Alex Jones Tv: Joe Stack’s Intriguing Connections With Defense Contractors & Intelligence Agencies
Joe Stacks Intriguing Connections With Defense Contractors, Intelligence Agencies
Austin suicide pilot jointly leased hanger with manager of air defense systems manager
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Austin suicide pilot Joe Stack kept some very interesting company as far as the client list for his software programming company is concerned, including a defense contractor with NSA and Homeland Security connections that ironically dealt with air defense systems.
The Georgetown Airport hanger in which Stacks ill-fated Piper Cherokee was kept was jointly leased by Stack and a man called John Podolak, records show.
The Of Goats and Men blog highlights the fact that Podolak was appointed in 2004 to manage L-3 Avisys Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Counter-MANPADS (Man-Portable Air Defense Systems) initiative.
L-3 Avisys is a defense contractor with its main headquarters based in Austin Texas which sells products and works closely with the Department of Defense and unnamed U.S. Government intelligence agencies.
Podolak was hired to oversee a strong team of more than 10 IRCM defense suppliers who will perform research studies and lead the transition of the teams proposed CAPS (Commercial Airliner Protection System) technology to the airline industry.
L-3 was also a key client for Stacks software programming business. Stack helped develop a GPS-based Fight Management System for IEC, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of L-3.
L-3 was also investigated by the SEC for its role in the suspicious number of put options on United and American Airlines, speculation that a companys stock will fall, in the days before 9/11.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/joe-stacks-intriguing-connections-with-defense-contractors-intelligence-agencies.html
Duration : 0:10:44
A Strong Political Will, a National Level Combat Force and an Effective Judiciary – Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri
What happened on 9/11 is something that the world would never forget. Memories of the twin towers coming down are impossible to erase but more than that what made this event even more ‘memorable’ is the manner in which the US government has gone around hunting for terrorists in Afghanistan, and followed it up with an engagement in Iraq, thus changing the future course of global geo-politics. Similarly, 7/7 would also remain a memorable day as that brings forth the memory of the gruesome London blasts; and more than that the way the UK police had gone about chasing the perpetrators of the crime, making the incident even more unforgettable, almost giving a new definition to terrorism. What the US did to Afghanistan and then to Iraq would always remain a matter of contention globally, and has left a lot of room for criticism, but then the way the Indian government has been sleeping on terrorism over the past so many years, and allowing innocent citizens to be killed, is probably worse than that. This is evident from the fact that unlike 9/11 and 7/7, there would be very few people who would remember the following dates – 3/12 (1993), 2/14 (1998), 10/1 (2001), 12/13 (2001), 9/24 (2002), 5/14 (2003), 8/25 (2003), 8/15 (2004), 7/5 (2005), 10/29 (2005), 3/7 (2006), 7/11 (2006), 9/8 (2006), 5/18 (2007), 8/25 (2007)… People don’t remember these simply because the government itself has slept over the corpses of hundreds of innocents who were blown up by bombs somewhere in the country. Forget about a national consensus for combating terrorism, the government is still in a denial mode about the very fact that terrorism exists in the country. This attitude is evident from all the ghastly incidents that have occurred over the past decades and the manner in which the government has gone about handling them.
Starting from the Mumbai blasts on 3rd March, 1993, to the Hyderabad blast on 25th August, 2007, all of them have been a horrifying reiteration of the very same fact that terrorism in India exists and that the Indian government is in a state of perpetual amnesia. Oh yes, the Special Task Force of the Andhra Pradesh Police is surely investigating the twin blasts. But you can take it for granted that just like in the previous cases, the moment the media attention goes away (which it inevitably will), the issue would die its unnatural death. In fact, after a point of time, even media would lose its focus as in this country, too much talk on serious issues becomes a sore point for the public at large; and as such, such ‘socially-oriented’ programmes are bound to lose out on the TRP ratings. Politicians in general and successive governments in particular have taken advantage of this short memory of our citizens and have never bothered to devise a strong anti-terror policy. As a result of this, innocent citizens continue to bleed even after a decade.
Reports state that in 2006 alone, a total of 3,033 terror incidents happened in India. The figure for the year 2007 (till July 31st) has been 1579, and one should not be surprised if by the year end, the tally breaks the previous year’s records by a huge margin. Recent reports further state that the number of people who have died in terror related incidents from 1994 till 2005 in India is a shocking 47,371, of which Jammu & Kashmir alone accounts for 32,677 deaths. Again, these figures do not include Naxalite related deaths – for which one can safely add another 7,000-8,000 to the total count over the eleven year period. Incidentally, in 2005, Naxalite related deaths accounted for 1,594 casualties while the figure for the same period in 2006 was 1,509.
Shockingly, the attitude of the government is glaring when it comes to the state of police and special investigative agencies, our main combat force to counter terrorism! With shoestring budgets, corroded equipment and overworked manpower, what better can one expect. To get an idea of how much the police machinery is understaffed, one only needs to compare the ‘cop to population’ ratio of the western countries to that of India.
Whereas on an average there are 250 cops for every 1,000 people in western countries, the UN recommended figure of having 222 cops for every 1,000 people is a distant dream compared to the Indian statistics of 122 for every 1,000 people. In certain parts of India, it would be tough to find even 50-60 cops for every 1,000 people. To give an example of the utterly dismal situation, one look at the Special Operations Group of the West Bengal CID (which is responsible for counter terrorism) would be enough – the group has barely 13 personnel and one old Ambassador car to take care of the entire state. Similar is the condition in most of the states barring few. But in reality, political interference and bureaucracy stand as the biggest hurdles for any investigation to conclude.
Frankly, it is not difficult to combat terror – for that, we have successful home grown examples like KPS Gill, who almost single-handedly uprooted militancy from Punjab. What is needed is a strong political will coupled with a national level combat force and an effective judiciary to deliver prompt and befitting sentences to the perpetrators. More than anything else, given the lack of political will, it is the common man who can collectively force policy makers and politicians to act tough on terror, enact more stringent provisions in our laws and make sure that those who are involved with the execution of brutal terror acts are dealt equally brutally and judiciously.
Kartik
http://www.articlesbase.com/news-and-society-articles/a-strong-political-will-a-national-level-combat-force-and-an-effective-judiciary-prof-arindam-chaudhuri-711886.html
Obedience to Authority
Many people wonder why these informants go along with this? Why would anyone go along with causing the suicide of their fellow citizens, or enacting cruelty on someones cats, dogs, kids, family, property etc? Why would you knowingly go along with a practice that many would consider to be evil?
The answer is obedience to authority. As long as an authority figure is giving the orders, experiments have shown that most people will go along with whatever is being ordered, even if those orders are to inflict pain on another human being.
Let’s start with the Milgram experiments.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mst1h31daV4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
[quote]Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.[4]
[/quote]
As part of the experiment a stranger off the street is asked to shock an individual as part of a learning or behaviour modification experiment. The person doing the shocking is told that this will help the person to learn the answers to the question. The person being shocked has agreed to the experiment.
The person giving the shocks is giving a test shock of the lowest voltage to see what the pain is like. It’s not pleasant. They are told that if the person fails to answer the question, they are to increase the voltage and to keep shocking the person till they get the answer correct.
The person giving the answers starts to get the questions wrong, they are asked to keep going by the person in authority. The person answering the questions, starts to scream out in pain, sometimes even screaming, my heart, my heart.
Many times the person giving the shock wants to stop what they are doing, but they are told don’t pay it any mind we have to keep going, and so they are goaded on by the experimenter to the end of the experiment. 65% of those in the studied continued to the very end of the voltage metre.
Now imagine you are an average citizen, you are asked to become an Informant by the state, country that you love. At some point you realise that what you are doing is wrong and that people are being harmed. Let’s say you come across a Gang Stalking website, and realise what you are taking part in. How can you stop?
First you are bound by a gag order, so you can’t say anything. Second if you go to the police, local authorities, they are taking part, so you can’t go there, human rights organizations, the same thing. Since becoming an Informant you realise that this is systemic and that the majority of your community is in some way taking part. What do you do where do you turn?
You can ask to not take part, but many people are afraid of being targeted themselves the same way, experiencing the same sort of harassment. There is a real cult like mentality about what is happening, even if most people do not identify it as such, so how would you get out, much less help the target?
In many cases they can’t, and some of them are as trapped as we are. Either get the punishment or give the punishment. Not a great choice. This is not true for all of them, some are just really lowlifes and happy to go along with this, and would report anyone not following suit.
Within the system you can try to hint to the target about what is happening, try to help expose what is happening. Don’t allow yourself to feel or become powerless, keep thinking, keep finding ways, try to keep feeling. Remain hopeful. If you let the stress of the situation overwhelm you, a part of you disassociates emotionally, and you became biddable, capable of not much but following orders.
How quickly can this shift come about, in a really short space of time. The Milgram experiment happened within an hour or two.
The next experiment happened over a few days.
The Stanford Prison Experiment.
http://www.prisonexp.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
The scary part about this, is that thy knew in advance that they were part of an experiment, they were paid for it and everything. Which should indicate that they would be able to leave if they wanted to, but that did not happen.
The experiment was suppose to last 2 weeks, but had to be ended after six days. One group of students were assigned to the role of prisoners, another to the role of guards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0jYx8nwjFQ
[quote]
As the experiment proceeded, several guards became progressively sadistic. Experimenters said that approximately one-third of the guards exhibited genuine sadistic tendencies. Interestingly, most of the guards were upset when the experiment concluded early.
Zimbardo argued that the prisoner participants had internalized their roles, based on the fact that some had stated that they would accept parole even with the attached condition of forfeiting all of their experiment-participation pay. Yet, when their parole applications were all denied, none of the prisoner participants quit the experiment. Zimbardo argued they had no reason for continued participation in the experiment after having lost all monetary compensation, yet they did, because they had internalised the prisoner identity, they thought themselves prisoners, hence, they stayed.
[/quote]
The prisoners (students pretending to be prisoners) started to riot, the cops (students pretending to be cops) started to get brutal with them. Made them do all sorts of sick and sadistic things. Tried to get some to turn into snitches, one prisoner faked being crazy to get out, they turned on each other in some cases, and just fell in line with obeying authority, in most cases. The person conducting the experiment actually thought he was a warden, he got so caught up in the role.
[quote]In psychology, the results of the experiment are said to support situational attributions of behavior rather than dispositional attribution. In other words, it seemed the situation caused the participants’ behavior, rather than anything inherent in their individual personalities. In this way, it is compatible with the results of the also-famous Milgram experiment, in which ordinary people fulfilled orders to administer what appeared to be damaging electric shocks to a confederate of the experimenter.[/quote]
The experiment at the time was used to help better understand the psychological changes that prisoners and their jailers go through. Later it was used to help explain the situation at Abu Ghraib with the prisoner abuses.
The Strip Search Prank Call
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strip_search_prank_call_scam
This experiment was anything but. Because a crank caller pretended to be an authority figure. Police officer. Average sheeple were willing to carry out horrible actions on innocent people.
[quote]The strip search prank call scam was a series of incidents occurring for roughly a decade before 2004. These incidents involved a man calling a restaurant, claiming to be a police detective, and convincing managers to conduct strip-searches of female employees. Reports of over 70 such occurrences in 30 U.S. states finally led to the arrest and charging of David R. Stewart, a 37-year-old Florida corrections officer.[/quote]
These are a few of the incidents that occurred in the wake of these phone calls.
[quote]
A call to a McDonald’s restaurant in Hinesville, Georgia resulted in a janitor performing a body cavity search on a 19-year old cashier.[5]
A 17-year-old customer at a Taco Bell in Phoenix, Arizona was strip-searched by a manager receiving this kind of prank call.[6]
On Nov. 30, 2000, the caller persuaded the manager at a McDonald’s in Leitchfield, Kentucky, to remove her own clothes in front of a customer whom the caller said was suspected of sex offenses. The caller promised that undercover officers would burst in and arrest the customer the moment he attempted to molest her, said Detective Lt. Gary Troutman of the Leitchfield Police Department.[7]
On May 29, 2002, a girl celebrating her 18th birthday — in her first hour of her first day on the job at the McDonald’s in Roosevelt, Iowa — was forced to strip, jog naked and assume a series of embarrassing poses, all at the direction of a caller on the phone, according to court and news accounts.[8]
On Jan. 26, 2003, according a police report in Davenport, Iowa, an assistant manager at an Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar conducted a degrading 90-minute search of a waitress at the behest of a caller who said he was a regional manager — even though the man had called collect, and despite the fact the assistant manager had read a company memo warning about hoax calls just a month earlier. He later told police he’d forgotten about the memo.[9] [/quote]
His downfall came when he was able to get one of these sheeple to sexually assault a teenage girl over the phone. All the while giving the instructions. She complied, because an authority figure was on the phone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFXeXK3szOk
http://www.mahalo.com/Louise_Ogborn_Video
[quote]
The final prank call in this scheme was made to a McDonald’s restaurant in Mount Washington, Kentucky on April 9, 2004. According to assistant manager Donna Summers, the caller identified himself as a policeman, ‘Officer Scott’, he described an employee whom he said was suspected of stealing a customer’s purse. Summers called 18-year-old employee Louise Ogborn to her office and told her of the suspicion. Following the instructions of the caller, Summers ordered Ogborn first to empty her pockets, and finally to remove all her clothing except for an apron, in an effort to find the stolen items. Again following the caller’s instructions, Summers had another employee watch Ogborn when she had to leave the office to check the restaurant. The first employee, 27 year old Jason Bradley, whom she asked to stay there refused to after he was on the phone with the caller, so she phoned her fiance Walter Nix, asking him to come in to ‘help’ with the situation. [10]
According to Ogborn, after Summers passed off the phone to Nix, he continued to do as the caller told, even as the caller’s requests became progressively more bizarre. A security camera recorded Nix forcing Ogborn to remove her apron, the only article of clothing she was still wearing, and to assume degrading positions, such as standing on a chair and getting on all fours. When Ogborn refused to obey the caller’s instructions, Nix hits the 90 lb Ogborn on the buttocks several times creating painful red welts, and at one point he does this for 10 minutes. At the caller’s request, Nix then threatens to beat Ogborn again and forces Ogborn to kiss him and then perform oral sex on him. Ogborn says at the point of sexual assault she was scarred for life.[11] The tape showed that Summers re-entered the office several times and dismissed Ogborn’s pleas for help, a statement which Summers denies.
When another employee was asked to take part and objected, Summers decided to call the store manager, whom the caller claimed to have on another phone line. She then discovered that the store manager had not spoken to any police officers, and that the call had been a hoax. A quick-thinking employee dialed *69 to determine that the caller had called from a supermarket pay phone in Panama City, Florida. Summers then called police, who arrested Nix and began an investigation to find the caller. [/quote]
The above scenario is really sick and hard to believe that something like that could happen, mush less that similar circumstances happened at least 70 times prior to this incident, but it’s true.
Other events show us that people are willing to kill upon request, even innocent woman, children and the elderly, while others are not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHk4TGWx0ZM
[quote]
the My Lai massacre where the US army in Vietnam slaughtered 500 unarmed civilians, many women and children.
Some victims were sexually abused, beaten, tortured, maimed and mutilated.
Three U.S. servicemen who made an effort to halt the massacre and protect the wounded were sharply criticized by US Congressmen, received hate mail, death threats and mutilated animals on their doorsteps. Only 30 years after the event were their efforts honored.
American media first claimed 100 had been killed in a fierce fire fight.
[/quote]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre
[quote]
Charlie Company landed following a short artillery and helicopter gunship preparation. The soldiers found no enemy fighters in the village on the morning of March 16. Many suspected there were NLF troops in the village, hiding underground in the homes of their elderly parents or their wives. The U.S. soldiers, one platoon of which was led by Second Lieutenant William Calley, went in shooting at “suspected enemy position”. After the first civilians were killed and wounded by the indiscriminate fire, the soldiers soon began attacking anything that moved, humans and animals alike, with firearms, grenades and bayonets. The scale of the massacre only spiraled as it progressed, the brutality increasing with each killing. BBC News described the scene:
“ Soldiers went berserk, gunning down unarmed men, women, children and babies. Families which huddled together for safety in huts or bunkers were shown no mercy. Those who emerged with hands held high were murdered. … Elsewhere in the village, other atrocities were in progress. Women were gang raped; Vietnamese who had bowed to greet the Americans were beaten with fists and tortured, clubbed with rifle butts and stabbed with bayonets. Some victims were mutilated with the signature “C Company” carved into the chest. By late morning word had got back to higher authorities and a cease-fire was ordered. My Lai was in a state of carnage. Bodies were strewn through the village.[12] ”
More victims at My Lai. Photo by Ronald L. HaeberleDozens of people were herded into an irrigation ditch and other locations and killed with automatic weapons[13]. A large group of about 70 to 80 villagers, rounded up by the 1st Platoon in the center of the village, were killed personally by Calley and by soldiers he had ordered to fire. Calley also shot two other large groups of civilians with a weapon taken from a soldier who had refused to do any further killing.
Members of the 2nd Platoon killed at least 60-70 Vietnamese men, women, and children, as they swept through the northern half of My Lai 4 and through Binh Tay, a small subhamlet about 400 meters north of My Lai 4.[1]
After the initial “sweeps” by the 1st and the 2nd Platoons, the 3rd Platoon was dispatched to deal with any “remaining resistance”. They immediately began killing every still-living human and animal they could find, including shooting the Vietnamese who emerged from their hiding places, and finishing off the wounded found moaning in the heaps of bodies. The 3rd Platoon also rounded up and killed a group of 7 to 12 women and children.[1]
Since Charlie Company had encountered no enemy opposition, 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, was moved into its landing zone between and attacked the subhamlet of My Khe 4, killing as many as 90 people. U.S. forces lost one man killed and seven wounded from mines and booby traps.[1] During the next two days, both battalions were involved in additional burning and destruction of dwellings, and in the mistreatment of Vietnamese detainees.
Most of the soldiers had not participated in the crimes, but neither did they protest or complain to their superiors.[14]
[/quote]
At the end of the day what can really be said about these incidents are occurrences? Why are some people driven by a higher authority, a greater code of conduct than others? Why are some not willing to go along with this, when others just fall in line, or stand helplessly by and let these atrocities happen? Why do some decline to become Informants for the system while others just accept? Why do some just go along with injustice and corruption, while others turn away from all appearances of evil?
Why do some question, while others don’t?
There are a variety of reasons, many people are culturally engineered or programed to obey authority, many have never been in a similar situation before and their survival instinct is to comply, because everyone else is going along with it. Humans for the most part are social creatures and very few have the capacity to stand on their own, or be excluded from society, friends, family, neighbours and if the corruption, or atrocity is systemic, most will just fall in line with what is happening, just like in Nazi Germany.
gangstalking
http://www.articlesbase.com/news-and-society-articles/obedience-to-authority-704033.html
Exchange Errors After Online Restore
After Exchange database corruption, online backups prove as the most prominent source for Exchange server repair as then you need not to look for some third party applications to do the course. But, in few of the cases, when you think that you have the full online backup and the database has been restored successfully, as a failure, the Information Store may fail to start, with the error messages like:
“Error -1414 or 0xfffffa7a or 4294965882 (JET_errSecondaryIndexCorrupted)”
Or
“Error -1032 or 0xfffffbf8 or 4294966264 (JET_errFileAccessDenied)”
Or
“Error -1030 or 0xfffffbfa or 4294966266 or c8000406 or 3355444230 (JET_errAlreadyInitialized)”
In this case, the application log may be found full with Event IDs 172, 177, 1080, 5000, 145, 1120 and others which state the words that Exchange server recovery is not completed yet.
The culprit running behind can be the change in Windows NT service pack level and computer name. Actually, with the service level change, Exchange server gets activated to rebuild the indexes to resist incompatibility issues. In condition that the computer name has got changed, the mentioned error messages may appear. So, for the success, there should be the service level match between the recovery server and Exchange server computer. The same problem has also been seen with the changed computer names and same service levels.
To solve the current issue and to have full EDB recovery success, either have the offline degfragmentation or rename sever with the same name as that of earlier one, from which backup was taken.
For the unfortunate cases, when there is no backup or the desired results are not coming, EDB repair with the help of software utilities is the only choice. Exchange server repair software have the ability to scan and repair the database with the competent algorithms. The software are built with the wonderful Exchange server recovery abilities along with offering the interactive interface.
Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery rids out database corruption by the most powerful EDB recovery algorithms. Compatible with Exchange server 5.5, 2000 and 2003, the software safely repairs the database with the actual content and view.
Phoenix Exchange server recovery is the blend product for curing all database corruption problems. The software proves worth for all the database objects.
Simpson Raid
Everything You Wanted To Know About Alternative Medicine In Texas But Were Afraid To Ask
Many people in Dallas, Houston and throughout Texas are increasingly looking for ways to improve their health and well-being.
The following are ways to make using alternative medicine safer:
Look for a practitioner who is licensed by the state of Texas or is recognized by a medical association. If the practitioner is licensed, the licensing board can provide information about this practitioner’s education, training, and background, as well as disciplinary background.
Choose a practitioner who practices several alternative therapies or who is trained in both conventional and alternative medicine. The practitioner should listen to you and be sensitive to your needs. As with any other healthcare practitioner, you should be able to communicate comfortably and develop a good working relationship.
After you have chosen a practitioner, ask him or her about the safety and effectiveness of the proposed treatment. Also mention any therapies and treatment you are already receiving.
You may think alternative medicine has no long-term track record, but it’s actually been around for a number of years. Many of the medications and practices considered alternative or non-traditional find their roots in traditional African, American, Asian and European medicine. Because of their widespread popularity overseas, some alternative medications used in the U.S. may have already been tested abroad, even though the federal Food and Drug Administration has not yet tested nor approved them here. Also keep in mind that medication is just one small part of alternative medicine. Physical, spiritual, and mental therapies that are noninvasive and don’t require you to take medication are just as popular.
Tips for using alternative medicine
Do not treat yourself – seek the advice of a physician.
To find an alternative medicine practitioner, talk to your current doctor. Your health insurer may also be able to provide referrals.
Do your homework before trying alternative medicine. Libraries, bookstores, health food stores, and the Internet are good places to find information. Your physician or insurer may also be able to provide you with information.
Continue gathering information even after you have selected an alternative practitioner and/or alternative treatment – this can help you practice the treatment and monitor its effectiveness.
Although alternative medicine may have an important role in maintaining your health, don’t forget the need for quality traditional-medicine health insurance. Traditional medicine has a role, particularly with respect trauma and other acute care. And the traditional-medicine cost of an unexpected health event can be financially devastating.
Pat Carpenter
http://www.articlesbase.com/non-fiction-articles/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-alternative-medicine-in-texas-but-were-afraid-to-ask-128722.html
Why Civil War is Second American Revolution?
No doubt that the real meaning of the Civil War is completely different from the one we are used to. Civil War is called the Second American Revolution by some great historians. The term “Second American Revolution” was first used by Charles and Mary Beard about seventy years ago when describing the American Civil War. Only after everything was settled about the reunion and reconciliation, after the construction of monuments were completed, after all the veterans were satisfied, when most of the emotions were dull the Civil War could have been viewed from another prospective, the logical prospective that could easily point out “that armed conflict had been only one phase of the cataclysm, a transitory phase; that at bottom the so-called Civil War, or the War between the States … was a social war, ending in the unquestioned establishment of a new power in the government, making vast changes in the arrangement of classes, in the accumulation and distribution of wealth, in the course of industrial development, and in the Constitution inherited from the Fathers.”
Over the years the term “Second American Revolution” has been viewed differently by different parties. The historians of the Civil War Era always had difficulties with accepting this term. In any case, Civil War greatly changed the sense of balance of political power between North and South and significantly speeded up the appearance of industrial capitalism in the post-war period. Most historians see the abolishing of slavery in the South as the revolutionary result of the war. Another point of view is from people that lived through the war, they saw their struggle as revolutionary. People that lived in the South called their revolt a revolution against the tyranny regime of the North. Northerners, on the contrary, viewed their conflict as a struggle to keep the union, which was formed as the result of revolution against England, together. However, both sides viewed that war as the continuation of their fight for freedom that started in 1776.
The prominent historians Beards were very precise as to what they called a “revolution.” In 1940 Louis Hacker briefly summed up what later became recognized as the Hacker-Beard Thesis: “The American Civil War turned out to be a revolution indeed. But its striking achievement was the triumph of industrial capitalism. The industrial capitalist, through their political spokesmen, the Republicans, had succeeded in capturing the state and using it as an instrument to strengthen their economic position. It was no accident, therefore, that while the war was waged on the field and through Negro emancipation, in Congress’ halls the victory was made secure by the passage of tariff, banking, public-land, railroad, and contract labor legislation.”
Some famous historians and James McPherson occasionally talk of Abraham Lincoln’s “Second American Revolution” (the title of one of McPherson’s books). They are absolutely correct to describe Lincoln as a revolutionary, however, the explanations they present to support this point of view are not fully complete. It is true that Lincoln led a revolution, but it was an anti-American revolution against nearly all the founding values of the country. It was a revolution against: free-market capitalism (Lincoln was a committed mercantilist); the principles of the Declaration of Independence; the Constitution; the system of states’ rights and federalism that was created by the founders; and the prohibitions against waging war on civilians embodied in the international law of the time as well as the canons of Western Christian civilization. Lincoln through all of his life never believed in equality of all races. He always viewed whites as the superior race. Maybe he wanted all races to be equal but not in the U.S. Lincoln is thought to save the union, however, it was only geographically, he destroyed it philosophically, and the union was not voluntary anymore. Lincoln eviscerated constitutional liberties in the North, which permanently weakened the constitutional protections of liberty for all Americans.
Despite all of the arguing of prominent historians, the fact continues to be revealed as the history moves up but at the same time it sort of steps back away in history. I think, it is an individual right for everyone to view the Civil War as the Second American Revolution or not. Each generation will reason and view this event differently, according to background and political views.
Jeff Stats
http://www.articlesbase.com/college-and-university-articles/why-civil-war-is-second-american-revolution-134384.html
Cricket World Cup 2007 Should not be Missed at Any Cost
World cup is one of the most important tournaments for all the teams. In the history of cricket world, this tournament gives the title of being world champions to a particular team. It is this reason that all the teams participating in this tournament keeps on practicing and polishing their batting or bowling or fielding skills. After all, it is their sharpened skills and efforts that will give them positive results. Since the world cup tournament started, eight tournaments have been played so far. Cricket World Cup 2007 is the ninth tournament in this race and West Indies is going to host it. Lots of preparations have been made by this Caribbean country for giving a wonderful experience as gift to all participating nations.
As West Indies is hosting the cricket world cup tournament for the first time, it becomes a matter of prestige and reputation for them to give their best performance and win the cup. It is for this reason that cricket world cup 2007 has become even more interesting. The tournament will begin from March 13th and the first match will be held between the host nation and Pakistan. Whenever the world cup tournament comes, the excitement and keen desire to watch some memorable performances is all the more increased. It is because of this enthusiasm that fans try to have access to some or the other kind of medium that can give them upgraded information on all the aspects related to world cup.
Now that cricket world cup 2007 is about to start after few days, talks are out that who has the better chances of winning world cup this time. Is it that Australian team will be successful in hitting a hat trick or India will walk away with the trophy? Some people are also saying that as West Indies is hosting the world cup tournament for the first time, it becomes essential to show their best performance and win the tournament. Cricket world cup 2007 has given rise to a huge number of questions in the fans’ mind. Well, everything depends on the kind of performance level that the teams would be displaying.
Cricket world cup 2007 is one tournament that no cricket fan can manage to miss at any cost. The forthcoming world cup tournament includes 16 teams, along with some that are participating for the first time such as Bermuda and Ireland. Though, these teams will have to face tough competition from the others that have an edge over them in playing world cup tournaments before; still they will be able to experience the strategies adopted by other countries. Cricket world cup 2007 is an important tournament and fans start adjusting their scheduled much before the event starts. After all, their favorite team or player would be playing and it becomes mandatory for them to watch their performance.
Every other country is coming out with newer schemes and plans to support their players and boost their morale. Along with this, advertisements have been released in order to popularize various detonations in West Indies as tourist sports. Cricket world cup 2007 has given a golden opportunity to West Indies for highlighting one of their best places as tourist spots, so that more and more people can come and visit them.
Ella Wilson
http://www.articlesbase.com/sports-and-fitness-articles/cricket-world-cup-2007-should-not-be-missed-at-any-cost-113113.html
Learn the Top Reasons Behind Poor Performance & Availability With Microsoft Exchange
As a professional, your clients know they can depend on you, and that you are there for them. But what happens when your technology is not there for you? Imagine you are on the phone with your client, telling him with great pride that at long last the document he has been waiting for is complete. While you chat, you attach the document to an email, send it off…and wait.
And wait. The email is no longer in your outbox and not in his inbox. You double-check the email address, and as the conversation becomes more and more awkward, you assure the client that the document really does exist and there really was an email sent. He is frustrated and you are at a complete loss. You decide you cannot wait any longer and switch to your personal Hotmail account to resend the document, which may or may not work immediately either. The result is wasted time, and if you switched email systems, you no longer have a cohesive record of the exchange.
Your system administrator will list a number of reasons why this incident happened, reasons that are beyond his control:
- Junk mail folders
- Anti-virus systems
- User errors
- Bottlenecks in the Internet that day
The real reasons may actually run much deeper, which means that this lost email will not be an isolated incident.
Lost Emails Mean Lost Opportunities
Consumers, accustomed to fast responses through websites, are quickly losing their tolerance for slow email responses. Evidence of this can be seen through a recent study by the WAV Group, who claims in the real estate industry, the first agent to respond to a customer email inquiry has a 73% chance of securing the business. The third to respond has virtually no chance.[1] Similarly, a study conducted by Vodafone released in December of 2008 estimates that lost opportunities due to failures to reply promptly to email messages cost businesses approximately $27,000 a year.[2]
What about email that goes missing entirely? This summer Apple Corp admitted to “losing” 10% of their MobileMe subscribers email between July 16th and July 18th.[3] A wave of blog posts have popped up as a result of this problem, with subscribers making claims of everything from lost job opportunities to lost business. We tend to view email as a low cost service, yet clearly when it fails, the costs can be startling. Apple would only remark that the problem was due to a “serious issue.” So what exactly does happen to these wayward email messages, delayed or lost?
The truth is there are dozens of potential reasons for email delivery delays and errors. With complex business-grade email systems, like Microsoft® Exchange and Lotus Notes, there are many ways to build and configure a system. Some conform to the highest standards, while others barely meet the minimum requirements. With very little effort, you can determine whether your system had been adequately configured to suit your needs.
High Availability
As the name implies, High Availability is a system or network that is operational, or available, with a high degree of certainty and frequency. Ceryx, a Hosted Exchange provider, has made high-availability one of their primary focuses. With data centers in New York and Toronto, they have developed various technologies to replicate all messaging data in real-time and can fail over to the secondary facility in the event of catastrophe, allowing them to provide a real 100% SLA. While most providers tend to choose between high availability and high performance, all of Ceryx’s Microsoft Exchange deployments have been built to meet the highest standard of availability uptime without sacrificing performance.
One benchmark for testing an application provider’s performance is to log in to the webmail application and switch from the email view to the calendar view. Pick a folder with lots of messages in it and try sorting by “sender” and then clicking through the various pages. If there is a noticeable delay between these actions then your application provider’s performance may not be adequate.
A system’s availability is determined by numerous factors, each of which is examined below.
Architecture
Delays are often a result of high server RPC latency. RPC, or Remote Procedure Call, is how the Outlook client or the Outlook Web Access client (OWA) communicates with the Exchanger servers. RPC latency refers to the delay between initiating a request and its completion. RPC latency, as seen from the client, is a combination of networking latency and server latency. For good performance, the Microsoft guideline is 50ms average latency on the mailbox servers.[4] If mailbox server RPC latency averages much higher than this, the desktop user can experience “pop-ups” and warnings about problems with the connection from Outlook to the Exchange server. In the background, inbound and outbound email is not being processed as the system tries to catch up with other requests. Excessive “pop-ups” can become more than just an irritant; they can slow down a PC to the point of being unusable while Outlook tries to establish a connection to the server.
Ceryx aims to maintain an RPC rate 20ms or less. To do this, they have avoided the tendency of many providers who built their systems with less expensive virtualized environments and network attached storage. Instead Ceryx has invested in server clusters and high-end SANs (Storage Area Networks) at each of their data centers. SANs provide disk access performance, as well as redundancy through RAID configurations and fibre channel connectivity to the mailbox servers.
Many providers, in an effort to reduce costs, combine the Client Access Server and the Hub Transport Server (servers used to facilitate email delivery) on a single physical machine. This dual role can introduce latency at times of peak usage and throttle the ability to handle large outbound mail queues. Ceryx has engineered the Hub Transport role to ensure message queues can be quickly cleared even during periods of heavy load. By combining multiple, dedicated physical Hub Transport servers with the built-in round-robin load balancing capabilities of Exchange 2007, messages are quickly distributed to their destination on the internet. For legitimate email, hardware load balancing is used to ensure optimal performance of the critical Hub Transport role, which processes every single message that passes through the system.
Monitoring
Most hardware load balancing configurations can achieve both high performance and high availability; however, to sustain high performance and high availability – with a dynamic system like a Hosted Exchange deployment, where usage and load can vary dramatically – you must have an advanced monitoring system and the processes in place to scale the system in response to constantly changing variables.
Some providers install generic monitoring packages that tend to monitor every single metric available, whether the metrics provide meaningful insight to system performance or not. With Ceryx, every aspect of the environment from key metrics around SAN queue length through to standard metrics like CPU utilization and memory usage are closely monitored, trended, and understood. This information is used to develop highly accurate forecasting and scheduled system scaling. Any provider who has not invested in such monitoring tools and resources will just react to spikes in usage and load. Ceryx plans for them.
Breathing Room
Another major reason for email delays and poor performance can again be attributed to basic economics. A “store” is the unique databases for storing messaging data. With Microsoft Exchange 2007 Enterprise, there is a limit of 50 stores per server, with a Microsoft recommended limit of 200 GB for each store. Some providers will try to maximize the number of customers they can support by pushing these limits. Ceryx does the opposite. Ceryx maintains a maximum of 50 GB per store – one quarter of the maximum – in order to deliver the best raw database performance and protect against data corruption, common with larger stores. With these hard restrictions in place, it’s difficult to imagine how some providers – who offer mailboxes up to 4GB – are able to run a sustainable business and maintain high performance and availability.
IOPS
Economics may also drive another cause of poor performance: IOPS, a measurement of the number of times data can be written and read to disk per second, can vary widely per system. With Microsoft Exchange, IOPS capacity is directly related to performance and a heavy user can use up to 1 IOPS under certain circumstances. Each disk has a maximum number of IOPS it can support, so a careful ratio of users per array of disks is essential to maintain decent performance.
Ceryx is careful to maintain a generous ratio of IOPS per user based on real-world metrics monitored from its large user base, taking into consideration peak activities times and not just daily averages.
Routing Issues
To be fair, email delays and errors may occur outside your environment. In the scenario where your colleague was eagerly sitting and waiting for an email to arrive, it may have got stuck somewhere “in the cloud” – somewhere in between both of your email environments.
On a pre-sales and support level, Ceryx has developed a number of troubleshooting tools to help identify potential routing issues. As with any application “hosted in the cloud,” bandwidth is an important consideration when trying to ensure a positive end-users experience. Microsoft Exchange, which consumes 3 KB of a client’s internet connection per active user, is no different. Ceryx has developed a tool that simulates a series of network connections to determine if the client has adequate bandwidth to support their user base. Through this exercise they have discovered that – with any client moving from an on-premise environment to a hosted environment – any increase in bandwidth required is partially offset by decommissioning and offloading SMTP traffic, external connections spam traffic and attacks.
Spam/Anti-Virus
Of course the most notorious place a message gets “stuck” or delayed is in a provider’s anti-virus and spam filtering system. Ceryx runs seven different anti-virus products in its environment to ensure system health and email hygiene. That level of protection could potentially cripple an ordinary system that wasn’t built for high performance; however, Ceryx has not only sized their solution with the performance hit associated with anti-virus scanning in mind, but also closely monitors its environment to ensure email delivery is never compromised by spam and anti-virus filtering.
Beware of any provider who either ignores this potential performance hit or, worse yet, removes backend anti-virus all together. Removing anti-virus may appear to be a good way to control costs, as high-end solutions can be very expensive, but removing them allows viruses in, and once in, are often hard to then find, never mind remove. Ceryx’s system scans incoming and outgoing messages as well as messages in the store on a scheduled basis. A regular scan of mailbox databases is just as important as gateway anti-virus to reduce the instance of catastrophic failure.
Mobility
The benefits and usability of the Ceryx architecture can be measured not only on the desktop level but for mobile users as well, who share the same highly optimized and redundant environment. Ceryx also maintains fully-replicated BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Servers) in both its environments to maintain maximum mobility uptime as well. Forum Oilfield Services, out of Houston Texas, currently has 600 employees using the Ceryx Hosted Exchange solution, with almost 100 mobile users.
Beware of “Bargains”
Unfortunately the market is crowded with Hosted Exchange providers who are not as concerned about delivering a dependable and resilient solution as they are about keeping their costs low and selling high volumes of mailboxes. Providers that offer 3 or 4 GB mailboxes are ignoring the commonly held understanding that mailboxes of this size do not perform well and are highly susceptible to data corruption. That corruption is not limited to just the user in question, but can impact all users on that store, potentially even the entire server.
These providers can only offer mailboxes of this size at a bargain price if they compromise on some other expense – dedicated servers, SANs, anti-virus solutions or a fully redundant architecture. Of course the much greater expense is the lost productivity and opportunity that results from using a solution that was designed with the primary goal of meeting the lowest possible price point to compete with free solutions in the market, and not delivering Enterprise performance and availability.
Ask all potential vendors for the following:
- Customer references
(Quiz the references about any down-time they may have experienced) - The SLA
Have a close look at the financial penalties if high availability is not maintained. Professional hosting providers, confident in their systems ability to maintain high availability, will include clearly worded conditions in their SLA around the exact fees that will be paid to a customer should they not maintain an acceptable level of up-time.
How Do You Measure Up?
A lost or delayed email could be viewed as a nuisance or as a warning. Purchasing decisions need to be fiscally responsible, but often, seemingly bargain solutions can have a devastating and costly effect in the long run.
So how does your system measure up? Using Ceryx as a control, measure the speed, versatility, and resilience of your system.
Ceryx
SLA: 100%
Latency: < 20 ms
GB / Store: 50 GB / Store
IOPS per User: High
Bandwidth Sizing Tools: Yes
Spam / Anti-Virus: Gateway + Mailbox Server, Integrated
Mobile Device Access: Redundant BlackBerry, ActiveSync
Ceryx customers share the belief that their data is their companies most valued asset. As the most used collaboration tool in business, an individual Microsoft Exchange account typically contains a blueprint of an employee’s tenure: their schedule, correspondence (and commitments), contacts, contracts and much more. Ceryx customers trust that this real-time journal is safe, available and always accessible.
Footnotes:
[1] The Wav Group: Gaining an Edge in Real Estate with Smartphones http://wavgroup.com
[2] The Open Press: http://www.theopenpress.com/index.php?a=press&id=42004
[3] Apple Support Forum: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1953
[4] Microsoft Exchange Team Blog: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2005/09/28/411674.aspx
[5] Microsoft TechNet: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb738147.aspx
John Carthy
http://www.articlesbase.com/communication-articles/learn-the-top-reasons-behind-poor-performance-availability-with-microsoft-exchange-751535.html
Visit New York City on St Patrick’s Day
Celebrated annually across the globe on March 17, St Patrick’s Day is one of the world’s most popular celebrations. Its significance originates in Ireland as a Catholic feast day which celebrates Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. However, in more recent times, St Patrick’s Day has taken on an altogether more global and secular significance, with St Patrick’s Day celebrations being held around the world in various forms.
In the United States, people traditionally celebrate St Patrick’s Day by wearing green garments, drinking alcohol that’s been dyed green or indulging in other Irish themed activities. Many American cities put on St Patrick’s Day parades, including Cleveland, Boston and Kansas City; however the largest St Patrick’s Day Parade in the United States – and the world – is held in New York City and is said to be watched by over two million people.
The first St Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City was held in 1766, when Irish soldiers marched through the city, and in 2006, more than 150,000 people marched in the St Patrick’s Day Parade. Among those participating in the event were bands, members of the fire department, social and cultural clubs in the city, emigrant societies and military and police groups. Furthermore, prominent New York politicians, and those planning to run for office frequently appear in the St Patrick’s Day Parade.
Organised by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the St Patrick’s Day Parade has attracted more than a little controversy in its time. For instance, the Ancient Order of Hibernians has often opted to appoint controversial Irish Republican figures as its Grand Marshall; what’s more, the group recently banned gay and lesbian groups from participating in the parade. As a result of this, alternative St Patrick’s Day parades, such as The Queens parade, have been organised by opposing groups; the Queens parade, for instance, is open to all groups who wish to march on St Patrick’s Day.
But whatever parade you choose to go and see, New York City is truly the place to be on St Patrick’s Day. With green bagels, green flowers, green hats and clothes a frequent sight on the day of the St Patrick’s Day Parade, New Yorkers tend to frequent local Irish pubs and drink Irish beers and liquors in celebration of the festival, which now takes on both religious and secular significance. And with plenty of affordable hotels in New York City to choose from, you won’t be stuck for accommodation in the city if you choose to visit on St Patrick’s Day. After all, how could you possibly resist the unique opportunity to eat a green New York bagel and drink a glass of dyed-green Guinness while basking in the emerald glow of the Empire State Building?
Andrew Regan is a freelance online journalist.
Andrew Regan
http://www.articlesbase.com/travel-articles/visit-new-york-city-on-st-patricks-day-107268.html
If all major online news media starts to charge, will you pay up, or simply turn to alternative media?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f6edc2c-821f-11de-9c5e-00144feabdc0.html
Most major news sites seem a bit biased, but I’ve found that I can generally get a good view of an issue by reading about it on several sites.
In the event that all major online media DOES start to charge for news, do you plan on subscribing? Or do you think that’s likely to cause a rise in alternative media looking for a way to break into the market on advertising revenues only?
Good question ! If it could be included in my monthly internet bill. Like pay channel are on my cable bill, I would.
I trust my provider to cancel subscriptions when I ask, But I don’t trust a lot of the online sites, themselves.