Apple for the day

Doug Aamoth has a Time video about an iPad keyboard tweak (helpful even if you have giant, yet tender and graceful, man-hands).

Rico says he does, so he'll try it...

More Apple for the day

Michael D. Shear, a White House correspondent and a guest columnist for State of the Art, has an article in The New York Times about getting rid of Word:

My mother is not anti-Apple. She owns a Mac and an older iPad, but has always been perfectly satisfied with her trusty copy of Microsoft Word. “That’s what everyone uses,” she says. She may want to think about switching.
The new version of Apple’s Pages word-processing software— part of a trio of applications the company calls iWork that includes a spreadsheet program and a presentation manager— seems tailor-made for someone like her: it’s simple to use, easy to learn, and has sharing features that should finally put an end to her complaints about friends who are unable to open the documents she sends them.
There are plenty of people who will find that Pages does not meet their needs (more on that later). But the company, based in Cupertino, California has rethought its approach to the most boring of computer applications— the word processor— with some impressive results. It particularly shines in three areas: appearance, compatibility, and sharing.
To appreciate the improvements, it might be helpful to offer a comparison between Pages and Word: 

Appearance:Ever since text-based programs like Word Perfect gave way to the point-and-click variety, companies have crammed more and more buttons into their programs. The latest version of Word has a bevy of tiny icons for every function imaginable.
Pages takes a different approach, with just a handful of icons across the top and a contextual panel that slides out from the right. Editing text? Out pops the buttons for bold, font size and justification. Inserting a table? The panel switches to let you modify the rows and columns. Add a picture and you automatically get options for borders and shadows.
I compared Pages with a version of Office 365 on a Surface Pro tablet. Microsoft groups its icons in different tabs along the top, but they don’t automatically appear when you need them, as they do in Pages. And each tab has too many buttons, most of which are not intuitive. Longtime power users will figure it out, but I suspect Mom would be happier with the simpler interface.
■ The decision for appearance: Apple. 

Compatibility:The previous versions of Pages had a serious problem: documents created on Pages for the Mac didn’t open easily on Pages for the iPad. Even worse, the two didn’t share anywhere near the same capabilities; they supported different headers, graphics, tables of contents and charts. A document created on the Mac looked different on the iPad, which also supported fewer fonts.
But the new version of Pages on a Mac is identical to Pages for the iPad or the iPhone. And the company now has a version of Pages that runs amazingly well in any modern web browser, even on a Windows PC. I opened it on the Surface Pro in Internet Explorer. Mom can start a letter on her Mac, edit it on her iPad, and send it to Dad’s Windows XP PC for some final edits. (Dad is afraid of upgrading his system. But that’s a topic for another column.)
In fairness, Microsoft is no slouch in this area. The company has versions of Word for the Mac and the PC, though they look different. And a web-based version of Word, introduced recently as part of the company’s Office 365 software, is a good, pared-down likeness of the desktop counterparts. The company supports minimal editing of documents on iPhones or Android phones, but it does not have a full version of Word for iPads or Android devices. For now, the company reserves that for Microsoft’s own tablets, although it has announced that an iPad version is coming.
■ The decision for compatibility: a tie. 

Sharing:Okay, let’s say it. The reason most people don’t switch from Word is that everyone else they know uses it. Sending a Pages document to a friend who doesn’t have the program installed has been an exercise in both futility and frustration that always leads to the same sentence: “I can’t open that document you sent me.”
The new version of Pages introduces an all-new sharing option, powered by the company’s iCloud service, that works remarkably well. Type in a person’s email address, click send, and that person receives a link to your document. When the link is clicked, the document opens in a web browser that looks like a fully functioning Pages application. (Mom didn’t even notice the difference.) The recipient doesn’t have to have Pages installed, or have an iCloud account. It even makes Mac-PC sharing easy. The new version runs just fine in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, or Safari on a Windows PC.
Apple has also copied a crucial feature from its competitors, adding real-time document editing to Pages. With a shared document open in the browser-based Pages, multiple people can make changes and collaborate at the same time. The edits appear magically in real time. Word and Google have had this feature for a while, and now Pages catches up in a way that is simpler and somewhat easier to understand.
■ The decision for sharing: Apple. 

The new version of iWork, which includes Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, is free for anyone who buys a new Mac, iPad, or iPhone. Others can buy the three programs for $9.95 each on the iPad and $19.95 each on the Mac. The updated features for Pages— the new appearance, sharing and compatibility— also apply to Numbers and Keynote. That makes them attractive options, especially considering that a subscription to Microsoft’s Office 365 Home Premium costs $99.99 a year, and you have to pay every year.
But the Apple programs are not for everyone. Pages seems like a bad choice for anyone who works in an office environment dominated by colleagues with Microsoft Word on their computers. Even though co-workers could open the Pages documents, they most likely won’t want to, just because it’s not their default. And going back and forth between formats is still a pain in the neck.
The new version of Pages may also frustrate people with highly specific needs. In trying to make the different versions of Pages identical, the company decided to remove many editing and formatting tools that had been in its previous Mac software. There is no way to select noncontiguous text, which makes bulk formatting harder. Vertical rulers are no longer there to help place photos and charts precisely. There is no way to view facing pages at the same time.
Users of the former versions of Pages have complained loudly in online Apple forums. One thread on the Apple support website has 82 pages of complaints. In response, Apple has since said it would begin adding back some of the features it removed. Last week, the company started by putting back the ability to customize the toolbar and restoring slide transitions that had gone missing in Keynote, its presentation software. A support document the company published online says additional features will start reappearing within six months.
And, as with any software, there are still frustrations: Creating a document in the web-based Pages, which is technically still labeled a “beta” service, leaves the user wondering just how to give the new document a name. And sending a copy of a document, instead of a link, is more difficult than it should be.
Still, for many people who own a Mac and an iPad, Pages can now legitimately serve as their only word-processing software. They may even find they like it better than Word.

Rico says he couldn't agree more.

Scam for the day

 From: "Ken Sherman" <kehermann1@zbavitu.net>

Subject: Letter Of Authorization

Dear beneficiary,
Good day.
I wish to notify you that the sum of  US$5 million United States Dollars
only, has been approved to you.
This  action, was the final resolution taken by IMF and United Nations
to clear up all outstanding debt by cutting all debt payments down to
US$5million only to each beneficiary.
We have so far, reconciled and have paid over 62 beneficiaries, who have
had various problems receiving their payments in the past. We have been
able to ascertain the cause of some of these delays, which was pointed
to divert of beneficiary's funds by officials of payment agencies or
Banks. Fraudulent officials and banks that unfeelingly extort money from
beneficiaries.
All these problems have been removed and most beneficiaries whose
records have been submitted to us have been paid directly by
International Certified Bank Draft.
Acknowledge receipt of this letter urgently and state in your response
to us how you want to receive this money.
I await your response.
Best Regards,
Dr.Ken Sherman.

They just call it that

If you look close, it's all about green, and Uri Gneezy, who holds the Epstein/Atkinson Endowed Chair in Behavioral Economics and is a professor of economics and strategy at the Rady School of Management at the University of California at San Diego and the co-author, with John List, of The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life, has a Time article about what to watch out for:

Think about two scenarios that could (and probably, with some variation, will) happen this weekend. In the first scenario, Joe goes to the store and buys the dining table and chairs he needs for his new apartment. The regular price of the set is $1,400, but it is reduced by fifty percent this weekend, to only $700. What a bargain! In the second scenario, Steve goes to a different store, buys the identical dining set, and pays that retailer’s regular price: $600.
Which buyer will be happier with his purchase: Steve, who paid $600, or Joe, who paid $100 more? As a behavioral economist, I’d place my bet on Joe (provided Joe and Steve aren’t aware of each other’s purchases). If you go shopping this weekend, you’ll discover that retailers are also betting on this puzzling consumer behavior. Why would a customer who paid more for his purchase be happier than one who paid less? A couple of psychological explanations are possible:
The first is called the contrast effect. You can try the following fun experiment at home: put your left hand into a bucket of ice water and your right hand into a bucket of warm water. Leave both hands in the buckets for about a minute. Then immerse both hands into a third bucket filled with lukewarm water. It’s worth a try; the feeling is really weird. Both hands are in the same bucket, but they feel quite different. The left hand, which was in cold water before, feels warm. The right hand, which was in warm water, feels cool. Although you know both your hands are in the same bucket, each of them sends a different signal to your brain.
The same is true when you buy something that is deeply discounted from its original price. Joe paid $700, which is substantially less than the initial $1,400 price tag. Steve? He wasn’t lucky; he simply paid the asking price of $600. Our brain is really great at comparing initial and final prices, but it is not as good at thinking in absolute terms.
The second psychological reason consumers are often happier paying more is that they tend to believe that price equals quality. Many times it does; higher-priced items are of higher quality. But sometimes retailers can use high prices to trick us: the higher price of Joe’s table led him to believe it was “worth” more than what he paid.
This psychological trick works especially well with products and services for which quality is subjective, or tough to evaluate. Think of the following: it’s your anniversary and you want to bring home a nice bottle of wine to celebrate. Typically you drink wine that costs about $20 a bottle, but today is a special occasion, so you go to the store and look at the $50 bottles. You don’t have a specific wine in mind: you just assume a $50 wine tastes better than a $20 wine.
How do retailers use this effect to their advantage? In our recent book, The Why Axis, John List and I describe a field experiment I ran with Ayelet Gneezy and Dominique Lauga in a winery. The owner of the winery— let’s call him Matt— asked for our help in pricing his new cabernet sauvignon. We jumped at the chance— apart from being fun to drink, wines are also fun to price.
Visitors to Matt’s winery taste different wines and subsequently choose to buy from the selection. The cabernet sauvignon we used to test the effect of prices on people’s decisions was a “prodigious wine, with complex notes of blueberry pie, black currant liqueur, acacia flowers, lead pencil shavings, and sweet foresty floor notes.” The price Matt had previously chosen for it was ten dollars, and it sold reasonably well.
In our experiment, we manipulated the price of the cabernet to be ten, twenty, or forty dollars on different days over the course of a few weeks. Each day, Matt greeted the visitors and told them about the tasting. Then visitors went to the counter, where they met the person who administered the tasting and gave them a single printed page containing the names and prices of the nine included wines, ranging from eight dollars to sixty dollars. After tasting the wines, visitors decided whether to buy any of them.
The results shocked Matt. Visitors were almost fifty percent more likely to buy the cabernet when it was priced at twenty dollars than when it was priced at ten dollars. That’s right: when we increased the price of the wine, people liked it more, and in some cases, were even more likely to buy it.
As consumers, we should be aware of our tendency to make purchase decisions based on cues that lead us to believe we are getting a good deal (see Joe vs. Steve) or a high-quality product (if the price is high enough). It might be useful to consider the items you want to purchase in absolute terms. Going back to the dining-table example, Joe would be better off asking: “Do I need this dining table? If so, is it worth $700 to me?” and by not allowing himself to be distracted by the very tempting, but often not so relevant, information regarding the original price, discount depth and so on.
And, of course, if you want to buy The Why Axis, you can simply send me a check for the full price. Or you can buy it on Amazon.com. I hear they have a great sale on it!

Rico says that he'd've bet money that Uri Gneezy was a pseudonym... (Cruel ancestors, to keep that name, which the guy has now inflicted on his son.) And "complex notes of blueberry pie, black currant liqueur, acacia flowers" okay, but "lead pencil shavings"?

Targeted for rape and kidnapping

ClarionProject.org (RadicalIslam.org) has an article about Syrian women targeted for rape and kidnapping:

A new report issued by a human rights group on International Day to End Violence Against Women says Syria’s civil war "created a context ripe for violence against women, including sexual violence". The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network names the deliberate use of kidnapping and rape of women and girls, especially during “raids, at check points, and within detention facilities”  as a means to pressure and humiliate family members and take revenge. Women, with their children, have also been used in the conflict as human shields.
Abuses against women have been a "deliberate tactic to defeat the other party from a symbolic and psychological perspective, making women desirable targets as the conflict rages on," the report says. The report cites particularly horrific instances of abuse culled from cases documented inside seven provinces in Syria as well as in Damascus.
One such case was that of a nine-year-old girl, who was raped in front of her family by government forces in the Baba Amr district of the central Homs province in March of 2012. Another case quotes a teenager, a nineteen-year-old named Aida from Tartus, a town in the coastal region, who was held in detention for four months, from October of 2012 to January of 2013. One of times she was raped occurred the day before a court hearing. She was assaulted by three government soldiers. The report documents Aida’s case in her own words: "The interrogator left me in the room and came back with three personnel, who took turns raping me. I fiercely resisted the first but, when the second started, I became more terrified and couldn't resist," she said. "When the third started, I totally collapsed. I was bleeding all the time. As the last one finished, I fell on the ground. Ten minutes later, the prison doctor came in and took me to the bathroom, where he gave me an injection to enable me to stand before the judge."
Although the reports says six thousand cases of rape have occurred since the beginning of the conflict, the actual number is believed to be at significantly higher, since many cases go unreported due to the stigma such crimes carry in Syrian society.
The report states that: “Syrian women exposed to sexual abuses subsequently found themselves victimized not only by the crime itself, but also by enduring the silence that surrounds the crime and the social pressure related to it.”
The result of reporting such a crime in Syrian society can lead to honor killing (of the victim), divorce, or further abuse from family members. Many women whose abuse has become public have fled their communities, exposing themselves to even more danger in the worn-torn country. Abuses have also been documented in refugee camps.
Regime forces are said to have perpetrated seventy percent of the crimes against women, with rebel forces guilty of the the rest. Rape by government forces is a common tactic used in conflicts when the opposition forces comes from within the society and rely on civilian support, according to prominent journalist Lauren Wolfe, an expert on rape in areas of war and the director of Women Under Siege, a organization that has documented sexual violence in Syria for the last year.
The London-based Syrian Network for Human Rights cites 25 cases of women being kidnapped and held hostage for use in prisoner exchanges or "to pressure their male relatives to surrender". Sema Nasar, of the Syrian Network, collected first-hand testimonies from Syrian women during from January to June of 2013.
To date, a hundred and twenty thousand people have been killed in the Syrian conflict. Figures from the first two years of the conflict show that over five thousand women were detained during those years, the whereabouts of many remain unknown. Further, in many of those cases, women have been detained indefinitely without being presented to the judge, with no access to counsel.

Rico says this behavior makes him ashamed of being a man...

Apple for the day

Squids

Rico's friend Dave sends these splendid photos of the Navy at work (and one Marine image, since his late father was a retired colonel, with two wars, Korea and Vietnam, to his credit):

Apple for the day

Doug Aamoth has a Time video about an iPad keyboard tweak (helpful even if you have giant,yet tender and graceful man-hands).

Rico says he does, so he'll try it...

The eye of the beholder

Tricia L. Nadolny has an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer about a multi-purpose shop:

When West Chester borough officials told Jill McDevitt to remove a sex tool from the window of her sex shop, her response was not to quietly comply. Instead, she threw a shirt embossed with a profane phrase in the window as well. That phrase cannot be printed in this newspaper.
In fact, a lot of the things promoted by McDevitt— a witty, often shocking sexologist with a devoted online following— are not fit for public consumption.
That, McDevitt says, is the problem. "What happens if we say the word clitoris? What happens if a child reads the word clitoris?" she said, her tone giving away that she thinks it would not be that big a deal. "Especially if they have one. Which fifty percent of them do."
The word might make some uncomfortable. But McDevitt, 28, who lives with her husband in West Chester, says it's her life's mission to get people talking about topics that make them blush. Maybe that's why things did not work out between her and the borough.
McDevitt closed her sex shop and feminist education center, Feminique, in November of 2013 after five years in business. What brought the Upper Darby native to close a business she said was profitable has been fodder for debate since.
McDevitt, a onetime columnist for Philly.com, said she had endured years of discrimination by prudish town officials and residents.
St. Agnes Catholic Church, two blocks from Feminique, appealed her business permit shortly after she opened her shop. That effort was dropped, but the borough has since passed stricter rules on adult entertainment downtown. More recently, McDevitt sought approval to put her logo, the outline of a female figure with a heart over the pelvis, on the sign in front of her store. One city official likened the heart to pubic hair, a depiction he said was illegal.
When McDevitt opened the store, she agreed to a stipulation barring the display of a host of human body parts on her packaging or signs. She was cited for violating it just once, over the sex tool in her window. And city officials are quick to note that her new sign was approved.
The real problem, Mayor Carolyn Comitta said, was that McDevitt began pushing the rules she had signed off on. "This had to do with, you know, agreeing to something and then asking for more and being upset if you're told, 'That's not what we agreed to'," Comitta said.
Putting aside her tensions with the borough, about which McDevitt has published one book and is writing a second, McDevitt says she still planned to close her store this year.
Her sights are set on things West Chester can't offer: High-profile speaking gigs. A television show. A nationally recognized sexologist brand.
This month, Johns Hopkins University invited her to speak to its pre-med students. The topic remains to be determined, but her presentation on the female orgasm is in the running, she said. She typically charges two thousand dollars per session.
The same week fans were cleaning out the last of her merchandise, a production company approached her about starring in a reality show pairing a sexologist with couples struggling with intimacy, she said.
She was quoted in the December 2013 issue of  Cosmopolitan talking about, what else?,  clitorises. "It's my thing," she said of the sex organ on which she has hung her career.
McDevitt, who received a doctorate in human sexuality after taking classes at Widener University and completing her dissertation through the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, says society subjugates women by not allowing them to embrace their sexuality. And, she says, pointing to research that agrees, promotion of healthy sexuality leads to fewer sexual assaults. "If I could change one thing in the world, it would be, and it's two sides of the same coin, that everybody would view sex as pleasurable, and thus nobody would use sex as a weapon," she said this month in an interview at her shop.
Beside her on the sofa was a pile of plush sex-ed props, including a fetus, sperm cells, and a menacing chlamydia microbe. Near the front window, packages of racy Halloween costumes were stacked against a wall. McDevitt looked briefly for the infamous window-display item, a harness of sorts, but said it had already been sold.
The pale pink storefront just off West Chester's main street, which McDevitt opened when she was 22 on a credit card with an $8,000 limit, was always just a venue for her message, she said. The sales provided an income, and the building gave her a space to hold classes on topics such as the Kama Sutra and foreplay. But she said the shop also provided a place to connect with her customers, from women looking for a little adventure, to victims of sexual assault struggling to overcome trauma. "That's what West Chester is going to be missing. It's not about dildos," she said. (McDevitt gave away 428 vibrators last year to promote her sex-positive mantra, she said.)
Bonnie Chandler of Media found Feminique shortly after her husband of thirty years, David, died of a brain tumor in 2011. The two years before, she said, had been filled with operations, loss of income, a home foreclosure, and a funeral. She visited Feminique looking for a negligee. Inside, she says, she found that and exactly what she needed emotionally, "not invasively more or coldly less. I was thinking, let me just stick a little baby toe in and buy something pretty that will remind myself that yes, I've been through a grueling ordeal, and it was ugly. But I am beautiful," she said. "And my life remains."
Today Chandler, 57, does not remember what she bought, only that it was silky and colorful and lush. When she found out Feminique was closing she got in her car immediately and drove to West Chester. She and McDevitt hugged and cried. And she left with some lingerie.
McDevitt's critics say that that side of her store did not come through and that the scantily clad mannequins, harnesses, and sandwich-board advertisements for ten percent off lubricants on rainy days were disrespectful to the surrounding community.
McDevitt makes no apologies. She got people talking. That always was her goal, she said.
"I was never here to make a business. I was here because I had something to say," she said. "And now I'm saying it."

Rico says this lady don't get no respect...

Civil War for the day

Rico's friend Kelley sends this splendid illustration of the Monitor (photo, right) and the Virginia (photo, left):

History for the day

On 28 November 1943, President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin met in Tehran during World War Two.

Atheist advertising

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/atheist-advertising-1385560361-slideshow/


Sent from my iPhone

Mark Seymour
215.866.6184
mseymour@proofmark.com

Thanksgiving pies more expensive

Beth Goulart has a Slate article about why hating China is going to be easier this holiday season:

What’s more American than apple pie? Pecan pie. The world’s first apple tree grew in Asia millennia ago. But the pecan tree is native American. How appropriate, then, that pecans enjoy a place of honor on the table at Thanksgiving, a deeply homegrown holiday.
But hold the whipped cream. Pecan pie is expensive this year! Where I live, in Austin, Texas, pecan pies are clearing twenty bucks each at bakeries around town. In coastal cities like New York City and San Francisco, where labor and overhead are higher, a nine-inch pie can set a pilgrim back as much as $34. Even at these prices, bakeries are selling pecan pies at a loss. Why so costly?
The cost of pecans is fully exposed to the economic push and pull of supply and demand—the government doesn’t support pecan prices the way it does sugar prices, for instance. So when the most populous country in the world suddenly developed an insatiable and totally unprecedented hunger for pecans, demand skyrocketed. The price of pecans did, too.
James McWilliams (an occasional Slate contributor) tells the story in his new book, The Pecan: A History of America’s Native Nut. The year was 2006, and the scene was a food trade show in Paris. An official from New Mexico’s Department of Agriculture introduced a group of Chinese buyers to pecans, an important crop for that state. “The Chinese cracked them open, sampled them, and were intrigued; so intrigued,” writes McWilliams, “that they traveled to New Mexico to meet growers, tour orchards, and discuss tentative contracts.” At the time, China didn’t import any pecans, and it still doesn’t grow any, either. No one in China ate pecans.
And yet, after only a couple of years and a bit of savvy marketing, a craze for pecans had gripped the Chinese like quinoa in California. Advertisements touted their antioxidants, claiming them capable of extending life and fending off Alzheimer’s. China’s exploding middle class has disposable income and considers the pecan a snack worth splurging on.  The Chinese now eat pecans like we eat pistachios— partially shelled and brined, then roasted for extra salty-crunchy goodness.
By 2009 China had gone from not having a word for “pecan” to importing 83 million pounds, a quarter of the US crop. With a public willing to pay between ten and fifteen dollars a pound, importers began actively courting pecan growers in other states, like Georgia and Texas. “In 2005,” writes McWilliams, “pecans were a novelty item in China. Today they can be found, as one newspaper reports, ‘at gas stations, airports, and every grocery store in China’.”
An old pecan just isn’t as pretty as a fresh pecan, and pretty matters, especially when people are paying more than twenty dollars for a pie.
What does that mean for American pecan growers? Jake Montz planted his first pecan trees in 1987, and now grows some 25,000 trees’ worth on his farm in Wichita Falls, Texas. These days about 25 percent of his crop goes to China. He sells another quarter in his own two nut shops, and the remainder goes to a shelling company that will, in turn, sell the nutmeats to grocery stores and companies that manufacture ice cream and breakfast cereals.
Conditions this year have squeezed his supply even more than usual. Severe drought in Texas has stretched on for three years now, and the pecan trees have suffered. Making matters worse, three late freezes decimated this year’s crop. But he still has to pay his ever-rising costs: fuel, electricity, equipment, and labor. Fortunately, high demand both domestically and from China means prices are high. “I’d rather have a big crop and sell them a little cheaper,” says Montz. Unfortunately, that’s not happening this year.
Professional bakers would love for pecans to be a little cheaper, too. In the mid-1990s, my local bakery, Texas French Bread, sold pecan pies for ten to twelve dollars each (fifteen to eighteen dollars in today’s money). Today, owner Murph Willcott pays more than eleven dollars a pound for the fancy pecan halves that go into pies he can afford to sell only at Thanksgiving. Chopped nuts, usually sold as “pieces”, would be cheaper, but the pies wouldn’t look as nice. “The halves are prettier,” he says, “so we try to use them.” Willcott also values the freshest nuts. Though some bakers use nuts that are a year or two old, he says, “What you want is the one that’s just been shelled, that is really beautiful and perfect. Those are really hard to find at this point.” As a pecan ages, with or without its shell, it loses moisture and thus plumpness. An old pecan just isn’t as pretty as a fresh pecan, and pretty matters—especially when people are paying more than $20 for a pie.
Willcott’s pecan pies will sell for $22 this year, but that won’t cover the cost of making them. “So we’ll eat it on that one,” he says, “and our margin won’t be what we want it to be. But we’ll make them anyway.” Another Austin bakery, Walton’s Fancy and Staple, has addressed pecans’ soaring cost by pricing all its Thanksgiving pies at $22. This way, the lower cost of producing pies made with ingredients that happen to be cheaper— pumpkin, for instance— helps offset the more expensive pecan. But even using this strategy, Walton’s has had to raise prices over the past several years, says culinary director Justin Raiford.
What does the pecan boom mean for people who bake their own pies? In 2008, pecans retailed for $3.50 a pound, according to McWilliams. In 2010, they were up to $6.95. Now, at my local grocery store, I pay eleven dollars for pecan halves and ten dollars for pieces. My pecan pie recipe calls for three-quarters of a cup of each.
That means pecans are now the most expensive item when I prorate the prices on my ingredient list. Butter comes next (we use organic), then the corn syrup (don’t judge me before you taste my pie), and maple syrup (Vermont’s a long way away). When I add it all up, I find it will cost me twelve dollars to make a pecan pie from scratch. Of course, we’ll have to double that at Thanksgiving. One pecan pie is never enough.

Rico says that, fortunately, he's a pumpkin pie man...

Everything you own can be hacked

Amy Webb has a Slate article about hacking:

Wherever you’re sitting right now, take a moment to note the connected devices around you. In your pocket or handbag, you probably have an electronic key fob and perhaps a rechargeable subway card embedded with RFID. You likely have a smartphone, which is connected to a Wi-Fi network and also has voice-mail service. You might be wearing a Nike FuelBand, or a Fitbit, or possibly even a new pair of Google Glass. Maybe you can spot a traffic light or an orange highway sign out of your window. A power strip is likely not too far away.
All of these devices share one thing in common: they can be hacked.
As we herald the coming Internet of Things, it’s easy to forget that our ever expanding tech playground is mostly unsupervised. There is no playground teacher to blow a whistle when another kid takes control of your Bluetooth headset. There is no Norton antivirus software for your garage door opener.
If you can plug it in or connect it to a network, your device— no matter what it is— can be harnessed by someone else. And that someone doesn’t have to be a Chinese superhacker to do some serious damage with it, either on purpose or by accident. It can be your Uncle Roger, who doesn’t have his new iPhone figured out, and is cluelessly turning your lights on and off via your Belkin WeMo.
I’m a hobbyist. Because I study emerging technology and the future of media, I’m often tinkering, breaking things, and putting them back together. Once, I wanted to see if I could break into the protected Wi-Fi network we set up for my daughter at home. Less than an hour later, I’d failed to penetrate her network but managed to shut down the main network for our house. Which I knew, because of my husband’s yelling from upstairs: “Why is the IRS website redirecting to Sesame Street?!”
Part of what makes new technology so exciting is that, unlike the old days, it works right out of the box. You no longer need to know how to build a computer, connect a modem, run a terminal emulator, and install bulletin board system, or BBS, software in order to send a racy message to a co-worker. Now any tech idiot can download Snapchat and accidentally send a racy photo to his sister-in-law. The tech playground is more accessible and, as a result, increasingly problematic.
Just after the annual Black Hat Internet security convention a few months ago in Las Vegas, I asked a group of my friends— a Navy engineer, a professional hacker, and a hobbyist— to help me come up with a quick list of devices that will be vulnerable during the next few years as the Internet of Things becomes widespread. Here’s our incomplete list; entries with a * are those we’ve tried hacking at home, for fun:

Obvious
smartwatches*
smartphones*
computers*
tablets and phablets*
home computer locks*
the Cloud (services, storage, software)
ATMs at banks
printers
GPS devices*
Wi-Fi routers*
webcams*
thumb and portable USB drives
hotel and gym safes (they tend to use a single default passcode)
cable box or DVR
voice mail (especially those with a global call-in number that doesn’t lock out after successive failed attempts—we saw this with the News of the World scandal)

Less obviouspower strips (can be infected with malware)
power cords for your devices (code can be implanted)
luggage trackers (such as the Trakdot)
connected glasses (Google Glass, Oculus Rift. As of now, Google’s QR barcodes for Wi-Fi store the full access point name and password as plain text)
gaming consoles: PS3, Kinect, Nintendo*
refrigerators (such as Samsung)
cars with computer operating systems
smart pens (like the Livescribe)
gesture control devices (such as the Leap)*
SD cards
cameras
smart alarm clocks*
coffee makers
key fobs
light switches*
moisture sensors*
kitchen and pantry trackers (such as Egg Minder)
insurance driving monitors, such as Progressive’s Snapshot device
traffic lights (MIRT transmitters can change lights to green in two to three seconds)
highway signs that spell out text

And we didn’t even get into medical devices, which are frighteningly exposed to mischief.
The proliferation of all this technology creates a constant need to keep devices updated and secure. Perhaps the most vulnerable object in any American house is the cable box, because it is so rarely updated.
If what I’m saying makes you uneasy, you’re not alone. There are plenty of new products exploiting the fears of techno-theft, promising to keep you locked down and safe, such as this neck security wallet from REI, which says it’ll block criminals from scanning the RFID chip in your passport. I travel to a lot of different countries every year for work. I’ve had zero attacks on my passport. On the other hand, I’ve had two laptops and an iPhone compromised.
So how should we think about our constant vulnerability? I make a daily assumption that everything I do is hackable, but almost nothing I do is worth hacking. I have an awareness of potential vulnerabilities, and I’m trying to develop an evolving set of street smarts. You should, too.
For example, since I do a lot of work on the road while I travel, I now carry my own Wi-Fi hotspot. I can use a secure virtual private network to send and receive email and to access content that I have stored in the Cloud. (To be sure, that network can be hacked, too, but at least I can watch the logs of what’s coming and going and attempt to fight off intruders.)
I also keep this network cloaked, meaning that I haven’t named it Amy Webb’s Hotspot. I routinely look at networks, just for fun, and I’m astonished at how many people use their own names or the names of their companies. Instead, I’ve changed the names of all of my devices to my mobile phone number. That way, if my laptop is lost or stolen, someone will see a phone number rather than my name, which I hope means there will be less of an incentive to poke around my machine to see what’s there.
My passwords are easy to remember but difficult to crack. According to my hacker friend, you’re best off with a long phrase that also includes numbers and at least one capital letter. Something like Iwant99pizzasand12beersfordinnertonight is actually more secure than Gx1U2y, because the algorithms that are used to crack passwords have to process many more computations the longer a password is, and as of now they’re mostly not using natural language processing. Speaking of passwords, I change them weekly. It should go without saying that each one of your networks and devices should have a different password. When was the last time you changed yours? Because I know you’re wondering: there is no workaround for this and no way to game the management of your own passwords.
Another good rule is to turn off your peripherals when they’re not in use. Don’t leave your nanny cam on all day long. Same goes for nonessentials on your network, such as additional computers, game consoles, and the like. The more things you have plugged in, the more opportunities there are for penetration. Be cognizant of who’s plugging what into your network and connected devices. An innocent-looking thumb drive can destroy your computer within seconds. I’m not preaching abstinence here, but I am saying that computer viruses can be as menacing as sexually transmitted diseases: invisible to the naked eye, but most of the time totally preventable with the right precautions taken in advance.
More importantly, I’d argue that all this hacking isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A lack of rules is actually helpful for our burgeoning Internet of Things. I’d much rather that we all come to a good understanding of how our machines work, than to start imposing regulations and restricting access. Sometimes, a collaborative hacking effort yields beneficial results for all. For example, the city of Philadelphia launched a contest and invited hackers to create apps and widgets to help citizens receive updates on emergencies and city news and to contact city administration. During Superstorm Sandy, Philly311 was the 33rd most-downloaded app in the country. The city since partnered with Random Hacks of Kindness and Code for America to bring local hackers together with residents, share knowledge, and build more resources.
The tech playground is open to all, offering a fantastic opportunity to teach kids how to use and control the many devices that are inextricably tied to their futures. The more they break, the more they’ll learn how to collaborate, fix, and innovate. Organizations like SparkFun Electronics are using next-generation open-source code to show everyone how to build and hack our Internet of Things.
Open networks are vital to innovation, even if they aren’t totally secure. Personally, I’m looking forward to fifty years from now, when I think the wrong sequence while looking at the light fixture in my grandchild’s house, and accidentally cause a blackout.

Rico says that, screw the Eighth Amendment, cut the fingers off hackers; that'll slow 'em down...

In their own words

 Rico's friend Doug sends these:

"The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money and control credit, and with the flick of a pen, they will create enough money to buy it back again. Take this great power away from the bankers and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this would be a better and happier world to live in. But if you want to continue the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money and to control credit."

Sir Josiah Stamp, Director and President of the Bank of England during the 1920's

 "We are not going to achieve a new world order without paying for it in blood, as well as words and money."

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., in Foreign Affairs, July/August 1995

 "Today, America would be outraged if UN troops entered Los Angeles to restore order [referring to the 1991 riots]. Tomorrow, they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond (i.e., an "extraterrestrial" invasion), whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government."

Dr. Henry Kissinger, Bilderberger Conference, Evians, France, 1991

 "The powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements, arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the worlds' central banks which were themselves private corporations. The growth of financial capitalism made possible a centralization of world economic control and use of this power for the direct benefit of financiers and the indirect injury of all other economic groups."

From Tragedy and Hope: A History of The World in Our Time by Professor Carroll Quigley of Georgetown University, highly esteemed by his former student, William Jefferson Clinton.

 "The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining supercapitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control.... Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations-old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent."

Congressman Larry P. McDonald, 1976, killed in the Korean Airlines 747 shot down by the Soviets

"In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. In their totality and in their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat with demands the solidarity of all peoples. But in designating them as the enemy, we fall into the trap about which we have already warned namely mistaking systems for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."

The First Global Revolution, A Report by the Council of the Club of Rome

by Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider, 1991.

 "We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time magazine, and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the work is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries."

David Rockefeller, founder of the Trilateral Commission,

in an address to a meeting of the Commission in June of 1991

 In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solving overpopulation."

Prince Phillip of England, reported by Deutsche Press Agentur in August of 1988

 "The idea was that those who direct the overall conspiracy could use the differences in those two so-called ideologies (marxism/fascism/socialism v. democracy/capitalism) to enable them [the Illuminati] to divide larger and larger portions of the human race into opposing camps so that they could be armed and then brainwashed into fighting and destroying each other."

Myron Fagan

 "Speaking of a future at most only decades away, an experimenter in intelligence control asserted: 'I foresee a time when we shall have the means and therefore, inevitably, the temptation to manipulate the behavior and intellectual functioning of all the people through environmental and biochemical manipulation of the brain.'"
"The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities."

Zbigniew Brezinski in Between Two Ages, America's Role in the Technotronic Era, 1970

In March of 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding, and powder interest, and their subsidiary organizations, got together twelve men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press... They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers.
"An agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; an editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies, and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers."

Congressman Oscar Callaway, 1917

 "I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology. Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda... Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated."
"Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of sheep against the practice of eating mutton."
"Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible."

Bertrand Russell, philosopher, educator, and atheist

 "A total world population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal."

From an interview with Ted Turner in Audubon magazine, 1996

 "This is a terrible thing to say. In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it's just as bad not to say it.""

Jacques Cousteau in an interview with the UNESCO Courier in November of 1991

 "The world can therefore seize the opportunity of this Persian Gulf crisis to fulfill the long-held promise of a New World Order, where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind."

George Herbert Walker Bush, 11 September 1990 and 11 September 1991

 "In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn't such a great idea after all."

Strobe Talbot, President Clinton's Deputy Secretary of State, quoted in Time on 20 July 1992

 "Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talks of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile... Once a nation parts with the control of its credit, it matters not who makes the laws... Usury, once in control, will wreck the nation."

William Lyon MacKenzie King, former Canadian Prime Minister

 "It was a carefully contrived occurrence. International bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair, so that they might emerge the rulers of us all."

Louis McFadden on the 1929 Stock Market Crash; he died of poisoning shortly thereafter

 "We shall have world government whether or not you like it, by conquest or consent."

Statement by Council on Foreign Relations member James Warburg

to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 17 February 1950

"The governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings, and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments' plans. "

British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in 1876

 Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the fields of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."
"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."

President Woodrow Wilson, who introduced the Federal Reserve Act, which allowed the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank to begin in 1913

"What is important is to dwell upon the increasing evidence of the existence of a secret conspiracy, throughout the world, for the destruction of organized government and the letting loose of evil."

Christian Science Monitor editorial, 19 June 1920

 "The real menace of our republic is this invisible government which, like a giant octopus, sprawls its slimy length over city, state and nation. Like the octopus of real life, it operates under cover of a self created screen... At the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both political parties."

New York City Mayor John F. Hylan in 1922

 From the days of Sparticus, Wieskhopf, Karl Marx, Trotsky, Rosa Luxemberg, and Emma Goldman, this world conspiracy has been steadily growing. This conspiracy played a definite recognizable role in the tragedy of the French revolution, and has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the nineteenth century. And now, at last, this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their head and have become the undisputed masters of that enormous empire."

Winston Churchill to the London Press in 1922.

 We are, at present, working discreetly with all our might to wrest this mysterious force called sovereignty out of the clutches of the local nation states of the world. All the time we are denying with our lips what we are doing with our hands."

Professor Arnold Toynbee, in a speech before the Institute for the Study of International Affairs in Copenhagen, Denmark in June of 1931

"The New World Order under the UN will reduce everything to one common denominator. The system will be made up of a single currency, single centrally financed government, single tax system, single language, single political system, single world court of justice, single state religion... Each person will have a registered number, without which he will not be allowed to buy or sell; and there will be one universal world church. Anyone who refuses to take part in the universal system will have no right to exist."

Assessment of the New World by Dr. Kurk E. Koch

 "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons... who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind."

Propaganda by Edward L. Bernays, the father of modern advertising, 1928

"The government of the Western nations, whether monarchical or republican, had passed into the invisible hands of a plutocracy, international in power and grasp. It was, I venture to suggest, this semi-occult power which.... pushed the mass of the American people into the cauldron of World War One."

British military historian Major General J.F.C. Fuller in 1941

 The question was how should we maneuver Japan into firing the first shot... It was desirable to make sure the Japanese be the ones to do this so that there should remain no doubt as to who were the aggressors."

Henry Stimson, Secretary of War prior to World War Two, on 25 November 1941

 "For a long time I felt that FDR had developed many thoughts and ideas that were his own to benefit this country, the United States. But, he didn't. Most of his thoughts, his political ammunition, as it were, were carefully manufactured for him in advanced by the Council on Foreign Relations—One World Money group. Brilliantly, with great gusto, like a fine piece of artillery, he exploded that prepared "ammunition" in the middle of an unsuspecting target, the American people, and thus paid off and returned his internationalist political support.
"The UN is but a long-range, international banking apparatus clearly set up for financial and economic profit by a small group of powerful One-World revolutionaries, hungry for profit and power.
"The Depression was the calculated 'shearing' of the public by the World Money powers, triggered by the planned sudden shortage of supply of call money in the New York money market... The One World Government leaders and their ever-close bankers have now acquired full control of the money and credit machinery of the US via the creation of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank."

Curtis Dall, FDR's son-in-law, as quoted in his book, My Exploited Father-in-Law

 Very soon, every American will be required to register their biological property (that's you and your children) in a national system designed to keep track of the people and that will operate under the ancient system of pledging. By such methodology, we can compel people to submit to our agenda, which will affect our security as a charge back for our fiat paper currency.
Every American will be forced to register or suffer being able to work and earn a living. They will be our chattels and we will hold the security interest over them forever, by operation of the law merchant under the scheme of secured transactions. Americans, by unknowingly or unwittingly delivering the birth certificates to us will be rendered bankrupt and insolvent, secured by their pledges.
They will be stripped of their rights and given a commercial value designed to make us a profit and they will be none the wiser, for not one man in a million could ever figure our plans and, if by accident one or two should figure it out, we have in our arsenal plausible deniability. After all, this is the only logical way to fund government, by floating liens and debts to the registrants in the form of benefits and privileges.
This will inevitably reap us huge profits beyond our wildest expectations and leave every American a contributor to this fraud, which we will call Social Insurance. Without realizing it, every American will unknowingly be our servant, however begrudgingly. The people will become helpless and without any hope for their redemption and we will employ the presidency of our dummy corporation to foment this plan against America.

Colonel Edward Mandell House stated this in a private meeting with President Woodrow Wilson

 "The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson."

A letter written by FDR to Colonel House, 21 November 1933

 "The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes."

Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter in 1952

 "...at that time the economy of the United States will be going down, and the next boat people will be Americans leaving America, looking for work abroad."

Jacques Attali in his 1990 book Millennium: Winners and Losers in the Coming World Order

 "Fifty men have run America, and that's a high figure."

Joseph Kennedy, father of JFK, in the 26 July 1936 issue of The New York Times

 "Today the path of total dictatorship in the United States can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by the Congress, the President, or the people. Outwardly, we have a constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system, another body representing another form of government: a bureaucratic elite."

Senator William Jenner in 1954

 "The case for government by elites is irrefutable."

Senator William Fulbright, former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, at a 1963 symposium entitled: The Elite and the Electorate: Is Government by the People Possible?

 The Trilateral Commission is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing control of the political government of the United States. The Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power political, monetary, intellectual and ecclesiastical. What the Trilateral Commission intends is to create a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nationstates involved. As managers and creators of the system, they will rule the future."

Senator Barry Goldwater, in his 1964 book: With No Apologies

 "The Council on Foreign Relations is 'the establishment'. Not only does it have influence and power in key decision-making positions at the highest levels of government to apply pressure from above, but it also announces and uses individuals and groups to bring pressure from below, to justify the high level decisions for converting the US from a sovereign Constitutional Republic into a servile member state of a one-world dictatorship."

Former Congressman John Rarick in 1971

The directors of the Council on Foreign Relations make up a sort of Presidium for that part of the Establishment that guides our destiny as a nation."

The Christian Science Monitor, 1 September 1961

The New World Order will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down...but in the end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece will accomplish much more than the old fashioned frontal assault."

CFR member Richard Gardner, in the April 1974 issue of Foreign Affairs

"The planning of the UN can be traced to the 'secret steering committee' established by Secretary of State Cordell Hull in January of 1943. All of the members of this secret committee, with the exception of Hull, a Tennessee politician, were members of the Council on Foreign Relations. They saw Hull regularly to plan, select, and guide the labors of the State Department's Advisory Committee. It was, in effect, the coordinating agency for all the State Department's postwar planning."

Professor Laurence H. Shoup and Professor William Minter, writing in:

Imperial Brain Trust: The CFR and United States Foreign Policy in 1977)

"The most powerful clique in these CFR groups have one objective in common: they want to bring about the surrender of the sovereignty and the national independence of the US. They want to end national boundaries and racial and ethnic loyalties supposedly to increase business and ensure world peace. What they strive for would inevitably lead to dictatorship and loss of freedoms by the people. The CFR was founded for "the purpose of promoting disarmament and submergence of US sovereignty and national independence into an all-powerful one-world government."

Harpers magazine, July of 1958

 "The old world order changed when this war-storm broke. The old international order passed away as suddenly, as unexpectedly, and as completely as if it had been wiped out by a gigantic flood, by a great tempest, or by a volcanic eruption. The old world order died with the setting of that day's sun, and a new world order is being born while I speak, with birth-pangs so terrible that it seems almost incredible that life could come out of such fearful suffering and such overwhelming sorrow."

Nicholas Murray Butler, in an address delivered before the Union League of Philadelphia

on 27 November 1915

The peace conference has assembled. It will make the most momentous decisions in history, and upon these decisions will rest the stability of the new world order and the future peace of the world."

M.C. Alexander, executive secretary of the American Association for International Conciliation,

in a subscription letter for the periodical International Conciliation in 1919

 "...when the struggle seems to be drifting definitely towards a world social democracy, there may still be very great delays and disappointments before it becomes an efficient and beneficent world system.Countless people ...will hate the new world order... and will die protesting against it. When we attempt to evaluate its promise, we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents, many of them quite gallant and graceful-looking people."

H. G. Wells, in his book The New World Order, 1939

"The term Internationalism has been popularized in recent years to cover an interlocking financial, political, and economic world force for the purpose of establishing a World Government. Today Internationalism is heralded from pulpit and platform as a 'League of Nations' or a 'Federated Union' to which the United States must surrender a definite part of its National Sovereignty. The World Government plan is being advocated under such alluring names as the 'New International Order', 'The New World Order', 'World Union Now', 'World Commonwealth of Nations', 'World Community', etc. All the terms have the same objective; however, the line of approach may be religious or political according to the taste or training of the individual."

Excerpt from A Memorial to be Addressed to the House of Bishops and the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies of the Protestant Episcopal Church in General Convention in October of 1940

"John Foster Dulles stated directly to me that he had every reason to believe that Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York accepts his point of view, and that he is personally convinced that this is the policy that he would promote with great vigor if elected. So it is fair to say that on the first round the Sphinx of Albany has established himself as a prima facie champion of a strong and definite new world order."

Excerpt from an article by Ralph W. Page in The Philadelphia Bulletin, May of 1944

 "In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happened, you can bet it was planned that way."

President Franklin D. Roosevelt

 "The developing coherence of Asian regional thinking is reflected in a disposition to consider problems and loyalties in regional terms, and to evolve regional approaches to development needs and to the evolution of a new world order."
"He [President Nixon] spoke of the talks as a beginning, saying nothing more about the prospects for future contacts and merely reiterating the belief he brought to China that both nations share an interest in peace and building 'a new world order.'"

Richard Nixon, in Foreign Affairs, October of 1967 and The New York Times, February of 1972

 "How fortunate for leaders that men do not think."

Adolf Hitler

 "The existing order is breaking down at a very rapid rate, and the main uncertainty is whether mankind can exert a positive role in shaping a new world order or is doomed to await collapse in a passive posture. We believe a new order will be born no later than early in the next century and that the death throes of the old and the birth pangs of the new will be a testing time for the human species."

Richard A. Falk, in an article entitled Toward a New World Order: Modest Methods and Drastic Visions, in the 1975 book On the Creation of a Just World Order

 "My country's history tells us that it is possible to fashion unity while cherishing diversity, that common action is possible despite the variety of races, interests, and beliefs we see here in this chamber. Progress and peace and justice are attainable. So we say to all peoples and governments: let us fashion together a new world order."

Henry Kissinger, in address before the General Assembly of the United Nations, October of 1975

"At the old Inter-American Office in the Commerce Building here in Roosevelt's time, as Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs under President Truman, as chief whip with Adlai Stevenson and Tom Finletter at the founding of the United Nations in San Francisco, Nelson Rockefeller was in the forefront of the struggle to establish not only an American system of political and economic security, but a new world order."

The New York Times, November of 1975)

 "Further global progress is now possible only through a quest for universal consensus in the movement towards a new world order."

Mikhail Gorbachev, in an address at the United Nations, December of 1988

 "We believe we are creating the beginning of a new world order coming out of the collapse of the US-Soviet antagonisms."

Brent Scowcroft, quoted in The Washington Post

 "We can see beyond the present shadows of war in the Middle East to a new world order where the strong work together to deter and stop aggression. This was precisely Franklin Roosevelt's and Winston Churchill's vision for peace for the post-war period."

Richard Gephardt in The Wall Street Journal, September of 1990

 "If we do not follow the dictates of our inner moral compass and stand up for human life, then his lawlessness will threaten the peace and democracy of the emerging new world order we now see, this long dreamed-of vision we've all worked toward for so long."

President George Bush, January of 1991

 "But it became clear as time went on that, in Bush's mind, the New World Order was founded on a convergence of goals and interests between the US and the Soviet Union, so strong and permanent that they would work as a team through the UN Security Council."

A.M. Rosenthal in The New York Times, January of 1991

 "I would support a Presidential candidate who pledged to take the following steps: At the end of the war in the Persian Gulf, press for a comprehensive Middle East settlement and for a 'new world order based not on Pax Americana, but on peace through law with a stronger UN and World Court."

George McGovern in The New York Times, February of 1991

 "... it's Bush's baby, even if he shares its popularization with Gorbachev. Forget the Hitler 'new order' root; FDR used the phrase earlier."

William Safire in The New York Times, February of 1991

 How I Learned to Love the New World Order

Article by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. in The Wall Street Journal, April of 1992

 How to Achieve The New World Order

Title of book excerpt by Henry Kissinger in Time magazine, March of 1994

"The Final Act of the Uruguay Round, marking the conclusion of the most ambitious trade negotiation of our century, will give birth in Morocco to the World Trade Organization, the third pillar of the New World Order, along with the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund."

Part of full-page advertisement by the government of Morocco in The New York Times, April of 1994

 New World Order: The Rise of the Region-State

Title of an article by Kenichi Ohmae, political reform leader in Japan, in The Wall Street Journal , August of 1994

 "The new world order that is in the making must focus on the creation of a world of democracy, peace, and prosperity for all."

Nelson Mandela in The Philadelphia Inquirer, October of 1994

 The renewal of the nonproliferation treaty was described as important "for the welfare of the whole world and the new world order."

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in The New York Times, April of 1995

Rico asks if we're sensing a theme here? (And when was the last time you heard anyone seriously use the phrase 'New World Order'? Okay, okay, since Bush. anyway...)