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More Russian Corvettes

April 3, 2010
RIA Novosti

14:26 01/04/2010 St. Petersburg’s Severnaya Verf shipyard floated out on March 31 the Project 20380 Soobrazitelny corvette.>>

Other news of the day

Russia has recently launched a second of their very attractive Project 20380 corvettes which New Wars posted on earlier. Hardly an LCS alternative considering the source, they could certainly be an LCS Rival in a future conflict.  Ilya Kramnik at RIA Novosti tells “Why Russia needs new corvettes“:

Although with a gross tonnage of 2,000 tons this ship meets the classification criteria for that class of vessel, it far exceeds it in terms of firepower. Eight anti-ship missiles, a deck-based helicopter, a wide array of sonar and anti-submarine equipment, a 100mm gun, and an impressive complement of close-range air-defense systems all led experts to consider it more of a frigate, the next stage up in naval classification.
There are good grounds for elevating the Soobrazitelny and its successors to that status. Instead of the Kortik air defense gun and missile system these ships will carry an integrated weapons complex with eight loading bays, each of which can hold 1-4 missiles depending on their type.
The new warships are also equipped with the Sigma combat information and control system, which simultaneously tracks and engages targets on land, on water, under water, and in the air. Much like the U.S. Aegis system, this allows a coordinated defense including clear communications, shared target information and real time control over the combat force’s firepower.

While Moscow is no longer the threat to the West she once was, many are worried that advanced technology like the planned T-50 fighter might get into the hands of rogue states or those just unfriendly to the West. I also see much potential for export from these powerful little warships, which the author rightly concedes is on par with Western frigates. That is where the LCS comes in. Here are the Project 20380 specifications:

  • Length-94 meters
  • Beam-11.1 meters
  • Draft-3.7 meters
  • Displacement-1900 tons full load
  • Speed-26 knots
  • Range-4000 nm @ 14 knots
  • Crew-100
  • Armament-1 x Arsenal A-190 100mm
    2 x MTPU pedestal machine gun 14.5 mm
    1 x Kashtan CADS
    2 x AK-630 CIWS
    6 x 3M54 Klub or 8 x 3M24 Uran
    4 x 400mm torpedo tubes
    SS-N-29 / RPK-9 Medvedka-VE anti-submarine rockets
    Helo pad only

This is why I prefer corvettes over frigates, since most plans for the latter involve ships no better armed than the small warships, but at far greater expense as with the LCS, which at $700 million each is armed basically like a patrol ship. Small warships like this are the real future frigate or destroyer, and could very possibly meet the LCS one on one in a future conflict.

The Russian Navy is building corvettes because they have to. If there was money to spare it would probably go for more nuclear submarines, battlecruisers, and supercarriers to rival the US. Instead they are building corvettes and buying light carriers from France. Through no choice of their own then, they may soon have a Navy perfect for the type of future threats at sea not only Russia is facing but the world, which involve low tech foes such as pirates and smugglers, or missile boat navies like China and Iran.

These are a growing menace, while the rich navies would much rather be competing with one another on the oceans with exquisite wonder vessels, the impoverished Somali pirates are spreading everywhere. Here is a recent report saying “Navies struggle with ‘swarming’ pirates“:

“The navies operating off Somalia have to contend with the question of why, with such sophisticated capabilities, they cannot stamp out a threat based essentially on men in motor boats.”

And what does the international community have to contend with the threat, except a shrinking number of essentially useless frigates:

“…according to Adm Hudson, there are altogether about 20 warships to cover an area 10 times larger than Germany.”

Some are amazingly capable like the Dutch frigate Tromp that keeps popping up in the headlines. The problem is, capability is no substitute for availability. The Russian ships however, as with other corvettes and OPVs are available, affordable, and perfect for the type of shallow water warfare where the Navy will concede it needs to be. Also they can be afforded in enough numbers to make a difference, but you can’t buy too many$700 million frigates, at least without giving up something else, which usually involves your fleet numbers. That is working against, not helping your goal.

14 Comments leave one →
  1. August 7, 2014 11:43 pm

    Have you ever considered about adding a little bit more than just your articles?
    I mean, what you say is important and everything. But think of
    if you added some great photos or videos to give your posts more, “pop”!
    Your content is excellent but with pics and videos, this blog could definitely be one of the most beneficial in its field.
    Very good blog!

  2. christopher whicker permalink
    April 6, 2010 5:27 pm

    Thank you for your replies…Lets hope the french dont sell them any. But my trust rides very thinly here….. but thanks .

  3. Mike Burleson permalink*
    April 5, 2010 2:44 am

    “how does this compare with the type 45”

    Capability versus availability. The impressive Type 45 can’t be in many places at once, but a descent production of these corvettes could see worldwide deployments.

    But its like comparing apples and oranges. Both types serve a distinct purpose and should complement, not compete. Battleships like the Type 45 maintain your capability, small warships like corvette give you numbers and presence.

  4. papa legba permalink
    April 5, 2010 1:04 am

    Regional Hawk says: “This is disappointing to say the least. Russia should be spending it’s shipbuilding resources on things that would make sense. Things like new and updated Kirovs.”

    It would take the cost of several of these corvettes just to do the R&D to get the Kirov’s power plant functioning smoothly.

  5. D. E. Reddick permalink
    April 4, 2010 10:47 pm

    Regional Hawk,

    The Russians can’t hardly complete the refurbishment of a single old Kiev-class CV (ex-Soviet era Baku) for the Indian Navy without double-charging India. How in the world do you expect them to even contemplate building new CGNs or CBGNs? Worse for them, such vessels do need escorts. And the Russian Navy can’t quite figure out how to distribute its current ship-building budgeting and assets amongst -FIVE- different classes of corvettes / frigates / destroyers presently under construction in their shipyards. And then they want to buy a full-up Mistral class LHP from France (to then likely copy & duplicate, locally). In some ways they make the RN and USN acquisition processes seem a slight bit rational…

  6. Regional Hawk permalink
    April 4, 2010 10:20 pm

    This is disappointing to say the least. Russia should be spending it’s shipbuilding resources on things that would make sense. Things like new and updated Kirovs.

  7. christopher whicker permalink
    April 4, 2010 8:10 pm

    how does this compare with the type 45…. or the next generation of british frigates
    the type 26, in fighting power and cost .

  8. D. E. Reddick permalink
    April 4, 2010 11:03 am

    There’s a long thread regarding these Russian corvettes at There are videos of the first vessel and some pictures of the second one while still in its construction drydock, prior to its launching. Also, the differences in armament between the first and second vessels are described in the fourth and fifth pages of the thread.

  9. Chuck Hill permalink
    April 3, 2010 8:43 pm

    In the Soviet era, the Soviet equivalent of the Coast Guard, the Maritime Border Troops of the KGB, operated Krivak III variants of that frigate class. Wonder if the Russian Maritime Border Troops will see any of these.

    The Russians also call these “guard ships.”

  10. Matthew S. permalink
    April 3, 2010 12:20 pm

    I agree that LCS is underarmed, however there is no need for Standard missiles to be on LCS. There are 60 Burkes and 22 Ticonderogas that can carry dozens of standards. Now a 16 round VLS for ESSM is good enough but I doubt it will ever happen.

  11. Hudson permalink
    April 3, 2010 11:07 am

    As a coastal warship, the Soobrazitelny corvette seems quite up to the task. It’s obviously more heavily armed that LCS 1 & 2, though the latter have likely a more potent helo + UAV punch.

    As a model for the US to copy for blue water requirements, it would need a longer range AA missile than the Grison 11 (10km). ESSM or Standard II would make it an adequate Perry class replacement, assuming its other systems are up to US standards. Certainly it could chase down pirates. Although if it lets them go, as did the latest US catch, releasing 11 pirates, then what’s the point?

    What does Soobrazitelny cost?

  1. Carrier Alternative Weekly « New Wars
  2. Military And Intelligence News Briefs — April 6, 2010 « Read NEWS
  3. Russian Navy News «

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Posts Tagged ‘Joe Hockey’

Bishop is gone.

I am led to believe that upon standing down as Shadow Treasurer, Julie made some remarks that she had prepared earlier. Some excerpts:

I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But the interests of the nation must always come before any personal considerations. From the discussions I have had with Congressional and other leaders I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the nation will require.

I have never been a quitter.

I have fought for what I believe in. I have tried, to the best of my ability, to discharge those duties and meet those responsibilities that were entrusted to me. Sometimes I have succeeded. And sometimes I have failed. But always I have taken heart from what Theodore Roosevelt said about the man in the arena whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again because there is not effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deed, who knows the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievements and with the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

It is rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease only for them to find, the moment the first balls are bowled, that their bats have been broken before the game by the team captain.

Well may we say ‘God Save the Queen’; because nothing with save the Governor-General.

Joe Hockey takes over as Shadow Treasurer. This should be interesting. Question time will be like one big Sunrise family.

Read Full Post »

Big Gun vs Red Julia

The IR czars are holding their National Press Club debate today – 12:30pm EDST on ABC (no indication in my TV guide of Nine/worm coverage). I’ll be in a cave, during that time, so I’ll have to catch up on it later.

Read Full Post »

The good news: Joe Hockey and Julia Gillard are having a debate.

The bad news: It’s on Sunrise this morning. Based on last week’s Turnbull vs Garrett match-up, it won’t exactly break new ground or provide real debate, but it’s (hopefully) better than nothing.

UPDATE: Joe promised to resign as a Minister if there are any substantial changes to WorkChoices. I guess it’s easier to make a promise like that if you don’t think you’ll end up in Government and you’re busy enough trying to hold onto your seat, but he’s putting a lot of faith in his Captain.

UPDATE #2: Sunrise has a page up about the debate now, although no sign of a transcript yet. Elsewhere, Tim Dunlop points out that, according to Joe himself, the fairness test was not a change to the fundamentals of WorkChoices, which tells us how much today’s promise is worth.

UPDATE #3: The above Sunrise link now has the transcript.

Read Full Post »

Kerry and Brissenden suggest that the Liberals’ continued hammering of the union message suggests they are getting evidence it is working.

Howard and Hockey: Unions are allowed to exist, they are just not allowed to have a function.

Chaser > you and “me too”

Polling talk:

  • Labor vote is soft – economic management data is an issue (Note to bald dude – read Possum)
  • It’s the economy, stupid!
  • Disagreement over whether the polls need to move soon or whether it comes down to people making the decision in the final weeks (I’ve already said that if it doesn’t shift soon, the narrative gets ugly for Team Howard)

Clark & Dawe – funny, but no “Eulogy Song”.

Read Full Post »

Now that the mid-year economic review data has been released, Labor has an up-to-date price tag of the taxpayer-funded propaganda campaigns. Julia Gillard has jumped on the WorkChoices advertising figures ($121 million in total; $66 million since the fairness test):

“$4 million a week each week of this financial year to try and convince Australians who know WorkChoices is bad that it’s good for them,” she said.

“Well they’re not going to be convinced and they’ll be thinking to themselves, what difference could that money have made to my local hospital or my local school?”

Naturally, Big Gun Joe has trotted out the standard talking points in response:

“Kevin Rudd and the union bosses who control over 70 per cent of his frontbench have spent millions of dollars on a massive scare campaign designed to confuse and misinform working families,” he said.

“Therefore we make no apologies for properly informing working Australians about the protections that exist under the workplace relations system.”

I thought Kevin Rudd only spent millions of dollars on beach-houses? Joe not only fails to distinguish between unions funding advertising as opposed to Labor funding it, but he also fails to recognise that he has been spending taxpayers’ money to achieve his political ends. Furthermore, it was that “scare campaign” that prompted the Government to introduce the fairness test – because the facts of the original system were so scary that they had to try to make it seem more palatable. Why, the Big Gun himself admitted that the original system was wrong. So, even if we accept for the moment that the fairness test has fixed things, doesn’t the responsibility for the $66 million of follow-up advertising lie with the Government who got the laws wrong in the first place?

Read Full Post »

I don’t need to say much here because several learned bloggers have done the job for me, but I want to give voice to my disgust at Joe Hockey and Peter Costello for their appalling attempt to defame academics who have done research that points out some inconvenient truths about AWAs.

On 7.5 the other night, Joe Hockey danced around and managed to back himself into a corner. He made it clear that his intention was to impugn the credibility of the researchers by linking them to union bias. He could not articulate a substantive criticism of the methodology, and he couldn’t counter Red Kerry’s evidence about other reports and about the rigorous assessment procedure Australian Research Council grant applications go through. Earlier in the day, however, Costello was even more blunt in his defamation of the researchers:

Once you see Unions New South Wales putting up money for a report, you know it is contaminated.

The academics involved have taken the attack on the integrity of their work seriously, and rightly so. The principles of free and objective inquiry are central to their work, and two Government Ministers have publicly stated that they have not performed their job competently or ethically. Others have captured the abhorrent nature of Hockey and Costello’s behaviour, including Ken Lovell at Road to Surfdom, as well as Tim Dunlop at Blogocracy, who highlights the flaws in the Government’s counter-argument (e.g., pointing to ABS data that shows wages are up across the entire population, which says nothing about the impact of AWAs). The NTEU has publicly criticised the Government for attempting to interfere with the integrity of academic inquiry, but of course, as Hockey might tell us, you’d expect that – after all, they’re run by “union bosses”.

Naturally, the Government’s reaction has been entirely predictable – they couldn’t give a toss. They will continue to step in front of cameras and microphones and attack anyone they can, blame anyone they can, and undermine anyone they can, if it gives them a way to shift the focus from their failings. Whatever the situation, they are happy to denigrate an appropriate target, whether it is union-affiliated academics as in this case, or people with dark skin, or state governments, or people with dark skin, or union-affiliated academics, etc. It’s sleazy, it causes unjustified damage to the reputations of real people, and it’s playing on the small segment of Australia that is narrow-minded enough to buy into the Government’s caricatures of these groups.

Apart from the sheer wrongness of the Government’s strategy, am I wrong in thinking that it simply cannot work? They are attempting to make “union bosses” carry the same negative value as “communist” might have had in earlier decades. Even if union membership is in decline, does that indicate that people actually view unions negatively and fear their influence? Is there some widespread undercurrent of union hatred that I am not aware of, or is this an attempt to reach a more narrow segment of the population, such as small business owners and operators?

Apparently the researchers have been advised that they do have a defamation case against Tip and Shrek. We’ll see whether they follow through with action – I would hope that the University of Sydney would be willing to devote legal and financial resources to defending the academic reputation of its staff. If they don’t, then I suspect this story will fade quickly and the Government will move on to slandering its next target.

Wait a minute – they already have.

Read Full Post »

Shrek not think good

Joe Hockey doesn’t like the results of a new study on WorkChoices. His criticisms?

But Federal Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey says the data was compiled before the introduction of the fairness test in May.

He has also questioned the credibility of the study:

“This is the 12th academic report commissioned by State Labor Governments,” he said.

“In this case, [a report] commissioned from an ex-union official who happens to be an academic, that claims on the basis of flawed data that somehow, overwhelmingly, all Australians are worse off.”

Hey, at least these researchers can find results that fit with their alleged biases – as opposed to internal Liberal Party polling. And I like the way the data is flawed because it was based on flawed legislation. Fortunately, the fairness test has saved the universe – or at least, has meant that new data won’t be available in time to analyse before the election.

Joe has also been up to his old tricks regarding Julia Gillard. And he scored some brown-nose points with the boss by comparing Howard to Bradman. Bravo.

Read Full Post »

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text:
Underwater Photography

William Thompson was the first known person to ever capture an underwater photograph in Weymouth Bay, England, 1856.

(A sketch of the first metal camera housing unit,1856 )

Since the first submerged photo, we have invented the average disposable underwater camera as well as multiple housing units for almost any camera.

(Calypso, first underwater camera, 1957)

However these housing units can cause some inconveniences while shooting underwater. All objects seen through the plastic of the housing units appear magnified and closer than they actually are. Also, there are many more particles in the water compared to air, this is another difficulty when shooting underwater because it causes poor visibility. Good transparency underwater is 40 to 50 meters, and poor water transparency means visibility of only 10 meters! Another reason shooting underwater can be difficult is because when at greater depths you begin to lose color as well as contrast.The water absorbs the sunlight so quickly that everything appears blue-green. Some ways to combat these obstacles would be to get as close to your subject as possible as well as always using flash.

Living at the beach I love the water, and as a photography student I thought it was an interesting field that many may never think about or dabble in. I personally have been scuba diving and have tried to photograph with a housing unit, in an unfamiliar environment the photos didn’t turn out the way I had hoped so I thought a little research could better my future endeavors.”Underwater photography is used for scientific purposes, for example in the field of underwater archeology and also for journalistic, artistic or personal hobby.”(https://thecustomizewindows.com/2012/05/underwater-photography-facts-and-technologies/)

(Diver Emil Racovitza photographed in 1899 by first underwater photographer, Louis Boutan)

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Between ages of 21 to 35 years old

Graduated from high school

1 year min experience

Hospitality and Food Industry

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> Male
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text:
Quiksilver Showdown Over the City

One of Canada’s largest Pro-Am Contest is less than 2 weeks away. The Quiksilver Showdown Over the City on Grouse Mountain brings together the best professional and amateur riders from around the world to Vancouver’s backyard playground on March 28th and 29th.

With a cash purse of $20,000, and as an official Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour event, the calibre of athletes has increased. TTR is the largest snowboard contest body and for the first year, this event is included on the world tour.

“This is, hands down, the biggest snowboard event to hit Vancouver” says Jeff Silcock, Events Manager at Grouse Mountain. “Being selected by the TTR World Tour means this year’s event has attracted even more elite pro riders looking to add extra points to their cache. It is a rare opportunity to showcase this level of talent in Vancouver. The new course on Lower Peak should draw some big crowds as it’s a short walk from the skyride and the views are astounding.”

Confirmed riders include:

Craig Bealieu – Best Overall Rider – 2007 TELUS WSSF
Dave Fortin – posterboy of the 2007 Quiksilver Showdown over the City, 2nd place 2007 WSSF Big Air
Jake Koia – ranked 40th overall on the Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour
Dustin Craven – Winner – 2007 Empire Shakedown, ranked 46th overall on the Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour
Seb Toutant – 15 year old phenomenon, 1st place in 2008 Burton European Open Jr, Winner – 2006 Empire Shakedown
Mike Osachuk – Best Overall Rider – 2007 Quiksilver Showdown over the City
Chris Dufficy: Grouse Mountain Pro team member
Johnny Lyall – Grouse Mountain Pro Team member

With a brand new course, that’s equally spectator-friendly as it is competitive, the event is expected to attract record numbers. There are plenty of celebrations, including the Coor’s Light Apres Lounge at Altitudes Bistro on Friday and the Coor’s Light After Party at the Lamplighter in Gastown.

To Register
Amateur Qualifying
Amateur qualifying is open to all riders. Please click here to register online or visit Grouse Mountain Guest Services to register in person.
Registration fee is $50 plus lift ticket.
Your registration fee includes:
* Event Prize pack
* Event jersey
* Win one of the 6 qualifying spots

Jib and Park Sessions (Invite-Only)
All interested pro riders can have their TM(s) email to receive an application form. Please have Pro Application as the subject.

Final rider list will be chosen by event organizing committee. Once accepted you will receive a confirmation email with registration and payment information.

Visit and check out last year’s short video on the home page for a taste of what’s in store.

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One-Minute Book Reviews

February 11, 2013

What I’m Reading … Frances Parkinson Keyes’ Mardi Gras Novel, ‘Crescent Carnival’

Filed under: Novels,What I'm Reading — 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom @ 3:08 am
Tags: , , , , ,

“What I’m Reading” is a series that describes books I’m reading that I may or may not review later on One-Minute Book Reviews

What I’m reading: Crescent Carnival, a 1942 novel by Frances Parkinson Keyes, best known for Dinner at Antoine’s.

What it is: A saga of two prominent New Orleans families and the Mardi Gras balls and other rituals that defined their lives between 1890 and 1940. Keyes drew in part on the recollections of her friend Dorothy Selden Spencer, a former Carnival queen.

Why I’m reading it: Few novels focus on Mardi Grass celebrations and how they preserved the distinctions of social class in New Orleans even as such differences were fading elsewhere. Crescent Carnival is one that you can still find without too much trouble in libraries and online.

How much I’ve read: About 150 pages of more than 800.

Quotes from the book: “Estelle always loved Carnival and the preparations for it. But she grew up without daring to dream that some day she, herself, would be the Queen of one of the Carnival Balls. She did not believe it even when she heard that Monsieur Leroux, who held the fate of all potential queens firmly in his hands, had spoken formally to her father, asking if he could conveniently be received on a certain day at a certain hour in the Lenoir’s house on Royal Street.

“She could hardly believe it even after the ritual champagne had been bought, and the silver ice bucket polished until it shone like a mirror, and the one placed inside the other, beside a plate of little frosted cakes, on the center table in the  salon, under the chandelier, there to await the arrival of Monsieur Leroux. She went into the  salon, and she was still filled with incredulity mingled with awe.”

Furthermore: Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post said that Keyes was a “middlebrow” novelist in the sense that she “wrote for readers of some education and taste who expected their entertainments to be literate and intelligent as well as entertaining.” Based on what I’ve read, that gets it exactly right: Crescent Carnival is, by today’s standards, a potboiler, but one that reflects higher standards than most now labeled as such. A journalist by instinct if not by training, Keyes shows a Tom Wolfean attention to the details of social status that evoke the eras she describes.

You can follow Jan on Twitter by clicking on the “Follow” button a right.

© 2013 Janice Harayda

  1. Beautifully captured! Thank you for making time to read and review it. I had not heard that definition of ‘middlebrow’ and found it very interesting. I started thinking about Keyes after I mentioned her to you and reread another favorite, The Heritage, but it lacks the panoramic perspective of Crescent Carnival.

    Comment by CLM (@ConMartin) — February 12, 2013 @ 1:46 pm | Reply

    • Thank *you* for recommending this, Con. Because “Crescent Carnival” has more than 800 pages, I wasn’t sure I’d have time to read all of it, but the story is strong enough that I’m making the time.

      Comment by 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom — February 12, 2013 @ 2:37 pm | Reply

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Too Little, Too Late

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement that operates to condemn Israel for not allowing Arabs who call themselves the mythical Palestinians (who never EXISTED as a national entity let alone existing as an independent nation), is essentially an Antisemitic Movement given a pass because of the propaganda that mythological Palestinians were booted out of their homes by Jews who originated primarily from Europe. The historical facts on Jews living in the Land of Israel are HERE. The Biblical facts that determines that the Holy Land is the Land of the Jews are HERE.

And as Ari Bussel will share a lot of that validity added Antisemitism comes from Left Wing Jews both inside and outside of Israel. This Jewish self-loathing would be like Black Liberation Theology Movement (See Also HERE & HERE) African Americans demanding a Caucasian free independent nation within America with a demand that a more economic astute USA supply the infrastructure while BLT nationalists plant the overthrow and slaughter of non-Black Americans to possess an expanded nation.

Both situations are IDIOTIC!

JRH 6/4/15

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Too Little, Too Late

The Response to BDS

By Ari Bussel

Sent: 6/3/2015 5:36 PM

Like flowers after the first rain, there are signs Israel is waking up in the face of the strongest resurgence of anti-Semitism in the past eighty years.

In the United States, Jews have been living under the illusion that “it will not happen here.” In fact, if a classroom of high school students were asked if the Holocaust could reoccur today, the answer would be bewilderment. Back in 1981, a movie The Wave was based on a true story, a teacher who set out to show his students how the non-imaginable can become a frightening reality.

We feel secure. We also did not expect attacks on US soil. September 11, 2001, showed us that was a false belief.

While American Jews do not expect a repetition of the Holocaust, today we are on the verge of a volcano about to erupt. It has become acceptable to blame Israel for the world’s faults and hold her to a different standard than any other nation.

It is now the norm to remain quiet, seated and focused when the most abhorrent lies about Israel are uttered in public. Teachers believe Israel is the New Nazis. Students at universities are being brainwashed insane falsehoods like Israelis murder children at will, harvest organs from males and do not even bother to rape Gazan women since they are not viewed as human. (Apparently, modern-day Israelis are much worse than the Nazis, for the Nazis had special accommodations for female sex servitude.)

All is done in broad daylight, with respected professors and politicians, business people and members of the clergy present, often themselves propagating the lies.

And society remains silent.

Apparently, our education fails us. If we remember “First They Came for the …” by Pastor Martin Niemoller and witness the very same thing and standby silently, we have learned nothing, and as students of history know, those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it.

One may rise to object: “It is quite confusing,” they would say. “Israelis and Jews themselves are at the forefront of the criticism– why blame us?” And that person would be correct.

In fact the same question is raised by both sides; with Israel’s detractors using this line as justification that their quest is just, while Israel’s defenders ask themselves repeatedly, in utter frustration – why should we fight when some of the worse detractors are Israelis or Jews?

Switzerland used this line to reject Israel’s official protest against an exhibition by a NGO “Breaking the Silence.” It replied via official channels that it is an Israeli organization, legitimately recognized in Israel, bringing Israelis to Switzerland to present what they have to present. We will not stop them!

Good for the Swiss! The Canadians would have acted differently, but they are the sole exception. Why is Israel demanding from others what she permits herself?

When Israel decides to fight, she has the tools, resources, knowhow and drive. At the moment, none exists. The new anti-Semitism erupting like a volcano has been ignored for so long, and so many Israelis and Jews have participated in the upcoming avalanche, any attempt to act now is doomed to be “too little, too late.”

In fact, today, those at the helm face fierce internal opposition. We have grown so accustomed to attacking Israel, why stop? Branded as “right wing extremists,” the Government is being confronted with the accusation it is attempting to stifle free speech and the very democracy of which Israel is so proud.

It is interesting that those who were aiding and abating Israel’s detractors here in the USA are starting to feel the pinch. They are at the forefront of “fighting BDS” (the movement to Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel, a front that legitimizes any false verbal attack against Israel as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth).

Israel and the other eight or so million Jews who live around the world outside Israel have not yet felt the pervasive, vicious and vindictive force about to be unleashed. When it does, Israel will have no other choice but to absorb the Jews fleeing to her shores and begin fighting back.

In Israel we are taught that victory cannot come from being on the defensive. Apparently, we forgot, or did not properly learn, that vital lesson as well.

This is the latest in the series “Postcards from America – Postcards from Israel,” a collaboration between Zager and Bussel, a foreign correspondent reporting from Israel.

Ari Bussel and Norma Zager collaborate both in writing and on the air in a point-counter-point discussion of all things Israel-related.  Together, they have dedicated the past decade to promoting Israel.

© Israel Monitor, June, 2015

First Published June 3, 2015

Author: oneway2day

I am a Neoconservative Christian Right blogger. I also spend a significant amount of time of exposing theopolitical Islam.

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Chromebook: Can a Computer Really be Virus-Free?

Chromebook: Can a Computer Really be Virus-Free?

A Latecomer’s Guide to the Real Advantage of Owning the Chromebook Laptop

Ahh, the future.  You’ve seen it: wonderfully sleek and uncluttered, simple yet technologically so far advanced anything seems possible.  That’s what Google had in mind when they brought to us their Chromebook laptops, devices pared down so as to be so beautifully simple and hassle-free that it would redefine the idea of what a laptop really is.

Chromebook is Google’s idea of the future plus a redefinition of the laptop

According to the makers of Chromebook, the future looks like this: the laptop is a doorway to an online world of apps and content that need exist only in the cloud.  Like the great mysterious wardrobe in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, a Chromebook is merely a doorway to a magical world of opportunity, delight, and mystery.  Like the wardrobe, it’s nothing by itself but rather a portal that whisks you to another world.

But, just as the Pevensie siblings from the beloved children’s book found no use for the wardrobe on its own, we can’t use the Chromebook without the Cloud, either.  Take away Narnia, and the wardrobe is simply a place to hang a shirt or two.  Likewise, take away the Cloud, and Chromebooks are good for little more than playing solitaire or whatever else you can muster up with only 32 gigs of storage and no native applications.

Nevertheless, Chromebooks are catching on.

Schools love Chromebooks.  Google hopes businesses (and eventually you) will too

When Chromebooks first came out in 2011, they quickly became the darling of the education system in the USA.  Schools accounted for 85% of Chromebook sales in 2013 , as reported by Gartner Research.  They haven’t quite caught on with the general consumer, but that’s probably about to change.  The market is opening up for Google in this sector: Chromebook sales are set to triple by 2017 and Google has now set its eyes on business markets.

Google is already beating out Apple in the education sector: in 2014, Chromebooks were the best-selling devices in schools, according to research firm IDC.

No apps, no storage..what’s in it for me?

So why exactly are people buying Chromebooks, besides the fact that they’re shockingly cheap?  After all, you’re giving up a lot of programs you’ve probably been using for years (Outlook, Word).  You’re giving up all these things too:

  • system optimization tools
  • drivers for your old hardware (printers etc)
  • file manager
  • anti virus software

Some liken the experience of using a Chromebook to that of running a browser with a keyboard…and they’re right because that’s really all you’re doing.  And that browser is Chrome.  No other browser is allowed.  In fact, installation of any  software is meant to be totally impossible (of course there are hobbyists who tinker with their Chromebooks).

So again: why buy a laptop that amounts to little more than the Chrome browser with a keyboard?

One reason is that Chromebooks are pretty much virus-proof.  The “how” and “why” of this seemingly impossible idea is explained below.

Why you should love the idea of Chromebook: it’s more virus-proof than anything we’ve ever seen

You may think Google’s motive for developing a laptop that forced users to use Google’s cloud-based storage (which doesn’t come free, after all), Google’s browser, and Google’s app store was clear.  And yes, we grumble at the thought of being tethered to Google world forever, should we choose to purchase a Chromebook.

But for anyone who’s ever sat through endless Windows updates and the issues that come along with them, plus anyone who’s ever dealt with a virus, or paid for anti-virus software…well there’s a another clear advantage of owning a Chromebook it’s said to be virus-free.

The virus-proof factor is a huge draw, but can it really be true?  Can a laptop really be virus-proof?

How “Virus-Proof” works…

Here’s how the Chromebook functions, and how it can be virus-free, in theory:

Viruses like to be installed on your operating system or in software, both of which reside on your computer.  Chromebooks work via web-based apps rather than natively installed software, so that takes care of that.  As for the OS, it’s not writable so there’s really no way for a virus to take hold there, either.

Chromebooks are designed to be used, not maintained.  No software installs, no software updates, no Windows updates, no anti-virus software…no disk cleanup, defragging, or other maintenance issues whatsoever.  Even the OS takes care of its own updates…the user doesn’t even know they’re happening and certainly doesn’t have to enter any passwords to make them happen.

You see, Chromebooks actually operates a double version of the operating system.  There are two copies, only one of which gets updated at a time.  If an update fails (you’ve seen it with Windows countless times), that version of the OS won’t be allowed to run on the laptop.  The OS which is currently being used by the owner is totally non-writable.  Only the copy that’s not being used is writable, for updates.

So to answer the question of the day: yes, it’s possible for the Chromebook to pretty much virus-proof.  You just have to give up the old way of personal computing and move on over to the Cloud.  Google’s cloud, to be exact. After all, The Laptop is The New Factory!


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Archive for October 2008

Our Concept of Intellectual Property is Seriously Broken, Exhibit B   Leave a comment

Found at Groklaw… actually, this is good news.

This was an appeal against a rejection of a business methods patent, and the appeals court has now agreed with the rejection. At issue was whether an abstract idea could be eligible for patent protection. The court says no. Buh-bye business methods patents!

The story hits mainstream news over at the Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek:

While rulings over the years have used various tests to determine if a process qualifies for patenting, the Federal Circuit said the sole analysis should be the “machine-or-transformation” test – which requires showing that the claimed invention is either tied to a particular machine or that it transforms an “article” (such as a substance or data). At the same time, the majority opinion, joined by 9 of the 12 justices ruling in the case – acknowledged that “the widespread use of computers and the advent of the Internet” had begun to challenge the usefulness of such a test. The justices invited the U.S. Supreme Court to develop a new test for determining the kinds of inventions that should be eligible for patent protection, one that might better “accommodate emerging technologies.”

This effectively asks SCOTUS to overturn much of the State Street decision from 1998.

But in today’s ruling, the court largely disavowed the highly controversial 1998 decision, State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group. That case had granted protection to a system for managing mutual fund accounts. The State Street decision was widely cheered by the financial-services and software industries, among others. But ever since its issuance, the State Street case has been a lightning rod among patent practitioners, with detractors largely arguing that it led to a glut of weak patents.

Wikipedia’s article on State Street has more details, but is in serious need of some fleshing out… some opposing viewpoints here.

Posted October 31, 2008 by padraic2112 in news, tech

No, Luke…   7 comments

… I am your father!  Not that other kid!

Jack & Levi

Jack & Levi

Posted October 30, 2008 by padraic2112 in family

Let Me Tell You How It Will Be   3 comments

News for Ann, Meg, and Dave:

Arstechnica reports that MTV/Viacom (Rock Band) beat out Activision (Guitar Hero) for the rights to use digital versions of The Beatles songs.

But the most sought-after and coveted trophy in music, The Beatles, lay unclaimed. That is, until now. MTV, wielding the power of its parent Viacom, has claimed the Liverpool legends for itself, meaning that Rock Band will be the exclusive platform for the advent of the first ever digitally-distributed Beatles tracks.

Think you’ll be able to handle the mike on “Dizzy Miss Lizzy”?

Posted October 30, 2008 by padraic2112 in news, tech

I Prefer To Be Called “Rita”   5 comments

From Meg (who turned out to be The Hanged Man), some mystical-babble-meming

You are The High Priestess

Science, Wisdom, Knowledge, Education.

The High Priestess is the card of knowledge, instinctual, supernatural, secret knowledge. She holds scrolls of arcane information that she might, or might not reveal to you. The moon crown on her head as well as the crescent by her foot indicates her willingness to illuminate what you otherwise might not see, reveal the secrets you need to know. The High Priestess is also associated with the moon however and can also indicate change or fluxuation, particularily when it comes to your moods.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Who knew, I’m a woman!  ($0.50 if you’re not a sibling and can guess the source of the quote in the post title, enter your guess in the comments).

Posted October 30, 2008 by padraic2112 in memes, noise

Dialogue and The War of Words   3 comments

Dr. Free-Ride recently wrote a post about animal research and the dialogue between those who perform it and those who object to it.  This is a generalizable problem, not only between scientists and lay persons, but between any two distinct groups who are legitimately trying to communicate with each other.  The problem is severely exacerbated when the two groups have different cognitive processes, which is why wrangling between scientists and theologians or two different political partisans is so common.

The general problem is that the two sides are literally talking past each other, since they have no shared context in which to establish a meaningful framework.  Moreover, since these discussions often result in fundamental challenges to models of the world, there is a huge disincentive for either side to work at establishing that shared context.  So it’s not really a dialogue at all, it’s just a conflict.

I’ll take the easy example of the conflict between “pro-life” vs. “pro-choice” in the United States.  Fundamentally, this conflict is broken at the root; it cannot even be properly considered a debate.  Neither side (for the most part) is interested in even establishing ground rules.  This is pretty obvious just by looking at the labels the two sides have chosen for themselves – who isn’t for choice?  Who isn’t for life?  Just about everyone who isn’t a raving psychotic regards these two things as generally nice things, and yet to involve yourself in the conflict you must, by definition, take up a position that is antithetical to one of those nice things.  If you accept the position of “pro-life”, by the foundational principles of the opposing team, you’re now “anti-choice”.  If you accept the position of “pro-choice”, by the foundational principles of the opposing team, you’re now “anti-life”.

This is patently ridiculous, I don’t know anyone who is “pro-choice” who actually goes around killing random living things in an attempt to eliminate all life, and I don’t know anyone who is “pro-life” who wants to put a computer chip in everyone’s brain to enforce Absolute Compliance with The True Way.  Interestingly, however, I know plenty of people on both sides of the debate who actually consider all of their opponents to be exactly like that.

This is a perfect example of where effective rhetorical techniques have been used to actually attack and destroy the capability of reasoned dialogue.  Decades of spin have actually worked at removing shared context between these two sides.  The people who feel most strongly about the conflict have a vested interest in forcing undecideds in the middle to come on board their bandwagon.  At the beginning, framing your position to make it attractive to the center gets people on board with your program.  After time, however, when the middle is carved up, it is no longer about attracting new people who might be persuaded to think the way you do, it’s now about destroying the opposition.

The unfortunate result is that a fairly complicated issue is now reduced to a steaming pile of platitudes that have literally less than no meaning.  Look at the political comment threads on a social news site like Digg or Reddit and you’ll get a nice view of several different steaming piles.

This was illustrated so well in the recent Presidential debate.  At one point, Senator McCain actually used “sarcasm tongs” when using the phrase, “health of the mother”.  Why would he do this?

Well, to the “pro-choice” crowd, the “health of the mother” is a very, very important point in their foundational view of the conflict.  Their reasoning is that people should never be legally forced to put themselves in a situation that can be sufficiently dangerous to their own existence.  Seems reasonable.  To the “pro-life” crowd, however, the “health of the mother” isn’t about the health of the mother at all; to them, this phrase has been re-contextualized by “pro-life” leaders to mean “liberal doctors get to decide arbitrarily that the fetus can be killed, because it can always be rationalized as being for the health of the mother.”

On the flip side, the pro-choice movement generally regards any attempt to limit abortion accessibility as fundamentally wrong, as it could be abused to force a woman to give birth against her will.  Outright banning of second-term abortions, or banning of particular procedures is no longer a question of allowing a viable fetus to be removed and supported on its own or the merit of the procedure, it’s “chipping away at abortion rights.”  Inside the pro-choice movement, it’s fairly difficult to discuss nuance in cases; is it morally wrong to abort a second term fetus that may be able to survive on its own if the conception was the result of rape and the mother is not at risk?  That’s a legitimate question, but it requires people to examine what it means to be a mother, to be a person, and inherited guilt… all of which are very difficult metaphysical questions.  If there is a reasoned debate inside the pro-choice community about when and where it is appropriate for society to judge the source of the pregnancy as being relevant to the decision that the mother should be able to make, it first requires the pro-choice community to admit that society has some right to influence that decision, which opens the door to the possibility that society may impose a tyranny, and that can’t be considered.

The core issue here is a lack of trust.  Since the two sides of the conflict have steadily eroded the shared context between the two groups while strengthening the shared context inside its own community, each side can now easily (albeit erroneously) rationalize anything the other camp says as being completely untrue; neither side is willing to concede that any proposition put forth by the opposing side has any grain of truth to it.  Are there doctors who will perform an abortion for reasons other than saving the life of the pregnant woman?  Certainly; this must be true.  Does this mean that every abortion performed for the “health of the woman” is performed for absolutely trivial reasons?  No; of course not.  However, for either side to admit that these things are true undermines their foundational positions, and thus must be ridiculed as unlikely or impossible or irrelevant rather than accepted for the truth that it is.

Rhetoric can be the mortal enemy of reasoned debate; misused, it destroys shared context with the people that do not think like you do, and strengthens the contextual bonds with people that do think like you.  It allows two sides to load the same phrase with diametrically opposed connotations, which further obfuscates the ability of people to communicate clearly with each other.

Tangent – this is why people like PZ Meyers bug me; because they are making no attempt to find any sort of common ground with anyone except people that already agree with them, and they make no attempt to present their positions in a way that fosters trust with those that disagree – indeed, they go out of their way to destroy the possibility of trust with those that disagree.  It is impossible to foster reasoned dialogue with someone if they have no reason to trust you, and it is impossible to actually end a conflict with anything other than violence without using a reasoned dialogue and a healthy debate.

Unless you just wait for the other side to die of old age.  Sometimes, the issue you’re debating is one that requires a bit more in the way of timely resolution, however.

Posted October 30, 2008 by padraic2112 in philosophy, politics

For Next Year’s Balloon Festival   4 comments

Every year, Albuquerque holds a balloon festival.  I’ve never been, but will undoubtedly go one day.  Here’s a typical view of a balloon launching…

Justin just bounced the below to me via email, and I suggest that the owner enter this in next year’s festival…

If you only knew the power of the Dark Side!

If you only knew the power of the Dark Side!

Posted October 28, 2008 by padraic2112 in noise, Vinnie

There Can Be Only One   4 comments

From Absolute Vanilla, via Meg, the 1 Word Meme (answer each question with one word).  It’s not a very good meme, really… too much shoehorning.

  • Where is your mobile phone? Pocket
  • Where is your significant other? Work
  • Your hair colour? Gray
  • Your mother? Liberal
  • Your father? Conservative
  • Your favourite thing? Time
  • Your dream last night? Boring
  • Your dream goal? Equilibrium
  • The room you’re in? Office
  • Your hobby?  Sleep
  • Your fear?  False
  • Where do you want to be in 6 years? Professorship
  • Where were you last night?  Bed
  • What you’re not?  Bubbly
  • One of your wish-list items? Quiet
  • Where you grew up?  Hometown
  • The last thing you did?  Work
  • What are you wearing? Clothes
  • Your TV? Off
  • Your pets? Sequestered
  • Your computer? Computing
  • Your mood? Exhausted
  • Missing someone? Yes
  • Your car?  Parked
  • Something you’re not wearing?  Hat
  • Favourite shop?  Hobby
  • Your summer? Short
  • Love someone?  Emphatically
  • Your favourite colour?  Green
  • When is the last time you laughed?  Earlier
  • Last time you cried?  Yesterday

Posted October 28, 2008 by padraic2112 in memes, noise


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1,000 views in a month now!

It’s been almost a month now since I released my own personal website (after the one for my family). Now the website has reached 1,000 page views in July only.
Thank you for your supports!!!

Even though it’s not like what Mark Zuckelberg did with Facemash (22,000 views in 4 hours) and Facebook (now >750 million accounts), I am happy with it achievement and hope it has enlighten people about tourism, logistics and supply chain research.

Now the bar is raised and the target of the website is 10,000 views a month!

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Pedagogy for Posterity I: The “Team Challenge”

At the end of this current semester, I will be leaving the hallowed halls of academe. Probably not forever, but definitely for the time being. The original reason for this was a happy one–“maternity leave” (not really, since adjuncts don’t get that kind of thing). But, since my pregnancy is almost certainly not viable (I have 24 more uneasy hours before I go back to the doctor for another ultrasound to be absolute certain), now I’m just “retiring” because I can. Two courses a semester at UMSL pay me just under $7000, which is well above the national average, but hardly anything to write home about. My paycheck ends up being about $1200 a month, which as most of you grad students know is livable in a cheap-ass city like St. Louis (especially if your husband purchased your home outright, for approximately the price of a 1996 Sony Discman, and you therefore don’t pay any rent).

But, my other paychecks–from my writing, from this blog, and from my consulting–now add up to enough that so long as I pick up just a few more consulting clients, I do not need to adjunct at all. It’s a small victory and a bittersweet one, and I feel all over the place about it. On the one hand, as I’ve laid bare in the Chronicle recently, I no longer feel “called” to the classroom, and the realities of dead-endedness and disposability are getting to me. On the other, this is something at which I was–perhaps still am– gifted. I don’t say that about much. I have few gifts. They are, in order of relative strength (or “strength,” in the case of the first one):

  1. Talking
  2. Writing quickly (notice I did not say “well,” as that is both debatable, and the result of practice)
  3. Teaching

I am mediocre-to-shitty at literally everything else in the entire universe, so don’t be jealous of my lot in life. We all have our gifts, and these are the ones I was handed. And now I’d like to hand the third one along to anyone who wants it.

Because I will not be teaching again for the foreseeable future, I would like to record some of my pedagogy, not really for “posterity,” but just to share, to get some feedback. I don’t know how much energy I’ll have to do this on a regular basis, but here goes nothing.

Tuesday 28 January, 2014
Cultural Traditions II (World Lit survey, 1700-present)

Text: Voltaire, Candide, Chapters 1-18
TSWBAT (the students will be able to): contextualize what Voltaire was pissed off about; define Leibnizian Optimism and the principle of sufficient reason; pinpoint exactly when and how (and possibly why) Voltaire mocked said principle
Prep: Ss came in with a set of comprehension/interpretation Study Questions completed, but I did not check them for a grade (sometimes I call them out in front of each other, in an event I call The Reaping, because I am derivative)

0-10 min: Warm-up activity. Are you an ‘Optimist?’ Ss broke up into pairs and threes, and discussed whether they thought “everything happens for a reason,” or “everything happens for the best.” A roundabout way to introduce the Free Will/Determinism debate, which will be a large over-arching theme of this course. They discussed amongst themselves 5 min., we discussed together 5 min. Opinions mixed, from “God has a plan for everyone and doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle,” to “The universe is complete entropy.”

10-20: Mini-lecture. Short PPT slide show with the basic facts about: Voltaire’s life and work, a few choice bon mots (also the definition of ‘bon mots’), a brief diversion into Leibniz and his amazing wigs, which necessitated a short explanation of Descartes’ “proof” of God. Slideshow ends with list of offenses for which Candide was banned (blasphemy, treason, philosophical impudence), and of things about which Voltaire was not “optimistic” (Lisbon earthquake, Seven Years’ War, slavery, anti-Semitism, the Inquisition, etc).

Main Activity, 20-55: Team Challenge; a ‘Scavenger Hunt’ through Candide. Here is a copy of the instructions from the worksheet I handed out, which I will collect in class tomorrow after they have a chance to revise some of their answers, using our discussion (see below):

Instructions—please read CAREFULLY: This Team Challenge is worth one In-Class Writing (all of which add up to be worth 15% of your final grade). The team(s) that find the most clues (and can discuss them to my satisfaction) will receive a “10.” The second-place team will receive a “9.” Third-place and below will receive an “8.”

Equipment: Your texts, your study questions, any notes you took while reading.

One member of your team will also need to have a computer for this challenge, as you’ll want to look things up.

  1. Please look up and define the “principle of sufficient reason”:

  2. Please offer an example (that you made up!) of the principle of sufficient reason in action:

  3. CLUE HUNT! Please locate, in the first eighteen chapters of Candide, as many instances of the term “sufficient reason” OR any other use of the principle of sufficient reason as you can, and list them and their contexts here, and then discuss how Voltaire is making fun of the principle in this instance.To begin with, you MUST find one of each kind (one use of the term; one “application” of the principle without the explicit use of the term).

  4. NOTE: in scoring the Challenge, instances of the term “sufficient reason” will receive 1 point; instances of the principle in “action” without the term will receive 2 points.

While Ss worked, I went around the class and met with them 1-on-1 three times, and did the following:

  • made sure they had all defined the principle of sufficient reason to my satisfaction, and come up with an example to my satisfaction (the second proved much harder than it seemed at first)
  • asked how many examples they had, and then informed the other groups as to the “number to beat” (i.e. “I dunno…over there they say they have five. Can you get five? I think you can get six.”)
  • repeated step 2; answered any Qs they had along the way

While they worked, as background music I played clips by one of America’s current foremost satirists, “Weird” Al Yankovic (we did a more general discussion of satire last week, with Swift).

55-75: Discussion of Activity, in which S teams shared their findings, and we discussed a) whether they had indeed located an appearance of Voltaire mocking the principle of sufficient reason (some had, some were not quiiiiiiiiite there; we discussed how they could revise to get it juuuust right); b) how Voltaire was mocking it (they were generally quite good at this; “bayonets are sufficient reason for the deaths of 7000,” etc).

We ended class without a wrap-up, because our wrap-up (where we discuss the “takeaway” of Candide, and why it was important for us to read and discuss it) will be a major activity in Thursday’s class.

So, that’s a good example of how I teach freshmen. It’s student-centered, activity-based, and generally has a sort of fun/evil twist, often “branded” with terminology I’ve stolen from my favorite sources (the Hunger Games, Project Runway, etc). I hope that perhaps if you are teaching Candide to first-year students (or even high-school seniors) in the future, that you might consider appropriating some parts of this plan.

11 thoughts on “Pedagogy for Posterity I: The “Team Challenge”

  1. Excellent lesson plan. But you really should add “Advocating, agitating, and generally getting up the noses of people who are in desperate need of intra-nasal irritation” to your list of skills…

  2. First of all–good for you for recognizing that there are other avenues, other places, other people who will value your skills. Secondly, I don’t think you are leaving teaching altogether. You’re just leaving it as it exists in its current form. You, my dear, will still teach wherever you are. As with writing, it’s just part of who you are. Not the only thing, but part. And for that, those of us who learn from you are grateful.

  3. Like for example, in my post-ac job, I happily spew knowledge of whatever. It’s nice to be a generalist. Refreshing. And people appreciate it! Like, here’s how the Coen Brothers films are representing Judaism–casual lit crit whenever needed, no essay grading involved. Just hafta avoid being Peter Pedantic.

  4. That sounds like a wonderful class. I would have loved to have you as a teacher back when I was a freshman (and even now, as a recovering academic/jaded PhD who has left the fold).

  5. Good luck with “maternity leave”!
    Also, thank you for sharing this lesson plan. I am also a teacher and seeing this makes me feel like I’m doing something right.

  6. I love the idea of a “scavenger hunt” to help students understand and engage in the process of finding evidence to support or contradict an idea in a text. I will definitely consider appropriating that strategy for other texts I teach!

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Slocum says Milwaukee is “Best in the League”

In his weekly press conference reviewing the past week’s games and looking ahead to upcoming match-ups, Youngstown State head coach Jerry Slocum called the Milwaukee Panthers “Probably the best team in the League.”

Slocum mentioned that the Friday/Sunday set-up was something that he wasn’t too fond of – we can all agree on that – but he did make some time to talk about the Panthers.

“They’ve got great balance,” the YSU coach said of Milwaukee.  “They’ve got a great point guard, guys that shoot the three, two really good kids that play really well in the post.”

Slocum added that Milwaukee has a propensity for making the big shot.  “They’ve had some really close games, they’re really close to having three losses in the League,” Slocum said.

“They’re very close to being right where we are, and everybody else in the League,” the coach told reporters.

What makes Milwaukee different in Slocum’s eyes, however, is the confidence. “They really have a confidence about who they are,” as Slocum was talking about the Panthers’ big shot ability.

There’s a funny part around the six-minute mark when a reporter asks Slocum about having the game on, and Slocum goes on to talk about how it’s good exposure for the program and the players enjoy it.  Perhaps if it were ESPNU, coach, but I’m not sure we both see the benefit of being on ESPN3 – it’s not like you’re drawing a real national audience.

It was mentioned at the end of the video that Youngstown State started classes this week and Slocum made a funny joke.  “I’m sure they’re loving it. It’s been great for me. We practice, watch film, weight lift, shoot, more film. I’m sure as a group they’re sitting around and saying ‘man, let’s go study.'”

The Penguins host Milwaukee on Friday at 6 p.m. central time at the Beeghly Center in Youngstown, Ohio.  The game is on ESPN3, and get this – Greg Rakestraw and Jimmy Collins are the commentators.  This should be interesting.

Slocum’s full press conference is here:

One Response

  1. When Jerry Slocum and Rob Jeter are in the same building, Milwaukee tends to win…when Jimmy Collins and Rob Jeter are in the same building, Milwaukee tends to win…i like our chances tomorrow night

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SizeSize Info

Shipping Information

  • Free shipping on orders over $150
  • You can expect your order to arrive in 10-14 business days

Designer Notes

Collections are created with  body movements and  the human voice  via software  written by WILLPOWER LIFEFORCE. www.RhythmikFlow.com

About our Tank Top Women

Your print will cover the front and back of the tank top / The backside will mirror the front OR you can choose to make the backside solid white or black / Body is 100% cotton / Made in our studio (Shanghai).

Silhouette Details

For best results, make sure that the image you upload is at least 27" (W) x 36" (L). 72DPI 1944px x 2592px or 250DPI: 6750px x 9000px. You can upload a PNG or JPG. Since every piece is custom made, it may take 2-4 weeks for delivery.

Machine wash cold. Tumblr dry and iron with low heat. Do not bleach.


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Patchwork Cutters Hot Air Balloons, Umbrella & Parachute

Patchwork Cutters

Festive Hot Air Balloons, Umbrella & Parachute Cutter Set

The Hot Air Balloons, Umbrella & Parachute set is from Marion Frost at Patchwork Cutters. It is a versatile set of cutters for your celebration cakes and cupcakes. The set includes three sizes of air balloon, one parachute, an umbrella handle, two sizes of cloud and several rain drops.

There are so many things you can do with this brilliant set. I love Marion's design for the parachuting reindeer! Just add the Christmas novelty cake cutters to your order and you could have a platoon of Christmas figures including reindeer, snowmen and father Christmas himself, parachuting in for the holidays!

I can see that I will be using this set when the Bristol Balloon festival comes around too!

Balloon range from: 40mm to 70mm
Parachute Size: 55mm
Clouds range from: 25mm to 45mm
Rain drip: 5mm

Instructions and Tips for Use

As with all Patchwork cutters this is very versatile and can be used in many different ways. Emboss directly onto the cake and then paint or cut out either as one piece or by applying a little more pressure to the cutter you can cut out in several sections allowing you to build up a 3d motif. If you cut out the motifs and leave to dry they can be used as free-standing decoration.

The recommended paste to use is Mexican paste which you can make yourself or can buy either as a ready to mix powder or as ready to use paste.


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January 7, 2014 / Pastor George Fike

What I Wish I’d Known…

GVcruiseThis is a great article for any pastor to read.  A list of 10 things.  But the last is the most significant: insecurity.  It has stunted my own growth.  But I have witnessed firsthand how senior pastors have destroyed other staff pastors or driven their church into financial disaster after disaster because they feared listening to ideas that didn’t jive with their own:

I wish I’d known about the destructive effects of insecurity in a pastor. This is less because I’ve struggled with it and more due to its effect I’ve seen in others. Why is insecurity so damaging?

          • Insecurity makes it difficult to acknowledge and appreciate the accomplishments of others on staff (or in the congregation). In other words, the personally insecure pastor is often incapable of offering genuine encouragement to others. Their success becomes a threat to him, his authority, and his status in the eyes of the people. Thus if you’re insecure you likely won’t pray for others to flourish.

          • Insecurity will lead a pastor to encourage and support and praise another pastor only insofar as the latter serves the former’s agenda and doesn’t detract from his image.

          • An insecure pastor will likely resent the praise or affirmation other staff members receive from the people at large.

          • For the insecure pastor, constructive criticism is not received well, but is perceived as a threat or outright rejection.

          • Because the insecure pastor is incapable of acknowledging personal failure or lack of knowledge, he’s often unteachable. He will resist those who genuinely seek to help him or bring him information or insights he lacks. His spiritual growth is therefore stunted.

          • The insecure pastor is typically heavy-handed in his dealings with others.

          • The insecure pastor is often controlling and given to micromanagement.

          • The insecure pastor rarely empowers or authorizes others to undertake tasks for which they’re especially qualified and gifted. He won’t release others but rather restrict them.

          • The insecure pastor is often given to outbursts of anger.

          • At its core, insecurity is the fruit of pride.

In summary, and at its core, insecurity results from not believing the gospel. The antidote to feelings of insecurity, then, is the rock-solid realization that one’s value and worth are in the hands of God, not others, and that our identity expresses who we are in Christ. Only as we deepen our grasp of his sacrificial love for us will we find the liberating confidence to affirm and support others without fearing their successes or threats.

Great article and great insights from Sam Storms, lead pastor for preaching and vision at Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

John 8 24

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Should Valdespin play left field?

Poll question. The Mets have a handful of young left-handed hitters: Mike Baxter, Jordany Valdespin, Lucas Duda, and Kirk Nieuwenhuis. Nieuwenhuis is on the Triple-A disabled list and Lucas Duda, though healthy, has also been exiled to Buffalo, leaving Valdespin and Baxter to patrol the Mets’ outfield corners. So here’s what I want to know:[poll id=”11″]

Filed under Mets, Words

6 responses to “Should Valdespin play left field?

  1. I said yes, but there isn’t anyone else on the roster I would want to play CF besides Torres. So save for a few games in CF, yes LF everyday.

    Yes so Bay can’t play ever again is also an acceptable answer, imo 🙂

  2. In a perfect world, Valdespin would be in AAA working on his plate discipline, but as it is, I voted “yes” he should be playing every day.

  3. No, Duda should be recalled and he should be the lefthand half of a platoon with Bay.

    Duda needs to either be a piece of the puzzle for the Mets or dealt elsewhere to (presumably) play first or DH.

    Torres is on a one-year deal and, good as he’s been lately, has done too little too late to think about bringing him back. He should find a comfortable spot on the bench and have a nice long sit. May as well see if Valdespin is the real deal in center (which I doubt) either for keeps or as a showcase. Next year, it should go to the winner of a competition among Nieuwenhuis, Den Dekker and/or whoever the Mets scrounge off the discard heap.

    • I was under the impression that we had arbitration control of Torres for next season, which was one reason we traded away Pagan, who can go free agent, to get him.

      • you are correct, Torres is arbitration eligible next year.

      • They have the right to go to arbitration with Torres, but why would they exercise it? He’s an inconsistent, underperforming, player who relies on aging legs and who’s done too little too late this year. The Mets aren’t obligated to him for 2013, so non-tender him, IMHO.

        They could get the same production for league minimum from multiple guys who might blossom into something more. And if they don’t, nothing lost.

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The Trinkets of Evil: Eva Braun’s Underwear and Dark Heritage

The underwear that may have once belonged to Eva Braun are $7500 (image from Daily Mail).

The underwear that may have once belonged to Eva Braun are $7500 (image from Daily Mail).

Few artifacts associated with dark historical moments are more perversely fascinating than a pair of panties for sale in an Ohio antiques shop.  The lace underwear embossed with the monogram “EB” were reputedly recovered in 1945 from Berchtesgaden, where they were said to grace Eva BraunThe provenience for the $7500 knickers is not clearly established, but the interest in the skivvies of Hitler’s mistress is a telling reflection of our deep-seated curiosity in the human dimensions of evil.  The fascination with such a prosaic thing illuminates our desire to comprehend (if not explain) the most evil people by focusing on their banal humanity.

Few collectibles provoke more anxiety than Nazi artifacts, whose exchange is strictly regulated throughout most of the world.  Many of the codes regulating Nazi memorabilia attempt to keep them from falling into the hands of contemporary neo-Nazis, but many observers simply see the profiteering on Nazi symbols as ghoulish if not immoral.  Harry Grenville, whose parents died at Auschwitz, called a 2015 auction of wartime memorabilia “hugely offensive,” lamenting that “this auction house is set to make a tidy sum of money from the sale of items that are hugely offensive to a lot of people.  It raises again the question about freedom of speech – you can’t force people to stop selling Holocaust memorabilia and making money from it but you can deplore it.”  Grenville is not alone in his uneasiness that Nazi material things have become “collectibles” traded like any other other good.  Nevertheless, this aversion to the trade in Nazi collectibles stands somewhat at odds with the pervasive presence of Nazis in popular culture, where Nazism and Hitler are nearly universally recognized stand-ins for evil.

These eyeglasses are attributed to Heinrich Himmler (image Alexander Historical Auctions).

Heinrich Himmler’s eyeglasses were offered in an auction earlier this year (image Alexander Historical Auctions).

The Ohio panties perhaps stand apart from SS daggers and swastika-emblazoned things because they potentially humanize an otherwise evil person by displaying her banality.  The challenge of fathoming Eva Braun is to comprehend a woman who embraced one of history’s most evil figures, and a trinket as commonplace as her underwear (or her blouse auctioned in February 2015) makes her less of a symbol than a person.  Much of our fascination with the likes of Eva Braun revolves around our desire to explain evil, which is often immune to rational explanation; unable to rationalize the historical record of evil, we examine the prosaic relics of everyday life as though there may be something recognizable or even “human” that will explain Eva Braun’s path.

Beyond the desire to understand such evil, these trinkets also materialize people whose histories have come to us through popular culture.  In their edited study Monsters in the Mirror: Representations of Nazism in Post-War Popular Culture, Sara Buttsworth and Maartje Abbenhuis emphasize that we have enormous familiarity with the historical Nazi narrative, yet it comes in the hyperbolic form of movies and documentaries.  Such popular discourses inevitably forgo the narrative complications of scholarship on National Socialist leadership and Nazism, instead painting morally simplistic and often-shallow pictures of the Nazis.  Fascinated by the Nazi narrative we have been presented with in popular culture, the party’s most significant figures may become more “real” through the modest things that can be found in scores of auctions.

Hitler's 1909 address change form in Vienna (image from Nate D.Sander Memorabilia).

Hitler’s 1909 address change form in Vienna (image from Nate D.Sander Memorabilia).

Consequently, we are fascinated and in some cases repulsed by modest material things linked to dark historical figures.  For instance, a 1909 hand-written change of address by Hitler sold for $33,650 in 2012 (though it failed to be sold again last March at an auction in which a signed copy of Mein Kampf was sold for $43,750; Hitler’s paintings have often appeared at auctions, with one removed from an auction last week).  Most of the goods that seem to provide the most unsettling response are Nazis’ prosaic personal effects.  In February, for instance, a pair of glasses attributed to Himmler went under the hammer at a Maryland auction house, and in 2011 buyers had the opportunity to purchase the 11-year-old Himmler’s communion certificate.  Last year the black leather coat of Minister of Armaments and War Production Albert Speer sold for $10,000 to his third cousin.  Speer’s relative is a Jewish businessman from Chicago who was captivated by Albert Speer’s admission of complicity with the Nazi cause following the war.  In 2012 an enormous auction lot of personal papers from Joseph Goebbels included 1922-1924 love letters with Else Janke, whose mother was Jewish.  This week a Norwegian auction house indicated it is selling the 1925-1930 passport of the Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling.  Quisling seized power in Norway in a 1940 German-backed coup and served as Minister-President from 1942 to 1945 before his capture and execution at war’s end.

Albert Speer's coat was sold in 2014 to one of his descendants (image Daily Mail).

Albert Speer’s coat was sold in 2014 to one of his descendants (image Daily Mail).

Just as with relics of faith, the highest order things are the body or the goods most closely associated with it (e.g., Napoleon’s hair, or  a lock of hair from the man who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington).  Consequently, Eva Braun’s underwear stakes a claim to intimacy on a variety of symbolic and corporeal counts.   Underwear are perhaps distinctively leveling in the sense that the vast majority of us wear under-garments, so they are especially captivating.  For instance, a 2012 auction offered a rich range of Elvis’ personal effects, but most attention focused on a pair of Elvis’ underwear that were variously described as “soiled” or “stained.”  We might be understandably unsettled by the specter of the King’s skid marks, but many of us are simultaneously fascinated by the most intimate personal evidence of their famous wearer.

Nevertheless, perhaps we should be uneasy that prosaic things such as glasses, jackets, and underwear risk making history’s most unsavory figures seem banal people.  Nazi banality is most closely associated with Hannah Arendt, who coined the term the “banality of evil” in her analysis of Adolf Eichmann’s 1961 trial.  Struck by Eichmann’s courtroom demeanor and his apparent lack of remorse or responsibility, Arendt characterized Eichmann as a cold, mediocre bureaucrat who was “unable to think.”  Arendt’s most unsettling conclusion may have been that Eichmann was not a sociopath at all; instead, he was banal like many more unexceptional people.  Arendt’s characterization of Eichmann has been significantly complicated by scholarship underscoring Eichmann’s willing construction of Nazi genocide (though Arendt never denied that reality); for instance, Bettina Stangneth’s 2014 study of Eichmann concludes he was vain, manipulative, and a wholly committed Nazi.  Eichmann would probably be pleased that his own effects have themselves become collectible:  Eichmann’s notes penned after his 1960 capture appeared in a February 2015 auction.

Adolf Eichmann's papers included these notes from his period of captivity in Israel in 1960-1962 (image Alexander Historical Auction).

Adolf Eichmann’s papers included these notes from his period of captivity in Israel in 1960-1962 (image Alexander Historical Auction).

Increasingly more Nazi effects are now appearing in auction houses as a generation of soldiers and wartime participants pass away.  Many of those most fascinating documents and material things are secured by private collectors, since few archives can afford many of the most unique documents and material things.  Some documents get purchased by sympathetic collectors or organizations who ensure these things become publicly accessible.  For instance, a four-page 1919 letter by Hitler outlining his anti-Semitism was purchased by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and now appears in the Museum of Tolerance.  Yet other documents remain inaccessible, and objects like Himmler’s glasses are challenging to incorporate into museum exhibits.

These apparent trinkets are linked to perpetrators of evil rather than victims, so we tend to look at them in somewhat distinctive ways than the sympathetic sentiments we have for the things linked to victims and victors.  Increasingly more scholars and museums are squarely confronting the heritage of perpetrators, piecing together a rich documentary record and slowly beginning to examine the mute everyday things that document the stories of perpetrators.  Some observers are reasonably reluctant to allow unchecked trade in Nazi artifacts and documents, but few people debate the significance of the primary documents associated with Nazis.  The reception for these most mundane everyday material things is somewhat more complicated:  these objects concede our curiosity in Nazism, but that curiosity risks devolving into shallow voyeurism.  Nevertheless, the most personal effects of even the most evil people can promote a complicated and productive discussion about the nature of evil itself and confront the enigma of how seemingly typical people accepted and actively participated in many of the history’s darkest moments.

Above: Eva Braun at Hitler’s residence Berghof near Berchtesgaden in 1942 (Getty Images)

Maartje Abbenhuis and Sara Buttsworth

2010 Introduction, The Mundanity of Evil: Everyday Nazism in Post-War Popular Culture.  In Monsters in the Mirror: Representations of Nazism in Post-War Popular Culture, Sara Buttsworth and Maartje Abbenhuis, editors, pp. xiiixl.  Praeger, Santa Barbara, California.

Hannah Arendt

1963 Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.  Penguin, New York.

Christopher R. Browning

1992 Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland.  HarperCollins, New York.

Sara Buttsworth and Maartje Abbenhuis, editors

2010 Monsters in the Mirror: Representations of Nazism in Post-War Popular Culture.  Praeger, Santa Barbara, California.

Eva Kingsepp

2010 Hitler as Our Devil?: Nazi Germany in Mainstream Media.  In Monsters in the Mirror: Representations of Nazism in Post-War Popular Culture, Sara Buttsworth and Maartje Abbenhuis, editors, pp. 29-52.  Praeger, Santa Barbara, California.

Michael Mann

2000 Were the Perpetrators of Genocide “Ordinary Men” or “Real Nazis”? Results from Fifteen Hundred BiographiesHolocaust and Genocide Studies 14(3):331-366.

Jürgen Matthäus

1996 What About the “Ordinary Men”?: The German Order Police and the Holocaust in the Occupied Soviet UnionHolocaust and Genocide Studies 10(2):134-150.  (subscription access)

Bettina Stangneth

2014 Eichmann before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer.  Alfred Knopf, New York.

Eichmann Papers image from Alexander Historical Auctions

Eva Braun underwear image from Daily Mail

Eva Braun Berchtesgaden image from Getty Images

Himmler eyeglasses image from Live Auctioneers/Alexander Historical Auctions.

Hitler 1909 change of address image from Nate D. Sanders Auction

Speer’s Coat image from Daily Mail

Posted on June 8, 2015, in Uncategorized and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.

  1. so strange and fascinating!

  2. It is revolting to see people clamber for this type of stuff. I couldn’t own any of it. Peoples fascination with psychopaths is puzzling. Disturbing

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Posts tagged ‘Yamaico Navarro’

Monday: 05.9.2011

Prospect Spotlight: Jose Iglesias & Yamaico Navarro

The prospect parade continued on Sunday as the Boston Red Sox announced they were calling up slick fielding shortstop Jose Iglesias to take the spot of Marco Scutaro, who is headed to the disabled list.

This call up has exponentially less fanfare than that of Eric Hosmer for many reasons, chief among them being that he isn’t near the talent from a fantasy aspect and the fact that he’s essentially going to be a defensive replacement.

The 52nd-ranked prospect by Baseball America is unquestionably excellent with the glove which has allowed him to climb the minor league ranks and reach AAA at the age of 21, but his bat lags way behind.  It’s always going to, too.  His ceiling is going to be a Rey Ordonez-plus.  He likely won’t be quite as inept at the plate, but .700 OPS will be a challenge (Ordonez had a career .600 OPS).

His lack of skill with the bat combined with his role as a defensive replacement make him a complete nonfactor in all fantasy formats.  I have seen him drafted to minor league rosters in some AL-Only leagues and I’m not entirely sure why (and I’m talking long-term, not just ’11).  Perhaps it is because he is the top rated or at least one of the top rated prospects on a high profile team, but those lists are all-encompassing meaning his remarkable defense matters.

Unless you play a Strat-O-Matic or Scoresheet league, his defense means nothing for fantasy players.

I was hoping that Yamaico Navarro would get a call soon even over Iglesias as he brings a lot more potential with the bat, but he suffered an oblique strain and on May 7th he hit the 7-day DL in the minors.  That may be more why Boston went with Iglesias.

Navarro had a strong season last year (hitting .275/.356/.437 in AA and AAA) crossing three levels including a 20-game stint with the Red Sox from late August through the end of the year.  He was clearly overmatched in the small sample (.143/.174/.143), but that’s not too surprising for a 22-year old who had just 16 games of AAA experience prior to reaching the big leagues.

He is back in Pawtucket and off to a great start this season hitting .329/.436/.612 in 101 plate appearances.  He has 14 extra base hits including eight doubles, two triples and four home runs.  He has driven in 12, scored 19 and two stolen bases.

Perhaps as impressive as anything in his start is the 1:1 K/BB split (13 apiece).  His plate patience has been something he seems to be working on constantly as he was sitting 2.4-2.5 in 2007 and 2008 before dropping to 2.0 in 2009 and then a really nice improvement to 1.3 last year.

Primarily a shortstop in his minor league career, Navarro has also seen time at second base, third base and all three outfield spots this season.  With that flexibility plus a great start at the dish, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Red Sox soon selected him to be their super-utility man especially in light of the fact that their backup outfielders, Mike Cameron and Darnell McDonald, are hitting a robust .158 combined (9-for-57).  It will depend on how those two play in the coming weeks and how quickly Navarro heals from the oblique.

But again even adding his 2011 start, he still has just 39 games above AA and he is still just 23 years old.  I think Navarro is someone to strongly consider depending on league format.  He may still be available in dynasty/ultra leagues, so check your wire.  Meanwhile, AL-Only leaguers using a more limited minor league roster (3-7 slots) might want to make room to invest as he will almost certainly get the call before September, especially if he keeps raking the ball when he returns from injury.  Don’t start releasing guys who are top 5-7 in their organization for him, but he is as good as any other lower rated org. guy… unless the org. is Kansas City.