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Breaking Up the Banks Is Easier Than You Might Think
If Trump really wanted to go after the banks, there's a simple way he could do it.
By Nomi Prins
A Wall Street sign outside the New York Stock Exchange. (Reuters / Carlo Allegri)
Donald, listen, whatever you've done so far, whatever you've messed up, there's one thing you could do that would make up for a lot. It would be huge! Terrific! It could change our world for the better in a big-league way! It could save us all from economic disaster! And it isn't even hard to grasp or complicated to do. It's simple, in fact. Reinstitute the Glass-Steagall Act. Let me explain.
In the world of romance, if you break up with someone, it's pretty simple (emotional complications aside). You're just not together anymore. In the world of financial regulation, it used to be as simple as that too. It was like installing a traffic light at a dangerous intersection to avoid deaths. In 1933, when the Glass-Steagall Act was passed, it helped break up the biggest banks of the day and for good reason: They had had a major hand in triggering the most disastrous economic depression our country ever experienced.
Certain divisions of those banks were no longer allowed to coexist with others. The law split the parts of banks that placed bets by creating and trading certain risky securities and those that took deposits and provided loans. In other words, it ensured that the investment bank and the commercial bank would no longer cohabit. Put another way, it separated bankers with a heinous gambling habit from those who only wanted a secure nest egg. It was simplicity itself.
After 1933, the gamblers and savers went their separate ways, which proved a boon for the economy and the financial system for nearly seven decades. Then legislators, lobbyists, bankers, and regulators started to chisel away at the wall separating those two kinds of banks. By November 1999, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that repealed the Glass-Steagall Act totally. The abusive marriages of gamblers and savers could once again be consummated.
And who doesn't remember the result: the financial crisis of 2007–08 that led to taxpayer-funded bailouts, subsidies, loans, and sweetheart fraud-settlement deals. Just as the crash of 1929 had been catalyzed by the manufacturing of shady "trusts" stuffed with shady securities, this crisis was enabled by the big banks that engineered complex assets stuffed with subprime mortgages and other loans that were sold around the world.
Under President Obama, the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act was signed into law. The act sought to limit the ability of big banks to trade the riskiest types of securities. Through inclusion of something called the "Volcker Rule," Dodd-Frank prohibited the trading of securities (even if with many loopholes). What it didn't do was actually break up the big banks again. That meant another 1933 still awaited its moment.
Then along came the bizarre 2016 presidential election campaign during which, strangely enough, Democrats and Republicans found one issue on which they had some common ground: the banking system. Key figures in both parties agreed that it was time to stop the investment bank and the commercial bank from commingling. Bernie Sanders ran on a campaign to break up the banks—and so did Donald Trump. At at an October campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, Trump even stated, "It's time for a 21st-century Glass-Steagall."
The Democratic National Committee platform offered a similar message. "Banks," it said, "should not be able to gamble with taxpayers' deposits or pose an undue risk to Main Street. Democrats support a variety of ways to stop this from happening, including an updated and modernized version of Glass-Steagall as well as breaking up too-big-to-fail financial institutions that pose a systemic risk to the stability of our economy."
The Republican National Committee wasted even fewer words making the point in their platform: "We support reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 which prohibits commercial banks from engaging in high-risk investment." And it didn't even suggest that the act should be "modernized" or mention a "21st-century" version that didn't do what the 20th-century one had done.
For the first time since its repeal, in other words, a return to the Glass-Steagall Act had bipartisan support. It couldn't have been simpler, right? Two parties, one idea: split banks into two pieces. But then, as if you hadn't already guessed, it got complicated.
Breaking Up, Republican Style
In the new administration, two key figures are now offering quite different and conflicting views of what a resurrection of the Glass-Steagall Act might mean. At his Senate confirmation hearings, Steven Mnuchin, former Goldman Sachs partner and Trump's nominee to be secretary of the Treasury, faced Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) as she bluntly asked "Do you support returning to Glass-Steagall?"
He replied, "I don't support going back to Glass-Steagall as is. What we've talked about with the president-elect is perhaps we need a 21st-century Glass-Steagall. But, no, I don't support… taking a very old law and say we should adhere to it as is."
Cantwell then pressed him further: "And so, is that the position of what the Republican platform was? Because I thought it was Glass-Steagall?"
To this, Mnuchin responded, "Again, the Republican platform did pass at the convention Glass-Steagall and…[when] we talked about policy with the president-elect, our view is we need a 21st-century Glass-Steagall."
The skepticism in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. Here, after all, was a man who had made windfall profits on the fallout from the 2007–08 "too big to fail" financial crisis by organizing a cadre of hedge fund billionaires to buy the collapsed IndyMac Bank at a discount. He then proceeded to foreclose on some of its mortgages and resell it for a $2.5 billion profit. Why should such a man want to restrict banking activity, Glass-Steagall-style, when his loan practices had allowed him to make a fortune off the taxpayer bailouts that were the result of not doing so? What would the point be when a crisis, as history had just shown, forced the federal government to subsidize risk and failure?
The only problem he faced: The Republican platform said he should.
Last month, testifying before the Senate Banking Committee and under questioning from Senator Elizabeth Warren, he backtracked even further: "The president said we do support a '21st-century Glass-Steagall,' that means there are aspects of it that we think may make sense. But we never said before we support a full separation of banks and investment banking."
Warren responded incredulously, "Tell me what '21st-century Glass-Steagall' means if it doesn't mean breaking up those two parts. It's an easy question."
Mnuchin replied, "It's actually a complicated question.… We never said we were in favor of Glass-Steagall. We said we were in favor of a 21st-century Glass-Steagall. It couldn't be clearer." Which, of course, couldn't have been murkier.
And then there's that other former Goldman Sachs man, Gary Cohn, Trump's director of the National Economic Council. He had quite a different Glass-Steagall tale to tell Senator Warren. According to Bloomberg News, he insisted that he "generally favors banking going back to how it was when firms like Goldman focused on trading and underwriting securities, and companies such as Citigroup Inc. primarily issued loans." That sounds a lot like breaking up the banks.
This division and the as-yet unresolved nature of the Trump administration response to the Glass-Steagall question could, in the face of another financial crisis, come back to haunt us all, if it translates into more bailouts and systemic failures.
The Democrats' Dilemma
As with the proverbial difficulty of chewing gum and walking at the same time, certain Democrats seem to find the very idea of supporting both Dodd-Frank and a new Glass-Steagall Act perplexing. Many of them have promoted the idea that no big bank actually failed in the Great Recession moment (which was true only because those banks got huge infusions of federal aid to remain solvent). As a result, they avoided all responsibility for the way the repeal of Glass-Steagall allowed too-big-to-fail banks to come into existence in the first place.
In the process, they also conveniently ignored the way the big banks lent money to, or funded, the investment banks that did fail like both of my former employers, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. Without those loans or that funding, those outfits couldn't have purchased the overload of toxic assets that, in the end, imploded the whole system.
President Obama summed up this position when he told Rolling Stone in 2012, "I've looked at some of Rolling Stone's articles that say, 'This didn't go far enough, we didn't institute Glass-Steagall' and so forth, and I pushed my economic team very hard on some of those questions. But there is not evidence that having Glass-Steagall in place would somehow change the dynamic. Lehman Brothers wasn't a commercial bank; it was an investment bank. AIG wasn't an FDIC-insured bank; it was an insurance institution. So the problem in today's financial sector can't be solved simply by re-imposing models that were created in the 1930s." He needed a more astute team.
Hillary Clinton took a similar tack in her campaign and it may have contributed to her devastating election loss. The continued promotion of such fallacies does not bode well for the future of the party if it continues to adopt that view. A return to a safer system on the other hand, would be more populist—and far more popular.
Glass-Steagall's Bipartisan Past
Fortunately, current legislation is circulating in Congress that would promote the long-term stability of the financial system by restoring Glass-Steagall for real. HR 790 ("Return to the Prudent Banking Act of 2017") is one of two reinstatement bills in the House of Representatives. It has 50 co-sponsors from both parties and its passage is being spearheaded by Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) and Walter Jones (R-North Carolina). The second bill, HR 2585, sponsored by Mike Capuano (D-Massachusetts), bears a close relationship to Senate bill S 881 (the "21st-Century Glass-Steagall Act of 2017"), sponsored by Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and nine cosponsors including John McCain (R-Arizona), Maria Cantwell, and Angus King (I-Maine). Either of the bills, if enacted, would do the same thing: break up the banks.
Even before Roosevelt began his first term, congressional Republicans had initiated an investigation into bankers' practices. In early 1933, as Roosevelt was preparing to take office with an incoming Democratic Senate, outgoing Senate Banking and Currency Committee chairman Peter Norbeck, a Republican from South Dakota, hired former New York Deputy District Attorney Ferdinand Pecora to lead the Senate Banking Committee in a new investigation.
Later known as the Pecora hearings, they would shed light on the kinds of financial manipulations by unscrupulous bankers that had led to the crash of 1929. They would also provide the new president with the necessary populist political capital to enact America's most sweeping financial reforms. No less crucial was the way banking leaders aligned themselves with Roosevelt's new program. Duty to country over balance sheets seemed then to be the order of the day, even on Wall Street. (It's not an attitude that lasted into the 21st century.)
Two days after his inauguration, for instance, Roosevelt invited incoming National City Bank Chairman James Perkins to the White House for a secret meeting. The next day, under Perkins' direction, his bank board passed a resolution splitting apart its trading and deposit-taking divisions. Chase National Bank chairman Winthrop Aldrich, a major financial power player, lent a hand as well. Both Perkins and he would back the new Glass-Steagall bill. (Lest you think that all was sweetness and light, they were also convinced that it would diminish the strength of their main competitor, the Morgan Bank.)
Three days after Roosevelt called Perkins to the White House, Aldrich's views on breaking up the banks hit the front page of the New York Times when he announced that Chase National Bank and Chase Securities Corporation would become separate entities, effectively enforcing the bill before it even became law. It wasn't simple—the Chase Securities Corporation was the biggest of its kind in the world—but it happened.
Aldrich then took part in a series of private meetings with the president at the White House about the pending legislation. Without the support of Aldrich and Perkins, it's possible that the bill wouldn't have passed. After all, a far weaker version proposed during the previous administration of Herbert Hoover hadn't.
The Glass-Steagall Act also created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to insure citizens' bank deposits. This left commercial banks with a choice to make. If they took deposits and made loans, they could not speculate with depositors' money. If they wanted to create and speculate, they were on their own. There's much to be said for protecting hardworking Americans in this fashion.
How the Walls Came Tumbling Down
In the 1980s, the walls between investment and commercial banking first began to crumble. The deregulation of the financial sector that followed would prove to be as bipartisan as the passage of Glass-Steagall had been. In 1982, as the Republican presidency of Ronald Reagan began, Congress passed the Garn-St. Germain Act, deregulating the kinds of investments that savings and loan banks could make to include riskier real estate loans. This had the effect of exacerbating the savings and loan debacle, which hit its pinnacle in the late 1980s. By 1989, more than 1,000 S&L banks in the United States would crash and burn. In total, the crisis wound up costing about $160 billion, $132 billion of which was footed by taxpayers. And the suppliers of risky S&L securities tended to be the big banks.
In 1987, still in the age of Reagan, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, a past board member of JPMorgan, said that non-bank subsidiaries of bank holding companies could sell or hold "bank ineligible securities"—that is, securities prohibited by Glass-Steagall, including mortgage securities, asset-backed securities, junk bonds, and other derivative products. The move exacerbated the S&L crisis, but it also offered an avenue for commercial banks to stock up on some of the securities at the heart of that crisis.
And so commercial banks began investing in hedge funds, whose very purpose in life is to gamble on securities, stocks, and commodities. In 1998, in an early warning of what the future might hold, one of them, Long Term Capital Management, crashed and nearly brought down the whole financial system with it. 55 commercial banks had invested in it using depositors' money to back their bets. Only an emergency meeting of the presidents of the major banks at the Federal Reserve averted a larger economic meltdown, but because Glass-Steagall was still in place, they had to figure out how to save themselves. No government bailouts were forthcoming.
Having narrowly avoided disaster, Wall Street only plunged deeper into financial deregulation. In 1999, Glass-Steagall itself was repealed. On December 21, 2000, Congress passed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act deregulating derivatives trading. The big commercial banks then merged with investment banks, insurance companies, and brokerage firms. By 2007, the assets of those big banks had tripled. The four largest—Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo—by then controlled (and still control) more than half the assets of the banking system.
In the fall of 2007, that system finally started buckling because of the problems of Citigroup, not because of the investment banks, which would not have been covered by Glass-Steagall. The catastrophe that hit Citigroup makes it clear just how crucial the repeal of that act was to the financial meltdown to come. Citigroup would "require" a taxpayer-financed bailout of $45 billion, $340 billion in asset guarantees, and $2 trillion in near-0% Federal Reserve loans between the fall of 2007 and 2010. That in itself was staggering and Citigroup wasn't alone. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would later testify that, by 2008, 11 out of the 12 biggest commercial banks were "insolvent" and had to be bailed out. The entire banking system was rotten to the core and the massive buildup of bad paper, high leverage, and speculative bets (derivatives) that made disaster inevitable can be traced directly back to the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
Today, a fresh bubble is inflating. This time, it's not US subprime mortgages at the heart of a budding banking crisis, but $51 trillion in corporate debt in the form of bonds, loans, and related derivatives. The credit ratings agency S&P Global Ratings has predicted that such debt could rise to $75 trillion by 2020 and the defaults on it are starting to increase in pace. Banks have profited by the short-term creation and trading of this corporate debt, propagating even greater risk. Should that bubble burst, it could make the subprime mortgage bubble of 2007 look like a relatively small-scale event.
What Will the President Do?
On the positive side, there's a growing bipartisan alliance in Congress and outside it on restoring Glass-Steagall. This increasingly wide-ranging consensus reaches from the AFL-CIO to the libertarian Mises Institute, in the Senate from John McCain to Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Maria Cantwell, and in the House of Representatives from Republicans Walter Jones and Mike Coffman to Democrats Marcy Kaptur and Tulsi Gabbard. In fact, just this week, Kaptur and Jones announced an amendment to the pending Financial Choice Act in the House of Representives, that would represent the first genuine attempt to bring to a vote the possibility of resurrecting the Glass-Steagall Act since its repeal.
So, Donald, here's the question: Where do you—the man who, in the course of a few weeks, embraced Middle Eastern autocrats, turned relations with key NATO allies upside down, and to the astonishment of much of the world, withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement—stand? In just a few months in office, you've turned the White House into an outpost for your family business, but when it comes to the financial wellbeing of the rest of us, what will you do? Will you, in fact, protect us from another future meltdown of the financial system? It wouldn't be that hard and you were clear enough on this issue in your election campaign, but does that even matter to you today? I noticed that recently, in an Oval Office interview with Bloomberg News, when asked about breaking up the banks, you said, "I'm looking at that right now. There's some people that want to go back to the old system, right? So we're going to look at that."
Your party and your own appointees are split on the subject. Where will you fall? You could still commit yourself to securing the financial wellbeing of our nation for generations to come. You could commit yourself to Glass-Steagall. The question is: Will you?
Nomi PrinsNomi Prins is the author of Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World (Nation Books). She is also the author of All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power.


China has extended its surveillance and monitoring operations to include the deployment of a new early warning system- and radar-equipped aircraft.
North Korea has called on UN member states to re-evaluate the legal grounds on sanctions introduced against Pyongyang.
Chinese car maker Great Wall Motors has announced that it is considering a major manufacturing plant in Mexico. It comes as several US car companies have faced significant pressure from US President Donald Trump to invest domestically, rather than abroad, including Ford, which recently abandoned a multibillion dollar plant in Mexico.
India's home-made light combat aircraft (LCA) Tejas has successfully fired the beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM) Derby in radar-guided mode on Friday at Chandipur-on-sea. The aircraft took off from Kalaikunda base in the eastern state of West Bengal.
Indian actor Aamir Khan, who starred in a movie called Dangal, has reportedly raked in nearly $30 million in its first-week box office collections in China and becoming the highest grossing Indian film in the country. Dangal, based on the real life of two wrestler sisters, was released in China on May 4.
The Chinese government has said that it had no idea about the Australian Defense Minister's emphatic comments that China was carrying out espionage on Australian soil.
The US could yet return to the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP] trade agreement, which was actually a "very good deal for the US," trade policy expert Charles Finny told Radio Sputnik.
Newly elected South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who was sworn in on Wednesday, has made his first speech as president. He vowed to tackle a number of issues, including the easing of tensions between the US and China over the US' missile defense system. However, Professor Kim Jeong told Sputnik why this issue is unlikely to be resolved soon.
India's Ministry of Defense has formally awarded a $676 million contract to Larsen & Toubro, India's multinational engineering conglomerate, for the supply of 100 units of 155mm/ 52 caliber tracked self-propelled gun systems to the Indian Army.
The US and South Korean intelligence agencies handed over about 300,000 dollars to 'Kim', a North Korean citizen, to stage an alleged plot to assassinate North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, the country's Ambassador to Russia said.
The Syrian ambassador to China has said that upward of 5,000 ethnic Uighurs from China's far-west Xinjiang province are fighting in and amongst jihadist groups in Syria.
In a bizarre incident, a woman hailing from the Indian state of Bihar was found living with her lover in Jabalpur in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh while her husband is in prison for killing her.
A roadside explosion in the Mastung district of Pakistan's Balochistan province killed at least 20 and injured over 30 more people, including Deputy Senate Chairman Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri.
Daniel Coats, the Director of US National Intelligence, warned that ties between India and Pakistan may deteriorate further if India is hit by a "high profile" terror attack that can be traced via cross-border links to Pakistan.
North Korea's intelligence services have named key suspects in the case of the alleged preparation of a coup and attack on the country' leader Kim Jong Un, including head of the South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) Lee Byung-ho, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Friday.
According to the president's press secretary, South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday accepted the resignation of the country's Prosecutor-General Kim Soo-nam.
A terror group which allegedly was setting up an assassination attempt on Kim Jong-un, Chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea, has been exposed in North Korea, North Korean Ambassador to Russia Kim Hyun Joong said on Friday.
China-constructed infrastructures have been expanding at an unprecedented speed in recent years and their quality and efficiency have earned worldwide respect.
Heavy fighting erupted in the northern Afghan province of Baghlan, as the Taliban terror group attacked security forces' posts.


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Carolina cancer
Before we get to the subject at hand, let's deal with several matters.
First, a confession. Though an Independent, I really now lean to the left a bit. But, compared to how far in the briar patch the national Republican Party is currently, I'm still a bit right of center. I started out as a Republican. So I know the spoor. They moved. I didn't.
Second issue: for the purposes of this opining piece, I want us all to move to the middle. Shed your political leanings. Forget your party registration. Swallow hard and step out here in the barren middle with the rest of us – completely unclothed, politically speaking.
Now, focus on one of the four tenets of Rotary International: "Is It Fair?" Or, if you prefer, biblically speaking, think along the lines of "Do Unto Others." Alrighty, now. Let's get to work.
The subject at hand is either Cuba – or North Carolina. Unless you look really close these days, it's awfully hard to tell them apart. Keep in mind, a Democrat won the governorship. Voters turned the GOP lifetime Dow Chemical employee out. Not decisively. But out. The GOP kept the legislature. Decisively. But not the governorship.
What that headed-out-the-door governor and the lame duck legislature have been doing in the last eight weeks passes neither the Rotary example nor the biblical admonition. Not by a long shot.
The Electoral Integrity Project (EIP) is a non-partisan outfit that grades democracies worldwide on a 100 point scale. That scale is based on many factors but, among them, are voter access to polling places, influence of state-controlled media and the potential that an election was rigged. EIP rates all kinds of places and elections.
For 2016, North Carolina received a score of 58/100. So did Cuba, Sierra Leone and Indonesia. Got that picture in mind? And that was just the election – not these last eight weeks.
UNC-Chapel Hill political scientist Dr. Andrew Reynolds wrote an op-ed for the Raleigh News & Observer in which he said "If it were a nation state, North Carolina would rank right in the middle of the global league table – a deeply flawed, partly free democracy only slightly ahead of the failed democracies that constitute much of the developing world." Wow! In America? Yes, Virginia, in America.
Gov. McRory and those legislative sore winners have about gutted the duties of the incoming governor. Oh, he still gets a staff car, a new credit card and keys to the executive bathroom. But that's about it. He won't be able to appoint his own state cabinet officials without approval of that Republican-dominated Senate – which ain't likely to occur. The number of state appointive positions to be filled by the governor has been cut by about 80%. So the holdovers he's forced to accept will be what? Republican appointees, that's what.
The number of members of the State Board of Elections has been increased from five to eight. But – the GOP legislature gets to appoint four so that'll assure a tie vote and effectively deadlock things. There are some other new "handcuff" laws but you get the idea.
One other note. The NC Legislature had rigged voting districts so badly – to shut out Democrats – that a federal court struck down the map as "unconstitutional" as of Nov. 9th and ordered new lines and a special 2017 election. EIP found North Carolina has the "least democratic redistricting in the world." Yes, the world!
EIP also noted the USofA is the only nation that allows politicians who run by district to design the districts they run in. Only one!
I'd guess, about this point, all who were able to shed your partisan feelings to stand out here politically naked with the rest of us can see why you were asked to do that. Whatever your leanings – whatever your political sensibilities – what's happened in North Carolina is just plain wrong. And totally unfair. Winning is one thing. Breaking the rules – and the law – is a whole new ball game.
The issue of political redistricting has been considered an "inside-the-park" issue for too many years. It's often done only by political insiders who, too often, set lines to assure their own or their party's survival. Very little public input is allowed and most of the public hasn't cared. But, if war is too important to be left to the generals, creating political districts is too important to be left to the politicians.
The only way out of this morally reprehensible practice is to allow the courts to create independent redistricting panels. Take the crayons out of the hands of self-serving partisans and put them in the hands of "civilians" so to speak. North Carolina has gotten so far in the swamp a federal judge has trashed all state redistricting and not only ordered a new plan but also a whole new state election.
I remember a longtime Idaho pol once telling me "When we're out, they do it to us and, when we're in, we do it to them." That really does happen everywhere to some extent. But North Carolina – and a couple of its neighbors – have gone far beyond just "tit-for-tat." Voters are being rejected, disqualified and ignored. Voting district gaming has broken federal and state laws. The voter's choice for governor has been handcuffed so he can't deliver what the voters said they were buying.
Anyone who thinks Florida, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee and a few others aren't standing in that North Carolina shadow haven't been paying attention.
The issue of fair and proper redistricting is more important now than ever. With a dead-in-the-water Congress, the Koch boys and other zillionaires are going directly to the states for the political candy they want. They're changing our laws, endangering our welfare and trying to design the kind of nation they want one state at a time.
North Carolina has become a political cancer. It's time for some major surgery.
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Life's losses
I've lost some longtime friends recently. One of them I've known and cared about for more 40 years. It hurt. That's their choice. To my mind, we're each poorer for loss of future contact. But it is what it is.
A recent column dealing primarily with my belief the Electoral College has outlived its usefulness and should be abolished in favor of a direct vote system apparently set several off. Seemed fairly straightforward journalism – here's a problem and a suggested solution. Don't agree? Come up with your own.
But in several emails, I've been accused of being a "divider." The word "crap" was used a lot of times. Two I've lost told me they ignored previous columns ("crap") and they wanted no more "crap." There were other cutting accusations about liberals and such.
Their epistles arrived a day after Barb and I had been to church. The pastor's sermon included remarks about inclusiveness, patience and trying to work together. Healing, as it were.
I've heard and read a lot about those words in the days following our recent national election. They've come from good, well-meaning, intelligent people and competent scribes. All good advice. If ever our nation needed to live by those admonitions, it's certainly now.
Problem is, those words are being used primarily by people who voted against the winner. Liberals and moderates, mostly. Democrats and Republicans. But read Twitter or Facebook or other "social" media. You'll discover kind words – the gentle words – the inclusive words – are coming mostly from folks who lost. It's the ones who backed the winner more often using racial epithets, telling people to "go back where you came from," "get the Hell out of 'our' country," badgering/maligning blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Muslims and other "non-white" folks. Loudly and repeatedly using the "N" word.
Reports of racial threats and physical attacks are coming from kindergartens to grad schools. And in the streets. Confederate flags are all over the I-net, on vehicles and on "social" media. Hate radio is spewing more than just the usual lies and verbal venom. The President-elect himself has already threatened the national media, promised to arrest or deport more than 3-million immigrants, talking of forcing Muslims to register, to stack the Supreme Court, overturn various laws he doesn't like and abridge or unilaterally end compacts and international agreements. And that's all in less than a month.
He's made appointments to his incoming administration that include acknowledged racists, anti-Semites, lobbyists he promised supporters he'd "run out of Washington" and the just plain ignorant and unqualified. He's pledged to "put Planned Parenthood out of business" and made threats against many individuals. His representatives have warned members of Congress they may face legal action for critical public statements and hinted broadly at reprisals against anyone opposing actions of the new administration.
Now, I'm a peaceful fella. I'd like nothing better than to "live in harmony" with everyone. I mean EVERYONE! As Professor Higgins said, "I've the milk of human kindness by the quart in every vein."
BUT – you can't make peace or "live in harmony" when folks who disagree with your political likes and dislikes make open, nasty threats from the top down! It won't work.
Wounds in this nation are deep. Divisions are the size of large canyons. Acrimony and hate flow steadily from right wing nut groups. Limbaugh and his fellow travelers think they've been granted a new, special license to turn up the volume and take their belligerence and lies to a new level. Statistics show marriages and even business partnerships ending because of national divisiveness.
Millions of Hispanics, Muslims and Asians are living in fear. They're facing increased daily harassment, their mosques and other religious buildings are being defaced or burned. They're shunned or threatened just for being in a store or on a public street.
There's a hard fact to face here. And it's this. National civility, national harmony, national acceptance of those different from ourselves will not come from talk of "niceness," "love," "peace," religion or protests in the streets. We passed those points long ago. We're way, way beyond that.
What more likely will turn this "ship-of-state" around is for good people, smart people, committed people to step up, put themselves on the line and be elected to public office – top to bottom. It'll likely take a generation or two. After all, "ships-of-state" are very large and cumbersome and take a long time to change direction.
Many members of Congress have wandered far from their elected responsibilities. Too many see their elected roles as maintaining full time employment. Too many have no idea what their duties are or how to conduct themselves as servants of the people. Too many have welcomed moneychangers into the temple, selling their votes to the highest bidders.
The housecleaning must include city halls and county courthouses as well. They're often training grounds for those who run for higher office. We must have the best people possible on these "farm teams."
There's really no other way. This is one of those cases where leadership must start at both the top and bottom. A new tone must be determined, set, explained, leaders must lead and workers must work. There are millions of us out here who'll acknowledge effective leadership when we see it and follow it when we trust it.
I'm going to miss some people in my life. Their choice. But I'm going to keep believing the rest of us must get out here, on common ground, deal with the realities we face and work for more effective and responsible government. That's my choice.
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Living with death
On Pacific Standard Time in December, it gets dark in our little seaside communities about 5:30. In off-season months, sidewalks are usually rolled up shortly after that. Outside of the bars, our "downtowns" are usually quiet till morning.
That's how it was a few nights ago when a middle-aged transient, walking in our little business district, laid down in the middle of the southbound lane of Highway #101 – the main drag. He was wearing dark clothes. Street lighting at that location was not good. It was about 40 degrees at 9 o'clock. Rain and wind were the weather conditions.
It didn't take long for the first car to come along. It hit the prone figure and rolled over him. Both wheels. The driver, who later said didn't see anything given the conditions, pulled to the curb and stopped. He quickly got out of his car. But, within seconds, another vehicle came by, hitting the man again. Both wheels. He, too, stopped. He, too, hadn't seen anything.
A cop got there within a couple of minutes. EMT's as well. Nothing anyone could do.
The ensuing investigation found no fault in either driver. Both stopped immediately. Both remained at the scene to give what help they could. Cooperated in every way though obviously shaken. The body was removed. Onlookers eventually dispersed.
"O.K., folks. Move along. Move along. Nothing to see here."
The deceased had no relatives. Anywhere. Local homeless folks interviewed provided the identity and said the dead man had been drinking but none saw him run over. Twice. The case remains open. For awhile. But not much more is expected to be added.
While there's deserved sadness for the dead, my thoughts – and more than a few prayers – are with those two drivers whose lives will never be the same. I'm certain of that. I know because I watched my own father for many years.
During the depression, he drove professionally for a California commercial bus line. One dark, windy, rain-swept night, he was headed for Los Angeles with a full load of passengers. Driving on an unlit rural road.
Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw an image. Nothing identifiable. Quickly, he slammed on the brakes. The big bus slid forward as he fought to stay on the wet road. But, behind him, an 11-year-old boy lay on the highway along with his mangled bike. Died on the spot trying to get to a rural mailbox.
The ensuing investigation cleared my father. Passengers told authorities there was nothing he could have done. Conditions were bad. The child was in the wrong place. Dad reacted properly. It was "just an accident." Just.
That was 1931. Dad passed away in 1990. He'd been a driving professional. But, in all those years, he never drove in the rain again. Not once. Mom, who was also an excellent driver, always took the wheel if it rained. Never another accident in the family.
But my father was psychologically scarred for life. An otherwise intelligent, strong, bright, hell-of-a-man could not find forgiveness, even with his deep and sturdy Presbyterian faith.
Now, in the aftermath of a local transient's death – a death evidence shows couldn't have been avoided given where he was and the conditions – my prayers are for the survivors.
The dead man's gone. His worldly troubles are over. But the drivers. The two who "survived" the night. However long they live, neither will forget those terrible seconds. Those seconds when one – or both – killed another human being.
I don't know if either – like Dad – will never drive in the rain again. I don't know if they'll be able to accept or rid themselves of the deep feelings of guilt and anger – even if it was determined the taking of another human's life was purely an accident in which they had no "blame." But, being told you're "innocent" in such a deadly experience doesn't automatically wipe clean the minds of those involved. The survivors. Yeah. The "survivors."
Our lives often are changed in a flash. A second or two. We're jerked from our "realities" by a more urgent reality, forever altering everything that comes after.
So often, we concern ourselves with the dead. But, once in awhile, it's the living for whom we should pray.
Posted in Column | | Comments Off on Living with death
The lying "news"
Here we are. About four weeks after our national election. In that time, I've not written about the "winner" nor the tragic outcome. I won't start now.
But, there's an important issue related to the event that does need to be widely talked about, thoroughly examined and brought to the attention of every American: fake "news."
The immense danger of phony news has been building in this country for a long, long time. It's not really new. Much of hate radio is filled with it daily. Absolutely baseless, absurd, totally fabricated "stories" and commentaries meant to defame, humiliate and destroy public figures – sometimes of both political parties – or institutions like Planned Parenthood, the ACLU or the PTA.
One of the best warnings of just how ingrained this destructive B.S. has become, and how dangerous it is, comes from – of all people – Glenn Beck. Beck – one of the chief purveyors of false "facts." A guy who's become immensely rich from a broadcast and publishing empire built on his often lunatic participation in media lying. Now, he's apologizing.
His point? For more than 30 years, the right wing has bashed all forms of news media coverage. Over and over and over and over. Limbaugh, Coulter, Ingraham, Jones, Medved and hundreds of local "wannabees" have excoriated legitimate media of all types. They've sown distrust, hate and fear for any media not favorable to their questionable – or outright fact-less – pronouncements.
Faced, as we are, with a real political threat to our national survival, Beck asks, "Is it any wonder millions of Americans don't believe the facts of the dangerous conditions we're experiencing?" Admitting his own guilt as a longtime participant in falsifying information and condemning legitimate national media, Beck expresses doubt millions of us will ever again really trust "The Fourth Estate." He's right, of course, though awfully late coming to the table.
Now, another of our technological marvels is adding endlessly to the problem. Daily. Hourly. The Internet. Specifically, "social" media. I hate that term because often its anything but "social." Pages I scan too often contain lies each day. Call it "false information," if you insist. But lies are lies no matter the verbiage.
Some nutcase, living in a garage in Cleveland, can pass himself and his demented thinking off on "social" media looking like The New York Times, Washington Post, Time or Newsweek. With no editor – no fact checker – no filter to catch and destroy his lies – his trash flows right into the "information river" and to our computer screens. It's been proven repeatedly too many Americans have little to no understanding of how our system of government works and have little interest in learning. They read, watch and, too often, believe.
The spread of fake "news" is worse since the presidential election. Much worse. Coming even from the apparent winner. Outright lying tweets about "three million voting fraud cases," or "illegal immigrants voting" and other complete B.S. without fact. No elections official has confirmed any major wrongdoing. Just more lies. But some major media pick it up and repeat it.
To anyone who doesn't know how elections are run, what safeguards there are, how the ballots are screened or voters qualified, those lies are "truth." And that's just one instance.
Sometimes, it's subtle. Here's a headline. "Trump charges three million illegal immigrants voted." Wrong! Here's how it should read. "Trump falsely charges….." See the difference? Or, "Breitbart Reports Massive voter fraud." No. The correct headline would be "Breitbart makes unsubstantiated charge of voter fraud."
We've become a divided nation largely because many, many people believe "facts" supporting previously held beliefs rather than searching for truth. If truth differs, it's rejected. Unfortunately, the Internet has become a two-edged sword. Its ability to inform is as great as the ability to misinform. Without fact checking, confirming sources, finding and weeding out the junk, lies can look very real.
There doesn't seem to be any solid solution to this media cancer to change the pattern. But, if you want to deal in reality, there are some Internet sites that can be trusted. "Snopes.com," of course. But also "TruthorFiction.com," "FactCheck.org" or "WhoWhatWhen.com." And there are others you'll find to cross-check articles or postings just to be safe.
The unchecked, unedited Internet too often makes us victims of our own technology. National media fall prey to the lies at times. So do the locals. Me, too. Facebook and Twitter are full of baseless charges and fact-less "stories."
Fake "news" is likely with us to stay. It's up to each of us to "check it out" before passing it on. Or, simply believing something that just doesn't add up. It's crazy out there. It's only going to get worse.
Posted in Column | | Comments Off on The lying "news"

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


A beautiful crystal glass wall light from the world-famous island of Murano in the Venetian lagoon, with a chrome framework for a contemporary look.
Please scroll down to the bottom of the page to find spectacular matching chandeliers, shown in both modern and classic settings.
Power : 4 x G9 (max 60W) and 1 x GU10 (max 35W) bulbs.


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Labour Union Disrupts UNISA Graduation
Todays Unisa Updates – Unisa has had to postpone all upcoming graduation ceremonies, following graduation disruption by protesting labour union members due to an unresolved wage dispute.
A labour dispute between Unisa and the National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union (NEHAWU) has resulted in the suspension of graduation events. This comes after protesting members of the labour union shut down the university during a graduation event on Tuesday.
NEHAWU's Unisa Branch Chairperson, Lunathi Hontoti said that the university failed to honour a signed wage agreement that would see the 4 000 members who have downed tools receive wage increases.
Hontoti further explained that according to the agreement, which was signed on 16 January 2022, one part of the group of aggrieved employees was supposed to receive a 7% wage increase while the other was due to receive a 3% wage increase.
Unisa has since condemned the graduation disruptions and has committed to continue talks with the labour union so to be able to end the dispute and resume operations.
Meanwhile, the university's spokesperson, Victor Dlamini said that the graduation ceremonies that are set to take place remain postponed until further notice, adding that any further changes relating to the postponed events will be communicated directly to the affected students.
Dlamini further stated that the student registrations have not been affected by the ongoing events at the university.


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President Biden holds rare formal press conference to mark his 1st year office
By Ayesha Rascoe
Published January 19, 2022 at 2:26 PM MST
President Biden is in a rough patch. He's at the end of his first year in office and finds his legislative agenda stalled, this pandemic still raging, and Russia is now threatening to invade Ukraine. His approval ratings are at a low, but he told reporters today that he plans to stay the course.
NPR White House correspondent Ayesha Rascoe was watching it all and joins us now to talk about it. Hey, Ayesha.
AYESHA RASCOE, BYLINE: Hello.
CHANG: Hi. OK, so this was a rare press conference, right? And it went on for a really long time, more than an hour and 50 minutes - almost two hours. What was the biggest headline, in your view, when it comes to his first year in office?
RASCOE: One of the biggest takeaways is that Biden acknowledged that he has run into challenges. He's in a rough patch, as you said, and that he does have to make some changes. He says that he still has confidence in his staff, but that he is planning to get out of the White House more.
One thing that he said he hasn't done is he hasn't gotten out into the Black community enough. And this does keep coming up because, you know, he said that he would have the Black community's back, and he talked about this because they were so important in the primary.
But there is this belief from the White House that they are not telling their story. They want to make their case. Biden also said he's going to be seeking more outside advisers and more guidance and input from outside of the White House. And he said that he plans to actively campaign with Democrats ahead of the November congressional elections to explain what he's done and what he wants to do.
CHANG: Right. Of course, Biden's first year in office was dominated by how to respond to COVID, something that he had promised to help defeat. Obviously, COVID is still very much with us. Let's take a listen to what Biden said.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Some people may call what's happening now the new normal. I call it a job not yet finished. It will get better. We're moving toward a time when COVID-19 won't disrupt our daily lives.
CHANG: OK, so what have we learned, Ayesha, about what Biden plans to do differently in his second year when it comes to COVID?
RASCOE: Well, he acknowledged that people are frustrated and that they're unhappy about the way COVID is still impacting their life. But Biden also admitted that the White House could have moved sooner on testing and gotten that ramped up faster, especially after all of the setbacks that have happened around testing and struggles and shortages that have happened around testing recently.
Still, Biden argued that the U.S. is in a much better position than it was a year ago. And as far as testing, the government has bought about a billion tests and is distributing them to households and other facilities. And Biden is still pressing for more people to get vaccinated. He's saying that that is still the best way to keep the pandemic under control.
CHANG: Right. And what about other parts of his domestic agenda? Any meaningful changes there?
RASCOE: There was - a big headline is that he admitted that he will have to likely break up the sweeping Build Back Better package, which is supposed to be made up of social safety net spending and climate initiatives, and that it will likely have to go into smaller chunks. That's because he just doesn't have the support of all 50 Democratic senators to pass it, which is what he needs. And so he says there's enough support for spending on energy and environment. And he hopes to keep an extension of the child tax credit, but he's not sure whether that will make it.
CHANG: Right. Of course, as we mentioned, this news conference comes as Russia is threatening to invade Ukraine. What did President Biden say about where things stand on that front?
RASCOE: Biden said that he actually suspects that Russia will go into Ukraine, but he said that Biden - but Biden said that Putin will face severe economic penalties if he does anything like that and that it will affect Russia's ability to do business in U.S. dollars. If he does invade Ukraine, he threatened severe sanctions.
CHANG: That is NPR's Ayesha Rascoe. Thank you, Ayesha.
RASCOE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
Ayesha Rascoe is a White House correspondent for NPR. She is currently covering her third presidential administration. Rascoe's White House coverage has included a number of high profile foreign trips, including President Trump's 2019 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, and President Obama's final NATO summit in Warsaw, Poland in 2016. As a part of the White House team, she's also a regular on the NPR Politics Podcast.
See stories by Ayesha Rascoe


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Grand Theft Auto V® Retail Sales Exceed $800 Million Worldwide During First Day of Launch
Business Wirevia The Motley Fool
First 24 hour sales highest in history of Take-Two Interactive Software and Grand Theft Auto Series
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NAS: TTWO) today announced that Grand Theft Auto V delivered the highest first day retail sales of any title in the history of the Company and the Grand Theft Auto series. Launched on September 17 for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, the title has already received widespread critical acclaim and achieved first day sell-through of more than $800 million worldwide, excluding the upcoming launch in Japan and Brazil, according to Company estimates.
"All of us at Take-Two are thrilled with the initial response to Grand Theft Auto V. Once again, the team at Rockstar Games have outdone themselves, setting the entertainment industry's new standard for creativity, innovation and excellence," said Strauss Zelnick, Chairman and CEO of Take-Two. "Beginning at midnight on Monday, consumers around the world gathered in anticipation to be among the first to experience the evolution of this remarkable series. In North America alone, more than 8,300 stores opened their doors at midnight to welcome fans whose loyalty and enthusiasm were rewarded with what The New York Times called 'the most immersive spectacle in interactive entertainment'. We are incredibly proud of Rockstar Games' creative achievement and could not be more pleased with the success of this launch."
Following are samples of early reviews:
"No other world in video games comes close to this in size or scope, and there is sharp intelligence behind its sense of humor and gift for mayhem. It tells a compelling, unpredictable, and provocative story without ever letting it get in the way of your own self-directed adventures through San Andreas. It is one of the very best video games ever made." - IGN, 10/10
"It's a remarkable achievement, a peerless marriage of world design, storytelling and mechanics that pushes these ageing consoles to the limit and makes it all look easy. As we stand on the brink of a new generation, GTA V sends an intimidating message to the rest of the industry. Beat that." - Edge, 10/10
"You've never seen a game world as thoroughly realized...as irresistible to play as it is to admire." - Time, 5/5
"GTA V is the culmination of everything we love about the series:It's big, it's pretty, and most importantly it's just nonstop fun." - Guardian UK, 100%
"One of the pinnacle achievements this generation of games has offered." - CNET
Developed by series creator Rockstar North, Grand Theft Auto V is currently available for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft. The title is rated "M" for Mature by the ESRB.
Grand Theft Auto V also includes access to Grand Theft Auto Online, the revolutionary new open world online game launching October 1, 2013 that comes free with every copy of Grand Theft Auto V.
For more information about Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online, please visit www.rockstargames.com/V.
About Take-Two Interactive Software
Headquartered in New York City, Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is a leading developer, marketer and publisher of interactive entertainment for consumers around the globe. The Company develops and publishes products through its two wholly-owned labels Rockstar Games and 2K. Our products are designed for console systems, handheld gaming systems and personal computers, including smartphones and tablets, and are delivered through physical retail, digital download, online platforms and cloud streaming services. The Company's common stock is publicly traded on NASDAQ under the symbol TTWO. For more corporate and product information please visit our website at http://www.take2games.com.
"PlayStation" is a registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment.
All trademarks and copyrights contained herein are the property of their respective holders.
The statements contained herein which are not historical facts are considered forward-looking statements under federal securities laws and may be identified by words such as "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "potential," "predicts," "projects," "seeks," "will," or words of similar meaning and include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the outlook for the Company's future business and financial performance. Such forward-looking statements are based on the current beliefs of our management as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to them, which are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict. Actual outcomes and results may vary materially from these forward-looking statements based on a variety of risks and uncertainties including: our dependence on key management and product development personnel, our dependence on our Grand Theft Auto products and our ability to develop other hit titles for current and next-generation platforms, the timely release and significant market acceptance of our games, the ability to maintain acceptable pricing levels on our games, our ability to raise capital if needed and risks associated with international operations. Other important factors and information are contained in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2013, in the section entitled "Risk Factors," the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2013, and the Company's other periodic filings with the SEC, which can be accessed at www.take2games.com. All forward-looking statements are qualified by these cautionary statements and apply only as of the date they are made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.
Henry A. Diamond, 646-536-3005
Investor Relations & Corporate Communications
Henry.Diamond@take2games.com
Corporate Press:
Alan Lewis, 646-536-2983
Corporate Communications & Public Affairs
Alan.Lewis@take2games.com
KEYWORDS: United States North America New York
INDUSTRY KEYWORDS:
The article Grand Theft Auto V® Retail Sales Exceed $800 Million Worldwide During First Day of Launch originally appeared on Fool.com.
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Q: Ideas for SVN/SQL/PHP/Linux Dev Enviroment Supporting Multiple Isolated Environments? I am trying to create a "dev" for my users. In that environment they would access to their own account of PHPMyAdmin, SQL, Subversion and FTP which is not a big problem, but I would like to emulate like if each one would be in their own server.
I mean so that they could change the PHP configuration (for example) and would be done only in its own environment.
Any idea how to do this?  Do I have to make something "special" at the installations of my server or something like that?

A: (Disclaimer: I have no experience with lxc as suggested in the comment)

I would like to emulate like if each one would be in their own server.

Personally, I'd give them their own (virtual) server just using OpenVZ. It's really simple to install, and you can get a lightweight GUI client for it if you need one.
The idea would be you create a single template which you then deploy to each user who gets their own server. They'd be able to have root inside their virtual machine, but this would be completely isolated to just their machine. It'll simulate perfectly what would happen if they had their own (dedicated) server, and the beauty of this is you can use the tools provided (such as vzmigrate) to migrate their machine over a new host if they need more resources (RAM, Disk, etc) - without having to reinstall a single thing. The overhead of OpenVZ is minimal, so it's not uncommon to have one dedicated host with just a single OpenVZ VM due to that portability.
The other advantage is because they have root, they can go ahead and install whatever software they like in their container, since some developers may need a different version of PHP or Apache, custom Apache modules, or just some other server-side software for their development work.

A: Take the easy option and give them all a Vagrant VM, pre-configured with what you need to install (via Chef/Puppet) and let them go for their lives.  Scales better, too, because they're not all using the one machine (each dev presumably has their own workstation) and they can work when they're not connected to the central server, too.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Many moons ago I worked as a scanner operator for a large printing company. This was back in the day when printing plates were created using huge sheets of film that were captured with scanners and cameras the size of two rooms with a massive lens in the wall between them. Understanding colour and using the right language to describe it, from a technical perspective, was critical to being a successful scanner operator, and has also been in part one of the keys to my success as a full time professional photographer.
As a scanner operator I was responsible for separating a photographs colours so that film negatives were created that could be used to create the plates for large printing presses. You had to carefully mount the images on a large drum, then spin it at a high speed while a light source read the colour values and simultaneously reproduced each of the printing colors onto film. That film was then combined with others in a process called film stripping to create the printing plates.
Scanners were complicated and expensive machines. The array of dials, knobs, meters, and scales were daunting to the novice operator. You really had to understand the language and science of colour to the nth degree to use this machine, and it took years to master. Today, the old scanners are yet another relic of our digital age, yet many of the controls that ran these old analog scanners are embedded in the software settings we use in our image editing today, such as Photoshop. What hasn't changed however, are the basics of colour theory, and more importantly the language of colour in photography.
Understanding and being able to communicate the correct language on any subject is important to most of us. However describing color can be a challenge. On one occasion while working as a scanner operator, an artist told me he wanted "more moxie" added to his painting. He even used hand signals to show that what he wanted was "bigger". I had to tell him there was no moxie dial or setting and I needed a better explanation. What he really meant was he needed more saturation.
The following is my simplified way to describe color using a 3 dimensional space model.
Imagine a cylinder that you can look into, and every color that we can see with our eyes is visible and represented by every space inside it. If you hold the cylinder and turn it you could see where all the colors are, that they have a logical order, and are arranged in such a way that can be described and understood.
Now imagine a 100 story cylindrical building with a glass elevator right in the center with stops on every floor. The elevator shaft represents Lightness, a key term when describing color. Lightness has also been called Brightness, Luminosity, Luminance, Shade, or Value. Get inside the elevator at the ground floor and you'll notice that everything is black. There is no color, just pure black, a Lightness of 0. Press the 100th floor and as you progress up the elevator, the black turns into a dark gray, then becomes progressively lighter until you're on the 100th floor when all you see is pure white. The elevator has progressed through the Gray Tones. This has also been referred to as the Gray Scale. From black, and progressing through the Gray Tones up to white there is an absence of any color.
Now at the bottom floor of this cylindrical building imagine that the very outside edge is painted with the colors red, blue, green, yellow, purple, and orange. These pure colors are called Hue, another key term when describing color. Each of these hues is arranged on the outside of the building in a specific way, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, then purple.
As you rise up the building from the outside, the Lightness of the Hue increases so that it is 50% lighter on the 50th floor than it was on the ground level when it was at it's darkest. By the time you get to the 100th floor the Lightness of that Hue is almost pure white. As you progress up the side of the building the Hue changes from a pure color, lets say red, up to a very light pink.
Starting from the elevator on the ground level, walk towards the outside edge towards the pure Hue of blue for example. You'll progress from a Lightness value of pure black, progressing through a dark gray blue, then getting progressively more blue with less black, until you get to the pure Hue of blue on the very outside edge of the building.
Progressing through this dimension you are passing through Saturation, the last key term for describing color. As you walk towards the pure Hue, the Saturation increases reaching 100% at the outer wall. It still retains the same amount of Lightness on each floor of the building. Saturation is also referred to as Chromaticity, or Chroma.
Each floor of the building keeps the same of amount of Lightness but can change it's Hue and Saturation, depending on which direction you go from the central elevator.
In photography terms a color lives in a 3 dimensional space that can be accurately mapped and described by it's Hue, Saturation, and Lightness.
With this basic understanding of the 3 dimensional colour space, how can you then use it to describe a particular color when talking to someone, comparing one color to the next, or trying to change a color on your monitor while in Photoshop?
Communicating color with someone who doesn't understand the language of color can be a challenge. We all use Hue to describe basic color. When you say to someone the color red, you're referring to the term Hue, and they get a pretty quick mental picture of what that color is. But when you want to describe a darker red you need to figure out if you mean a red that has more Saturation and the same amount of Lightness, or are you saying that it needs to have less Lightness but keep the same amount of Saturation, or both? Understanding roughly where your original color is on the 3 dimensional space is useful in this case.
Evaluating a photograph using the 3d color model you can begin to mentally pick apart the various elements of Hue, Saturation, and Lightness (HSL) in each of the colors represented. When looking at a photo of a garden of red flowers for example, you can see the variations of red throughout the image. Depending on how the light falls on them, and whether they are the same type of flower or not, will change the values of Hue, Saturation, or the Lightness of each one. Armed with the right terminology you can now figure out the actual differences between them and either communicate this to someone, or be ready to decide how to make any color adjustments in your image processing software.
The mental process of evaluating color could go something like this. This red flower is different from that flower because it has more Lightness, is a Hue that is closer to Orange, but the Saturation appears to be about the same. Breaking a color into these three key elements is critical to communicating and understanding color in photography. In fact, Photoshop and other professional image editing software depends on you knowing this. Making changes to a photo without fully understanding what effect each of the controls and dialog boxes actually does to an image can be frustrating.
So now you've opened an image in Photoshop, you're looking at it and you want to change some of the colors. This is a topic for another blog coming soon, but color is actually one of the last things to consider when adjusting an image.
Firstly, has the image overall been exposed correctly, or is it too light or too dark overall? You have to answer this before you even start thinking whether the color is right or not.
Secondly, once exposure has been adjusted, the tonal range or gradation needs to be adjusted. This will be the topic for my next blog. Why tonal range and gradation before color adjustments?
As a photographer it is important that I am always aware of and monitor the color situation at each step of the process. The color decisions I make at the time I take a shot, process, or print an image all play an important role in the final outcome of each project.
I hope you find this information useful in your photography and when it comes time to communicating color you can speak to it using the Language of Color.


The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada in cooperation with Fisher-Price Inc., of East Aurora, N.Y have recalled about 800,000 Newborn Rock 'n Play Sleeper™.
Mold can develop between the removable seat cushion and the hard plastic frame of the sleeper when it remains wet/moist or is infrequently cleaned, posing a risk of exposure to mold to infants sleeping in the product. The CPSC advises that mold has been associated with respiratory illnesses and other infections. Although mold is not present at the time of purchase, mold growth can occur after use of the product. .
The Newborn Rock 'n Play Sleeper™ was sold at mass merchandise stores nationwide and online since September 2009 for between $50 and $85. Units currently in retail stores are not affected by this recall to inspect. Only products that show signs of mold after use by consumers are included in this announcement.
For additional information, contact Fisher-Price; at (800) 432-5437, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, or online at www.service.mattel.com for more information.


A classroom representing the "geeky" computer science stereotype.
The Journal of Educational Psychology published the study online August 17.
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of Washington. The original item was written by Molly McElroy. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.


Anyone with information about these incidents is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 601-355-TIPS(8477).
A man was killed for his vehicle Sunday night, bringing the number of homicides in Jackson to three.
According to JPD, officers responded to the 1300 block of Bailey Ave. at around 10:30 p.m. for a robbery and shooting. After officers arrived, a woman said her boyfriend had been shot and his vehicle stolen. The woman said she and her boyfriend went to the area to pick up a person only known to them as "Lil G". They later drove to a nearby abandoned property on Bailey Avenue where the suspect, "Lil G" pulled a gun and ordered the man out of the vehicle. The man was shot at least once before the suspect drove away.
The white male victim was pronounced dead at the scene. He has been identified as Aaron Hancock, 28. Hancock's vehicle is a blue-green 2008 Scion XB with Rankin County license plate RGF 233.
Investigators are working to gather information that may lead to the identity of "Lil G", as officers continue in their attempts to locate the victim's vehicle. "Lil G" is described as a black male and was wearing a dark-colored cap and plain t-shirt.
The first weekend fatal shooting happened Saturday on Central Street near Buena Vista Ave. Officers found a man in the street at around 10 a.m. The victim has been identified as Lee Eric Evans, 26. Investigators have uncovered information regarding the suspect and are working to verify his identity.
In the second fatal shooting, police believe a man was shot outside in his driveway but managed to get inside the house where he died. The homicide happened on Sunday on Broadmoor Drive. Hinds County Coroner Sharon Grisham-Stewart identified the victim as Xavier Cobbs, 25.
Residents told officers that multiple gunshots were heard between 4 a.m. and 4:30 a.m.
There have been 54 homicides in Jackson so far for this year.
Anyone with information about these incidents is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 601-355-TIPS(8477). There is up to a $2,500 reward for information that leads to an arrest.


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		<RollingFile name="RollingFile" filename="${env:INSIGHTS_HOME}/logs/PlatformInsightsWebHook/PlatformInsightsWebHook.log"
			filepattern="${env:INSIGHTS_HOME}/logs/PlatformInsightsWebHook/PlatformInsightsWebHook-%i.log">
			<PatternLayout pattern="%d{yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss} %p [%t]:%c{3}.%M()%L %-5p:: %m%n" />
			<Policies>
				<SizeBasedTriggeringPolicy size="10 MB"/>
			</Policies>
			<DefaultRolloverStrategy max="20"/>
		</RollingFile>

	</Appenders>
		<Loggers>
		<Logger name="org.hibernate" level="error" additivity="false">
          <AppenderRef ref="RollingFile" />
		  <AppenderRef ref="Console" />
        </Logger>
		<Root level="DEBUG">
			<AppenderRef ref="RollingFile" />
			<AppenderRef ref="Console" />
		</Root>
	</Loggers>
</Configuration>

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: How to get specific value from ArrayList in POJO in java Key : 22 Value: Abey
Key : 22 Value : Dawn
Key : 22 Value : Sherry
Key : 22 Value : Sherry
Key : 22 Value : Sherry

I want to print only Keys with Sherry only,how to do  it using Java?
Changing title of question because HashMap doesn't store duplicate Keys

A: HashMap doesn't accept duplicate keys. Only duplicate values. In your approach you can't be able to store all the records as you are showing.
for example:
Map<Integer, String> map = new HashMap<>();
map.put(22, "Abey");
map.put(22, "Dawn");
map.put(22, "Sherry");
map.put(22, "Sherry");
map.put(22, "Sherry");

when you print the output of the HashMap. You only get one output because the same key will replace to latest value.
output:
{22=Sherry}

If you really want to store duplicate keys, Learn more about how to store duplicate keys in HashMap.

A: You can use the below method from JDK1.8 and above to complete the task.
List<Integer> keys = hashMap.entrySet().stream()
            .filter((entry) -> entry.getValue().equals("Sherry"))
            .map(entry -> entry.getKey())
            .collect(Collectors.toList());

A: I think you need to loop through the map. There is no specific function to do this
map.forEach((k,val) -> {
  if (val.equals("Sherry") {
    keys.add(k);
  }
});

where map is the HashMap and keys is a list

A: You can use the following code.
static < K, V > List < K > getAllKeysForValue(Map < K, V > mapOfWords, V value) {
    List < K > listOfKeys = null;
    //Check if Map contains the given value
    if (mapOfWords.containsValue(value)) {
        // Create an Empty List
        listOfKeys = new ArrayList < > ();
        // Iterate over each entry of map using entrySet
        for (Map.Entry < K, V > entry: mapOfWords.entrySet()) {
            // Check if value matches with given value
            if (entry.getValue().equals(value)) {
                // Store the key from entry to the list
                listOfKeys.add(entry.getKey());
            }
        }
    }
    // Return the list of keys whose value matches with given value.
    return listOfKeys;
}

A: Maybe you can use the reverse map , having Sherry , Dawn and Abey as keys , and 22 as the value of list.
You can have something like :
Map<String , Set<String> > reverseMap;

Now you can store the keys like 22 in the set and have the key of this map as the name.


MSV: Team Jen: Ways to Support the Jen Giattino for Mayor Team!
Team Jen: Ways to Support the Jen Giattino for Mayor Team!
Sign Jen's Petition so Jen can get on the ballot on September 5th – attached (registered voters please print and sign, then email us and we will come pick it up).
Donate to Jen's campaign – http://jenforhoboken.com/donate/.
On all three – share/retweet her pictures, posts and events!
On all three, post your own endorsements of why you think she is the best candidate for Mayor, and tag / link her in your posts!
Hang Jen's Campaign Sign in your window – email us, tell us how many and we'll deliver!
Volunteer for Her Campaign – reply to this email and tell us how you want to help!
Go Door Knocking with her in your neighborhood – meeting voters in person is the MOST IMPORTANT!
Send A Letter To Your Neighbors with your endorsement – we can provide address labels!
Offer In-Kind Donations to her campaign like photography, graphic design, and printing services, food and beverages, office supplies and anything else you can think of!
And throughout the campaign the most important way to help is being her ambassador and helping us inform voters to vote for her on Election Day November 7th! It's vitally important that reform-minded voters not only vote for Jen for Hoboken Mayor, but also help get out the vote!
Asking for support is humbling, but knowing what we can do together with your support makes it worthwhile! Thank you in advance for your support and your generosity!


It has been forever since I last wrote, but honestly, I've been busy and by night time when I usually sit down to write I am tired. Today is a collection of random thought that I would use as facebook statuses, if I put ten a day up.
1. If you are anyone, but especially an adult, who feels it necessary to change your profile picture on facebook to one of you and your significant other obviously laying down naked with each other in the bed taken with your iPhone, I will have to unfriend you. Sorry. There are limits to what I can be expected to handle. Seriously. Most of us are getting some on a regular basis so I don't need you giving me a visual of yours. The end.
2. I in no way ever, ever, ever want this blog to become any type of political platform, but I just want to say that my mother was a poll worker today. The stories she has to tell are disappointing at best.
3. My boys both start big boy school next week. Both boys. In big school. Until they leave me. I have to go now since I just died talking about it. I'm sure there will be a post about this later.
4. There are currently four rooms of my house with ants in them and of the four rooms there are three different species. It's ok if you think we are gross. We aren't really. But it's ok if you want to think that. Ok well we kinda are but whatever. I'm just sayin', when your exterminator just drops by to pay you an extra visit for free, you know there is a plague going on.
5. I am trying to loose some fast pounds by not eating dinner. I always do pretty well if I go to bed hungry. I wonder if my body realizes that I didn't eat dinner even though I just woofed down half a container of feta cheese with a spoon in all it's weird, salty, crumbly glory?
6. I don't mean to brag or anything, but I made some baked garlic cheese grits this weekend for a bridal brunch that were "shut the front door" good. Recipe will probably follow before too long. They were too yummy not to share. Now if only I knew how to make something really delish with lobster. Suggestions?
7. As seen on TV products that have recently changed my life - the inStyle hair straightener, the bumpit, the kymaro body slimmer, and the big top cupcake. Ok, I'm kidding about the cupcake one. That's just me being a fat kid.
8. Destruct-o-girl has got this baby alive doll that talks and jumps up and down. Stupid Santa Claus thought that joker was a good idea, but apparently that baby is possessed. No matter what setting it's on, it just randomly goes off. So as I am sitting here typing in my near silent house at 12:52 a.m., I have now almost lost control of my faculties twice.
9. A few things I will never be able to do - a backhandspring, rollerblade, wear skinny jeans, turn down anything in which a main ingredient is crisco, figure out what all those wires are behind our tv, and get that weird smell out of my car.
10. You know your house is awful when your six year old tells people "excuse all this mess".
Just want you to know how much I look forward to reading your blog! I can soo relate to everything you say! Thanks so much for the laughs!!!


text:
Test your knowledge with Boathouse trivia
Colin McCann
Photo by Colin McCann.
Every Monday, through the combined efforts of Chartwells and UNF Campus Life, a trivia game is held at the Boathouse where students can win prizes.
The questions covered topics like music, movies, science, countries and even royalty. The atmosphere was energetic and welcoming to any students who wanted to join, and the host allowed students to pick the music.
The game consists of six rounds of three questions each and every question is assigned its own point value. However, just because one of the questions is valued at three points, does not mean you have to wager that much. You can wager one, two, or three points.
For each question one answer is permitted per team. The answer is written on a piece paper and given to the game host. Once all the answers have been submitted, the correct answer is announced.
The three teams with the highest scores are able to choose from a variety of prizes, like Dining Dollars, shirts, cups, koozies, drawstring backpacks, and even pom-poms, with the team with the highest score getting the chance to choose first.
Not only can you have some fun, win prizes and meet new people, but you can also learn some potentially helpful and life-changing information, like the fact that the ears and legs of a hare are longer than those of a rabbit, or that the Gaelic name for Ireland is Éire.
Maybe knowing that Princess Diana's maiden name is Spencer might help get you into that royal shindig…or not.
Still, knowing there is a high-end West Virginia resort called Greenbriar, which contains a secret facility made for the protection of the US Congress in the event of a nuclear war, could be beneficial in a crisis.
Senior public relations major Andrew Baker said him and his friend try to make it to Trivia Night almost every week.
"I like to come hang out and get free prizes," Baker said.
His friend, sophomore exercise science major Teddi Lesoine, said, "It's a lot of fun. Plus you can eat and socialize while you play."
So no matter what your reason, maybe to learn some fun facts that make you sound cool in front of your friends, or just to play a game, eat and socialize, you can stop by any Monday from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the Boathouse.
One Response to "Test your knowledge with Boathouse trivia"
Sabrina Foust on August 7th, 2018 11:06 am
Note to editor – you may want to change the title reflected for the Woman on the Street: Where do Ospreys Stream? It's written "Steam"
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