“
As I raced out of the office, I could hear Emily rapid-fire dialing four-digit extensions and all but screaming, 'She's on her way-- tell everyone.' It took me only three seconds to wind through the hallways and pass through the fashion department, but I had already heard panicked cries of 'Emily said she's on her way in' and 'Miranda's coming!' and a particularly blood curdling cry of 'She's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!
”
”
Lauren Weisberger (The Devil Wears Prada (The Devil Wears Prada, #1))
“
This is a Lucent PBX with Audix voice mail, right? I used this kind at all of my old jobs, so I'm pretty familiar with them."
Completely ignoring me, Pat continues to demonstrate every single one of the phone's features, half of which she describes incorrectly. I don't bother taking notes because I've used this system a thousand times. I have no need to transcribe an erroneous refresher course. "Hey, you should be writing this down."
Like I said, I've used this system extensively and--"
WRITE IT DOWN," Pat growls. "If you screw up the phone, Jerry's gonna be on my ass."
No problem." I'm slowly learning to choose my battles and figure this isn't the hill I want to die on. I pull a portfolio out of my briefcase and begin to take notes.
When the phone rings and Jerry isn't there to answer, you pick it up and hold it to your mouth like this. You say, 'Hello, Jerry Jenkins' office.'"
I write: When phone rings, place receiver next to your word hole and not your hoo-hoo or other bodily aperature, and say, "Shalom.
”
”
Jen Lancaster (Bitter Is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office)
“
First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive liberty compatible with similar liberty for others.
Second: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all.
”
”
John Rawls
“
Police officers are well known for their aggressive behaviors, search "Police Officer Angry Aggression Theory". I can speak from personal experience that they do cover up for each other and target individuals that they have a vendetta on. Police Internal Affairs is just an extension of the cover up machine, they uphold very few complaints.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
Just so hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinary conversation. Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is, that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while.
I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dwelt in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.
We may well be ashamed to tell what things we have read or heard in our day. I do not know why my news should be so trivial,--considering what one's dreams and expectations are, why the developments should be so paltry. The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our genius. It is the stalest repetition.
”
”
Henry David Thoreau (Life Without Principle)
“
As we have seen, prayer, celebration of the religious offices, alms, consoling the afflicted, the cultivation of a little piece of ground, fraternity, frugality, hospitality, self-sacrifice, confidence, study, and work, filled up each day of his life. Filled up is exactly the phrase; and in fact, the Bishop's day was full to the brim with good thoughts, good words, and good actions. Yet it was not complete if cold or rainy weather prevented him from passing an hour or two in the evening, when the two women had retired, in his garden before going to sleep. It seemed as though it were a sort of rite with him, to prepare himself for sleep by meditating in the presence of the great spectacle of the starry firmament. Sometimes late at night, if the two women were awake, they would hear him slowly walking the paths. He was out there alone with himself, composed, tranquil, adoring, comparing the serenity of his heart with the serenity of the skies, moved in the darkness by the visible splendors of the constellations, and the invisible splendor of God, opening his soul to the thoughts that fall from the Unknown. In such moments, offering up his heart at the hour when the flowers of night emit their perfume, lit like a lamp in the center of the starry night, expanding his soul in ecstasy in the midst of creation’s universal radiance, perhaps he could not have told what was happening in his own mind; he felt something depart from him, and something descend upon him; mysterious exchanges of the depths of the soul with the depths of the universe.
He contemplated the grandeur, and the presence of God; the eternity of the future, that strange mystery; the eternity of the past, a stranger mystery; all the infinities hidden deep in every direction; and, without trying to comprehend the incomprehensible, he saw it. He did not study God; he was dazzled by Him. He reflected upon the magnificent union of atoms, which give visible forms to Nature, revealing forces by recognizing them, creating individualities in unity, proportions in extension, the innumerable in the infinite, and through light producing beauty. These unions are forming and dissolving continually; from which come life and death.
He would sit on a wooden bench leaning against a decrepit trellis and look at the stars through the irregular outlines of his fruit trees. This quarter of an acre of ground, so sparingly planted, so cluttered with shed and ruins, was dear to him and satisfied him.
What more was needed by this old man, who divided the leisure hours of his life, where he had so little leisure, between gardening in the day time, and contemplation at night? Was this narrow enclosure, with the sky for a background not space enough for him to adore God in his most beautiful, most sublime works? Indeed, is that not everything? What more do you need? A little garden to walk in, and immensity to reflect on. At his feet something to cultivate and gather; above his head something to study and meditate on; a few flowers on earth and all the stars in the sky.
”
”
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
She was decidedly attractive, he saw, but in an ill-natured, ungracious way. Because of his connection with Fitzgerald, Carstairs & Scott, Johnnie had an extensive knowledge of the external appearance and different modes of behavior of a great variety of attractive women: they came up to the office in shoals, with their nails dipped in blood and their faces covered with pale cocoa. And some were charming and simple beneath their masks, and some were complex and arrogant. This girl belonged to the latter type, the type which would ignore or stare surlily at him if he spoke to them, until they learned that the actual money came through him, when their manner sweetened wonderfully. This girl wore her attractiveness not as a girl should, simply, consciously, as a happy crown of pleasure, but rather as a murderous utensil with which she might wound indiscriminately right and left, and which she would only employ to please when it suited her purpose. They were like bad-tempered street-walkers, without walking the street.
”
”
Patrick Hamilton (Hangover Square)
“
In the Oval Office, President Bush told Khalilzad, “Musharraf denies all of what you are saying.” “Didn’t they deny, Mr. President, for years that they had a nuclear program?” 8 Bush said he would call Musharraf and arrange for the ambassador to meet with him, to discuss the accusations directly. Khalilzad flew to Islamabad. Beforehand, he sent Musharraf a gift, a crate of Afghan pomegranates. When they sat down, Musharraf thanked him, but added that he hated pomegranates—too many seeds. They talked extensively about Musharraf’s usual complaints about the Afghan government—too many Panjshiris in key security positions, too many Indian spies under diplomatic cover in Kabul and elsewhere. Khalilzad proposed a joint intelligence investigation between the United States and Pakistan to document any covert Indian activity in Afghanistan. “There are no Taliban here,” Musharraf said blankly. 9
”
”
Steve Coll (Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001-2016)
“
Now she had Leon’s former title, office, and telephone extension, though not his former salary.
”
”
Emily St. John Mandel (The Glass Hotel)
“
Police internal affairs are in the business of protecting corrupt and incompetent police officers from prosecution due to the extensive range of laws that they have blatantly broken.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
This is a metallic penis extension that comes with a free probation officer and a traumatic brain injury.” “You tried to get me to pick this exact motorcycle when it was one of the choices on the prize carousel!
”
”
Matt Dinniman (The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #6))
“
Again and again, we keep returning to this question: what does the Bible say? If it forbids women from taking the office of pastor or elder (as I have argued extensively elsewhere),4 then we have no right to say this is a “unique time” when we can disobey what God’s Word says. Therefore those who argue that women should have all ministry roles open to them because this is a “unique time” in history are taking the church another step down the path toward liberalism.
”
”
Wayne Grudem (Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism?)
“
I got very good on the telephone tricks too. Like calling up a company and find out that the plant was going to building a new addition and getting hold of the engineering office and getting the secretary to give me the direct extension.
”
”
Robert Greene (Interviews with the Masters: A Companion to Robert Greene's Mastery)
“
Just so hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinary conversation. Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is, that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while.
”
”
Henry David Thoreau (Life Without Principle)
“
What Hurts the People There are five things that hurt the people: There are local officials who use public office for personal benefit, taking improper advantage of their authority, holding weapons in one hand and people’s livelihood in the other, corrupting their offices, and bleeding the people. There are cases where serious offenses are given light penalties; there is inequality before the law, and the innocent are subjected to punishment, even execution. Sometimes serious crimes are pardoned, the strong are supported, and the weak are oppressed. Harsh penalties are applied, unjustly torturing people to get at facts. Sometimes there are officials who condone crime and vice, punishing those who protest against this, cutting off the avenues of appeal and hiding the truth, plundering and ruining lives, unjust and arbitrary. Sometimes there are senior officials who repeatedly change department heads so as to monopolize the government administration, favoring their friends and relatives while treating those they dislike with unjust harshness, oppressive in their actions, prejudiced and unruly. They also use taxation to reap profit, enriching themselves and their families by exactions and fraud. Sometimes local officials extensively tailor awards and fines, welfare projects, and general expenditures, arbitrarily determining prices and measures, with the result that people lose their jobs. These five things are harmful to the people, and anyone who does any of these should be dismissed from office.
”
”
Sun Tzu (The Art of War: Complete Texts and Commentaries)
“
Talk about a system that needs trauma training. Law enforcement should be at the top of the list. Training about trauma, the brain, stress, and distress is essential if you are going to be a first responder—especially a police officer. Anyone given the responsibility of carrying a gun in service of society should have extensive training in these things.
”
”
Bruce D. Perry (What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing)
“
LOST is often lauded as one of the best fantasy dramas in television history, as well as one of the most cryptic and - occasionally – maddening. But confirmation of just how important it is came with an almost unbelievable communiqué from the White House last week. President Obama’s office reassured Lost fans that the commander in chief wouldn’t move his yearly state of the union address from late January to a date that would coincide with the premiere episode of the show’s sixth and final season.
That’s right. Obama might have had vital information to impart upon the American people about health care, the war in Afghanistan, the financial crisis – things that, you know, might affect real lives.
But the most important thing was that his address didn’t clash with a series in which a polar bear appears on a tropical island.
After extensive lobbying by the ABC network, the White House surrendered. Obama’s press secretary promised: “I don’t foresee a scenario in which millions of people who hope to finally get some conclusion with Lost are pre-empted by the president.
”
”
Ben East
“
His sextant is a natural extension of any seaman navigator; virtually a part of him. Even today, in a maritime world of satellite precision fixing, the sextants are as much a necessity as they were aboard the Indiamen of old. No well-run merchantman will make an ocean passage without each and every one of her deck officers reporting to the bridge before midday, sextant in hand in preparation for ‘sights’.
”
”
Brian Callison (THE SEXTANT)
“
The Job Application
Esteemed gentlemen,
I am a poor, young, unemployed person in the business field, my name is Wenzel, I am seeking a suitable position, and I take the liberty of asking you, nicely and politely, if perhaps in your airy, bright, amiable rooms such a position might be free. I know that your good firm is large, proud, old, and rich, thus I may yield to the pleasing supposition that a nice, easy, pretty little place would be available, into which, as into a kind of warm cubbyhole, I can slip. I am excellently suited, you should know, to occupy just such a modest haven, for my nature is altogether delicate, and I am essentially a quiet, polite, and dreamy child, who is made to feel cheerful by people thinking of him that he does not ask for much, and allowing him to take possession of a very, very small patch of existence, where he can be useful in his own way and thus feel at ease. A quiet, sweet, small place in the shade has always been the tender substance of all my dreams, and if now the illusions I have about you grow so intense as to make me hope that my dream, young and old, might be transformed into delicious, vivid reality, then you have, in me, the most zealous and most loyal servitor, who will take it as a matter of conscience to discharge precisely and punctually all his duties. Large and difficult tasks I cannot perform, and obligations of a far-ranging sort are too strenuous for my mind. I am not particularly clever, and first and foremost I do not like to strain my intelligence overmuch. I am a dreamer rather than a thinker, a zero rather than a force, dim rather than sharp. Assuredly there exists in your extensive institution, which I imagine to be overflowing with main and subsidiary functions and offices, work of the kind that one can do as in a dream? --I am, to put it frankly, a Chinese; that is to say, a person who deems everything small and modest to be beautiful and pleasing, and to whom all that is big and exacting is fearsome and horrid. I know only the need to feel at my ease, so that each day I can thank God for life's boon, with all its blessings. The passion to go far in the world is unknown to me. Africa with its deserts is to me not more foreign. Well, so now you know what sort of a person I am.--I write, as you see, a graceful and fluent hand, and you need not imagine me to be entirely without intelligence. My mind is clear, but it refuses to grasp things that are many, or too many by far, shunning them. I am sincere and honest, and I am aware that this signifies precious little in the world in which we live, so I shall be waiting, esteemed gentlemen, to see what it will be your pleasure to reply to your respectful servant, positively drowning in obedience.
Wenzel
”
”
Robert Walser (Selected Stories)
“
Sam Temple was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Los Angeles, where there were specialists there in burn injuries. He wasn’t consulted: he was found on his knees, obviously in shock, extensively burned. EMTs took over.
Astrid Ellison was taken to a hospital in Santa Barbara, as was Diana Ladris.
Other kids were shared out among half a dozen hospitals. Some specialized in plastic surgery, others in the effects of starvation.
Over the next week all were seen by psychiatrists once their immediate physical injuries were addressed. Lots of psychiatrists. And when they weren’t being seen by psychiatrists, they were being seen by FBI agents, and California Highway Patrol investigators, and lawyers from the district attorney’s office.
The consensus seemed to be that a number of the Perdido survivors, as they were now known, would be prosecuted for crimes ranging from simple assault to murder.
First on that list was Sam Temple.
”
”
Michael Grant (Light (Gone, #6))
“
The more Trump listened to them, the more he hardened around the notion that he had been robbed, and in the days following the election he would resolve to do what no other sitting president has done in the history of the United States—hold on to power despite the indisputable will of the voters. The next ten weeks would prove to be the most elaborate and extensive campaign to overturn a presidential election since the ratification of the Constitution, all orchestrated from the Oval Office.
”
”
Peter Baker (The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021)
“
It frequently happens that in proportion as we are taught to dislike persons and countries, not knowing why, we feel an ardor of esteem upon the removal of the mistake: it seems as if something was to be made amends for, and we eagerly give in to every office of friendship, to atone for the injury of the error. But, perhaps, there is something in the extent of countries, which, among the generality of people, insensibly communicates extension of the mind. The soul of an islander, in its native state, seems bounded by the foggy confines of the water's edge, and all beyond affords to him matters only for profit or curiosity, not for friendship. His island is to him his world, and fixed to that, his everything centers in it; while those who are inhabitants of a continent, by casting their eye over a larger field, take in likewise a larger intellectual circuit, and thus approaching nearer to an acquaintance with the universe, their atmosphere of thought is extended, and their liberality fills a wider space. In short, our minds seem to be measured by countries when we are men, as they are by places when we are children, and until something happens to disentangle us from the prejudice, we serve under it without perceiving it.
”
”
Thomas Paine (The Crisis)
“
After Michael Fanone’s partner rushed him to the emergency room following his ordeal, Fanone was diagnosed with a heart attack, a concussion, and a traumatic brain injury. Daniel Hodges’ wounds included a concussion and multiple contusions. Harry Dunn suffered emotional trauma that required extensive counseling. The psychological damage inflicted on officers who were forced to battle their fellow citizens at the Capitol might linger the longest and for some, hurt the most, even if it’s the least visible. Two officers who defended the Capitol committed suicide shortly afterwards. Numerous officers, traumatized by the events of January 6th, have left the force. It’s impossible to know how many who remain on the job still suffer from trauma’s after-effects.
”
”
Anita Bartholomew (Siege: An American Tragedy)
“
In spite of this firestorm, and even with Israel’s extensive aerial surveillance capabilities and its many hundreds of agents and spies planted in Lebanon16 (the war took place before the age of the reconnaissance drone), not one of the PLO’s several functioning underground command and control posts or its multiple communications centers, was ever hit. Nor was a single PLO leader killed in the attacks, although many civilians died when the Israeli air force missed its targets. This is surprising, given just how extensive were Israel’s efforts to liquidate them.17 Israel’s leaders were clearly unconcerned about killing civilians trying to do so: after an air attack in July 1981 destroyed a building in Beirut with heavy civilian casualties, Begin’s office had stated that “Israel was no longer refraining from attacking guerrilla targets in civilian areas.”18
”
”
Rashid Khalidi (The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017)
“
It astounds me that the media is ignoring Noriega’s extensive ties into this country, from his education at the School of the Americas4 to his well known involvement with Bush and the CIA in the cocaine business. Can’t people see that this so-called War on Drugs is no more than the CIA eliminating their competition while they take over the industry worldwide?” I paused to reflect. “If people don’t wake up soon, we’ll have a drug lord running this country.” “We already do,” Billy said, unjamming his stapling machine. I laughed. “I’m referring to Bill Clinton. In 1984, I was at the Swiss Villa Amphitheater in Lampe Missouri5 where Bush and Clinton were talking about their New World Order. Bush was really pleased with how well Clinton’s Mena cocaine operation was funding the New World Order effort, and he assured Clinton he would be rewarded politically. In those days, the groundwork for NAFTA6 was established to open the border to ‘free trade of drugs to equalize our economies,’ and Clinton was right there in the midst of it all. It was already determined that Bush would be put in the office of President at the same time Salinas was put in as President of Mexico so they could usher in NAFTA.
”
”
Cathy O'Brien (ACCESS DENIED For Reasons Of National Security: Documented Journey From CIA Mind Control Slave To U.S. Government Whistleblower)
“
At this stage in the discussion one has to mention the specter of communism. What is the threat of communism to this system? For a clear and cogent answer, one can turn to an extensive study of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and National Planning Association called the Political Economy of American Foreign Policy, a very important book. It was compiled by a representative segment of the tiny elite that largely sets public policy for whoever is technically in office. In effect, it’s as close as you can come to a manifesto of the American ruling class.
Here they define the primary threat of communism as “the economic transformation of the communist powers in ways which reduce their willingness or ability to complement the industrial economies of the West.” That is the primary threat of communism. Communism, in short, reduces the willingness and ability of underdeveloped countries to function in the world capitalist economy in the manner of, for example, the Philippines which has developed a colonial economy of a classic type, after 75 years of American tutelage and domination. It is this doctrine which explains why British economist Joan Robinson describes the American crusade against communism as a crusade against development.
”
”
Noam Chomsky (Government in the Future (Open Media Series))
“
Unprecedented,” blared Foreign Policy and a host of other publications on what was being described as the Trump administration’s “assault” or “war” on the State Department. But for all the ways in which the developments were shocking, to describe them as unprecedented was simply not true. The Trump administration brought to a new extreme a trend that had, in fact, been gathering force since September 11, 2001. From Mogadishu to Damascus to Islamabad, the United States cast civilian dialogue to the side, replacing the tools of diplomacy with direct, tactical deals between our military and foreign forces. At home, White Houses filled with generals. The last of the diplomats, keepers of a fading discipline that has saved American lives and created structures that stabilized the world, often never made it into the room. Around the world, uniformed officers increasingly handled the negotiation, economic reconstruction, and infrastructure development for which we once had a devoted body of trained specialists. As a result, a different set of relationships has come to form the bedrock of American foreign policy. Where civilians are not empowered to negotiate, military-to-military dealings still flourish. America has changed whom it brings to the table, and, by extension, it has changed who sits at the other side. Foreign ministries are still there. But foreign militaries and militias often have the better seats.
”
”
Ronan Farrow (War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence)
“
The one thing that seemed to be on our side, however, was the reality on the streets of Egypt. Day after day, the protests spread and Mubarak’s regime seemed to crumble around him. On February 11, I woke to the news that Mubarak had fled to the resort town of Sharm el Sheikh and resigned.
It was, it seemed, a happy ending. Jubilant crowds celebrated in the streets of Cairo. I drafted a statement for Obama that drew comparisons between what had just taken place and some of the iconic movements of the past several decades—Germans tearing down a wall, Indonesians upending a dictatorship, Indians marching nonviolently for independence.
I went up to the Oval Office that morning to review the statement with Obama. “You should feel good about this,” he said.
“I do,” I replied. “Though I’m not sure all of the principals do.”
“You know,” he said, “one of the things that made it easier for me is that I didn’t really know Mubarak.” He mentioned that George H. W. Bush had called Mubarak at the height of the protests to express his support. “But it’s not just Bush. The Clintons, Gates, Biden—they’ve known Mubarak[…] “for decades.” I thought of Biden’s perennial line: All foreign policy is an “extension of personal relationships. “If it had been King Abdullah,” Obama said, referring to the young Jordanian monarch with whom he’d struck up a friendship, “I don’t know if I could have done the same thing.”
As Obama delivered a statement to a smattering of press, it seemed that history might at last be breaking in a positive direction in the Middle East. His tribute to the protests was unabashed. Yet our own government was still wired to defer to the Egyptian military, and ill equipped to support a transition to democracy once the president had spoken.
”
”
Ben Rhodes (The World As It Is: Inside the Obama White House)
“
While the following tragedy may be revolting to read, it must not be forgotten that the existence of it is far more revolting. In Devonshire Place, Lisson Grove, a short while back died an old woman of seventy-five years of age. At the inquest the coroner's officer stated that all he found in the room was a lot of old rags covered with vermin. He had got himself smothered with the vermin. The room was in a shocking condition, and he had never seen anything like it. Everything was absolutely covered with vermin.'
The doctor said: 'He found deceased lying across the fender on her back. She had one garment and her stockings on. The body was quite alive with vermin, and all the clothes in the room were absolutely gray with insects. Deceased was very badly nourished and was very emaciated. She had extensive sores on her legs, and her stockings were adherent to those sores. The sores were the result of vermin. Over her bony chest leaped and rolled hundreds, thousands, myriads of vermin.'
A man present at the inquest wrote; 'I had the evil fortune to see the body of the unfortunate woman as it lay in the mortuary; and even now the memory of that gruesome sight makes me shudder. There she lay in the mortuary shell, so starved and emaciated that she was a mere bundle of skin and bones. Her hair, which was matted with filth, was simply a nest of vermin.
If it is not good for your mother and my mother so to die, then it is not good for this woman, whosoever's mother she might be, so to die.
Bishop Wilkinson, who has lived in Zululand, recently said, 'No headman of an African village would allow such a promiscuous mixing of young men and women, boys and girls.' He had reference to the children of the overcrowded folk, who at five have nothing to learn and much to unlearn which they will never unlearn.
It is notorious that here in the Ghetto the houses of the poor are greater profit earners than the mansions of the rich. Not only does the poor worker have to live like a beast, but he pays proportionately more for it than does the rich man for his spacious comfort. A class of house-sweaters has been made possible by the competition of the poor for houses. There are more people than there is room, and numbers are in the workhouse because they cannot find shelter elsewhere. Not only are houses let, but they are sublet, and sub-sublet down to the very rooms.
”
”
Jack London (The People of the Abyss)
“
A word of explanation about how the information in this book was obtained, evaluated and used. This book is designed to present, as best my reporting could determine, what really happened. The core of this book comes from the written record—National Security Council meeting notes, personal notes, memos, chronologies, letters, PowerPoint slides, e-mails, reports, government cables, calendars, transcripts, diaries and maps. Information in the book was supplied by more than 100 people involved in the Afghanistan War and national security during the first 18 months of President Barack Obama’s administration. Interviews were conducted on “background,” meaning the information could be used but the sources would not be identified by name. Many sources were interviewed five or more times. Most allowed me to record the interviews, which were then transcribed. For several sources, the combined interview transcripts run more than 300 pages. I have attempted to preserve the language of the main characters and sources as much as possible, using their words even when they are not directly quoted, reflecting the flavor of their speech and attitudes. Many key White House aides were interviewed in-depth. They shared meeting notes, important documents, recollections of what happened before, during and after meetings, and assisted extensively with their interpretations. Senior and well-placed military, intelligence and diplomatic officials also provided detailed recollections, read from notes or assisted with documents. Since the reporting was done over 18 months, many interviews were conducted within days or even hours after critical discussions. This often provided a fresher and less-calculated account. Dialogue comes mostly from the written record, but also from participants, usually more than one. Any attribution of thoughts, conclusions or feelings to a person was obtained directly from that person, from notes or from a colleague whom the person told. Occasionally, a source said mid-conversation that something was “off-the-record,” meaning it could not be used unless the information was obtained elsewhere. In many cases, I was able to get the information elsewhere so that it could be included in this book. Some people think they can lock up and prevent publication of information by declaring it “off-the-record” or that they don’t want to see it in the book. But inside any White House, nearly everyone’s business and attitudes become known to others. And in the course of multiple, extensive interviews with firsthand sources about key decision points in the war, the role of the players became clear. Given the diversity of sources, stakes and the lives involved, there is no way I could write a sterilized or laundered version of this story. I interviewed President Obama on-the-record in the Oval Office for one hour and 15 minutes on Saturday, July 10, 2
”
”
Bob Woodward (Obama's Wars)
“
In respect to the employment of troops, ground may be classified as dispersive, frontier, key, communicating, focal, serious, difficult, encircled, and death.
When a feudal lord fights in his own territory, he is in dispersive ground. Here officers and men long to return to their nearby homes. When he makes but a shallow penetration into enemy territory he is in frontier ground. Ground equally advantageous for the enemy or me to occupy is key ground. Ground equally accessible to both the enemy and me is communicating. This is level and extensive ground in which one may come and go, sufficient in extent for battle and to erect opposing fortifications. When a state is enclosed by three other states its territory is focal. He who first gets control of it will gain the support of All-under-Heaven. When the army has penetrated deep into hostile territory, leaving far behind many enemy cities and towns, it is in serious ground. When the army traverses mountains, forests, precipitous country, or marches through defiles, marshlands, or swamps, or any place where the going is hard, it is in difficult ground. Ground to which access is constricted, where the way out is tortuous, and where a small enemy force can strike my larger one is called 'encircled.' Ground in which the army survives only if it fights with the courage of desperation is called 'death.'
Therefore, do not fight in dispersive ground; do not stop in the frontier borderlands. Do not attack an enemy who occupies key ground; in communicating ground do not allow your formations to become separated. In focal ground, ally with neighboring states; in deep ground, plunder. In difficult ground, press on; in encircled ground, devise stratagems; in death ground, fight.
In dispersive ground I would unify the determination of the army. In frontier ground I would keep my forces closely linked. In key ground I would hasten up my rear elements. In communicating ground I would pay strict attention to my defenses. In focal ground I would strengthen my alliances. I reward my prospective allies with valuables and silks and bind them with solemn covenants. I abide firmly by the treaties and then my allies will certainly aid me. In serious ground I would ensure a continuous flow of provisions. In difficult ground I would press on over the roads. In encircled ground I would block the points of access and egress. It is military doctrine that an encircling force must leave a gap to show the surrounded troops there is a way out, so that they will not be determined to fight to the death. Then, taking advantage of this, strike. Now, if I am in encircled ground, and the enemy opens a road in order to tempt my troops to take it, I close this means of escape so that my officers and men will have a mind to fight to the death. In death ground I could make it evident that there is no chance of survival. For it is the nature of soldiers to resist when surrounded; to fight to the death when there is no alternative, and when desperate to follow commands implicitly.
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Sun Tzu (The Art of War)
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Here we introduce the nation's first great communications monopolist, whose reign provides history's first lesson in the power and peril of concentrated control over the flow of information. Western Union's man was one Rutherford B. Hates, an obscure Ohio politician described by a contemporary journalist as "a third rate nonentity." But the firm and its partner newswire, the Associated Press, wanted Hayes in office, for several reasons. Hayes was a close friend of William Henry Smith, a former politician who was now the key political operator at the Associated Press. More generally, since the Civil War, the Republican Party and the telegraph industry had enjoyed a special relationship, in part because much of what were eventually Western Union's lines were built by the Union Army.
So making Hayes president was the goal, but how was the telegram in Reid's hand key to achieving it?
The media and communications industries are regularly accused of trying to influence politics, but what went on in the 1870s was of a wholly different order from anything we could imagine today. At the time, Western Union was the exclusive owner of the nationwide telegraph network, and the sizable Associated Press was the unique source for "instant" national or European news. (It's later competitor, the United Press, which would be founded on the U.S. Post Office's new telegraph lines, did not yet exist.) The Associated Press took advantage of its economies of scale to produce millions of lines of copy a year and, apart from local news, its product was the mainstay of many American newspapers.
With the common law notion of "common carriage" deemed inapplicable, and the latter day concept of "net neutrality" not yet imagined, Western Union carried Associated Press reports exclusively. Working closely with the Republican Party and avowedly Republican papers like The New York Times (the ideal of an unbiased press would not be established for some time, and the minting of the Time's liberal bona fides would take longer still), they did what they could to throw the election to Hayes. It was easy: the AP ran story after story about what an honest man Hayes was, what a good governor he had been, or just whatever he happened to be doing that day. It omitted any scandals related to Hayes, and it declined to run positive stories about his rivals (James Blaine in the primary, Samuel Tilden in the general). But beyond routine favoritism, late that Election Day Western Union offered the Hayes campaign a secret weapon that would come to light only much later.
Hayes, far from being the front-runner, had gained the Republican nomination only on the seventh ballot. But as the polls closed his persistence appeared a waste of time, for Tilden, the Democrat, held a clear advantage in the popular vote (by a margin of over 250,000) and seemed headed for victory according to most early returns; by some accounts Hayes privately conceded defeat. But late that night, Reid, the New York Times editor, alerted the Republican Party that the Democrats, despite extensive intimidation of Republican supporters, remained unsure of their victory in the South. The GOP sent some telegrams of its own to the Republican governors in the South with special instructions for manipulating state electoral commissions. As a result the Hayes campaign abruptly claimed victory, resulting in an electoral dispute that would make Bush v. Gore seem a garden party. After a few brutal months, the Democrats relented, allowing Hayes the presidency — in exchange, most historians believe, for the removal of federal troops from the South, effectively ending Reconstruction.
The full history of the 1876 election is complex, and the power of th
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Tim Wu
“
Let us turn now to a study of a small Newfoundland fishing village. Fishing is, in England at any rate – more hazardous even than mining. Cat Harbour, a community in Newfoundland, is very complex. Its social relationships occur in terms of a densely elaborate series of interrelated conceptual universes one important consequence of which is that virtually all permanent members of the community are kin, ‘cunny kin’, or economic associates of all other of the 285 permanent members.
The primary activity of the community is cod fishing. Salmon, lobster, and squid provide additional sources of revenue. Woodcutting is necessary in off-seasons. Domestic gardening, and stints in lumber camps when money is needed, are the two other profitable activities. The community's religion is reactionary. Women assume the main roles in the operation though not the government of the churches in the town. A complicated system of ‘jinking’ – curses, magic, and witchcraft – governs and modulates social relationships.
Successful cod fishing in the area depends upon highly developed skills of navigation, knowledge of fish movements, and familiarity with local nautical conditions. Lore is passed down by word of mouth, and literacy among older fishermen is not universal by any means. ‘Stranger’ males cannot easily assume dominant positions in the fishing systems and may only hire on for salary or percentage. Because women in the community are not paid for their labour, there has been a pattern of female migration out of the area. Significantly, two thirds of the wives in the community are from outside the area. This has a predictable effect on the community's concept of ‘the feminine’. An elaborate anti-female symbolism is woven into the fabric of male communal life, e.g. strong boats are male and older leaky ones are female.
Women ‘are regarded as polluting “on the water” and the more traditional men would not consider going out if a woman had set foot in the boat that day – they are “jinker” (i.e., a jinx), even unwittingly'. (It is not only relatively unsophisticated workers such as those fishermen who insist on sexual purity. The very skilled technicians drilling for natural gas in the North Sea affirm the same taboo: women are not permitted on their drilling platform rigs.)
It would be, however, a rare Cat Harbour woman who would consider such an act, for they are aware of their structural position in the outport society and the cognition surrounding their sex….Cat Harbour is a male-dominated society….Only men can normally inherit property, or smoke or drink, and the increasingly frequent breach of this by women is the source of much gossip (and not a negligible amount of conflict and resentment). Men are seated first at meals and eat together – women and children eating afterwards. Men are given the choicest and largest portions, and sit at the same table with a ‘stranger’ or guest.
Women work extremely demanding and long hours, ‘especially during the fishing season, for not only do they have to fix up to 5 to 6 meals each day for the fishermen, but do all their household chores, mind the children and help “put away fish”. They seldom have time to visit extensively, usually only a few minutes to and from the shop or Post Office….Men on the other hand, spend each evening arguing, gossiping, and “telling cuffers”, in the shop, and have numerous “blows” (i.e., breaks) during the day.’
Pre-adolescents are separated on sexual lines. Boys play exclusively male games and identify strongly with fathers or older brothers. Girls perform light women's work, though Faris indicates '. . . often openly aspire to be male and do male things. By this time they can clearly see the privileged position of the Cat Harbour male….’. Girls are advised not to marry a fisherman, and are encouraged to leave the community if they wish to avoid a hard life. Boys are told it is better to leave Cat Harbour than become fishermen....
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Lionel Tiger (Men in Groups)
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Anneke, I don't know what the FUCK just got into you, but if you want to have a job here, I suggest you go home now and think about what you want to say to us tomorrow to make us want to keep you."
I look him dead in his beady little eyes and with a deep sense of calm, I unload, pretty as you please with honeyed tones. "You don't have to worry, Murph. I don't want to have a job here. I'm tired of the bullshit kowtowing to entitled crap-buckets like the Mannings. I'm tired of you and Mac never giving me my due or having my back. I'm tired of you feeding all the good stuff to your obsequious cousin Liam and leaving me all the shit. I'm tired of your endless series of talentless legs and boobs and hair extensions that you like wandering around here despite their general incompetence. I'm finished. I'm the best you had and the only one you should have trained to replace you in three years when you want to retire and still draw income. And you've never once done anything to show that you know it. So, since it's clear that you will always take the word of the client over someone who has been a valuable employee for nearly a decade, I am fucking done." I never raise my voice; the smile never leaves my face. I deliver this blow with as much grace as I can muster, throw my bag over my shoulder, grab the small box of my personal effects, and push past him before he can even close his gaping jaw.
I head out of my office, feeling flushed and nervous, but also giddy. Liam is standing next to the front desk, chatting up Pinky Tuscadero Barbie.
"That's a lot of yelling back there, Annamuk." He leers at me. "That time of the month?"
The Barbie giggles.
"Hey, Liam? A word to the wise. That fancy truck? Doesn't mean you don't HAVE a tiny little dick. It just means that you want the WHOLE WORLD to know it."
And with that, I open the door wide, letting the frigid wind blow through, leaving them both gape-jawed in a tornado of papers.
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Stacey Ballis (Recipe for Disaster)
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Wolff’s role in organizing the extermination camps and in administering forced labor had been so direct and extensive that almost any public trial would likely lead to a long prison sentence or a death penalty, regardless of the SS general’s role in Sunrise. Dollmann and Wenner were more junior SS officers, but they faced many of the same problems as did Wolff, especially if the Italian authorities arrested them.
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Christopher Simpson (The Splendid Blond Beast: Money, Law, and Genocide in the Twentieth Century (Forbidden Bookshelf Book 24))
“
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Pods And Lodges
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Jules and me extensively, talked to everyone at the office, and flown themselves out to California to interview Crazy Craig. They’ve even tracked down the first wedding Cyrus ever officiated. The couple, Gillian and Michael Rushmore-Smith, live in Boulder, Colorado, and run a no-waste grocery store where you bring your own containers. For them, Cyrus designed something called a Wetting: their guests brought water from all four corners of the country and anointed the couple, after which they all jumped into the Boulder Reservoir. They are still very happy together.
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Tahmima Anam (The Startup Wife)
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Around the world, uniformed officers increasingly handled the negotiation, economic reconstruction, and infrastructure development for which we once had a devoted body of trained specialists. As a result, a different set of relationships has come to form the bedrock of American foreign policy. Where civilians are not empowered to negotiate, military-to-military dealings still flourish. America has changed whom it brings to the table, and, by extension, it has changed who sits at the other side. Foreign ministries are still there. But foreign militaries and militias often have the better seats.
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Ronan Farrow (War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence)
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According to the Pesticide Information Project of Cooperative Extension Offices of Cornell University, Michigan State University, Oregon State University, and University of California at Davis,14 when a chemical toxin enters your body, it actually alters the speed at which many key functions take place. This alteration can decrease the activity of the enzymes that are required for every bodily function. For example, toxins may: •Increase or decrease heart rate. •Interrupt neuron connections necessary for the brain to function. •Decrease the production of thyroid hormones that regulate how fast enzymes work. •Block insulin-receptor sites on cells so sugar can’t get in to produce energy.
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Joseph E. Pizzorno (The Toxin Solution: How Hidden Poisons in the Air, Water, Food, and Products We Use Are Destroying Our Health—AND WHAT WE CAN DO TO FIX IT)
“
Meanwhile King ‘Abdullah of Transjordan had his own ambitions to dominate as much as possible of Palestine, having done his best to come to terms with both the Zionists and his British backers over his plans for the country. As Avi Shlaim reports in Collusion Across the Jordan, his account of this era, extensive clandestine contact took place between King ‘Abdullah and Jewish Agency leaders (later Israeli prime ministers) Moshe Sharett and Golda Meir.30 As the United Nations moved toward partition of Palestine, the king repeatedly met with them secretly in the hope of reaching an accord in which Jordan would incorporate the part of Palestine to be designated for its Arab majority. The king confidently gave them his assurances that the Palestinians would come around and assent to his rule.* Thus ‘Abdullah, unlike Iraq’s Nuri, had no use for any form of independent Palestinian leadership or for a body like the Arab Office that would serve as their diplomatic arm.
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Rashid Khalidi (The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017)
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Unsurprisingly, the nation’s xenophobia has seeped into popular culture. Bollywood, long known for its extensive Muslim involvement across the entire industry, is being forced to toe the anti-Islam perspective. Many in Bollywood happily pushed the hard-line Hindu nationalist agenda, releasing films that openly celebrated the actions of the Indian armed forces. In a similar vein, the Israeli series Fauda, which features undercover Israeli agents in the West Bank, has been hugely popular among right-wing Indians, looking for a sugar hit of war on terror and anti-Islamist propaganda in a slickly produced format. During the May 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, the right-wing economist Subramanian Swamy, who sits on the BJP national executive, tweeted that he loved Fauda.28 The post-9/11 “war on terror” suited both India and Israel in their plans to pacify their respective unwanted populations. To this end, Israel trained Indian forces in counterinsurgency. Following a 2014 agreement between Israel and India, pledging to cooperate on “public and homeland security,” countless Indian officers, special forces, pilots, and commandoes visited Israel for training. In 2020, Israel refused to screen Indian police officers to determine if they had committed any abuses in India. Israeli human rights advocate Eitay Mack and a range of other activists petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court in 2020 to demand that Israel stop training Indian police officers who “blind, murder, rape, torture and hide civilians in Kashmir.” The court rejected the request, and in the words of the three justices, “without detracting from the importance of the issue of human rights violations in Kashmir.
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Antony Loewenstein (The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World)
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The rest of section eight lays out the other things that Congress is allowed to do. The list is pretty extensive, so we will hit the high points. - Borrow money. - Regulate trade between other countries, between the states, and between Indian tribes. - Develop rules for Naturalization. - Print money and provide punishment for printing fake money. - Establish a post office. - Promote the progress of science and useful arts. - Set up federal courts that are subordinate to the Supreme Court. - Punish Pirates and other offenses committed on the high Seas. - Declare war. - Raise and support an Army and Navy as well as make the rules for governing them. - Call up the Militia to execute laws, quell an uprising, or repel a foreign invasion. - Provide a system for States to man, equip, and train their own Militias. - Allow the Federal government to buy land to set up government buildings, forts, docks, etc.
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John Vandusen (Blueprint of Freedom: Simplified Guide to the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution)
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Colonial regimes, particularly late colonial regimes, have often been sites of extensive experiments in social engineering.34 An ideology of “welfare colonialism” combined with the authoritarian power inherent in colonial rule have encouraged ambitious schemes to remake native societies. If one were required to pinpoint the “birth” of twentieth-century high modernism, specifying a particular time, place, and individual—in what is admittedly a rather arbitrary exercise, given high modernism’s many intellectual wellsprings—a strong case can be made for German mobilization during World War I and the figure most closely associated with it, Walther Rathenau. German economic mobilization was the technocratic wonder of the war. That Germany kept its armies in the field and adequately supplied long after most observers had predicted its collapse was largely due to Rathenau’s planning.35 An industrial engineer and head of the great electrical firm A.E.G (Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft), which had been founded by his father, Rathenau was placed in charge of the Office of War Raw Materials (Kriegsrohstoffabteilung).36 He realized that the planned rationing of raw materials and transport was the key to sustaining the war effort. Inventing a planned economy step by step, as it were, Germany achieved feats—in industrial production, munitions and armament supply, transportation and traffic control, price controls, and civilian rationing—that had never before been attempted.
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James C. Scott (Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (Veritas Paperbacks))
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By the end of his first term in office, George W. Bush, the neophyte in foreign affairs, had presided over the most dramatic extension of American military power in its history. U.S. military bases allowed it to control the strategic energy routes of all Eurasia as never before. It could control future energy relations from Japan, China, East Asia, India, Russia, as well as the European Union. Belgian author, Michel Collon, put it bluntly, ‘If you want to rule the world, you need to control oil. All the oil. Anywhere.’ That was clearly just what Washington was doing.
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F. William Engdahl (A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order)
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In the 1970s, for example, Washington Post reporters uncovered President Richard Nixon’s direct involvement in the criminal Watergate scheme. After the Post’s extensive coverage of the scandal, the bipartisan consensus arose in Congress that Nixon had committed an impeachable offense. Shortly thereafter, he became the first US president to resign from office.
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William Cooper (How America Works... and Why It Doesn't: A Brief Guide to the U.S. Political System)
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As the Minister of State...I was the chief public relations man... As such, I spent time and money monitoring public issues surfacing at the various coffee houses in town. To assist in this hearsay hunt, I placed men and women on the government payroll under the title of States Services Officers. To hide th oepration from the budget scrutiny of the national legislature I placed them on personal services contracts. Was the purpose achieved? Most certainly. Many people, even my fellow cabinet members, kept wondering why the Minster of State had an extension office located in the lush business section of the town. This was to keep abreast with the runaway infomration boom of Koror town.
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John O. Ngiraked
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This is a metallic penis extension that comes with a free probation officer and a traumatic brain injury.
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Matt Dinniman (The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #6))
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When IBM discovered that it was not in the business of making office equipment or business machines, but that it was in the business of processing information, then it began to navigate with clear vision. The General Electric Company makes a considerable portion of its profits from electric light bulbs and lighting systems. It has not yet discovered that, quite as much as AT&T, it is in the business of moving information.
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Marshall McLuhan (Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man)
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One of the real reasons that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is so intent on remaining loyal to Syria’s Dictator Bashar Al-Assad, is that in January 2017, Russia and Syria signed a lease to extend Russia's control of its naval facility in the port of Tartus, Syria for 49 years. As with the United States Naval Base in Guantanamo, Cuba, the Russians have sovereign rights over the territory, considered a Material-Technical Support Point and not technically a naval base. The piers are large enough to accommodate four medium-sized vessels but not any of their larger ships of the line, including cruisers or their aircraft carrier. The facility which gives Russia a warm water port, consists of office space, two storage buildings, barracks and a parking garage for about six vehicles.
Under the terms of this lease agreement, the Russians also operate Khmeimim Air Base located south-east of the city of Latakia, Syria. The present lease for these military facilities has an extension clause for an additional 25 years.
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Hank Bracker
“
In its first ten months of operation, the Eighth lost 188 heavy bombers and some 1,900 crewmen; those numbers would skyrocket over the next year and a half. By the end of the conflict, the U.S. air operations in Europe would suffer more fatalities—26,000—than the entire Marine Corps in its protracted bloody campaigns in the Pacific. “To fly in the Eighth Air Force in those days,” recalled Harrison Salisbury, “was to hold a ticket to a funeral. Your own.” The savagery of the air war was not due solely to the ferocity of German defenses. Early in the war, when the Air Force brass in Washington were touting the advantages of high-altitude flying, they failed to realize that the extreme atmospheric conditions experienced by the crews could kill as effectively as a Messerschmitt or Focke-Wulf. “There are apparently little things that one doesn’t think about prior to getting into operations,” commented Dr. Malcolm Grow, the Eighth’s chief medical officer. Little things like oxygen deprivation, which could cause unconsciousness and death in a matter of minutes, or extensive frostbite, caused by several hours of exposure to temperatures of 50 to 60 degrees below zero. Until early 1944, more airmen were hospitalized for frostbite than for combat injuries. As
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Lynne Olson (Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour)
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Dr. Susan Forward has written extensively in this area and lists the types of toxic personalities. The verbal abusers demoralize and diminish another person’s self-esteem. Controllers use fear, obligation, guilt, or financial control to manipulate other’s behavior. “If you really love me, you’ll ...” Active punishers come right out and threaten, “If you don’t do [blank], then you will suffer.” Passive punishers freeze others out with the silent treatment. Inadequate humans are needy types who focus on their own problems and demand attention and constant care. Physical abusers are incapable of controlling their deep seated rage and lash out. Sexual abusers destroy any safety in a relationship. Addicts of all types: drugs, gambling, alcoholics; come complete with huge denial, mood swings, chaos, and financial peril. Listen
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C.B. Brooks (Trust Your Radar: Honest Advice For Teens and Young Adults from a Surgeon, Firefighter, Police Officer, Scuba Divemaster, Golfer, and Amateur Comedian)
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A police officer should legally be able to refuse body mounted electronic devices, based on the extensive range of evidence that biological toxicity is known to occur from long term exposure to their electromagnetic interference (EMI) emissions.
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Steven Magee
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The courts of justice are the only possible medium between the central power and the administrative bodies; they alone can compel the elected functionary to obey, without violating the rights of the elector. The extension of judicial power in the political world ought therefore to be in the exact ratio of the extension of elective offices: if these two institutions do not go hand in hand, the State must fall into anarchy or into subjection.
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Alexis de Tocqueville (Democracy in America)
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A True P.I. Private Investigator
“
Oh, yes," Father Mancuso nodded. "As Father Ryan mentioned, I've seen and heard many who've come to me as a psychotherapist and as a parish priest." Chancellor Ryan picked up the thread. "Then there are the so-called extraordinary activities of the devil in the world. Usually these are material things around a person that are affected; that might be what you're up against. We call it infestation. It breaks down into different categories which we'll explain in a minute." "Obsession," Father Nuncio put in, "is the next step, in which the person is affected either internally or externally. And finally there is possession, by which the person temporarily loses control of his faculties and the devil acts in and through him." When Father Mancuso had come to the Chancellors' office to keep his appointment, he had been somewhat embarrassed as to how to approach his problem. But he relaxed as the two priests had shown keen interest. Now with their spelling out the guidelines he must take in this kind of situation, Father Mancuso raised his hopes for deliverance from this evil. "In investigating cases of possible diabolical interference," Chancellor Ryan went on, "we must consider the following: One, fraud and deception. Two, natural scientific causes. Three, parapsychological causes. Four, diabolical influences. And five, miracles. In this case, fraud and trickery don't seem plausible. George and Kathleen Lutz seem to be normal, balanced individuals. We think you are too. The possibilities therefore are reduced to psychological, parapsychological, or diabolical influences." "We'll exclude the miraculous," Father Nuncio broke in, "because the Divine would not involve itself in the trivial and foolish." "True," said Father Ryan. "Therefore the explanation would seem to include hallucination and autosuggestion - you know, like the invisible touches Kathy experienced - and when George thought he heard that marching band. But let's take the parapsychological line. Parapsychologists like Dr. Rhine, who works at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, define four main operations in the science. The first three come under the general heading of ESP-extrasensory perception. They are mental telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition, which could explain George's visions and 'picking up' information that seems to coincide with known facts about the DeFeos. The fourth parapsychological area is psychokinesis, where objects move by themselves. That would be the case with the Lutzes' ceramic lion - if it did move," he added. Father Nuncio got up to refill his cup. "All of what we've said, Frank, is part of the suggestion we have for the Lutzes. Have them contact some investigative organization like Dr. Rhine's to come in and look at the house. They'll do extensive testing and I'm sure they can come to some conclusion short of diabolical influence.
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Anonymous
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grow best in a slightly acid soil with a pH of 6.0 to 6.5. The lab or extension office will be able to provide information on how to raise or lower the pH, if
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Maggie Oster (10 Steps to Beautiful Roses: Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin A-110)
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Uses of Custom Blinds
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Out there, there are various kinds of window shades. Choosing the right window blind is usually a bit hectic if it’s your first time. Listed below are some various varieties of window shades that you can choose from. Venetian blinds are the commonest and in style at this time. They're constructed from horizontal slates connected to one another. They function on a change or pull string. Some are product of wooden, plastic or composites. They are appropriate for each houses and places of work.
Vertical blinds are among the most unique varieties of window blinds you can get. They are good insulators and can be used to Custom Blinds utterly block daylight penetration. The vertical shades are also robust enough to stop any harm from strong winds. They are low cost but stylish. Some are constructed with the power to adjust themselves in response to the time of day. Customs blinds can be used for each casual and office settings. This innovative thought means that you can use pictures as blind. With regards to makes use of of custom blinds, there are different options. Using your individual imagination, customized blinds might be adorned with completely different colors, designs and patterns.
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The images can be printed on a high quality curler and you should utilize vertical blinds, that are fade resistant, easier to clean and final for a number of years. In case your home windows varies in sizes, contemplate the images that will look one of the best. For a big window, a large panorama image can be effective. If the window is kind of slim, you need to consider photos corresponding to flowers or bushes.
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Edwin Hall
“
Smart people in white coats have extensively studied commuting—this supposedly necessary part of our days—and the verdict is in: long commutes make you fat, stressed, and miserable. Even short commutes stab at your happiness. According to the research,fn1 commuting is associated with an increased risk of obesity, insomnia, stress, neck and back pain, high blood pressure, and other stress-related ills such as heart attacks and depression, and even divorce.
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Jason Fried (Remote: Office Not Required)
“
Maury and I spent more than one month in Pakistan, talking with AID personnel and their Pakistani counterparts and learning about the conduct of the projects over the six-year period. Most importantly, we focused on the dialogue between senior U.S. embassy and mission personnel and those in the Pakistani government responsible for economic policy
formulation.
One day, he and I were asked to attend a “brown bag luncheon” with the senior mission staff. The idea was to be totally informal, put our feet on the desks and just chat about our impressions. Everyone was eager to learn what Maury thought about the program. Three important things emerged
for me out of that discussion.
1. The mission director explained that he had held some very successful consultations and brainstorming sessions with senior Pakistani government leaders. He said the Pakistanis were open to his ideas for needed reform, listened carefully and took extensive notes during these meetings.
Although there had been little concrete action to implement these recommendations to date, he was confident they were seriously considering them.
Maury smiled and responded, “Yeah. They used to jerk me around the same way when I was in your position. The Paks are masters at that game. They know how to make you feel good. I doubt that they are serious. This is a government of inaction.” The mission director was crestfallen.
2. Then the program officer asked what Maury thought about the mix of projects that had been selected by the government of Pakistan and the mission for inclusion in the program for funding. Maury responded that the projects selected were “old friends” of his. He too, had focused on the same areas i.e. agriculture, health, and power generation and supply. That
said, the development problems had not gone away. He gave the new program credit for identifying the same obstacles to economic development that had existed twenty years earlier.
3. Finally, the mission director asked Maury for his impressions of any major changes he sensed had occurred in Pakistan since his departure. Maury thought about that for a while. Then he offered perhaps the most prescient observation of the entire review. He said, when he served in Pakistan in the 1960s, he had found that the educated Pakistani visualized himself and his society as being an important part of the South-Asian
subcontinent. “Today” he said, “after having lost East Pakistan, they seem to perceive themselves as being the eastern anchor of the Middle-East.”
One wonders whether the Indian government understands this significant shift in its neighbor’s outlook and how important it is to work to reverse that world view among the Pakistanis for India’s own security andwell-being.
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L. Rudel