Freedom Land Title Agency

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WHO WE ARE

As a full service company, we provide title insurance and related real estate services nationally.

Ensuring a successful future for our clients is our company's long-term focus behind every decision we make. This is our purpose and vision - mutual success. We commit ourselves to achieving high performance and delivering outstanding results. We have a passion for excellence and strive to exceed expectations in all that we do.

We insure through the industrys largest underwriters and have gained the trust of attorneys, developers and lenders who continually rely on us to close their transactions. By applying original thinking, foresight and an innovative spirit; we bring new ideas to our clients. Our creativity, agility and intellectual curiosity fostered the evolution of Freedom Land Title Agency.

As the Title industry continues to change, we remain focused on core essential services. We are in sync with market trends and changes in Banking and Real Estate. Keeping our clients and associates informed and providing unparalleled support is what we do.

Relying on a foundation of legal expertise, todays technology and the ability to blend them with professional service is what youll come to know and expect from us.

Our Residential Division handles the specific needs of attorneys and lenders for their owner and loan policies on all types of dwellings, condominiums and cooperative apartments. Freedom Land Title complies with the ever changing banking and lending regulations as they apply to title insurance. We issue every policy in accordance with the American Land Title Association, The NYS Department of Financial Services, HUD, TIRSA and RESPA. We insure through the industrys top underwriters having earned the Finest Agent Award from Fidelity. We have gained the trust of attorneys, developers and lenders who continually rely on us to close their transactions.

Our Commercial Division is led by Helen Manfre; Principal and Operating Partner. With twenty-seven years of experience, there is no commercial transaction beyond her scope. Her clients include every major developer and real estate family in New York and abroad. They entrust their acquisition or financing transactions be it new construction, building loan financing, loan conversions, shopping centers, multi-family housing, office or industrial space- to her practical application of title insurance knowledge and ability to close a deal. The portfolio of transaction insured by Freedom Land Title under her guidance is vast and continues to grow.

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Freedom Land Title Agency

Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance | Information for Patients and Families

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Malignant mesothelioma is a rare type of cancer that occurs in the thin layer of cells lining the body's internal organs, known as the mesothelium.

There are three recognized types of mesothelioma. Pleural mesothelioma is the most common form of the disease, accounting for roughly 70% of cases, and occurs in the lining of the lung known as the pleura. Peritoneal mesothelioma occurs in the lining of the abdominal cavity, known as the peritoneum and pericardial mesothelioma originates in the pericardium, which lines the heart.

An individual may be at risk to develop mesothelioma if he or she was exposed to asbestos in the workplace or at home. Mesothelioma is caused by exposure to asbestos and the inhalation of asbestos particles. In most cases, mesothelioma symptoms will not appear in an individual exposed to asbestos until many years after the exposure has occurred.

Those with a past asbestos exposure history experiencing symptoms should consult a physician with experience in accurately diagnosing mesothelioma. The earlier mesothelioma is diagnosed, the more likely it is to be caught at an early stage. At earlier stages of mesothelioma progression, more treatment options are available and oftentimes a better prognosis is given.

Additional mesothelioma information and statistics can be found in this section. Read stories of hope from mesothelioma surviviors as well.

In 2006, at the age of 36, Heather Von St. James gave birth to her daughter, Lily Rose. Just three months later, she was diagnosed with mesotheliomastartling news for someone so young. Heather had been exposed to asbestos second-hand as a child when her father would return home from work with his clothing covered in asbestos dust. Heather often wore his coat, and in the process she unwittingly breathed in the fibers. With strong faith, support from a host of family and friends, and a vibrant sense of humor, Heather emerged from a multi-month course of treatment healthy and cancer-free.

Mavis describes herself as an ordinary woman who married a shipwright. For 48 years, she washed her husbands clothes when he came home from work, never knowing that the dust on his jacket was full of deadly asbestos. In June 2009, Mavis was diagnosed with mesothelioma and given only three months to live. Chemotherapy worked to extend her life for another year beyond that, but eventually the tumors started growing again. However, she was given a new lease on life through an immunotherapy trial, which has kept her cancer free much longer than expected.

Paul Cowley

Paul Cowley and his wife Claire could hardly believe it when they got the news that he had pleural mesothelioma. He was only 34, much younger than most people diagnosed with this rare and deadly form of cancer. Being so young, Paul was able to attempt an aggressive multimodal treatment regimen that included multiple avenues of attack against the cancer. Paul has beaten the odds by surviving beyond five years a feat that only 9% of mesothelioma patients accomplish.

Paul Kraus

Paul Kraus has lived with peritoneal mesothelioma for nearly two decades. Born into a Nazi labor camp in Austria, he escaped as an infant with his mother and brother and soon emigrated with his family to Australia. Asbestos is prevalent in Australia, and as a result, the country suffers from some of the highest rates of mesothelioma in the world. Mr. Kraus was exposed as a youth on a summer job he took in 1962. The cancer was latent until 1997 at which time he was diagnosed and given just weeks to live.

Stephen Jay Gould

One of the most popular scientific authors of recent times, evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, authored more than 20 books on a variety of scientific subjects, and published hundreds of essays in Natural History magazine. Gould lived for twenty years after being diagnosed with mesothelioma in 1982. After his diagnosis, he wrote an essay, The Median Isnt the Message, about his reaction to the news and to the realization that half of all mesothelioma patients died within eight months of diagnosis. His essay has been cited as a source of comfort and hope by many cancer victims.

Once an individual has been diagnosed by a qualified mesothelioma doctor, the next step is to discuss mesothelioma treatment options and to develop a treatment plan. Recent scientific research has produced significant breakthroughs with regard to treatment protocols for mesothelioma patients and more options are now available for managing mesothelioma and supporting improved quality of life.

Newly diagnosed mesothelioma patients often have many questions for their doctors about the treatment options that would be most effective for them. Conventional treatment options for mesothelioma include surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Recently, chemotherapy drugs including Alimta and Cisplatin have showed promising results in some patients.

Mesothelioma clinical trials as well as experimental treatments are other options that certain mesothelioma patients may be eligible to participate in. Our site features a comprehensive mesothelioma cancer treatment section that includes important information for patients and families. We've included resources on top mesothelioma experts such as Dr. Raphael Bueno, as well as a comprehensive list of cancer centers where mesothelioma treatment takes place.

Beyond the conventional treatments for mesothelioma, certain alternative therapies may provide assistance to mesothelioma patients. Financial assistance is available to help offset mesothelioma treatment costs. We continually update this section of our site as new mesothelioma treatment information becomes available.

Asbestos exposure is the primary cause of mesothelioma cancer. Inhaled or ingested asbestos fibers may cause an inflammation of internal tissue and disrupt organ function which leads to the development of mesothelioma. Asbestos products were used extensively in the 20th century throughout the United States, in a wide variety of applications.

Asbestos companies continued to produce these products even after they were known to be hazardous to workers. These products were responsible for asbestos exposure sustained by the individuals who manufactured them as well as those who used them. Renovation and construction both at home and in schools also poses high risk areas for exposure. People also may have been exposed to asbestos-contaminated talc in baby powder

Many workers were put at risk at commercial and industrial locations including refineries, power plants, steel mills, auto production facilities and large construction sites. Some of the occupations of workers at risk include electricians, plumbers, boilermakers, carpenters, mechanics, machinists and more. Additionally, if you lived with someone who was regularly exposed to asbestos and washed their clothes, you could be at risk for second hand asbestos exposure.

Although rare, mesothelioma affects veterans from all branches of service: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard. As mesothelioma has a long latency period and can remain dormant for several decades, veterans who served our country from 1930 through 1980 are just now being diagnosed with the disease.

Navy veterans who worked in navy shipyards and or served on our nation's aircraft carriers, battleships, destroyers, submarines and warship from WWII through the Vietnam War were exposed to high concentrations of deadly asbestos and are at a high risk for developing asbestos-related cancer. Boiler rooms, engine rooms, sleeping quarters, and other areas of naval vessels were the most common areas where asbestos was present.

Some prominent shipyards where asbestos was prevalent include Brooklyn Navy Yard, Norfolk Navy Shipyard, Long Beach Naval Shipyard and Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Financial assistance and help with VA Benefits is available to veterans diagnosed with mesothelioma.

Asbestos manufacturers and distributors made a concerted effort to hide the dangers of asbestos from the public, while at the same time profiting heavily from the sale and manufacture of harmful asbestos products. Those suffering from Mesothelioma can seek compensation from the manufacturers of asbestos and asbestos-containing products by hiring a competent mesothelioma lawyer.

When deciding whether or not you should pursue your legal rights, you should think about the following three things. First, asbestos manufacturers had knowledge of the dangers of asbestos and knowingly put hardworking men and women at risk. Second, treatment for mesothelioma can be very expensive. Third, by exercising your legal rights, you can protect your loved ones in the future.

Ask a question and Jennifer will respond to you promptly.

Once you make the decision to pursue your rights, a competent asbestos attorney will maximize recovery from both viable and bankrupt asbestos defendants. Over 65 asbestos trusts have been established holding billions of dollars combined across them. These asbestos trust funds have been set aside to help compensate those workers who have been diagnosed with mesothelioma cancer or other asbestos-related diseases.

The legal process to compensate mesothelioma victims is not overly burdensome and should be strongly considered to help offset treatment costs and to provide financial security for loved ones.

In October, Canadas government followed through on a promise it made in 2016 to eventually ban asbestos use. On December 30, the Prohibition of Asbestos and Products Containing Asbestos Regulation...

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The Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation recently held its International Symposium on Malignant Mesothelioma in New York City, the second of two events scheduled for 2018. Doctors, nurses, pati...

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Perth, Australia - November 15, 2018

The phase 2 DREAM immunotherapy study is showing promise for mesothelioma patients. Learn more about the study and how it impacted survival rates.

Newark, NJ - October 03, 2018

The Department of Justice is objecting to Duro Dynes appointment for its asbestos trust fund, citing several conflicts of interest.

Those who have been diagnosed with mesothelioma or other types of terminal cancer can find tremendous comfort in the support they get from family, friends and caregivers.

The Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance is also part of the larger community dedicated to promoting mesothelioma research and preventing new cases through a worldwide asbestos ban.

FREE Mesothelioma Awareness Wristbands and Treatment Guide.

We work with and donate to the following organizations whose missions complement our own: Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation, National Foundation for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, American Society of Clinical Oncology and the Cancer Research Institute. The mesothelioma community gets together often at various events around the country.

Each year, the National Conference on Worker Safety and Health (COSH) brings together an inclusive and diverse group of people to address several common goals, including worker empowerment, reducing on-the-job injuries and deaths, and making workplaces safer. For more information, please visit the National COSHs conference site via the link below.

This is the BTOGs 17th annual conference and brings together speakers and attendees from around the world. Previous topics covered during the three-day event include respiratory medicine, immunotherapy, mesothelioma, translational oncology, and radiotherapy. For further information, please visit the BTOG's website via the link below.

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Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance | Information for Patients and Families

Mesothelioma Cancer | We Get You the Fast Help You Need

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Approximately 3,000 people are diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma in the United States every year. In most cases, these victims exposure took place on the job and the cause of the illness can be traced to an unsafe workplace.

For example, in the past, an overwhelming amount of job sites across the nation used asbestos-containing materials (ACMs) in buildings, equipment, products, machinery, insulation, electrical wiring, and more.

Workers were exposed to ACMs each time they went to work, inhaling tiny, odorless asbestos fibers. Once the fibers become lodged in the body, its literally impossible to expel all of. Over time, the workers began developing asbestos-related illnesses, such as mesothelioma, asbestosis, and asbestos-related lung cancer.

With changing regulations and mitigation, exposure to asbestos is on the decline, but people continue to be diagnosed. This is because the disease has what is known as a long latency period. This means that the amount of time that can pass between the time of exposure to asbestos and the time that symptoms begin to appear can be as long as fifty years.

It is an unfortunate reality, but medical science has made great strides in understanding how this deadly disease progresses and various ways to prolong and improve the lives of those who have been diagnosed with the condition. Currently, however, there is still no cure for asbestos illnesses.

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What Is Futurism? – Artsy

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Balla took this embrace of technology one step further by tailoring Futurist clothing. In September 1914, after the outbreak of World War I, he introduced his Anti-neutral Suit, a bright orange, geometrically patterned collection of menswear, uniquely suited to the needs of the urgent and imperative great war. In 1915, alongside new recruit, he announced no less than the total Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe, an initiative to introduce the Futurist aesthetic into all aspects of life as a way to educate and embolden a new type of man, one capable of dealing with the ever-quickening pace of modern life.

Marinetti hoped that Italian intervention in a great war would allow the country to gain credibility in Europea notion shared by many nations in World War I. As his first manifesto claimed, We intend to glorify warthe only hygiene of the worldmilitarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of anarchists.

In fact, Marinetti actively agitated for Italy to join World War I, and he, Boccioni, and others were quick to sign up for military service. But the war didnt hold the redemption that Futurism sought. In 1916, Boccioni died in a training exercise, leaving an artistic and theoretical void in post-war Futurism. And although Italy ended up on the victorious side of the war, the country didnt receive the territory it had been promised as a result of allying with the Triple Entente (Russia, France, and the United Kingdom).

Italys losses in World War I morphed into a myth of mutilated victory in the popular imagination, creating a political climate that Benito Mussolini would later manipulate so that Italian citizens accepted two decades of Fascist dictatorship. Futurism and fascism shared many rhetorical similarities (the glorification of war and violence, the primacy of Italian identity), and under Mussolini, Marinetti opportunistically promoted Futurism as a proto-Fascist movement, hoping to gain his artists official commissions from the Fascist Party.

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Futurism – Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Futurism was a modern art and social movement which originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It was largely an Italian phenomenon, though there were parallel movements in Russia, England and elsewhere. The Futurists practiced in every medium of art, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, graphic design, industrial design, interior design, theatre, movies, fashion, textiles, literature, music, architecture and even gastronomy.

The founder of Futurism and its most influential personality was the Italian writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Marinetti launched the movement in his Futurist Manifesto, which he published for the first time on 5 February 1909 in La gazzetta dell'Emilia. This article was reprinted in the French daily newspaper Le Figaro on 20 February 1909. Marinetti was soon joined by the painters Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carr, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini and the composer Luigi Russolo.

Marinetti expressed a passionate loathing of everything old, especially political and artistic tradition. "We want no part of it, the past", he wrote, "we the young and strong Futurists!" The Futurists admired speed, technology, youth and violence, the car, the airplane and the industrial city, all that represented the technological triumph of humanity over nature, and they were passionate nationalists. They repudiated the cult of the past and all imitation, praised originality, "however daring, however violent", bore proudly "the smear of madness", dismissed art critics as useless, rebelled against harmony and good taste, swept away all the themes and subjects of all previous art, and gloried in science.

Publishing manifestos was a feature of Futurism, and the Futurists (usually led or prompted by Marinetti) wrote them on many topics, including painting, architecture, religion, clothing and cooking.[3]

The founding manifesto did not contain a positive artistic programme. The Futurists attempted to create it in their subsequent Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting. This committed them to a "universal dynamism", which was to be directly represented in painting.[4]

In practice, much of their work was influenced by Cubism, and indeed their images were more dynamic than those of Picasso and Braque. The phrase 'plastic dynamism' has been used to describe their early work.

One of the greatest patrons and financier of Futurism in Milan was the business magnante Antonio Bernocchi, he was also the creator and producer of the first example of Italian industrial design, inspired by futurism, that became known as "Luminator Bernocchi".

Many Italian Futurists supported Fascism in the hope of modernizing the country. Italy was divided between the industrial north and the rural, archaic South. Like the Fascists, the Futurists were Italian nationalists, radicals, admirers of violence, and were opposed to parliamentary democracy. Marinetti was one of the first members of the National Fascist Party. He soon found the Fascists were not radical enough for him, but he supported Italian Fascism until his death in 1944.

The Futurists' association with Fascism after its triumph in 1922 brought them official acceptance in Italy and the ability to carry out important work, especially in architecture. After the Second World War, many Futurist artists had difficulty in their careers because of their association with a defeated and discredited regime.

The Futurists renewed themselves again and again until Marinetti's death.

Futurism influenced many other twentieth century art movements, including Art Deco, Vorticism, Constructivism, Surrealism and Dadaism. Futurism was, like science fiction, in part overtaken by 'the future'.

Nonetheless, the ideals of futurism remain as part of modern Western culture: the emphasis on youth, speed, power and technology is expressed in much of modern cinema and culture. Ridley Scott used design ideas of Sant'Elia in Blade Runner.

Echoes of Marinetti's thought, especially his "dreamt-of metallization of the human body", are still strongly prevalent in Japanese culture, and surface in manga/anime and the works of artists such as Shinya Tsukamoto, director of the "Tetsuo" (lit. "Ironman") films.

Futurism influenced the literary genre of cyberpunk. Artists who came to prominence in the first flush of the internet, such as Stelarc and Mariko Mori, produced work influenced by Futurist ideas. A revival of sorts of the Futurist movement began in 1988 with the creation of the Neo-Futurist style of theatre in Chicago, which uses Futurism's focus on speed and brevity to create a new form of immediate theatre. There are active Neo-Futurist troupes in Chicago, New York, and Montreal.

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Recess Season 4 Episode 38 | Germ Warfare | Recess Full Episodes TV Series

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Recess (TV Series 19972001) full episodes watch cartoons online.

Synopsis: Six brave fourth-graders at Third Street School make it their mission to protect the other kids on the playground. Despite the rule of King Bob and his minions, who enforce his unwritten laws, T.J, Ashley, Vince, Gus, Gretchen and Mikey seek a rational balance between conformity and individuality.

Creators: Paul Germain, Joe Ansolabehere

Stars: Andrew Lawrence, Ashley Johnson, Jason Davis

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Recess Season 1: https://bit.ly/2LfEsQD

Recess Season 2: https://bit.ly/2uJrdNB

Recess Season 3: https://bit.ly/2uISJuJ

Recess Season 4: https://bit.ly/2uIjLlJ

Recess Season 5: https://bit.ly/2mDtdTk

Recess Season 6: https://bit.ly/2NAyiqM

Recess All Episodes: https://bit.ly/2uG672u

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Recess Season 4 Episode 38 | Germ Warfare | Recess Full Episodes TV Series

Caribbean Vacation Packages & Travel Deals | BookIt.com

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From the glossy resorts to the idyllic beaches and traditional culture, a vacation package to the Caribbean is filled with spectacular things to do. Travel to the naturally made Devil's Bridge on Antigua, enjoy the soothing vibe of Reggae in Jamaica or explore the underground shallow caves of Aruba on your vacation package to the Caribbean.

From the resorts of Punta Cana to the hotel packages on Grand Bahama Island, you'll never tire of the expansive beauty with a vacation to any of the incredible Caribbean islands. Enjoy the many perks of your vacation package, including all-inclusive deals, as you bask in the sun, swim through the water or simply enjoy lounging poolside.

No matter your destination it is easy to reach the Caribbean, with flights into major airports like Queen Beatrix International in Aruba, Sangster International near Montego Bay and V.C. Bird International on Antigua. While the weather stays mostly moderate and tropical, it varies somewhat between islands, dry in Aruba and sometimes misty in others.

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Caribbean Vacation Packages & Travel Deals | BookIt.com

Beaches | Florida Department of Environmental Protection

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About Us

To protect, restoreand manage Florida's coastal systems. The 825 miles of sandy coastline fronting the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico or the Straits of Florida are one of Floridas most valuable natural resources. Floridas beaches are deserving of this status because they serve several important functions, each being vital to maintaining the health of Floridas economy and environment.

The coastal sandy beach system is home to many species of plants and animalsdependent upon the beaches, dunes and near shore waters for all or part of their lives. For example, beaches are used by resident and migratory shorebirds for resting, foraging and nesting, and during the summer months, marine turtles come ashore to nest on the beach. There are over 30 plants and animals considered rare within the state that inhabit the beach and adjacent habitats. These plants and animals are adapted to living in the beachs harsh environment of salt spray, shifting and infertile sand, bright sunlight, and storms.

Floridas beaches are the primary attraction for the approximately 18.6 million tourists to the state each year (Economic Evaluation of Floridas Investment in Beaches, 2015). Both tourists and residents come to the beaches to relax and enjoy the sights and sounds of natural beauty. Others visit the beaches and nearby waters to engage in boating, fishing, divingand other recreational activities. Florida's beaches are an integral part of the state's economy.

The beach and dune system is the first line of defense against storms because it acts as a buffer between the storm waves and coastal development or infrastructure. During storms, waves encounter the beach and dunes prior to reaching upland property, therefore absorbing wave energy and reducing the damage suffered to upland structures.

In order to protect, preserveand manage Floridas valuable sandy beaches and adjacent coastal systems, the Legislature adopted the Florida Beach and Shore Preservation Act, contained in Parts I and II of Chapter 161,Florida Statutes. The Act provides three interrelated programs administered by the Department of Environmental Protection that work in concert to accomplish the task. Those programs are the Coastal Construction Control Line Program, the Beach Management Funding Assistance Program, and the Beaches, Inlets and Ports Program.

The Legislature recognizes that beach erosion is a statewide problem that does not confine its effects to local government jurisdictions.The department by way of the Engineering, Hydrology and Geology (EHG) Programis charged with the responsibility of identifying those beaches of the state which are critically eroded, and to develop and maintain a comprehensive long-term management plan for their restoration.The long-term management plan has several components to it that the department implements, including the Critically Eroded Beaches Report.

The department has an extensive historic shoreline database that has been collected since the early 1970s and continues to this day.Furthermore, the shoreline database has been contributed to extensively by private sector coastal engineering firms and hydrographic surveying firms as part of the monitoring protocol for beach restoration/nourishment projects.Additional information is collected on offshore sand sources and is housed in the departments Regional Offshore Sand Source Inventory (ROSSI) database.The ROSSI database enables users to make the most informed decision possible when it comes to the management of sand resources for beach restoration/nourishment projects. The ROSSI database is managed by the EHG Programs coastal engineering and geology staff.

Coastal habitat affected by critical erosion is typically restored through beach restoration/nourishment projects.Projects whether on the beach or inlet facing the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, the Straits of Florida or associated inlets must apply for a joint coastal permit (JCP) through the Beaches, Inlets and Ports Program (BIPP).Activities that require a JCP include beach restoration or nourishment; construction of erosion control structures such as groins and breakwaters; public fishing piers; maintenance of inlets and inlet-related structures; and dredging of navigation channels that include disposal of dredged material onto the beach or in the nearshore area.BIPP also processes ERPs for navigational dredging of deepwater ports. These projects generally are below the mean high water line and extend into the sovereign submerged lands and are likely to affect the distribution of sand along the beach.

The departments Coastal Construction Control Line (CCCL) Program protects coastal resources from improperly located and designed structures and activities that can destabilize the beach and dune system, cause erosion, expose upland property to storm damage or interfere with public access. In addition, coastal construction activities must be designed and conducted in a manner that protects sea turtles and dune plants.The CCCL program applies special siting and design criteria to construction, excavation and related activities to minimize impacts to the beach and dune system. The CCCL location is set at the upland limits of the damaging effects of a 100-year coastal storm as predicted by coastal engineering models. Condominiums, hotels, homes, pools and boardwalks, etc., to be constructed seaward of the CCCL must meet the specific requirements of this program.

The department manages an interactive web-based mapping service known as Map Direct, which includes the latest aerial imagery and coastal attributes. Map Direct can be used to view projects or property along Floridas coastline. Alsoavailable are theCollection of Aerials and Shoreline Trends System (COASTS)as well ashard-copy maps, which are made available from COASTS for printing.

The Beaches, Inlets and Ports Program planning staff is charged with updating and maintaining the Strategic Beach Management Plan (SBMP) and assisting the coastal engineering and geology staff with establishing or updating the Inlet Management Plans (IMP) to address critical erosion along Floridas coastline.The strategies listed in both the SBMP and IMPs are considered eligible for state cost share and are considered components of the states long-term management plan for Floridas sandy coastline.The strategies listed in the plans address the erosion problems along Floridas sandy coastline with the best coastal engineering and environmental alternatives for a segment of coastline or inlet.

The Beach Management Funding Assistance Program (BMFAP) works in concert with local sponsors to achieve protection, preservation, restorationand nourishment of the sandy beaches fronting the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Straits of Florida, and for the management of inlets to replicate the natural drift of sand interrupted by improved, modified or altered inlets.State funding is requested annually through a local government funding request application process.The BMFAP is tasked with executing funding assistance agreements for eligible feasibility, design, construction and monitoring tasks once appropriations are made by the Legislature.

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Genomics and Human Genetic Engineering – ASME

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Genomics is a hot market. A new research reportby Markets and Markets estimates that the global genome editing market is expected to reachabout $3.5 billionby 2019, up from $1.8 billion in 2014. This demand is driven by the growth of biotechnology and pharmaceutical R&D, as well as advances in technology. Cell-line engineering accounts for the greatest share of the overall genomics market.

The rapid evolution of genomics is, however, causing legal and ethical concerns, which could slow down the projected growth of the market. For example, the National Institutes of Healths National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) has established its Ethical, Legal and Social Implications (ELSI) Research Program to address these issues. Privacy is a huge concernthe NHGRI maintains it is essential to develop, implement, evaluate, and refine new approaches and policies that recognize participants' interests in the privacy and use of the genomic and medical data, while simultaneously enabling broad access to these data to facilitate scientific discovery.

There is also the broader and more complex issue of how genomics impacts social beliefs and policies around the world regarding research and health. Genomics has profound implications for how we understand ourselves as individuals and as members of families, communities, and societyand even for how we understand what it means to be human, states NHGRI. Long-held beliefs about the continuum between health and disease may be transformed, as may concepts of free will and responsibility. These conceptual shifts have implications for current approaches to research, health and social policies.

Global genome editing market by region (top), and by application (bottom). Image: Markets and Markets

One of the newest genomic technologies that is causing considerable ethical consternation is CRISPR-cas9, which is expected to be the largest and fastest-growing segment of the global genome editing market over the next five years.

Developed by Jennifer Doudna, a professor of chemistry and of molecular and cell biologyat the University of California-Berkeley, CRISPR-cas9 simplifies gene editing for many types of cells including human egg, sperm, or embryo. The process has revolutionized the field of genome engineering and offers tremendous potential for editing genes that cause predisposition traits for certain diseases. Discovered as an adaptive immune system in bacteria for protection against bacteria-invading viruses, CRISPR-cas9 wasdeveloped as a way to target and edit genomes, reports Ryan Clarke on http://www.techcrunch.com. This process permanently modifies an organisms genome, so that each successive generation of offspring will carry the change.

These groundbreaking capabilities have resulted in numerous discussions about ethics of use for this technologyfor example, designing genetically perfect offspring. Ultimately social preferences could skew the genetic balance of the human species, warns Clarke.

Scientists are increasingly giving voice to similar concerns. As published in Science, a group of prominent scientists, including Doudna herself, urged that steps be taken to ensure the application of genome engineering technologiesincluding her own CRISPR-Cas9is done in a safe and ethical manner. In our view, writes Edward Lanphier, president and CEO of Sangamo BioSciences, in Nature, genome editing in human embryos using current technologies could have unpredictable effects on future generations. This makes it dangerous and ethically unacceptable. Such research could be exploited for non-therapeutic modifications.

In April 2015, researchers from Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China described their efforts at editing the genes of a human embryo. Using the CRISPR-cas9 system, this was the first-ever attempt to genome engineer a living human embryo. Results were highly inconsistent and included unexpected effects, such as random introduction of mutations. Out of the 86 total embryos utilized in the study, 71 survived the initial CRISPR snips, only 28 successfully spliced in the new DNA, and a small fraction of those splices actually generated a functional protein. The researchers stopped the study because the science is too immature.

This work prompted another vigorous round of debate in the scientific community regarding the ethicsof genetic manipulation. It did prompt the National Institutes of Health to announce it would not fund anyresearch that tampers with the human germ line. Despite the funding ban, the NIH also acknowledged the importance of the CRISPR-cas9 technology in a press release.

"This technology is also being used to develop the next generation of antimicrobials, which can specifically target harmful strains of bacteria and viruses," the NIH statement reads."In the first clinical application of genomic editing, a related genome editing technique (using a zinc finger nuclease) was used to create HIV-1 resistance in human immune cells, bringing HIV viral load down to undetectable levels in at least one individual. Advances in technology have given us an elegant new way of carrying out genome editing, but strong arguments against the use of gene-editing technologies in human embryos remain.

Mark Crawford is an independent writer.

Learn about the latest trends in medicine and biology at ASMEs Global Congress onNanoEngineering for Medicine and Biology.

NIH Statement

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Ayn Rand raged against government benefits but grabbed …

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Ayn Rand was not only a schlock novelist, she was also the progenitor of a sweeping moral philosophy that justifies the privilege of the wealthy and demonizes not only the slothful, undeserving poor but the lackluster middle-classes as well.

Her books provided wide-ranging parables of parasites, looters and moochers using the levers of government to steal the fruits of her heroes labor. In the real world, however, Rand herself received Social Security payments and Medicare benefits under the name of Ann OConnor(her husband was Frank OConnor).

As Michael Ford of Xavier UniversitysCenter for the Study of the American Dream wrote, In the end, Miss Rand was a hypocrite but she could never be faulted for failing to act in her own self-interest.

Her ideas about government intervention in some idealized pristine marketplace serve as the basis for so much of the conservative rhetoric we see today. The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand, said Paul Ryan, the GOPs young budget star at a D.C. event honoring the author. On another occasion, he proclaimed, Rand makes the best case for the morality of democratic capitalism.

Morally and economically, wrote Rand in a 1972 newsletter, the welfare state creates an ever accelerating downward pull.

Journalist Patia Stephens wrote of Rand:

[She] called altruism a basic evil and referred to those who perpetuate the system of taxation and redistribution as looters and moochers. She wrote in her book The Virtue of Selfishness that accepting any government controls is delivering oneself into gradual enslavement.

Rand also believed that the scientific consensus on the dangers of tobacco was a hoax. By 1974, the two-pack-a-day smoker, then 69, required surgery for lung cancer. And it was at that moment of vulnerability that she succumbed to the lure of collectivism.

Evva Joan Pryor, who had been a social worker in New York in the 1970s, was interviewed in 1998 by Scott McConnell, who was then the director of communications for the Ayn Rand Institute. In his book, 100 Voices: An Oral History of Ayn Rand, McConnell basically portrays Rand as first standing on principle, but then being mugged by reality. Stephens points to this exchange between McConnell and Pryor.

She was coming to a point in her life where she was going to receive the very thing she didnt like, which was Medicare and Social Security, Pryor told McConnell. I remember telling her that this was going to be difficult. For me to do my job she had to recognize that there were exceptions to her theory. So that started our political discussions. From there on with gusto we argued all the time.

The initial argument was on greed, Pryor continued. She had to see that there was such a thing as greed in this world. Doctors could cost an awful lot more money than books earn, and she could be totally wiped out by medical bills if she didnt watch it. Since she had worked her entire life, and had paid into Social Security, she had a right to it. She didnt feel that an individual should take help.

Rand had paid into the system, so why not take the benefits? Its true, but according to Stephens, some of Rands fellow travelers remained true to their principles.

Rand is one of three women the Cato Institute calls founders of American libertarianism. The other two, Rose Wilder Lane and Isabel Pat Paterson, both rejected Social Security benefits on principle. Lane, with whom Rand corresponded for several years, once quit an editorial job in order to avoid paying Social Security taxes. The Cato Institute says Lane considered Social Security a Ponzi fraud and told friends that it would be immoral of her to take part in a system that would predictably collapse so catastrophically. Lane died in 1968.

Paterson would end up dying a pauper. Rand went a different way.

But at least she put up a fight before succumbing to the imperatives of the real world one in which people get sick, and old, and many who are perfectly decent and hardworking dont end up being independently wealthy.

The degree to which Ayn Rand has become a touchstone for the modern conservative movement is striking. She was a sexual libertine, and, according to writer Mark Ames, she modeled her heroic characters on one of the most despicable sociopaths of her time. Ames conclusion is important for understanding todays political economy. Whenever you hear politicians or Tea Partiers dividing up the world between producers and collectivism, he wrote, just know that those ideas and words more likely than not are derived from the deranged mind of a serial-killer groupie.And when you see them taking their razor blades to the last remaining programs protecting the middle class from total abject destitutionSocial Security, Medicare and Medicaidand bragging about how they are slashing these programs for moral reasons, just remember Rands morality and who inspired her.

Now we know that Rand was also just as hypocritical as the Tea Party freshman who railed against government health care to get elected and then whined that he had to wait a month before getting his own Cadillac plan courtesy of the taxpayers.

But, as I note in my book, The Fifteen Biggest Lies About the Economy, thats par for the course. A central rule of the U.S. political economy is that people are attracted to the idea of limited government in the abstractand certainly dont want the government intruding in their homesbut they really, really like living in a society with adequately funded public services.

Thats just as true for an icon of modern conservatism as it is for a poor mother getting public health care for her kids.

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2045: A New Era for Humanity – YouTube

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http://2045.com http://gf2045.comIn February of 2012 the first Global Future 2045 Congress was held in Moscow. There, over 50 world leading scientists from multiple disciplines met to develop a strategy for the future development of humankind. One of the main goals of the Congress was to construct a global network of scientists to further research on the development of cybernetic technology, with the ultimate goal of transferring a human's individual consciousness to an artificial carrier.

2012-2013. The global economic and social crises are exacerbated. The debates on the global paradigm of future development intensifies.

New transhumanist movements and parties emerge. Russia 2045 transforms into World 2045.

Simultaneously, the 2045.com international social network for open innovation is expanding. Here anyone interested may propose a project, take part in working on it, or fund it, or both. In the network, there are scientists, scholars, researchers, financiers and managers.

2013-2014. New centers working on cybernetic technologies for the development of radical life extension rise. The 'race for immortality' starts.

2015-2020. The Avatar is created -- A robotic human copy controlled by thought via 'brain-computer' interface. It becomes as popular as a car.

2020. In Russia and in the world appear -- in testing mode -- several breakthrough projects:Android robots replace people in manufacturing tasks; android robot servants for every home; thought-controlled Avatars to provide telepresence in any place of the world and abolish the need business trips; flying cars; thought driven mobile communications built into the body or sprayed onto the skin.

2020-2025. An autonomous system providing life support for the brain and allowing it interaction with the environment is created. The brain is transplanted into an Avatar B. With Avatar B man receives new, expanded life.

2025. The new generation of Avatars provides complete transmission of sensations from all five sensory robot organs to the operator.

2030-2035. ReBrain -- The colossal project of brain reverse engineering is implemented. World science comes very close to understanding the principles of consciousness.

2035. The first successful attempt to transfer one's personality to an alternative carrier. The epoch of cybernetic immortality begins.

2040-2050. Bodies made of nanorobots that can take any shape arise alongside hologram bodies.

2045-2050. Drastic changes in social structure, and in scientific and technological development. All the for space expansion are established.For the man of the future, war and violence are unacceptable. The main priority of his development is spiritual self-improvement.

A new era dawns: The era of neohumanity.

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2045: A New Era for Humanity - YouTube

Singularity – Jon Hopkins | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic

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Singularity is the proper follow-up to Jon Hopkins' 2013 breakthrough Immunity, a spellbinding album of highly intricate, glitchy techno which nevertheless felt organic, and even classical at times. Like that album, Singularity is filled with frayed feedback, skillfully crafted beats, and gentle piano melodies, as well as the occasional breathy vocals. This time out, there seems to be an extra shot of adrenaline added, and the album seems to reflect a deeper spiritual quest, both inwards and outwards. Hopkins still writes lengthy tracks which steadily build, but these are more suspenseful, and there's a greater impact when a heavier beat drops or a more transcendent synth tone emerges during the second half of cuts like "Singularity" and "Neon Pattern Drum." First single "Emerald Rush" progresses from a heartbeat-like pulse, lightly swirling arpeggios, and stark piano notes to a slow, jagged thump of a beat, which feels jarring when it finally kicks in. As additional sounds pour in, the intensity increases, making the track feel like it's speeding up a bit, even though it isn't. Ten-minute epic "Everything Connected" is easily one of Hopkins' most "progressive" tracks yet, with an ambient/shoegaze shimmer floating over its shaky rhythm, which seems like the only thing preventing the track from ascending to the heavens. Hopkins expands on this celestial state with the beatless "Feel First Life," which spotlights the London Voices choir. "Luminous Beings," the album's lengthiest track, begins with anxious static and suspicious murmurings, but soon reaches clarity, with a simple, resonating triplet melody leading toward peace of mind for much of the piece. The sparse, pretty piano comedown "Recovery" is an entirely fitting conclusion to such a deeply introspective journey. As striking as Immunity was, Singularity feels more developed, and it's ultimately a tough call as to which album is more exciting.

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Singularity - Jon Hopkins | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic

Tor Browser for Android (Alpha) – Apps on Google Play

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Tor Browser for Android is the only official mobile browser supported by the Tor Project, developers of the worlds strongest tool for privacy and freedom online.

Note: For this release, you also need to install Orbot, a proxy application that will connect Tor Browser for Android with the Tor network. For the upcoming Tor Browser for Android stable release, our goal is for Orbot not to be necessary to connect to Tor.

Known issue: Our Security Slider is now under Security Settings, but because of a small issue, its only showing up after you restart the app. We plan on fixing it for the next release.

BLOCK TRACKERSTor Browser isolates each website you visit so third-party trackers and ads cant follow you. Any cookies automatically clear when youre done browsing.

DEFEND AGAINST SURVEILLANCETor Browser prevents someone watching your connection from knowing what websites you visit. All anyone monitoring your browsing habits can see is that youre using Tor.

RESIST FINGERPRINTINGTor aims to make all users look the same, making it difficult for you to be fingerprinted based on your browser and device information.

MULTI-LAYERED ENCRYPTIONWhen you use Tor Browser for Android, your traffic is relayed and encrypted three times as it passes over the Tor network. The network is comprised of thousands of volunteer-run servers known as Tor relays. Watch this animation to learn more about how it works:

BROWSE FREELYWith Tor Browser for Android, you are free to access sites your local internet service provider may have blocked.

THIS APP IS MADE POSSIBLE BY DONORS LIKE YOUTor Browser is free and open source software developed the Tor Project, a nonprofit organization. You can help keep Tor strong, secure, and independent by making a donation. Give today, and Mozilla will match your gift: https://donate.torproject.org/donate/donate-sin-gp

Learn more about Tor Browser for Android:- Need help? Visit https://support.torproject.org. The manual is coming soon.- Learn more about whats happening at Tor: https://blog.torproject.org- Follow the Tor Project on Twitter: https://twitter.com/torproject

ABOUT THE TOR PROJECTThe Tor Project, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) organization developing free and open source software for privacy and freedom online, protecting people from tracking, surveillance, and censorship. The Tor Projects mission is to advance human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and open source anonymity and privacy technologies, support their unrestricted availability and use, and further their scientific and popular understanding.

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The History of Eugenics | Issues in Science and Technology

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By Daniel J. Kevles

The human race today stands at a threshold unlike any in the past: it now possesses tools to reshape its own hereditary capacities, perhaps even to realize the dream of eugenicists that human beings might take charge of their own evolution. Over a long time, CRISPR could change the future of humanity, but no one is rushing into it. As President Barack Obamas science adviser John Holdren has said, human germline editing is a line that should not be crossed at this time. The question is, will anyone be able to police that line? We are living in the age of biocapitalism, and it is entirely possible that commercial and consumer interests could find a way around the current commitments and controls of governments.

That is an ironic outcome. As anyone who lived in the twentieth century knows, eugenics is a dirty word largely because of its association with abusive governments, particularly the Nazis, but also as a result of race-improvement policies in the United States. Politically, its an untouchable third rail. But scientifically, its now far more plausible than it ever was. With the advent of a new way to modify humansby transforming their genes, rather than through breeding and exterminationits not overly alarmist to say eugenics, or whatever we call it this time, could come back, only in a new, private form shaped by the dynamics of democratic consumer culture.

What could happen now is likely to be far more bottom-up than the top-down, state-directed racial programs of the past. We could see individuals and families choosing to edit their genes, whether to prevent illness or improve capacity or looks, and finding themselves encouraged to do so by what was absent in the era of eugenics: the biotechnology industry. Politicians are largely unaware of this possibility, but before long theyre going to have to take notice, especially if public demand starts to produce gene-editing services willy-nilly, perhaps at offshore clinics.

Examining why the dream of human biological improvement foundered in the past may help us understand why it may gain support in the future. The dream originated a century and a half ago with the British scientist and explorer Francis Galton, a younger first cousin of Charles Darwins. It was Galton who dubbed the idea eugenics, a word he took from the Greek root meaning good in birth or noble in heredity. It was well known that by careful selection, farmers and flower fanciers could obtain permanent breeds of plants and animals strong in particular traits. Galton, who believed that not only physical features but mental and moral capacities were inherited, wondered, Could not the race of men be similarly improved?

After the turn of the twentieth century, Galtons ideas coalesced into a broadly popular movement that enlisted the new science of genetics and attracted the support of such luminaries as Teddy Roosevelt and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. They aimed, as Galton had said, to multiply societys desirables and get rid of its undesirables.

A key problem was the difficulty of finding non-coercive means of multiplying the desirables. Galton proposed that the state sponsor competitive examinations in hereditary merit, celebrate the blushing winners in a public ceremony, foster wedded unions among them at Westminster Abbey, and encourage, by postnatal grants, the spawning of numerous eugenically golden offspring. But only the Nazis were willing, in practice, to enlist the state, establishing subsidies to racially meritorious couples in proportion to the number of children they bore. Heinrich Himmler urged members of the SS to father numerous children with racially preferred women, and in 1936 he instituted the Lebensbornspa-like homes where SS mothers, married and unmarried, might receive the best medical care during their confinements.

Human improvers in the United States and Britain followed the route of voluntarism. Eugenics sympathizers such as Teddy Roosevelt, worried by the declining birth rate among their class, urged its women to bear more children for the good of the race. During the 1920s, taking a leaf from Galtons book, they sponsored Fitter Family competitions in the human stock section of state agricultural fairs. At the 1924 Kansas Free Fair, winning families in the three categoriessmall, average, and largewere awarded a Governors Fitter Family Trophy. It is hard to know what made these families stand out as fit, but an indicator is supplied by the fact that all entrants had to take an IQ testand the Wasserman test for syphilis.

Yet social-radical eugenicists, of whom there were a number on both sides of the Atlantic, were impatient with measures that sought to achieve human improvement within the constraints of conventional marriage and conception. A towering figure among them was J.B.S. Haldane, a brilliant British geneticist and evolutionary theorist. In 1924, in a slim book titled Daedalus, he laid out a method for producing human biological improvement that went far beyond urging high-class people to have more babies and behave well. The method centered on ectogenesisthe conception and nurturing of fetuses in glass vessels using gametes selected from a small number of superior men and women. Haldane predicted that the resulting offspring would be so undoubtedly superior to the average that the advance in each generation in any single respect, from the increased output of first-class music to the decreased convictions for theft, is very startling.

Aldous Huxley brilliantly spelled out the dystopian potential of Haldanes scheme in Brave New World. But Herman J. Muller joined with a collaborator in Britain named Herbert Brewer to agitate for the realization of Haldanes goal by the use of artificial insemination.

Brewer was a scientifically self-educated letter carrier and Muller an innovative experimental geneticist who would eventually win a Nobel Prize. Both men held, as Brewer put it, that if the salvation of the human species required socialism to make a better world to live in, it also required eugenics to make better men to live in the world. Both men fastened on artificial insemination to achieve that purpose because, although it was an imperfectly reliable technology, it was being used successfully with animals, was making headway among women, and took advantage of the fact that men produced millions of times more sperm than women produced eggs. It would thus enable a small number of superior men annually to father thousands of comparable children.

In his 1935 book, Out of the Night, Muller declared that in the course of a paltry century or twoit would be possible for the majority of the population to become of the innate quality of such men as Lenin, Newton, Leonardo, Pasteur, Beethoven, Omar Khayym, Pushkin, Sun Yat-senor even to possess their varied faculties combined. Would thousands of women willingly make themselves vessels for the sperm of great men? Assuredly yes, both Muller and Brewer predicted. Muller confidently explained: How many women, in an enlightened community devoid of superstitious taboos and of sex slavery, would be eager and proud to bear and rear a child of Lenin or of Darwin! Is it not obvious that restraint, rather than compulsion, would be called for?

What proved obvious was the opposite. Muller and Brewer were nave in assuming that thousands of women would break out of the days conventional child-bearing practices and standards.

Ultimately, the dreams of all the eugenicists went awry for a variety of reasonsnot least because of increasingly controversial efforts by governments to get rid of the undesirables from the top down. Many U.S. states enacted laws authorizing compulsory sterilization of people considered unworthy and sterilized some 36,000 hapless victims by 1941. The Nazis went much further, subjecting several hundred thousand people to the gonadal knife and eventually herding some 6 million Jewstheir ultimate undesirablesinto the death camps.

After World War II, eugenics became a dirty word. Muller, now an anti-eugenicist, revived a version of his and Brewers idea in 1959, calling it Germinal Choice. Despite Mullers disapproval, a wealthy plastic-eyeglass maker established a sperm bank for Germinal Choice in Southern California to make the gametes of Nobel laureates available to women eager to improve the quality of the gene pool. Few womenonly 15 by the mid-1980savailed themselves of the opportunity.

The voluntarist multiplication of desirables, whether socially conventional or radical, was also problematic for technical and moral reasons. The aim of producing more desirables called on people to invest their reproductive resources in the service of a public goodthe quality of what they called the race or, as we would say, the population or the gene pool. But, by and large, people have children to satisfy themselves, not to fuel some brave new world. Moreover, it wasto say the leastuncertain that the sperm of one of Mullers heroes would produce offspring of comparable powers. And at the time, Haldanes ectogenesis was technically unrealizable; no one knew how to produce test-tube babies. The reliance on artificial insemination was a vexed strategy. It was offensive under prevailing moral standards, which counted artificial insemination by a donor who was not the womans husband a form of adultery and which stigmatized single women who bore children.

But now, just about all sexual and reproductive practices among consenting adults are acceptable, and although no one knows what genes may contribute to exceptional talent, biologists possess precise and increasing knowledge of which ones figure in numerous diseases and disorders. And CRISPR offers the prospect of biological improvement not for the sake of the gene pool, but for whatever advantages it offers to consumers. Indeed, perhaps the most potent force driving its use will be consumer demand aimed at achieving the health of individuals ill with a genetic disease or improvement of the genetic profile in succeeding generations.

During the first third of the twentieth century, hundreds of men and women wrote to the Eugenics Record Office, in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, asking for advice about what kind of children they might produce. In offering advice, eugenic experts had nothing to go on except analyses of family pedigrees for deleterious traits, a strategy fraught with epistemological and prejudicial pitfalls. Still, the demand for advice continued after the post-World War II decline of the eugenics movement, providing a clientele for the increasingly medically oriented service of genetic counseling. The demand was multiplied in the latter half of the century by a series of technical advances that enabled prenatal diagnosis for flaws in a fetuss genes and that, coupled with Roe v. Wade, permitted prospective parents to abort a troubled fetus.

The ability to have a healthy childor, for infertile couples, to have a child at allwas further amplified by the advent in the late 1970s of in vitro fertilization (IVF)that is, the joining of sperm and egg in a petri dish. Here was Haldanes ectogenesis, only with the insertion of the resulting embryo into a womans womb. The method was pioneered by the British scientists Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards, who first conducted pioneering researchit eventually won a Nobel Prizeon conception and early gestation. At the time, they faced moral condemnation from scientists and ethicists for experimenting with an ultimate child without its consent and for bringing about, in the vein of Haldane, a test-tube-baby eugenics.

They effectively rebutted the warnings of their critics with the birth, on July 25, 1978, of Louise Brown, the worlds first test-tube baby, perfectly formed and healthy, a joy to her hitherto infertile mother. But Edwards had predicted that IVF could also be used to check embryos fertilized in a petri dish for genetic or chromosomal flaws with the aim of implanting one free of them. IVF is now used for that purpose as well as for assisting infertile couples. It is not hard to imagine couples taking the next stepexploiting IVF to modify pre-implantation embryos by replacing a disease gene with a healthy one.

What seemed like a moral or technical issue in the past isin this societyvery likely to become a consumer question of who can afford it. Will parents want to use germline modification to enhance a childs genetic endowment? Will they be willing to insert into their embryonic offspring a set of genesshould any such set ever be identifiedassociated with extraordinary mental, physical, or artistic capacities? Conceivably, yes, given what they already do, if they can afford it, to advantage their children through environmental encouragements such as good schools or biomedical interventions such as the administration of human growth hormone. They might readily cross the line between germline medical treatment and enhancement if todays enhancementsay, the ability to do complex computingturns into an essential capacity, like language, tomorrow.

Whatever purpose they might choose for germline editing, the contemporary right to reproductive freedom would assist their pursuit of it. The offspring would not be test-tube products of Huxleys fascist, anti-family reproductive technology. They would be babies born of women, not conditioned but nurtured as much or as little as any other child. As early as 1989, at the beginning of the Human Genome Project, the journal Trends in Biotechnology pointedly noted: Human improvement is a fact of life, not because of the state eugenics committee, but because of consumer demand. How can we expect to deal responsibly with human genetic information in such a culture?

How indeed, we might further ask amid the increasing commercialization of biomedicine. Biotechnology companies have rapidly embraced CRISPR/Cas9, exploring new ways to treat patients with genetic diseases. If they find methods of safely editing human germlines for medical or enhancement aims, they would likely pressure regulators to permit their use and, as they do with drugs, heavily advertise their availability to consumers.

As Haldane observed in Daedalus, biological innovations initially regarded as repugnant tend eventually to become commonplace. Just as it occurred with artificial insemination, so it may happen in the age of biocapitalism with human germline editing.

Daniel J. Kevles, a former professor of history at Caltech and Yale University, is an interdisciplinary fellow at the New York University School of Law. A longer version of this article was published in Politico.

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The History of Eugenics | Issues in Science and Technology

Unwanted Sterilization and Eugenics Programs in the United …

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Coercedsterilizationisa shameful part of Americas history, and one doesnt have to go too far back to find examples of it. Used as a means of controlling undesirable populations immigrants, people of color, poor people, unmarried mothers, the disabled, the mentally ill federally-funded sterilization programs took place in 32 states throughout the 20th century. Driven by prejudicednotions of science and social control, these programs informed policies on immigration and segregation.

As historian William Deverell explains in a piece discussing the Asexualization Acts that led to the sterilization of more than 20,000 California men and women,If you are sterilizing someone, you are saying, if not to them directly, Your possible progeny are inassimilable, and we choose not to deal with that.

According toAndrea Estrada at UC Santa Barbara, forced sterilization was particularly rampant in California (the stateseugenics program even inspired the Nazis):

Beginning in 1909 and continuing for 70 years, California led the country in the number of sterilization procedures performed on men and women, often without their full knowledge and consent. Approximately 20,000 sterilizations took place in state institutions, comprising one-third of the total number performed in the 32 states where such action was legal. (from The UC Santa Barbara Current)

There is today one state, wrote Hitler, in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of citizenship] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States. (from The L.A. Times)

Researcher Alex Stern, author of the new bookEugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in America, adds:

In the early 20th century across the country, medical superintendents, legislators, and social reformers affiliated with an emerging eugenics movement joined forces to put sterilization laws on the books. Such legislation was motivated by crude theories of human heredity that posited the wholesale inheritance of traits associated with a panoply of feared conditions such as criminality, feeblemindedness, and sexual deviance. Many sterilization advocates viewed reproductive surgery as a necessary public health intervention that would protect society from deleterious genes and the social and economic costs of managing degenerate stock.

Eugenicswas a commonly accepted means of protecting society from the offspring (and therefore equally suspect) of those individuals deemed inferior or dangerous the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill, criminals, and people of color.

More recently, California prisons are said to have authorized sterilizations of nearly 150 female inmates between 2006 and 2010.This article from the Center for Investigative reporting reveals how the state paid doctors $147,460 to perform tubal ligations that former inmates say were done under coercion.

But California is far from being the only state with such troubled practices. For a disturbing history lesson, check outthis comprehensive database for your states eugenics history. You can find out more information on state-by-state sterilization policies, the number of victims, institutions where sterilizations were performed, and leading opponents and proponents.

While Californias eugenics programs were driven in part by anti-Asian and anti-Mexican prejudice, Southern states also employed sterilization as a means of controlling African American populations.Mississippi appendectomies wasanother name for unnecessary hysterectomies performed at teaching hospitals in the South on women of color as practice for medical students. ThisNBC news article discusses North Carolinas eugenics program, including stories from victims of forced sterilization likeElaine Riddick. A third of the sterilizations were done on girls under 18, even as young as 9. The state also targeted individuals seen as delinquent or unwholesome.

For a closer look, see Belle Boggs For the Public Good, withoriginal video by Olympia Stone that features Willis Lynch, who was sterilized at the age of 14 while living in a North Carolina juvenile detention facility.

Gregory W. Rutecki, MD writes about the forced sterilization of Native Americans, which persisted into the 1970s and 1980s, with examples of young women receiving tubal ligations when they were getting appendectomies. Its estimated thatas many as 25-50 percent of Native American women were sterilized between 1970 and 1976.Forced sterilization programs are also a part of history in Puerto Rico,where sterilization rates are said to be the highest in the world.

Landmark Cases

The film No Ms Bebs follows the story of Mexican American women who were sterilized under duresswhile giving birth at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center in the 1960s and 1970s. Madrigal v. Quilligan, the case portrayed in the film, is one of several landmark cases thats affected the reproductive rights of underserved populations, for better or for worse.

Here are some other important cases:

Buck v. Bell: In 1927, Carrie Buck, a poor white woman, was the first person to be sterilized in Virginia under a new law. Carries mother had been involuntarily institutionalized for being feebleminded and promiscuous. Carrie was assumed to have inherited these traits, and was sterilized after giving birth. This Supreme Court case led to the sterilization of 65,000 Americans with mental illness or developmental disabilities from the 1920s to the 70s. (Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in reference to Carrie: Three generations of imbeciles are enough.)The court ruling still stands today. [Note: This story was also the subject of a 1994 made-for-TV movie starring Marlee Matlin.]

From the documentary Fixed to Fail: Buck vs. Bell:

Relf v. Weinberger: Mary Alice and Minnie Relf, poor African American sisters from Alabama, were sterilized at the ages of 14 and 12. Their mother, who was illiterate, had signed an X on a piece of paper she believed gave permission for her daughters, who were both mentally disabled, to receive birth control shots. In 1974, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Relf sisters, revealing that 100,000 to 150,000 poor people were being sterilized each year under federally-funded programs.

Eugenics Compensation Act: In December 2015, theUS Senate voted unanimously to help surviving victims of forced sterilization. North Carolina has paid $35,000 to 220 surviving victims of its eugenics program.Virginia agreed to give surviving victims $25,000 each.

Reproductive Justice Today

While the case in No Ms Bebs occurred forty years ago, issues of reproductive justice are still relevant today, as state laws continue to restrict access to abortion and birth control.Deborah Reid of the National Health Law program writes:

The concept of reproductive justice, which is firmly rooted in a human rights framework that supports the ability of all women to make and direct their own reproductive decisions. These decisions could include obtaining contraception, abortion, sterilization, and/or maternity care. Accompanying that right is the obligation of the government and larger society to create laws, policies, and systems conducive to supporting those decisions.

For organizations such as theNational Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, reproductive justice involves not only access to affordable birth control, abortion, and health care, but also providing access to women who are being held in immigration detention centers.

Its work that connects the dots between power inequities and bodily self-determination somethingthe eugenics movement sought to limit. AsNo Ms Bebsdirector Renee Tajima-Pea says in an interview with Colorlines: The reproductive justice framework is to make sure that people listen to the needs and the voices of poor women, women of color and immigrant women whove been marginalized.

For Further Reading:Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America, by Alex SternStates of Delinquency: Race and Science in the Making of Californias Juvenile Justice System, by Miroslava Chavez-GarciaFit to Be Citizens: Public Health and Race in Los Angeles, 1879-1939, by Natalia Molina

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Europe’s Refugee and Migrant Crisis – Sputnik International

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Libertarianism | Liberapedia | FANDOM powered by Wikia

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If libertarians are correct in claiming that they understand how best to organize a modern society, how is it that not a single country in the world in the early 21st century is organized along libertarian lines?: Michael Lind [1]

A Libertarian in the American term, is an individual with right-wing economic beliefs and left-wing social belief. Some ultra-conservatives, such as talk radio host Neil Boortz, pretend they are libertarians so that they can trick Liberals into listening to them for few minutes in hope of converting them to Conservatism. Libertarians are kind of like liberals, except they think they're living in the 18th Century or in the first part of the 20th Century when Ayn Rand lived. They are just more appealing to conservatives. [2]

Stereotyping the libertarians would be unwise. Different people who see themselves as libertarians disagree with each other as to which freedoms they feel should be allowed and which should be restricted. Libertarians in a general sense agree with the following concepts. [3]

Libertarianism allows for freedom in consensual sex and relationships; it also provides freedom to use self-destructive drugs and the like. In fact, two famous libertarians, Penn and Teller have advocated legalizing prostitution, illegal drugs, gay marriage and polyamory, and they have advocated abolishing the FCC. Libertarianism gives freedom in areas that dont challenge anyone's power, including the power of corporations.

Some Libertarians challenge corporate power by removing the corrupt practice of corporate welfare and privileges issues from corporations to the state. As one example many libertarians object to certain provisions in the 14th amendment which give personhood rights to corporations and LLC's thus shielding misconduct done by the shareholders.

Many if not most Libertarians differ from Liberals in their commitment to individual Liberty.

Libertarians tend to be supporters of unchecked corporate power, depending on just how deep into it they are. That means businesses may force whatever they like onto their employees and those who buy their products. If workers are too weak to fight back against a bullying boss, that's just too bad.

The top 1% of the population has an overwhelming advantage in securing top-level jobs, because their mommy and daddy were rich and paid them through school while networking with their corporate friends. Think of it as a lose-win situation, where a few win and many lose out.

Libertarians are squeamish towards those in the lower class reaching their full potential. To them, it would be unethical to provide others in society with the same opportunities the wealthy elite receive. If you're born into poverty and your parents are unable to provide a decent upbringing, sad day for you.Libertarians want to restrict or abolish government protection for those who are struggling financially. Ironically, this restricts freedom for the majority.

Note:

Libertarianism is a logically consistent approach to politics based on the moral principle of self-ownership. Each individual has the right to control his or her own body, action, speach, and property. Government's only role is to help individuals defend themselves from force and fraud.Libertarians are open-minded people who want to end the Federal Reserve and legalize marijuana.

In order to understand how one gets from the "moral principles" above to the sort of fanatical proselytizing found in chat rooms and blogs everywhere, it is important understand how the ideology works from theory to practice.Libertarianism is axiomatic. Note how the above quote touts its logically consistent approach. There's a set of rules to be applied to evaluate what is proper, and the outcome given is the answer that is correct in terms of the moral principle of the theory. Are the religious thinking connections starting to become evident? The rules are simple and tight enough to produce surprisingly uniform positions compared to common political philosophies.

Libertarians are for "individual rights", and against "force" and "fraud" - just as THEY define it. Their use of these words, however, when examined in detail, is not likely to accord with the common meanings of these terms. What person would proclaim themselves in favor of "force and fraud"? One of the little tricks Libertarians use in debate is to confuse the ordinary sense of these words with the meaning as "terms of art" in Libertarian axioms. They try to set up a situation where if you say you're against "force and fraud", then obviously you must agree with Libertarian ideology, since those are the definitions. If you are in favor of "force and fraud", well, isn't that highly immoral? So you're either one of them, or some sort of degenerate (note the cultist aspect again), one who doesn't think "force and fraud must be banished from human relationships".

Taxation is undesirable since the coercive force of the state backs it.Do you agree, or do you disagree, that it is always wrong for one person to initiate force against another? If you disagree, then you disagree with the fundamental concept of libertarianism.On the other hand, if you agree with the proposition, yet you still don't like the conclusions that libertarians draw from it, then we can refocus our attention on the chain of logic that leads to those conclusions and find where you feel the weak link is.From looking at the example above you could say it's an "agree or disagree" where "initiate force" is implied to be the Libertarian definition. And it's justified by the axioms (chain of logic).The idea that Libertarians don't believe in the initiation of force is pure propaganda. They believe in using force as much as anyone else, if they think the application is morally correct. Most ordinary people who aren't libertarians understand when rich corporations force relatively weak employees to accept bad working conditions of face Unemployment this amounts to coercion and that's just one example of libertarian use of force. Initiation of force" is Libertarian term meaning essentially "do something improper according to Libertarian ideology". It isn't even connected much to the actions we normally think of as "force". The question being asked above was really agree or disagree, that it is always wrong for one person to do something improper according to the libertarian ideology.Of course, we can only make you think this through our own insistence, because as you may notice we don't even support this claim. So a libertarian would not consider this an objection at all. This is the same reason libertarians often ignore other liberal ideas.

Liberals approve of some of the above but vehemently oppose other aspects.

While you might be told Libertarianism is about individual rights and freedom, fundamentally, it's about business. The words "individual rights", in the context of the libertarian ideology means business.

Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of "voluntary" and contractual relations among individuals. That gives powerful corporations the chance to force unfavorable contracts onto weaker parties and the weaker parties don't agree to those contracts voluntarily.

The whole idea of a contract is that government enforces relations among individuals. The sentence about governments no interfering in so-called voluntary contracts doesnt make sense. It's conceptually that they oppose all interference by government in the areas of government enforcing relations among individuals.

The key to understanding this, and to understanding Libertarianism itself, is to realize that their concept of individual freedom is the right to have the state protect the business. Freedom is greatly reduced for ordinary people, the state should protect the business instead of the state protecting the person.

Libertarians claim they are for freedom. In practice this means freedom for the strong to oppress the weak. For example labor protection legislation protects ordinary workers against exploitation and arbitrary dismissal. Ordinary people have more freedom when the government protects them against richer and stronger people. Real Liberals aim to give freedom to the majority, not just to a rich minority. Hypocritically libertarians pretend their philosophy is, "If I want to do something it's okay, as long as I don't harm you." In reality their philosophy is about rich people being free to exploit and harm ordinary people, or, "If I want to do something it's okay, irregardless of the consequences that don't involve my fists."

Libertarians are radical in some ways and Conservative in other respects. Libertarianism is about protecting those who are already rich and powerful as is Conservatism.

There have been attempts to combine Libertarianism and Social Conservatism. Llewellyn H. Rockwell argued that Libertarians should drop their wish for freedoms that are conventionally restricted and join the conservatives. Notably he opposed artistic epression that is conventionally restricted. Basically he was saying, "Become like us and join us." See Paleolibertarianism.

Libertarians value freedom. All too often that means freedom for the strong to oppress the weak. Libertarians value some real freedoms as well. Many Liberatarians support the "freedom" of individuals to do some things which Christian Conservatives believe are contrary to God's law. Christian Conservatives can't easily accept that.

Libertarians are cult members who worship business under the false pretence of loving freedom. Some who call themselves Libertarians are nothing but conservatives who are too embarrassed to say that they're conservative because it sounds old fashioned. Others support radical ideas which Conservatives oppose. The philosophy of libertarianism might be summarized by "If rich people want to do something it's okay, but if you want to oppose rich people, it's not."

Some Historians claim Libertarians were once Liberals, but changed the name of their belief system after Liberalism had been co-opted. If this is true, we Liberals will have to admit that Libetarians are our slow cousins who were unable to adapt and evolve.

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Libertarianism | Liberapedia | FANDOM powered by Wikia

Is There a Proof of Ayn Rand’s Ethics?

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In thisNew Idealvideo Q&A session, I respond to a question about Ayn Rands ethics from a reader named Sophia, who writes:

I am a high school student in 10th grade who has recently become interested in philosophy through writing an essay on the history of Western philosophy for my Latin class. After being recommended to Objectivism, I read through some of Ayn Rands essays such as The Objectivist Ethics and Introducing Objectivism in order to begin to acquaint myself with her philosophy. After much consideration and thought, I have become quite interested by her epistemology and ethics and would like to perform a more detailed analysis of her ideas in these areas. I am trying to find a step-by-step proof of her ethics in particular, but I have only found proofs outlining her ideas made by critics of hers. If any such accepted step-by-step proof of Objectivism exists, then I would be quite grateful if you could please provide me with the information on how to obtain it.

I hope you find my answers informative and thought-provoking. If you have follow-up questions on these issues, please dont hesitate to send them my way, using our New Ideal comment form.

To explore this topic further, listen to a lesson called An Inductive Approach to Philosophy onARI Campus.

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Is There a Proof of Ayn Rand's Ethics?

Here’s how Ayn Rand helped turn the US into a selfish and …

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Ayn Rands philosophy is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society....To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil. Gore Vidal, 1961

Only rarely in U.S. history do writers transform us to become a more caring or less caring nation. In the 1850s, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was a strong force in making the United States a more humane nation, one that would abolish slavery of African Americans. A century later, Ayn Rand (1905-1982) helped make the United States into one of the most uncaring nations in the industrialized world, a neo-Dickensian society where healthcare is only for those who can afford it, and where young people are coerced into huge student-loan debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.

Rands impact has been widespread and deep. At the icebergs visible tip is the influence shes had over major political figures who have shaped American society. In the 1950s, Ayn Rand read aloud drafts of what was later to become Atlas Shrugged to her Collective, Rands ironic nickname for her inner circle of young individualists, which included Alan Greenspan, who would serve as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board from 1987 to 2006.

In 1966, Ronald Reagan wrote in a personal letter, Am an admirer of Ayn Rand. Today, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) credits Rand for inspiring him to go into politics, and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) calls Atlas Shrugged his foundation book. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) says Ayn Rand had a major influence on him, and his son Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is an even bigger fan. A short list of other Rand fans includes Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; Christopher Cox, chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission in George W. Bushs second administration; and former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford.

But Rands impact on U.S. society and culture goes even deeper.

The Seduction of Nathan Blumenthal

Ayn Rands books such as The Virtue of Selfishness and her philosophy that celebrates self-interest and disdains altruism may well be, as Vidal assessed, nearly perfect in its immorality. But is Vidal right about evil? Charles Manson, who himself did not kill anyone, is the personification of evil for many of us because of his psychological success at exploiting the vulnerabilities of young people and seducing them to murder. What should we call Ayn Rands psychological ability to exploit the vulnerabilities of millions of young people so as to influence them not to care about anyone besides themselves?

While Greenspan (tagged A.G. by Rand)was the most famous name that would emerge from Rands Collective, the second most well-known name to emerge from the Collective was Nathaniel Branden, psychotherapist, author and self-esteem advocate. Before he was Nathaniel Branden, he was Nathan Blumenthal, a 14-year-old who read Rands The Fountainhead again and again. He later would say, I felt hypnotized. He describes how Rand gave him a sense that he could be powerful, that he could be a hero. He wrote one letter to his idol Rand, then a second. To his amazement, she telephoned him, and at age 20, Nathan received an invitation to Ayn Rands home. Shortly after, Nathan Blumenthal announced to the world that he was incorporating Rand in his new name: Nathaniel Branden. And in 1955, with Rand approaching her 50th birthday and Branden his 25th, and both in dissatisfying marriages, Ayn bedded Nathaniel.

What followed sounds straight out of Hollywood, but Rand was straight out of Hollywood, having worked for Cecil B. DeMille. Rand convened a meeting with Nathaniel, his wife Barbara (also a Collective member), and Rands own husband Frank. ToBranden'sastonishment, Rand convinced both spouses that a time-structured affairshe andBrandenwere to have one afternoon and one evening a week togetherwas reasonable. Within the Collective, Rand is purported to have never lost an argument. On his trysts at Rands New York City apartment,Brandenwould sometimes shake hands with Frank before he exited. Later, all discovered that Rands sweet but passive husband would leave for a bar, where he began his self-destructive affair with alcohol.

By 1964, the 34-year-old Nathaniel Brandenhad grown tired of the now 59-year-old Ayn Rand. Still sexually dissatisfied in his marriage to Barbara and afraid to end his affair with Rand,Brandenbegan sleeping with a married 24-year-old model, Patrecia Scott. Rand, now the woman scorned, calledBrandento appear before the Collective, whose nickname had by now lost its irony for both Barbara andBranden. Rands justice was swift. She humiliatedBrandenand then put a curse on him: If you have one ounce of morality left in you, an ounce of psychological healthyou'll be impotent for the next 20 years! And if you achieve potency sooner, you'll know its a sign of still worse moral degradation!

Rand completed the evening with two welt-producing slaps across Brandens face. Finally, in a move that Stalin and Hitler would have admired, Rand also expelled poor Barbara from the Collective, declaring her treasonous because Barbara, preoccupied by her own extramarital affair, had neglected to fill Rand in soon enough onBranden'sextra-extra-marital betrayal. (If anyone doubts Alan Greenspans political savvy, keep in mind that he somehow stayed in Rands good graces even though he, fixed up byBrandenwith Patrecias twin sister, had double-dated with the outlaws.)

After being banished by Rand, Nathaniel Branden was worried that he might be assassinated by other members of the Collective, so he moved from New York to Los Angeles, where Rand fans were less fanatical. Branden established a lucrative psychotherapy practice and authored approximately 20 books, 10 of them with either Self or Self-Esteem in the title. Rand and Branden never reconciled, but he remained an admirer of her philosophy of self-interest until his recent death in December 2014.

Ayn Rands personal life was consistent with her philosophy of not giving a shit about anybody but herself. Rand was an ardent two-pack-a-day smoker, and when questioned about the dangers of smoking, she loved to light up with a defiant flourish and then scold her young questioners on the unscientific and irrational nature of the statistical evidence. After an x-ray showed that she had lung cancer, Rand quit smoking and had surgery for her cancer. Collective members explained to her that many people still smoked because they respected her and her assessment of the evidence; and that since she no longer smoked, she ought to tell them. They told her that she neednt mention her lung cancer, that she could simply say she had reconsidered the evidence. Rand refused.

How Rands Philosophy Seduced Young Minds

When I was a kid, my reading included comic books and Rands The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. There wasnt much difference between the comic books and Rands novels in terms of the simplicity of the heroes. What was different was that unlike Superman or Batman, Rand made selfishness heroic, and she made caring about others weakness.

Rand said, Capitalism and altruism are incompatible....The choice is clear-cut: either a new morality of rational self-interest, with its consequences of freedom, justice, progress and mans happiness on earthor the primordial morality of altruism, with its consequences of slavery, brute force, stagnant terror and sacrificial furnaces. For many young people, hearing that it is moral to care only about oneself can be intoxicating, and some get addicted to this idea for life.

I have known several people, professionally and socially, whose lives have been changed by those close to them who became infatuated with Ayn Rand. A common theme is something like this: My ex-husband wasnt a bad guy until he started reading Ayn Rand. Then he became a completely selfish jerk who destroyed our family, and our children no longer even talk to him.

To wow her young admirers, Rand would often tell a story of how a smart-aleck book salesman had once challenged her to explain her philosophy while standing on one leg. She replied: Metaphysicsobjective reality. Epistemologyreason. Ethicsself-interest. Politicscapitalism. How did that philosophy capture young minds?

Metaphysicsobjective reality. Rand offered a narcotic for confused young people: complete certainty and a relief from their anxiety. Rand believed that an objective reality existed, and she knew exactly what that objective reality was. It included skyscrapers, industries, railroads, and ideasat least her ideas. Rands objective reality did not include anxiety or sadness. Nor did it include much humor, at least the kind where one pokes fun at oneself. Rand assured her Collective that objective reality did not include Beethovens, Rembrandts, and Shakespeares realitiesthey were too gloomy and too tragic, basically buzzkillers. Rand preferred Mickey Spillane and, towards the end of her life, Charlie's Angels.

Epistemologyreason. Rands kind of reason was a cool-tool to control the universe. Rand demonized Plato, and her youthful Collective members were taught to despise him. If Rand really believed that the Socratic Method described by Plato of discovering accurate definitions and clear thinking did not qualify as reason, why then did she regularly attempt it with her Collective? Also oddly, while Rand mocked dark moods and despair, her reasoning directed that Collective members should admire Dostoyevsky, whose novels are filled with dark moods and despair. A demagogue, in addition to hypnotic glibness, must also be intellectually inconsistent, sometimes boldly so. This eliminates challenges to authority by weeding out clear-thinking young people from the flock.

Ethicsself-interest. For Rand, all altruists were manipulators. What could be more seductive to kids who discerned the motives of martyr parents, Christian missionaries and U.S. foreign aiders? Her champions, Nathaniel Branden still among them, feel that Rands view of self-interest has been horribly misrepresented. For them, self-interest is her hero architect Howard Roark turning down a commission because he couldnt do it exactly his way. Some of Rands novel heroes did have integrity, however, for Rand there is no struggle to discover the distinction between true integrity and childish vanity. Rands integrity was her vanity, and it consisted of getting as much money and control as possible, copulating with whomever she wanted regardless of who would get hurt, and her always being right. To equate ones selfishness, vanity, and egotism with ones integrity liberates young people from the struggle to distinguish integrity from selfishness, vanity, and egotism.

Politicscapitalism. While Rand often disparaged Soviet totalitarian collectivism, she had little to say about corporate totalitarian collectivism, as she conveniently neglected the reality that giant U.S. corporations, like the Soviet Union, do not exactly celebrate individualism, freedom, or courage. Rand was clever and hypocritical enough to know that you dont get rich in the United States talking about compliance and conformity within corporate America. Rather, Rand gave lectures titled: Americas Persecuted Minority: Big Business. So, young careerist corporatists could embrace Rands self-styled radical capitalism and feel radical radical without risk.

Rands Legacy

In recent years, we have entered a phase where it is apparently okay for major political figures to publicly embrace Rand despite her contempt for Christianity. In contrast, during Ayn Rands life, her philosophy that celebrated self-interest was a private pleasure for the 1 percent but she was a public embarrassment for them. They used her books to congratulate themselves on the morality of their selfishness, but they publicly steered clear of Rand because of her views on religion and God. Rand, for example, had stated on national television, I am against God. I dont approve of religion. It is a sign of a psychological weakness. I regard it as an evil.

Actually, again inconsistent, Rand did have a God. It was herself. She said:

I am done with the monster of we, the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame. And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: I.

While Harriet Beecher Stowe shamed Americans about the United States' dehumanization of African Americans and slavery, Ayn Rand removed Americans guilt for being selfish and uncaring about anyone except themselves. Not only did Rand make it moral for the wealthy not to pay their fair share of taxes, she liberated millions of other Americans from caring about the suffering of others, even the suffering of their own children.

The good news is that Ive seen ex-Rand fans grasp the damage that Rands philosophy has done to their lives and to then exorcize it from their psyche. Can the United States as a nation do the same thing?

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Here's how Ayn Rand helped turn the US into a selfish and ...

Worlds Largest Offshore Wind Turbine | Haliade-X | GE …

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Investing in the future

The offshore wind market is booming and is expected to grow significantly over the next two decades; from todays 14 GW install capacity to 100 GW+ by 2030. Recognizing this need, GE is leading the field of offshore wind turbine manufacturers by investing $400 millionover the next three to five years in development and deployment of the Haliade-X.

This investment will take place over the next two to five years and includes a $57 (46) million investments in Saint-Nazaire to adapt the site for Haliade-X nacelle assembly. Saint Nazaires know-how will play a crucial and leading role in the development of this innovative project, with offshore wind turbine construction at higher capacities. An additional $93 (75) million in Cherbourg for tooling, blade molds, assembly line and blade development. This project will create 550 direct jobs in Cherbourg over the course of the next 3 years (around 100 in 2018).">

For more information on the Haliade-X 12 MWoffshore wind turbine as well as advancements in Haliade-Xoffshore wind turbine platform, installation and design, contact GE today.

*Capacity factor compares how much energy was generated against the maximum that could have been produced at continuous full power operation during a specific period of time.

**Balance of Plant (BOP) is the costs attributed to one unit over its lifetime O&M, operating expenses.

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Worlds Largest Offshore Wind Turbine | Haliade-X | GE ...