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Posted by Michael-in-Norfolk at Saturday, February 15, 2020 No comments:
Money Will Determine the Democrat Nominee
With the Democrat nomination under way some political insiders and strategists say the way to see which candidates will remain viable is simple: look at the money, especially with Super Tuesday approaching which will require huge amounts of cash to be competitive in advertising in numerous states simultaneously. The thinking is that - barring some unexpected surprise revival of Biden's dying campaign - that Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg - and perhaps Pete Buttigieg - will be the ones with the money to remain competitive. Many Democrats complain about money in politics, yet the way campaign costs have skyrocketed, money becomes a determining factor. Likely casualties will be Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar and, of course Biden, if donors run scared based on his abysmal showings in Iowa and New Hampshire. Meanwhile, the husband and I have been invited to meet with Bloomberg staffers next week as Bloomberg goes all out in Virginia. Here are excerpts from a piece in Vanity Fair on the money picture:
More than a dozen states and territories will vote on Super Tuesday, little more than two days after the polls close in South Carolina's primary. That short window, every four years, shines a harsh light on whoever emerges from the first four states with a pulse. It reveals which campaigns are serious built-to-last enterprises, and punishes the ones that are flash-in-the-plan flukes, destined only for Wikipedia entries about the 2020 primary race.
[A] grim truth is that Democrats should be looking at another metric—money—that says much more about where this race is going. And barring huge surprises or upset comebacks in Nevada or South Carolina, the money suggests something rather obvious: The Democratic primary is careening toward a head-to-head clash between Michael Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders, currently the only two candidates with the cash and constituencies to push their candidacies beyond the first four states and Super Tuesday. Who else can scale up? "This is a huge issue," said David Axelrod, the former Barack Obama adviser. "The cost of competing across 14 states is astronomical and the remaining candidates will expend most of their limited kitties to get there. For Bloomberg, the Super Tuesday ante is lunch money. He will be able to communicate at a high level everywhere. Bernie has a reliable, renewable war chest and universal recognition. For the others, they have to hope to catch a wave of publicity and dollars off of unexpected showings in Nevada and South Carolina."
Rufus Gifford, a Democratic fundraiser who held senior finance jobs for both of Obama's campaigns, said he thinks there will be three finalists for the nomination in the end. "But Bernie and Bloomberg are definitely going to be two of them," said Gifford. "It's because they have money. They have resources. It's hard to think of who else will be viable."
Bloomberg has built an almost 50-state campaign from scratch, spending almost $300 million on television ads and roughly $50 million on digital ads, saturating YouTube ads to the point where there are now teenagers on TikTok reciting his ad scripts by heart. He's now in third place nationally, barely trailing Biden and cutting into his support among black voters. Sanders, meanwhile, has a first place hold in the national polls and a burst of momentum thanks to back-to-back victories, however narrow, in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Among the rest of the Democrats, only Pete Buttigieg—slightly ahead of Sanders in the delegate chase—has proven himself a durable fundraiser, working the big-donor circuit as hard as his email list. He has a packed fundraising schedule over the next two weeks. But Buttigieg has to show growth among nonwhite voters. His donor support may shrivel if he doesn't. "Donors are the consummate CNN and MSNBC viewers, they watch media trends, they pay attention to the buzz," said Gifford.
Biden has never been a strong fundraiser. . . . . Elizabeth Warren, meanwhile, made a show of refusing big donors early in the campaign, a departure from her Senate races, a decision that's left her dangerously handcuffed if the donations dry up.
A reason many have failed in this primary is they have run out of money and massively underestimated how easy it would be to raise money." Both Biden and Warren are at risk of running out of cash if they don't finish well in Nevada and South Carolina. Amy Klobuchar has boasted about raising more than $2 million after her surprise third-place finish in New Hampshire, but those dollars will only go so far without having built a war chest over time. "Every dollar Amy gets, she's gotta spend it," said James Carville, the longtime Democratic strategist. "She's living off the land. If she gets a dollar, it's gotta go somewhere, and then you're depleted again."
Buttigieg, Warren, and Biden all have staffers on the ground in Super Tuesday states, with Buttigieg clearly in a stronger position than both, according to polls, delegates and money. But only two Democrats, Sanders and Bloomberg, have the financial resources to wage the long and costly battle ahead, regardless of what happens in Nevada or South Carolina.
Even if one of the Democrats comes roaring back from the dead, a Point Break–size tidal wave of publicity won't generate the kind of earned media needed to compete with Bloomberg's billions. Among the Super Tuesday states, several of which have already started voting, Bloomberg has spent $40 million in California, $33 million in Texas, $9.5 million in North Carolina, $6 million in Massachusetts and remarkably has the airwaves to himself in Virginia and Alabama, according to the media tracking firm Advertising Analytics.
The expensive days of March will bring with them another phenomenon: The unfortunate spectacle of candidates who refuse to quit even when they're out of cash and have no path forward. Zombie campaigns were a staple of Republican primaries in recent cycles, when underdogs like Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and John Kasich hustled their way to come-from-behind finishes in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Their early-state surprises got them an addictive rush of media attention and enough money to soldier on by flying coach, but not enough support to make a dent in the race.
For the Democrats, who allocate their delegates proportionally in each primary and caucus state, there's a likelihood that multiple candidates stay in the race on life support, collecting the occasional delegate and going on CNN to talk about it.
"The challenge for Democrats is that since nothing is winner-take-all, there's even less incentive to drop out than there was in the GOP race," said Schrimpf, who advised Kasich's 2016 bid. "So you hang on, just like Republicans did, until you don't have to be super self-aware to realize you aren't going to be the nominee." The question those dead-enders will have to ask themselves in a few weeks, if nothing drastic changes, will be an uncomfortable one, a prospect almost no smart person in politics considered just three months ago: Do you get behind the socialist, or the billionaire?
Labels: 2020 Democrat nomination, Bernie Sanders, campaign finance, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, Super Tuesday 2020
Labels: beautiful male, male beauty
California Exiles' Revenge on Trump
Virginia has moved into the blue state category due to two principal factors: (i) it has an increasingly college educated population, and (ii) it has seen a large influx of residents from liberal states. These phenomenon are especially evident in Northern Virginia and the rest of Virginia's urban crescent that stretches south through Richmond and then south east to Hampton Roads. As a piece in the New York Times notes, similar things are happening in other states that are trending blue, often driven by exiles from California who take their more liberal views and support for the environment with them to their new home states. Donald Trump constantly trashes California and its progressive policies, yet that states' former residents are transforming the political landscape in Nevada. Colorado and Arizona - and, in time, perhaps even Texas. Here are column highlights:
President Trump clearly hates the most populous state in the country he governs. While trashing California with his gutter mouth, the president has used his office to physically trash the home to nearly one in eight Americans — seeking to make its air more polluted, its water less clean, its forests more vulnerable to catastrophic fires.
But now the Golden State is poised to strike back. By moving its presidential primary from June to March 3, California will finally exert a political influence commensurate to its size. Almost 500 delegates, a fourth of the number needed to win the Democratic nomination, are at stake.
Perhaps more consequential — or at least overlooked — is what's happening among the vast diaspora of more than 7.3 million people who have left California since 2007. They appear to be changing the political makeup of the states they've moved to, perhaps enough to alter the Electoral College map in favor of Democrats.
With nearly 40 million people, California is still gaining population — barely. But stratospheric home prices and unbearable rental costs have created a reverse "Grapes of Wrath," forcing those who are not rich to flee to states with much lower costs of living.
The question is: Are they bringing California values — fierce defense of the environment, tolerance of immigrants and a multiracial society, insistence on universal health care — with them? It could be just demographic churn. But if you look at the changing politics of Nevada, Colorado and Arizona, all fast-growing states packed with new arrivals from California, the answer is yes. Texas may not be far behind.
In Nevada, to which 500,000 Californians moved between 2008 and 2018, Democrats won the governor's mansion and a second U.S. Senate seat in 2018. There used to be more Republicans, by registration. But Democrats now have a 70,000-voter advantage, and they prevailed there in the last three presidential races.
Colorado, another favorite landing spot for those who can no longer afford California, is now reliably blue. Democrats won majorities there by more than 100,000 votes in the last two presidential elections. The state is likely to flip a Senate seat, bouncing the inept Republican Cory Gardner for a popular former governor, John Hickenlooper.
Arizona could be the next to fall to Democrats. The state known for retirees and tax-averse whites is becoming more diverse and younger and is full of ex-Californians. Between 2001 and 2014, Arizona added about a quarter-million people from its neighboring state to the west.
[I]f the Dems were to win Arizona's 11 Electoral College votes, as polls show they could, and lose Wisconsin's 10, while getting back Pennsylvania and Michigan, that would be enough to remove the vile and corrupt man occupying the White House.
Texas, the top state for California exiles, will probably come up short for Democrats this year, though it's in play. Democrats have a growing advantage in Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio, all seeing heavy U-Haul traffic from California.
Polls in Texas show Trump failing to get above 48 percent in matchups with Democrats. And 45 percent of voters wanted to impeach and remove him from office.
Trump treats these fellow citizens as aliens. He's going out of his way to gut the state's clean air standards, to turn the Eden of its public lands over to industrial pillagers and to cast its immigrant strivers as criminals. He has done nothing — rebuffing the state's plea for additional housing vouchers for the poor — to mitigate the homeless crisis. He'd prefer a dystopia on the Pacific, largely because he lost the Golden State by more than four million votes.
And yet Californians, those who still proudly call it home and those who left their hearts there, could be the force that sends him packing.
Labels: 2020 presidential election, Arizona, blue states, California, changing demographics, changing values, College educated whites, Colorado, Electoral College, Nevada
Posted by Michael-in-Norfolk at Friday, February 14, 2020 No comments:
The Reemergence of the Moderate Democrat
Bernie Sanders supporters remind me of Virginia Republicans except for the fact that rather being knuckle dragging Neanderthals who relentlessly said (and continue to say) the only way for the Virginia GOP to win is to run "true conservatives" while Sanders' crowd says only running an extreme liberal - a socialist in fact - will lead to a Democrat victory in November 2020. Obviously, the 2019 Virginia elections demonstrated that the far right GOP line of reasoning was false as the GOP ran reactionary candidates and suffered a huge defeat. Similarly, in 2018, outside of liberal strongholds, moderate Democrats fared better than extreme liberals in the 2018 mid-term elections. These objective lessons in reality continue to be lost on both the GOP far right and the Democrat far left. So far, the two Democrat rounds of the 2020 nomination process have similarly shown that the vast majority of voters want a moderate candidate. A column in the Washington Post looks at this reality and suggests that the media claims that the Democrat Party has moved far left is a media trope. Here are column highlights:
For all the thunder on the Bernie Sanders left, the most interesting trend in the Democratic campaign this year may be the reemergence of the moderate wing of the party, led by charismatic new voices: former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
In our barbell view of politics, where all the weight seems to be at the two ends, this reality may be obscured: Far more Americans (42 percent) described themselves as independents than as Democrats (27 percent) or Republicans (30 percent) in the most recent Gallup survey of party affiliation. The percentage of people who see themselves in this broad middle has rarely been higher.
The Iowa caucuses fiasco robbed Buttigieg of the impact of his victory there. But it was a startling performance by a young, relatively inexperienced candidate whose strongest message has been the impracticality of social programs proposed by Sanders and other progressives.
While Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, posted a win Tuesday in New Hampshire, the bigger stories there, arguably, were Buttigieg's strong second-place showing and Klobuchar's breakout performance in finishing third. The two moderates together carried 44.2 percent of the vote, compared with Sanders's 25.8 percent. Even if you add Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren's 9.2 percent to Sanders's total, the balance is toward the center, not the left.
The more voters have looked at progressives' expensive programs, the warier they have become. Warren never recovered from her embrace of compulsory Medicare. Voters see former vice president Joe Biden as a spent force, but they still want a pragmatic candidate who can beat President Trump. That yearning for a strong moderate helped Buttigieg and Klobuchar, but the next beneficiary could be former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg in the March 3 Super Tuesday primaries.
Here's another theme that's often overlooked: The 2020 successes of moderate Democrats are a continuation of the 2018 midterm election results. The left wing of the Democratic Party, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), got the attention then. But it was the centrist candidates who swung Republican districts into the Democratic column and thus delivered the House for Democrats in 2018.
"Moderate" is one of those limp political descriptors, like "centrist" or "bipartisan," that suggest a soggy lump in the middle. But the campaign proposals from Buttigieg, Klobuchar and even Bloomberg offer significant change — and in achievable ways. They get that the status quo isn't working for most Americans. Their proposals for dealing with climate change, wealth inequality and health care share a common virtue: They could actually be implemented without busting the budget or further polarizing the country.
Trump seems to think he can win reelection by dividing the country even more savagely. But for a frazzled, fatigued electorate, maybe this is the season for the "fix it" faction that offers realistic plans for solving problems.
The Democrats can blow this election, for sure. Moderates may have the numbers in the aggregate, but aggregates don't win elections. Sanders has passion, and unless Democrats can coalesce around a pragmatic rival, the Milwaukee convention could be a bloodbath and the November election a blowout for Trump.
Trump tosses new stink bombs every day. His fans love this carnival of resentment, but polls have shown since the beginning of his presidency that a majority of Americans don't. Trump World is about raw power, to be sure. But there are some interesting, easily overlooked signs early in this 2020 campaign that maybe the shouters won't win.
Convincing Sanders' base of this reality may prove as impossible as convincing the GOP far right in Virginia that their extremism is their biggest obstacle to electoral victory.
Labels: 2020 Democrat nomination, 2020 presidential candidates, defeating Trump, extreme left, extreme right, Michael Bloomberg, moderate Democrats, Pete Buttigieg
Posted by Michael-in-Norfolk at Thursday, February 13, 2020 No comments:
Is Joe Biden's Campaign Approaching a Free Fall?
As numerous posts have indicated, I have never seen Joe Biden as the Democrats' best bet for defeating Donald Trump in November. Indeed, as noted, he reminds me of Bob Dole who lost badly in his presidential contest. Both men have remarkable resumes and credentials, yet lack that ability to inspire enthusiasm and excitement - something that will be needed to save America from the nightmare of a Trump second term. Bernie Sanders inspires excitement in his cult-like followers but seems to have little ability to push beyond his 25% level of support and inspires dread in the other 75% of Democrats who see his nomination as a guarantee that Trump will be reelected. The seeming beneficiary of this state of play is Michael Bloomberg as noted in a column in the New York Times here and a piece in Politico that looks at Biden's sinking prospects and the beginning of the flight of black supporters from Biden's sinking ship. Here are highlights from Politico:
Moderate Democrats on Capitol Hill have begun to confront a future without Joe Biden — and are scrambling to find a centrist alternative who can topple both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
And a growing number of Capitol Hill Democrats say they're turning to billionaire Mike Bloomberg, a former New York mayor who became a trusted ally after his personal fortune helped Democrats recapture the House in 2018.
Publicly, moderate Democrats insist there's plenty of time until Super Tuesday, when Biden or Bloomberg could emerge as the frontrunner. But anxiety is rising on both sides of the Capitol that a Sanders ticket could cost the party not just the race for the White House but also of control of Congress — while exposing raw ideological tensions within the party ahead of November.
The soul-searching within the establishment wing of the Democratic Party comes after Sanders solidified his frontrunner status in Iowa and New Hampshire, which produced a pair of cringeworthy finishes for Biden. The former vice president did so poorly in New Hampshire that he ditched his own election night watch party to head to South Carolina, possibly giving an opening to Bloomberg, who skipped the first four contests.
"I'm feeling a momentum shift to Bloomberg right now," said Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.), who endorsed Biden in the summer and plans to stick with him.
One of the most glaring examples of the change in tide on Capitol Hill is a trio of Bloomberg endorsements from the Congressional Black Caucus on Wednesday — a not-so-subtle show of force against Biden, who remains the favored candidate among black voters nationally.
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), a senior member of the CBC who endorsed Bloomberg on Wednesday, declined to say whether he thinks Sanders could beat Trump and added he would fully support the eventual nominee. But Meeks — who fought Bloomberg over his stop-and-frisk policies as mayor — said the trajectory of the race is what persuaded him to weigh in now.
"There's a number of [candidates] who are ideologically where I am. But I also had to add to that electability," Meeks said. "And that's a tremendous consideration we'll have to make because you can have the best ideology but if you're not electable, then where are we? We've got to win."
When asked whether Biden's faltering was a factor, Meeks didn't deny it: "To say that it was zero factor would not be the truth," he said. "It was one of many factors because you've got to be able to pull it together, you've got to make sure that one has the ability to win."
Several other CBC members said privately that they expected other black lawmakers who previously supported Biden to soon come out for Bloomberg.
But there are some concerns that Bloomberg, who has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the race so far, remains untested heading into Super Tuesday on March 3: He hasn't gone head-to-head at a single debate this cycle, though he is expected to qualify for Nevada next week.
Some Democrats also fear a potential drip-drip of controversies, like a 2015 audio tape that surfaced this week on which Bloomberg defends his stop-and-frisk policies in language that have prompted accusations of racism.
For many Democrats, there is a real fear about Biden's staying power, especially if Senate Republicans make good on their threat to investigate Hunter Biden's role at a Ukrainian gas company now that Trump's impeachment trial is over.
Two self-described moderate Democrats did finish strong in Iowa and New Hampshire, led by former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg. But Democrats said privately they're desperate for a candidate with the cash and name recognition to beat Trump — something they don't know if Buttigieg or Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who finished a strong third in New Hampshire, can deliver — without exposing them to ceaseless GOP attacks on socialism.
"There's a lot of people right now on the fence," said Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), a prominent supporter of Klobuchar. Asked about Klobuchar's surge, Phillips said: "She is being elevated in more and more conversations every day. That said, so is Michael Bloomberg."
The most intense fears are among the 30 Democrats sitting in districts that Trump won in 2016, who fear they can't compete in 2020 if Sanders becomes the nominee and spurs months of "Medicare for All" attacks from GOP groups in their districts.
Some of the most endangered incumbents, like Rep. Anthony Brindisi of New York, have acknowledged they wouldn't be able to support Sanders if he does become the nominee, hoping at best that voters split their ticket with Trump in November.
[S]ome Senate Democrats have expressed concern about the effect Sanders could have on Democratic challengers in swing-state races. While Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said Wednesday Democrats would coalesce around whoever the nominee is, others are not so sure.
"Sen. Sanders' argument is that his candidacy will inspire and mobilize a whole new sector of our country that doesn't typically vote," added Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a Biden backer.
But Coons argued that he has yet to see evidence of that based on voter turnout in Iowa, which was lower than expected. New Hampshire turnout, however, did set a new record on Tuesday. "He may make it harder rather than easier for us to take back the Senate," Coons said.
"If Biden announced today that he was going to drop out, you'd have an avalanche of African Americans around the country going to Bloomberg," said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), who endorsed Biden last September and plans to stick with him.
"It would be foolish for anyone to say what happened in Iowa and New Hampshire is not going to have an impact, it will," Cleaver said of Biden's performance in the past 10 days. "There's no question Nevada is extremely important."
Labels: 2020 Democrat nomination, 2020 presidential election, defeating Trump, electability, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, socialist, to extreme
Posted by Michael-in-Norfolk at Wednesday, February 12, 2020 No comments:
New Hampshire Primary Post Mortem
Results are still trickling in, but with 93% of the vote in it is possible to pick the winners and the losers in the New Hampshire primary. While Bernie Sanders "won," Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar were not far behind and between them showed that a majority of Democrats want a moderate for the Democrat nominee. Sander - like Trump - seems to have a near fanatical core base beyond which he cannot rise above. The big loser, however, was Joe Biden who landed in 5th place seeming revealing what I have long felt: he simple does not have the spark or generate the enthusiasm needed to run against Trump. Add his constant gaffes, and even if he does better in South Carolina, his campaign looks like it needs to fold its cards and go home. The other big loser was Elizabeth Warren who appears to have hemorrhaged support to Buttigieg and Klobuchar while never making inroads with Sanders' cult followers who do not grasp that winning only 25% of the party does not make Sanders' the choice of the people. A column in the Washington Post lays out a post mortem. Here are highlights:
The New Hampshire primary may very well be remembered for the third- through fifth-place finishers and for how surprisingly close the race between Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — the overwhelming favorite who won with 60 percent in 2016 — and former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg was. Sanders was leading in the polls, but he nearly fell to the former Midwest mayor less than half his age.
Sanders was projected as the winner, but the margin of his victory was modest (less than 2 percent). As in Iowa, he did not juice the turnout with an influx of new voters as he promised. The youngest voters made up 12 percent on Tuesday compared with 19 percent in 2016. The Democratic establishment has panicked at the prospect of a Sanders win, but he now looks like a vulnerable front-runner, with well over half of his support coming from voters 18 to 29 and more than half coming from "very liberal" voters. If he was looking to expand beyond his traditional base, he did not do it. He actually got a larger share of repeat voters than first-time voters.
With the electorate heavily skewed in favor of electability (60 percent) rather than agreement on the issues, and about half the voters finding Sanders too liberal, there is reason to believe voters have become wary of Sanders as the standard bearer in a must-win election. His base of support seems not to have grown significantly from the start of the race.
Buttigieg, who won the most delegates in Iowa, finished strong in New Hampshire as well, overcoming questions about his experience. Buttigieg did almost as well with younger voters as with older ones, a sign of expanding appeal. His support was rather evenly spread among all education levels. . . . . He has yet to make inroads with African American candidates in other states, but he has grown beyond his initial base (mostly college-educated and older voters).
The shocker was Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who charged past her opponents so quickly the polls never full accounted for her surge. A week ago, no one would have foreseen she would get to almost 20 percent of the vote and a third-place finish. She won voters who wanted to continue President Barack Obama's policies (Obama's own vice president came in third in that segment of the electorate), older voters, religious voters and voters for whom the debate was an important factor.
She didn't focus her campaign on being a female candidate, but rather on being a moderate, a problem-solver and a Midwestern winner. She says, "That's how I've always won. . . . When you are feeling left out, it is not enough [to run on gender]."
She concedes she lost time while tied to her desk during the impeachment trial, noting "I like to talk to people on the ground." But she used some of that time thinking about the race and solidifying her message. Despite the punditry, she never bought into the idea the party had moved far left.
The stunning collapse of former vice president Joe Biden, who finished fifth and will get no New Hampshire delegates, cannot be underestimated. If moderate voters and African Americans (many of whom are moderate) get the sense he is no longer viable, the floor may drop out from him in Nevada and South Carolina, bringing an end to any hope for victory.
If not for Biden, Warren, who finished under 10 percent and failed to get delegates in her own backyard, would have been the big loser. A campaign that once seemed so promising now will be hard pressed to stay alive until South Carolina. Her refusal to go after Sanders and her effort to adhere to him on Medicare-for-all only to back away may have been her undoing. In a speech to supporters, she seemed to swipe at Sanders when she criticized candidates' who boo rivals and seem to want to "burn the party down." Her stress on unifying the party may be overshadowed by both Buttigieg and Klobuchar, who have made this a centerpiece of their message.
The field did narrow, with two candidates dropping out: Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who never came on the radar screen for primary voters, and Andrew Yang, the champion of the universal basic income.
Among the most striking aspects of the contest, the vote-share of the moderate candidates' (Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar) came in at more than 50 percent, swamping that of progressives Sanders and Warren, who together accounted for less than 40 percent of the vote. Here is yet another sign that Democrats are giving careful consideration to winning an election, not merely making a statement. That might be the best news of all for Americans angst-ridden about a possible second Trump term.
Posted by Michael-in-Norfolk at Wednesday, February 12, 2020 1 comment:
Labels: 2020 Democrat presidential candidates, defeating Donald Trump, Joe Biden, moderate candidates, New Hampshire primary, too liberal, un-electable candidates
Posted by Michael-in-Norfolk at Tuesday, February 11, 2020 1 comment:
This Is How Reaganism and Thatcherism End
As the Democrat circular firing squad continues as results trickle in from New Hampshire, a lengthy piece in The Atlantic looks at the growing toxicity and ruthless nationalism of the right - all exemplified by the Trump?pence regime - and a virtual war on Enlightenment liberal values. Under this warped nationalism which would alarm Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher, human rights are being diminished and the ability to see others as equally human is under relentless attack. Indeed, democratic principles are being eroded with the right pushing for the supremacy of an oligarchy lead by a near autocrat as demonstrated by what is happening in Hungry where the press is being censored and universities are being taken over by the autocrat supporting central government. One can only imagine how eager Trump is to remake America on this pattern, with Congressional Republicans only too happy to rubber stamp the steady erosion of rights so long as they get to remain in office. Here are article highlights:
In an Italian hotel ballroom of spectacular opulence—on red velvet chairs, beneath glittering crystal chandeliers and a stained-glass ceiling—the conservative movement that once inspired people across Europe, built bridges across the Iron Curtain and helped to win the Cold War came, finally, to an end.
The occasion was a conference in Rome last week called "God, Honor, Country: President Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, and the Freedom of Nations." . . . . . this event was co-organized by Chris DeMuth, a former president of the American Enterprise Institute (in the era when it supported global capitalism and the Iraq War) and John O'Sullivan, a former speechwriter for British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. . . . . This was the successor to the National Conservatism Conference held in Washington, D.C., last year.
The purpose, at least at first, seemed a little more mysterious, too. If Reagan and John Paul II were linked by anything, it was a grand, ambitious, and generous idea of Western political civilization, one in which a democratic Europe would be integrated by multiple economic, political, and cultural links, and held together beneath an umbrella of American hegemony. John Paul II wanted Poland to join the European Union . . . . At least when she was still prime minister, Margaret Thatcher was also a proponent of this vision of the West. She was one of the driving forces behind the European single market, the continent-wide free-trade zone that also required a unified regulatory system—the same unified regulatory system that the British have now rejected—and had great faith in the importance of human rights. She said so explicitly: "The state is not, after all, merely a tribe. It is a legal entity," . . . .
The new national conservatism, at least as articulated in Rome, is very different from Reaganism and Thatcherism. The starting point is that European integration and American hegemony are both evil, and that universal ideals like human rights are a dangerous ideology. These, in fact, are arguments made in Hazony's book, The Virtue of Nationalism, a work that synthesizes biblical history, the writings of John Locke, and contemporary politics into a caricature of a political philosophy for our times.He also attributes all of the good things about modern civilization to the nation and all of the bad things to what he calls "imperialism." He puts countries and institutions he likes into the first box, and those he doesn't like into the second. Thus it emerges that the Nazis, who specifically called themselves nationalists, were not nationalists but imperialists, as is the European Union, an organization created to prevent the resurgence of Nazism. Britain, Spain, and France, despite their long history as empires on land and sea, count as nations.
In this worldview, democracy is of no significance. International treaties and obligations do not matter either, not even if people want them. Although membership in the European Union is voluntary—Brexit has just proved that—and is supported by majorities in most countries, Hazony writes and speaks as if the EU were an occupying power.
Many bad books have had great influence. This one has been very lucky, having appeared just as the word nationalism was adopted by Donald Trump, who finds it a useful way of dressing up a set of foreign and domestic policies that are largely governed by the his whims and dictated by his self-interest. . . . . To put it differently: The arc of history once described by Martin Luther King and Barack Obama is now bending the other way, and a lot of people are leaping aboard.
[O]ther speakers in Rome also reflected an almost paranoid sense of persecution. The idea that "the nation" has been outlawed is clearly something that a certain breed of conservative now genuinely perceives to be true. The American Christian writer Rod Dreher solemnly described a world in which he felt repressed, just as people had been under totalitarian communism. . . . calling on audience members to think of themselves as Christians persecuted for their faith in the past.
What makes this view odder is that it also clashes with political reality. National conservatives cannot simultaneously be helpless victims of a totalitarian culture and also hold enormous political power, which some of them plainly do.
Marion Marechal, the French politician who has dropped the surname Le Pen but still belongs to the family that founded the French party now known as the National Rally, spoke at length.
Marechal, who is sometimes described as a candidate for the French presidency in 2022, made a well-crafted speech that, like Hazony's, drew a sharp, polarizing contrast between conservatives and enlightenment rational liberals, whom she called "progressives." The term seemed to include everybody from President Emanuel Macron to French Stalinists. Her words were evocative: "We are trying to connect the past to the future, the nation to the world, the family to the society … We represent realism; they are ideology. We believe in memory; they are amnesia." But her remarks don't reflect reality. Macron spoke explicitly and at length about history and memory in Krakow, and has done so on many other occasions too. To Marechal's fans, that may not matter. Perhaps they feel themselves to be a persecuted minority, and she echoes that view. Perhaps they just prefer to hear about history from someone like her, the spokesman for an ethnic definition of France and Frenchness, instead of Macron.
Some of what Marechal says to the French, and some of what Baudet says to the Dutch, is indisputably true. Economies really have become more global, which makes small communities more vulnerable; older landscapes have been destroyed by modernity; people have drifted away from churches, probably for good; technology is moving very quickly, in ways that frighten people. The argument is over how to address the legitimate fears created by these changes. Among others, the European Union itself has come up with a set of solutions, including the donation of money to culture and architecture and the protection of European agriculture, and thus European landscapes, against competition.
[T]he EU remains the only entity large enough to speak up for Europe on the world stage. The Netherlands alone—even Britain alone—will not be able to do it.
But other possibilities exist too. One can use the electorate's fears, for example—fan them, exploit them—in order to build a new political movement. And because national conservatism very much wants to be a new political movement, this is a prospect that interests many people.
When the final speaker entered, he won a standing ovation. This was Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, the man whose career probably best illustrates the distance that the conservatism of Reagan and Thatcher has traveled since 1989. Orbán, I realized, was the person that many in the room had really come to hear.
Famously, Orbán has gone one step further than many other European conservatives. For one, he has not been shy about using conspiratorial, sometimes hysterical nationalist language, echoing old anti-Semitic tropes, in order to exploit fear of the outside world. "We are fighting an enemy that is different from us," he said in 2018.
More important, he has surpassed everyone else in Europe in his willingness to destroy the institutions that create the terrain that make democracy possible. Although conference participants in Rome spoke at length about oppressive left-wing ideology at universities, Hungary is the only European country to have shut down an entire university, to have put academic bodies (the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) under direct government control, and to have removed funding from university departments that the ruling party dislikes for political reasons. Although many said they feel repressed by left-wing media, Hungary is also the only European country that has used a combination of political and financial pressure to put most of the private and public media under ruling-party control too.
Orbán's destruction of independent press and academia and his slow politicization of the Hungarian courts have served a purpose quite different from lofty ideas about national sovereignty or the beauty of landscapes. These machinations have enabled the prime minister's family and his inner circle to camouflage the myriad ways in which they use state power to get rich. They have also helped him fiddle with electoral rules, gerrymander districts, and adjust the constitution in order to make sure he doesn't lose.
His country is the best illustration of what happens when you dismiss universal values, repress journalists and academics who produce facts, undermine courts and the rule of law: When you get rid of all of those things, you are just a few short steps away from corruption and tyranny. This is the real face of the new "nationalism," however carefully it is hidden behind an intellectual facade or dressed up as the successor of Reagan and John Paul II. You can see why it appeals to men like Netanyahu or Trump.
The world inhabited by Reagan and John Paul II is long past, and no one knows how they would react to so-called cancel culture and Twitter mobs, or the backlash against Western culture on American (but not Hungarian) college campuses, or some of the uglier strains of far-left thinking. But somehow I doubt their response would be the creation of a new, kleptocratic authoritarian right that chips away at the institutions preserving democracy. Nor do I believe they would have wanted to destroy the institutions that have long undergirded the West, as so many of these new "nationalists" want to do.
I don't see why love of country and love of history would be incompatible with membership in broader Western communities. But in the political world we are now entering, they may soon become so.
Seemingly, these conservatives learned nothing from the horrors that extreme nationalism and a disregard for human rights wrought on the world in the last century.
Posted by Michael-in-Norfolk at Tuesday, February 11, 2020 No comments:
Labels: autocracy, greed and power, hate and division, Margaret Thatcher, media censorship, nationalism, oligarchy, Reagan, Viktor Orbán, war on democracy
Posted by Michael-in-Norfolk at Monday, February 10, 2020 No comments:
The Democrats' Circular Firing Squad Only Helps Trump
With the New Hampshire primary tomorrow, some of the would be Democrat 2020 presidential nominees seem to have forgotten a few basic principals: trashing your opponents (i) it invites return fire from your opponents, and (ii) in the long run likely only helps Donald Trump, a many who poses an existential threat to America and its democracy. Among the worse offenders? Bernie Sanders, of course, followed by his followers who bear a frightening resemblance to Trump's MAGA followers when it comes to blind zealotry (many refused to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and, by default, voted for Trump - four years latter, they seemingly have learned NOTHING). Making matters worse, Sanders is not even a Democrat but rather is feigning to be a Democrat based on what's in it for him. Trump, no doubt is watching and applauding the Democrat's self-inflicted injury. A column in the Washington Post looks at this disturbing phenomenon (a second piece in the New York Times found here does the same). Here are excerpts from the Post:
A few years ago, I was on a research trip to Belarus, a country known as "the last dictatorship in Europe." The government is led by Alexander Lukashenko, an autocrat who rules by fear, repression and violence. Minsk — the capital and a living urban museum for the Soviet Union — is still crawling with secret police.
In the shadow of brutalist Soviet-era buildings, I met with several major figures from the Belarusan opposition. From presidential candidates to activists, they had all correctly identified the problem: Change was impossible until Lukashenko was toppled. So long as he was in charge, all was lost. Nevertheless, every time I mentioned one opposition candidate to another opposition figure, the response was similar: "She's not part of the real opposition" or "He's basically the same as Lukashenko." . . . . When election day rolled around, they would stay home rather than vote for their tarnished second or third choice.
Authoritarian regimes teach a crucial lesson: So long as the opposition attacks itself, the ruler survives. Divide and conquer is an effective strategy for incumbents to remain in power — but it works best if the opposition devours itself first.
The United States is obviously not Belarus. We're still a democracy. But we are facing an unprecedented challenge to our long-standing institutions. If Democrats don't learn the right lesson, President Trump will win, too.
Yes, it's important to get the right candidate — and that candidate needs to be battle-tested in a competitive primary. And in ordinary elections, you should vote for any plausible candidate that most matches your ideological and policy preferences. But the 2020 election is no ordinary contest. It's an emergency. If you're being driven off a cliff, you don't need to find your favorite Formula-1 driver. You just need someone to take the wheel and stop the impending carnage.
Trump's reelection would constitute an existential threat to our republic. He has already tried — repeatedly — to subvert our free and fair elections. He will do so again. When democracy itself is on the ballot, pro-democracy forces don't have the luxury of just winning the argument. They have to win the election.
In 2016, Trump took a scorched-earth path to the White House. He understood that he could never win over much of the country. But he could try to torch his opponent so much that millions of voters would see him as the lesser evil, vote third party or stay home. It worked — just barely.
In early 2020, Trump's approval ratings are underwater in eight crucial swing states: Michigan (minus 12 percent), Pennsylvania (minus 6), Wisconsin (minus 6), Arizona (minus 4), Florida (minus 4), Georgia (minus 5), Iowa (minus 5) and North Carolina (minus 7). He's barely afloat in Texas. Trump will lose to a highly motivated and unified opposition that nominates a candidate who can win in those crucial states. If Democrats let Trump divide and discourage them — or Democratic voters refuse to be ruthlessly pragmatic in picking a candidate — he will stay in power.
To win, Trump needs Democrats to be complicit. They have to turn on each other. They have to administer endless purity tests. And they have to stay mired in petty spats rather than reminding voters of the felonies, the vulgarities, the racism, the sexism, the endless scandals, and the high crimes and misdemeanors of a wannabe despot. Heading into New Hampshire's potentially decisive primary, Trump has so far found quite a few willing accomplices.
[I]n a recent Emerson poll, just 53 percent of Bernie Sanders supporters and 50 percent of Andrew Yang supporters said that they would vote for a Democratic nominee who wasn't their favored choice, compared to 90 percent of Warren supporters, 87 percent of Biden supporters, and 86 percent of Buttigieg supporters. I understand that frustration. But if you don't like the eventual Democrat at the top of the ticket, at least vote for democracy.
We have to keep laser-focused on the big picture: Donald Trump is an unprecedented threat to the republic. Democrats need to lay out a strong and positive vision that contrasts with Trump's divisiveness and chaos. In the meantime, they cannot afford to blow up their opponents' blemishes into disqualifying disasters. Democratic voters need to pick someone who can win and then unify behind that person. Unless that happens, we all lose.
Sadly, I remain convinced that Sanders cannot win. He should not even be running as a Democrat. Likewise, some others languishing in the polls and the Iowa vote need to stop the attacks on those who might be able to defeat Trump.
Posted by Michael-in-Norfolk at Monday, February 10, 2020 1 comment:
Labels: 2020 Democrat candidates, 2020 presidential election, defeating Trump, Democrat circular firing squad, divide and conquer, false Democrats, self-defeating
The U.S. Government is Buying Your Location Data
Think you have privacy? Think again. In early January I received an email from Google that laid out everywhere I had been in 2019, covering almost 23,000 miles and three different countries, not to mention several different states and numerous cities. Then, early this month I received something similar for the month of January, 2020. Did I ask for this? No. Did I know my phone apps were tracking my every move? No. But what is more frightening is the the federal government is buying this information without your knowledge. Do you really want the goons of the Trump/Pence regime knowing your every move? Most of us have nothing to hide, but this level of surveillance is scary and should not be happening as a column in the Washington Post notes. Here are column highlights:
AMERICANS HAVE lately been learning that the apps they use to check whether they need an umbrella, or follow their favorite sports team, or hurl one animated animal at another for points are sucking up their location data and selling it. Now it turns out that it's not only advertising companies and other private entities who end up buying this information en masse from brokers. The U.S. government is doing it, too.
The Wall Street Journal wrote last week that federal agencies have purchased access to a virtual trove that charts the movements of millions of citizens' cellphones from a company called Venntel. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its components are reportedly harnessing this data for immigration enforcement: searching for activity in unexpected places to pin down smuggling rings, or detecting individuals who may have entered the country illegally.
Customs and Border Protection says it accesses only small quantities of the data on a case-by-case basis rather than examining the entire cache in bulk, and that the data is anonymized. But anonymity is a laughable concept when every individual's day can be turned into a traveling dot that follows a path only they take. A New York Times investigation in 2018 revealed how simple it is to connect a dot to the person it represents — whether that person is a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory or an undocumented mother recently arrived from Mexico.
Authorities may hope to preempt some concerns about civil liberties by alleging they're training their eyes only on suspected non-citizens, but it's impossible to avoid roping in citizens, too, when information is requisitioned at so massive a volume. It's also impossible not to imagine what else, and who else, officials might seek to track, once they've come up with the legal rationale for doing so. Americans shouldn't have to rely on the good graces of the bureaucracy to protect them from overreach.
The rationale for warrantless surveillance in this case sidesteps Fourth Amendment law — or tries to. The Supreme Court ruled in Carpenter v. United States that the government couldn't subpoena geographic data directly from cellphone companies without going through the courts, precisely because of that data's "depth, breadth, and comprehensive reach." So the government started buying the exact same data from brokers on the open market instead, arguing that the purchases were fair game because any old company could make them.
This strategy is awfully cynical. Congress has failed to pass a comprehensive privacy statute that shields people from having their every move logged in a database such as the one in question today. Now, this lack of privacy from corporate actors has become an excuse for government to bypass the right to privacy from the state that the Constitution is supposed to enshrine. DHS insists this is legal. But should it be?
Labels: big brother, cell phones, Google, invasion of privacy, phone apps, tracking citizens, Trump/Pence regime, unconstitutional practices
Sir Ian McKellen circa 1966
We often forget that the much older were once young. Old age should never define who you are.
Posted by Michael-in-Norfolk at Sunday, February 09, 2020 1 comment:
Buttigieg Reluctantly Embraces his Barrier-Breaking Candidacy
Being the first in breaking barriers in any category can be difficult and leave one fighting stereotypes that others will force upon you even though you do not see them as defining you. Being one of the few, if not the first, openly gay attorney in the area where I live fifteen plus years ago was difficult and not something I really chose - I was forced from a firm for being gay as part of a law firm merger and then found myself more or less radioactive because I was gay when I tried to find a position with a new corporate law firm. Ultimately, I had to launch my own firm and bide my time until minds changed in the region. My rescuers, if you will, were largely members of the Hindu community who looked to my legal knowledge and my ability to take care of their legal needs rather define me by my sexual orientation (I was perhaps aided by the fact that the same elements in the region who hate gays also were and still are no fiends to Hindus).
I say all of this because I get where Pete Buttigieg is coming from when he downplays that he is gay - much to the outrage of radical gays - and wants voters instead to focus on his intelligence and reasoned, analytical approach to issues. Sadly, he faces an uphill task with black voters who, despite protestations to the contrary in survey after survey tend to be prove to be more homophobic than whites (I have black gay friends who continue to live largely in the closet for constant fear or rejection by their homophobic churches and families). A piece in Politico looks at Buttigieg's balancing act and reluctance at being a barrier breaker. Here are excerpts:
[T]he moment when the candidate and his husband knew that Pete had made history was on Tuesday. They were together backstage at an early evening event in Laconia, N.H. Buttigieg was waiting to go on stage when the Iowa Democratic Party released the bulk of the caucus results, which now show Buttigieg with a one-delegate lead over Bernie Sanders.
"I remember him saying," Buttigieg told me, "just to stop and think about what this would mean to so many kids that are peeking out of the closet door."
This was not a story that Buttigieg offered up, but one I had to coax out of him. He likes to say that he's "not running to be the gay president of the United States," but rather "to be a president for everybody." Several packed days on the campaign trail in New Hampshire have featured only a few moments when the history-making nature of his Iowa victory has shone through, most notably when he choked up during a town hall on CNN discussing how his candidacy might affect "a kid somewhere in a community wondering if he belongs or she belongs."
But for the most part, the historical impact of a gay man winning Iowa has been something that has been thrust upon Buttigieg — by the media, by proud gay activists, by Chasten in that moment backstage — rather than something that he has boasted about.
In recent years there have been vastly different approaches to identity politics in the Democratic Party. Some candidates, like Barack Obama in 2008, have played down their race or gender or sexual orientation, knowing the media and voters who cared about it would play it up. Others have run definitionally as rooted in a specific minority community. The pattern has been that the first to have a realistic shot at breaking a barrier is more circumspect.
Buttigieg is in the complicated space of being a barrier breaker: He's willing to celebrate and ruminate on the history when pressed, but being defined as a gay candidate is not part of his strategy to win.
When I first asked him if he'd thought much about it, he pivoted to familiar talking points about the race. "No, not really," he said. "You know, we're very focused on the road ahead now and we're in New Hampshire, it's a state that thinks for itself and doesn't want to be told what to do by Iowa or anyone else. So really we've just been keeping our heads down."
Almost nobody predicted that Buttigieg would win Iowa. He was a distant third in polling averages and the conventional wisdom held that other campaigns, like Elizabeth Warren's, had superior organizations. In hindsight perhaps it's on the nose that the McKinsey guy would be the one to master caucus math. His campaign has frequently been compared to Obama's and he relied on some of the same advisers who steered Obama's caucus win with a relentless focus on unity and shared values, a gauzy concept that is often mocked by Buttigieg's online detractors.
"Honestly," he said, "I think it was mainly the vision that we're putting forward: this idea that we need to turn the page, that the answers are gonna come from outside Washington, that we needed to reach out to everybody who will have to be part of that majority that will defeat Donald Trump, in rural areas, suburban areas, urban areas, and calling everybody into that vision.
[E]ven if he wins here, Buttigieg is unlikely to be rewarded with the quick consolidation of his party around him in the same way that Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004 — two campaigns that knocked out their opponents by winning Iowa and New Hampshire — did. Those candidates had little to prove among non-white constituencies, but Buttigieg still faces deep skepticism.
If he makes the turn into South Carolina with a pair of victories, or strong showings, he will be facing an unprecedented situation in which the early — overwhelmingly white — states picked the Democratic candidate who is the least popular among black voters, the most important demographic in the primaries.
Joe Biden, who is relying on limping into South Carolina with support from black voters intact, has been pillorying Buttigieg over his record on race. Buttigieg said he had a simple message to overcome the doubts, one that will be buoyed by the results in Iowa and (perhaps) New Hampshire by then: a relentless focus on electability.
"When I'm thinking about black voters in South Carolina," he said, "I think a lot of that too is about wanting to know that we're putting together a campaign that can win. Nobody's feeling the pain of living under this president more than Americans of color. So many voters I talk to make clear that their top priority is defeating Donald Trump, and I think we have to demonstrate that.
Buttigieg's rise is absurdly improbable. He has proven a lot of skeptics wrong and his theory of completely changing the psychology of voters in South Carolina by winning Iowa and New Hampshire can't be dismissed. "We're now in the process of show versus tell," he said.
At an event late in the day Saturday in Manchester, I ran into Andy Frank, one of Buttigieg's fellow students at Harvard who was a year behind him (class of 2005). Frank had been in Iowa as an organizer for his old friend and saw the Buttigieg machine spring into action on caucus day and master the convoluted process.
"He always does his homework, Frank said. "He breaks down a problem and solves it."
Labels: 2020 Democrat candidates, black homophobia, breaking barriers, defeating Trump, fighting stereotypes, gay political candidates, Pete Buttigieg
Posted by Michael-in-Norfolk at Sunday, February 09, 2020 No comments:
Buttigieg Reluctantly Embraces his Barrier-Breakin...


text:
BAD Chapter 89: Gulu – I'm dying of thirst. Help me (2)
BADidleturtletranslations 12th April 2021
Hypsilophodon: "Gulu, my name is Ling and my brother's name is Rhino. It's nice to meet you. Thank you for helping me hunt. My brother has to eat a lot. I'm afraid that he won't have enough."
(T/N: Ling = Spirit. I chose to keep the Pinyin. Xi = Rhinoceros. I shortened Rhinoceros to Rhino.)
Gulu: "Ling, listen to me. Your brother is a Carnotaurus. It's true. Where did you find him?"
At present, this Carnotaurus was still in the state of a cub, but it's already bigger than the Hypsilophodon, weighing about 200-300 Jin.
When this Carnotaurus came of age, it would need to hunt on its own. But without knowledge from its kind and living among a group of herbivorous dinosaurs, it's impossible have enough meat. This Carnotaurus would surely starve to death.
Ling: "Gulu, I know my brother is a little different from us. That's because he eats more than us. Of course, the bigger a dinosaur is, the better. Gulu, have you ever seen a Carnotaurus? I heard that the dinosaur is especially terrifying. My brother is definitely not a Carnotaurus."
Rhino: "Yes, brother, how can I be a Carnotaurus? It's said that this terrifying dinosaur really like to eat herbivorous dinosaurs like us. Brother, I'm scare."
After saying this, the Carnotaurus curled up and hid behind the less than 100 Jin Hypsilophodon.
Gulu: Emmm………Hello, did you misunderstand your size? You're a dinosaur weighing 200-300 Jin. But you're hiding behind a dinosaur weighing less than 100 Jin. Are you not bashful?!
Ling rubbed his little head against the sharp horns on Rhino's head and said, "Don't be scare. Don't be scare. Brother will protect you."
Gulu was still kind enough to remind: "Ling, I'm serious with you. Your brother will grow to 3 or 4 tons in the future, which is four to five times heavier than a Camptosaurus. If he can't hunt by himself then, he'll starve to death."
Rhino was immediately stimulated: "No, no, I'm not a Carnotaurus. You're lying to us. I'm a Hypsilophodon, the same Hypsilophodon as my brother!"
In fact, Ling had long felt strange. If his younger brother was really a Hypsilophodon and Hypsilophodon ate ferns, why did his younger brother want to eat meat. He always had an uncontrollable urge to eat meat. In the past, his parents went to find meat for his younger brother. In the absence of his parents, he was the one who found meat for him.
Rhino himself also felt strange. All dinosaurs in the group ate ferns, only he ate meat and didn't like eating ferns, but he still firmly believed that he's a Hypsilophodon.
Ling: "Gulu, thank you. My brother is a Hypsilophodon."
Gulu couldn't say anything else besides: "I've seen a Carnotaurus, which looks exactly the same as your brother. Go back and think about it carefully. Where did you find your brother? You better send him back to the Carnotaurus group, otherwise, your brother will starve to death."
Carnotaurus lived in groups, just like Mapusaurus. The full name of Mapusaurus was Mapusaurus roseae, which mainly fed on Argentinosaurus. Carnotaurus fed on Titanosaurus. Titanosaurus and Argentinosaurus were very large dinosaurs that required a group to hunt.
On second thought, even if Ling really wanted to send his brother back, the carnivorous dinosaur group wouldn't accept a young cub who's not from their own group unless Rhino's biological parents were found. But the difficulty coefficient was too large.
Rhino ate the Camptosaurus and said: "Brother, this Triceratops brother is very strange. Why did he say that I'm a Carnotaurus? I'm not such a terrible dinosaur…"
Ling rubbed against Rhino's body and replied, "It's okay. Our Rhino is not a Carnotaurus. Our Rhino is a Hypsilophodon."
Gulu walked back while thinking. Rhino didn't yet know the value of a Carnotaurus. Crowds of Carnotaurus in a group were the dinosaurs that make Tyrannosaurus rex stay away. They dominated one-sidedly and were especially terrifying.
It's just that Gulu didn't know where these Carnotaurus lived, just as he didn't know where to find the famous Giganotosaurus.
However, Gulu was very happy to see the amazing Hypsilophodon today.
Gulu and Mungo hadn't gone far when they heard a roar behind them. It's the roar of Giganotosaurus.
Looking back, Gulu saw that both Ling and Rhino had climbed up a tree at a very fast speed while holding a large piece of meat in their mouths.
Gulu was shocked: Carnotaurus can't climb trees!
But it seemed that Rhino learned it from living with a group of Hypsilophodon when he's young. Gulu didn't pay attention just now. However, a Carnotaurus that could climb trees must have grown powerful claws.
On the other hand, Hypsilophodon could climb trees quickly because of their hands, especially their grip. Their hands were very long and had five fingers. And these fingers had very strong grip. They could hold their foods with them.
Support the translator. Read for free. at .idleturtle. translations . for full notes and pictures
The fact that a Carnotaurus could climb tree so quickly proved that his body may have undergone certain changes due to long-term living with Hypsilophodon. However, as the weight of the Carnotaurus became heavier, it would no longer be possible for him to climb tree, especially once he's past 500 Jin.
There're too many carnivorous dinosaurs here. Ling and Rhino had mastered the trick for a long time. After hunting food, Rhino would eat quickly after Ling quickly divided the prey. If other carnivorous dinosaurs came to rob, they would take all the meat they could to the trees to eat.
Gulu stood and looked at them. He saw both of them put the meat on the trunk. While Rhino's hind legs gripped the trunk tightly, Ling held the meat in his hand and fed it to Rhino bit by bit.
Because like Tyrannosaurus rex, the forelimbs of Carnotaurus were very short. Rhino couldn't eat meat by himself. If he lowered his head to eat meat, his body would fall out of balance, so he could only be fed by Ling.
Rhino was very happy when eating meat and kept shaking his head and said: "Wow, brother, the meat is really delicious. Why don't you like eating meat? Meat is so delicious!…"
Ling: "Eat more if you like. Brother will hunt more for you tomorrow."
Gulu saw several Giganotosaurus under the tree where Ling and Rhino were on. They finished eating the rest of the meat on the ground in an instant. After eating, they looked up at the meat on the tree and drooled wildly.
Ling and Rhino took a lot of meat and put it on the tree. They couldn't finish it for a while. After putting it on the trunk, the meat kept dripping blood.
A few Giganotosaurus growled under the tree in constant hunger, as if to say: Little dinosaurs, send your meat down to our boss, otherwise, I'll eat you alive!"
Ling wasn't afraid of these Giganotosaurus. His climbing skills were 666. He roared toward the bottom, as if to say: "If you have the skills, why don't you climb the tree? Having no skills but still want to eat me, lue lue lue…"
Gulu believed that as a small herbivorous dinosaur, the reason why Ling managed to feed a Carnivorous was probably due to his incomparable climbing skills.
It's really a bug to be able to climb trees because carnivorous dinosaurs in the dinosaur age were basically unable to climb trees. Herbivorous dinosaurs that could climb trees had a lot of survival advantage.
Mungo and Gulu continued to walk back. After a while, Ling and Rhino caught up with them again. The only difference was that Ling and Rhino travelled on the trees while they walked on the ground.
Rhino ran in front while Ling followed him and shouted, "Rhino, slow down, wait for brother, you're running too fast."
For the first time, Gulu saw a Carnotaurus that could run on a tree. It's 666.
Rhino looked at Gulu below and said, "Brother Gulu, look, I can climb trees and run on trees, so I'm a Hypsilophodon."
Gulu was helpless: "Hmmm, you're a Hypsilophodon, you're a Hypsilophodon."
Mungo sent Gulu back to Pado's group. The Hypsilophodon brothers had long since disappeared.
Shortly after Gulu's return, Pado's group began to march again.
All of the fern fields and forests that this group of migrating herbivorous dinosaurs passed by were basically eaten up. Now it's dry season, ferns and leaves grew very slowly. Some even stopped growing. They must find available food first and eat more before moving on.
The drought had become more and more serious. There was no rain. Ferns everywhere became withered, including the fern fields and forests they just passed through.
In the evening, they came to another fern field, which couldn't even be called a fern field. It's full of gravel and weeds, together with sparse trees and no water.
Next to this fern field was a steep cliff and vertical rocks that's full of leaping Hypsilophodon.
Gulu found out that this was the place where most Hypsilophodon were found.
Crowds of Hypsilophodon ran at full speed and skipped across the cliff. The cliff looked so vertical and Gulu feared they would slide down. But obviously, their technique was very good.
Gulu also saw Ling and Rhino, because Rhino, as a Carnotaurus, looked really conspicuous among a group of Hypsilophodon. Gulu couldn't miss him.
After several days of observation, Gulu found that there're about 500 Hypsilophodon living with Ling and Rhino. These Hypsilophodon seemed to dislike Rhino a lot and bully him. Ling often fought with these Hypsilophodon for Rhino.
This area was really too dry and short of water. The fern plants were too brittle to swallow. All the leaves had basically withered. But they couldn't backtrack. They already ate up all the fern plants and forests where they passed through. They still had no food even if they were to go back.
Dinosaurs who migrated many times knew that as long as they stick to this path, there would be abundant ferns and leaves ahead.
However, this section of the road was really difficult. From time to time, dinosaurs fell to the ground, not only because they had no food, but because they were too thirsty.
All dinosaurs' scales basically became chapped, because the body needed water so all water in the skin were absorbed.
Dinosaurs drank very little water. As long as their bodies had enough water, they didn't need to drink because they could draw water from their skin.
But now there's no water on the skin and there's no external source of water. These dinosaurs died because their bodies were extremely short of water.
Mungo's group got very lucky. They basically didn't need to hunt. Just eating these thirsty and starving herbivorous dinosaurs was enough.
Ulam's cubs were also growing fast because of the abundance of food these days.
Of course, the carnivorous dinosaurs around here also good lucky. They could eat fresh meat that fell to the ground every day.
Gulu was also very thirsty. He so thirsty, thirsty to death.
The Hypsilophodon group nearby was different. They didn't seem thirsty at all. They ate well and didn't worry about anything.
Gulu even saw that the young Hypsilophodon who couldn't find fern to eat were eating crushed stones mixed with rotten roots. They ate them with relish.
Gulu knew that common herbivorous dinosaurs ate ferns or leaves. Hypsilophodon were different. They could eat tree roots, bark, and crushed stones. Hypsilophodon's mouth was a blender. They could eat anything because their mouths had thick skin that could tolerate the materials they're chewing. That's why they're able to chew crushed stones casually. If they ate less stones, the skin around their mouth might become overgrown.
Mungo was frantically looking for water every day. He knew that Gulu must drink some water. He couldn't go on like this, but Mungo couldn't find any water and was worried every day.
Mila was too much younger than Gulu. She could only endure a day or two. She's almost unable to support herself now.
Gulu asked Babana, "Mom, how long will it take us to get out?"
Babana could only reply, "Soon, soon, hold on."
With a thud, Mila fell to the ground. Gulu and Babana rubbed her and shouted: "Mila, Mila, wake up!…"
At this time, Pado also came running. He knew that Mila was dying. Several cubs about the same size as Mila had died, but he had no solution.
Gulu looked around anxiously. After seeing Mungo, he immediately thought of a way. He said to Pado, "I'll make Mungo take Mila to drink some blood. It's the only way."
Pado nodded repeatedly. Mila was too thin to go on starving. Gulu picked her up and ran to Mungo.
Mungo, of course, immediately took Mila to drink blood. Not far away, a Diplodocus had just fallen down. No carnivorous dinosaurs had eaten it.
Mungo first let his brothers guard the prey then led Mila there with Gulu.
Gulu saw Mungo bit the Diplodocus's neck. Blood quickly gushed out. Mila heard the sound of running water and opened her mouth on her own initiative. However, the smell of blood was disliked by herbivorous dinosaurs. She vomited after drinking a little, but she was too thirsty to stop. She had to half drink and half vomit at the same time.
The sun was too high. Gulu also wanted to drink, but before he could reach out his mouth, he fell to the ground with a thump. He's too thirsty and tired. It's an ordeal just to stand.
Mungo was so anxious that he immediately sent the Diplodocus's neck to Gulu's mouth, but Gulu couldn't drink it.
At this moment, Mungo heard the roar of a Hypsilophodon: "Mungo, Mungo, I know where there's water!"
Mungo looked back and saw the Hypsilophodon named Ling.
Release Schedule: 1 release every Monday at 5 am Pacific Time Random
BUN Chapter 52: Roses, Love Words (1)
RSE Chapter 71 (2)
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The proposal is within the scope of the Sonoma County General Plan 2020 Final EIR (Final EIR) which adequately describes the activity for purposes of CEQA. Accordingly, under CEQA Guidelines §§ 15168 and 15162, no additional environmental review is required.
General Plan Public Safety Element text amendment and ordinance specifying that within the Geologic Hazard Area Combining District, the geologic report and fault setback requirements applicable to new development do not apply to reconstruction of single-family homes that were destroyed in the 2017 Sonoma Complex Fires.
Various parcels in G, Geologic Hazard Area combining district and within Sonoma Complex Fires 2017 perimeter; see Staff Report Attachment C - Maps.
Recommend that the Board of Zoning Adjustments deny the appeal and uphold the determination that the use of the property is not a legal, non-conforming livestock feed yard/lot and livestock transport yard.


text:
Ancylis anguillana is een vlinder uit de familie van de bladrollers (Tortricidae). De wetenschappelijke naam van de soort is, als Palaeobia anguillana, voor het eerst geldig gepubliceerd in 1881 door Edward Meyrick.

Type
 type: is een "female"
 instituut: BMNH, Londen, Engeland
 typelocatie: "Australia, New South Wales, near Parramatta"

anguillana

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


This week is about lifting up those voices that seek to nurture and educate and unite us.
An examination of the influence of Antonioni's "L'avventura" on "Clouds of Sils Maria" and "About Elly", both opening this week.
Kim Novak and aging; Michelangelo Antoniono's Blow-Up; A comical story about Church organists; In defense of jaywalking; An argument to bury the 'In Memoriam' segment.
A summerlong retrospective devoted to Italian master Michelangelo Antonioni begins at the Gene Siskel Film Center. "L'Avventura" (1960), one of the director's most iconic efforts, screens this weekend in the series. Roger Ebert's Great Movie essay on the film follows.


text:
Images + words
Torea Frey
Then it was newspapers, now it's Twitter
From The American Language, on how newspaper writing and design has shaped language use:
'The headline,' said the late E. P. Mitchell, for many years editor of the New York Sun, 'is more influential than a hundred chairs of rhetoric in the shaping of future English speech. There is no livelier perception than in the newspaper offices of the incalculable havoc being wreaked upon the language by the absurd circumstance that only so many millimeters of type can go into so many millimeters' width of column. Try it yourself and you will understand why the fraudulent use of so many compact but misused verbs, nouns and adjectives is being imposed on the coming generation. In its worst aspect, headline English is the yellow peril of the language.' 'This,' says G. K. Chesterton, 'is one of the evils produced by that passion for compression and compact information which possesses so many ingenious minds in America. Everybody can see how an entirely new system of grammar, syntax, and even language has been invented to fit the brevity of headlines. Such brevity, so far from being the soul of wit, is even the death of meaning; and certainly the death of logic.'
Fun game: substitute "Twitter" for "headline" -- you can see how their arguments would extend into our millennium. What will be the next technology to drag our language through the gutter?!
In books Tags e.p. mitchell, g.k. chesterton, grammar, headline writing, headlines, hl mencken, language, new york sun, newspaper writing, newspapers, syntax, the american language
← On the blockAmericanisms new and old →


text:
Agent sparks another smartwatch funding frenzy on Kickstarter
By Darren Quick
Agent sparks another smartwatc...
Agent is the latest smartwatch to cause a stir
The Agent smartwatch features a 1.28 inch, 128 x 128 pixel resolution "memory LCD" display
The Agent charges wirelessly via a Qi charging pad
The Pebble smartwatch is one of the standout Kickstarter success stories, attracting over US$10 million in funds to exceed its $100,000 target more than 100 times over. Another smartwatch is following a similar trajectory on the crowdfunding site, exceeding its own $100,000 goal in a day. While the Agent smartwatch shares some things in with common with the Pebble, it also boasts a number of features that set it apart.
Created by custom electronics outfit Secret Labs and watchmakers the House of Horology, – both based in New York – the Agent sports the same kind of "memory LCD" backlit black and white display made by Sharp as the Pebble. However, whereas the Pebble features a 1.26-inch rectangular 144 x 168 pixel display, the Agent's display is square, measuring 1.28 inches with 128 x 128 pixel resolution.
Regardless of the aspect ratio, both watches will benefit from the display's low power requirements, with the Agent also boasting an advanced power management system that helps the device achieve a promised seven days of battery life under typical use, or around 30 days in watchface-only mode. The Agent's rechargeable battery is also user replaceable.
Both smartwatches also feature an ambient light sensor, 3-axis accelerometer, vibrating motor and connects to a smartphone via Bluetooth. The Agent supports Bluetooth 4.0 BD/EDR + LE and the Pebble recently added Bluetooth 4.0 support.
Setting the Agent apart is its dual-processor design that puts a 120 MHz ARM Cortex-M4 processor alongside a secondary AVR co-processor. This allows the watch to conserve battery power by having the power-sipping secondary processor take care of housekeeping duties and events and calling the main processor into action when needed for heavy lifting. The creators say this combination allows for a more powerful unit that is "the world's smartest watch."
Another point of difference is the recharging method. Whereas the Pebble recharges via USB, the Agent can be recharged wirelessly using a Qi charging pad. This has allowed the Agent to boast a water resistant design, the actual specifications of which are yet to be decided. The Pebble also recently added water resistance to its list of specs, with the certification level also still to be settled.
Unlike the Pebble, which currently limits compatibility to iOS and Android devices, the Agent adds support for Windows Phone 8 to the mix and aims to attract app developers with a custom AGENT OS based on the .NET Micro Framework 4.3 and the ability to write apps in C# using Microsoft Visual Studio 2012. The team has already created a number of apps to demonstrate the Agent's capabilities, some of which can be seen in the video below.
The Secret Lab team has completed the design of the Agent's electronic circuitry and the House of Horology has finalized the casing design – although the final materials for the production version are yet to be decided. Having already shot past their initial goal, the team now has the funds to get the necessary certifications and get the Agent into production.
The US$129 tier to get an Agent smartwatch has already been filled, leaving $149 as the minimum pledge to secure a unit. Deliveries are expected to begin in December.
The Kickstarter video pitch for the Agent smartwatch can be seen below.
Sources: Agent Watches via Kickstarter
SmartwatchesWatchesKickstarterwearable electronics
Darren Quick
Darren's love of technology started in primary school with a Nintendo Game & Watch Donkey Kong (still functioning) and a Commodore VIC 20 computer (not still functioning). In high school he upgraded to a 286 PC, and he's been following Moore's law ever since. This love of technology continued through a number of university courses and crappy jobs until 2008, when his interests found a home at New Atlas.
science ninja May 22, 2013 02:02 PM
waiting for the smart ring
Bryant Drake May 22, 2013 06:22 PM
@Science Ninja On it! Id rather see smart tattoos though. Think of an e-ink display on your arm.
Ozuzi May 22, 2013 08:06 PM
'Watches' used to have to be based around a circular dial. Now that they don't I am surprised screens aren't rectangular up and down your arm, maybe 5cm wide. This would enable fonts you can read, or a dial&data display
Roma Khudoleyev August 6, 2013 09:54 AM
Make a 2nd version with a higher-res screen, and I'll buy it!
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The liquor market and the wine market in the recent decades has seen a drastic change in the taste for population in India loves to booze as more and more international brands are available with sizzling taste and quality to turn around your mood, more and more party like mood and Bars with unique themes placed in different metro cities. As the most of the population trying different wines as red wines and liking its taste and festive mood quality with less amount of alcohol is new celebrations companion.
Red wine is also known to contain a protein called lectin. This is particularly harmful to the human body as when your body has lectin, it is extremely difficult to break As a result, they tend to stick to various body organs such as the kidneys, brain, or the thyroid, thereby causing harm to these important organs.
Besides, it is a known fact that when you drink too much of alcohol, you tend to increase weight. Even when you are in the process of maintaining weight, drinking alcohol in any form hinders that process. This, in turn, leads to various health problems.
Although a few experts argue that certain antioxidants present in red wine, particularly Resveratrol, etc. are required for the sound health of the human body, the main thing to notehere is that the overall content of this particular antioxidant is really low when it comes to red wine.
You also tend to increase your chances of developing diseases and complications related to theliver when you drink a lot of red wine.
Remember the following warnings when you are into drinking too much of red wine.
The alcohol content in red wine is somewhere around 8 to 18%. If you do not drink the wine in moderate amounts, there are possibilities that you shall face several health hazards that come from drinking too much of alcohol and wine.
Too much of the drink can lead to diabetes, liver problems, various diabetes-related complications, as well as depression and premature death.
Thus, although it is often argued that drinking red wine is, in fact healthy, you need to keep in mind the above-mentioned side effects and warnings when you consume the drink.
The best thing Red Wines is no association with any of the gender or age barge, the best available choice of Red Wines as a combination of Indian based company and International rolling brands will surely amaze you. The listing of top choice available will surely let you try the best out there, red wines tasters and their buzz in the market is the criteria for rating these Red Wines as top 10.
One of the finest Indian based company that uses the exotic tastes of rare grapes flavor as Cabernet and Merlot for the deep red wine range offered, the intense aroma of the wine will surely urge you to try it more than one time. The Wine wit the tag of Chateau d'Ori is best combined with lavish meat meal to add more delight moment for special dinners.
Seagram is a well-known brand in the chain of whiskey, the mainstream whiskey player in the market earned a great response from the consumer and lead it to won the award as the most tastier Wine far back in 2007. The combination of vanilla and cherry that leads it fruitful red color adds pleasant aroma and fruity notes with a combination of strawberry that acts as a cameo in the taste maker. The soft and soothing drink best combines with spicy dishes and deep fried fishes, buy it for a yummy element for special dates.
Grover Zampa Vineyards one of the well Known Vineyards is the manufacturer of the leading taste offered as the full-bodied wine. The wine carries likes of the strong tastier and loveable ingredients as chocolate, coffee beans and vanilla that combines well for sizzling aroma and a best available option to be tried with grilled kebabs and Biryanis.
The Red Wine with fine lush taste experience of berry will surely enhance your special occasions, the brand Dindori Reserve Shirasz of Sula Vineyards won the top spot in the 2009 challenge for Best Indian Wine brand in India. The Wine best combines with nonvegetarian dishes as lambs and hard cheese. You can but the Wine from the leading stores of metro cities.
The wine is one of the leading names as India's brand series available as Red Wines, the exotic taste of the wine leads as one of the leading gift options on special occasions, the wine is produced by the famous Four Seasons Vineyards located in the Baramati region of Maharashtra. The Wine is not sweet in taste as the taste combiners of the wine are different spices and ripe blackberries. The wine is best served with red meat and mushrooms.
The proud Indian brand with immense popularity as the Wine is exported to other countries for a better Wine option available for them, the wine has an award winning reputation and it is maintained by the famous Sula Vineyards that has its base in Nashik. The best element for the brand is fruity aroma and exotic taste.
The colorful wine with a combination of purple and deep red color served as a lavish drink option for better celebrations, the best-rated elements for the wine is its fruity aroma and full bodied taste. The top rated flavors of pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg combine for the extraordinary taste for best of occasions.
SETTE is one of the leading names in the series of Wines and Whisky, the brand has its base in Akluj and Fratelli Wines are the proud manufacturer of the great taste. The Silver Medal tag to its account at the world level competition based on Decanter World Wines Award in 2013 speaks about its worldwide popularity. The taste of ripe fruits in combination with vanilla adds more taste to Indian spicy foods.
Another leading wine produced by Grover Zampa Vineyards has made way to the list of best wine option available in India at the second rank in India. The Red wine carries many international awards as its best-served performance at the global level. The wine carries the taste of berries and plums that combine well with dishes stews and pasta.
The top position acquirer in the list offers a great set of taste and best available bottle design with affordable price range. All these combinations works well to lead it to the top, the delectable taste provides a long lasting magic moment.


In some ways, a lasting traumatic brain injury (TBI) can be the worst kind of injury a person can endure in life. A TBI occurs when the brain is injured by force, and depending on the area affected, an individual is left with difficulty functioning and interacting with their environment. Our movement, sensation, communication, memory and learning is processed and controlled by the brain. When these functions are damaged, the interaction with our world is damaged as well.
Treating traumatic brain injuries may be one of the most emotionally and professionally difficult tasks. In an instant, the development of a person's years of learning and communication can be erased from an injury such as a blow to the head, possibly leaving someone with the mental capacity and behavior of a toddler. Someone with a traumatic brain injury is often easily confused, unpredictable with their speech and actions, and occasionally aggressive as their frustration with communicating increases and appropriateness is inhibited. I recall treating an older gentleman who was the victim of violence, and just asking him to turn his head caused nausea, visual difficulty, and confusion in following just that simple command.
TBI's can be divided into three main categories: mild, moderate, and severe. A mild injury often encompasses the kind of TBI that many people experience during their lifetime: a short-lasting concussion with possible loss of consciousness of up to a few minutes. Symptoms are often absent or mild, with some resulting nausea or headache. In a moderate injury, the force of the injury is greater and someone can be unconscious for up to 15 minutes with more lasting symptoms.
The third category is severe TBI's, which can result from an event such as gunshot wound or the force of an explosion. Severe TBI's cause permanent damage to the brain and leave lasting effects from which a person generally does not every fully recover. These chronic and lasting effects greatly affect a person's ability to move, work, communicate with people, and function in society.
Until recently, treatment for people with chronic TBI's was limited, but there is now hope for progress. A recent study by Chou et al introduced ISRIB, a drug tested in UCSF's lab which was able to reverse the effects of a TBI in mice. This was done by inhibiting a stress response in the brain commonly associated with TBI. The integrated stress response has been shown to be chronically activated in someone with a TBI, affecting the hippocampus' ability to store memory and influence healthy cognition. In addition, the drug was able to assist in synthesis of proteins which contribute to learning, in a process called Long Term Potentiation (LTP).
Because the effects of a severe traumatic brain injury can last for months or years before improving, results of treatment for TBI are often slow and inconsistent. Generally, there is no effective protocol treating chronic TBI's because they are so varied in origin and presentation. This is why the breakthrough from UCSF is so impactive. To possibly reverse the effects of brain damage offers extensive hope and potential for TBI survivors, their families, and their care team.
The absolutely amazing aspect of ISRIB is that it affects chronic effects of TBI. Chronic effects of an injury are very difficult to reverse as the system has often acclimated to its chronic state, making the effects more stable and difficult to change. It is incredible that a drug has been developed to not only inhibit the pathway of a TBI, but reverse its deleterious and long-lasting effects. The potential implications of this medications are massive, possibly allowing people with TBI's to not only restore memory but continue learning.
Thus far ISRIB has only been tested in mice, and the next phase is move it forward for human testing. ISRIB was licensed in 2015 to Calico, a California-based company which owns rights to discoveries in Dr. Walter's biochemistry lab at UCSF.


text:
RNSS/SBAS
Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
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Abstracts Being Accepted for the IEEE/ION PLANS
Faulty Booster Component May Delay IIR-M Launches; L5 Signal Ready to Go
By Glen Gibbons
GPS IIR satellite. Lockheed Martin photo.
Suspected faulty components in a Delta II rocket are delaying the launch of the final two modernized GPS Block IIR satellites, possibly preventing the early broadcast of an L5 civil signal that faces a 2009 deadline for being on the air.
According to Air Force officials at the GPS Master Control Station, Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado, and Patrick AFB near the Cape Canaveral launch site, the questionable component is the 40-second timer that triggers separation of the third stage booster from the GPS space vehicle. Affected are both the 20th Block IIR-M, which had been scheduled to launch this month with a civil L5 test signal enabled in the navigation payload, and GPS IIR-21.
IIR-20 is at the Kennedy Space Center now, where the possible fault was detected in pre-launch testing. Separation failure would prevent the GPS satellites from reaching orbit. Air Force officials assessed the risk as "medium to high," for a failure in the $100-million-plus mission, counting the costs of both satellite and launcher.
The Air Force is procuring a new lot of 40-second timers, according to the Launch and Range Systems Wing at Patrick AFB. These timers will undergo standard production and qualification testing, which affects Delta II launch dates. Options are being reviewed for GPS IIR-20(M) and GPS IIR-21(M) launch dates; new dates are forthcoming.
Meanwhile, the USAF is poised and ready to demonstrate the United State's ability to transmit an L5 demonstration signal (1176.45 MHz) from GPS orbit pending successful launch of SV-09, according to Air Force Captain Brian Adcock, Chief of the NAVSTAR Operations Support Office (NOSO) and Test Director for the L5 R&D demonstration payload at Schriever AFB.
The L5 signal at 1176.45 MHz is in a protected aeronautical radionavigation service (ARNS) band and is expected to see substantial use by the civil aviation community. The signal will go into regular operation on the follow-on generation of GPS satellites (IIF) set for launch beginning next year. The L5 signal needs to be
transmitting from satellites in orbit by August 26, 2009, in order to
meet an International Telecommunications Union (ITU) deadline for the
L5 frequency allocation, according to Adcock.
"The L5 effort is quite a success story for the GPS Wing," says Adcock. "We're ready to demonstrate to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) that the United States is bringing into use the capability to transmit an L5 signal from our GPS constellation."
The L5 demonstration is scheduled to take place soon after the GPS satellite containing the L5 R&D demonstration payload is launched and brought into operation. The Air Force Frequency Management Agency will help file with the ITU after the signal is brought into use, thereby claiming protection in the L5 spectrum.
The GPS IIR-M Program Management Office team consisting of Ms. Mary Guyse and USAF Captain Brad Myers worked closely with Lockheed Martin to develop an on-orbit demonstration capability for the new civil signal. Adcock was recently named test director to the lead the L5 effort as Captain Myers transitioned to a new assignment.
To date, the L5 R&D Demonstration payload has been successfully designed, integrated into IIR-M SV-09, fully tested, and delivered to the Air Force on time and within budget. The Air Force has completed IIR-20 (SV-09) compatibility testing at Cape Canaveral and has proven the procedures to successfully operate the space vehicle, including the L5 payload, Adcock says.
Concept of operation, mission support procedures, and crew training have been provided to the operational squadron (2 SOPS) at Schriever AFB. The on-orbit test plan has been approved by Air Force Space Command, and the L5 test procedures are complete and ready for implementation.
Meanwhile, the first IIF space vehicle is reportedly doing well in thermal-vac tests in El Segundo, California, with a nominal launch date of February 2009. However, that launch may be postponed to May.
The first GPS IIF launch will be aboard a Delta IV launch vehicle. The GPS IIF spacecraft is capable of launching on both Atlas V and Delta IV boosters.
Faulty Booster Component Delays IIR-M Launches
Successful GPS II-F Satellite Launch after Delay…
Air Force May Delay Phasing Out L2 Semi-Codeless Signal
Change in GPS IIR/IIR-M Satellite Battery Charging…
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Summer essential. Soft white cozy shorts. 100% top quality waffle linen. Full fit. Designed to grow with your child and to fit longer. Elastic waistband. Side pockets. Delicate machine washing cycle recommended. Made in Lithuania. Please check Anchovy size chart before placing your oder.


Come join us to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women in Vancouver and globally!
We will have some fun feminist trivia with prizes, cake, lots of laughs, followed by a cozy, casual group discussion.
Our discussion topic is whether 2017 was the catalyst that made feminism mainstream, and if so, is 2018 the year of the woman? Let's chat about how and if the tides are turning, how we can leverage these changes for this year, and what obstacles remain in moving intersectional feminism from the fringes.
Open to all - EVERYONE is welcome! Bring your friends, bring your allies, just make sure to reserve your spot.
By-donation on the night supporting the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre.
We acknowledge that this event takes place on the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.
After expenses are covered, funds will be donated to the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre.
Can I donate by card?
No, mini feminists are welcome as long as they are accompanied by an adult.
Use the CONTACT feature below to email Anna, or connect on the Facebook event page.
Yes. You may pass on your ticket to someone else, as long as they are aware that the spot will be reserved under the name given at time of booking.
That's a bummer! But don't sweat it. Let us know asap and we'll pass on your spot to someone else. No-shows make us sad because there's always someone that could have come in your place!
The entrance is, but unfortunately the washroom is not. If you would like to attend but are concerned about accessability, please let us know and we will try our best to accommodate you.