January Positive Quotes

(strange how women in positions of authority so often acquire the sobriquet bossy, while a man holding the same rank is somehow invested with qualities of leadership

This year we're doing Christmas on my next day off: the sixth of January. 'Just think how reduced the crackers will be by then!' was the only positive I could offer.

Churchill summed up the neutrals’ position in a radio broadcast of 20 January 1940: ‘Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.

Can a president who is willing to make the choices Donald Trump made during the violence of January 6th ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again?

JANUARY 19 Expect the Blessings of God Wait and hope for and expect the Lord; be brave and of good courage and let your heart be stout and enduring. PSALM 27:14 Sometimes you may feel discouraged, miserable, and depressed. In those times you need to take a close look at what’s been going on in your mind. Isaiah 26:3 tells you when you keep your mind on the Lord you will have “perfect and constant peace.” By focusing on the goodness of God and waiting, hoping, and expecting Him to encourage you and fill you with His peace and joy, you can overcome negative thoughts that drag you down. Think and speak positively. Begin believing right now that you are about to see God’s goodness in your life. Wait, hope, and expect His blessings to be abundant in your life.

Bossy was the adjective most often trotted out by the lads whenever Sue’s name came up in conversation (strange how women in positions of authority so often acquire the sobriquet bossy, while a man holding the same rank is somehow invested with qualities of leadership).

The thing that weighed on him most, however, was the irrationality of the world in which he now found himself. To some extent he was a prisoner of his own training. As a historian, he had come to view the world as the product of historical forces and the decisions of more or less rational people, and he expected the men around him to behave in a civil and coherent manner. But Hitler’s government was neither civil nor coherent, and the nation lurched from one inexplicable moment to another. Even the language used by Hitler and party officials was weirdly inverted. The term “fanatical” became a positive trait. Suddenly it connoted what philologist Victor Klemperer, a Jewish resident of Dresden, described as a “happy mix of courage and fervent devotion.” Nazi-controlled newspapers reported an endless succession of “fanatical vows” and “fanatical declarations” and “fanatical beliefs,” all good things. Göring was described as a “fanatical animal lover.” Fanatischer Tierfreund. Certain very old words were coming into darkly robust modern use, Klemperer found. Übermensch: superman. Untermensch: sub-human, meaning “Jew.” Wholly new words were emerging as well, among them Strafexpedition—“punitive expedition”—the term Storm Troopers applied to their forays into Jewish and communist neighborhoods. Klemperer detected a certain “hysteria of language” in the new flood of decrees, alarms, and intimidation—“This perpetual threatening with the death penalty!”—and in strange, inexplicable episodes of paranoid excess, like the recent nationwide search. In all this Klemperer saw a deliberate effort to generate a kind of daily suspense, “copied from American cinema and thrillers,” that helped keep people in line. He also gauged it to be a manifestation of insecurity among those in power. In late July 1933 Klemperer saw a newsreel in which Hitler, with fists clenched and face contorted, shrieked, “On 30 January they”—and here Klemperer presumed he meant the Jews—“laughed at me—that smile will be wiped off their faces!” Klemperer was struck by the fact that although Hitler was trying to convey omnipotence, he appeared to be in a wild, uncontrolled rage, which paradoxically had the effect of undermining his boasts that the new Reich would last a thousand years and that all his enemies would be annihilated. Klemperer wondered, Do you talk with such blind rage “if you are so sure of this endurance and this annihilation”?

January 9th WHAT WE CONTROL AND WHAT WE DON’T “Some things are in our control, while others are not. We control our opinion, choice, desire, aversion, and, in a word, everything of our own doing. We don’t control our body, property, reputation, position, and, in a word, everything not of our own doing. Even more, the things in our control are by nature free, unhindered, and unobstructed, while those not in our control are weak, slavish, can be hindered, and are not our own.” —EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION, 1.1–

Mao was duly fired from this position. Criticized as “opportunistic” and “right-wing,” he found himself kicked out of the Central Committee, and was not even invited to attend the next CCP congress scheduled for January 1925.* His health now took a downturn, and he grew thin and ill. A then house-mate and colleague told us that Mao had “problems in his head … he was preoccupied with his affairs.” His nervous condition was reflected in his bowels, which sometimes moved only once a week. He was to be plagued by constipation—and obsessed by defecation—all his life. Mao was

By then, Oppie was disillusioned with both the Soviet and American positions. Neither country seemed prepared to do what was necessary to avoid a nuclear arms race. As a result of both the broadening of his despair and his new responsibilities, his views began to change. That January, Hans Bethe came to visit him in Berkeley, and Oppie confessed in several long conversations that he had “given up all hope that the Russians would agree to a plan.” The Soviet attitude appeared inflexible; their proposal to ban the bomb seemed designed to “deprive us immediately of the one weapon which would stop the Russians from going into Western Europe.” Bethe

A thug. In peacetime Fitch would be hanging around a pool table giving the cops trouble. He was perfect for war. Tibbets had chosen his men well - most of them, anyway. Moving back past Haddock January stopped to stare at the group of men in the navigation cabin. They joked, drank coffee. They were all a bit like Fitch: young toughs, capable and thoughtless. They're having a good time, an adventure. That was January's dominant impression of his companions in the 509th; despite all the bitching and the occasional moments of overmastering fear, they were having a good time. His mind spun forward and he saw what these young men would grow up to be like as clearly as if they stood before him in businessmen's suits, prosperous and balding. They would be tough and capable and thoughtless, and as the years passed and the great war receded in time they would look back on it with ever-increasing nostalgia, for they would be the survivors and not the dead. Every year of this war would feel like ten in their memories, so that the war would always remain the central experience of their lives - a time when history lay palpable in their hands, when each of their daily acts affected it, when moral issues were simple, and others told them what to do - so that as more years passed and the survivors aged, bodies falling apart, lives in one rut or another, they would unconsciously push harder and harder to thrust the world into war again, thinking somewhere inside themselves that if they could only return to world war then they would magically be again as they were in the last one - young, and free, and happy. And by that time they would hold the positions of power, they would be capable of doing it.

Our search for a new chairperson had gone pretty much as expected. In September we were given permission to search. In October we were reminded that the position had not yet been funded. In December we were grudgingly permitted to come up with a short list and interview at the convention. In January we were denied permission to bring anyone to campus. In February we were reminded of the hiring freeze and that we had no guarantee that an exception would be made for us, even to hire a new chair. By March all but six of the remaining applicants had either accepted other positions or decided they were better off staying where they were than throwing in with people who were running a search as screwed up as this one. In April we were advised by the dean to narrow our list to three and rank the candidates. There was no need to narrow the list. By then only three remained out of the original two hundred.

The pro-European revolution in Ukraine, which broke out a quarter century after the end of the Cold War, took a page from the Cold War fascination with the European West shared by the dissidents of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other countries of the region, in some cases turning that fascination into a new national religion. The Revolution of Dignity and the war brought about a geopolitical reorientation of Ukrainian society. The proportion of those with positive attitudes toward Russia decreased from 80 percent in January 2014 to under 50 percent in September of the same year. In November 2014, 64 percent of those polled supported Ukraine’s accession to the European Union (that figure had stood at 39 percent in November 2013). In April 2014, only a third of Ukrainians had wanted their country to join NATO; in November 2014, more than half supported that course. There can be little doubt that the experience of war not only united most Ukrainians but also turned the country’s sympathies westward.

Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you. PSALM 9:10 SEPTEMBER 29 A missionary’s wife in central China during World War II knew the Japanese were approaching her city. She was with her baby girl, two months old, and her son, just over a year old. Her husband had been taken to a hospital, himself ill. He was one hundred and fifteen miles away and would not be back for perhaps a month. The poor woman was filled with fear—she was alone and unprotected, in bitter January weather. When morning came, she realized that she was without food for her children. She pulled off the calendar page. That day’s verse stated simply: “So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children” (Genesis 50:21). There was a rap at the door. “We knew you would be hungry,” said a longtime neighbor, “and you didn’t know how to milk the goats. So I have milked your goats. Here is milk for your children.” Will you try to explain this away, handle it on an intellectual basis as just pure coincidence? When you come right down to it, what is coincidence? It is an act of God in the midst of time.

She wants you back.” Her gaze held his for a half-dozen heartbeats before she broke away, increasing her pace through the lobby and into the warm air of eastern Florida in January. Richard followed her, a dozen denials and rebuttals fighting for position. “She does not.” “Ooh, good retort. Prove it.” “She needs someone to cosign her paperwork, and I’m the only one she could think of to do it. I spend time here. Hence, Palm Beach.” “She needs—” “And,” he cut in, warming to the argument, “and, the Society here is the type she feels comfortable with, anyway. A good dozen of her Patty’s Pack friends have winter homes here. I can’t see her moving to Dirt, Nebraska. Can you?” Samantha dove into the Bentley that waited at the curb and actually hesitated a moment before she unlocked the passenger door for him. “No, but I can see her in Paris or Venice or Milan or New York,” she retorted. “But like you said, you’re here. And hey, Mr. Denial, if she has her Patty’s Pack friends in town, why is it again you’re being recruited to cosign?” Richard barely had time to close his door before she peeled away from the curb. “You’re jealous,” he announced. “You’re an asshole

For the first time after the Great Purge, Stalin had a great number of high and highest officials executed, and we know for certain that this was planned as the beginning of another nationwide purge. This would have been touched off by the “Doctors’ plot” had Stalin’s death not intervened. A group of mostly Jewish physicians were accused of having plotted “to wipe out the leading cadres of the USSR.”30 Everything that went on in Russia between 1948 and January 1953, when the “Doctors’ plot” was being “discovered,” bore a striking and ominous similarity to the preparations of the Great Purge during the thirties: the death of Zhdanov and the Leningrad purge corresponded to Kirov’s no less mysterious death in 1934 which was immediately followed by a kind of preparatory purge “of all former oppositionists who remained in the Party.”31 Moreover, the very content of the absurd accusation against the physicians, that they would kill off people in leading positions all over the country, must have filled with fearful forebodings all those who were acquainted with Stalin’s method of accusing a fictitious enemy of the crime he himself was about to commit. (The best known example is of course his accusation that Tukhachevski conspired with Germany at the very moment when Stalin was contemplating an alliance with the Nazis.)

Today there is much talk about democratic ideals in the outside world. But not in Germany! For here in Germany we had more than enough time-fifteen years-to acquaint ourselves with these democratic ideals. And we ourselves had to pick up the legacy left behind by this democracy. Now we are being credited with many a truly astounding war aim, especially by the English. After all, England is quite experienced in issuing proclamations of objectives in warfare as it has waged the greatest number of wars the world over. Truly astounding are the war aims announced to us today. A new Europe will arise. This Europe will be characterized by justice. This justice will render armament obsolete. This will lead to disarmament at last. This disarmament in turn will bring about an economic blossoming. Change and trade will spring up-much trade-free trade. And with the sponsorship of this trade, culture shall once more blossom, and not only culture will benefit, but religion will also prosper. In other words: we are heading towards a golden age! Well, we have heard of this golden age before. Many times precisely the same people attempted to illustrate its virtues to us who are now flooding us with descriptions of its benefits. The records are old ones, played once too often. We can only pity these gentlemen who cannot even come up with a new idea to trap a great people. For all this they had already promised us in 1918. Then, too, England’s objectives in the war were the creation of this “new Europe,” the establishment of a “new justice,” of which the “right to selfdetermination of the peoples” was to form an integral part. Back then already they promised us justice to render obsolete-for all time-the bearing of any sort of weaponry. Back then already they submitted to us a program for disarmament-one for global disarmament. To make this disarmament more evident, it was to be crowned by the establishment of an association of nations bearing no arms. These were to settle their differences in the future-for even back then there was no doubt that differences would still arise-by talking them to death in discussion and debate, just as is the custom in democratic states. There would be no more shooting under any circumstances! In 1918, they declared a blessed and pious age to come! What came to pass in its stead we all lived to see: the old states were destroyed without even as much as asking their citizenry. Historic, ancient structures were severed, not only state bodies but grown economic structures as well, without anything better to take their place. In total disregard of the principle of the right to self-determination of the peoples, the European peoples were hacked to pieces, torn apart. Great states were dissolved. Nations were robbed of their rights, first rendered utterly defenseless and then subjected to a division which left only victors and vanquished in this world. And then there was no more talk of disarmament. To the contrary, armament went on. Nor did any efforts materialize to settle conflicts peacefully. The armed states waged wars just as before. Yet those who had been disarmed were no longer in a position to ward off the aggressions of those well armed. Naturally, this did not herald economic prosperity but, to the contrary, produced a network of lunatic reparations payments which led to increasing destitution for not only the vanquished, but also the so-called victors themselves. The consequences of this economic destitution were felt most acutely by the German Volk. International finance remained brutal and squeezed our Volk ruthlessly. Adolf Hitler – speech in the Sportpalast Berlin, January 30, 1940

Am I mistaken to think that even back then, in the vivid present, the fullness of life stirred our emotions to an extraordinary extent? Has anywhere since so engrossed you in its ocean of details? The detail, the immensity of the detail, the force of the detail, the weight of the detail—the rich endlessness of detail surrounding you in your young life like the six feet of dirt that’ll be packed on your grave when you’re dead. Perhaps by definition a neighborhood is the place to which a child spontaneously gives undivided attention; that’s the unfiltered way meaning comes to children, just flowing off the surface of things. Nonetheless, fifty years later, I ask you: has the immersion ever again been so complete as it was in those streets, where every block, every backyard, every house, every floor of every house—the walls, ceilings, doors, and windows of every last friend’s family apartment—came to be so absolutely individualized? Were we ever again to be such keen recording instruments of the microscopic surface of things close at hand, of the minutest gradations of social position conveyed by linoleum and oilcloth, by yahrzeit candles and cooking smells, by Ronson table lighters and Venetian blinds? About one another, we knew who had what kind of lunch in the bag in his locker and who ordered what on his hot dog at Syd’s; we knew one another’s every physical attribute—who walked pigeon-toed and who had breasts, who smelled of hair oil and who oversalivated when he spoke; we knew who among us was belligerent and who was friendly, who was smart and who was dumb; we knew whose mother had the accent and whose father had the mustache, whose mother worked and whose father was dead; somehow we even dimly grasped how every family’s different set of circumstances set each family a distinctive difficult human problem. And, of course, there was the mandatory turbulence born of need, appetite, fantasy, longing, and the fear of disgrace. With only adolescent introspection to light the way, each of us, hopelessly pubescent, alone and in secret, attempted to regulate it—and in an era when chastity was still ascendant, a national cause to be embraced by the young like freedom and democracy. It’s astonishing that everything so immediately visible in our lives as classmates we still remember so precisely. The intensity of feeling that we have seeing one another today is also astonishing. But most astonishing is that we are nearing the age that our grandparents were when we first went off to be freshmen at the annex on February 1, 1946. What is astonishing is that we, who had no idea how anything was going to turn out, now know exactly what happened. That the results are in for the class of January 1950—the unanswerable questions answered, the future revealed—is that not astonishing? To have lived—and in this country, and in our time, and as who we were. Astonishing.

Speech in the Sportpalast Berlin, January 30, 1942 They say, “you sail on your KdF ships; we cannot allow them to land here; that would corrupt our laborers.” Now, why would that corrupt their laborers? I cannot see why. The German laborer has worked more than ever before; why should he not have a rest? Is it not a joke when today the man in the White House says, “we have a program for the world, and this program for the world will give man freedom and the right to work.” Mr. Roosevelt-open your eyes! We have already done this in Germany a long time ago. Or when he says that the sick ought to be taken care of. Please leave the garden of our party program-this is National Socialist teaching and not yours, Sir! This is heresy for a democrat. Or when he says, “we want laborers to have a vacation.” It is a little late to want this, since we have already put this into practice. And we would be much further along now if Mr. Roosevelt had not interfered. Or when he says, “we want to increase prosperity for the masses of laborers, too.” All these things are in our program! He might have seen them through, if he had not started the war. After all, we did all this before the war. No, these capitalist hyenas do not have the slightest intention of doing this. They see us as a suspicious example. And now, in order to lure their own people, they have to get in on our party program and fish out a few sentences, these poor bunglers. And even that they do imperfectly. We had a world unanimously against us here. Of course, not only on the right, but also on the left. Those on the left feared: “What are we going to do, if this experiment succeeds and he actually makes it and eliminates the housing problem? What if he manages to introduce an educational system based on which a talented boy, no matter who his parents are, can attain God knows what position? And, he is capable of doing it, he is already making a Reich protector out of a former farmhand. What if he really introduces an old-age pension scheme covering the whole Volk? What if he truly secures a right to vacations for the whole Volk, since he is already building ships? And he is bringing all this up to an ordered and secured standard of living. What are we going to do? We live by the absence of this. We live by this and, therefore, we must fight National Socialism.” What the others have accomplished-that, our comrades were best able to see in Russia. We have been in power for nine years now. Bolshevism has been there since 1917, that is, almost twenty-five years. Everyone can judge for himself by comparing this Russia with Germany. The things we did in these nine years. What does the German Volk look like, and what have they accomplished over there? I do not even want to mention the capitalist states. They do not take care of their unemployed, because no American millionaire will ever come into the area where they live, and no unemployed man will ever go to the area where the millionaires live. While hunger marches to Washington and to the White House are organized, they are usually dispersed en route by the police by means of rubber truncheons and tear gas. Such things do not exist in authoritarian Germany. We deal with such problems without such things-rubber truncheons and tear gas.

January 25 A Wee Little Man Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.—Luke 19:1-4 Zacchaeus was a short man, but his encounter with Jesus Christ was powerful. The applications for us can be the same regardless of our stature or position in life. Jesus was traveling about, teaching and healing. He entered Jericho, a city important in terms of location and economic position. Trading activities had led to its becoming one of the Palestinian tax centers. And where there are taxes, there are tax collectors. Zacchaeus was not only a tax collector but the Chief tax Collector, and he was wealthy. Interesting! Were all tax collectors wealthy? If we assume his wealth came from his occupation, is it fair to also assume he was neither well-liked nor trusted? So why did this short, chief tax collector want to see Jesus? Was he just going along with the crowd? Was this the in place to be? It surely was more than curiosity because Zacchaeus was energetic and creative in his efforts—he climbed a tree. Was he reaching for the love of God? How much do we want to see Jesus? Do we just go along with others? Are we wishing for a word from him, a touch, and assurance that he loves us? Do you pray that God will touch you with his love? Would you climb a tree for Jesus? Dear God, help us to see that You are always there. Give us the desire and the willingness to do whatever it takes, even to climb a tree.

Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting (Druckerman, Pamela) - Your Highlight on page 255 | Location 3886-3889 | Added on Wednesday, January 28, 2015 11:12:50 PM This research also refutes the conventional American wisdom that when kids fail at something, parents should cushion the blow with positive feedback. A better tack is to gently delve into what went wrong, giving kids the confidence and the tools to improve. French schools may be a bit harsh, especially in the later years. But this is exactly what Bean’s French teachers were doing, and it certainly reflects what French parents believe. ==========

There is a . . . position that considers the moral complications of pollution not in terms of doing harm, but in terms of trespassing ["Poisoning the Well," High Country News, January 19, 2015].

January 28 Wise Words A wise person gets known for insight; gracious words add to one’s reputation. . .They make a lot of sense, these wise folks; whenever they speak, their reputation increases.—Proverbs 16:21, 23 (MSG) Every time I talk with my friend Gloria I wonder, why can’t I say wise things like she does? Gloria is not a real talker, but when she speaks it is certainly worth listening to. Many times I am guilty of being in such a rush to have myself heard that I speak first, and then think. Often I have unfortunate results. How many times have I said, “Why did I make that statement?” My friend Gloria has great insight. She makes a lot of sense. She speaks with wisdom that she has gained from studying God’s Word. People listen when Gloria speaks. And yes, as today’s Scripture says, her reputation increases. We should all seek to encourage those who cross our paths. We should measure our words carefully. We should speak wisely, not impulsively. Our words should bring healing and comfort to a world that needs both. Our words should be pleasing to God and helpful to others. Our words and our actions both should demonstrate what it means to be a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. Recently I did a study in God’s Word about communicating with others. Here are some questions to ask before jumping too quickly into conversations: Are my words positive or negative? Am I listening to what others say? Do I talk too much? Am I meddling or gossiping? Is my timing right? Am I speaking encouragingly? Do I have lying lips? Am I bragging or nagging? Do I admit wrongs? Do I sometimes need to bridle my tongue? Think on these statements so that your words will be more like God desires them to be. Ask God to give you His words and his wisdom.

January 29 But It Is Hardly Credible That One Could Be So Positively Ignorant! Who art Thou, Lord? Acts 26:15 “The Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand.” There is no escape when Our Lord speaks. He always comes with an arrestment of the understanding. Has the voice of God come to you directly? If it has, you cannot mistake the intimate insistence with which it has spoken to you in the language you know best, not through your ears, but through your circumstances. God has to destroy our determined confidence in our own convictions. “I know this is what I should do”—and suddenly the voice of God speaks in a way that overwhelms us by revealing the depths of our ignorance. We have shown our ignorance of Him in the very way we determined to serve Him. We serve Jesus in a spirit that is not His, we hurt Him by our advocacy for Him, we push His claims in the spirit of the devil. Our words sound all right, but our spirit is that of an enemy. “He . . . rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.” The spirit of Our Lord in an advocate of His is described in 1 Corinthians 13. Have I been persecuting Jesus by a zealous determination to serve Him in my own way? If I feel I have done my duty and yet have hurt Him in doing it, I may be sure it was not my duty, because it has not fostered the meek and quiet spirit, but the spirit of self-satisfaction. We imagine that whatever is unpleasant is our duty! Is that anything like the spirit of our Lord—“I delight to do Thy will, O My God.

ahead of ICAO audit By Tarun Shukla | 527 words New Delhi: India's civil aviation regulator has decided to restructure its safety board and hire airline safety professionals ahead of an audit by the UN's aviation watchdog ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization). The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) announced its intent, and advertised the positions on its website. ICAO told the Indian regulator recently that it would come down to India to conduct an audit, its third in just over a decade, Mint reported on 12 February. Previous ICAO audits had highlighted the paucity of safety inspectors in DGCA. After its 2006 and 2012 audits, ICAO had placed the country in its list of 13 worst-performing nations. US regulator Federal Aviation Authority followed ICAO's 2012 audit with its own and downgraded India, effectively barring new flights to the US by Indian airlines. FAA is expected to visit India in the summer to review its downgrade. The result of the ICAO and FAA audits will have a bearing on the ability of existing Indian airlines to operate more flights to the US and some international destinations and on new airlines' ability to start flights to these destinations. The regulator plans to hire three directors of safety on short-term contracts to be part of the accident investigation board, according to the information on DGCA's website. This is first time the DGCA is hiring external staff for this board, which is critical to ascertain the reasoning for any crashes, misses or other safety related events in the country. These officers, the DGCA said on its website, must have at least 12 years of experience in aviation, specifically on the technical aspects, and have a degree in aeronautical engineering. DGCA has been asked by international regulators to hire at least 75 flight inspectors. It has only 51. India's private airlines offer better pay and perks to inspectors compared with DGCA. The aviation ministry told DGCA in January to speed up the recruitment and do whatever was necessary to get more inspectors on board, a government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. DGCA has also announced it will hire flight operations inspectors as consultants on a short-term basis for a period of one year with a fixed remuneration of `1.25 lakh per month. "There will be a review after six months and subsequent continuation will be decided on the basis of outcome of the review," DGCA said in its advertisement. The remuneration of `1.25 lakh is higher than the salary of many existing DGCA officers. In its 2006 audit, ICAO said it found that "a number of final reports of accident and serious incident investigations carried out by the DGCA were not sent to the (member) states concerned or to ICAO when it was applicable". DGCA had also "not established a voluntary incident reporting system to facilitate the collection of safety information that may not otherwise be captured by the state's mandatory incident reporting system". In response, DGCA "submitted a corrective action plan which was never implemented", said Mohan Ranganthan, an aviation safety analyst and former member of government appointed safety council, said of DGCA. He added that the regulator will be caught out this time. Restructuring DGCA is the key to better air safety, said former director general of civil aviation M.R. Sivaraman. Hotel industry growth is expected to strengthen to 9-11% in 2015-16: Icra By P.R. Sanjai | 304 words Mumbai: Rating agency Icra Ltd on Monday said Indian hotel industry revenue growth is expected to strengthen to 9-11% in 2015-16, driven by a modest increase in occupancy and small increase in rates. "Industry wide revenues are expected to grow by 5-8% in 2014-15. Over the next 12 months, Icra expects RevPAR (revenue per available room) to improve by 7-8% driven by up to 5% pickup in occupancies and 2-3% growth in average room rates (ARR)," Icra said. Further, margins are expected to remain largely flat for 2014-15 while

THE NEXT AFTERNOON, they all got together at the Capitol, in the governor’s conference room: Henderson, Grant, Smalls, Mitford, Rose Marie, Lucas, Connie Schiffer, and Alice Green, still working as Taryn’s security. For a political gathering, there was a remarkable lack of even symbolic amity. The governor shook hands with everybody, but nobody shook hands with anybody else. The governor sat at the head of the conference table, cleared his throat, and said, “I don’t expect all of us to be pals after this, but I’d at least like to get things clear for everybody. Senator-elect Grant has, of course, made it clear that she didn’t have anything to do with the rogue security people on her campaign staff, and in fact feels that she was being set up for long-term blackmail by those same people. In any case, she will not resign and will take her seat in the Senate in January.” Smalls said, “I think that—” The governor: “Shut up for a minute, will you, Porter? Let me finish.” “I just—” “You’ll have your chance,” Henderson said. He looked at Taryn Grant and asked, “Setting aside all the BS aimed at the media, am I correct that this is your position?” Grant nodded: “Yes.” Connie Schiffer started to say, “I think we all know that Senator Smalls—” The governor interrupted: “No. Be quiet. We don’t want any of that. So we know that Senator-elect Grant will take her seat in the Senate. I’ll now turn to Lucas Davenport, the lead investigator in this case. Lucas, do you have any issues that you will continue to pursue?

It seems to me that we are rather in the position of the hunters who divided up the skin of the bear before they had killed it. I personally cannot foresee the situation in which we may find ourselves at the end of the war, and I therefore think that any discussion at the present time of how we are going to cut up the Turkish Empire is chiefly of academic interest. BRITISH GENERAL GEORGE MACDONOGH, DIRECTOR OF MILITARY INTELLIGENCE, JANUARY 7, 1916

We may not always know why we’re in a certain place or position, but God knows. It may involve being a virtuous wife, mother, or employee, but it could also involve interceding for a lost soul or encouraging someone who has lost all hope and given up on life.

In January 1453 Mehmet ordered a test firing of the great gun outside his new royal palace at Edirne. The mighty bombard was hauled into position near the gate and the city was warned that the following day “the explosion and roar would be like thunder, lest anyone should be struck dumb by the unexpected shock or pregnant women might miscarry.” In the morning the cannon was primed with powder. A team of workmen lugged a giant stone ball into the mouth of the barrel and rolled it back down to sit snugly in front of the gunpowder chamber. A lighted taper was put to the touch hole. With a shattering roar and a cloud of smoke that hazed the sky, the mighty bullet was propelled across the open countryside for a mile before burying itself six feet down in the soft earth.

Further assistance was received about the first of January, with the arrival of a squadron of PBY’s, Navy patrol bombers known as “Catalinas” or “Black Cats.” The PBY’s not only reported positions but heckled enemy ships by dropping flares and bombs, sometimes forcing the ships to reveal their positions by drawing fire from them. Once, toward the end of January, when a group of PT’s was waiting near Savo to engage an approaching force of 12 enemy destroyers, the Black Cats bombed the destroyers so effectively that they turned and fled before they had come within 30 miles of Guadalcanal.

Harley Diekerhoff looked up from peeling potatoes to glance out the kitchen window. It was still snowing... even harder than it had been this morning. So much white, it dazzled. Hands still, breath catching, she watched the thick, white flakes blow past the ranch house at a dizzying pace, enthralled by the flurry of the lacy snowflakes. So beautiful. Magical A mysterious silent ballet in all white, the snow swirling, twirling just like it did in her favorite scene from the Nutcracker—the one with the Snow Queen and her breathtaking corps in their white tutus with their precision and speed—and then that dazzling snow at the end, the delicate flakes powdering the stage. Harley’s chest ached. She gripped the peeler more tightly, and focused on her breathing. She didn’t want to remember. She wasn’t going to remember. Wasn’t going to go there, not now, not today. Not when she had six hungry men to feed in a little over two hours. She picked up a potato, started peeling. She’d come to Montana to work. She’d taken the temporary job at Copper Mountain Ranch to get some distance from her family this Christmas, and working on the Paradise Valley cattle ranch would give her new memories. Like the snow piling up outside the window. She’d never lived in a place that snowed like this. Where she came from in Central California, they didn’t have snow, they had fog. Thick soupy Tule fog that blanketed the entire valley, socking in airports, making driving nearly impossible. And on the nights when the fog lifted and temperatures dropped beneath the cold clear sky, the citrus growers rushed to light smudge pots to protect their valuable, vulnerable orange crops. Her family didn’t grow oranges. Her family were Dutch dairy people. Harley had been raised on a big dairy farm in Visalia, and she’d marry a dairyman in college, and they’d had their own dairy, too. But that’s the part she needed to forget. That’s why she’d come to Montana, with its jagged mountains and rugged river valleys and long cold winters. She’d arrived here the Sunday following Thanksgiving and would work through mid-January, when Brock Sheenan’s housekeeper returned from a personal leave of absence. In January, Harley would either return to California or look for another job in Crawford County. Harley was tempted to stay, as the Bozeman employment agency assured her they’d have no problem finding her a permanent position if she wanted one.

I am vice president,” wrote John Adams, the first to inhabit the office. “In this I am nothing. But I may be everything.” In January 1961, as Lyndon Johnson left the Senate for the vice presidency, his future held the dim but tantalizing promise of the presidency, of “everything.” But in the meantime LBJ would not resign himself to nothingness. It was not his nature. Throughout his life Johnson had assumed positions with no inherent power base and infused them with irrepressible energy, drive, and ambition: as assistant to President Cecil E. Evans of Southwest Texas State Teachers’ College, as speaker of the “Little Congress” of staff members in the 1940s, and as party whip and leader in the 1950s, power seemed to flow to him and issue from him naturally. In Johnson’s political ascent, power was the constant; public offices were quantities to be stretched, exploited for public and personal gain, and, ultimately, discarded along the climb. If this was arrogance, it was well grounded. Lyndon Johnson was never nothing; and if the vice presidency meant little today, that could not be the case for long. The press accepted Johnson’s bold claim with little skepticism. On the eve of the inauguration, U.S. News & World Report exclaimed that “the vice presidency is to become a center of activity and power unseen in the past.” The magazine foresaw “important assignments” for LBJ in foreign affairs, especially in the explosive Cuban situation. Undoubtedly, President Kennedy would rely heavily upon the negotiating skills of his brilliant second, Lyndon Johnson, “a new kind of vice president.” And LBJ, surely, would demand no less. “The restless and able Mr. Johnson is obviously unwilling to become a ceremonial nonentity,” Tom Wicker rightly predicted in the New York Times. Johnson’s former Senate colleagues agreed, assuring reporters that LBJ “will be very important in the new Administration—and much utilized.” Headlines heralded Washington’s new “Number 2 Man.

Chester William Nimitz, Sr. was the last surviving officer to serve as a five star admiral in the Unites States Navy, holding the rank of Fleet Admiral. His career started as a midshipman at the United States Naval Academy where he graduated with honors on January 30, 1905. Becoming a submarine officer, Nimitz was responsible of the construction of the USS Nautilus, the first nuclear powered submarine. During World War II he was appointed the Commander in Chief of the Unites States Pacific Fleet known as CinCPa. His promotions led to his becoming the Chief of Naval Operations, a post he held until 1947. The rank of Fleet Admiral in the U.S. Navy is a lifetime appointment, so he never retired and remained on active duty as the special assistant to the Secretary of the Navy for the Western Sea Frontier. He held this position for the rest of his life, with full pay and benefits. In January 1966 Nimitz suffered a severe stroke, complicated by pneumonia. On February 20, 1966, at 80 years of age, he died at his quarters on Yerba Buena Island in San Francisco Bay. Chester William Nimitz, Sr. was buried with full military honors and lies alongside his wife and some military friends at the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, California.

In 1933, the regional elections held in many parts of Germany, overwhelmingly favored the NAZI Partei. The full name of this vile group was the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei and actually was originally abbreviated NSDAP, not NAZI. With what seemed to be decisive popular approval, the Reichstag endorsed Hitler. On the morning of January 30, 1933, at the Presidential Palace, Hindenburg swore in Adolf Hitler as the Reich Chancellor of Germany, a title equivalent to that of the Prime Minister of England. However, as the Reich Chancellor, Hitler was in a relatively stronger position of authority than the Prime Minister of England. Everything being equal, it would be much more difficult to remove him from power since the Chancellor of Germany remains in office until the majority of the Bundestag can agree on a successor, whereas the Prime Minister serves at the whim of his party. Hindenburg publicly denounced any responsibility for appointing this “Austrian Corporal” to the Reich Chancellery, while he prudently caved in to Adolf Hitler’s popular demands. On the other hand, Hitler frequently referred to Hindenburg as “that old fool.” Although the men maintained an appearance of cordiality to each other in public, Hitler did not respect the “Old War Horse” and there was definitely no love lost between them. During the following summer, Hindenburg grew increasingly concerned about the radical Nazi rallies in Nuremburg, and the political demonstrations that were being carried out throughout Germany. During the summer of 1934, the elderly German President became extremely ill and was close to death at his mansion in East Prussia. Having contracted lung cancer, he had been incapacitated and bedridden for several months, thereby giving Hitler enough time to plan and impose his next move. On August 2, 1934, at 9:00 a.m., the long awaited demise of 86-year-old Hindenburg finally occurred in the town of Neudeck, near Rosenberg, East Prussia. Within hours after the announcement of Hindenburg’s death, Hitler seized total control of Germany by establishing himself in the contrived, dictatorial and ultimate position of “der Führer.” It was in this way that he became the supreme leader of Germany, ruling until 1945.

It’s difficult to remember now, but when Apple made that move back then, most people figured the company was wrong; that Apple was a company lurching toward irrelevance; and that by opening fancy stores it was positioning itself for luxury with the equivalent of a walker. How dumb was that, they thought. Couldn’t Apple see that the tech market now revolved around commodity boxes powered by Microsoft and Intel? That the boom was in e-commerce? Gap Inc., Form 10-K for the Period Ending January 31, 1998 (filed March 13, 1998), from Gap, Inc. website.

January 29 Do not exclusively say your prayers in the form of asking God for something. The prayer of thanksgiving is much more powerful. Name all the fine things you possess, all the wonderful things that have happened to you, and thank God for them. Make that your prayer.

labs that enrolled in the FluNet Global Influenza Surveillance System—a network of reference labs that sample for flu as a way to track its global spread—recorded 4,623 cases of flu in 2019 but just 53 in 2020. In Chile, there were 5,000 cases in 2019 and 12 in 2020; and in South Africa, the network’s labs detected 1,094 cases in 2019 and just 6 in 2020.53 In New Zealand there was a “near extinction” of influenza.54 With so little flu virus migrating, a similar scenario played out in the US during our fall and winter. By the end of January 2021, the CDC had recorded only 1,316 positive flu cases in its surveillance network, compared to 129,997 they had recorded over the same time frame in 2019.55 The mitigation we put into place was designed to deal with a pandemic flu, not COVID, and it worked much better against its intended viral target.

Zeira’s confidence was rooted in the protocols of meetings at the highest levels of the Egyptian government. The protocols were provided by Dr. Ashraf Marwan, Nasser’s son-in-law. Marwan had approached Israeli intelligence after the Six-Day War and offered his services. He provided Israel with a large number of internal Egyptian documents. Two documents in particular stood out to Israeli intelligence analysts. The first was a transcript from a meeting held in Moscow on January 22, 1970, between Nasser and the Russian general staff. Nasser explained that to regain the Sinai, two preconditions must be met. First, he needed Scud missiles to attack Israel’s cities. Second, his air force needed long-range fighter bombers capable of striking deep into enemy territory and destroying their fortified command centers. The second document was a letter written by Sadat to the Soviet premier on August 30, 1972, reiterating Nasser’s position that without bombers and missiles, Egypt could not retake the Sinai. When these requests were denied, Israeli intelligence concluded that the possibility of an Egyptian attack was close to zero. Intelligence also concluded that Syria would not go to war without Egypt. Zeira maintained that war was not to be expected because the Arabs did not have enough air power to allow them to strike deep into Israel and challenge the Israel Air Force and did not possess long-range ground-to-ground missiles to deter—by threat of retaliation—deep Israeli air strikes.

In January 2017, Bloomberg reported that although Facebook had started giving recruiters an incentive to bring in more women, black, and Latino engineering candidates back in 2015, the program was netting few new hires. According to former Facebook recruiters, this was because the people responsible for final hiring approvals—twenty to thirty senior leaders who were almost entirely white and Asian men—still assessed candidates by using the same metrics as always: whether they had gone to the right school, already worked at a top tech company, or had friends at Facebook who gave them a positive referral.15 What this means is that, even after making it through round after round of interviews designed to prove their skills and merits, many diverse hires would be blocked at the final stage—all because they didn’t match the profile of the people already working at Facebook.

The Hindu, Microsoft, and Reuters. As it turns out, COVID misinformation means anything that goes against the narrative of Anthony Fauci and big pharma, just political misinformation means anything that favors Donald Trump. March 2020: Even before Trump’s tweet on March 19th, there were so many doctors administering hydroxychloroquine, with positive results, that supplies were running low.

The corporations silenced the president. I, for one, had not realized that was how the system worked. And I am not a little concerned about what that precedent will mean for future presidents, presidential candidates, and candidates running for any elected office. All of them literally cannot win elections without social media and they apparently can be kicked off social media whenever the owners of the companies get mad at them. Even if the outcome in Trump’s case might seem reasonable on the surface, what system led to that outcome? This move puts private, for-profit social media companies in a position to control what any politician can say, not just Trump. But hey, that won’t contribute to the collapse of my democracy later on down the line, right?

Since Antifa absorbed the Left’s radical feminism, Trump’s promise to champion the pro-life cause also branded him as a fascist (since, again, “fascist” now meant anyone who disagrees with all the positions of the Left).

Ranjeet Kumar Shukla is a prominent figure in Indian politics and entrepreneurship. He has made significant contributions to both fields and is widely respected for his leadership, business acumen, and philanthropy. This article will delve into his background, achievements, and his contributions to Indian society. Early Life Ranjeet Kumar Shukla was born on January 25th, 1976, in Hajipur, Bihar. He received his education from the University of Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. After completing his studies, he began his career as a businessman in Hajipur. He quickly rose through the ranks and became a successful entrepreneur. However, he felt the need to give back to society and decided to enter politics. Political Career Shukla joined the Indian National Congress and became a vital member of the party. He played an important role in many of the party's campaigns, including Bharat Jodo Yatra, which aimed at uniting the country. Shukla's contributions to the Congress are vast, and he is well-regarded as a spokesperson for the party. His eloquence and persuasiveness have made him a prominent figure in Indian politics. Entrepreneurship A part from his political career, Shukla is also an accomplished entrepreneur. He founded Adityavarnamiti Real Estates Pvt Ltd and Vijay Babanagari The Horizon City Pvt Ltd, both of which are well-known real estate companies in India. Shukla's leadership and business acumen have been critical to the success of these companies. He has shown that he can excel in both politics and business. Philanthropy Shukla is also a philanthropist and is actively involved in various social and charitable activities aimed at helping the underprivileged sections of society. He believes in giving back to society and has worked tirelessly to make a positive impact on the lives of people. Shukla's charitable work has earned him widespread respect and admiration. Conclusion In conclusion, Ranjeet Kumar Shukla is a multifaceted personality with a successful career in politics, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy. His contributions to the Indian National Congress, his business ventures, and his philanthropic efforts have made him a well-respected figure in India. His story is a testament to the power of hard work, determination, and dedication in achieving success in various fields. Ranjeet Kumar Shukla is an inspiration to many young Indians who aspire to make a difference in their society.

Keynes played his part in the war effort to growing criticism from his Bloomsbury and pacifist friends, and with growing unease of conscience. He justified his position in a number of ways. From the summer of 1915 to January 1916, he provided the chancellor of the exchequer, Reginald McKenna, with economic arguments against conscription. His case, set out in powerful memoranda, was that Britain should concentrate on subsidizing its Allies by earning foreign exchange, rather than squandering men and munitions on the Western Front.

the old king died not long afterwards in January 858. The elder son retained the position he had usurped,

Agriculture determined this yearly cycle, which would make March an excellent choice for the start of a new year. The god Mars gave the month its name. This Mars, however, was not the god of war but the divine guardian of fields.9 Yet ancient sources also declare that January was, since earliest times, the year’s 1st month. The easiest explanation would be that a 12-month solar cycle was grafted onto a 10-month seasonal system, which itself might have replaced a lunar system of marking time.10 The 2 months that were introduced were January and February, by first assigning them to eleventh and twelfth position and later moving them to first and second place. The original introduction happened in the sixth century BCE when Rome was in Etruscan hands, and the later change occurred in 153 BCE at the latest, when the beginning of the new and civil year was moved from the Ides of March to the Kalends of January.

Hitler’s electoral success—far greater than Mussolini’s—allowed him more autonomy in bargaining with the political insiders whose help he needed to reach office. Even more than in Italy, as German governmental mechanisms jammed after 1930, responsibility for finding a way out narrowed to a half-dozen men: President Hindenburg, his son Oskar and other intimate advisors, and the last two Weimar chancellors, Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher. At first they tried to keep the uncouth Austrian ex-corporal out. One must recall that in the 1930s cabinet ministers were still supposed to be gentlemen. Bringing raw fascists into government was a measure of their desperation. The Catholic aristocrat Franz von Papen tried as chancellor (July– November 1932) to govern without politicians, through a so-called Cabinet of Barons composed of technical experts and nonpolitical eminences. His gamble at holding national elections in July let the Nazis become the largest party. Von Papen then tried to bring Hitler in as vice chancellor, a position without authority, but the Nazi leader had enough strategic acumen and gambler’s courage to accept nothing but the top office. This path forced Hitler to spend the tense fall of 1932 in an agony of suspenseful waiting, trying to quiet his restless and office-hungry militants while he played for all or nothing. Hoping to deepen the crisis, the Nazis (like the Fascists before them) increased their violence, carefully choosing their targets. The apogee of Nazi street violence in Germany came after June 16, 1932, when Chancellor von Papen lifted the ban on SA uniforms that Brüning had imposed in April. During several sickening weeks, 103 people were killed and hundreds were wounded. Von Papen’s expedient of new elections on November 6 diminished the Nazi vote somewhat (the communists gained again), but did nothing to extract Germany from constitutional deadlock. President Hindenburg replaced him as chancellor on December 2 with a senior army officer regarded as more technocratic than reactionary, General Kurt von Schleicher. During his brief weeks in power (December 1932–January 1933), Schleicher prepared an active job-creation program and mended relations with organized labor. Hoping to obtain Nazi neutrality in parliament, he flirted with Gregor Strasser, head of the party administration and a leader of its anticapitalist current (Hitler never forgot and never forgave Strasser’s “betrayal”). At this point, Hitler was in serious difficulty. In the elections of November 6, his vote had dropped for the first time, costing him his most precious asset—momentum. The party treasury was nearly empty. Gregor Strasser was not the only senior Nazi who, exhausted by Hitler’s all ornothing strategy, was considering other options. The Nazi leader was rescued by Franz von Papen. Bitter at Schleicher for taking his place, von Papen secretly arranged a deal whereby Hitler would be chancellor and he, von Papen, deputy chancellor—a position from which von Papen expected to run things. The aged Hindenburg, convinced by his son and other intimate advisors that Schleicher was planning to depose him and install a military dictatorship, and convinced by von Papen that no other conservative option remained, appointed the Hitler–von Papen government on January 30, 1933. Hitler, concluded Alan Bullock, had been “hoist” into office by “a backstairs conspiracy.

In its first decade of operation, 1969–79, PNP rose from a $1.4 million partnership to being perhaps the most mathematical, analytic, and computer-oriented firm on Wall Street. In the next eight years and two months, from November 1, 1979, through January 1, 1988, our capital base expanded from $28.6 million to $273 million, at which point we had investment positions totaling $1 billion. Partnership capital earned an annual rate of 22.8 percent before fees, and limited partners saw their wealth grow at 18.2 percent.

Herzl preferred an entirely different solution to the problem of antisemitism in Austria-Hungary, involving not the reconfiguration of society so much as the reconfiguration of the Jews themselves. Austria’s Jews, he wrote in January of 1893, must undergo complete assimilation, up to and including intermarriage and baptism. At the same time, they must win the respect of Gentiles by fighting for their honor: “Half a dozen duels will do a great deal to improve the position of Jews in society.

Page 61-2 ... Rome expanded rapidly ... and became master over the entire Mediterranean Basin. It then had unlimited resources in terms of land, money, and slaves. It collected taxes or tribute throughout its empire and was able to transfer to the central capital massive quantities of foodstuffs and manufactured items. The peasants and the artisans of Italy saw their economic base disappear as this Mediterranean economy was "globalized" by the political domination of Rome. The society was polarized between, on the one hand, a mass of economically useless plebeians and, on the other, a predatory plutocracy. A minority gorged with wealth oversaw the remaining proletarianized population. The middle-classes collapsed, a process that brought about the end of the republic and the beginning of the political form known as "empire" in conformity with the observations made by Aristotle about the importance of intermediate social classes for the stability of political systems. Since one could not eliminate the plebeians, intractable but geographically central as they were, they came to be nourished and distracted at the empire's expense with "bread and circuses." Page 64-5: The positive American trade balance, when only "advanced technology" is counted, dropped from 35 billion dollars in 1990 to 5 billion in 2001 and had disappeared entirely to become one more element in the overall trade deficit in January 2002. This fall in economic strength is not compensated for by the activities of American-based multinationals. Since 1998 the profits that they bring back into the country amount to less than what foreign companies that have set up shop in the United States are taking back to their own countries. Page 68: In conformity with classical economic theory, the general opening up of commercial exchange has brought about an increase in inequality throughout the world. This general exchange tends to introduce into each country the same disparities in revenue that exist at the level of the whole planet. ... The compression of worker revenues caused by free trade revives the traditional dilemma of capitalism that has now spread across the globe: low salaries do not allow for the absorption of increases in production. Page 17: In developed countries a new class is emerging that comprises roughly 20 percent of the population in terms of sheer numbers but controls about half of each nation's wealth. This new class has more and more trouble putting up with the constraint of universal suffrage.

Building on the Pentagon’s anthrax simulation (1999) and the intelligence agency’s “Dark Winter” (2001), Atlantic Storm (2003, 2005), Global Mercury (2003), Schwartz’s “Lockstep” Scenario Document (2010), and MARS (2017), the Gates-funded SPARS scenario war-gamed a bioterrorist attack that precipitated a global coronavirus epidemic lasting from 2025 to 2028, culminating in coercive mass vaccination of the global population. And, as Gates had promised, the preparations were analogous to “preparing for war.”191 Under the code name “SPARS Pandemic,” Gates presided over a sinister summer school for globalists, spooks, and technocrats in Baltimore. The panelists role-played strategies for co-opting the world’s most influential political institutions, subverting democratic governance, and positioning themselves as unelected rulers of the emerging authoritarian regime. They practiced techniques for ruthlessly controlling dissent, expression, and movement, and degrading civil rights, autonomy, and sovereignty. The Gates simulation focused on deploying the usual psyops retinue of propaganda, surveillance, censorship, isolation, and political and social control to manage the pandemic. The official eighty-nine-page summary is a miracle of fortune-telling—an uncannily precise month-by-month prediction of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic as it actually unfolded.192 Looked at another way, when it erupted five years later, the 2020 COVID-19 contagion faithfully followed the SPARS blueprint. Practically the only thing Gates and his planners got wrong was the year. Gates’s simulation instructs public health officials and other collaborators in the global vaccine cartel exactly what to expect and how to behave during the upcoming plague. Reading through the eighty-nine pages, it’s difficult not to interpret this stunningly prescient document as a planning, signaling, and training exercise for replacing democracy with a new regimen of militarized global medical tyranny. The scenario directs participants to deploy fear-driven propaganda narratives to induce mass psychosis and to direct the public toward unquestioning obedience to the emerging social and economic order. According to the scenario narrative, a so-called “SPARS” coronavirus ignites in the United States in January 2025 (the COVID-19 pandemic began in January 2020). As the WHO declares a global emergency, the federal government contracts a fictional firm that resembles Moderna. Consistent with Gates’s seeming preference for diabolical cognomens, the firm is dubbed “CynBio” (Sin-Bio) to develop an innovative vaccine using new “plug-and-play” technology. In the scenario, and now in real life, Federal health officials invoke the PREP Act to provide vaccine makers liability protection.

Grumpy Old Man: (shouting and waving hands) Then why isn’t the Democrats here then?!!!! me: Because this is a protest against what’s happening! And the Democrats are happy with what’s happening. So, they have no reason to protest. They have no particular reason to gather here. Grumpy Old Man: OK, what about on the 20th? NOTE: January 20th is Inauguration Day, when a new president actually takes over. me: We’ll see. We’ll see, probably ... they’re big on the coronavirus. So, they’ll probably say that that’s why they’re not gathering. I mean, me personally, I don’t think that many people would show up to begin with because I don’t think many people ... uh ... actually like Joe Biden. But my point was originally, legally, I don’t think this crowd of people has the legal right, or even the moral right to relieve the Congress of their position.

Do you believe that Biden is a communist?” I ask. “I believe he’s an idiot,” he answers. “I believe he’s an old man who they put in that position so they can manipulate him and have him do whatever they want him to do.” ... and, you know what future generations? That part might just be true.

JANUARY

A Conference Board survey released in January of 2010 found that only 45 percent of workers surveyed were happy at their jobs, the lowest in 22 years of polling.2 Depression rates today are ten times higher than they were in 1960.3 Every year the age threshold of unhappiness sinks lower, not just at universities but across the nation. Fifty years ago, the mean onset age of depression was 29.5 years old. Today, it is almost exactly half that: 14.5 years old.

6. CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH Nor is this movement confined to liberal denominations. The Christian Reformed Church (CRC) is still thought to be largely evangelical, and it was only in 1995 that the CRC approved the ordination of women. But now the First Christian Reformed Church in Toronto has “opened church leadership to practicing homosexual members ‘living in committed relationships,’ a move that the denomination expressly prohibits.”24 In addition, Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the college of the Christian Reformed Church, has increasingly allowed expressions of support for homosexuals to be evident on its campus. World magazine reports: Calvin has since 2002 observed something called “Ribbon Week,” during which heterosexual students wear ribbons to show their support for those who desire to sleep with people of the same sex. Calvin President Gaylen Byker . . . [said], “. . . homosexuality is qualitatively different from other sexual sin. It is a disorder,” not chosen by the person. Having Ribbon Week, he said, “is like having cerebral palsy week.” Pro-homosexuality material has crept into Calvin’s curriculum. . . . At least some Calvin students have internalized the school’s thinking on homosexuality. . . . In January, campus newspaper editor Christian Bell crossed swords with Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association’s Michigan chapter, and an ardent foe of legislation that gives special rights to homosexuals. . . . In an e-mail exchange with Mr. Glenn before his visit, Mr. Bell called him “a hate-mongering, homophobic bigot . . . from a documented hate group.” Mr. Bell later issued a public apology.25 This article on Calvin College in World generated a barrage of pro and con letters to the editor in the following weeks, all of which can still be read online.26 Many writers expressed appreciation for a college like Calvin that is open to the expression of different viewpoints but still maintains a clear Christian commitment. No one claimed the quotes in the article were inaccurate, but some claimed they did not give a balanced view. Some letters from current and recent students confirmed the essential accuracy of the World article, such as this one: I commend Lynn Vincent for writing “Shifting sand?” (May 10). As a sophomore at Calvin, I have been exposed firsthand to the changing of Calvin’s foundation. Being a transfer student, I was not fully aware of the special events like “Ribbon Week.” I asked a classmate what her purple ribbon meant and she said it’s a sign of acceptance of all people. I later found out that “all people” meant gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. I have been appalled by posters advertising a support group for GLBs (as they are called) around campus. God condemned the practice, so why cannot God’s judgment against GLB be proclaimed at Calvin? I am glad Calvin’s lack of the morals it was founded on is being made known to the Christian community outside of Calvin. Much prayer and action is needed if a change is to take place.—Katie Wagenmaker, Coopersville, Mich.27 Then in June 2004, the Christian Reformed Church named as the editor of Banner, its denominational magazine, the Rev. Robert De Moor, who had earlier written an editorial supporting legal recognition for homosexuals as “domestic partners.” The CRC’s position paper on homosexuality states, “Christian homosexuals, like all Christians, are called to discipleship, to holy obedience, and to the use of their gifts in the cause of the kingdom. Opportunities to serve within the offices and the life of the congregation should be afforded to them as they are to heterosexual Christians.”28 This does not indicate that the Christian Reformed Church has approved of homosexual activity (it has not), but it does indicate the existence of a significant struggle within the denomination, and the likelihood of more to come.

America’s power position as “the hammer of the whole earth” extends to more than military power. America tells other nations what to do and how to do it. For example, America forced the UBS AG Bank in Switzerland to close all of the offshore accounts in the Swiss Bank held by U.S. citizens, as part of an IRS “tax investigation which challenges Switzerland’s famous banking secrecy laws.” (Reuters, January 9, 2009).

life. Such a relationship requires that you seek God like never before. So start this year right by becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with the One who has all power in heaven and earth. JANUARY 3 Trust in the Power of Hope Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life. PROVERBS 13:12 I define hope as “the happy anticipation of good things.” You can hope for something good to happen to you by learning how to celebrate and enjoy life. Everything in life is a process in motion. Without movement and progression there is no life. As long as you live you are always heading somewhere, and you should enjoy yourself on the way. God created you to be a goal-oriented visionary. Without a vision you become bored and hopeless. But there’s something about hope that makes people lighthearted and happy. Hope is a powerful spiritual force that is activated through your positive attitude. God is positive and He wants positive things to happen to you, but that probably won’t happen unless you have hope and faith. Expect God to bring good out of every circumstance in your life. Whatever happens, trust in the Lord . . . and trust in the power of hope!

After January 1, 1959, the Castro Revolution changed the way business was done in Cuba. Abruptly, supplies for Cubana were no longer available, most routes were altered or suspended, and many of the pilots deserted their jobs or were exiled. In May of 1960, the new Castro administration merged all of the existing Cuban airlines and nationalized them under a drastically restructured Cubana management. At the time, many of Cubana’s experienced personnel took advantage of their foreign connections, and left for employment with other airlines. During the Bay of Pigs Invasion in April of 1961, two of the remaining Cubana DC-3’s were destroyed in the selective bombing of Cuba’s airports. Actually the only civil aviation airport that was proven to be bombed was the Antonio Maceo Airport in Santiago de Cuba. During the following years, the number of hijackings increased and some aircraft were abandoned at American airports, as the flight crews sought asylum in the United States. This corporate instability, as well as political unrest, resulted in a drastic reduction of passengers willing to fly with Cubana. Of course, this resulted in a severe reduction in revenue, making the airline less competitive. The Castro régime reacted by blaming the CIA for many of Cubana’s problems. However, slowly, except to the United States, most of the scheduled flights were restored. Not being able to replace their aging fleet with American manufactured aircraft, they turned to the Soviet Union. Currently Cubana’s fleet includes Ukrainian designed and built Antonov An-148’s and An-158’s. The Cubana fleet also has Soviet designed and built Illyushin II-96’s and Tupolev TU-204’s built in Kazan, Russia. Despite daunting difficulties, primarily due to the United States’ imposed embargo and the lack of sufficient assistance from Canada, efforts to expand and improve operations during the 1990’s proved successful. “AeroCaribbean” originally named “Empresa Aero” was established in 1982 to serve as Cuba’s domestic airline. It also supported Cubana’s operations and undertook its maintenance. Today Cubana’s scheduled service includes many Caribbean, European, South and Central American destinations. In North America, the airline flies to Mexico and Canada. With Cuban tourism increasing, Cubana has positioned itself to be relatively competitive. However much depends on Cuba’s future relations with the United States. The embargo imposed in February of 1962 continues and is the longest on record. However, Cubana has continued to expand, helping to make Cuba one of the most important tourist destinations in Latin America. A little known fact is that although Cubana, as expected, is wholly owned by the Cuban government, the other Cuban airlines are technically not. Instead, they are held, operated and maintained by the Cuban military, having been created by Raúl Castro during his tenure as the Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.

Leaving a position (like export or imports) unhedged is risky and can cause forex losses. Astral paid the price in FY09, when a 33 per cent depreciation in the Indian rupee left the firm with a forex loss of Rs 7.7 crore, wiping off 40 per cent of its profit before tax (PBT). Astral’s stock price declined by 84 per cent in March 2009 due to these losses, compared to its peak in January 2008. Finally,

It was first introduced into philosophy by Mr. Charles Peirce in 1878. In an article entitled 'How to Make Our Ideas Clear,' in the 'Popular Science Monthly' for January of that year [Footnote: Translated in the Revue Philosophique for January, 1879 (vol. vii).] Mr. Peirce, after pointing out that our beliefs are really rules for action, said that to develope a thought's meaning, we need only determine what conduct it is fitted to produce: that conduct is for us its sole significance. And the tangible fact at the root of all our thought-distinctions, however subtle, is that there is no one of them so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference of practice. To attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object, then, we need only consider what conceivable effects of a practical kind the object may involve—what sensations we are to expect from it, and what reactions we must prepare. Our conception of these effects, whether immediate or remote, is then for us the whole of our conception of the object, so far as that conception has positive significance at all. This is the principle of Peirce, the principle of pragmatism. It lay entirely unnoticed by anyone for twenty years, until I, in an address before Professor Howison's philosophical union at the university of California, brought it forward again and made a special application of it to religion. By that date (1898) the times seemed ripe for its reception. The word 'pragmatism' spread, and at present it fairly spots the pages of the philosophic journals. On all hands we find the 'pragmatic movement' spoken of, sometimes with respect, sometimes with contumely, seldom with clear understanding. It is evident that the term applies itself conveniently to a number of tendencies that hitherto have lacked a collective name, and that it has 'come to stay.

For more than two years he stayed on the slaughterhouse battlefields of France. In September at Varennes he was wounded by a ricocheting rifle bullet in his left thigh—characteristically for him, he was confronting three French soldiers alone and with an empty rifle. He was awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class. When he returned to the 124th Infantry from the hospital on January 13, 1915, it was fighting in grueling trench warfare in the Argonnes forest. Two weeks later he crawled with his riflemen through 100 yards of barbed wire into the main French positions, captured four bunkers, held them against a counterattack by a French battalion and then withdrew before a new attack could develop, having lost less than a dozen men. This bravery won Rommel the Iron Cross, First Class—the first for a lieutenant in the entire regiment.

After the Spanish American War, the United States appointed military governors for Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Cuba, as well as the Panama Canal Zone, which had been wrested away from Colombia. Leonard Wood was a physician who served as a line officer when he commanded the Rough Riders during the Battle of San Juan Hill, for which he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. In 1898, he was appointed the Military Governor of Santiago de Cuba. Major General John R. Brooke served in the United States Army during both the American Civil War, where he was seriously wounded and later in the Spanish American War. After the war with Spain he was appointed to be the Governor of Puerto Rico after which he became the first Military Governor of Cuba, a position he held from January 1, 1899, until December 23, 1899.

Nearly three years later, on February 8, 2011, a confidential letter came to light. It was from EPA Administrator Johnson to President Bush himself. Dated January 31, 2008 (a month after the Bali conference ended), the letter urged action to find endangerment, arguing: [T]he Supreme Court’s Massachusetts v. EPA decision still requires a response. That case combined with the latest science of climate change requires the Agency to propose a positive endangerment finding…. [T]he state of the latest climate change science does not permit a negative finding, nor does it permit a credible finding that we need to wait for more research.

Hitler, at the behest of von Rundstedt to reinforce France, sent Rommel to the area to shore up German defenses. Finally, as Hitler anticipated an Allied invasion in 1944, he asked Rommel to inspect the Atlantic Wall, in what Young calls “a fake, a paper hoop for the allies to jump through.”[121]  No wonder Rommel was “appalled” as he moved from Denmark into France to make a report on Germany’s lauded defenses.  Young lists the deficiencies Rommel discovered in his inspection tour: army artillery with no cover, lack of concrete shelters at the strongholds, lack of minefields for defense, and a general lack of coordination between the navy and army defenses.[122] Rommel set to work on addressing the issues, but was not given a position of command until January of 1944, which would prove to be too late to save Germany from the Normandy invasion.

de Valera had better fortune in efforts to regain power. His pacific arguments of August had not found acceptance. A line more likely to secure extremist support was again espoused with such success that by January 1923 he had regained influence once more with the Republican military leadership to a point where he was in a position to draft a statement for Liam Lynch rejecting peace proposals.

A ministerial report published in May 2016 found ‘widespread practices of improper and unfair influence affecting the outcomes of the appointment of educators’, and that the ‘current process for selecting candidates for appointment in the education sector is riddled with inconsistencies’. It concluded that ‘where authority is weak, inefficient and dilatory, teacher unions [the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union, SADTU] move into the available spaces and determine policies, priorities and appointments, achieving undue influence over matters which primarily should be the responsibility of the Department [of Basic Education]’.155 The report followed widespread coverage of corruption and abuse of learners, including teachers paying union officials to appoint them to senior positions, and demands for sex in return for jobs. A January 2017 article in The Economist (‘South Africa has one of the world’s worst education systems’) found that: ‘A shocking 27% of pupils who have attended school for six years cannot read, compared with 4% in Tanzania and 19% in Zimbabwe. After five years of school about half cannot work out that 24 divided by three is eight. Only 37% of children starting school go on to pass the matriculation exam; just 4% earn a degree.’156

Not every former president uses their position for good. Franklin Pierce, a Northerner who favored popular sovereignty—the idea that democracy allowed citizens, and not the federal government, to decide if the territory in which they lived would allow slavery—tried to rally the living ex-presidents in 1861 to resolve the Civil War. But his efforts were torpedoed by Martin Van Buren, and Pierce became a vocal critic of Lincoln, a sympathizer for the South, and a correspondent of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Worse still, Pierce’s predecessor, the Virginian John Tyler, defected from the Union and won a seat in the Confederate House of Representatives. He died a traitor in January 1862, and President Lincoln denied his predecessor a state funeral. Instead, Tyler was honored in

Not every former president uses their position for good. Franklin Pierce, a Northerner who favored popular sovereignty—the idea that democracy allowed citizens, and not the federal government, to decide if the territory in which they lived would allow slavery—tried to rally the living ex-presidents in 1861 to resolve the Civil War. But his efforts were torpedoed by Martin Van Buren, and Pierce became a vocal critic of Lincoln, a sympathizer for the South, and a correspondent of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Worse still, Pierce’s predecessor, the Virginian John Tyler, defected from the Union and won a seat in the Confederate House of Representatives. He died a traitor in January 1862, and President Lincoln denied his predecessor a state funeral. Instead, Tyler was honored in Richmond, the Confederate capital.

Each time you think, aim to create a positive mindset. The power of the mind can enable dreams to be made manifest. Let positivity be your brand, and you will experience all-around progress.

For some people, it is not easy to recognize positive attributes in others. That is why you must not take it to heart when someone says you are not good enough. Pay attention to how you think and what you allow in your mind. You cannot afford to let anyone determine your value in life. Make an effort to understand who you are. Distil your thoughts and beliefs, so no one can bring you down.

When you travel to fish, this changes the equation. The first thing to do is establish an advance position on the calendar. Wear something three times and it becomes what the fashion rags call a signature look. All white, nautical stripes, a novel hat, whether it’s good or bad people will recognize it. Similarly the angler must stake out his territory. Go to Patagonia in January once and people think it’s indulgent. Ignore them. The second time they come to terms with it. The third time they expect it. They know you fly to Buenos Aires after New Year’s—this is your thing—and they may roll their eyes but they know you’re unavailable for dinner parties and christenings.