Lie

http://ameblo.jp/kei-0227/

Standard & Poor’s

We define shadow banking as the system of finance that exists outside regulated depositories, investment banks, or bond funds. It includes bank-sponsored intermediaries such as asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) conduits,money-market funds, collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), finance companies, private investment funds, business development corporations (BDCs), asset managers, and hedge funds. The market determines the level of leverage and access to funding for participants in the shadow-banking system, which results in market-driven cost of funds.Given that, in our view, shadow-banking players differ from traditional banks in three important ways. They don't typically operate under bank regulatory supervision and thus often operate under differing capital, leverage, and liquidity guidelines. They don't normally benefit from government capital support, such as deposit insurance. And they don't benefit from the liquidity support available to regulated banks, such as the ability to borrow from the Fed. This lack of oversight and support was a factor in the difficulties some shadow-banking players experienced during the financial crisis.

Tim Harford

Is the iPhone made in China? The question is harder to answer than you might imagine. At first sight, the statistics seem open and shut. The Chinese make the iPhones, the Americans buy the iPhones, and the result is an increase in the US’s trade deficit with China: $1.9bn in 2009, according to Yuqing Xing of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, and Neal Detert of the Asian Development Bank.

... all these components are imported into China. Some come from the US, some from Germany, and many from Japan, specifically from Toshiba. The Chinese themselves add very little value to the package.

To see why this matters, assume that the Chinese currency appreciates by a hefty 25 per cent. For the $172.50 of components bought from the likes of Japan, assembled and then exported to the US, the currency appreciation would all come out in the wash. The cost would remain $172.50. It’s only the $6.50 of local Chinese costs that would be affected – adding a whopping $1.55 to the cost of the iPhone and barely shifting the US-China trade statistics.

It may well be that many US workers have been hurt by the forces of globalisation. But the iPhone and iPod show why the whole business is complex. Products that are made in China may actually be rewarding producers in Japan and California, and, of course, consumers across the world. It’s a curious paradox: the more pervasive globalisation becomes, the less we understand it by looking at trade statistics.

島村信之

野田弘志

Morgan Brennan

When the U.S. economy was riding high for most of the 20th century, it would have been impossible to imagine a foreign city--especially one in a Communist country--with more of the planet's very richest than New York, home of old-money Wall Street. But that indeed is the case. Today Moscow is the city with the most billionaire residents in the world.

The Russian capital boasts 79 billionaires, a stunning increase of 21 in just one year. That more than edges out No. 2 New York, with 59 billionaires, and No. 3 London with 41. Other cities in the top 15 include such rising stars as Mumbai, Taipei, Sao Paolo and Istanbul. Los Angeles manages a tie for No. 8.

The combined fortunes of Moscow's billionaire population top $375 billion, more privately amassed wealth than in any other city in the world.

LAUGH IT OUT RIZE with 隼人

高樹のぶ子

わたしがユヒラさんを気に入っている理由の一つは、ユヒラさんがあまり匂わないことだ。一度何かの折にキスしたことがあって、今もそれは大した出来事ではないと思えるのは、唇も口も顔も体も、男の匂いがしなかったからだ。強いて言えば、ブロッコリーを茹でたときのような、濃い目のお湯の匂いがした。

「さてと」とユヒラさんが深い息をつく。あとは待つだけですな。

さてと、のあとに、そろそろ死にますか、なんて言われたらどうしようと思っていたので、とりあえずほっとした。

いつかずっと長く生きて、まだユヒラさんと付き合っていたなら、是非言ってあげたいと思っているひと言がある。男でいるのもイヤだ、女になるのもイヤだなんて、この世のすべてのものに変身するより難しいんだよって。それでも誰かと溶け合うのが理想ならば、自分が無くなってしまうほど、遠くまで行かなくてはならないんだよって。体力も気力もお金もないユヒラさんにそんなこと出来る？

山崎努

救いようのない悪人を主人公に据えたシェイクスピア劇『リチャード三世』は、いつ上演してもなべて当たる。醜男が劣等感をバネにひたすら悪に徹し、一途に突き進む様は文句なしに爽快で、観客の共感をよぶ。

『中学生までに読んでおきたい日本文学①　悪人の物語』（松田哲夫編　あすなろ書房　1800円＋税）は、「悪」をテーマにした、詩、小説、エッセイ等のアンソロジー。どれも教科書には入りにくい作品である。

小、中学生はふだん、「不道徳」や「悪事」に特別強い関心を持っている。だが公的にはそうしたマイナーな視線は目かくしされてしまう。結果一人でせっせとその手の映画や書籍を漁ることになる。それでいい。かく言う後期高齢者の、すでに彼らのじいさんの年齢である僕も、未だにそっちの方面に惹かれ、あれこれ漁り続けている。そんなわれわれにとって、これは貴重な本だ。

山村暮鳥

窃盗金魚

強盗喇叭

恐喝胡弓

賭博ねこ

詐欺更紗

涜職天鷲ど

姦淫林檎

傷害雲雀

殺人ちゆりっぷ

堕胎陰影

騒憂ゆき

放火まるめろ

誘拐かすてら。

東直子

日々起こるエピソード、交わした会話、揺れ動く気持ち、眠るまでずっと考えていたこと。強くこころを支配していたものも、いつのまにか記憶から消えていく。

何かを考える、ということは、現在のことを考え、過去を思い出し、末来を夢想するということ。

丘の上の建物の十階に住み、毎日上り下りしながら季節を肌で感じていた一年。

嵐山光三郎

『電気を節約しよう』といっているから、あのCMが出るたびにテレビの電源を切った。ACのCMにいら立つのはやたらと親切だとか思いやりとかの道徳をふりかざすからだ。公共広告機構というのは、道徳おしつけ協会で、この非常時に及んで大きなお世話である。

東日本大震災は『千年に一度』の大震災だというから千年前にはなにがあったかと調べると『源氏物語』が書かれた時代だった。ははあ、源氏は原子のことで、『原子物語』ってわけか。光るウランが数多の女たちを被曝させていった。桐壺が一号炉で、帚木が二号炉、空蝉が三号炉、夕顔が四号炉、以下五十四帖あるから、いまある原子炉と奇しくも同じである。紫式部が千年後の日本を予知して原子を源氏とおきかえて書いたとすれば、超能力のなせる技だ。

悲惨な状況に必死で耐えることを賞賛されるのは、声をあげて叫ばない民族だと見なされている次第で、危険事態を外国メディアが代弁すると『風評被害』として片づける。 。。。 政府の対応の遅さが原発被害の拡大を招いているのに、日本人は『仕方がない』とあきらめている。

強者に対して弱すぎる。原爆を落とされて、『ああ許すまじ原爆を』と謳っても、平和利用という名目を与えられると『ああ許すまじ原発を』とは謳わない。原爆の恐ろしさを知ったから、平和利用ということで、逆に『原発』を信仰してしまった。 。。。 値の安い原発のおかげで電気をジャブジャブと水道水のように使って安逸な生活をしてきた。そのしっぺ返しがきた。

本田靖春

人々は飢えていた。私の場合は住む家がなく、納屋の暮らしから戦後の生活が始まった。着る物がなく、履く靴がなく、鞄がなく、教科書がなく、エンピツがなく、ノートもなかった。しかし、人々は桎梏から解放されて自由であった。新しい社会を建設する希望に満ちていた。

Arthur Binard

　それにしても、よく考えれば北米原産のはずの植物に、パレスチナ地方の古都、聖地Jerusalemの名がくっついているのは、 いったいなぜなんだろうか？　英語の古いエンサイクロペディアには Jerusalem artichokeのふるった語源説まで出ていた。もともとヨーロッパにはなかった植物だが、移民が北米大陸へ渡り、 キクイモのうまさに目覚め、どうやら最初にイタリア語のネーミングが決まったらしい。 それも「ヒマワリ」をさすgirasoleを使って単純に名づけ、発音は「ジラソレ」といっていた。 かの有名なナポリ民謡「オー・ソレ・ミオ」と、「太陽」の「ソレ」は重なり、頭の「ジラ」が「回る」ということだ。

　ただし英国人や英国系のアメリカ人にはgirasoleの意味は通じず、キクイモのことを 「ジラソレ」と呼んでいるうちに、その「ジラ」がjeruにだんだんと近づき、 「ソレ」もじりじりとsalemに変身、いつの間にかこんな適当なランゲージ・ミラクルが起きたとさ。

　それに比べれば、日本語名はいたって真面目だ。花の「菊」と根の「芋」をバランスよく組み合わせて、 まったく隙がないように見える。でも、青森の八百屋のおばさんが語れば、少々濁って「キグイモ」になり、じわっと親しみがわく。

　「エルサレム」はもともとヘブライ語で、その意味が「平和の礎」らしい。たびたび皮肉をこめて紹介される語源説だ。 けれど、国家や宗教や人種の壁などおかまいなしに、世界の土と言葉を自由に巡ってきた Jerusalem artichokeは、平和を築くために必要な基本姿勢を示してくれているのじゃないか。キクイモの糠漬けをかじれば、かじるほどそう思えてくる。

Алекса́ндр Григо́рьевич Асмо́лов

Индивидуа́льность — совокупность характерных особенностей и свойств, отличающих одного индивида от другого; своеобразие психики и личности индивида, её неповторимость, уникальность. Индивидуальность проявляется в чертах темперамента, характера, в специфике интересов, качеств перцептивных процессов. Индивидуальность характеризуется не только неповторимыми свойствами, но и своеобразием взаимосвязей между ними. Предпосылкой формирования человеческой индивидуальности является, в первую очередь, среда, где он растет, ассоциации, накопленные им в детстве, воспитание, особенности строения семьи и обращении с ребенком. Существует мнение, что индивидом рождаются, личностью становятся, а индивидуальность отстаивают.

山口組

緒方洪庵

一、医の世に生活するは人の為のみ、おのれがためにあらずということを其業の本旨とす。安逸を思はず、名利を顧みず、唯おのれをすてて人を救はんことを希ふべし。人の生命を保全し、人の疾病を復治し、人の患苦を寛解するの外他事あるものにあらず。

一、病者に対しては唯病者を見るべし。貴賤貧富を顧ることなかれ。長者一握の黄金を以て貧士双眼の感涙に比するに、其心に得るところ如何ぞや。深く之を思ふべし。

一、其術を行ふに当ては病者を以て正鵠とすべし。決して弓矢となすことなかれ。固執に僻せず、漫試を好まず、謹慎して、眇看細密ならんことをおもふべし。

一、学術を研精するの外、尚言行に意を用いて病者に信任せられんことを求むべし。然りといへども、時様の服飾を用ひ、詭誕の奇説を唱へて、聞達を求むるは大に恥るところなり。

一、毎日夜間に方て更に昼間の病按を再考し、詳に筆記するを課定とすべし。積て一書を成せば、自己の為にも病者のためにも広大の裨益あり。

Sarah Palin

As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where– where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border.

But obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies.

We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. ... We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation.

Marchel Duchamp

I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own tastes.

John Maynard Keynes

When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?

Larry Wall

The problem with being consistent is that there are lots of ways to be consistent, and they're all inconsistent with each other.

Midnite

love the life you live, lead the life you love

goodness and mercy

the mountains of Africa, they are familiar to me, we were scattered everywhere,

for as far as the eyes could see, but we are from the mountains of the moon

so we love the life we live, lead the life we love, we love the life we live, lead the life we love

no tears, you don’t shed no tears

your body is your temple, your one and only temple

humanitarians, those of you saving only animals, remove the scales from your eyes

humanitarian saving whales, I’m saying what about humanity

when I cry I cry dry

love the life you live, lead the life you love, you lead the life you love

Miguel de Unamuno

If a person never contradicts himself, it must be that he says nothing.

Ludwig Boltzmann

S = k log W

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Marshall McLuhan

• I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't believed it.
• I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.
• Affluence creates poverty.
• One of the effects of living with electric information is that we live habitually in a state of information overload. There's always more than you can cope with.
• Our Age of Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today's job with yesterday's tools and yesterday's concepts.
• Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication.
• An administrator in a bureaucratic world is a man who can feel big by merging his non-entity in an abstraction. A real person in touch with real things inspires terror in him.
• We drive into the future using only our rear view mirror.
• Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be.
• All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values.
• The photograph reverses the purpose of travel, which until now had been to encounter the strange and unfamiliar.
• The more the data banks record about each one of us, the less we exist.
• A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.
• Darkness is to space what silence is to sound, i.e., the interval.
• Publication is a self-invasion of privacy.

Kin Hubbard

• When some folks agree with my opinions I begin to suspect I'm wrong.
• Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation.
• Flattery won't hurt you if you don't swallow it.
• Nobody ever forgets where he buried the hatchet.
• Nobody can be as agreeable as an uninvited guest.
• Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature.
• We'd all like t'vote fer th'best man, but he's never a candidate.
• When a fellow says, "It ain't the money but the principle of the thing," it's the money.
• There's no secret about success. Did you ever know a successful man who didn't tell you about it?
• There is plenty of peace in any home where the family doesn't make the mistake of trying to get together.
• The only way to entertain some folks is to listen to them.
• The fellow that owns his own home is always just coming out of a hardware store.
• Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny.
• Nothing will dispel enthusiasm like a small admission fee.
• Some fellows (and dumb sexy bimbos) get credit for being conservative when they are only stupid.
• It ain't no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be,

Daniel Knode

You laugh at me because I am different; I laugh because you are all the same.

Aldous Huxley

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead.

Benoit Denizet-Lewis

I assumed that I would write about sports, because then I could go to games for free and sit in the press box, which sounded like a great way to spend my time here on Earth. And although I have written about sports, for the most part I've gravitated toward chronicling the lives of people who are ignored, misunderstood, stereotyped, or outside the mainstream.

A friend once asked me, “Why don't you ever write about normal people?” Normal people? Good luck finding those, I told him. As the saying goes, The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well.

George Bernard Shaw

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

Paul Simon

All lies and jest

Still, a man hears what he wants to hear

And disregards the rest.

When I left my home and my family,

I was no more than a boy

In the company of strangers

In the quiet of the railway station,

Running scared, laying low

On Seventh Avenue, I do declare,

There were times when I was so lonesome

I took some comfort there.

Then I'm laying out my winter clothes

And wishing I was gone, going home

Where the New York City winters

Aren't bleeding me, leading me, going home.

Buddha

Believe nothing,

no matter where you read it,

or who said it,

even if I have said it,

unless it agrees

with your own reason

and your own common sense.

莊子

昔者莊周夢為蝴蝶，栩栩然蝴蝶也，自喻適志與，不知周也。俄然覺，則蘧蘧然周也。不知周之夢為蝴蝶與，蝴蝶之夢為周與？周與蝴蝶則必有分矣。此之謂物化。

Gary Shteyngart

OIOS

Risks in the United Nations context are normally referred to as programmatic and operational areas that have the greatest exposure to inefficiencies, ineffectiveness, fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement. Areas with the most significant risks in the UN environment are defined as those that are insufficiently addressed by existing controls and checks.

Stephen Schwartz

There can be miracles, when you believe

Though hope is frail, it's hard to kill

Who knows what miracles you can achieve

When you believe, somehow you will

You will when you believe

S. Upendran

What is the difference between ‘fragile' and ‘frail'?

Both words come from the Latin ‘fragilis' meaning ‘easily broken'. The word ‘fragile' can be used with both things and people. When you say that the contents of a box are fragile, it means that the things inside are rather delicate and can be easily broken. The contents need to be handled with care. When used with people, the word means physically or emotionally weak.

‘Frail' is used with people, usually old, who are in poor health. When used with things, it refers to objects which can be easily damaged.

Timothy F. Geithner

The Honorable Harry Reid
Democratic Leader
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Mr. Leader:

I am writing to notify you, as required under 5 U.S.C. § 8348(l)(2), of my determination that, by reason of the statutory debt limit, I will be unable to invest fully the portion of the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund (“CSRDF”) not immediately required to pay beneficiaries. For purposes of this statute, I have determined that a “debt issuance suspension period” will begin today, May 16, 2011, and last until August 2, 2011, when the Department of the Treasury projects that the borrowing authority of the United States will be exhausted. During this “debt issuance suspension period,” the Treasury Department will suspend additional investments of amounts credited to, and redeem a portion of the investments held by, the CSRDF, as authorized by law.

In addition, I am notifying you, as required under 5 U.S.C. § 8438(h)(2), of my determination that, by reason of the statutory debt limit, I will be unable to invest fully the Government Securities Investment Fund (“G Fund”) of the Federal Employees’ Retirement System in interest-bearing securities of the United States, beginning today, May 16, 2011. The statute governing G Fund investments expressly authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to suspend investment of the G Fund to avoid breaching the statutory debt limit.

Each of these actions has been taken in the past by my predecessors during previous debt limit impasses. By law, the CSRDF and G Funds will be made whole once the debt limit is increased. Federal retirees and employees will be unaffected by these actions.

I have written to Congress on previous occasions regarding the importance of timely action to increase the debt limit in order to protect the full faith and credit of the United States and avoid catastrophic economic consequences for citizens. I again urge Congress to act to increase the statutory debt limit as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Timothy F. Geithner

Juliet Capulet

Michael Heick

Claudia Holland

Mukhtar Mai

The police never even recorded my own statements correctly.

I don't have any more faith in the courts. I have put my faith in God's judgement now. I don't know what the legal procedure is, but my faith [in the system] is gone.

Yes, there is a threat to me and my family. There is a threat of death, and even of the same thing happening again. Anything can happen.

Life and death are in the hands of Allah... I will not shut my school and other projects.

Herman Hesse

If I know what love is, it is because of you.

Mark Twain

Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.

Honore de Balzac

True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, without violent demonstrations: it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart.

Basil Hall Chamberlainb

Voltaire and the other eighteenth-century philosophers, who held religions to be the invention of priests, have been scorned as superficial by later investigators. But was there not something in their view, after all? Have not we, of a later and more critical day, got into so inveterate a habit of digging deep that we sometimes fail to see what lies before our very noses? Modern Japan is there to furnish an example. The Japanese are, it is true, commonly said to be an irreligious people. They say so themselves. Writes one of them, the celebrated Fukuzawa, teacher and type of the modern educated Japanese man: "I lack a religious nature, and have never believed in any religion." A score of like pronouncements might be quoted from other leading men. The average, even educated, European strikes the average educated Japanese as strangely superstitious, unaccountably occupied with supra-mundane matters. The Japanese simply cannot be brought to comprehend how a "mere parson" such as the Pope, or even the Archbishop of Canterbury, occupies the place he does in politics and society. Yet this same agnostic Japan is teaching us at this very hour how religions are sometimes manufactured for a special end—to subserve practical worldly purposes.

Wikipedia

List of social networking websites

List of virtual communities with more than 100 million users

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

op-ed (noun, often capitalized O&E often attributive \ˈäp-ˈed\): a page of special features usually opposite the editorial page of a newspaper; also : a feature on such a page

Origin of OP-ED

• short for opposite editorial
• First Known Use: 1970

Emile Griffith

I keep thinking how strange it is ... I kill a man and most people understand and forgive me. However, I love a man, and to so many people this is an unforgivable sin; this makes me an evil person. So, even though I never went to jail, I have been in prison almost all my life.

____

I like men and women both. But I don't like that word: homosexual, gay or faggot. I don't know what I am. I love men and women the same, but if you ask me which is better ... I like women.

IBM

Dolce Palisades

Вести.Ru

Японским чиновникам разрешили приходить на работу в джинсах, футболках и рубашках навыпуск с 1 июня. Это сделано для того, чтобы в жару снизить потребление электроэнергии, отключив или поставив на минимальные обороты кондиционеры в офисах.

"Экономия электроэнергии – главная цель, – заявил в Токио министр экологии страны Рю Мацумото. – Наше министерство будет первопроходцем".

В стране с мая госслужащих уже призвали приходить на работу без галстуков и пиджаков. Кондиционеры в офисах запрещено ставить на отметку ниже 28 градусов.

Federal Reserve Bank of New York

The gold stored at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is secured in a most unusual vault. It rests on the bedrock of Manhattan Island—one of the few foundations considered adequate to support the weight of the vault, its door, and the gold inside—80 feet below street level and 50 feet below sea level.

As of early 2008, the Fed’s vault contained roughly 216 million troy ounces of gold (1 troy oz. is 1.1 times as heavy as the avoirdupois ounce, with which we are more familiar), representing about 22 percent of the world’s official monetary gold reserves. At the time, the vault’s gold value was about $9.1 billion at the official U.S. government price of $42.2222 per troy ounce, or about $194 billion at the market price of $900 an ounce. At the current official U.S. government price, one of the vault’s gold bars (approximately 27.4 pounds) is valued at about $17,000. At a $900 market price, the same bar is worth about $360,000.

Foreign governments and official international organizations store their gold at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York because of their confidence in its safety, the convenient services the Bank offers, and its location in one of the world’s leading financial capitals.

Thomas Friedman

Columbus accidentally ran into America but thought he had discovered part of India. I actually found India and thought many of the people I met there were Americans. Some had actually taken American names, and others were doing great imitations of American accents at call centers and American business techniques at software labs.

Columbus reported to his king and queen that the world was round, and he went down in history as the man who first made this discovery. I returned home and shared my discovery only with my wife, and only in a whisper.

“Honey,” I confided, “I think the world is flat.”

Mark Townsend

With rain falling hard and lightning flashing, Colorado's Dexter Fowler stepped in with two outs and the bases empty to face Mets pitcher Mike Pelfrey. The umpires had hoped to get through the inning without a delay, but Fowler fouled off a couple tough pitches, which forced crew chief Mike Winters to halt the action with a 2-2 count and the Mets leading 4-3 (which would end up being the final score).

A rain delay in the middle of an at-bat — and not between two of them — is somewhat unique, but the at-bat would only get stranger.

First, the Tarp Monster claimed another victim on the Coors Field grounds crew.

When play resumed after a 50-minute rain delay, Mets manager Terry Collins called on Jason Isringhausen to finish the at-bat Pelfrey had started.

On Isringhausen's first pitch, Fowler fouled off another one, this time off his own left knee. After hobbling around with the trainer for several minutes, he was forced to leave the game with a bruised tendon.

Ryan Spilborghs finished the at-bat in Fowler's place, drawing a walk three pitches later.

That finally concluded a 10-pitch at-bat that lasted nearly an hour, started in a pouring rain with Dexter Fowler vs. Mike Pelfrey, and ended with Ryan Spilborghs vs. Jason Isringhausen, who each were officially credited with the walk.

Artmasters

Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, or Hague Abduction Convention is a multilateral treatydeveloped by the Hague Conference on Private International Law that provides an expeditious method to return a child internationally abductedfrom one member nation to another. Proceedings on the Convention concluded 25 October 1980 and the Convention entered into force between the signatory nations on 1 December 1983. The Convention was drafted to ensure the prompt return of children who have been abducted from their country of habitual residence or wrongfully retained in a contracting state not their country of habitual residence. The primary intention of the Convention is to preserve whatever status quo child custody arrangement existed immediately before an alleged wrongful removal or retention thereby deterring a parent from crossing international boundaries in search of a more sympathetic court. The Convention applies only to children under the age of 16.

As of April 2011, 84 States are party to the convention. The entry into force for Andorra on July 1, 2011 will bring that number to 85.

Wesley Yang

Earlier this year, the publication of Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother incited a collective airing out of many varieties of race-based hysteria. But absent from the millions of words written in response to the book was any serious consideration of whether Asian-Americans were in fact taking over this country. If it is true that they are collectively dominating in elite high schools and universities, is it also true that Asian-Americans are dominating in the real world? My strong suspicion was that this was not so, and that the reasons would not be hard to find. If we are a collective juggernaut that inspires such awe and fear, why does it seem that so many Asians are so readily perceived to be, as I myself have felt most of my life, the products of a timid culture, easily pushed around by more assertive people, and thus basically invisible?

Jack Flanagan

Search is clearly becoming a more ubiquitous behavior among Internet users that drives navigation not only directly from search engines but also within sites and across networks.

If you equate the advancement of search with the ability of humans to cultivate information, then the world is rapidly becoming a more knowledgeable ecosystem.

Vanessa Fox

Americans conduct 22.7 billion online searches a month and worldwide, we type into a search box monthly 131 billion times. That’s 29 million searches per minute. It’s safe to say that we’ve become a searching culture.

Business leaders know that the world is changing. More customer research and transactions take place online now than ever before, and those numbers are only going to increase. Globally, the number of searches grew 46 percent in 2009.

Many professionals simply aren’t sure how to evolve their businesses to best take advantage of this changing landscape.

Pankaj Ghemawat

World 0.0

Food was an obvious focus: the major occupational categories were foraging, hunting, and rudimentary farming. Security was critical as well.

World 1.0

While nations did have some military interactions, they were largely self-contained; culture, society, and economics had a strongly national/local cast.

World 2.0

... the trend toward deregulation ...

... a state of affairs that supposes competition over everything from everywhere ...

World 3.0

U.S Committee for Human Rights in North Korea

We might all hope that the regime in North Korea will change its human rights practices, open the gulags, and give its people a chance to air their grievances. But we cannot wait for these developments. The misery suffered by the people of North Korea is often dismissed as being too difficult to deal with and impervious to external pressure. Yet there are initiatives that can be taken to signal to the regime that its abuse of its own people is a matter of global concern and must be changed. There are also measures that can be taken to alleviate the plight of those who have fled North Korea. At HRNK, we wanted to come up with a list of policies that would have an immediate, positive impact on the situation facing North Koreans today.

堀木エリ子

Rashard Mendenhall

What kind of person celebrates death?

I believe every opinion should be respected or at least given some thought. I apologize for the timing as such a sensitive matter, but it was not meant to do harm. I apologize to anyone I unintentionally harmed with anything that I said, or any hurtful interpretation that was made and put in my name. It was only meant to encourage anyone reading it to think.

I don't believe that this is an issue of politics or American pride; but one of religion, morality, and human ethics.

安住敦

鳥帰る いづこの空も さびしからむに

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Tout homme a droit de risquer sa propre vie pour la conserver. A-t-on jamais dit que celui qui se jette par une fenêtre pour échapper à un incendie soit coupable de suicide ? A-t-on même jamais imputé ce crime à celui qui périt dans une tempête dont en s’embarquant il n’ignorait pas le danger ?

TIME

The murder got routine treatment from Baltimore newspapers: in a fight between white and black boys one afternoon three weeks ago in Carroll Park, a 19-year-old Negro named Linwood Matthews was stabbed to death. After the police arrested an 18-year-old white boy and charged him with murder, Baltimore went on about its business.

But Baltimore churchmen did some hard thinking about the case and last week published a statement signed by 116 Protestant, Jewish and Quaker leaders. "In the tragedy that occurred in Carroll Park . . ." said the statement, "we see evidence of our common failure and sin. We humbly admit that part of the blame is ours.

"In our hearts, still not completely overcome, is some of the pride of race that expresses itself in prejudice against other races; in our own lives there has been an indifference to social conditions . . . We were called to be leaders for God in bringing the members of His one family into mutual understanding and respect and trust—and we have failed. In penitence we bow in the presence of our common Father God and ask His forgiveness, believing that only to the humble and penitent will He give insight into what all of us, white and colored together, should do in our city to right this wrong . . .

"There must be countless other citizens who feel as we do, guilty before God simply because we have been citizens of a city where a boy could be stabbed to death because of the color of his skin. May God forgive us all and give us courage to find and follow a better way."

小澤ヴェラ

Вера Одзава (яп. 小澤ヴェラ, род. 1944, Вера Витальевна Ирина, 入江美樹)

Отец: Виталий Петрович Ирин

Мать: Екатерина Георгина Ирина (яп. 入江麻木)

Муж: Сэйдзи Одзава (яп. 小澤 征爾, род. 1935, японский дирижёр)

Albert Einstein

I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.

Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

Jacques-Louis David

Shafik Alnawab

Babylone n’est plus très loin. Varanasi non plus. Pas plus que le ciel peut embrasser l’eau. Qu’elles soient écritures arabes ou hindi, cunéiformes ou hiéroglyphes, leurs traces se sont réunies sous les couvertures de livres humides et poussiéreux. De ce bleu envoûtant de Bundi à ce rose brûlant de Jaipur, des ruelles de Lucknow à celles de Katmandu, j’ai ramassé des drapeaux tibétains et aussi des rouleaux de manuscrits.

J’ai gardé en moi le rêve des racines, l’odeur de l’inconnu et j’ai senti le fameux parfum des fleurs grises. Puis, dans le regard des cendres, j’ai vu la Divali. Pendant l’éclipse de la lune et du soleil, j’ai ouvert le talisman des Touaregs et j’ai cueilli les pigments verts de la menthe.

Edgar Degas

Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.

Samantha Smith

Dear Mr. Andropov,

My name is Samantha Smith. I am ten years old. Congratulations on your new job. I have been worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war. Are you going to vote to have a war or not? If you aren't please tell me how you are going to help to not have a war. This question you do not have to answer, but I would like to know why you want to conquer the world or at least our country. God made the world for us to live together in peace and not to fight.

Sincerely,

Samantha Smith

Barack Obama

Susanna Kaysen

People ask, How did you get in there? What they really want to know is if they are likely to end up there as well. I can’t answer the real question. All I can say is, it’s easy.

And it is easy to slip into a parallel universe. There are so many of them: worlds of the insane, the criminal, the cnp-pled, the dying, perhaps of the dead as well. These worlds exist alongside this world and resemble it, but are not in it.

---

In the parallel universe the laws of physics are suspended. What goes up does not necessarily come down; a body at rest does not tend to stay at rest; and not every action can be counted on to provoke an equal and opposite reaction. Time, too, is different. It may run in circles, flow backward, skip about from now to then. The very arrangement of molecules is fluid: Tables can be clocks; faces, flowers.

Richard Fortey

The world is so vast and so various that it is evidently impossible to encompass it all within one book. Yet, geology underlies everything: it founds the landscape, dictates the agriculture, determines the character of villages. Geology acts as a kind of collective unconscious for the world.

Billy Joel

Good night my angel time to close you eyes

And save these questions for another day

I think I know what you've been asking me

I think you know what I've been trying to say

Good night my angel now it's time to sleep

And still so many things I want to say

Remember all the songs you sang for me

When we went sailing on an emerald bay

Goodnight my angel now it's time to dream

And dream how wondeful your life will be

Someday your child will cry and if you sing this lullaby

Then in your heart there will always be a part of me

Steve Biddulph

Most men don't have a life. Instead we have an act, an outer show, kept up for protection. We pretend things are fine, that everything is cool, and sometimes we even fool ourselves. But ask a man how he really thinks, and the first thing he thinks is "What am I supposed to say?" The average man today is deeply unhappy, but he would be the last to admit it.

Most women are not like this. Women today act from inner feeling and spirit, and more and more they know who they are and what they want. The Women's Movement helped this along, but women were always more in touch with themselves and each other. The men in relationships with these strong and healthy women are no match for them, in every sense of that word. Conversations go nowhere, and relationships collapse, because to be in a relationship, you have first to know who you are, and the man does not have this worked out.

Thomas Friedman

To all those who say that this era of globalization is no different from the previous one, I would simply ask: Was your great-grandmother playing bridge with Frenchmen on the Internet in 1900? I don't think so. There are some things about this era of globalization that we've seen before, and some things that we've never seen before and some things that are so new we don't even understand them yet. For all these reasons, I would, sum up the differences between the two eras of globalization this way: If the first era of globalization shrank the world from a size "large" to a size "medium," this era of globalization is shrinking the world from a size "medium" to a size "small."

---

Without the knowledge of the U.S. government, Long-Term Capital Management – a few guys in Greenwich, Connecticut – amassed more financial bets around the world than all the foreign reserves of China. Osama bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire with his own global network, declared war on the United States in the late 1990s, and the U.S. Air Force had to launch a cruise missile attack on him as though he were another nation-state. We fired cruise missiles at an individual! Jodie Williams won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her contribution to the International Ban on Landmines. She achieved that ban not only without much government help, but in the face of opposition from the Big Five major powers. And what did she say was her secret weapon for organizing 1,000 different human rights and arms control groups on six continents? "E-mail."

Merrill Lynch

The World Is 10 Years Old

It was born when the Wall fell in 1989. It's no surprise that the world's youngest economy – the global economy – is still finding its bearings. The intricate checks and balances that stabilize economies are only incorporated with time. Many world markets are only recently freed, governed for the first time by the emotions of the people rather than the fists of the state. From where we sit, none of this diminishes the promise offered a decade ago by the demise of the walled-off world ... The spread of free markets and democracy around the world is permitting more people everywhere to turn their aspirations into achievements. And technology, properly harnessed and liberally distributed, has the power to erase not just geographical borders but also human ones. It seems to us that, for a 10-year-old, the world continues to hold great promise. In the meantime, no one ever said growing up was easy.

Anne Morelli

1. We do not want war;
2. The other side is solely responsible for the war;
3. The enemy has the face of the devil;
4. It is a noble cause that we defend and not particular interests;
5. The enemy commits atrocities knowingly; if we make unfortunate mistakes, it is involuntary;
6. The enemy uses unauthorized weapons;
7. We suffer very few losses, while the losses of the enemy are enormous;
8. Artists and intellectuals support our cause;
9. Our cause has a sacred nature;
10. Those who question our statements are traitors.

Mark Hertsgaard

The very first book I wrote was called Nuclear Inc. And the very first time I heard the phrase “global warming” was in 1981 from a nuclear power industry executive, who told me, at a time when all the environmental activists were saying, “Oh, nuclear is dead because of Three Mile Island and no orders.” And I was investigating the industry. And he said, “Oh, no, we’re not dead. You just wait. Wait ’til the turn of the century, and people are going to realize how bad coal is for them and how bad it is for something called global warming.” I said, “What is global warming?” This was 1981. And the nuclear industry was saying then that global warming was going to save their bacon. It is very ironic to me to see George Monbiot and other environmentalists now bringing that prophecy to bear—to fruit.

The reality is, going nuclear will make climate change worse, not better. And that is not because of safety or proliferation. You know, if nuclear worked the way that it’s supposed to in theory, that’s why Jim Hansen is in favor of it. But look at the economics. It costs so much money to build a plant, it takes so long to build that plant, that by the time you’ve got it online, if you invested that same amount of money in energy efficiency, you would get seven times more greenhouse gas emission reductions. So, let’s spend the money where it’s going to give us the biggest bang for the buck, and that is not nuclear. I’m not saying this for any ideological reasons. I’m not opposed to it, in general. But how it works in reality, this is not the answer.