Thirty years ago, Pan Am ceased operations. The US airline put its stamp on civil aviation like no other and will always be remembered, especially by people in Berlin.
It's been three decades since Pan Am closed up shop. Its last flight, PA436, from Bridgetown, Barbados to Miami took place on December 4, 1991, ending the global aviation icon's 64-year saga.

It's a saga that is still remembered today all over the world, but especially in the once-divided city of Berlin, where the blue Pan Am globe on the tail of the airline's Clipper aircraft was always seen as a symbol of hope and freedom during the Cold War.

"No other airline has influenced aviation nearly as much, and no other carrier understood it so well the importance of letting the public participate in these achievements," said Berlin-based real estate developer Matthias Hühne, Pan Am expert and author of an extensive homage to the airline. "That's how a myth formed: the freedom to be transported to almost any place on Earth within just a few hours."

Thanks to its huge network reaching even remote corners of the globe, Pan Am was able to do just that; no other airline had the same reach.

The number one reason cited by singles for not getting married was what they perceived to be the difficulty in finding the right person to marry. //

Unfortunately, with the societal breakdown of the family and the lack of marital and parental role models available to young people today, many singles are finding potential spouses with these traits harder to find.

These role models are found in churches, strong families, and community organizations. Without these institutions, which provide the nurturing environment that produces healthy, responsible, and stable adults, young men and women are finding it more difficult to find a suitable lifelong mate.

Without strong families, it is difficult to find strong and secure adults. It is these institutions that promote the common good and personal responsibility – the very traits that most singles say they are looking for in a spouse. //

The delay in getting married, or not getting married at all, also has profound consequences for our society. The longer marriage is delayed, the less likely couples are to have multiple children, or any children at all. The result will be an increasingly aging society that does not have enough young taxpayers to support the entitlements of a rapidly growing older population. This is a scenario for economic disaster for all.

Finally, marriage is a stabilizing force for men, women, and children. As the survey points found, the number one trait people look for in a spouse is responsibility. When two people get married, their focus, hopefully, becomes on one another and the children they produce, rather than on themselves. Self-gratification fades away as one sees beyond their wants and instead concentrates on the needs of others.

For these reasons, it is essential that we encourage and strengthen the very institutions – families, churches, and community associations – that will produce healthy young adults who will become responsible spouses and parents.

Tandem_fusion Francisco Machado
10 hours ago
Actually expanding the Federal government's power to mandate laws that the states can or cannot legislate is the very clear purpose of the second sentence of the 14th amendment: "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Thus no state may make a law that infringes on a right that one has with respect to the Federal government. So, for example, prior to the 14th amendment, the 5th amendment Eminent domain clause ("nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.") did not apply to states: they were free to take property without compensation. IT was a right that existed only vis a vis the Federal government. Subsequent to the passage of the 14th, the Federal government was able to mandate that state laws which allowed uncompensated taking were voided.

The Federal government has no power to require that a state MUST pass a given law, but it does have the power, via the court, to prohibit it from having certain laws.

Francisco Machado Tandem_fusion
9 hours ago
"it does have the power, via the court, to prohibit it from having certain laws" - That power is bounded by two principles: If the state law infringes upon powers delegated by the Constitution to the federal government or that law is in violation of the Constitution. "deprive any person of life..." may depend upon the interpretation of what constitutes a "person." Clearly the phoetus is alive (I think there's no question there) and isn't a citizen since the constitution specifically says "born" - but I suspect it would require an act of Congress to define at what stage it is Constitutionally protected as a person. For precedent: A felon who kills the mother, causing the death of a phoetus, can be charged with two counts of murder.

Tandem_fusion Francisco Machado
5 hours ago
As to your first point: obviously.

As to your second, you're little out in left field. The due process clause acts only upon the state. the STATE may not deprive a person of life, etc. That has nothing to do with abortion, but rather with the taking of life by the government.

To the matter of defining so-called "personhood", it is nothing more than a distraction, It is not necessary to determine, nor is possible to determine empirically if there is a actual distinction between a live human and a person, as opposed too a mere semantic distinction. .The Federal government can define all it wishes, but it cannot mandate that a state use that definition to nay purpose at all. Absent a Federal nexus —and there is essentially none in abortion— congress has no power to mandate anything.

Tot the matte of fetal homicide laws you're assuming a bit much. Not all states have fetal homicide law. 38 states have fetal homicide laws; 29 from the earliest state of development. It is inaccurate to say that " a felon who kills the mother" etc., etc., since fetal homicide laws vary widely among the 38 states, but in general terms they do not require that the mother be killed, only that the fetus be killed. And related to the other matter of defining persons, those laws are dependent not on semantics but rather on the desire and intent of the legislature. They are not bound by the questions of whether the fetus is a person

SchroedingersDog Tandem_fusion
7 hours ago
"they were free to take property without compensation."

They could do it without running afoul of the specific words in the Constitution, but they could not do it would breaking the underlying code of the USA. That is, citizens have natural rights. Rights are not granted by the State, the State has no natural rights. Instead, The People grant limited authority to the government which they may revoke after a process.

That's the theory. Eventually, people fall to their usual vices and they bid the Government to enact their passions, such as to rule over others. The Republic was designed to frustrate those impulses, but as predicted it has slid towards Democracy, the system where the passions of the mob (oft directed by a few) become rule.

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Tandem_fusion SchroedingersDog
5 hours ago
Read Barron v. Baltimore, 32 U.S. 243. It is the leading case on the matter of Federalism, which is what we are actually discussing here, and dealt specifically with 5th amendment takings clause. If you do so carefully you will come to an understanding that the Federal government had no role in preventing states from engaging in behavior which the Federal government could not engage in. State sovereignty was not just a vague concept, it was the operative force in the relationship between the Federal government, the states and the people.

The Large Scale Systems Museum (“LSSM”) is a public museum in New Kensington, PA (just outside Pittsburgh) that showcases the history of computing and information processing technology. “Large Scale” means our primary focus is on minicomputers, mainframes, and supercomputers, but we have broad coverage of nearly all areas of computing, large and small, dating back to the 1950s.

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LSSM is a real physical museum that you can visit, not an “online” or “virtual” museum. We are a living museum, with computer systems restored, configured, and operable for demonstrations, education, research, or “re-living the old days”. Our staff of volunteers comprises a number of experienced engineers and technicians who are highly experienced with these systems, painstakingly restoring them and maintaining them in like-new condition.

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If this sounds odd to you, think of an antique car collector with an old Corvette or a Model-T Ford. But cars only revolutionized transportation, while computers have revolutionized everything, including cars! Every aspect of our lives involves computers in some way.

Even in our ubiquitous mobile phones, from the latest smartphones to the humble flip-phone. There's at least one computer inside each one, making everything work. Every aspect of its operation, from recognizing button presses to identifying itself to cell towers, is controlled by a computer.

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Our bank accounts, our car maintenance, our baby pictures, all handled by computers to make our day to day lives easier. Are you old enough to remember when it took days or weeks for one doctor to receive your medical records from another? Now it takes seconds. Remember when we had to take checks to the bank to deposit them? Not anymore, and all of this great functionality that depend upon came from somewhere.

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The history of computing is rich and full of great stories, breakthroughs, successes, failures, and strong personalities, all culminating in the device that you're reading this website on right now. Everything we have today came from somewhere, and we teach that history here at LSSM. From aesthetics to internals to real-world uses and operation, we preserve it all.

But the popularity of the love locking trend only really took off after the release of the Italian movie “Ho Voglia di Te” (I want you) in 2007. It was inspired by the like-named novel, from the hand of Italian author Federico Moccia, which was published a year before. One scene features the protagonists locking their love by attaching a padlock to a lamppost at thePonte Milvo in Rome and throwing the key into the Tiber river. //

It didn’t take long for young European fans to pick up on this hype. In 2008, the first padlocks of love appeared in the City of Love. Because of its convenient steel frame and romantic location, the Pont des Arts soon became the Love Lock Bridge in Paris. //

In 2014, the Paris Love Lock bridge literally succumbed to the weight of all that love. The grilles of the Pont des Arts were not strong enough to carry hundreds of kilos in padlocks. With over 700,000 locks in total, weighing 45 tonnes or the equivalent of 20 elephants, and the prospect of another 7,500 locks added each year, an intervention was needed to guarantee the public safety and save this iconic Parisian brige.

In August 2014, the Paris Mayor’s Office launched the campaign “Love without Locks” in which they tried to convince tourists to find other ways to celebrate their love on the padlocks bridge. But no picnic or selfie could convince lovers to refrain from hanging even more tokens of everlasting love. The City of Paris had no other option but to remove the padlocks. On June 1 2015, the grilles were removed and eventually replaced with glass panels to prevent history from repeating itself.

The same was done at other Paris bridges, ones that also suffered from the love lock craze: The Pont de l’Archevêché at the southern tip of the Île de la Cité and the Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor that connects the Orsay Museum to the Tuileries Garden.

The contrived and partisan battles that transpire in the Judiciary Committee do little to inform us as to what type of justice the nominee to the bench might be and instead serve as grotesque works of performance art for the individual senators who are merely auditioning for their eventual presidential campaign.

Hearing the nine justices actually quizzing the attorneys charged with arguing the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization enlightened us profoundly on their intellect, empathy, and abilities to carry out the critical job they've been given for the rest of their lives.

In some cases, the level of banal and insulting queries mixed with political pontifications left quite a bit to be desired (looking at you, wise Latina). However, some of the justices rose to the occasion of the historic day this may very well turn out to be.

Toward the very end of the arguments, Justice Brett Kavanaugh succinctly articulated exactly what today's discussion is really all about:

SCOTUSblog
@SCOTUSblog
·
Dec 1, 2021
Replying to @SCOTUSblog
Kavanaugh presses Prelogar about the argument that the Roe/Casey framework accommodates both the interests of pregnant people and the interests in protecting fetal life. Kavanaugh is openly skeptical that it's possible to balance both interests.

Kavanaugh: “You can’t accommodate both interests. You have to pick. That’s the fundamental problem. And one interest has to prevail over the other at any given point in time. And that’s why this is so challenging.” //

Hugh Hewitt
@hughhewitt
Justice Kavanaugh (doing great work for public and media here) reviews the interests of the fetal life. “You have to pick. one interest has to prevail over the other at a point in time. And the question becomes: What does the Constitution say about that. Why should Ct decide?” 👏
11:49 AM · Dec 1, 2021 //

There's no way to know how the Court will decide, and we will probably have to wait six excruciating months to learn of the decision. What we do know is this all boils down to the fundamental conundrum Kavanaugh articulated:

You have to pick one interest over the other; they can't both prevail. So... what does the Constitution say?

If they truly rule based on that simple question, they must come down on the side of life.

In telecommunications circles there is a truism that is so constant it’s a reality in it’s own right,

“Standards are like toothbrushes. Every one agrees that you should have one and everyone agrees you should use it religiously. But even when they don’t have one of their own nobody else ever wants to use yours.”

United States Army » Rank Structure & Insignia

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List of Military Ranks United States Army Ranks (Ordered By Seniority)

Shively
6 hours ago
How about both? Be better, set a good example, yes, but still fight for what you believe in. I think readers who criticized this story were reminded of RINOs who back down on important fights, who think they’re better than everyone else and who criticized Trump for being crass. He’s the one who got into the trenches and fought back. AOC isn’t backing down or sitting on the sidelines. Someone has to set her straight and line by line rebuttals aren’t going to change her mind. //

Chuck M Lowe
6 hours ago
This well written and thoughtful article is the soul of compos mentis and was the bible for so many Republicans for so many years. Some of those Republicans, no more than figure heads, "Fisher Kings" who could do no harm to the real power of the bureaucratic monolith that, at that time, ruled over us all from behind the media's curtain, were at least honest and thought they were addressing the needs of the electorate. The RINOs now in, or formally in place, like Paul Ryan, Lindsey Graham, the Bush family et al, are Quisling traitors who align themselves with the New World Order Branch Covidians that seek One Ring To Rule Them All.

Those Republican/Quislings of the knickerbocker strain, engaged in rhetoric and promises unfulfilled that we bought into like a new Tulip Mania.

No more.

That you would fail to see, right in front of your face, the tectonic shifts that have taken place over the last 25 years and especially since the Event Horizon election of Don Trump which tore the curtain away from the malevolent, scrofulous, Fascist forces that are fully engaged in the annihilation of American freedoms, liberty and the very Constitution that support those freedoms is disappointing.

There is yet time, for YOU to fall off of your horse outside the walls of Damascus and realize that the forces we Americans face, the absolute declaration of war on us from the entirety of the Federal Government is a real war and a war to the death.

Ashley Babbit is dead. Their are actual political prisoners, held without bail in Washington D.C. who are innocent of ANY crime while the evidence of their innocence is held in abeyance by the Fascist Feds.

This, is the FBI, the number one so called "Law Enforcement Agency" in America.

The FBI is a renegade, out of control, criminal organization no different than the Mafia, except it has more power. Your average FBI Agent gets up everyday, suborns perjury, alters official documents (302's), destroys evidence under subpoena, withholds exculpatory evidence, hides Brady Material, lies under oath to the court, lies under oath to Congress, ignores the 4th amendment and supplies ex nihilo, out of whole cloth, phony evidence then initiates with no predicate, investigations into perceived enemies of the D卐M☭CRAT party, conduct pre-dawn raids on "dangerous" septuagenarians, illegally leaks classified material to sympathetic press pack dogs who work in support of the D卐M☭CRAT Imperium, slow rolls subpoenas for FOIA information and lies about the need to classify ever more evidence that the American public should be able to see and that is before 9 o'clock. They ARE, absolutely, the American Gestapo.

But you think Harsh and Intemperate language is a problem?

These wheels are turning, these bells are tolling, these armies, will collide and we all hope, that you can find it within yourself, to look at the facts and tell the truth.

MGT has more testosterone in her little finger than most of the so called "Republicans" in Washington D.C.

God bless her. //

leesell
6 hours ago
As Solzhenitsyn said when they were in the gulag, “We didn’t love freedom enough”, sadly that’s the regret once you’ve blown the chance to stop evil and insanity. Evil doesn’t reason and play nice. I’m all for using knowledge and intellect also but when your in a fight for your life you can’t wait for the enemy to hear your great argument.