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Trade optimism pushes Wall Street higher
Wall Street's main indexes have risen for the second straight session, supported by broad-based gains as investors pinned their hopes on a resolution to the protracted US-China trade dispute despite mixed signals from both sides.
US stocks closed up more than 1 per cent on Monday after US President Donald Trump sought to ease tensions by predicting another round of talks with Beijing.
China's foreign ministry, however, reiterated on Tuesday that it had not received any recent telephone call from the US on trade.
Global stock markets also took comfort from data showing China's industrial companies returned to profit in July and a rally in European stocks.
An escalation in the trade tensions between Washington and Beijing has hit financial markets in recent days after both sides threatened to slap tariffs on each other's goods worth billions of dollars.
"It's (sentiment) still largely about trade and prospects of a deal with China and the markets are driven more by hope than anything else at this point," said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Technology stocks, among those most vulnerable to the trade war, gained 0.6 per cent while a rise in Johnson & Johnson pushed the healthcare sector 0.8 per cent higher.
Shares in the drug-maker rose 3 per cent after an Oklahoma judge said J&J must pay $US572.1 million ($A846.3 million) for its part in fuelling the US opioid epidemic, a sum that was substantially less than what investors had expected.
Wall Street has been fretting over a deepening trade row hurting corporate profits and global growth, and the lack of clarity on the pace of US interest rate cuts have only added to the woes.
With the next Federal Reserve meeting scheduled for next month, investors are gauging the strength of the US economy for clues on where rates are headed.
Further buoying sentiment was data from the Commerce Department which showed the consumer confidence index rising 135.1 points, beating growth estimates in the month of August.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Tuesday rose 111.21 points, or 0.43 per cent, to 26,010.04; the S&P 500 gained 14.73 points, or 0.51 per cent, to 2,893.11; and the Nasdaq Composite added 49.46 points, or 0.63 per cent, to 7,903.20.
Among other stocks, Philip Morris International fell 5.7 per cent, to the bottom of the S&P 500, after the tobacco company said it was in talks with peer Altria Group to combine in an all-stock merger of equals. Altria's shares jumped 8.6 per cent.
Shares in JM Smucker slid 9.1 per cent after the packaged food-maker cut its full-year earnings forecast and missed estimates for quarterly profit and sales.
Papa John's International's shares gained 6.2 per cent after the pizza chain named Arby's Restaurant Group president Rob Lynch as its chief executive officer.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners for a 2.66-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and a 1.79-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 22 new 52-week highs and five new lows while the Nasdaq recorded 31 new highs and 50 new lows.
Stocks eke out gains on edgy trade hopes
AAP Markets Report for Wednesday, Aug 28


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FEDERAL WAY, WASH. – Oregon State finished the Pac-12 Championships strong with four swimmers either headed to the finals in their event or earning points and Arianna Letrari swimming a provisional time for the NCAA Championships in the 200 fly!
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Another big day in the pool for the Beavers as three different swimmers qualified for the finals in their events and Felicia Anderson swims a provisional time for the NCAA Championships in the 100 back with back-to-back times!
FEDERAL WAY, Wash. – The Beavers had a great day in the pool with multiple swimmers setting season best times in every event.
FEDERAL WAY, WASH – Oregon State opened the 2019 Pac-12 women's swimming championships with the 200 medley relay and the 800 freestyle.
CORVALLIS, Ore. – The Beavers travel to Federal Way, Washington for the Pac-12 Championships this week. The four-day meet begins Wednesday, February 27th and finishes up on Saturday, March 2nd.
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State dropped their final duel meet of the season against Utah by a final score of 85-173.
Oregon State is participating in the Oregon State at U.S. Winter Nationals in Federal Way, WA. Tickets info may be found here.


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We refer him because we know he is going to be extremely professional and is going to provide the quality of work that will make our customers happy. We know this because that is the feedback we have received from every customer we have referred towards his services.
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text:
China curbs lending and wealth management services at Ant
The People's Bank of China summoned Ant executives over the weekend and told them to "rectify" the company's lending, insurance and wealth management services, the central bank said in a statement Sunday. | CHINATOPIX / VIA AP
Chinese regulators have ordered Ant Group Co., Jack Ma's online financial titan, to return to its roots as a provider of payment services, threatening to throttle growth in its most lucrative businesses of consumer loans and wealth management.
The central bank summoned Ant executives over the weekend and told them to "rectify" the company's lending, insurance and wealth management services, the People's Bank of China said in a statement Sunday.
While it stopped short of directly asking for a breakup of the company, the central bank stressed that Ant needed to "understand the necessity of overhauling its business" and come up with a timetable as soon as possible.
The series of edicts represent a serious threat to the expansion of Ma's online finance empire, which has grown rapidly from a PayPal-like operation into a full suite of services over the past 17 years. Before regulators intervened, Ant was poised for a public listing that would have valued it at more than $300 billion. The Hangzhou-based firm now needs to move forward with setting up a separate financial holding company to ensure it has sufficient capital, and protect personal private data, the central bank said.
"This is the culmination of a string of regulations and sets the direction for Ant's business going forward," said Zhang Xiaoxi, a Beijing-based analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics. "We haven't seen clear indication of a break-up yet. Ant is a giant player in the world and any breakup needs to be cautious."
Derailing of Jack Ma's Ant IPO shows Xi Jinping is in charge
Ant IPO said to face slim chances of getting done next year
Authorities also blasted Ant for subpar corporate governance, disdain toward regulatory requirements and participation in regulatory arbitrage. The central bank said Ant used its dominance to exclude rivals, hurting the interests of its hundreds of millions of consumers.
China last week intensified its scrutiny of the twin pillars of billionaire Ma's internet domain when it also kicked off an investigation into alleged monopolistic practices at Ant affiliate Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. The e-commerce firm's U.S.-listed shares tumbled the most ever on news of the probe.
The State Administration for Market Regulation dispatched investigators to Alibaba on Thursday and the on-site investigation was completed on the day, according to a report posted Saturday on a news app run by the Zhejiang Daily. The report cited an unnamed official from the local market regulation watchdog in Zhejiang province, where Alibaba is based.
Ant said in a statement Sunday that it would set up a special team to create proposals and a timetable for an overhaul. It will maintain business operations for users, vowing to keep costs for consumers and financial partners unchanged while stepping up risk control.
The pressure on Ma is central to a broader effort to curb an increasingly influential internet sphere. The regulators said they would "resolutely" break monopolistic practice and have "zero tolerance" of any illicit financial activities.
Once hailed as drivers of economic prosperity and symbols of the country's technological prowess, the empires built by Ma, Tencent Holdings Ltd.'s "Pony" Ma Huateng and other tycoons are now under scrutiny after amassing hundreds of millions of users and gaining influence over almost every aspect of daily life in China.
Ma's own empire is in crisis mode. As of early December, with Ant under regulatory scrutiny, the man most closely identified with the meteoric rise of China Inc. was advised by the government to stay in the country, a person familiar with the matter has said.
Alibaba has shed more than $200 billion of market value since November, when regulators torpedoed what would have been a record $35 billion Ant debut.
Alibaba chief executive officer Daniel Zhang said in a meeting with local regulators Friday that the company would only prosper in the future by complying with the rules, according to a report by state-backed China News Service. Ant's top executives are part of a task force that already has almost daily interactions with watchdogs.
Meanwhile, regulators including the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission are weighing which businesses Ant should give up control of to contain the risks it poses to the economy, officials with knowledge of the matter have said. They haven't settled on whether to carve up its different lines of operation, split its online and offline services or pursue a different path altogether.
Ant's backers include Warburg Pincus LLC, Carlyle Group Inc., Silver Lake Management LLC, Temasek Holdings Pte and GIC Pte.
"Ant's growth potential will be capped with the focus back onto its payments services," said Shujin Chen, the Hong Kong-based head of China financial research at Jefferies Financial Group Inc. "On the mainland, the online payments industry is saturated and Ant's market share pretty much reached its limit."
China, Jack Ma, Ant Group

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Who Cares? Trust is proud to announce the launch of the Care Advice Line, a new service providing advice and information to children in care or care-experienced young adults from across the UK.
The past five years has seen The Who Cares? Trust's direct work with children and young people from care expand significantly.
The organisation is well-known among this community for its magazines Who Cares? and Who Cares? Junior and its role organising the All Party Parliamentary Group for Looked After Children and Care Leavers. For some time now, young people from around the UK have been turning to The Who Cares? Trust for help and advice about the things that are important to them.
In response to the growing number of requests for help, the Trust has launched the Care Advice Line, which will provide free and confidential advice, information and signposting via email and phone. Support will be provided across a range of issues that affect the lives of these young people, such as the care system and how it works, housing, managing money and the rights to which they are entitled.


Welcome to K.A.A. Business Solutions!
to help the client resolve challenges and maximize profits.
Karen A. Aboud, a senior executive with plus 35 years experience in the retail industry, is the Principal of the company. Her expertise at planning, analytics and training will help businesses optimize profits. Karen's business acumen and renown as a subject matter expert earns her respect throughout the industry. K.A.A. Business Solutions has been successfully helping clients with their merchandise planning and optimizing their profits since March 2006.
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text:
Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, and as of 2011 had approximately 300 shops.
Oxford Street is home to a number of major department stores and numerous flagship stores, as well as hundreds of smaller shops. It is the biggest shopping street within Inner London, though not the most expensive or fashionable, and forms part of a larger shopping district with Regent Street, Bond Street and a number of other smaller nearby streets.
For many British retail chains their Oxford Street branch is regarded as their 'flagship' store. Major stores on the street include: Debenhams, House of Fraser, John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, Selfridges and Topshop.
How to go there from Hotel Xanadu:
From Ealing Broadway station take the Central Line and stop at Oxford Circus. The journey should take 25 min.
Here is a selection of some of our favourite nearby places. Click for more information.
Camden Lock Market
Harrods Shopping
PM Gallery & House
Ealing Studios
Westfield Mall
Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Club
Twickenham Stadium
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HOTEL XANADU 26-42 Bond Street, Ealing, London, W5 5AA
+44 (0) 20 3011 1000 [email protected]
HOTEL XANADU
26-42 Bond Street,
Ealing, London, W5 5AA


text:
Democratic Party Serves up Tricks no Treats for Halloween
It Halloween and the Democratic Party is serving up a horror show. Fully aware that they tethered to Obama they have given up offering treats and have gone straight to mind-numbing tricks.
1. CBS, NBC, and ABC are ignoring one of the most important elections in American History because any news just makes it worse for the party of their choice. The nation's Big Three TV networks that breathlessly reported the 2006 anti-Bush election which gave Democrats control of Capitol Hill have practically ignored this year's anti-Obama midterms that are expected to return full control of the Hill to the GOP.
A new and exhaustive Media Research Center analysis compared the last seven weeks of CBS, NBC and ABC news coverage with the same period in 2006 and found a 6-1 disparity between the Democratic election wave and the current election. The story count: 159-25.
The worst offender is ABC's newly-renamed "World News Tonight." The show hasn't aired a single story. By comparison in 2006, ABC's "World News" aired 36 stories on the midterms, including a weekly feature that then-anchor Charlie Gibson promised would look at the "critical races."
2. Voting machines are voting for Democrats when the voter chooses a Republican. This election cycle we have heard of numerous instances where Republican candidates and staff enter the polls only to find their votes switched to the Democrat opponent. Now there's proof of a massive conspiracy so large that the founding fathers are rolling over in their graves.
From Watchdog.org:
Cook County Board of Elections Deputy Communications Director Jim Scalzitti, told the Illinois Watchdog that, "It was a calibration error of the touch-screen on the machine."
Now, Watchdog.org is reporting similar evidence of electronic voter fraud in the State of Maryland, where Diebold voting machines are switching Republican votes to Democrat votes:
"When I first selected my candidate on the electronic machine, it would not put the 'x' on the candidate I chose — a Republican — but it would put the 'x' on the Democrat candidate above it," Donna Hamilton said. "This happened multiple times with multiple selections. Every time my choice flipped from Republican to Democrat. Sometimes it required four or five tries to get the 'x' to stay on my real selection," the Frederick, Md., resident said last week.
Queen Anne County Sheriff Gary Hofmann said he encountered the problem, too, personally.
"This is happening here as well. It occurred on two candidates on my machine. I am glad I checked. Many voters have reported this here as well," Hofmann, a Republican, wrote in an email Sunday evening.Even though election officials in both highly Democrat Party controlled states have claimed the "calibration error" excuse, a software developer and expert on touch screens used by U.S. intelligence agencies told reporters that the explanation was bogus. "It's a software issue, and it's incredibly suspicious that a bug like that could slip through accidentally. It defies belief," said Tony Heller. "This is being used by the public for voting. Public trust is essential," he said. "It's completely unacceptable that an official waved it off as a calibration issue. It's something that can be easily verified and should be."
3. Mary Landrieu tells us that we are sexist and racist for opposing democrats.
Embattled Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu has picked out her excuse if she loses her seat to her Republican challenger: "Conservative" voters in her state don't much care for women and African-Americans.
When asked by NBC's Chuck Todd why President Obama struggles in her state, Ms. Landrieu first said his energy policies run counter to Louisiana's "pro-production" mindset, citing an angry response to Mr. Obama's moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
After that, the self-described "centrist" suggested racism was at play.
"I'll be very honest with you. The South has not always been the friendliest place for African-Americans. It's been a difficult time for the president to present himself in a very positive light as a leader." After that attack on her constituents, the incumbent also suggested that sexism might be at play in her faltering poll numbers, despite the fact that she's won three consecutive terms in the Senate. "It's not always been a good place for women to present ourselves. It's more of a conservative place," Ms. Landrieu said.
The comments earned quick condemnation from her top Republican challenger, Rep. Bill Cassidy, who told Fox News' Megyn Kelly, "We're going through the political process to have a change — how our Constitution prescribes how you do it — and we're called racist."
4. New York Democratic Party sends a threat by mail to to Democrats: "Vote or we will expose you." The New York Post Reports:
Democrats are telling voters that they had better head to the polls — or else. The New York State Democratic Committee is bullying people into voting next week with intimidating letters warning that it can easily find out which slackers fail to cast a ballot next Tuesday.
"Who you vote for is your secret. But whether or not you vote is public record," the letter says.
"We will be reviewing voting records . . . to determine whether you joined your neighbors who voted in 2014."
It ends with a line better suited to a mob movie than a major political party: "If you do not vote this year, we will be interested to hear why not."
5. Charley Rangel "Republicans believe slavery isn't over" and "the Democratic Party is doing God's work."
Veteran Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) had some harsh words for the Republican Party during a Thursday campaign rally for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D).
As he has done repeatedly before, Rangel compared some members of the GOP to confederates from the Civil War era. But at the Thursday evening event, he added that they "believe that slavery isn't over."
"We have to win. We have to be able to send a national message with Andrew Cuomo. And the thing is: Everything we believe in — everything we believe in — they hate. They don't disagree — they hate! They think if you didn't come from Europe 30 years ago, you didn't even make it. Some of them believe that slavery isn't over and they and think they won the Civil War!" Rangel shouted.
In contrast, Rangel said the Democratic Party is doing "God's work" on issues important to the American people.
The Democratic Party is clearly an empty soul with no concern for our nation and will stop at nothing to stay in power. Vote them out.
Posted in 2014 Elections, 4th Amendment, ABC, abortion, Abraham Lincoln, American Constitution, Benghazi, CBS, Censorship, Congress, FoxNews, Mary Landrieu, Midterm elections, National Security, NBC, New York Democratic Party, Obama, voting machinesTagged 2014 ELECTIONS, 4th Amendment, ABC, abortion, Al Qaeda, Atheists, barack obama, Benghazi, Benghazi Coverup, CBS, Compromise, Congress, Democratic National Convention, Destroying America, end time prophecy, Government takover, Halloween, IRS, Mario Murillo, Mary Landrieu, National Security, NBC, New York Democratic Party, Obama, obamacare, Senate races, voting machines2 Comments
White House in Denial: President Obama Is Costing Democrats Control of the Senate
The administration insists that vulnerable Democrats should have supported him more. That couldn't be further from the truth.
BY JOSH KRAUSHAAR
October 29, 2014 White House officials are preemptively spinning a midterm defeat, and they're using their own fantasies to do it. They're starting to blame candidates for not supporting President Obama enough. As a top White House official told The Washington Post's Karen Tumulty, "He doesn't think they have any reason to run away from him. He thinks there is a strong message there."
This is pure delusion: Obama is the main reason Republicans are well-positioned to win control of the upper chamber next Tuesday. And Democrats' biggest strategic mistake in this election is that most candidates didn't run away far and fast enough. Given the president's rock-bottom approval numbers in the many Republican-friendly Senate states that Democrats needed to win—as well as the reality of a worsening political environment for the party as early as last winter—that distance was a downright necessity. But a host of Senate candidates failed to create it, and the party is likely to pay the price in Senate seats.
Some candidates bought the White House's view that the president's problems were temporary, or only a problem in the most conservative of states. Others naively thought they could pivot away from the president's problems in hope of individualizing the races and focusing on their challengers' vulnerabilities. Several understood that moving to the center could risk alienating a base that they needed to turn out, given the party's much-vaunted Bannock Street ground game. But as the candidates win only weak support from outside the most committed Democrats, those assumptions deserve to be reevaluated. Now, more than ever, it's clear that individual Democrats could use some clear brand separation from President Obama.
In the traditional swing states such as Colorado and New Hampshire, Sens. Mark Udall and Jeanne Shaheen didn't think they'd have to break with Obama all that much. After all, they presumed, the Republican Party's brand was in even worse shape than the president's.
And in the conservative states held by Democrats, senators tried to have it both ways without telegraphing their differences starkly enough. Simply calling for unspecified fixes to a deeply unpopular health care law, for example, wasn't sufficient to keep enough disaffected white voters on their side. And while most red-state Democrats tweaked the president for delaying construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, those in the Senate were telegraphing their impotence by not being able to persuade the president otherwise.
An outright rebuke of President Obama wouldn't have been viable in several Republican states, such as Georgia, Louisiana, and North Carolina, where high turnout among African-American voters is a necessity for Democrats to hang onto the seats. But in ruby-red states where white voters make up a sizable share of the population, Democrats should have been doing their best Joe Manchin impersonations early on.
In Kentucky, Alison Lundergan Grimes was a fresh face who wasn't burdened by controversial votes in Congress. She benefited by running against Mitch McConnell, whose personal ratings were weak and who faced problems on his right flank, spending all spring fighting off a tea-party primary challenger. But Grimes prioritized appealing to the Democrats' deep-pocketed donor class above winning over disaffected up-for-grabs voters in her home state. It would have been a defensible strategy, if the political environment in 2014 was more favorable for Democrats. After all, she was one of the Democrats' most successful fundraisers, and she became a national party star overnight. But her attempts to appease both the party base and more-conservative voters in her state has become painfully awkward. On coal, an issue that's a political no-brainer in Kentucky, Grimes spent far too much time trying to forge a middle ground between the base and her constituents. McConnell actually lost eastern Kentucky's coal country to a wealthy Democratic businessman in 2008; that same region could comprise his margin of victory in 2014.
In Arkansas, Pryor seemed content to rely on his strong family name and sharp attacks against Rep. Tom Cotton's very conservative voting record as a substitute for actively challenging the president. Obama's approval ratings are as poor in Arkansas as anywhere in the country. And Pryor began the race ahead, hoping to translate his personal likability into votes. But he's been caught in his own pretzels when asked about the president's performance on key issues, most recently fumbling a basic question on how he'd grade Obama's handling of the Ebola crisis.
Even in bellwether Colorado, Udall's playbook of attacking Gardner almost exclusively on abortion rights and contraception has demonstrated its limits. He boasted a bipartisan brand that he forged in his first Senate race in 2008, but he's squandered it with a deeply negative campaign. He entered the race with the ability to make a persuasive case over his independence: He's run to the president's left on criticizing NSA surveillance and immigration reform. If he was more assertive on energy issues—unequivocally backing the Keystone pipeline and being more outspoken in support of fracking—he could've played more to the center-right voters, as well.
But Udall's reluctance to distance himself from Obama hasn't helped in a state where the president's approval numbers have cratered since his last election. By focusing on wedge issues, the freshman senator has cocooned himself as the candidate of the liberal base, and given himself little credibility to distance himself from the president. When Udall said that the last person the White House "want[s] to see coming is me" at a September debate, he was received with laughter. But if he had played his cards differently, it didn't have to be that way.
To be sure, in a nationalized election, even those who break from an unpopular president often fall victim to his political problems. The biggest victims in the 2010 wave election were House Democrats in conservative districts, most of whom voted against the president's health care law. Their opposition did little to help them. But in Senate races, where candidates' personal brands play a bigger role, there's more opportunity to create space. Manchin, after all, comfortably prevailed in West Virginia in 2010 after (literally) shooting the president's cap-and-trade legislation. Rep. John Barrow of Georgia may survive yet another tough election, thanks to a savvy ad campaign branding himself as a uniquely conservative Democrat. But few of the red-state Democrats on the ballot this year have even attempted the Manchin/Barrow approach. (Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska comes closest, and he looks to be in the best shape of the bunch.)
This year's midterms are shaping up to be a referendum on President Obama's management, giving anxious voters an opportunity to express their frustration about everything from the president's handling of health care, growing terrorism threats, an Ebola scare, and a broken immigration system, among others. It's far from an election about nothing. Democrats should have recognized that the president was falling out of favor with the public and inoculated themselves a long time ago. Instead, many bought the White House's spin, and are at risk of going down with a sinking ship.
Posted in 2014 Elections, 4th Amendment, American Constitution, Benghazi, Censorship, Obama, ObamacareTagged 4th Amendment, abortion, Al Qaeda, Al Sharpton, barack obama, Benghazi, Benghazi Coverup, California, Congress, Democratic National Convention, midterm elections, SenateLeave a comment
Young Hispanics are turning sharply against President Obama. Millennials do not trust either party
Millennials Bolt Obama for GOP in Midterms
Long term, the future American electorate isn't sold on either party.
BY RON FOURNIER
(Harvard Model Congress)
October 29, 2014 In a stunning turnaround, likely voters in the so-called millennial generation prefer a Republican-led Congress after next week's elections, and young Hispanics are turning sharply against President Obama.
A new national poll of 18-to-29-year-olds by Harvard's Institute of Politics shows that young Americans are leaving the new Democratic coalition that twice elected Obama. The news is little better for the GOP: These voters, who more than any other voting bloc represent the future of the American electorate, generally hold Republicans in the lowest regard.
The long-view IOP findings suggest that neither party is poised to win the largest generation in U.S. history—a pragmatic, demanding, relatively nonideological electorate raised in an age of terrorism, war, and government dysfunction.
"Millennials could be a critical swing vote," said IOP Director Maggie Williams, projecting the latest results on future elections. "Candidates for office: Ignore millennial voters at your peril." Williams is a Democrat and a former adviser to Hillary Clinton.
In the short term, the news is worse for Democrats than Republicans.
Millennials who told the IOP they will "definitely be voting" Tuesday favored Republicans over Democrats, 51 percent to 47 percent. That is a reversal of September 2010 results, when the IOP found Democrats favored over Republicans among young likely voters, 55 percent to 43 percent.
Obama's job-approval rating among millennials decreased from 47 percent in April to 43 percent, his second-lowest rating in the IOP surveys. Among young Americans most likely to vote, his job-approval rating is just 42 percent.
Obama's job approval is below 40 percent on several issues, including the economy, health care, the federal budget deficit, and foreign policy. Nearly six of 10 young Americans disapprove of Obamacare.
Among the one in four millennial voters who say they definitely will vote Tuesday, Republican-leaning constituencies are significantly more enthusiastic about the election than Democrats.
Just 49 percent of young Hispanics approve of Obama's job performance, the lowest since IOP began tracking in 2009. That's a big drop from six months ago, when his rating among young Hispanics was 60 percent, and five years ago, when 81 percent of Hispanic millennials approved of Obama's performance. Only 17 percent of Hispanic youth plan to vote Tuesday, far smaller than the non-Hispanic percentages and likely a reflection of frustration over stalled immigration reform.
Disclosure: I'm a member of the IOP's senior advisory committee, a position that gives me an appreciation for the 26 millennial surveys produced since 2000. The latest KnowledgePanel survey, conducted with the Government and Academic research team of GfK, involved 2,029 18-to-29-year-old U.S. citizens between Sept. 26 and Oct. 9.
John Della Volpe, director of the IOP surveys, said the sweep of the work convinces him that Democrats and Republicans are losing the next generation. "Both parties should reintroduce themselves to young voters, empower them, and seek their participation in the upcoming 2016 campaign and beyond," he said.
For instance, millennials hate government gridlock. Asked on "whom do you place the most blame regarding the political gridlock in Washington," a whopping 56 percent said, "All of them."
Congressional Republicans were blamed by 22 percent, compared with 13 percent who blamed Obama and just 5 percent who blamed Democrats in Congress.
While the GOP holds the upper hand Tuesday among likely young voters, millennials overall are more inclined to approve of Democrats in Congress than Republicans, 35 percent to 23 percent.
Less than 10 percent of millennials identify themselves as tea-party supporters. Millennials narrowly favor Democrats over Republicans to handle the economy, immigration, foreign policy, race relations, and even health care.
Young voters traditionally split between the two major parties, as they did in 2000 and 2002. Two wars and Hurricane Katrina under an unpopular President George W. Bush drove millennials to Obama's promise of change and can-do bipartisanship. He didn't live up to his hype, and by2013, many young voters were walking away from Obama and Democrats amid revelations about the administration's domestic spying programs and the botched launch of Obamacare.
Posted in 2014 Elections, 2nd Lt. Darryn Andrews, American Constitution, Apple Computers, Benghazi, Censorship, Constitution, Democrats, economy, Edward Snowden, Energy Independance, Obama, Obamacare, Republican House, Same sex MarriageTagged Congress, Gun control, millennials, Obama, obamacare, same sex marriageLeave a comment
Over 214,000 Doctors Opt Out of Obamacare Exchanges
By Barbara Boland
Over 214,000 doctors won't participate in the new plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA,) analysis of a new survey by Medical Group Management Association shows. That number of 214,524, estimated by American Action Forum, is through May 2014, but appears to be growing due to plans that force doctors to take on burdensome costs. It's also about a quarter of the total number of 893,851 active professional physicians reported by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
In January, an estimated 70% of California's physicians were not participating in Covered California plans.
Here are some of the reasons why:
1. Reimbursements under Obamacare are at bottom-dollar – they are even lower than Medicare reimbursements, which are already significantly below market rates. "It is estimated that where private plans pay $1.00 for a service, Medicare pays $0.80, and ACA exchange plans are now paying about $0.60," a study by the think-tank American Action Forum finds. "For example, Covered California plans are setting their plan fee schedules in line with that of Medi-Cal-California's Medicaid Program-which means exchange plans are cutting provider reimbursement by up to 40 percent."
2. Doctors are expected to take on more patients to make up for the lost revenue, but that's not happening, because primary care doctors already have more patients than they can handle. "Furthermore, physicians are worried that exchange plan patients will be sicker than the average patient because they may have been without insurance for extended periods of time, and therefore will require more of the PCPs time at lower pay," says the study.
The study also points to two reasons that doctors might not get paid at all:
3. An MGMA study indicates that 75% of ACA patients that had seen doctors had chosen plans with high deductibles. Given that most of the patients are low-income, doctors are concerned that the patients cannot meet the deductibles and they will get stuck with the bill.
4. HHS requires that insurers cover customers for an additional 90 days after they have stopped paying their premiums: the insurer covers the first 30 – but, it's up to the doctor to recoup payment for the last 60 days. This is the number one reason providers are opting to not participate in the exchange plans. Currently, about a million people have failed to pay their premiums and had their plans canceled.
So, Obamacare is asking doctors to take on sicker patients for less money, with the risk of not getting paid at all? No wonder doctors are running from these plans!
Posted in 2014 Elections, abortion, Catholic Church, Democrats, Doctors, Nancy Pelosi, Obama, Obamacare, PovertyTagged abortion, Destroying America, Government takover, Obama, obamacare, socialismLeave a comment
Out of the Ashes a miracle for America
Today is my birthday and today this blog reached 900,000 views. A happy coincidence! This blog became my exclusive weapon to oppose the Obama agenda. I knew from the jump that Obama's rise was a demonic masterpiece that would deceive millions.
Here is what he said in Lebanon, New Hampshire on January 7, 2008:
"… A LIGHT WILL SHINE THROUGH THAT WINDOW, A BEAM OF LIGHT WILL COME DOWN UPON YOU, YOU WILL EXPERIENCE AN EPIPHANY … AND YOU WILL SUDDENLY REALIZE THAT YOU MUST GO TO THE POLLS AND VOTE FOR OBAMA"
We should have known from the breathtaking arrogance of this statement that he was getting outside help. Indeed, an angel of light did shine and gave millions a counterfeit realization. Other than an "epiphany", what rational reason was there to vote for him?
Then he made this astounding declaration about his super powers: "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal …"
At the time that I began to speak out, many, including close friends thought I was committing ministerial suicide. A string of pastors told me I could no longer preach in their church and that the IRS was going to get me. Still others abused a concept of a "culture of honor" to spiritualize their silence in the face of evil.
No one but God knows the price I have paid to obey Him in exposing this agenda to destroy America. I have faithfully passed on to you everything I felt you need to know in order to fight off this disease on our nation's soul.
Today, it is clear to all that our president is an unqualified disaster. In normal times, he would have been run out of office. Now many of my fellow ministers are speaking out. All he is now is a lengthening legacy of lawlessness.
Some assume that I believe America is doomed. They see the blog as an ending stream of bad news. Believe me; if I thought we were beyond hope my message would look entirely different! I would not be sounding an alarm; I would be comforting the remnant. My continual warnings are rooted in my conviction that a miracle is waiting in the wings.
I believe that our prayers have lifted scales off of America's eyes about Obama. I believe that the midterm election is a chance for the church to take back our nation form the polices that Obama put in place. However, I see a miracle in the wings that is greater than any election.
Everything inside me tells me that our ministry is poised for a strategic moment. None of the minions or their ideologies in Washington D.C. is strangers to Mario Murillo Ministries.
We met this Spirit on the Campus at Berkeley. We collided with astounding hostility against the Gospel of Jesus for a decade. It was hardcore, intellectual, and well organized. God called me there to win souls, and see revival, but from every angle it was an utterly impossible task.
How God took our group on campus from a handful to two thousand strong is like a page out of the book of Acts. But the most important result of my time on campus is only now coming to light. This is because the intellectual deception that presently drives the White House was invented in Berkeley. And what this ministry can do now was also invented in Berkeley. It prevailed then and it will prevail again.
I even chuckled to see the usual suspects from the "revolution" being recruited by Obama.
Here is my great hope for America: God would have spared Sodom and Gomorrah for just twelve righteous people. America is home to millions upon millions of godly Christians who are working hard, raising children and faithfully paying their taxes and their mortgages. They did not live above their means. They did not take any bailout money. They have not bowed their knee to the gods of abortion or gay marriage. They are the ones who are locked in prevailing prayer for America!
Everywhere I go I meet true intercessors and I can see their prayers being answered. Millions of youth are under God's influence. Because it is a great threat to their agenda, the media is not reporting the growing spiritual hunger of our youth. Vast numbers of them are migrating back to youth groups and churches, and the surprising thing is that they are drawn to on fire churches and not to the hi-tech designer churches.
God is in a miracle working mood. Never in 47 years of preaching have I heard or seen such dramatic healings in such abundance. A vast blanket of signs and wonders is covering us now and reports are pouring in from everywhere of healing.
It may seem right to buy a cabin in the woods and load it with survival food, but before you do consider what I say. You will be distracted from the great harvest of souls that is coming. You would forfeit the greatest intimacy with God you have ever known. You will miss the Grace of God that would have made you strong in impossible situations. You will miss the great anointing that God will grant to every one of His soldiers in the hour of testing! You would be sidelined in the church's finest hour.
Now I have one last great prayer: that you gentle reader will not be a traitor to your faith by not voting or by voting for a Democrat who will carry on Obama's agenda. Yes, a miracle waits in the wings but also a disaster looms in the shadows. November 4, 2014 is the day for all Christians to shake off compromise and do the right thing.
Posted in 2014 Elections, 4th Amendment, abortion, Abraham Lincoln, American Constitution, American Youth, Being Used of God, Benghazi, Berkeley California, Bible, California, CBS, Christian persecution, Christianity, Congress, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Democrats, Demon Possesssion, Destroying America, ebola, Economic disaster, Founding Fathers, freedom of religion, Freedom of speech, Government coverups, Homosexuality, Illegal Immigrants, Internal Revenue Service, Jesus Christ, Mario Murillo, miracles, NBC, Obama, ObamacareTagged abortion, Benghazi, Benghazi Coverup, Berkeley California, Destroying America, endtime revival, Government takover, IRS, mainstream media, Mario Murillo, Mario Murillo Ministries, same sex marriage, socialism, The White House1 Comment
3 reasons why you must vote against every democratic candidate that supported Obama
Reason 1: Obama and his policies is the Ebola virus to American liberty: For America to survive, Obama's policies must be utterly repudiated. Like a killer frost, Obama has damaged everything he has touched. He meant to hurt us. His policies are designed to do keep doing damage long after he is gone.
With malice and forethought he shamed us abroad, divided us at home and, as no one before him, cast a shroud over the nation's future. The proof that his platform is wholly destructive is this fact: any city or state that has fully implemented his agenda has watched poverty, crime, and addiction skyrocket.
America will simply not survive the train wreck tomfoolery of this administration. It all has to go.
Reason 2: When they say they are not like Obama, they are being just like Obama. When they say they are different than Obama it is another reason to oust them. When they are lying, denying, deflecting and insulting our intelligence by asking for another chance they are being the quintessential Obama.
No one in the Democratic Party has apologized for their crimes against freedom, morality, and prosperity. No one rose up and opposed the madness. This means that they still don't get it. You simply cannot vote for anyone who had a hand in this devastation or is a threat to continue the devastation.
Reason 3: This is probably your last chance to demonstrate your Christianity in an election: Liberty is on the ropes. Government has seized control of almost everything. Operatives within the Democratic Party want to keep power no matter what they have to do to keep it. Stop the tyranny now or they will think that they can do anything they want.
It is disgusting that Pastors voted and campaigned for Obama in two elections! This is your chance to repent and do the right thing for the nation and your congregation. It is likely your last chance.
For minority Christians that voted for Obama for cell phones, government assistance or to legalize relatives I have a simple question… what will you do when the money is gone, the law is useless and America is worse than the nation they escaped?
For the lukewarm Christian who would rather remain silent I have a question: If you don't have the courage to speak out now… how will you find the courage to live under persecution?
Never have the stakes been higher. Never has the choice been clearer. Silence is not an option. Get mad, get informed and get going. Vote them out.
Posted in 2014 Elections, 4th Amendment, abortion, American Constitution, American Youth, Bible, CBS, Censorship, Christianity, Congress, Constitution, Democrats, Destroying America, ebola, Founding Fathers, freedom of religion, Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, Freedom of Worship, Gay Marriage, Government, Government coverups, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Homosexuality, Illegal Immigrants, Internal Revenue Service, IRS, Islam, Islamic terrorism, Jesus Christ, Mario Murillo, MSNBC, Nancy Pelosi, Obama, Obamacare, political correctness, Politics, Same sex Marriage, Supreme Court, Tea Party, U.S. Debt, U.S. Military, unemploymentTagged 2014 Midterm Elections, Benghazi, democratic candidate, Democratic Party, Destroying America, Freedom, Government takover, IRS, life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, Mario Murillo, Obama, same sex marriage3 Comments
Christian rapper Jackie Hill-Perry comes out as ex-gay firebrand
Jackie Hill-Perry
By David Daniels – The Washington Times – Monday, October 27, 2014
Jackie Hill-Perry considers herself not merely an agent of change, but its embodiment as well.
A Christian spoken-word poet from Chicago, Ms. Hill-Perry professes to be a former lesbian — a change she ascribes to God.
God, she says, "not only changes your affections and your heart, but He gives you new affections that you didn't have." Now married to a Christian man, the 25-year-old poet is pregnant with the newlyweds' first child, which is due Dec. 13.
Her debut spoken-word album "The Art of Joy" will be released for free on Nov. 4 by Humble Beast record label.
Ms. Hill-Perry's experience runs counter to pronouncements by gay rights groups that exclaim sexuality as an inherent, immutable characteristic. What's more, her assertions come amid wide-ranging reports about the psychological dangers of so-called "reparative therapy," which aims to change the orientation of homosexuals.
But she remains steadfast in her belief that anything is possible with God as she meets criticism — and outright contempt — for speaking out about her experience. And thanks to her nearly 65,000 followers on social media, as well as encouragement from famed Baptist theologian John Piper, Ms. Hill-Perry's story has been far-reaching.
"The word of God itself, apart from Jackie Hill, testifies that people can change," she said in a July 2013 report on Wade-O Radio, a syndicated Christian hip-hop broadcast based in New Jersey.
She was criticizing a lyric in rapper Macklemore's Grammy Award-winning song "Same Love" that says "And I can't change even if I tried, even if I wanted to."
"I think we've made God very little if we believe that He cannot change people," Ms. Hill-Perry said on Wade-O Radio. "If He can make a moon, stars and a galaxy that we have yet to fully comprehend, how can He not simply change my desires?"
Thousands of people on social media shared her comments — with approving or condemning remarks of their own. She estimates that about 40 percent of the messages she has received have been negative.
"On Twitter, this girl wrote me like 15 different tweets, pretty much saying that I was delusional, in denial and brainwashed," Ms. Hill-Perry told The Washington Times.
After she married Preston Perry, another Christian spoken-word poet, in March, another Twitter critic accused them both of being gay and marrying to "play God to a bunch of ignorant people."
Ms. Hill-Perry says she was sexually abused by a family friend when she 5. Around the same time, she experienced gender confusion that had coalesced into an attraction to women when she turned 17. She became sexually active with her first girlfriend, and then another. She became a regular at gay clubs and at gay pride parades in St. Louis.
While lying in bed in October 2008, she reflected on her lifestyle and had an epiphany that she addressed in her spoken-word piece "My Life as a Stud": "Then, one day, the Lord spoke to me. He said, 'She will be the death of you.' In that moment, the scripture for the wages of sin equal death finally clicked."
"What I had been taught in church until the age of 10 coincided with the truth in my conscious that a holy God and just God would be justified in sending me, an unrepentant sinner to hell," she said, "but also that this same God sent His son to die on my behalf and forgive me if only I believe."
She left her girlfriend and returned to church. The next year, she met her future husband at the first spoken-word event where she performed "My Life as a Stud." Over time, she lost her attraction to women and gained an attraction to Mr. Perry, who she began dating three years later.
Now pregnant with a girl, Ms. Hill-Perry is concerned her daughter will face persecution for sharing her beliefs by the time she reaches 25 years old.
"I think we're moving toward a time in our society when, in the next 20 to 25 years, Christians are going to see a massive amount of persecution when it comes to the topic of homosexuality, and there will be no such thing as tolerance for Christianity," she says. "[People will believe that] if you're a Christian, you are a horrible human being, period."
"The true church of Jesus Christ will still stick to the Scriptures," Ms. Hill-Perry says. "Now, those buildings that have people in them where the authority of God doesn't trump their own feelings and emotions, I see a whole bunch of turning away from the faith — turning away from truth."
Posted in Censorship, Christian persecution, Christian Women, Christianity, Christians, Destroying America, freedom of religion, Freedom of speech, Hillsong, Homosexuality, Jesus Christ, Living Proof, Rap MusicTagged Christian, Christian persecution in America, Destroying America, Hill-Perry, Jackie Hill-Perry, Rap music, religion, Revival, same sex marriage, The Washington Times1 Comment
Giants executive says most important task is to honor Christ
Home / News / Giants executive says most important task is to honor Christ
"It's really about integrity," Giants assistant GM Bobby Evans said of his approach to baseball.
SAN FRANCISCO — When San Francisco Giants outfielder Melky Cabrera was suspended in 2012 for using a banned substance, he led Major League Baseball in hits and had a .346 batting average. So most observers expected the Giants to put him on the postseason roster when his suspension expired just before the World Series.
But they didn't, showing that character mattered as much to the team as offensive production. And they won the World Series anyway.
One Giants executive who helped make the decision to bench Cabrera was Bobby Evans, who said that his most important task as assistant general manager is to honor Christ.
"You want your life to point people to Christ," Evans said. "It starts for me with my own relationship with Christ. That's going to direct and dictate what influence I have for Christ in my family, in my marriage and in the workplace."
Evans was saved as a 7-year-old child living in Massachusetts. After attending college at the University of North Carolina, he went to work for MLB commissioner Fay Vincent in New York in 1991. Two and a half years later, he joined the Giants in a minor league administration role.
Since 2006 Evans, 45, has served in his current role, though his title has changed multiple times. Among his duties are negotiating all major league player contracts, helping acquire free agents and signing minor league talent.
Despite pressure to be dishonest in contract negotiations, Evans said he wants to be known for truthfulness.
"One of the common things in contract negotiations is to have a fudge factor in the sense of what you might tell an agent or express to a player not being entirely accurate," he said. But "the last thing I ever wanted was to have anyone ever be able to say that we didn't fulfill what we promised."
Evans added, "It's really about integrity and about being able to be trusted by a given agent or for players to feel like you're going to be honest with them."
Despite a 162-game schedule each season, Evans said he makes time with his family and church a priority — even though he attends Giants home games, about a fourth of the road games and travels to see minor league teams in California, Georgia, Virginia, Oregon and Arizona. Evans has a wife and three children ages 10, 6 and 8 months.
"Even with home games, you're at the ballpark til 11 o'clock at night after a night game," he said. "And so whenever possible, I try to have my family at the ballpark. I make sure that if we have a night game, I'm up to take them to school the next day. I coach little league teams and just make sure there's no priority that gets ahead of them."
Some keys to a healthy marriage amid the rigors of baseball are "surrounding ourselves with other couples that are pursuing Christ" and not "compartmentalizing" life between Christian and secular activities, he said.
Evans has served on his church leadership board for 18 of his 21 years as a member, and he makes worship attendance a priority. During the season he arranges his travel schedule so that he only has to miss six to eight Sundays. During the six weeks of spring training, he travels back to San Francisco for church two or three times.
In 2012, Evans received the Bowie Kuhn Award, which is presented annually to an individual, team or organization which demonstrates support of the chapel program in professional baseball.
In baseball, as in other businesses, following Jesus and being a faithful church member is "hard," Evans said. But "it's going to all start with where I am in my relationship with Christ."
— by David Roach | BP
Posted in Baseball, Jesus Christ, San Francisco Giants, UncategorizedTagged baseball, Bobby Evans, Faith, Giants, Giants executive, Jesus Christ, Major League Baseball, Melky Cabrera, San Francisco Giants, the Giants, top headlines, world series1 Comment
Franklin Graham: Both Obama And Bush 'Have Done A Great Disservice,' Calling Islam Peaceful
Posted on October 27, 2014 by mariomurilloministries
"Mr. President—followers of a peaceful religion do not cut off the heads of innocent people."
Trey Sanchez
In a commentary for Decision magazine, evangelist Franklin Graham calls out both President Obama and President Bush for defending Islam as a religion of peace.
Graham is reacting specifically to Obama's speech before the U.N. in September in which the president said, "Islam teaches peace," and also to George W. Bush, who, days after 9/11, said, "Islam is peace."
Graham writes:
Both men have done a great disservice to the American public by not understanding Islam and its teaching in the Quran.
The day after Obama addressed the U.N. in September, Graham recalls that he stood across from the White House in Lafayette Square with the hope that the president would hear his message in praying for the release of imprisoned Iranian-American Christian Saeed Abedini:
Mr. President—followers of a peaceful religion do not cut off the heads of innocent people in the barbaric fashion the world has watched recently.
Mr. President—believers in a peaceful religion do not kidnap 300 young schoolgirls as Boko Haram did in northeastern Nigeria in April and reportedly [sell] them to men to be sex slaves.
Mr. President—men who practice a peaceful religion do not detonate bombs on an American street during a marathon race to kill and maim innocent people.
Mr. President—no one who belongs to a peaceful religion would even consider hijacking jet airliners and flying them into buildings occupied by thousands of innocent people beginning their workday, as happened in this country and in this city on 9/11.
Mr. President—no peaceful religion would tolerate, let alone practice, female circumcision, require a woman to have her husband's permission to leave her home and take up employment, and restrict her ability to receive justice in the case of sex crimes.
Mr. President—a peaceful religion would not condone and allow a father to drown a daughter in a swimming pool in front of the family in the name of family honor because she might have stayed out late in the evening with her boyfriend.
Mr. President—why haven't the 3.5 million Muslims in North America rejected this gross, barbaric and despicable behavior by their fellow Muslims on American soil?
And that is Graham's question left unanswered. He adds: "Why haven't many, if not most, of the 1.6 billion Muslims around the world condemned these violent crimes against innocent humanity as they have occurred? Why would 23 percent of the world's population stand by and allow their fellow Muslims to define them by violent behavior if this is truly a religion of peace?"
Christians, Graham affirms, "quickly and unanimously rise together to condemn" violent acts in the name of Christianity. "I cannot recall a single instance of violent behavior supposedly done in the name of Christianity that was not immediately repudiated by the Christian community," he writes.
Graham calls Islam a "false religion…guided and characterized by treacherous deceit." Furthermore, he concludes that a false religion can never be a true religion of peace. Only true religion that reconciles "a holy God and sinful man" can "bring lasting peace."
He is not implying every false religion engages in "barbaric behavior," but none of them, he says, "can deliver from the damning power of sin:"
Christ alone, the Son of God, saves from sin, Satan and death. He died on the cross for our sins, was buried and rose again from the dead.
My earnest prayer is that the Lord will use the chaotic and frightening events we see happening on the world stage to drive people, including followers of Islam, to the only solution—personal, transforming faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.
Posted in 2014 Elections, Catholic Church, Censorship, Christian persecution, Christianity, Destroying America, Franklin Graham, George W. Bush, Government coverups, Islam, Jesus Christ, Middle East, ObamaTagged armed and dangerous, Benghazi, Benghazi Coverup, Destroying America, Franklin Graham, George W. Bush, Islam, Islamic terrorism, Mario Murillo, Obama, President Bush, president obama, religion of peace, Revival2 Comments
Atheist Group Plans to Distribute X-Rated Bible in Florida High Schools
An atheist group is planning to distribute a pamphlet in several Florida public high schools that depicts an illustration of a cartoon Bible sexually assaulting a young woman.
According to a report by Brittany Hughes at CNSNews.com, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) plans to hand out a pamphlet entitled "An X-Rated Book: Sex and Obscenity in the Bible," with a front cover that is illustrated with an animated Bible with arms, legs, salacious facial expression, and salivating mouth, with its hand aggressively extended up the dress of a screaming woman, who is attempting to run away from it.
On its website, FFRF states that its free speech lawsuit filed last year against the Orange County School District was dismissed by Judge Kendall Sharp of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, since the school district had agreed to allow FFRF to distribute all the literature it had initially prohibited. FFRF says it filed a free speech suit after the school district allowed an evangelical Christian group to distribute Bibles.
"This is a victory. The court has acknowledged that the school district is allowing all the materials that were initially prohibited," said Dan Barker, FFRF co-president. "We disagree with how the court and the school district chose to handle this clear-cut discrimination, so we're planning to appeal on some issues, but overall, it's a win."
In its motion to dismiss the case, the U.S. District Court did agree, however, with a previous Florida court ruling relating to materials outside groups may distribute in public schools.
"Indeed, Defendant may lawfully prohibit outside groups from distributing materials that are not appropriate for distribution in a school setting with the aim of controlling student conduct in the schools," said the court. "This includes dissemination of content that is sexually explicit, indecent, lewd, or offensive in [sic] such would 'undermine the school's basic educational mission.'"
Breitbart News contacted the Media Relations department of the Orange County Public Schools to determine whether the pamphlet FFRF plans to distribute is, in fact, in keeping with the school's basic mission.
Information that Shari Bobinski, a media specialist with the school district, emailed to Breitbart News included a copy of a memo that John C. Palmerini, associate general counsel, sent to Orange County High School principals, the school board, the superintendent, and other officials.
The memo, dated April 22, 2013, and referencing "passive distribution of atheist materials," provided the following list of "approved materials" that FFRF and Central Florida Freethought Community (CFFC), FFRF's local chapter, may "passively distribute" on May 2, 2013, in schools:
1. The Age of Reason
2. What They Said About Religion
3. Ten Common Myths About Atheists
4. What is Wrong with the Ten Commandments?
5. What is an Atheist?
6. Nontheistic Students in Your School
7. Humanist of the Year Award
The memo also stated, "NO OTHER MATERIALS MAY BE DISTRIBUTED."
High school principals are instructed in the memo, "You must have a member of your staff ensure that only the materials identified above are on the tables to be passively distributed."
"This action is being permitted because the District is attempting to avoid a lawsuit from the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the central Florida Freethought Community," the memo continued. "Those groups have sought to passively distribute materials because World Changers of Florida, Inc. passively distributed Bibles to your students on January 16, 2013."
"Passive distribution means the approved materials may be placed on one unmanned table for distribution in a location where students normally congregate during non-instructional time," the memo explained. "The representatives must not speak to students or encourage them to pick up the approved materials. … The representatives should not enter classrooms or other instructional areas."
According to the information Bobinski provided regarding FFRF, "At this point, there is no indication or word of a request to participate this school year."
In addition, the information provided to Breitbart News states that the pamphlet depicting the cartoon Bible sexually assaulting the woman "was not distributed as part of the materials" last year.
Bobinski declined to elaborate, stating, "We can't speak any further on the issue because we are still in litigation regarding an appeal."
CNSNews.com reported that district Superintendent Barbara Jenkins said that "An X-Rated Book," the pamphlet, "may not be distributed."
"This brochure will cause substantial disruption and is age inappropriate," she wrote. "There is a picture on the cover of a Bible book given human features sticking its hand up the dress of a woman."
Jenkins further said the pamphlet also included information about how to join FFRF, and that the school district could "prohibit the distribution of materials which contain solicitations."
On its website, FFRF states that its folded brochures, or "nontracts," which refer to alleged statements in the Bible about abortion, will now be permitted to be distributed, even though the school district described them as presenting God as "hateful, arrogant, sexist, and cruel."
The atheist organization says it will also distribute Robert Price's Jesus Is Dead.
According to FFRF staff attorney Andrew Seidel, "Satanists can distribute their literature, Muslims can distribute the Quran, and atheists can distribute books that criticize religion," as a result of the case's dismissal.
Seidel also told CNSNews.com that the pamphlet featuring the sexual assault of a woman by a cartoon Bible is "pretty tame compared to the Bible itself."
"I think if you look at the content of that brochure and what is actually in the Bible, and some of the things that are in the Bible in terms of sex and compare that to the cover [of the pamphlet], the cover is pretty tame compared to anything that is in the Bible," he asserted. Seidel added, "I think the bottom line is, you can't consider any of our materials obscene when compared to the Bible."
The pamphlet's text reportedly includes Bible verses that the atheist group considers "obscene," such as Biblical passages that mention sex, nudity, and circumcision.
Seidel said any offense Christians have at the image on the pamphlet's cover is a fair trade-off for how atheists feel when Bibles are distributed in school.
"I think we recognize that it might upset some people, but the Bible upsets many, many non-believers, especially when it's being pushed in the public schools," he continued. "So really, all it's doing is placing believers and people who are in the majority in the position that we in the minority have been in for a very long time, and are in every time the government espouses one religion over another."
David Williamson, leader of the CFFC, said, "We intend to give out a lot more literature to educate students about atheism and the importance of keeping religion out of public schools."
"We are even designing new materials specifically for students and families in Orange County," Williamson added.
As reported by Breitbart News, Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president, have engaged in many anti-religion campaigns, including one to remove the Star of David symbol from the Ohio statehouse Holocaust memorial in 2013, and an anti-Catholic ad in 2012, published by The New York Times, that accused the Catholic Church of promoting "acute misery, poverty, needless suffering, unwanted pregnancies, overpopulation, social evils and deaths."
Gaylor is the daughter of Anne Nicol Gaylor, author of Abortion Is a Blessing.
Seidel states that the Orange County Public Schools is the first district FFRF has targeted to distribute its materials, but it will not be the last. "We're focusing on Orange County for the moment, but we will probably be expanding to other school districts that allow this," he said.
Posted in 2014 Elections, abortion, Christian persecution, Christianity, Destroying America, Founding Fathers, freedom of religion, Freedom of speechTagged Atheists, Destroying America, FFRF, Florida, Freedom From Religion Foundation, religion, Revival, The Bible, The Koran1 Comment


text:
eDiplomacy: How the State Department Uses Social Media
Fergus Hanson Friday, October 26, 2012
When the telegraph first came into use, it scandalized the foreign policy establishment. It was more than two decades after the first Morse telegraph networks were established before the U.S. State Department connected its overseas missions through this new communications tool. How, you wonder, would these same Mandarins have reacted to being told they needed to pay serious attention to Facebook or viral videos?
Foreign ministries the world over are scrambling to catch up to this new operating environment, but one in particular has taken some striking initiative: the U.S. Department of State.
My Brookings paper which launched today, Baked in and Wired: eDiplomacy @ State, tracks State's remarkable emergence as the leading innovator in its field. It drills into three areas where its use of ediplomacy has been particularly striking: public diplomacy, internet freedom, and knowledge management.
There's a lot of detail in the paper, but looking at the topline points in just one of these areas – public diplomacy – reveals the changes and challenges connection technologies have ushered in.
State now communicates directly with over 15 million people via Facebook and Twitter. That's about double the audience size from January, and back in January its direct audience reach was already larger than the paid subscriber base of the ten largest newspapers in the U.S. combined.
The Democracy Promotion Paradox
By Lincoln A. Mitchell
The Power of the Past
Edited by Hal Brands and Jeremi Suri
Still Ours to Lead
By Bruce D. Jones
It's easy to assume this is just a broadcast function. But State's use of social media is much broader than that. The paper identifies six different ways social media is being used by State. These include many that are obvious – like fast official messaging and consular updates – but many that are subtler. State's move into "Diplo-media" for example has seen it grow its audience rapidly. The paper defines diplo-media as:
Content that seeks to advance broad national interests.
Fergus Hanson
Head, International Cyber Policy Centre - Australian Strategic Policy Institute, University of Sydney
Twitter FergusHanson
An editorial approach that downplays associations with the State Department or U.S. government.
Content that is participatory and towards the entertainment end of the content spectrum.
Another is the makings of a resiliency capability (although it is not yet necessarily conceived of in this way). This capability has three components:
Real-time monitoring: The Bureau of Public Affairs' Rapid Response Unit has a small team monitoring social media responses to developments that have the potential to impact U.S. national interests. They produce short daily briefing reports with an anecdotal look at the online response to specific events/issues (for example, on the closure of the U.S. embassy in Syria) across the Arabic, Chinese, English and Spanish social media spheres.
Identification and cultivation of key online influencers: It is now possible to create maps of online influencers by subject area, which would allow diplomats on the ground to have a better sense of who is driving discussion on specific issues and who they should be reaching out to (in the same way diplomats currently use intuition to identify and build relations with politicians, officials and journalists they think influential).
Capability to speak (and engage) directly with a mass audience: State now has a global reach of over 15 million people on Facebook and Twitter alone and this is on a very strong growth trajectory.
Combined, these three facets amount to a nascent resiliency capability that would allow State to quickly identify social media conversations that have the potential to affect national interests, to put their own case directly to a large online audience, and to reach out and explain their perspective to key online influencers.
These changes also bring challenges. Who should control editorial lines when communicating which such massive audiences, what role is there for advertising and how does State best mitigate the negative fallout from crisis like that caused by the viral video "Innocence of Muslims" that spark mass protests across the world but cut across the core right to freedom of speech?
For more detail, read Baked in and Wired: eDiplomacy @ State »
Telecommunications & Internet


text:
Eusebio da San Giorgio, ou Eusebio di Jacopo di Cristoforo da San Giorgio, (Pérouse, v. 1470 - après  1539) est un peintre italien au début du .

Biographie

Eusebio da San Giorgio est  un peintre italien de la Renaissance. Né à Pérouse, il était un élève du Pérugin.

Eusebio da San Giorgio est documenté en 1507, comme associé de Pintoricchio pour la réalisation d'un retable pour l'église Sant'Andrea à Spello.

En 1509 il est documenté comme un membre éminent de l'« Arte dei Pittori », la Guilde des peintres de Pérouse.

En 1520, il loue un atelier à son nom propre sur la Piazza del Sopramura. Documenté pour la dernière fois en 1539, il est mort à une date inconnue.

Œuvres
 Retable (1512), église paroissiale, Matelica.
 Adoration des rois mages (1505), retable, Cappella degli Oddi, église sant'Agostino (maintenant conservée à la Galerie nationale de l'Ombrie, Pérouse.
 Annonciation (1507) fresque, Saint François recevant les stigmates, cloître de San Damiano, Assise.
 Étude de la tête de la Vierge, pierre noire, département des arts graphiques, musée du Louvre, France.
 Saint Jean-Baptiste avec sa croix dans un paysage,
 Saint Bernardin de Sienne,

Notes et références

Bibliographie
  Maria Farquhar, Biographical catalogue of the principal Italian painters, 158, éditeur Ralph Nicholson Wornum, publication, Woodfall & Kinder, Angel Court, Skinner Street, Londres, 1855, numérisé par Googlebooks, Oxford University copie du  sur Google Books.

Liens externes

 Eusebio da San Giorgio sur le site Artnet.fr

Naissance à Pérouse
Peintre italien du XVIe siècle
Peintre de l'école ombrienne
Date de naissance non renseignée (XVe siècle)
Date de décès non renseignée (XVIe siècle)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Recently, interest in performance modeling of outcome-based regulations has grown in the regulatory community. In this context, performance modeling refers to the measuring of important business aspects in a coordinated manner and the use of these measurements for improved decision making. Goal modeling techniques have shown to be beneficial when expressing and analyzing performance models. Since most regulations are still written in natural language, support for the transformation of regulatory text into performance models is needed. This allows regulators and regulated parties to keep working with familiar natural language regulations and to use goal models indirectly while avoiding a potentially significant learning curve for goal-modeling techniques. In this paper, we present such a tool-supported transformation to goal models expressed with the User Requirements Notation that enables reasoning about outcome-based regulations via widely available evaluation mechanism for goal models. The transformation is implemented in the jUCMNav goal modeling tool and illustrated with an example from the banking domain.
As demonstrated by a benchmark HIPPA case study, the Measured Compliance Profile for the Goal-oriented Requirement Language (GRL) is used to formalize legal text with GRL in order to make it amenable to compliance analysis. This formalization is based on guidelines yielding a goal model that can be analyzed for compliance with the jUCMNav tool with the help of real-world measurements captured by indicators in the goal model. For usability reasons, the legal text may also be specified in a tabular representation and subsequently transformed into a goal model by jUCMNav.
Information technology (IT) controls are reusable system requirements that IT managers, administrators and developers use to demonstrate compliance with international standards, such as ISO 27000 standard. As controls are reusable, they tend to cover best practice independently from what specific government laws may require. However, because considerable effort has already been invested by IT companies in linking controls to their existing systems, aligning controls with regulations can yield important savings by avoiding non-compliance or unnecessary redesign. We report the results of a case study to align legal requirements from the U.S. and India that govern healthcare systems with three popular control catalogues: the NIST 800-53, ISO/IEC 27002:2009 and the Cloud Security Alliance CCM v1.3. The contributions include a repeatable protocol for mapping controls, heuristics to explain the types of mappings that may arise, and guidance for addressing incomplete mappings.
As software engineers create and evolve information systems to support business practices, these engineers need to address constraints imposed by laws, regulations and policies that govern those business practices. Requirements modeling can be used to extract important legal constraints from laws, and decide how, and evaluate if an information system design complies to applicable laws. To advance research on evaluating requirements modeling formalisms for the representation of legal information, we propose several benchmarks that we believe represent important challenges in modeling laws and requirements governing information systems, and evaluating the compliance of these requirements with laws. While incomplete, the proposed set of benchmarks covers a range of challenges in modeling laws and requirements that we observed in privacy and security law: from the possibility to trace model fragments to law fragments, to the ability to distinguish modalities in law, and to model relations between requirements and law fragments, needed when evaluating compliance. Benchmarks can be used as a checklist when designing and discussing requirements formalisms that support legal requirements modeling. Each benchmark is motivated by related work, a brief legal excerpt, and our experience in modeling regulations.
Information system developers must ensure that their systems comply with government laws and regulations. To demonstrate compliance, developers can trace from statements in law to their system specifications while preserving how they identify and interpret ambiguity. In this paper, we present an application of the legal requirements specification language (LRSL) as a means to encode laws into a machine-readable specification. The encoding reduces ambiguity by making relations between requirements statements explicit. These relations include refinement, pre- and post-conditions, and exceptions that shape the environment in which the developer's system must operate and limiting the behavior of the system to a set of mandatory and discretionary actions. We illustrate the LRSL using a legal excerpt from Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule, §164.512(f) governing disclosures of protected health information to law enforcement in the United States.
In this paper we describe the architecture and application of GaiusT, a multi-phase framework for extracting requirements from legal documents. GaiusT aims to cover the extraction process from the very first steps, pre-processing the input texts and supporting structural and semantic annotation of legal documents. The annotated information is recorded in a database facilitating both retrieval and evaluation of the results. Existing linguistic tools and resources have been applied whenever possible. A post-analysis of the ongoing implementation of the modules in the GaiusT architecture is given as a preliminary understanding of how much existing tools can be adopted and how much they had to be adapted.
CoReL is a visual business policy modelling language which was proposed in recent research by the author. In this paper, we make an initial attempt at studying the modeling support that CoReL provides to real-world regulations, in particular, the HIPAA Act.
Nòmos is a framework for modelling law-compliant solutions in software system design. It provides a core set of concepts to enable exploring and selecting alternatives in a variability space defined by laws, a graphical notation to visualize models, and tool support for compliance analysis. This short paper illustrates the features above and sketches some of the research challenges ahead.
In the service industry, such as healthcare, catering, tourism, and others, there exist regulations that require organisations to provide service outcomes that comply with the regulations. More and more regulations in the service sector are, or are aimed to be, outcome-focused regulations. An outcome prescribed in the regulation is what users should experience or achieve when the regulated business processes are compliant. Service providers need to proactively ensure that the outcomes specified in the regulations have been achieved prior to conducting the relevant part of the business or prior to inspectors discovering noncompliance. Published approaches check requirements or business processes, not outcomes, against regulations and thus this still leaves uncertain as to whether what the users actually experience is what is prescribed in the regulations. In this research preview paper, we propose a method for assessing the compliance of process outcomes. Actual outcomes from business processes are checked against prescribed outcomes from the regulations. The method is illustrated by an example from the U.K.'s CQC regulations in the care-home environment. The key contribution of this paper is a preliminary approach for proactively checking the compliance of process outcomes.


text:
Selene Stakes at Woodbine Racetrack
Dave Bond, OTB Writer
Las Vegas, NV -- Woodbine Racetrack's Polytrack surface will be the stage for the Grade 3 Selene Stakes that comes our way this Sunday, May 13th. Four year old fillies will go 1 1/16 miles in search of their share of the $250,000 purse. A major prep for the Woodbine Oaks on June 3rd, the Selene is race 6 on Sunday's schedule with a post time of 3:45 PM EDT.
Here is a look at the six entries for the race and the past performances that brought this group of fillies into this Grade 3 event.
Selene Stakes Race Favorites
Tu Endie Wei - brings a record of four wins in five career starts into the Selene. In her only start this year, Tu Endie Wei won the six furlong Star Shoot Stakes at Woodbine on April 14th in impressive fashion by 5 ½ lengths. This followed up an equally impressive score in the seven furlong Glorious Song Stakes by five lengths in November. Her only graded stakes action resulted in a seventh place finish as 2-1 favorite in the Grade 1 Darley Alcibiades Stakes at Keeneland in October. That said, Tu Endie Wei comes into the race in very good form and has won all four of her starts on this track.
Dixie Strike - is the only Ontario-bred filly in the field and will be looking to build on an impressive win in the Florida Oaks February 4th at Tampa Bay Downs. Since then, Dixie Strike has struggled - a third in the Grade 3 Herecomesthebride Stakes at Gulfstream on March 11th was followed up by a disappointing fifth in the Grade 1 Ashland Stakes at Keeneland on April 7th. Dixie Strike, like Tu Endie Wei, has had success at Woodbine - two wins and two second place finishes with a win in her most recent start on this track back in December.
Remaining Field Entries
Wait Til Dawn - Todd Pletcher trained Wait Til Dawn has raced four times already in 2012 with a win and a second in a pair of Maiden Special Weight races at Gulfstream, a win in the Stonewall Farm Ocala Suncoast Stakes March 10th at Tampa Bay Downs and a fourth most recently in the Grade 2 Fantasy Stakes at Oaklawn on April 11th.
Katie Get Excited - comes into the Selene riding a two race win streak - an Allowance score on March 20th and a win in a Maiden Special Weight race in August on this track. This will be her stakes debut after a 2-1-0 record in lesser races in her career.
Selene Stakes betting at Woodbine Racetrack with OffTrackBetting.com
Indyniable - is certainly a long shot in this race having recorded a seventh last time out in an Allowance Optional Claiming race at Gulfstream on April 1st and before that placing 10th in the Grade 2 Demoiselle Stakes at Aqueduct in November.
Hilda's Legacy - has place just once in three career races - a third last time out in a Maiden Special Weight race on this track on April 28th.
Selene Stakes Entries
Race 6 on Woodbine Racetrack's Sunday card with a Post Time of 3:45 PM.
1 Wait Til Dawn L. Contreras T. Pletcher 9-5
2 Tu Endie Wei J. McAleney R. Baker 7-5
3 Dixie Strike P. Husbands M. Casse 3-1
4 Katie Get Excited J. Stein R. Griffith 6-1
5 Indyniable T. Pizarro C. Clement 15-1
6 Hilda's Legacy C. Fraser J. Coryat 20-1
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text:
Fairview Park és una població dels Estats Units a l'estat d'Indiana. Segons el cens del 2000 tenia una població de 1.496 habitants.

Demografia
Segons el cens del 2000, Fairview Park tenia 1.496 habitants, 634 habitatges, i 436 famílies. La densitat de població era de 634,7 habitants/km².

Dels 634 habitatges en un 29,8% hi vivien nens de menys de 18 anys, en un 56,9% hi vivien parelles casades, en un 9,3% dones solteres, i en un 31,1% no eren unitats familiars. En el 26,7% dels habitatges hi vivien persones soles el 9,5% de les quals corresponia a persones de 65 anys o més que vivien soles. El nombre mitjà de persones vivint en cada habitatge era de 2,36 i el nombre mitjà de persones que vivien en cada família era de 2,86.

Per edats la població es repartia de la següent manera: un 22,4% tenia menys de 18 anys, un 8,6% entre 18 i 24, un 27,4% entre 25 i 44, un 28,1% de 45 a 60 i un 13,5% 65 anys o més.

L'edat mediana era de 40 anys. Per cada 100 dones de 18 o més anys hi havia 94,1 homes.

La renda mediana per habitatge era de 36.078$ i la renda mediana per família de 43.542$. Els homes tenien una renda mediana de 39.000$ mentre que les dones 21.667$. La renda per capita de la població era de 21.459$. Entorn del 8,2% de les famílies i el 10,1% de la població estaven per davall del llindar de pobresa.

Poblacions més properes
El següent diagrama mostra les poblacions més properes.

Referències

Entitats de població d'Indiana


Mayor of Tbilisi Davit Narmania discussed the new Eco Green City project with investors on an official visit to Bratislava, Slovakia. Narmania met members of the Slovakian business community, representatives from international architecture organisations and the banking and financial sectors.
Davit Saganelidze, Head of Georgia's state-owned shareholding company the Partnership Fund also participated in the meetings.
"We met with potential design organizations and financial institutions to be actively involved in implementation of the project as supported by the Mayor of Bratislava and the Chief Architect of the city," said Saganelidze.
The meeting in Bratislava focused on the future content of the project, its prospects and the role of the Georgian side in the implementation process of Slovakian investments.
Alexander Nalbandov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Georgia in Slovakia, said that the project will contribute to the development of the city, and that the strengthening of economic ties between Georgia and Slovakia will further deepen relations between the two countries.
The Eco Green City is a 200-250 hectare territory located in the area surrounding Tbilisi Sea. The project will include medical centers, schools, trade districts, an ecologically friendly housing area and more.
90% of the energy used by all facilities in the Eco Green City will be generated from solar, wind, hydro power and bio gas.
About USD 100 million will be invested in the first stage of development of a total one billion USD allocated for the project.


Money relation is the relation between the demand for money (cash holdings in the broader sense) and the quantity of money (in the broader sense). Every change in either the demand for money or the quantity of money alters this relation and sets in motion forces which step by step change individual prices and the complex of production, while making some individuals richer and some poorer. Each such change also affects market interest rates. When the force has spent itself and is not able to affect any further changes, the final result of every change in the money relation is an altered interrelationship of individual prices (price structure).
This page was last edited on 24 July 2014, at 17:35.


text:
'use strict';

const common = require('../common');
const assert = require('assert');

if (!common.hasCrypto) {
  common.skip('missing crypto');
  return;
}

// Ensure accessing ._external doesn't hit an assert in the accessor method.
const tls = require('tls');
{
  const pctx = tls.createSecureContext().context;
  const cctx = Object.create(pctx);
  assert.throws(() => cctx._external, /incompatible receiver/);
  pctx._external;
}
{
  const pctx = tls.createSecurePair().credentials.context;
  const cctx = Object.create(pctx);
  assert.throws(() => cctx._external, /incompatible receiver/);
  pctx._external;
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
From quarter horse to iron horse
December 1, 2020/CPC/Comments Off on From quarter horse to iron horse
By Brett Wiebold; courtesy photos
In the age of Teslas and Zoom meetings, it's difficult to picture a world moving at a snail's pace. Bandwidth limitations are infuriating by modern standards, and who doesn't feel a pang of annoyance when it takes more than a few seconds to download an email? Not so long ago, things were different. Many remember the days when sending a message entailed putting pen to paper. Few likely recall a time when it also meant mounting up and personally riding on horseback to deliver it.
And lo, before the unbelieving eyes of the masses, along came a machine that could manage twice that speed with ease – simultaneously bringing with it hundreds of tons of freight, mail and people. Steam locomotives were the game changer, and Colorado's connection with trains has spanned nearly one and a half centuries.
On May 10, 1869, two railroad companies linked up their tracks in Utah to complete the first Transcontinental Railroad. This was more than progress in transportation, it was a quantum leap in connectivity. People who had moved west from their families, expecting never to hear from them again, could now relay messages to their beloved back east in days. Furniture and household goods no longer needed to be made in the town of their sale, allowing brands like Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Levi Strauss & Co. to take the nation by storm.
In July 1871, the first rails of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad were spiked down in Denver, and by October of that same year, the tracks reached as far south as what is now Colorado Springs. Along this new route, railroads built water towers at specific distance intervals to satiate the endless thirst of the steam-hungry locomotive fleet. These water towers hosted track gangs tasked with maintaining the new railroad. Families followed, and over time, more people flocked to the little trackside communities. The cities of Littleton, Sedalia, Castle Rock, Larkspur, Palmer Lake and Colorado Springs were the result of these trackside communities, with others like Parker and Elizabeth springing up just a decade later.
Inbound freight carried ranching supplies from Denver, and northbound shipments contained cheese from county dairy farms, wood stocks from pineries, and rhyolite to construct buildings from San Francisco to Kansas City. Regular service energized these communities.
By 1875, the iron horse had replaced the quarter horse. Sedalia and Castle Rock were clearly railroad towns, the latter having built its own railway depot on Third Street from Rhyolite. It was later relocated, and today it is home of the Castle Rock Museum, located at 420 Elbert Street.
Railroads moved things – mail, men, and marvels of world – far beyond the horizon. In time, trains got bigger, stronger and faster, much like the societies they built in parallel. Steam locomotives were gradually superseded by diesel and electric locomotives, with many converting to diesel and electric power in the late 1930s.
Douglas County and its communities look the way they do today because of the railroad; their histories are deeply intertwined. Trains were the prime movers behind building a budding nation, and one of the first ways that people around these parts were able to get their hands on a little good news.
← Passenger rail service
BRE fourth grade students dive into history →
Colorado history, railroad


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text:
USPS looks to Congress for survival
Al Urbanski
Direct marketers can count on a small rate increase on direct mail in the coming year, but it's Congress that Postmaster General Patrick Donohoe put to the test today in announcing a record $15.9 billion net loss for the United States Postal Service during its fiscal year ended September 30.
Two payments totaling $11.1 billion that USPS was required to make to prefund retirees' health benefits fueled the deficit, which compared to a loss of $5.1 billion last year. The legislation proposed by Donohoe and others would remove the obligation from USPS and allow it to sponsor its own healthcare program for its employees and retirees. It would also clear the way for the agency to determine its own delivery frequency and offer non-postal products and services.
"We need a resolution and a refunding of our overfunding of the federal employee retirement system. There would be an $8 billion change in our results if we [could move to] five days of delivery and healthcare removal," Donohoe said. "We need to act in the lame duck session and get this passed and we will get back in good financial shape."
Positives reported by USPS Chief Financial Officer Joseph Corbett included an 8.7% increase in package shipping business and some $500 million in election-related revenue. Revenue from direct mail revenue and First Class mail each declined by 4%.
Donohoe said that direct marketers could expect a rate increase in 2013 in line with inflation, which was 2.2% at the time of this writing. He also encouraged direct marketers to combine mail with their digital appeals. "The key thing for [direct marketers] is to focus on growth in using direct mail along with other digital options and innovate," he said. "We've seen some really good examples and everybody in the industry needs to think about moving in that direction."
USPS currently has in-market a Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotion offering online merchants 2% postage discounts on Standard and First Class mailings if they include mobile barcodes, such as QR codes. Last May, the organization named Paul Vogel to the newly created position of president of digital solutions to explore new programs to combine mail with digital communications.
Donohoe noted that the agency would attempt to retain its market share of direct mail and that it expects growth in priority mail and shipping. Packages, he added, would continue to be delivered six or seven days a week should legislation be passed allowed a reduction of mail delivery to five days a week.
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