text:
Department of State Responds to General Anthony Zinni's "Smart Power" Proposal
Steve Clemons - September 25, 2009
Editor's Note: Recently, retired 4-star General Anthony Zinni critiqued what he perceives to be an inability of the Department of State and US AID to change their operational dynamics to confront the realities of state-building in conflict areas and to embrace 'smart power' in substance rather than rhetoric. There is both a short clip of a conversation I had with General Zinni — as well as a longer video clip of the event he did at the New America Foundation.
The Department of State has officially responded here to General Zinni which The Washington Note is pleased to present. — Steve Clemons
Responding to General Anthony Zinni: Civilian Approach to National Security Problem Solving
This is a guest "note" approved by the Department of State and offered by Jeffrey Stacey, a Franklin Fellow in the Department of State's Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction & Stabilization. He is a professor at Tulane University, where he teaches Political Science and International Relations. Dr. Stacey previously worked for the British government and the European Union, before returning to the U.S. to obtain his PhD from Columbia University.
I am a relative newcomer to the State Department. I have previous government experience but have logged a similar number of years more recently as an academic. Upon arriving at State at the beginning of this administration, this experience allowed me to plunge right in.
And in a world of 40+ failed states, there has been no shortage of work to be done. While I am technically still an outsider, having observed the newest office at State close up, sweated out long hours, and represented the U.S. government abroad, for the rest of this post I will use "we" instead of "I".
In his September 1, 2009 speech at the New America Foundation, General Anthony Zinni spoke about his proposal for a new partnership effort between the Defense and other departments like State, and recognized that post-conflict work around the world will remain necessary for the U.S. and its allies.
In order to achieve stability once the fighting phase is concluded, rapid progress on the political, social, and economic fronts is required. In fact, this smart power concept is already being avidly pursued in a full-fledged interagency effort across the U.S. government, albeit under a slightly different guise.
Whereas General Zinni calls for creating a new military command with DOD playing the lead, something similar to the 1947-style sea change he advocates is already taking place–only with State and USAID in partnership with DOD, as along with the Departments of Homeland Security, Treasury, Justice, Commerce, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services.
Several years ago Congress created a new office in the State Department–the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS)–and tasked it with spearheading a massive collaborative effort not only with DOD, but also including the major domestic policymaking agencies. Thus, a so-called "whole of government" approach to post-conflict stabilization efforts was born. And with eight major agencies involved, it is an impressive thing to behold. At the working level of the U.S. government, this form of U.S. foreign policymaking is doing just that: working.
Here is where recent developments are moving fast and might not be visible to those outside of the U.S. Government. Far beyond merely "throwing money and people at a problem" from "a little office in the State Department," as General Zinni put it, this whole of government effort is taking root.
In Washington, it's essential to have three things in order to be effective: mandate, money, and people. S/CRS has been established in law by Congress, given a substantial stand-alone budget, and has developed a highly professional cadre of personnel. The sizable staff consists of a central headquarters office focused on planning and preparation of civilian capabilities and networks of officials from our interagency partners who work with S/CRS regularly, including DOD.
And most importantly, S/CRS and its partners are building the Civilian Response Corps, which has already been funded to include 250 new hires. The Corps is designed as a civilian expeditionary force primarily for deploying to conflict zones, to accomplish tasks more suited to civilian experts than to our armed forces.
Civilian Response Corps hiring and training is well underway. 120 civilian experts will be onboard and trained to deploy abroad by this spring, and the full complement of 250 is expected in 2011. The sum of the three components–Active, Standby, and Reserve–will eventually swell to over 4000 personnel (once congress funds the Reserve component). Our DOD colleagues have greatly encouraged our efforts in S/CRS and have gone so far as to provide operational funds for S/CRS and our interagency partners.
General Zinni calls for a capability that involves a serious planning capability, comprehensive training, specific plans of engagement, regular assessment, and yearly practice (aka exercising), and claims that only the military can carry this off.
In fact, S/CRS and its partners have introduced precisely these elements, to such a degree that a major change in organizational culture–the very kind General Zinni advocates–is now evident. Beyond any reasonable doubt, we are beyond "saluting problems with band-aids." The idea of a novel capability for tackling the problems presented by the world's failed states is already coming to fruition.
For example, this past spring S/CRS and U.S. Government agency partners ran an exercise on planning with and deploying the Civilian Response Corps alongside the military, specifically our European combatant command. A phalanx of EUCOM planners at the level of Colonel were sent to plan this exercise with S/CRS. At the conclusion of this process, our military counterparts could not have been more impressed; moreover, one of the consultants commented that he had never seen anything like it in his twenty-five years in the private sector. The exercise itself was a success, with the troublesome parts functioning as teachable moments. We are planning future exercises of a similar sort for next year.
Nevertheless, while the demand for the Civilian Response Corps is unmistakably clear, one significant question remains: Will the Corps be deployed as designed? The challenge here is to overcome a considerable knowledge gap about the Corps and how it relates to the broader system within which it is intended to operate.
Consider this: Every time the U.S. makes a major commitment to a country in peril we end up reinventing the wheel at great cost to both policymakers and the American taxpayers.
The first thing we do is name a high profile official Special Envoy or Representative. Whether it's Thomas Pickering on Colombia, Robert Gelbard on Kosovo, or James Dobbins on any of a number of hot potatoes handed to him, once this official is named there is no set process by which s/he gathers a team together, no set of tried and true procedures to follow, no staff already allocated to work on the country in question.
Instead, this official starts grabbing staff from all over the place and is essentially forced to wing it, setting off turf wars, interrupting policy streams, and busting budgets all across various bureaus and agencies.
S/CRS and its partners have designed a new system for handling crisis countries to use those lessons learned. In effect, the system within which the Civilian Response Corps operates is as simple as it is important. When country X asks for our assistance, under this system two things happen: 1) A team gets set up in Washington, headed by an official picked by cabinet level officials, and 2) a second team heads out to the U.S. embassy in country X, to assist the ambassador in place. Team 1 is the staff for the key decision making group for the crisis, coordinating closely with Team 2 in country. A third much smaller coordination team will head to the HQ of the military's combatant command in the region.
The difference here is the staff come largely from S/CRS and interagency partners who are trained and ready for precisely this scenario, who operate according to a set of procedures that allow for efficiency and effectiveness, and who know how to both plan and operate once deployed. Team 2 does a conflict assessment and, with the embassy staff, the local government, and any international partners also operating in country, devises a strategic plan.
Then, for implementation purposes, additional smaller teams arrive in country loaded with civ-mil expertise for stabilizing pre- or post-conflict situations. These small teams in effect are advanced Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), much more civilian than military, and better prepared to transform conflict than the PRTs of today. This system is ready for use in the next major crisis.
So, why reinvent the wheel at such great cost? S/CRS and its partners have already handled numerous small-scale deployments around the world in 25 hot spots, with a team of 20 currently in Afghanistan, and others in and out of places like Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
They have already conducted serious planning efforts in Sudan, Haiti, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Kosovo. The training we put our personnel through is rigorous, with heavy emphasis on planning, deploying, and operating in unsecure environments. We can operate with the military or without it, as the aim is to deploy in whatever capacity is suited to the conflict at hand. We have also begun working with allied governments who have built similar capacities; in addition we are actively working with NATO, the EU, and the UN.
The wholesale change in government culture General Zinni has called for is palpable. As our DOD colleagues have noted, with trained civilians ready to do the post-conflict stabilization, the U.S. military can remain focused on doing what it does better than anyone: fighting and winning wars. Together, these hard and soft tools make up the key elements of America's new smart power toolbox. There are some conflicts abroad our leadership may choose not to become involved in, but where the U.S. seeks to protect its interests and aid friends in need, S/CRS and its interagency partners are up to the task.
— Jeffrey Stacey
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22 comments on "Department of State Responds to General Anthony Zinni's "Smart Power" Proposal"
Iraqna says: October 5, 2009 at 3:49 pm
What has SCRS accomplished since it has had its congressional mandate? Very little. S/CRS faces some legitimacy problems from within the state department…see evidence of its current move to a venue outside the beltway. the 1207 program, a program S/CRS oversees, has been riddled with implementation problems–urgent and emergent funding arrives 10 months after the fact and then effectively becomes a traditional USAID or INL project. SCRS has had but a few success stories to hang its hat on….there is much to be done before we herald SCRS as the answer to the lack of civilian capacity in conflict and post conflict environments.
PissedOffAmerican says: September 30, 2009 at 9:52 pm
"I think that the "PissedOffAmerican" needs to get his head out of the toilet"
I would, but I haven't figured out a way to exclude Washington DC from these discussions.
Jim Tracey says: September 30, 2009 at 9:30 am
I think that the "PissedOffAmerican" needs to get his head out of the toilet.
Maj Darryl Engelke, USAF, student, Command and General Staff College, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center says: September 28, 2009 at 11:17 am
Mr. Stacey points out that "recent developments are moving fast and might not be visible to those outside of the U.S. Government." My question is why are these "developments" not being published and reported on to the American people? We continue to see reports on the failings of the military strategy in Afghanistan. Ms. Kori Schake, in an article in the Wall Street Journal on Sep. 25, stated "When Mr. Obama announced his current Afghanistan policy in March, he said it was "a stronger, smarter, more comprehensive strategy" that would build schools, hospitals, roads, and enterprise zones, addressing issues like energy and trade. Where are those efforts?" I want to see more reporting on the actual efforts of the broader U.S. government in Afghanistan and less of the military efforts. We don't need to hear about planning deployment exercises with the military as Mr. Stacey proudly stated. Actual projects and accomplishments are needed. I agree with Ms. Schake that the military is doing its job in Afghanistan, "it's time the rest of the government does its job."
We finally have a comprehensive plan for Afghanistan. Will it work? I think it will, if we properly resource all aspects of the plan, not just the military ones.
"The views expressed in this comment are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Air Force, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government."
Kathleen Grasso Andersen says: September 27, 2009 at 1:43 pm
concerned citizen…precisely my point in suggesting that the UN stabilize and reconstruct, rather than the US unilaterally…
My problem is in believing our "stated" goals..
I think our reason for being in Iraq or Afghanistan, militarilly, have nothing whatsoever to do with "democracy" and everything to do with capitolism…free enterprise..that we only want a democratic process when the result is one that we want, not one that the population wants.
In countries with great natural resources, we only want a "gov't" that we can call legitmate, so they rubber stamp mineral leases, etc. If their "democratically" electred gov't refuses to play along, like in Iraq with their "Oil Law",we have our private contractors to keep things stirred up to de-stabilize the gov't…until they get it "right", our way.
In my opinion, the only way the hostilites will cease is when we withdraw and the UN does the stabilizing/reconstructing…what would we be "winning" in Afghanistan with 40,000 more human beings pumped into that meat grinder? Finding OBL? Defeating the Taliban… Al Qeada? Puhleeeeze…. they exist because we are there in their midst, meddling in their affairs for how many years now?
concerned citizen says: September 27, 2009 at 9:36 am
This is a great inside baseball discussion. But the unanswered and more important questions are why are we playing the game and is it the right game to be playing.
One reason S/CRS is floundering is because someone has yet to articulate a strategic vision and justification for its existence and mission. It's one thing to have a humanitarian purpose, along the lines of USAID's OFDA, but to what ends are we trying as a nation to stabilize and reconstruct other countries? Sure, it would be nice for our foreign policy goals if the world were stable and nicely constructed so as to facilitate our insatiable economic expansion. But it's not as clear to me whether A) the United States should make it a part of its core foreign policy mission to stabilize and reconstruct countries, nor B) whether such an imperial mission would not be more successful (cheaper, at least, and possibly politically more legitimate) if pursued multilaterally within an international framework.
I think Washington DC-based nation builders are way ahead of the rest of country on this one. And the inertia at DoD and State is troubling. Bureaucracies in search of a mission, indeed!
POA…no kidding…it's my way of calling their bluff on the lofty lingo…
"I would prefer that we militarilly get our of everywhere and instead, contribute part of the funding to the UN Peacekeepers and Special Advisors…who could restore peace, and help to construct their infrastructures….I think the whole world would support peaceful rebuilding.."
But then we'd loose control over the country's, leadership, resources, and assets. Assuming altruistic motives of the scum that drives United States foreign policy and war making is kinda foolish. Motives are the FIRST thing that should be pondered when examining the kind of "my country tis of thee" horseshit Stacey is trying to sell us. There is no money in turning the carnival over to outside entities.
At this point, smart anything would be a vast improvement..overall, I do agree that more use of civilians in the State Dept.is a far better way to reconstruct and rebuild freindly long term relations…preferrably, in co-operation with the UN Special Advisory Services, rather than under the auspices of the Pentagon…
The Military/Pentagon approach is antithetical to that aim because their role is to search and destroy… and privatized functions that were formerly performed by the military, are too open to graft, and not subject to any laws, are not exactly conducive to friendly chats and ventures…we need to get past "military solutions" thinking.
Blackwater, Halliburton, KBR, etc. How's this privatization experiment going for us? What makes the State Department think a bunch of barely out of diaper academics can cobble together less of a clusterfuck than than history tells us these kinds of efforts and bureaucracies become?
And if we can shut down ACORN for catering to whores and pimps, than what the fuck is Congress still doing in existence?
Where Is the Defund Blackwater Act?
by Jeremy Scahill, September 26, 2009
Republican Congressional leaders are continuing their witch-hunt against ACORN, the grassroots community group dedicated to helping poor and working class people. This campaign now unfortunately has gained bi-partisan legislative support in the form of the Defund ACORN Act of 2009 which has now passed the House and Senate. As Ryan Grim at Huffington Post has pointed out, the legislation "could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex:"
The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.
According to the Project on Oversight and Government Reform, this legislation could potentially eliminate a virtual Who's Who of war contractors including Lockheed Martin, Boeing and KBR to other corporations such as AT&T, FedEx and Dell.
Perhaps one of the most jarring comparisons here is the fact that ACORN is now being attacked while the Obama administration continues to contract with Blackwater, the favorite mercenary company of the Bush administration, which is headed by Erik Prince, who was a major donor to Republican causes and campaigns, including those of some of the Defund ACORN bill's sponsors, including Indiana Republican Mike Pence, one of the key figures in hunting down Van Jones. Prince, of course, was recently described by a former employee as a man who "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."
At present Blackwater has a $217 million security contract through the State Department in Iraq which was just extended by the Obama administration indefinitely. It holds a $210 million State Department "security" contract in Afghanistan that runs through 2011 and another multi-million dollar contract with the Defense Department for "training" in Kabul. All of this is on top of Blackwater's clandestine work for the CIA, including continued work on the drone bombing campaign in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This also does not take into account Blackwater's lucrative domestic work training law enforcement and military forces inside the US at the company's compounds in North Carolina, California and Illinois, nor the private "security" work it does for entities like the International Republican Institute, nor the work it does in training "Faith Based Organizations." It also does not include the contracts doled out to Erik Prince's private CIA called Total Intelligence Solutions, which works for foreign governments and Fortune 500 corporations.
Then there is this fact: Blackwater was paid over $73 million for its federally-funded, no bid-security contracts with the Department of Homeland Security in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, billing taxpayers $950 per man per day, a spending decision the Bush administration called "the best value to the government." ACORN, meanwhile, only helped poor people who were suffering as a result of the government's total and complete failure to respond to Katrina.
Meanwhile, a recent federal audit of Blackwater, compiled by the State Department and the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, suggests the company may have to repay some $55 million to the government for allegedly failing to meet the terms of just one federal contract in Iraq, which, it is important to note, is $2 million more than the total money allotted by the federal government to ACORN over the past 15 years. (The company also cannot account for one federally funded "deep fat fryer" in Iraq, according to the audit).
Overall, Blackwater has raked in well over $1 billion since 2003 in security contracts alone — all of which were kicked off by a fat no-bid contract to guard L. Paul Bremer. Let's also remember that Blackwater was estimated in Congressional hearings in 2007 to earn some 90% of its revenue from the federal government and Prince refused to disclose his salary, but said it was over $1 million. Blackwater has been or is being investigated by the US Congress, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, the Justice Department and the IRS, among other agencies, for a range of issues from arms smuggling to manslaughter to tax evasion. One of its operatives pleaded guilty to killing an innocent, unarmed Iraqi civilian, while five others have been indicted on manslaughter and other charges over the 2007 Nisour Square massacre during which 17 Iraqi civilians were gunned down. The company is also facing a slew of civil lawsuits alleging war crimes and extrajudicial killings in Iraq.
Here is a question for those Democratic lawmakers that voted in support of the Defund ACORN Act: How do you justify making this a major league legislative priority while Blackwater continues to be armed and dangerous across the globe on the US government payroll? Where is the Defund Blackwater Act?
Geez, it amazes me that anyone can be so enamored of this obvious sales pitch. It conjurs up the mind's eye imagery of a chorus standing behind Stacey, chanting "Yes we can!!!!" while fireworks light up the night sky.
Sadly though, those fireworks are the after images of the impacts of smart bombs and white phosphorous, and the REAL chant is provided by history, and the words chanted are "No we can't".
The creation of these monstrous bureaucracies, that need death, military mayhem, and "failed states" to survive, is a sad statement on a nation whose infrastructure is failing at an escalating rate, whose economy is stitched together with worthless thread, and whose global credibility has been shattered by the exact kind of worthless and self destructive product Stacey's sales pitch tries to con us into buying.
Stacey will end up rich considering his position. How better to cinch your future than to be involved in a governmental agency that doles out taxpayer money to private industry?
Frankly, I find Stacey's sales pitch obscene, in its absolute absurdity, (as demonstrated by history), as well as in its Madison Avenue delivery.
I meant what I said. This nation would be far better served if someone simply placed a shovel in Stacey's hands, and expended the thirty minutes it would undoubtedly take to teach him which end of it goes in the dirt.
Anonymous German in Asia says: September 26, 2009 at 9:56 am
as a good (former) German General Staff offic er I should start with an apology, so I am sorry for commenting on something very American from a simple German perspective enriched with 9 years experience in Asia
Listening to General (ret) Zinni and the answer by Jeffrey Stacey, I feel myself thrown back about 10 – 15 years ago, when in Germany was the discussion who is the leader of foreign and security policy. Luckily, the answer lays in the constitution saying that the guideline competency is with the German Chancellor – a political leadership. In times of peace and in bases at home troops and their commanders are willing to accept this overarching rule.
However, once the military goes abroad many (especially leaders) start challenging the civilian authority and asking the often heard question (open or camouflaged) : "Are civilians able to lead? " as many military leaders are thinking that they got the "milk for leadership" from their early childhood, military career training and military elite schools as no one else in the country. And even open in a talkative way "acknowledging" the civilian leadership in their deepest heart they do not trust civilian leaders and their capabilities. And this attitude is understandable in a way, as many military leaders were educated to be "special" in terms of their responsibility for the wellbeing of the nation AND their individual soldiers.
And so, ther e is a frequent call for creating new "task forces", "operational commands" etc, that sometimes I got the impression, new positions should be chiseled out, to compensate some people who could not yet be promoted due to a lack of general positions.
But, many of the military leaders forget, that long before they arrive with their first official or covered reconnaissance teams, many other agencies – historically lead by special envoys from the head of state (on a temporarily base) or the ministry of Foreign Affairs on a permanent base (Embassies) followed by trade missions, humanitarian and development missions – are already in place and have their experiences. Of course not experiences of fighting war or handling high technology, but so-called "soft power" experiences, which are often neglected by the military leaders.
I remember my former tank brigade commander discussing with farmers after a maneuver in winter time resulted in heavy damages of farmland saying at one point in the discussion: "I am not telling you how to plant your potatoes – and you are not telling me how to train my troops". I am not agreeing with this point of view, as the military has to protect the ones without weapons so they should listen honestly20to their feelings.
And in my opinion, this should be also the case in big politics: Not to create new military positions and justifying more military budget but cooperate and listen HONESTLY to the civilians even or especially if they are in leading positions. The civilians also have their weaknesses but which military does not have? Vice versa, civilians have also their strength which they can better allocate in a cooperative environment, where military is part of the executive (= implementing) body rather than the leader. Military advisors and specialists as support for the civilian political decision making process is one side, but the "primate of politics" should be stronger incorporated din the military training, so that also in a mission abroad these principles are not forgotten.
So, I am happy with the answer of Jeffrey, because in my opinion all state agencies working in the environment of a foreign state should be lead by the State Department with the support from all other agencies. And if the Secretary of State is not acceptable for the DOD, then, yeah then the leadership is with the President of the United States as the others are all Secretaries.
But, luckily, the President of the United States is a civilian.
Lurker says: September 26, 2009 at 9:44 am
Great exchange you are revving up here between one of America's greatest generals and the young Mr. Stacey of the State Department. It's not quite "Gladiator" but it's not supposed to be. You are doing an outstanding service for the nation and reminding us how political debate should be done.
Thank you. My son plans to write a paper for his high school on the issues in this post.
jonst says: September 26, 2009 at 8:58 am
Send them all to cosmetology school!
Syed Qamar Afzal Rizvi says: September 26, 2009 at 2:04 am
The Jeffrey Stacey argument seems very much comprehensive and lucid yet there is an exigency to project the US smart power doctrine beyond the cost-benefit doctrine's expediencies entailed in it.
PissedOffAmerican says: September 26, 2009 at 12:29 am
"The Corps is designed as a civilian expeditionary force primarily for deploying to conflict zones, to accomplish tasks more suited to civilian experts than to our armed forces"
Do you have an Electrocution Supervisor yet???? I understand Halliburton's just quit.
"And in a world of 40+ failed states, there has been no shortage of work to be done"
You look young and able. Why not get a friggin' shovel and fix the pothole in my cul de sac?
"S/CRS has been established in law by Congress, given a substantial stand-alone budget, and has developed a highly professional cadre of personnel. The sizable staff consists of a central headquarters office focused on planning and preparation of civilian capabilities and networks of officials from our interagency partners who work with S/CRS regularly, including DOD"
Another government behemoth that can't exist without a perpetual state of war, sucking up taxpayer money like an engorged leech.
JohnH says: September 26, 2009 at 12:11 am
I agree with POA.
And please tell me what's wrong with the Dumb Power the US has been deploying for the last 50 years? It's what built the Empire!
Now Zinni has to take Dumb Power and make it Smart. The nerve of the man! And besides, what's good for BAE is good for America, even if BAE is a British company!
"Thus, a so-called "whole of government" approach to post-conflict stabilization efforts was born. And with eight major agencies involved, it is an impressive thing to behold"
Yeah, I'm sure we are all especially "impressed" with the "post conflict stabilization efforts" in Iraq.
Of course we don't need to worry about this in Afghanistan, for there probably won't be any "post conflict" period. At least, not until we pull the inevitable "Saigon style" exit. Then "stabilization" will be the least of our concerns.
"So, why reinvent the wheel at such great cost?"
Uhm, because it doesn't work????
(How do you people dream this shit up?)
PissedOffAmerican says: September 25, 2009 at 11:50 pm
"As our DOD colleagues have noted, with trained civilians ready to do the post-conflict stabilization, the U.S. military can remain focused on doing what it does better than anyone: fighting and winning wars. Together, these hard and soft tools make up the key elements of America's new smart power toolbox. There are some conflicts abroad our leadership may choose not to become involved in, but where the U.S. seeks to protect its interests and aid friends in need, S/CRS and its interagency partners are up to the task"
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nadir_of_western_civilization_to?utm_source=a-section
Nadir Of Western Civilization To Be Reached This Friday At 3:32 P.M.
(Which is more nonsensical? Stacey's statement, quoted above, or the Onion piece?)
DCpolitico says: September 25, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Thanks very much for posting this fascinating outline of what the State Department is doing in the civil reconstruction wing of post-conflict zones. Really excellent essay by Jeffrey Stacey.
I think your comment function was off here earlier today and am glad that it is now on as I have been wanting to commend you, General Zinni, Professor Stacey, and the Department of State for engaging in a serious discussion and debate about a very serious challenge for the nation.
I do not believe that I want the entire apparatus of our diplomatic and peace-building operations dominated by the Pentagon, but that's the way things have been going for a long time as Anthony Zinni states in the longer video program that you moderated at the New America Foundation Steve. Zinni paid respect to Dana Priest and her book The Mission, which argues that the Military is becoming the defacto State Department and AID anyway.
But I don't think that this is ultimately good for the nation or the world, and I strongly applaud the expansion of the resources and capabilities of the Reconstruction and Stabilization office at State.
Really excellent to see this kind of high quality debate SOMEWHERE in the blogosphere, and so glad it is here.
Thanks for getting the comments function working. I was going to go crazy if I couldn't comment on this.
Thanks Steve!


« Was Matt Lauer given a break by the press?
MIT's Champika Fernando, who worked on Coding for Carrots with Google, said she was nine-years-old when she first coded through Papert's program.
"It makes me happy to think of all of the nine-year-olds who will get their first coding experience playing with today's Doodle," Fernando said. "My hope is that people will find this first experience appealing and engaging, and they'll be encouraged to go further.
Click on screenshot to go there. I must be dumber than a kid, because I can't even start the damn game! Can any readers give a tip?
Whatever Elvis' feelings may or may not have been in regard to "following" Lewis, Presley was clearly the "star" of the impromptu jam session, which consisted largely of snippets of gospel songs that the four artists had all grown up singing. The recordings show Elvis, the most nationally and internationally famous of the four at the time, to be the focal point of what was a casual, spur-of-the-moment gathering of four artists who would each go on to contribute greatly to the seismic shift in popular music in the late 1950s.
And eleven minutes of recording from the session. Some of it's quite good!
More fun music facts: on this day in 1965, the Grateful Dead first played in concert under that name. Finally, on this day in 1991, Pan American World Airways ("Pan Am") ended its operations. I used to fly it internationally all the time, and was saddened.
Hili: Here we go again.
Hili: My paws are going to be freezing again.
Hili: Znowu będzie mi zimno w łapki.
This entry was written by whyevolutionistrue and posted on December 4, 2017 at 7:00 am and filed under Hili Dialogue. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.	Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.
Would she appreciate some cat shoes?
It's hard to overstate the impact on popular music of Sun Record's Sam Phillips, who told Elvis it was ok to sing like a black boy. Phillips was an earlier promoter of integration (or "race-mixing," as it was known in the South in those days), although I suppose some today would write him off as a cultural appropriator.
Would that Elvis had stayed in Memphis with him instead of going off to Hollywood with Col. Tom!
Pan Am was always my favorite airline. They never degenerated into the dog eat dog world of deregulation. Probably why they are no longer with us. I noticed my pharmacy is buying my health insurance company for 69 billion. Maybe they will soon buy hospitals and funeral homes and we can have full one stop shopping.
Sherfolder is correct. This is a way for children to learn to do step by step instructions, ie algorithms for problem solving. After you get the rabbit to hop once and get the carrot, you will asked to put in two hop symbols, one after the other (and of course hit the start arrow on the right). At some point you will be introduced to a "right turn arrow" and of course you still must tell the rabbit/dumb computer everything so even though the carrot is right in front of her, you need to tell her to hop one step forward to get it. They also introduce the loop symbol….known as do loops to those of us who learned fortran in the 1960's. Justtry it out by moving symbols. You cannot break it is my guess.
And one more thought. You can repeat the right turn symbol four times in a row to have the rabbit do a 360 or five times to make a fancy right turn.
That's all too hard for me! I suppose familiarity with computer games would help. . . .
Fortran77 was still in the curriculum at many US Universities in the mid '80s.
Shoot. Until the shift to object oriented languages all languages were so similar they were like different dialects of the same language.
I agree. As a professional programmer who started in the early '70s, I view those languages as quite different. They were also designed for different problem areas.
FORTRAN, COBOL, C and Algol all belong to the imperative family. Lisp is sort of functional programming and Prolog is logical programming. I'm not entirely sure where Forth lies.
FORTRAN, COBOL, C and Algol have similarities in that they consist of lists of sequential instructions that act on data. C and Algol fall into a subgroup called block structured programming languages which means that their programs conform to a hierarchical structure.
So these four languages have superficial differences but are fundamentally similar.
If you are looking at programming languages from that high an altitude then, yes, they are all similar. This is why we call them all "programming languages".
I worked for FORTH, Inc. for 3 months in the late '70s. Although it ended up not being a job that worked for me, it was a fantastic learning experience. FORTH is so different from other programming languages, it gave me a completely different perspective. It is definitely an imperative language but very, very different from other languages in how it is used by the programmer and its overall philosophy. I continue recommending that people who are just starting out that they should try FORTH for a while just to open their eyes. That said, I could only take it for 3 months but that is another, longer story.
But you understand that there are fundamental differences between the programming models of Lisp and Prolog and the programming model of Fortran, Cobol, C and Algol. It's an important and real distinction which means a lot more than just "they are all programming languages".
I think you mistook my point. My position is that these programming languages are only similar if viewed from a very great distance. If one becomes familiar with programming language design, one will see that they are very different languages.
But the differences are actually fairly superficial in comparison to the fundamental programming model.
More or less the first three high level languages invented were Cobol, Fortran and Lisp. Lisp is quite different to the other too.
It's true that most languages before Simula and Smalltalk could be described as "imperative" programming languages (not Lisp though). i.e. they were basically sequential lists of instructions that acted on data, but even amongst them, there were important sub divisions. Probably the most important was the division between block structured and non-block structured languages.
Interesting. I've never heard of Lisp.
I am not a professional software designer so I have no issues being corrected on this by you and the others above who seem to be much more experienced than I.
What prompted my ignorant observation is that of the meager 4 or 5 languages I ever used, some fairly extensively, they were all so similar that I was able to pick them up readily. Command names and syntax varied to one degree or another but the general types of algorithms (i.e. loops, calls, etc.) you created with them were quite similar. Of course that's all from an amateur's perspective and could be hopelessly parochial.
You should have a go with Lisp. It takes some getting used to because it is so different from the imperative languages. Even better, try a pure functional language like Haskell. The learning curve is very steep though.
I'm rereading Pinker's The Language Instinct, which has led me to wonder the following. If you haven't read it this might not make sense, but do you happen to know if any programming language designers have ever experimented with incorporating any of the structural rules or concepts of Chomsky's Universal Grammar into a programming language? Or based a language on UG rules or concepts?
Not that I know of and I doubt it would be all that useful. There have been many attempts to create programming languages that are closer to the English language. (Probably other languages too but mostly English.) Presumably the intent was to make them easier to use by humans.
Personally, I think this is a waste of time. Programming languages need to be much more precise than human language because they are used to instruct a computer in doing something we need done precisely. Even when we instruct humans to do something in a very precise way, we try to avoid the ambiguity of everyday language.
Although it is a goal to invent a general purpose AI we can talk to, it would still be a bad idea to use everyday English to instruct it to, say, run a nuclear power plant. Programming languages are much more precise and even then we need to thoroughly test the result. I suppose we could tell the AI how to run the reactor in everyday English if we were willing to test the hell out of it before we allow it to run.
I agree. Once you've figured out how it works, it's really fun. One of the best goolge doodles I've played so far.
Off topic, but I just heard something that is so cool it should be shared.
As most probably are aware SpaceX will soon attempt its first launch of their Falcon Heavy. Recently confirmed rumors, confirmed by Musk himself apparently, are that SpaceX will be using Elon Musk's red Tesla Roadster as the cargo, destined for deep space. Unconfirmed is that the car's sound system will be set to play Major Tom.
I doubt it will happen – even if he really wanted to do it, there may be legalities that prevent it. For myself: this is his ego in action & it's the wrong kind of "can do". These young [post-Gates], tech billionaires have problems grasping their own limitations in spheres outside the limited one that made 'em rich.
Regarding your last paragraph, while I have no issues with your position I completely disagree with it. Except with the "I doubt it will happen" part. That I agree with. It seems too complicated to achieve. Unless it has been planned for quite some time already.
Musk has stated that he doubts the first launch of Falcon Heavy will be successful. This is probably intentional lowering of expectations. However, the launch is clearly not intended to send a useful payload anywhere. My guess is that the car is just a matter of wanting to test the rocket with a payload of a certain weight and, of course, a small, victimless publicity stunt.
Absolutely, the car is just mass for a test flight. There is no real mission beyond testing the launcher.
Lowering expectations shouldn't really be necessary IMO, but people seem to forget how difficult rocketry is. This is the first launch attempt of a new rocket. While the FH is comprised of 3 F9s which have flown many times now, strapping three multi-engine liquid fueled rockets together is a complex problem and has not gone very well in the past.
Maybe lowering expectations isn't strictly necessary but it does allow Musk to say "I told you so" if it fails in some manner. I suspect it will mostly be successful. I would buy stock in SpaceX if I could. I do own Tesla stock.
I enjoyed watching the Million Dollar Quartet. I had no idea that happened.
Success! I was finally able to get through the Google Doodle to the tea party reward – and it only took me TWO HOURS! In my defense, my first and only computer course was the original Introduction to Information Science (IS) at U. of Hawaii in 1970, so it took a while to get back in the groove of designating each step. Hint: Turning occurs in place, so remember to specifically arrow forward to move your bunny. So it transpires that my university level computer course is now taught in kindergarten. Sigh! I be old now.


What are the main crowdfunding success factors?
What are the things you can do to help ensure a successful crowdfunding campaign?
marketing of the crowdfunding campaign.
Before starting your campaign, it would be advantageous if you acquired the interest of what we call 'lead investors'. These are people from your network who invest more than EUR 5,000 during the first week of your crowdfunding round. If you have such contacts, you should send us the list with the names of this people BEFORE you launch the campaign. We will charge a lower success fee on the investments from this group and we expect a maximum of 10 names. Having lead investors on your side from the beginning sends a strong, positive signal to the potential crowd investors and increase your chances to get funding. Historically we have seen that campaigns that open on our platform with at least 30% of their funding goal secured have a higher success rate than those that open on 0%.
Being active is key in crowdfunding. You need to make sure that people know about your campaign! FundedByMe recommends entrepreneurs to have a marketing plan for all 45 days of the crowdfunding period. The purpose with this marketing plan is to create as much traction as possible, especially during the first week because catching momentum is very important in crowdfunding.
While creating a crowdfunding campaign, you will receive feedback from your account manger on how you can increase your chances of succeeding. During the crowdfunding round you will receive daily emails from FundedByMe with tips and tricks on how you can promote your campaign and we also offer a range of add-on services that you can buy from us if you are having a hard time getting it done by yourself. Ask your FundedByMe business development contact for more information about these.
See how others have done this!


text:
Moto's back with a sleeker, faster Z2 Play that'll go for days
And a bunch of Mods to boot
by Chris Rowlands
01 June 2017 / 16:38BST
While its mods didn't go viral, the Moto Z Play was a novel attempt at working modularity - and now it's back, in slimmer, lighter and speedier form. The Z2 Play ships with the same ability to handle attachments, with new mods announced to partner with it - including a Moto GamePad and a TurboPower Pack. As for the phone itself, it retains a 5.5in Super AMOLED display, but carries a 2.2GHz octa-core chip and updated laser autofocus - despite a weight saving over the original. Better yet, the cell can do up to 30 hours on a single charge, with eight hours of boost from just 15 minutes at the plug. No price, yet, but it'll launch this year.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Recently, the FDA has taken action against the e-vaporizer company, Juul, after there has been an epidemic of young children using their product. The primary criticism that the company faces is that their flavors are enticing to young people. They advertise fruit punch, crème brulée, mango and many more.
Juul has tried to combat this problem by placing health warnings on packaging and advertising the percentage of nicotine in each pod; however, they have had little success. After a fifth grader was found juuling in the bathroom at school, the company realized it was time to take more serious steps. Therefore, in an effort to save their company and reputation, Juul has taken to a new approach: releasing vegetable flavored pods.
Juul is optimistic about their new release. However, considering that most of their users are below the legal age to purchase the product, they expect some drop in their profits. Therefore, they have come up with another solution in order to entice adults. The company feels that with new relatable flavors such as "regret," "back pain," and "I can have a glass of wine at 11 AM, right?" more adults will switch to getting their nicotine fix from the Juul. Overall, the company is hoping adults and children alike respond well to these new efforts for the safety of our children and the success of the company.


Rapidi is a data solution provider with a mission to evolve IT system data sharing and synchronisation in the business world.
"We are problem solvers, committed to helping businesses perform better through their best possible use of data. We were among the first to solve the problem of data transfer, the first to creat a dedicated data integration tool and the first to offer a data integration platform as a service. Now we consistently work to be the best."
Rapidi was in the process of rebranding their businesses and realised they were due for a website redesign. They needed a website that communicated their cutting-edge software services with a focus on improving their current design. Their website required a facelift and redesign that supported more streamlined, effortless user navigation that could facilitate a better user journey.
In our website discover, we identified a major pain point that was hindering the user journey and user experience on Rapidi's existing website. To reach the software-solution internal pages, users had to click on the solutions tab, be taken to a separate solutions page and from there, choose the appropriate option form a list of solutions. This resulted in frustration, causing visitors to bounce and exit before reaching the internal pages.
The brand also needed a pricing page update to differentiate between their pricing options. Lastly, they expressed difficulty in tracking their goals and the results of their content offers.
Reinhard Kirchner, our Head Designer, was faced with the challenge of simplifying the user journey and coming up with a UX-friendly optimisation, wireframing and prototyping was carefully carried out, to try to condense and restructure the heavily content-laden website.
"We made the design very simplistic and divided everthing up into easily digestible chunks. For it to work with the same content and information, we liaised with the Rapidi team and re-created the content to support the new design."
By stripping the content and designing a cleaner, clearer structure, we were able to streamline the user journey and create a drop-down menu from the solutions tab.
Users can easily find the category they're searching for under this tab. With one click they'll be directed to a new page which lists all the solutions pertaining to their needs. This solutions page also features a list of their support products which is useful in drawing visitors deeper into the website and encouraging sales.
Many icons were designed and strategically placed throughout the website to break up sections and space out chunky content on site pages.
For the pricing page, the team made use of HubSpot's personalisation tools (smart content) to automatically show currency specific pricing plans, based on geolocation. If users are visiting from the UK, their pricing would appear in pounds, and if from Europe or the US, it would appear in euros or dollars respectively.
To tackle the issue of measuring Rapidi's marketing efforts, we suggested they build their website in HubSpot so they could track all of their marketing metrics in one place. To boost their lead generation efforts, we created forms and landing pages, offering downloadable collateral, to collect user data as well as thank you pages to host the offers on.
In an effort to further improve user navigation we built a topical filter into the blog listing header that allowed users to filter their blog search according to topical interests.
The brand has an extensive range of downloadable content for which we created a two-step filter on their resource page that would enable them to filter by topic and format/content type.
The result is one of our best pieces of design work to date. Not only did the team rally to create a very structured end-product, but the smart use of design and layout allowed us to make full use of real estate while still being able to house a great deal of content.
The pricing page update improves the website's personalisation, as well as marketing aligned with the use of the HubSpot portal. The landing and thank you pages created helped to glean valuable insight into which content performs better than others, and allowing for a more informed marketing strategy.
Visit the Rapidi website here.


text:
Russell Taylor (Cambridge, 4 de maio de 1944  Glendale, 26 de julho de 2019) foi uma atriz e dubladora estadunidense que interpretou muitos personagens ao longo de sua carreira. Ela foi a dubladora da Minnie Mouse da Disney de 1986 até sua morte em 2019.

Biografia
Taylor nasceu em 4 de maio de 1944 em Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ela dublou Huguinho, Zezinho e Luisinho e Webby Vanderquack na série de televisão DuckTales, o videogame Donald Duck: Goin 'Quackers e em outras aparições, como nos filmes de natal de Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas e Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas. Nas aparições em que os três patos aparecem com mais idade, como no Mickey Mouse Works e no House of Mouse, Tony Anselmo, a voz de Pato Donald, reprisa o papel de Taylor como dublador.

Taylor fornece as vozes de numerosos personagens da série animada Os Simpsons, incluindo o nerd da quarta série Martin Prince, as gêmeas de cabelos roxos Sherri e Terri e o estudante de intercâmbio alemão Üter. Em certas ocasiões, ela dublou o amigo de Martin, Wendell.

Ela era a voz original de Strawberry Shortcake (Moranguinho, no Brasil) nos seis especiais de televisão dos anos 1980.

Ela dublou Pebbles Flintstone em The Flintstone Comedy Show para Hanna-Barbera em 1980. Taylor também foi a voz de Baby Gonzo em Muppet Babies, Pac-Baby na série de televisão Pac-Man, entre outras personagens.

Ela também aparece na Princesas Disney Contos Encantados: Siga seus Sonhos ao lado de seus colegas de elenco dos Simpsons, Tress MacNeille e Frank Welker. Ela foi nomeada para um Emmy por seu trabalho de voz na série da PBS, Jakers! em 2006. Ela dublou uma bruxa em seu segundo filme do Scooby-Doo, Scooby-Doo! e o Rei dos Duendes.

Vida pessoal
Taylor foi casada com Wayne Allwine, a terceira voz de Mickey Mouse, de 1991 até sua morte em 18 de maio de 2009.   Ambos foram nomeados Disney Legends em 2008.

Morte
Taylor morreu em 26 de julho de 2019 em sua casa em Glendale, Califórnia, aos 75 anos de idade.

Filmografia

Cinema

Televisão

Ligações externas

Mortos em 2019
Nascidos em 1944
Naturais de Cambridge (Massachusetts)
Dubladores dos Estados Unidos

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Whilst doing my powertech's class story, I noticed that Gault had a very shiny gun.
I have no idea what "Missing Granny" means in tech-speak, but I find it hilarious.
In completely unrelated news, I logged in the other night to find myself looking like this.
A shock collar? What the hell? Had I been captured for bounty hunter week? It was a debuff without duration, so in theory it could have lasted forever (but a relog cleared it). From googling, it turns out that if you're on the Imp-side Corellia quest to collar some Selonians, you can use said collar to collar non-Selonians. Oh ha ha…. (I am totally doing that with my next toon that gets to Corellia).
When my first sent was visiting That Sithy Place (no, I don't mean Scourge's quarters) at the very end of the class story she found Doc-in-Distress covered in "Missing Granny" from mid-chest to knees. Head canon immediately dictated that "Missing Granny" was the code name for "Dangerously Virulent Strain of Bothan Nether Rot" sooooo…my dps sage runs with Zenith about 99% of the time but every once in a while she'll drag Tharan away from Holotart and into some instance or other hoping that "Missing Granny" will make a reappearance (a nice break in the dailies/weeklies tedium, the Let's Infect Tharan With Missing Granny Minigame).
There's always hope that Tharan and Quinn will have a SGR with each other and leave the rest of us alone.


Latino men rock hairstyles from short and shaggy to long.
Actor Adam Rodriguez arrives at the 2nd Annual Noche De Ninos, in aid of the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles on October 7, 2006 in Beverly Hills, California.
Singer Enrique Iglesias poses in the press room during the 2008 American Music Awards on November 23, 2008 in Los Angeles, California.
Singer Chayanne attends the 2008 Billboard Latin Music Awards on April 10, 2008 in Hollywood, Florida.
Actor Eduardo Verastegui poses in the press room at the 6th Annual Latin Grammy Awards on November 3, 2005 in Los Angeles, California.
Singer Ricky Martin makes an appearance on MTV's Total Request Live at the MTV Studios on November 3, 2006 in New York City.
Actor Diego Luna arrives at the world premiere of 'Milk' held at The Castro Theatre on October 28, 2008 in San Francisco, California.
Former major league baseball player Jose Canseco attends the Fifth Annual Oscar De La Hoya Golf Classic on June 28, 2004 in Westlake Village, California.
Actor Javier Bardem attends a photocall for the film 'No Country For Old Men' during the 60th International Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2007 in Cannes, France.
Actor Jay Hernandez arrives at the 2006 NCLR ALMA Awards on May 7, 2006 in Los Angeles, California.
Actor Gael Garcia Bernal attends the 'Blindness' premiere on March 3, 2009 in Madrid, Spain.


The Week in Review: Beto, Biden and Bribes, Oh My!
CNN is not a news network, and its most prominent employees are not journalists. It is a propaganda arm of the Democratic party, and the bulk of its on-air personalities are little more than left-wing political activists.
"New York has become an increasingly unsettling place to be Jewish.… Anti-Semitic incidents have constituted half of all hate crimes.… There have been four times as many crimes motivated by bias against Jews … as there have against blacks."
I don't know about y'all, but given the crap product so many of these universities are producing these days, I'd bribe them to NOT accept my kids.
Is @AOC a moron? Or a shameless LIAR?
If there were a "Muslim ban" then the most populous Muslim nation – Indonesia – and the most populous Arab nation – Egypt – would be included.
Ok, let's just move on, shall we?
The left has gone completely insane.
Hey, wonder which way Ruth Bader Ginsburg's staff voted on this one?
Senate Democrats' vote against the born-alive protection bill means that they now believe health care is a right for all, except infants who survive an abortion, the most vulnerable creatures imaginable.
I've read it and written about 5,000 words about how insane it and you truly are at https://t.co/WAh3j2JVnA.
Democrats in January: #MichaelCohen is a liar and a rat and deserves to go to prison! Yay!
Democrats today: Micheal Cohen is a truth-teller and we should believe every word he says! Yay!
Man, that global warming is wreaking havoc in California. Oh, wait… – Scientists have been recording daily temperatures in Los Angeles for 132 years. In all that time, they have never recorded a month of February during which the mercury did not top 70 degrees Fahrenheit on at least one day.
But then 2019 came along, and the temperature in LA remained below the 70 degree level for the entire 28 days. Can there be any doubt that the "scientists" at NOAA who have spent the last decade defrauding the historic global temperature records in order to make the modern era appear to be warming will soon issue a report claiming this February to be the "warmest on record"?
I give it maybe 30 days before that happens. The Climate Scam never ends.
Today's Public Service Announcement: Just so no one forgets: Ralph KKK Baby-Killer Blackface Coonman Northam is still Governor of Virginia, one full month after his college photo was revealed for all to see. Thanks, Democrats!
"Roberts joined the liberals Wednesday in two rulings that left the conservatives in dissent. Most notably, he cast the deciding vote to order a new look at the mental competence of a death row inmate who says he can't remember the crimes he committed.
In reality, Roberts' voting pattern simply reflects the pattern at-large for half of the Supreme Court justices appointed by Republican presidents going back to the great Ronald Reagan. Reagan gave us Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, sandwiched around great justices in William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia; Poppy Bush gave us the execrable closet leftist David Souter before redeeming himself with the stalwart Clarence Thomas; George W. Bush first served up Justice Roberts before trying to go even lower with the laughable nomination of Harriett Myers – who the Senate properly rejected – and then made a big comeback with the nomination of Samuel Alito.
So when you look at that history, the reality is that the three GOP presidents before Donald J. Trump batted .500 when it comes to putting strict constructionist judges onto the Supreme Court. Even Ronaldus Magnus had a hard time getting it all right, although in his defense he did first nominate Robert Bork before serving up Kennedy, after Bork was shamefully slandered by Senate Democrats.
Roberts gave us a preview of things to come nine years ago with his horrific "that fee is a tax except when I want to call it a fee for the purposes of this laughably twisted and illogical decision" Obamacare ruling. But he seems to have waited for Kennedy to be replaced by a real conservative justice before making his move to go all-in to become the squish vote on the Court.
After this week, there can be no doubt that that is exactly where his real comfort zone is, which only makes the 2020 election that much more critical for the future of our country.
President Trump needs at least one more appointment.
"We're gonna regulate cow farts to save the world." – This part of the outline of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's infamous "Green New Deal" (GND) provoked peals of laughter all across the country and weeks of ridicule on every social media platform. But here's the truth: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has spent millions of research and development dollars during the course of the 21st century in a Quixotic quest to figure out how to do exactly that.
For example, on Dec. 5, 2008, CBS News ran a report headlined "EPA's Air Pollution Target: Flatulent Cows". The story reports on farmers' concerns about a newly-issued EPA report that seemed to propose a literal tax on cow farts. No kidding.
A Daily Caller report on April 11, 2014 details GOP concerns that the Obama EPA led by Gina McCarthy was also considering implementing a new tax on cow flatulence. The concern was then based on the Obama-era "Climate Action Plan" that would enact penalties on the agricultural industry unless it found ways to reduce methane emissions – which in fact far outstrip similar emissions from the natural gas industry – by 25% by the year 2020.
It isn't just the U.S. media reporting on this smelly subject – the UK Daily Mail got into the act a few days later with a doozy of a story headlined "Now That's Wind Power! Cows Wear BACKPACKS to Capture Their 'Emissions' and Become Miniature Power Stations".
Now, you can't see it in that photo – which is a really fortunate thing – but that poor cow actually has a hose jammed up its rear end so that this contraption can capture its frequent toots. I swear I do not make this stuff up.
Then, in August of 2016, the Obama-era EPA issued the results of a new, very costly study that names farming and ranching as the single biggest emitter of CO2 in the United States, and estimates the " technologically feasible abatement potential of the livestock sector is 267 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2030″ or fully 10% of U.S. baseline emissions.
Folks, that's a lot of cow farts the EPA was planning on eliminating.
A simple web search turns up literally hundreds of similar stories over the years, all based on reports and studies issued by the EPA. Anyone who thinks federal regulators aren't seriously intent on regulating cow farts hasn't been paying attention.
Indeed, the release of that August, 2016 study led to a raft of new media reporting on the subject, such as this story at Bloomberg titled "Could Less Gassy Livestock Be A Cash Cow" ('cash cow' – get it?) and subtitled "It's Time to Have a Conversation About Flatulent Cows." Despite the cleverness of the headline writers, the author of the piece is completely serious, just like the nutjobs behind the Green New Deal.
So, laugh all you want – and God knows you should want to – at AOC and her insane Green New Deal's plan to capture cow farts, but do so armed with the knowledge that she is deadly serious, and that the bureaucrats at your EPA are serious about it as well, having spent the last 20 years wasting millions of your taxpayer dollars studying ways to do exactly that.
No need to thank me – happy to be of service.
The week kicked off with the whole Jussie Smollett hoax coming apart, and James Woods summed the great irony of it all in a single 280-character message, as only he can do.
CBS's Lara Logan breaks ranks!
"We've become political activists, some could argue propagandists."
"Unless you seek out Breitbart, you're probably not going to see what the other side is saying."
So, you're self-destructive AND stupid?
Yes, because there is no dysfunction happening in France at all.
The Bulwark is on a mission to make D.C. dinner parties and green-room visits as uncomfortable as possible for the pro-Trump elite.
Wait: Isn't the worst part of the Amy Klobuchar eating-a-salad-with-a-comb story that she didn't make her staffer "clean it" until AFTER she had eaten the salad with it?
This has been up for 3 weeks now, and you have less than 400 retweets?
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): "Have you ever had any LGBTQ law clerks?"
Neomi Rao: "Senator, I've yet to be a judge. I don't have law clerks."
Without fossil fuels, millions of people would have frozen to death in the Midwest last week – not some imaginary catastrophe in 12 years which exists only inside her head.
Is Alexandria lacking the most basic common sense?
Also Democrats: EXCEPT THIS ONE!!!! THIS ONE'S A LIAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And we're just now getting to the State of the Union on Tuesday – what a week!
Don't get me wrong, I'm all into the strong-woman applause going on, but it has to be said that it is a little sad that the first thing House female Democrats really chose to celebrate here tonight was .. . themselves.
Trump just keeps waving that darn magic wand!
I'm very tired of climate alarmism – can you tell?
"Winter Storm Lucian" – what sane people used to call a "Cold Front".
Hey, where are the unicorns?
But hey, they fixed it!
The latest version of FAQ's on her blog has removed the "f" word in favor of "emissions from cows"
And finally, the end came for the most embarrassing talking points document ever created by a federal officeholder..
Hey, that whole "climate change" scam isn't working for us, so here's an idea – let's use new talking points! – The grand global climate scam has been running out of steam over the last two years since Donald Trump assumed the presidency and more and more Americans wake up to the reality that they have been heinously deceived by the Al Gores and Leonardo DiCaprios of the world.
So what are the scammers to do? After three solid decades of seeing them simply ramp up the shrillness of their alarmist rhetoric every time their movement began to lose momentum, the alarmists who now run the American Meteorological Society have decided to take a new tack: Tone things down and and become less shrill and more subtle with their brainwashing instead.
Don't misunderstand – it will be the same old stuff, with every tropical storm described as being completely unprecedented, with every wildfire declared to be a sign of "permanent drought", giving scary names to every significant cold front and with every thunderstorm pronounced to be the "strongest on record." But they'll be calmer about it all, and the plan is to stop blaming your SUV for everything – because pretty much nobody is buying that anyway – and begin instead to connect it all directly to advocacy for … wait for it… leftist government policies!
Boom, indeed. This new scam plan will last about 3 months or until Al Gore puts together another slide show, whichever comes first. Then it will all go back to the traditional alarmist hype, because that is the literal dogma of the Global Church of Climate Change, of which Mr. Gore is the reigning Pope.
Will Texas Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee have her customary seat on the aisle so she can get her face on television? – Is the Pope Catholic (ok, that's an open question)? Does a wild bear poop in the woods? It is a very safe bet that she is already ensconced in her favorite seat as I post this piece up around 7:00 Central Time this morning. There she will sit all day long, forcing staffers to bring her food and sit in for her when she takes bathroom breaks, in her annual effort to show her constituents how important she is. It is possibly the most pathetic tradition in the DC Swamp.
Will Ruth Bader Ginsburg give the nation proof of life? – Don't count on it. And don't count on any of the news fakers at CNN, MSNBC or the three "major" broadcast networks to make any mention of her absence.
Will San Fran Nan have that gerbil running around in her mouth again this year? – Ok, it was probably just a poorly-fitting bridge, but Nancy Pelosi spent the entirety of Trump's speech last year looking for all the world like she was chasing some sort of living being around in her mouth with her tongue. She'll be seated behind the President at the podium this time, so the camera will be on her all night long. Hopefully she's had a trip to the orthodontist since then, because it was not a pretty spectacle.
Will West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin have to get Chuck Schumer's permission on when to stand and applaud this year? – He did last year, and was famously caught on camera quickly sitting down after Schumer gave him a dirty look. Pathetic.
Will Democrat freshmen stage some sort of a disruption? – Don't be surprised if freshmen Democrats, led by communist Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Muslim extremists Ilhan Omar and Rhashida Tlaib, stage some sort of disruption during the speech. It would be in keeping with their distinct lack of character.
Will any white man from the Virginia Democrat delegation show up in blackface or KKK robes? – After this last week, it's a perfectly valid question.
Will the President call Democrats out for their ongoing advocacy of killing live-born babies? – He certainly should, and he should do it in the most unambiguous language possible.
Will the President call the fake news media out for its ongoing protection of the blatant racist, infanticide-supporting Governor of Virginia? – Assuming Ralph Northam has still not resigned by the time President Trump takes the podium tonight, how could he not?
There you have them – eight points of intrigue to keep your sharp eyes out for during this year's rendition of the most tedious and tiresome bit of Kabuki Theater the DC Swamp rolls out to entertain the masses each year. I still wish the President had decided to go deliver this thing out in Pittsburgh, St. Louis or the Rio Grande Valley last week, but hey, it is what it is, so let's all make the best of it.
Hey, remember when, a decade ago, Climate alarmists were saying that children being born at the time would never see snow? Yeah, fooled them, huh?
Project Kamala, Phase 2 kicks in over at the Washington Post. – As I told you on Tuesday, the joint media/Democrat project to deal with Kamala Harris's "Willie Brown issue" was underway and very predictable. First, you have Brown do an interview in which he admits it all, right after she kicks off her campaign, and then the fake news media steps in to declare it "old news" and attack anyone who tries to bring it up in the future.
Right on cue, Washington Post columnist Monica Hesse wrote a piece on Wednesday in which she declares the "love life" of any "powerful woman" "off-limits" henceforth. See, you're a sexist if you try to hold a Democrat woman to the exact same standards as the fake news media holds any Republican.
From today forward, anyone criticizing Harris for having her career facilitated by her illicit lover will be assaulted by the fake news media using Hesse's line of reasoning. Classic.
Democrat Depravity on the March. – You probably thought the ongoing efforts by leftist activists in and out of our fake news media to normalize pedophilia in the American mind was as low as they could go. But then you saw that they've now moved on to trying to normalize infanticide, and you realized that they will never stop trying to define deviancy down.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo got the whole thing started last week when, upon signing a bill that allows for killing of infants even as the mother is in the throes of labor, he and New York City Governor Bill DeBlasio ordered the top of Freedom Tower to be lit up in pink as a celebration. I'm old enough to remember when then-President Bill Clinton liked to say that the Democrat Party wanted abortions to be legal, but rare. Now, they apparently want them to be legal and celebrated on the Ellen Show.
Not to be outdone in this ghoulish race to define deviancy down even further, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam – who our fake news media hilariously describes as a "moderate" Democrat – told a radio interviewer Tuesday that he favors a proposed bill that would allow for a born infant to be "made comfortable" and set on a table while the mother and "doctor" talk about whether or not to murder it. And make no mistake about it – "murder" is the only proper word to describe such a procedure.
The Virginia legislature at least has some conscience remaining even if its Governor does not, given that the bill did fail in subcommittee yesterday. But eight other states are now considering similar Democrat-sponsored bills, and the very act of publicly supporting such Nazi-like depravity on American soil tells us all we need to know about where the Democrat Party is headed today.
While they've always wanted to legalize such horrific acts, the leftist ghouls among us previously felt the need to carefully hide such thoughts from the public. But today, seeing that there is zero price to be paid from our fake news media politically for promoting the sexual abuse of children and murder of fully born infants, they light up towers and do radio interviews in which they proudly express such views. Indeed, Cuomo, DeBlasio and Northam have all been widely applauded by c-list celebrities and blue-check "journalists" across social media for their "courageous" acts.
The Democrat Party today is an organization that is completely untethered to any code of moral conduct. As a Party, it no longer believes in the sanctity of human life, no longer has the slightest regard for the Constitution of the United States, no longer even believes in the importance of citizenship as a key determinant of voting rights. Democrat politicians as a class are happy to lie, cheat and steal their way into office and, like Governors Cuomo and Northam, and Mayor DeBlasio, increasingly willing to bare the depths of their amoral depravity in public.
If you vote for these people you are voting for the ongoing destruction of the American society, and of the American soul. It really is that simple.


So it's already been a year since I took the plunge into freelancing and it's certainly been a crazy, scary, and self-rewarding time for me. As the summer approached, I remember starting off tentatively, double-double-double checking every email I was about to send out and running every action past Sam. But after a few weeks I found my feet …and my voice. As I started working with different clients and different accounts, I rediscovered the real me, a more confident "me" who could take an active role in new prospects' meetings, could produce good writing, and could come up with interesting suggestions for her clients without being scared of saying the wrong thing.
3. Set up a healthy and comfortable office space: again, from experience (back aches, neck aches, colds) it is important that you have a good size desk, not too close to a radiator and not too close to draughts; if possible, do invest in a laptop stand and a second monitor, (I found it free through a local company that was refurbishing their offices… you'd be surprised what gets thrown away). And if things are going well after a year, reward yourself with a new laptop.
4. Learn from your mistakes: like in any job, things sometimes don't go to plan and when this happens as a freelancer you feel the blow even more. When this happened to me, I was able to look at why this situation had occurred and what could have been done differently. This has helped me take a different, customised approach for each of my clients, as each operates differently.
5. Be prepared to work on weekends or when other family members are on holiday. The myth that freelancers can take days off when they want it is not true. Especially at the beginning, you must be prepared to work long hours, be idle in the middle of the day and work late evenings. But…it is definitely a rewarding day – and that for me is what matters.


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Local NewsAmerica in Crisis
Detention officer says he quit his job because he wasn't permitted to take a knee with protesters
Posted at 10:44 AM, Jun 03, 2020
An officer with the Oklahoma County detention center says he quit his job because he was not permitted to take a knee with protesters at an anti-police brutality demonstration in Oklahoma City.
According to KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City, who granted the officer anonymity for the story, several Oklahoma City law enforcement officials took a knee in solidarity with protesters during demonstrations on Sunday.
At the time, the detention center was short on resources due to the weekend unrest.
"We had jailers, detention officers here and it was really an all hands on deck," Mark Myers of the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office said.
The officer had been assigned to guard inmates at the jail on Sunday — instead of taking a knee with the other officers. When the officer asked if he could take a knee with protesters later in the week, he says he was denied.
"So, when you had me on shifts, ya'll told me I couldn't take a knee," he said. "'So today, I'm going to take a knee. And he said, 'no you can't take a knee.'"
Myers said the officer couldn't be permitted to take part in the demonstration on Sunday because the officer was not permitted to leave his post inside the jail.
"We need essential employees who are assigned to the jail to stay in the jail," Myers said.
Myers suggested that deputies and law enforcement employees that wanted to demonstrate with protests should "take the day off."
KOCO reached out to the officer in the video, but he chose not to comment.


Researchers from McMaster University and the Firestone Institute for Respiratory Health at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton, together with colleagues at other partnering institutions, have developed a new method to treat severe asthma. In a study of over 200 participants with severe asthma, the new treatment was shown to have improved asthma symptoms and lung function, while reducing the need for corticosteroids by up to 70%.
According to Statistics Canada, 8% of Canadians aged 12 or older—approximately 2.4 million people—have been diagnosed with asthma. Of that, approximately 25% are considered to be severe cases of asthma.
Current treatments for severe asthma often include high doses of corticosteroids, such as prednisone, to control exacerbations. Reducing the need for corticosteroids with alternative treatments is preferable, since these medications are associated with serious side effects from prolonged use—including multi-organ toxicities and immunosuppression.
Dr. Parameswaran Nair, staff respirologist at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton and professor of medicine at McMaster University, along with a team of researchers found that an antibody called dupilumab is effective in treating severe asthma in place of high doses of prednisone. The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the world's most influential medical publications.
This technique was based on Dr. Nair's previous work published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2009 and in 2017. Those studies found that blocking another protein, interleukin-5, allowed patients with high eosinophil levels in their blood and airways to reduce their corticosteroid dose. Eosinophils are a type of white blood cell involved with the production of interleukins. High eosinophil levels are directly linked to an increased risk of severe asthma.
"Ultimately, our goal is to find new treatment pathways that allow us to circumvent the use of corticosteroids," said Dr. Nair. "Since dupilumab showed a significant improvement on asthma control regardless of eosinophil levels, we may be able to use this treatment for a wider range of patients than we previously thought possible. This might be due to the broad effects on inflammation in asthma of the two proteins that we were able to block with dupilumab. The treatment was not associated with any serious side effects."
Dr. Nair and his team presented the details of their study at the American Thoracic Society's international conference in San Diego this past week. There, researchers and clinicians from around the world gathered to discuss respiratory illnesses and the latest breakthroughs in treatment.
"This work highlights the clinical and research excellence in pulmonary diseases that exists at St Joseph's and the Firestone Institute," explained Dr. Jack Gauldie, vice president (research) at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton and a professor emeritus of McMaster University.
"Dr. Nair is one of the world's best clinicians in the field of severe asthma and his studies on modification of immune regulation, targeting two important immune factors, bring an immense impact directly from the lab to the patient in managing this difficult and dangerous form of asthma. We are immensely proud of these advances in pulmonary medicine."


Okay let me keep it real, I spent hours upon hours on Pinterest! YES PINTEREST! My "Dream Home❤" board probably has the most pins even over my "For the LOVE of Shoes" board and even more than the "Troinisha's Wedding" board that I used for my sister's wedding ideas! I was soooooo geeked by the fact that I would have my own apartment that there were definitely not enough hours in the day for me to plan how I would decorate!
Fast forward about three months, I found the perfect artwork on Pinterest! Knowing my love for writing and my dream to write for Essence Magazine someday, I fell in love with paintings of women on magazine covers! I immediately reached out to this wonderful artist I know and gave him the information! I had to have the paintings done right, honey! I explained to him everything I'd envisioned from how large I wanted the paintings to be to what colors I wanted to be used. And then he hit me with that price… $450! Wait whaaaaa? Now I definitely value his art and support his work as I have purchased from him before it was just that my pocketbook wasn't prepared to drop fo fity on some art! Especially since I had sooooooo much to purchase for my apartment. In my feelings, (because Lord knows I absolutely hated breaking the news that I would no longer need his services) I decided to go to Michael's, get some art supplies, and attempt painting the pictures myself.
I purchased three large canvases, paint, brushes, etc to make this thing happen! I was excited to give it a try, but I am no Picasso so I was nervous! I quickly got over my nerves because what did I have to lose? Nothing! So I sketched out the first woman on a piece of notebook paper! After which, I drew her on the canvas and to my surprise she actually looked like a woman! (LOL – Do not laugh, I told ya'll I'm no artist!) Once I added paint I was stunned! I remember telling my grandmother, "WOW, I painted this!" She'd watched me the entire time and gave me plenty tips and feedback, but it was something about seeing the final result that made my heart melt! I continued the steps for the other two women and when all three were finished I felt a sense of sure empowerment.
My grandmother told me, "See with a little faith in God and faith in yourself you can do anything!" While Philippians 4:13 has always been one of my absolute favorite verses, it became very clear to me in those moments. The verse from the King James Version states, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." In its very essence it clearly explains that there is nothing that should be impossible for you to do through Jesus Christ. I amazed myself! Not because I simply painted a painting and not because I actually did a great job, but moreso because I actually believed that I could do it. And although having these beautiful women painted by someone with more of an artistic background would've made them flawless, looking at my wall every single day knowing that I painted them is truly a priceless feeling! I love them just the way they are!
Our success as people begins in the belief in ourself. The belief in ourself stems from the belief in Jesus Christ. Because I understood that He had already given me the power to do things through him was the reason that I was able to believe in myself to do just that! I want to encourage you today to believe in yourself. Read Phil 4:13 and meditate in that. As believers we have already been given what we need and we can do ALL THINGS… ANYTHING through Christ!
Lady Essence was second! She is representing for the dyed hair divas of the world! Go girl!
I love love love your article. I am so proud of you. May God continue to bless you with many gifts.
Oh yeah. I want your first Essence article autographed.
Keep up the good work. Let your light shine.
Thank you sooooo much!!! That was more than sweet!!! I truly appreciate it!!! 🙂 I sure will autograph it for you! Hahaha Lord willing!


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Laetia procera är en videväxtart som först beskrevs av Eduard Friedrich Poeppig och Endl., och fick sitt nu gällande namn av August Wilhelm Eichler. Laetia procera ingår i släktet Laetia och familjen videväxter. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Videväxter
procera


From the dorm room of a geeky Finnish Computer Science student 20 years ago to powering a majority of all the web servers and more than 90% of the fastest supercomputers today, Linux has come a very long way.
This year marks the start of the third decade of Linux development and to mark the third decade, Linux 3.0 is coming in about seven weeks. At the LinuxCon 2011, which took place in Japan, Linus Torvalds and Greg Kroah-Hartman sat down to talk about Linux how much it has achieved in the last two decades, the kernel development process, Linux on desktop etc.
Linus Torvalds is the person who started Linux 20 years ago and Greg Kroah-Hartman is the developer who currently maintains the stable branch of the Linux kernel.
We are doing really well on the low-end and we are doing very well on the high-end. The desktop is … we have all the applications now. It is just a difficult market to get into.
2.6 has been there for eight years and it's become kind of meaningless.
It speeded up enormously. We've had 40% performance increase. That is unheard of. But there is no new feature. There is no new interface for users. There is nothing new going on. It is doing the same old thing that everybody does millions of time a second.