; in fact, support for his protest is spreading across the country. We're seeing a tremendous shift nationwide — not to the right, but to the left. An August GenForward poll showed that 51 percent of white youth support Black Lives Matter, while another recent poll found that 58 percent of Americans support raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Support for socialism also continues to rise, part of a deeper discrediting of corporate politics and the failed capitalist system.
In the presidential election, however, ordinary people feel disenchanted and disempowered. Donald Trump is an abomination, and consistently over 60 percent of people polled disapprove of him and his bigotry. Trump is the single-most-unpopular major-party candidate ever, and he deserves to be trounced. But, incredibly, the Democrats have managed to nominate the second-most-unpopular candidate in history: Hillary Clinton, whose disapproval rating stands at 56 percent. Make no mistake,
I want Trump to lose this election. But progressives should not support Clinton. Her close ties to corporate America and its brutal neoliberal agenda will serve to increase the appeal of right-wing populism even if she wins.
Clinton's billionaire backers, who wined and dined her throughout August, want her to promise as little as possible to ordinary people for fear of a mass movement developing under her administration. They know that working people, and young people especially, are fired up in a way that we haven't seen in decades. E-mails recently leaked from Nancy Pelosi's office contain explicit instructions not to agree to any specific demands from Black Lives Matter.
The Democratic Party has a special talent for enabling the right. President Obama was first elected in 2008 on a wave of opposition to eight years of George W. Bush's wars and tax cuts for the rich. But he and the Democrats continued the bailout of Wall Street and stood by as millions lost their homes — and the leadership of the labor movement and most progressive organizations gave him a pass. This created space for the Tea Party to exploit the legitimate anger of large sections of the working and middle class. It wasn't until 2011 that Occupy Wall Street gave a genuine left-wing expression to the widespread outrage at corporate politics.
Change comes from mass movements, not from on high, as Bernie Sanders has said. His campaign proved decisively that ordinary people can build a powerful electoral movement representing their interests without taking a penny from corporate America. Polls consistently showed that Sanders would crush Trump in the election. But his campaign was trapped inside a party whose leadership was prepared to do almost anything to stop him.
We need to build a new political party, one completely free from corporate cash and influence. In fact, Socialist Alternative and I urged Sanders to run as an independent after the primaries, which would have inspired millions of people and helped lay the basis for such a party.
But it's still possible to make a stand this year for single-payer health care, free college, a $15-an-hour minimum wage, a rapid transition from fossil fuels, and an end to endless war. That's why I'm supporting Jill Stein. We need the strongest possible vote for her in order to continue building the power of social movements and to fight back against the right in the form of Trump and Libertarian Gary Johnson, both of whom dishonestly portray themselves as "anti-establishment" candidates.
Many progressives will vote for Clinton in spite of their opposition to her politics, simply to prevent Trump from setting foot in the White House. I understand their desire to see him defeated, but even more important is beginning the process — too long delayed — of building an alternative to the pro-capitalist parties monopolizing U.S. politics.
Stein's campaign is an opportunity to rally support for what is widely wanted and needed: radical change. Even a few million people voting for her would be a powerful expression of the changing political landscape. It would be a down payment for a whole new kind of politics in the years ahead, and a new party based on social movements and ordinary people — a party of, by, and for the 99 percent.
The Failure of Lesser Evilism
Clinton's Corporate Record
The Disastrous Failure of Lesser Evilism
Can the Democratic Party be "Reclaimed"?
Bernie Proved a New Party is Possible


Since 2008 the City of Revelstoke has contracted a Social Development Coordinator to address social issues in the community. This has resulted in the completion of several important community initiatives.
Communicating social issues and information within the community and externally.
For more information visit the Revelstoke Social Development website or contact the Social Development Coordinator.