New York is a competitive, competitive town. This we know. Some of this competitiveness is healthy. Some of it is ridiculous. People in this city can be competitive about careers, salaries, education, apartments, restaurants, fashion, pets, pet fashion—it never truly stops. One could argue that daily life in New York City is itself a competition—the race to get out the door, the secret race on the sidewalk (oh, you didn’t know about that?), the scramble for the train, for your caffeine jet fuel, and then to the elevator, the desk, the computer, the email. If you’re reading this column in New York, you’re probably rushing to finish it first. You’ve probably already left work and are on your way to yoga. Good for you. I hope you win yoga.
Finally New York’s absurd competitive spirit has been quantified…and we are dominating! A study by the Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by Citigroup, found New York to be to be the most competitive city on the planet. It evaluated areas like economic strength and financial maturity and the type of cheese you keep in the fridge (at least I think that was a category) and determined that this city is still a thrilling and wildly competitive sandbox. The experts concluded that New York will remain earth’s most competitive city into 2025.

Genetically modified wheat created by Monsanto Co. (MON) that wasn’t approved for use turned up on an 80-acre farm in Oregon last month, threatening the outlook for U.S. exports of the grain that are the world’s largest.
 
 
A farmer attempting to kill wheat with Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide found several plants survived the weedkiller. Scientists found the wheat was a strain field-tested from 1998 to 2005 and deemed safe before St. Louis-based Monsanto, the world’s largest seedmaker, pulled Roundup Ready wheat from the regulatory approval process on concern that importers would avoid the crop.

On February 4, 1846, 27-year-old Samuel Brannan sailed from New York City aboard the Brooklyn. On board were 238 fellow Mormons. They were bound for the Mexican territory of California, where they hoped to build a Mormon kingdom without the conflicts they had experienced in the United States. During the six months the Brooklyn was at sea, the United States went to war with Mexico. When the Mormons sailed into San Francisco Bay, they were dismayed to learn the Americans were in control.
In the fall of 1847 he opened a store at John Sutter’s Fort. A few months later, rumors circulated that gold had been found nearby at Coloma. In early May, Brannan headed to the mines to see for himself. He learned “there was more gold than all the people in California could take out in fifty years.” Brannan made plans for a second store. Then, he packed some of the precious metal into a quinine bottle and traveled the hundred miles back to San Francisco. As he stepped off the ferry, Brannan swung his hat, waved the bottle and shouted, “Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!” By the middle of June, three-quarters of the male population had left town for the mines.
Brannan didn’t actually dig for gold, but gold swelled his investments to a fortune. His store made enormous profits by selling as much as $5,000 (about $120,000 in 2005 dollars) in goods per day to miners. Brannan also convinced some Mormon miners to pay him a percentage of their income in exchange for his attempts to secure title to the goldfields, which he never did. He opened a third store. He had several buildings in San Francisco and was on his way to being the largest landowner in the new town of Sacramento.

“We, the Jew people, control America, and the Americans know it.”
-Ariel Sharon

23 signs you’ve lived in New York City too long

1. When you leave the city and a cashier smiles at you and asks how your day was, you’re like: “Excuse me?“
2. Dinner = hitting up your slice place at 1 a.m.
3. Nothing fills you with more rage than getting on a crowded subway car and suddenly hearing, “It’s showtime!”
4. You have the same conversation with the same friends at the same bar every night.
5. $12 cocktails and $20 yoga classes seem normal now.
6. In the summer, you consider the wind from an approaching subway car to be “a nice breeze.”
7. You’ve considered moving into your office to save on rent since you spend so much time there anyway.
8. You’ve gone from not leaving Brooklyn on the weekends, to not leaving your actual neighborhood on the weekends.
9. Savings account? HAHA, good one.
10. You’ve Seamlessed lunch and dinner in the same day and not given a shit.
11. This is sadly accurate: Your life’s like Gossip Girl, except everyone is old and poor.
12. You’ve flipped off a tourist bus.
13. You wear earbuds while grocery shopping.
14. You’ve become immune to the hot garbage smell.
15. You can swipe your Metrocard without breaking stride.
16. You go to the bodega in your pajamas.
17. When you visit the suburbs and try to sleep at night, the silence scares you.
18. You’ve forgotten how to drive a car.
19. You’ve stopped going out on Friday nights and started going out on Tuesday nights. – As long as I’m drunk, what’s the difference?
20. You walk faster than most people run.
21. You’ve either gotten really into cooking, or totally given up on cooking.
22. You get outraged when a Duane Reade isn’t open 24 hours.
23. You relish getting out of the city any chance you get… But when you return to New York, you realize you couldn’t possibly live anywhere else.

We don’t know everything about these suspects yet. But we know they were Muslims from the Czech Republic.
I betcha I speak for a lot of Americans when I say I want to go over there right now and start teaching those folks a lesson. And let’s not stop at the Czech Republic, let’s go after all Arab countries.
The Arabians need to learn that they can’t keep comin’ over here and blowing stuff up. Let’s set off a couple of nukes in Islamabad, burn down Prague, then bomb the heck out of Tehran. We need to show them that we mean business.

Below are the ten major metropolitan areas with the highest Index of Dissimilarity between black and white America

1. Detroit, Michigan
2. Milwaukee, Wisconsin
3. New York, New York
4. Newark, New Jersey
5. Chicago, Illinois
6. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
7. Miami, Florida
8. Cleveland, Ohio
9. St. Louis, Missouri
10. Nassau-Suffolk, New York

Below is the top 10 most segregated cities for Black Americans:

1. Milwaukee
2. New York
3. Chicago
4. Detroit
5. Cleveland
6. Buffalo, N.Y.
7. St. Louis
8. Cincinnati
9. Philadelphia
10. Los Angeles

Prompt global strike (PGS) would allow the United States to strike targets anywhere on Earth with conventional weapons in as little as an hour. This capability may bolster U.S. efforts to deter and defeat adversaries by allowing the United States to attack high-value targets or “fleeting targets” at the start of or during a conflict. Congress has generally supported the PGS mission, but it has restricted funding and suggested some changes in funding for specific programs.
The Air Force and Navy have both considered deploying conventional warheads on their longrange ballistic missiles. The Navy sought to deploy conventional warheads on a small number of Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missiles. In FY2008, Congress rejected the requested funding for this program, but the Navy has continued to consider the possibility of deploying intermediate-range technologies for the prompt strike mission. The Air Force and DARPA are developing a hypersonic glide delivery vehicle that could deploy on a modified Peacekeeper landbased ballistic missile—a system known as the Conventional Strike Missile (CSM). In FY2008, Congress created a single, combined fund for the conventional prompt global strike (CPGS) mission. This fund is supporting research and development into the Air Force CSM and two possible hypersonic glide vehicles. Congress appropriated $174.8 million for CPGS capability development in FY2012; DOD has requested $110.4 million in FY2013.

498. Crimes Under International Law
Any person, whether a member of the armed forces or a civilian, who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment. Such offenses in connection with war comprise:
a. Crimes against peace.
b. Crimes against humanity.
c. War crimes.
Although this manual recognizes the criminal responsibility of individuals for those offenses which may comprise any of the foregoing types of crimes, members of the armed forces will normally be concerned, only with those offenses constituting “war crimes.”
499. War Crimes
The term “war crime” is the technical expression for a violation of the law of war by any person or persons, military or civilian. Every violation of the law of war is a war crime.
500. Conspiracy, Incitement, Attempts, and Complicity
Conspiracy, direct incitement, and attempts to commit, as well as complicity in the commission of, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes are punishable.

If it’s not a bad thing, then why people with hipster habits get really offended if you call them that way? It seems that one of the things that hipsters hate, is to be called hipsters! How confusing is that?
Anyway, calling someone hipster is definitely negative, whether that person is or not! Hipsters hate labels however they are labeled, and they tend to have a specific, recognizable look! (Vintage glasses, tight jeans, etc.) Or is it because non-hipsters are jealous of hipsters? However, only a hipster can find you the best places to eat or the best music to listen!

As the major stock indices hit new record highs, many are left wondering how such a bull market can develop while the average worker faces layoffs, lower wages and rising costs. The answer presents itself in the documented, admitted and openly acknowledged manipulations of the markets by governments, central bankers, and financial institutions.

Since 1991, Wayne LaPierre has led the NRA through a period of unprecedented membership growth and political clout in defense of our Second Amendment rights. And that strength has been put to the good benefit of NRA members and gun owners. In large part because of Wayne’s leadership, fair Right-to-Carry is now the law in 41 states. All 50 states have enacted laws to protect shooting ranges, and all 50 passed legislation to protect hunters from harassment.
Backed by NRA’s 4 million active members, Wayne has led NRA efforts to restore the relevance and sanctity of the Second Amendment. Today, this right continues to be preserved by freedom’s largest, most potent and devoted voluntary organization.

Early last year, after a series of frightening encounters with her former husband, Stephanie Holten went to court to obtain a temporary order for protection.
Her former husband, Corey Holten, threatened to put a gun in her mouth and pull the trigger, she wrote in her petition.
The judge’s order prohibited Mr. Holten from going within two blocks of his former wife’s home and imposed a number of other restrictions. What it did not require him to do was surrender his guns.
About 12 hours after he was served with the order, Mr. Holten was lying in wait when his former wife returned home from a date with their two children in tow. Armed with a small semiautomatic rifle bought several months before, he stepped out of his car and thrust the muzzle into her chest. He directed her inside the house, yelling that he was going to kill her.
Ms. Holten, however, managed to dial 911 on her cellphone and slip it under a blanket on the couch. The dispatcher heard Ms. Holten begging for her life and quickly directed officers to the scene. As they mounted the stairs with their guns drawn, Mr. Holten surrendered. They found Ms. Holten cowering, hysterical, on the floor.
For all its rage and terror, the episode might well have been prevented. Had Mr. Holten lived in one of a handful of states, the protection order would have forced him to relinquish his firearms. But that is not the case in Washington and most of the country, in large part because of the influence of the National Rifle Association and its allies.

Over 12,000 delegates are expected to attend America’s Pro-Israel Lobby meeting in Washington. As both the US president and the Israeli PM decided to skip the gathering, the lobby seems to be losing its influence, analyst Patrick Henningsen told RT.
Israel could become the first-ever nation to enjoy the official status of America’s “major strategic ally”. The proposed legislation will be among the issues discussed on Sunday – when the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) gathering kicks off in Washington.
The Israeli lobby will push to persuade US politicians to support its agenda in the Syrian conflict as “Israel will be looking to seize the Golan Heights and keep it as a ‘security zone,’” Henningsen said.
But for the first time in seven years the gathering will not be attended by the US President or the Israeli Prime Minister.
Henningsen told RT that the lobby is slowly losing its influence in Washington.

House and Senate members have introduced legislation that seeks to dramatically strengthen the strategic partnership between the United States and Israel as they work to confront new threats and challenges in the Middle East.

1. A Region in Turmoil
   With the Middle East in turmoil, it is critical for America that we strengthen our alliance with friendly and reliable states. Israel is such an ally.
2. A Major Strategic Partner
   The new United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2013 recognizes this fact by designating Israel as a “Major Strategic Partner” of the United States.
3. Strengthening a Critical Alliance
   This important bill will help the United States maximize the benefits of an already thriving alliance with Israel by expanding cooperation in military, trade, energy and homeland security arenas.

Obama loves to talk about the rich paying a little more in taxes as a means of “shared sacrifice” to solve the national debt.
It sounds good to the people at large who aren’t paying attention because they’re too busy watching MSNBC or Jon Stewart. However, the truth is the top 25% wage earners pay 78% of the taxes bill.
So it’s a flat out lie when Obama and the Democrats talk about shared sacrifice when the overwhelming bulk of the tax bill is being paid by the rich.
If President Obama really wanted to share the burden, he would ask the 47% of Americans who pay no income tax at all to start forking over some cash for the benefit of the country.
How about that, Mr. President?

Our tax system is more complex than any sound bite or simplistic headline can illustrate.
Some multimillionaires do pay a lower effective income-tax rate than some middle-income taxpayers; receiving a chunk of your income via long-term capital gains rather than a paycheck is just one reason that happens. But the top 20% of income earners paid 70% of federal taxes in 2007. That group also pulled in 60% of total pretax income.
Meanwhile, 46% of taxpayers don’t pay any federal income tax, but they often pay a hefty portion of their income to levies at the federal, state and local level.
23% of U.S. taxpayers don’t make enough money to owe that tax once they take their personal exemption and standard deduction. Another 23% qualify for tax breaks that bring their bill to zero or provide a refund.
They start off with relatively low income to begin with and therefore have low tax liability before claiming any breaks.
Wealthier people face a tax rate as high as 35% on earnings, but they get the biggest tax breaks. They start off with such a high tax that the biggest tax breaks don’t bring them down to zero. They’re benefiting hugely from tax breaks—much more than the poor people—but because they start off at the high level, their tax bills stay positive.
That said, 1,470 millionaires were among those who paid no federal income tax in 2009.

アメリカンスペースとは、各地の図書館・公共施設に場所（アメリカンコーナー）または本棚（アメリカンシェルフ）を設置していただき、日本では手に入りにくいアメリカに関する本や資料を寄贈、それらの資料を通じて文化交流を図るアメリカ国務省、米国大使館広報・文化交流部のプロジェクトです。 アメリカの歴史・文化・価値観への理解を促進し、アメリカについて学ぶ機会を提供することを目的としています。設置団体と文化イベント、講演会や英語での読み聞かせなどを共催し、地域の皆様とアメリカとの交流を深めます。

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer received a $1.1 million bonus for her first five-and-half months running the Internet company.
The award disclosed Wednesday supplements Mayer’s annual salary of $1 million and $56 million in long-term stock compensations that she received after Yahoo lured her away from Google to become its CEO last　July. The amount included $14 million in stock to offset the loss of money that she would have received had she remained at Google.
The 37-year-old Mayer is eligible for an annual bonus of up to $2 million. Yahoo adjusted last year’s bonus to reflect that Mayer spent less than half the year as CEO.
Yahoo shareholders are unlikely to quibble with Mayer’s bonus. The company’s stock has risen by 46 percent since Mayer became the boss.

Dow Jones Industrial Average To The Moon? When you get this close to a record it’s just a matter of time before it gets taken out generally.
Zero Hedge added a nice table outlining economic conditions as they existed during the prior high in October 2007.

• Dow Jones Industrial Average: Then 14164.5; Now 14164.5
• Regular Gas Price: Then $2.75; Now $3.73
• GDP Growth: Then +2.5%; Now +1.6%
• Americans Unemployed (in Labor Force): Then 6.7 million; Now 13.2 million
• Americans On Food Stamps: Then 26.9 million; Now 47.69 million
• Size of Fed’s Balance Sheet: Then $0.89 trillion; Now $3.01 trillion
• US Debt as a Percentage of GDP: Then ~38%; Now 74.2%
• US Deficit (LTM): Then $97 billion; Now $975.6 billion
• Total US Debt Outstanding: Then $9.008 trillion; Now $16.43 trillion
• US Household Debt: Then $13.5 trillion; Now 12.87 trillion
• Labor Force Participation Rate: Then 65.8%; Now 63.6%
• Consumer Confidence: Then 99.5; Now 69.6
• S&P Rating of the US: Then AAA; Now AA+
• VIX: Then 17.5%; Now 14%
• 10 Year Treasury Yield: Then 4.64%; Now 1.89%
• EURUSD: Then 1.4145; Now 1.3050
• Gold: Then $748; Now $1583
• NYSE Average LTM Volume (per day): Then 1.3 billion shares; Now 545 million shares

The Revel casino and resort in Atlantic City, which opened last year, has announced it is entering bankruptcy. This week, New Jersey legalized Internet gambling.

アメリカの理系大学院生のほとんどは、学費免除（正確に言えば支給）のうえ、給料を月に20万円ほどもらいながら勉強している。
Research Assistantship という制度がある。手っ取り早く言うと、先生が研究のアシスタントとして大学院生を雇うのだ。雇われた学生は、学費と給料をもらう代わりに、先生が満足する研究成果を出す責任を負う。
おカネは、先生が産・官・軍などのスポンサーから取ってくる研究費から出てくる。アメリカの大学における研究費の主な使途は学生を雇用する人件費なのだ。そして先生は研究費をもらう代わりに、期待される研究成果を上げる責任をスポンサーに対して負う。アメリカの大学院における研究は、スポンサー、先生、大学院生が、おカネを仲立ちとした市場原理によって動いているといえる。
Research Assistantship 以外にも、Teaching Assistantship (授業の手伝いをして学費と給料をもらう仕組み)や、scholarship (返還義務のない奨学金。日本でポピュラーな返還義務のある奨学金は、英語では loan と呼ばれている)がある。

The Big Apple. The dream of every lad that ever threw a leg over a thoroughbred and the goal of all horsemen. There’s only one Big Apple. That’s New York.

Two dusky stable hands were leading a pair of thoroughbred around the “cooling rings” of adjoining stables at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans and engaging in desultory conversation.
“Where y’all goin’ from here?” queried one.
“From here we’re headin’ for The Big Apple,” proudly replied the other.
“Well, you’d better fatten up them skinners or all you’ll get from the apple will be the core,” was the quick rejoinder.

どうやら世界の貧富の格差が拡大した背景には、ソ連が崩壊し、お題目だけでも平等社会を目指していた社会主義システムが世界中で見捨てられ、代わりにアメリカ流の自由主義競争社会システムが導入されたことも、ありそうだ。現在のアメリカ式システムが貧富格差を拡大させることは、アメリカ国内ですでに実証されているからである。
アメリカ流のやり方を世界に広げた人々の作戦が上手だったのは、「金持ちは庶民の敵だ」という人々の考え方を「頑張れば私も金持ちになれる」という夢にすりかえて、貧富格差につながりやすい経済の「自由化」を、世界中で進めることに成功した点だ。
そんな夢が世界の人々にばら撒かれ出したのは、ベルリンの壁が崩壊してからなのだろうが、あれから10年たち、富むのはもともと金持ちだった人々だけだ、ということが分かってきた。
かつて、貧富の格差に対して憤りを感じたとびとは、社会主義革命を目指したのだが、その社会主義はすでに「死語」になっている。今後、現状に対して矛盾や憤りを感じる人々が増えていったとき、かつての社会主義のように、現状を覆そうとする新しい思想が、また出てくるのだろうか。まだ、その輪郭は見えない。

An indicator of the degree of inequality is the Gini coefficient. It is a single number that can range between 0 (a perfectly equal distribution) and 1 (a perfectly unequal distribution). The historical trend in the United States is one of almost steadily increasing income inequality (from 0.386 in 1968 to 0.477 in 2011).

Alexis de Tocqueville, George Kennan, Walter Lippmann and others have argued that successful foreign policy requires secrecy, cold rationalism, vast experience, continuity over time – precisely the characteristics that American democracy conspires to prevent in its policymaking. As American foreign policy becomes politicized, policy lurches as administrations change, interest groups hold sway over key issues, and populist and moralistic strains take flight. Is this any way to run a superpower?
Apparently it is. Because for all the downsides of a politicized foreign policy, and despite the mistakes it has made, America has nonetheless enjoyed a remarkably successful foreign policy over the past six decades. It remains the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world, and has preserved the American way of life. Perhaps, then, there is an upside to the politics.
The open nature of the American political system permits genuinely new ideas to enter calcified foreign policy debates, which may over time improve the quality of the country’s policymaking. The disjunction between a mature executive branch managing bilateral relationships and an impulsive, populist Congress enables American diplomats to play good cop/bad cop. “Look, I want to help your country. But if you don’t cut out the extrajudicial killings, Congress is going to act, and there’s not a lot I can do about that…”
The political debates over American policy enhance transparency in the minds of foreigners, and may add a degree of predictability to U.S. behavior. And all of this may in the end be an attribute of America’s vaunted soft power – our foreign policy is not made in a hermetically sealed environment by wise-men-for-life but rather rises from the give and take of our democratic process, which at the end of the day is open to all.

As gender and race have become less significant barriers to advancement, family background, an obstacle considered more relevant in earlier eras, has reemerged. Today, people who were born worse off tend to have fewer opportunities in life.

• An American born into a family in the bottom fifth of incomes between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s has roughly a 30 percent chance of reaching the middle fifth or higher in adulthood, whereas an American born into the top fifth has an 80 percent chance of ending up in the middle fifth or higher. This discrepancy means that there is considerable inequality of opportunity among Americans from different family backgrounds.
• Inequality of opportunity has increased in recent decades. Available compilations of test scores, years of schooling completed, occupations, and incomes of parents and their children strongly suggest that the opportunity gap, which was narrowing until the 1970s, is now widening.
• In a sharp reversal of historical trends, there is now less equality of opportunity in the United States than in most other wealthy democratic nations. Data exist for ten of the United States’ peer countries (rich long-standing democracies). The United States has less relative intergenerational mobility than eight of them; Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom all do better. The United States is on par with France and Italy.

So how did the United States get here? Why did it falter where other nations have not? And how can it fix the problem? On the right, a standard proposal is to strengthen families. On the left, a recent favorite is to reduce income inequality. And everyone supports improving education. To know which proposals would work best, it helps to understand the roots of the new opportunity gap.

10 reasons to dump a guy… immediately!

1. He calls women the “B word”
2. He’s attached to his mother’s apron strings
3. He’s only interested in himself
4. He has unresolved addiction issues
5. He’s not honest and/or trustworthy
6. His relentlessly negative outlook
7. He’s got Peter Pan Syndrome
8. He lacks ambition
9. He’s a cheater
10. He isn’t good boyfriend material

Busyness is a choice, but it’s not a choice choice; it’s more like a condition we are passively not resisting, a trap we can’t see our way out of. This revelation came to me the other day when I talked to an acquaintance who is a book binder. I had visited him expecting a respite from my harried screen-centric existence, an afternoon full of unusual smells and textures. But his life was just as insane seeming as mine. He had clients hassling him on email to get projects done faster, lost packages he needed to track and an inbox that was equally oppressive. Everything is sped up; stay at home moms are just as manic as I am about getting through their day.
In my better moments I aim to live the way Katie Roiphe suggested in her Financial Times response to Anne-Marie Slaughter’s piece: We should embrace the chaos, screw the balance, revel in those days when we get home too late and wake up groggy to a toddler sticking Band-Aids on our half open eyes, and then steal some more sleep by handing over a box of cookies. But the same thought keeps coming back to me: I don’t want to be busy. I don’t want all my friends to start their messages to me with the sentence “I know you’re really busy but …” Anyone have any advice?

Americans are working really hard. Perhaps too hard. 80 percent of 1,000 U.S. workers surveyed worked after leaving the office. People check their email in bed in the morning (50%), before 8 a.m. (68%), after 10 p.m. (40%), when they are out with their families (57%), and when they are at the dinner table (38%). And 69 percent say they can’t go to bed without doing so. All of this means we are almost working an entire extra day of work from home.

James Truslow Adams stated that the American dream is “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”
Were homesteaders who left the big cities of the east to find happiness and their piece of land in the unknown wilderness pursuing these inalienable Rights? Were the immigrants who came to the United States looking for their bit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their Dream? And what did the desire of the veteran of World War II – to settle down, to have a home, a car and a family – tell us about this evolving Dream? Is the American Dream attainable by all Americans?
Some say, that the American Dream has become the pursuit of material prosperity – that people work more hours to get bigger cars, fancier homes, the fruits of prosperity for their families – but have less time to enjoy their prosperity. Others say that the American Dream is beyond the grasp of the working poor who must work two jobs to insure their family’s survival. Yet others look toward a new American Dream with less focus on financial gain and more emphasis on living a simple, fulfilling life.
Thomas Wolfe said, “…to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity ….the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make him.”
Is this your American Dream?

What in the world has happened to the children of America? All over the United States kids are acting like half-crazed monsters, but most people seem to think that this is “normal”. American kids today are selfish, self-centered, sadistic, cruel, disrespectful, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, boastful, unforgiving, incredibly brutal and they possess very little self-control whatsoever. They feel entitled to everything, but they don’t want to work for any of it. They are absolutely addicted to entertainment, and they know very little about self-sacrifice. Disciplining children is not considered to be “politically correct” in America today, and with each passing year these little hellions get even worse. So what in the world is our country going to look like when all of these out of control kids grow up?

In a culture where to be busy is to be successful, is it possible for men or women to take the time to actually be content with their work or home lives?
If work seems to be an eternally growing list of events and responsibilities, home life is just as bad.
Is there anything wrong with this exhausting check list if it allows everyone to thrive at home and at work?
Working mothers have been told what they “should” be doing since they entered the workplace. Second wave feminist ideals and traditional business smarts dictate that keeping up with the men at work means putting in the hours in the office, networking and following in the footsteps of earlier leaders. The study of child development creates a check list of how to best raise children, and shames those who aren’t meeting these requirements. Our social lives, spiritual lives, even love lives, become a stale count of what we “should” be doing to be successful. All of these things are based in pretty firm evidence. However, achieving them everything we “should” would require time we simply do not have, leaving men and women burnt out and unhappy.

If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.”
Almost everyone I know is busy. They feel anxious and guilty when they aren’t either working or doing something to promote their work.
Even children are busy now, scheduled down to the half-hour with classes and extracurricular activities. They come home at the end of the day as tired as grown-ups.
The present hysteria is not a necessary or inevitable condition of life; it’s something we’ve chosen, if only by our acquiescence to it. It’s not as if any of us wants to live like this, any more than any one person wants to be part of a traffic jam or stadium trampling or the hierarchy of cruelty in high school — it’s something we collectively force one another to do.
Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.
Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is indispensable to the brain.

The United States emerged from World War II as one of the great financial super powers of the world. Those children of the Great Depression, turned heros of the “War to End All Wars” came home; reared a small family, bought a modest house and saved a lot of money. This frugality mixed with asset ownership set the Middle Class of America apart from any other nation. Assets historically reserved only for the wealthiest (including education, health care and transportation) were affordable to the middle class of America.
These pioneers went on the found lart companies that families could work at for generations like IBM, General Electric, and Ford. It became the norm to stay with a company for your entire career, then the company would stay with you through retirement.
This model proved unrealistic for employers in the 1970’s and Government began to step in and attempt to provide those same union benefits to all Americans. The unintended consequences of this action slowly began to undermine the buying power of the middle class and gained momentum until the costs of providing too much for too many has taxed the United States into a two class society…the “have’s” and the “have-not'”.
65 years after the heros of World War II returned home, the society they build is now left to the history books. Americans are now required to go about providing for their own families, building their own retirements, and paying for the benefits of others in a society where only 52% pay income taxes.

The most dangerous message North Korea sent Tuesday with its third nuclear weapon test is: nukes are for sale.
The real significance is that this test was, in the estimation of American officials, most likely fueled by highly enriched uranium, not the plutonium that served as the core of North Korea’s earlier tests. Testing a uranium-based bomb would announce to the world — including potential buyers — that North Korea is now operating a new, undiscovered production line for weapons-usable material.
History shows that the North Koreans will “sell anything they have to anybody who has the cash to buy it.” In intelligence circles, North Korea is known as “Missiles ‘R’ Us,” having sold and delivered missiles to Iran, Syria and Pakistan, among others.
Who could be interested in buying a weapon for several hundred millions of dollars? Iran is currently investing billions of dollars annually in its nuclear quest. While Al Qaeda’s core is greatly diminished and its resources depleted, the man who succeeded Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has been seeking nuclear weapons for more than a decade. And then there are Israel’s enemies, including wealthy individuals in some Arab countries, who might buy a bomb for the militant groups Hezbollah or Hamas.
President Obama has rightly identified nuclear terrorism as “the single biggest threat to U.S. security.” If terrorists explode a single nuclear bomb in an American city in the near future, there is a serious possibility that the core of the weapon will have come from North Korea.

This year, …

The Commerce Department will investigate the feasibility of a bicycle share program.

The Agriculture Department’s Risk Management Agency will redraw planting zone maps.

The Department of Defense will scale down its fleet of gas-guzzling Humvees.

These are all examples of steps federal agencies will take in 2013 in an effort to deal with the risks of future climate change. The Obama administration released its first climate change adaptation plans, as part of the annual sustainability reports.

When it comes to corruption in Afghanistan, the time may be now for the United States to look in the mirror and see what lessons can be learned from contracting out parts of that war.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that the corruption wracking his government and its people has been at a level “not ever before seen in Afghanistan.”
In the 1980s, when the Soviets ran the country, the government was “not even 5 percent as corrupt,” Karzai said.
“The Soviets didn’t give contracts to the relatives, brothers and the kin of the influential and high ups,” he said. “The Americans did, and they continue to do, but we get blamed for it.”
It’s easy to disregard what Karzai told CBS. He has often blamed the United States and its allies for corrupting his country and certainly will again. And his complaint about U.S. contracts going to relatives of influential Afghans rings hollow when you go down the list that includes many members of his own family as well as cabinet ministers.
But the record shows Karzai has a point with which others agree.
“It is time that we as Americans — in government, in the media, and as analysts and academics — took a hard look at the causes of corruption in Afghanistan. The fact is that we are at least as much to blame for what has happened as the Afghans, and we have been grindingly slow to either admit our efforts or correct them.”
That was written in September 2010 by Anthony H. Cordesman, national security expert and a former Reagan Pentagon official, in a Center for Strategic and International Studies report, “How America Corrupted Afghanistan.”

10 things that I will never understand about the USA

1. Their love of convenient food
2. Adverts adverts, everywhere.
3. How can public transport be so bad?
4. Where do they get real news from?
5. How can they be so positive, all the time?
6. I need to tip how much?!
7. Their need for convenience
8. Their unfailing interest in my accent
9. Their accents
10. Size

10 Iconic Ways to Propose in New York

1. Grand Central
2. Empire State Building
3. Staten Island Ferry
4. Brooklyn Bridge
5. Top of the Tower Restaurant
6. Central Park
7. The Cloisters
8. New York Public Library
9. The High Line
10. The River Café

Believing America faced genetic catastrophe, Robert Graham decided he could reverse the decline by artificially inseminating women with the sperm of geniuses. In 1980, Graham opened the Repository for Germinal Choice and stocked it with the seed of gifted scientists, inventors, and thinkers. Over the next nineteen years, Graham’s “genius factory” produced more than 200 children.
What happened to them? Were they the brilliant children that Graham expected?
The children of the “genius factory” are messengers from the future–a future that is bearing down on us fast. What will families be like when parents routinely “shop” for their kids’ genes? What will children be like when they’re programmed for greatness?

TO: President Obama
FROM: Bruce Riedel
Saudi Arabia is the world’s last absolute monarchy. Like Louis XIV, King Abdallah has complete authority. A revolution in Saudi Arabia remains unlikely but, for the first time, due to the Arab Awakenings, it has become possible.
Nevertheless, revolutionary change in the Kingdom would be a disaster for American interests across the board. As the world’s swing oil producer, prolonged instability in Saudi Arabia would cause havoc in global oil markets, setting back economic recovery in the West and disrupting economic growth in the East.
Recommendation:
Unfortunately, notwithstanding the stakes, the United States has no serious option for heading off a revolution in the Kingdom if it is coming. Since American interests are so intimately tied to the House of Saud, the U.S. does not have the choice of distancing the United States from it in an effort to get on the right side of history.

The Japanese people heard the voice of their emperor for the first time when he broadcast to the nation on August 15. Despite the stilted court language used by the man known as Tenno to his subjects and as Hirohito to the outside world, his meaning was unmistakable. Speaking of the Allied powers’ statement at Potsdam, he said, “Our Empire accepts the provisions of their joint declaration.” He did not use the word surrender. He added, perhaps optimistically, that Japan had “been able to safeguard and maintain the structure of the imperial state.
The willingness of the Japanese to respond to “the voice of the crane” by abandoning a policy of militant nationalism and calmly facing an unknown and frightening future was strikingly illustrated that day. Historians debate what caused Japan to surrender, but the intervention of the emperor was crucial.

Skyrocketing rents, cramped apartments and a cut-throat rental market. Conditions that originally forced New Yorkers out of Manhattan are now sending them back, a report claims.
A real-estate expert said Williamsburg and DUMBO homes have become so hot that people are being priced out — and Manhattan has become a cheaper alternative.
A report by the brokerage firm MNS Real Estate said more affordable Manhattan neighborhoods including the Financial District, the Upper East Side east of Third Avenue, and Harlem have all become tempting alternatives to the hip parts of Brooklyn.
“You’re seeing some people go back to Manhattan,” said Andrew Barrocas, MNS’ CEO.
“It’s not a big trend, but you’re seeing it happen.”

Republicans have made it clear they are fully prepared to shut down the government, block payments to retirees and soldiers, default on the credit of the United States, and cause a global panic by the end of next month, all of which will result from failing to raise the debt ceiling.
The use of chaos as a legislative strategy — and to “manage” raucous members — is a new and explosive element in American politics.
The president’s position as the rational man in the room may help shift public blame toward the Republicans, but it’s far from clear that will be a useful tool. Many House Republicans, from districts as small and rigid as they are, don’t care about blame and consequences. Even members of the House leadership are talking openly about the uses of extortion.
… even if Mr. Obama gets through February with the usual last-minute deal that infuriates the hard right despite excessive spending cuts, they will be back with the same club, again and again, until someone with resolve puts a permanent end to it.

The Emergency Committee for Israel is committed to mounting an active defense of the US-Israel relationship by educating the public about the positions of political candidates on this important issue, and by keeping the public informed of the latest developments in both countries.

http://www.committeeforisrael.com/ http://www.chuckhagel.com/ http://stop.chuckhagel.com/
etc., etc.

If Republicans had nervy firebrands like the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, someone would rise up to declare, “Chuck Hagel’s America is a land in which gays would be forced back in the closet and Jews would be accused of dual loyalty. Chuck Hagel’s world is one in which devastating defense cuts become a goal, not a problem; we enter direct talks with the terrorist organization Hamas; and sanctions on Iran wither.”
The Hagel nomination expected to come on Monday is so outrageous and the rationale for his nomination so weak that it becomes an easy no vote for all Republicans.

Chuck Hagel, President Barack Obama’s pick to become the next U.S. defense secretary, has begun calling critics in the Senate in an attempt to clarify his views about how to deal with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas before his upcoming nomination hearing.
The decorated Vietnam veteran’s Republican credentials have done little to rally support with his party, which he publicly split with as a senator by opposing the Iraq war during the Bush administration.
Hagel’s private calls to lawmakers and efforts by supporters to defend him publicly are part of what is likely to be a hard-fought battle over his nomination. Opponents tried for weeks to dissuade Obama from choosing the former Nebraska senator.
One prominent senator, Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, predicted even before his nomination that Hagel, if confirmed, would be “the most antagonistic secretary of defense towards the State of Israel in our nation’s history.”

In a large and complex typology, Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan have isolated three ways in which defeat in war could play a major role in transitions from authoritarian to democratic forms of rule. Interestingly, however, a careful study of their options, based on preexisting regime types (totalitarian, sultanist, post-totalitarian, and authoritarian, with the first two allowing the same externally dominated transition path only) reveals that they may be thinking ultimately of only two types of cases. The first is when a dictatorship, its state and society, suffer total defeat in war and an external power is free to occupy and impose for a considerable period without much resistance. Germany and Japan could be considered examples of this phenomenon, even if, as I will later show, in neither case can we speak of absolute imposition. The second type is when a dictatorship suffers a military defeat that domestically discredits it and forces it to accept a process of internally steered and negotiated regime change with, or more usually without, some influence by the military victor. Here Greece in the 1970s and Argentina in the 1980s come to mind. Neither type covers Iraq very well, because Iraqi society did not suffer total defeat, yet the military victor tried to assume total control over the transition process. Note that in all four examples, unlike Iraq, the dictatorship was the initiator of the hostilities it subsequently lost.

Nation building in Germany and Japan aimed to transform former enemies into prosperous allies in the emerging new struggle . . . [knowing] these nations had the capacity for unity, organization, and productivity, we sought to make them over to move them into our column. . . . The objective was not to build democratic states for the benefit of their own citizens. … It was far less important that Germany and Japan be democratic than that they be capitalist and rich.

There were various other “hawkers and walkers” in early America whose work prefigured modern salesmanship. The selling, promoting, and preaching of ideas had an important place in a country with no established religious institutions and in which competition between political parties was intense. Traveling preachers, in particular, promoted the theme of self-transformation that would also be taken up by patent-medicine salesmen and peddlers of self-improvement guides.
Pamphlets and books, especially the Bible, were popular items for peddlers and preachers to carry. Evangelical preachers pioneered many techniques that salespeople would later adopt.

Do not look too close at the little process with which you are concerned, but let your thoughts and your imagination run abroad throughout the whole world. And with the inspiration of the thought that you are Americans and are meant to carry liberty and justice and the principles of humanity wherever you go, go out and sell goods that will make the world more comfortable and more happy, and convert them to the principles of America.

It is unlikely that the Federal Reserve can push real growth rates materially higher than they otherwise would be, on a sustained basis.
I see an increased risk, given the course the committee has set, that inflation pressures emerge and are not thwarted in a timely way. … I intend to remain alert for signs that our monetary policy needs adjustment.

There are two things that Congress will not do anything about, because they are either clueless, or personal ideology prevents them from doing so. The economic cliff is a recession. The economy has been slowing for over 15 months. That trend will continue, especially if major tax hikes are a price for averting the cliff. A recession will cause an acceleration of debt.

As we all should know, the stock markets are a zero sum game. That means, for every dollar made in the financial markets, some one else loses a dollar. It’s a simple concept, but the more you think about it, the more depressing the whole picture gets. There are pro investors who are making millions and billions of dollars a year. And then, there are those millions of suckers in the market, each with a couple of thousand dollars to play with, each hoping to make a killing. You have to wonder, who’s going to make money off the other person? George Soros or your grandmother? Let’s assume that the average investor loses $2000 on one investment, and George Soros made $2 billion on that investment. So that means, a million people just lost a decent chunk of money.

Americans are mired in debt they don’t understand, according to a new working paper.
Not only do many Americans not have a financial plan in place for emergencies or even foreseeable expenses, but a “sizable” number also don’t understand the terms of their own mortgages and credit cards, the National Bureau of Economic Research report found.
And it seems Americans are also ignorant of their financial ignorance. Although many haven’t mastered basic economic concepts, such as inflation, nearly 40 percent of gave themselves high scores when asked to rate their own financial literacy. Just 14 percent rated their knowledge level three or worse on a seven point scale.

The National Debt. Federal government debt now stands at 73% of annual GDP, not counting money the government owes to itself, such as the Social Security Trust Fund.
Taxes. Total federal taxes are around 18% of GDP today, roughly what they’ve been since the 1950s.
Social Security. Benefits are paid mostly from current Social Security payroll taxes. The Trust Fund is largely an accounting device of money the government owes to itself.
Pension Funds. Everyone knows that many pension funds for public-sector employees are in trouble.
Medicare. The cost of Medicare and Medicaid is projected to rise from 5.4% of GDP to 7.2% in a decade and to at least 9.6% of GDP in 25 years.
Defense. Military spending hit a low of 3.7% in 2000 before the 9/11 attack. Since then, the figure has more than doubled in dollar terms.

While any of these specific figures can be debated, collectively they make three things clear. First, America’s biggest challenges are not solely financial – they include the lack of clear objectives that are broadly supported by the electorate. Second, there are powerful political incentives to avoid facing the most fundamental problems – or to evade them with endless debates over minor policy changes. Third, if these problems are not dealt with seriously, the U.S. economy will slide along for a while with below-average growth and above-average unemployment until debt and other financial problems become insupportable. In the end, no amount of denial and evasion can overcome the power of basic arithmetic.

New York photographer Sally Davies has been taking a photo of the same hamburger every day. On the 979th day it still looks almost the same as on the first day.

After working as a dental assistant for ten years, Melissa Nelson was fired for being too “irresistible” and a “threat” to her employer’s marriage.

The all-male Iowa State Supreme Court ruled that James Knight, Nelson’s boss, was within his legal rights when he fired her, affirming the decision of a lower court.

Between now and the 2012 political conventions, there will be discussion about the qualifications of presidential candidates — their education, age, religion, race, and so on. If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be ______, would you vote for that person?

Arkansas (Article 19, Section 1): “No person that denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any Court.”
Maryland (Article 37): “That no religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any office of profit or trust in this State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God; nor shall the Legislature prescribe any other oath of office than the oath prescribed by this Constitution.”
Mississippi (Article 14, Section 245): “No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office in this state.”
North Carolina (Article 6, Section 8): “The following persons shall be disqualified from office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.”
South Carolina (Article 17, Section 4): “No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office under this Constitution.”
Tennessee (Article 9, Section 2): “No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state.”
Texas (Article 1, Section 4): “No religious tests shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall anyone be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.”

It is hard to pin down exactly when Americans made the collective decision that periodic massacres of the innocent are the price that we supposedly pay for our liberties.
Maybe it dates back to the late19th century when Americans in peaceful communities embraced the myth of the Wild West and the gunslinger. Maybe it partially reflects the tabloid fascination that accompanied the gangster era of the 1920s and 1930s. Maybe it has something to do with the way that movies—that most American of art forms—have successfully turned mass violence into a mass commodity.
The result is an America that no sane person of any political persuasion could have possibly wished for. Who in his right mind wants to live in a country where maybe twice a year a crazed individual guns down dozens of people in schools and theaters? There is no plausible remedy since we are neither going to disarm Americans nor are we going to pass out guns to elementary school teachers as a just-in-case precaution.
All we can do is mourn and mourn again. And think of the young children who died only because they went to school giggling over silly things and dreaming of recess. Such is the American way of life and, sadly, death.

Terrorism is not an enemy. It cannot be defeated. It’s a tactic. It’s about as sensible to say we declare war on night attacks and expect we’re going to win that war. We’re not going to win the war on terrorism. And it does whip up fear. Acts of terror have never brought down liberal democracies. Acts of parliament have closed a few.

The mission of the Claremont Institute is to restore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life. These principles are expressed most eloquently in the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims that “all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” To recover the founding principles in our political life means recovering a limited and accountable government that respects private property, promotes stable family life, and maintains a strong national defense.

AVOT is dedicated to victory in the War on Terrorism. Through the shaping of public opinion, the encouragement of a foreign policy based on the founding principles of America, increased research about Islam and Islamism, and a steadfast commitment to attacking those who would blame America first, AVOT will work toward victory in this first great war of the 21st century.

Crowdfunding is by definition, “the practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet.” Check out this video to get a clearer idea of the step by step process of crowdfunding.
In a seemingly nonstop recession wave, small businesses are struggling more than ever to stay afloat, and entrepreneurs are not facing great odds. Crowdfunding offers these individuals a chance at success, by showcasing their businesses and projects to the entire world.
There are numerous crowdfunding platforms where consumers can safely ask for or donate money such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo, RocketHub, and Rock The Post.

A schoolboy recently asked me if Richard Wagner was a pitcher for the Yankees. At that moment I feared that classical music in America was doomed.
Or is it? The dying of the classical recording industry, which began in the 1990s, is indeed a cause for despair. There seem to be, sadly, other harbingers of the death of classical music in America:

• The recent labor disputes of American orchestras due to decreased budgets and donor support.
• The reduction or outright cancellation of Metropolitan Opera and New York Philharmonic tours and concerts in the parks.
• The demise of classical music radio stations across America.
• The increased media focus on rock and pop superstars, while classical music managements have difficulty booking concerts for their artists.

The past few presidential elections prove the country is almost evenly split between Democratic and Republican sentiments. But thanks to legislative gerrymandering, Americans’ migration patterns and other factors, many House members represent districts that are overwhelmingly conservative or liberal. These lawmakers may recognize that compromise is the only way to get a law enacted in Congress.
But compromise may be a ticket to defeat in their next primary election by an ideological purist from their party’s fringe.

There has beeen fulsome praise for General David Petraeus since he resigned as head of the CIA after the FBI discovered he was having an extramarital affair.
President Barack Obama lauded Petraeus’s decades of “extraordinary service,” which includes his time as general in charge of US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as head of the CIA, where Petraeus would have been in charge of Obama’s “secret” drone program which kills children and other civilians in several countries with no oversight or control from anyone.
Some have lamented, via social media, that wars, occupations, assassinations are not reasons to lose one’s job in the United States government. Indeed, such service gets you praised and promoted, while an extramarital affair will kill your career.
But what also struck me was the total absence in the extensive media coverage of another way Petraeus made a little history: by publicly criticizing Israel and enraging the Israel lobby.

Reason is the monthly print magazine of “free minds and free markets.” It covers politics, culture, and ideas through a provocative mix of news, analysis, commentary, and reviews. Reason provides a refreshing alternative to right-wing and left-wing opinion magazines by making a principled case for liberty and individual choice in all areas of human activity.

First I went to the Manhattan Jobs Center and asked, “Can I get help finding a job?” They told me they don’t do that. “We sign people up for food stamps.” I tried another jobs center. They told me to enroll for unemployment benefits.
I explained that I didn’t want handouts; I wanted a job. I was told to go to WorkForce1, a New York City program. At WorkForce1, the receptionist told me that she couldn’t help me since I didn’t have a college degree. She directed me to another center in Harlem. In Harlem, I was told that before I could get help, I had to come back for an 8:30 a.m. training session.
WorkForce1’s website says to arrive 30 minutes early, so I did. A security guard told me the building was closed. At 9:15, Workforce1 directed 30 of us into a room where we were told that WorkForce1 directs candidates to jobs and provides a resource room with free phone, fax and job listings and helps people apply for unemployment insurance and disability handouts. This seemed like the only part of the presentation when people took notes.
One lady told me that she comes to WorkForce1 because it helps her collect unemployment. One asked another, “What do you want to do?” The second laughed, “I want to collect!” One told me, “I’ve been coming here 17 months; this place is a waste of time.”
Finally, I met with an adviser. She told me I lacked experience. I know this. I asked for any job she thought I was qualified for, and she scheduled an interview at Pret, a food chain that trains employees. At Pret, I learned that my interview was just a weekly open house, publicized on the company’s website. Anyone could walk in and apply. Workforce1 offered no advantage. Despite my scheduled interview, I waited 90 minutes before meeting a manager. He told me that WorkForce1 had wasted my time, as they always do. He said, “They never call, never ask questions.” He prefers to hire people who seek out jobs on their own, like those who see Pret ads on Craigslist.”
Here are my conclusions:

• It’s easier to get welfare than to work.
• The government would rather sign me up for welfare than help me find work.
• America has taxpayer-funded bureaucracies that encourage people to be dependent. They incentivize people to take “free stuff,” not to take initiative.
• It was easier to find job openings on my own. The private market for jobs works better than government “job centers.”

Whichever candidate I make lose that would be terrific because that would open a debate and a discussion over the two parties and what really is the difference between the two: It’s not much., it’s really not much at all.
I just want to make it clear: more liberal than Obama when it comes to civil liberties and more conservative than Romney when it comes to dollars and cents. That said, I don’t care what happens, I really don’t.
Wasting your vote is voting for somebody you don’t believe in. Vote for the preson you believe in, that is how we change things in this country.
If either Obama or Romney are elected we’re gonna find ourselves with a greater police state, we’re gonna find ourselves with a continued state of war, military interventions are gonna get just as bad if not even worse, and we’re going to find ourselves spending money in ways that are unsustainable that will ultimately lead to a monetary collapse if we don’t take control of it.

The developers and financiers made trillions of dollars through the housing bubble and the imposition of crushing debt on homeowners. And when homeowners could no longer pay them what they demanded, they went to government and got trillions of dollars of bailouts. Every effort of the Obama Administration has been to prop this system up and keep it going at taxpayer expense. It’s time for this game to end. It’s time for the laws be written to protect the victims and not the perpetrators. It’s time for a new deal for America …

The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy has temporarily created two cities in Manhattan: one where restaurants serve hot food and warm water runs from the tap, and another where the phones are dead and a shower is like a dream.

Don’t bother earning these five degrees:

• Unwanted degree #1 –   Architecture
  Degree to earn instead:  Business Administration
• Unwanted degree #2 –   Philosophy or Religious Studies
  Degree to earn instead:  Elementary Education
• Unwanted degree #3 –   Anthropology or Archeology
  Degree to earn instead:  Criminal Justice
• Unwanted degree #4 –   Area Ethnic or Civilization Studies
  Degree to earn instead:  Psychology
• Unwanted degree #5 –   Information Systems
  Degree to earn instead:  Computer Science

… a subculture that hasn’t gone away: the “Hillary Haters,” a loose-knit collection of virulently anti-Clinton activists who can’t wait to swiftboat her presidential bid. What unifies those who can’t bear the thought of a Madam President and are raising millions to stop her? Little to nothing, it seems.
The Clinton haters range from evangelicals who accuse her of lesbianism to Spago-dining Hollywoodites who call her “Nixon in drag.” The Stop Her Now website proclaims its mission as “Rescuing America from the radical ideas of Hillary Clinton”; a book illustrates her “superiority and arrogance” with photos of her changing hairstyles. Political unity is absent; the only constant is personal revulsion.

It is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment … and never got asked one time, not once, well, how could you say that when you said in 2004 you didn’t know how you would have voted on the resolution, you said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war … and there’s no difference in your voting record and Hillary’s ever since? Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.

Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.
The same message we had when we were up and when we were down; the one that can save this country, brick by brick, block by block, callused hand by callused hand, that together, ordinary people can do extraordinary things.
Because we are not a collection of red states and blue states. We are the United States of America.

A man from Chicago purchased a gallon of barbecue sauce intended for use on McDonald’s McJordan sandwich in 1992 for $9,995.00 on eBay, according to the item’s seller.

Though, to be fair, that was an excellent year for barbecue sauce: a truly wonderful vintage with some fine vinegars and delightfully complex tomato pastes and tannins.
Right. I have no idea what I’m talking about.

The Committee launched this investigation to seek answers to some persistent questions about the Chinese telecommunications companies Huawei and ZTE and their ties to the Chinese government. Throughout the months-long investigation, both Huawei and ZTE sought to describe, in different terms, why neither company is a threat to U.S. national-security interests. Unfortunately, neither ZTE nor Huawei have cooperated fully with the investigation, and both companies have failed to provide documents or other evidence that would substantiate their claims or lend support for their narratives. Huawei, in particular, provided evasive, nonresponsive, or incomplete answers to questions at the heart of the security issues posed. The failure of these companies to provide responsive answers about their relationships with and support by the Chinese government provides further doubt as to their ability to abide by international rules.