A compilation of information and links regarding assorted subjects: politics, religion, science, computers, health, movies, music... essentially whatever I'm reading about, working on or experiencing in life.
South Dakota, home of Mount Rushmore, topped the list of states with the most inbound movers in 2016, and it’s mostly for the jobs.
The state, which has seen a 23% increase in people moving to the state in the last five years, took the No. 1 spot for the first time, beating Oregon, which had been in the top place for the past three years. South Dakota also attracted those looking to live closer to family and retire, according to the 40th annual moving study by St. Louis-based moving company United Van Lines. The study based its findings on states’ inbound and outbound percentages compared to total moves the company handles.
Of the people moving to South Dakota, 60% came for jobs. The state is home to financial services firms, like Citibank C, +0.83% , and has a low unemployment rate and reasonable home prices, said Michael Stoll, an economist and professor and chair of the Department of Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, who worked with United Van Lines on the study. High demand jobs with high wages in South Dakota include registered nurses, accountants and auditors, general and operations managers, elementary school teachers, secondary school teachers and management analysts, according to the South Dakota Dept. of Labor & Regulation.
“There are more pull factors than push factors,” Stoll said. The unemployment rate in South Dakota was 2.7% in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared with the U.S.’s unemployment rate that same month of 4.6%. The median home in South Dakota is about $170,000, according to real estate website Zillow’s home value index.
The top inbound states after South Dakota were Vermont, Oregon, Idaho, South Carolina, Washington state, then Washington, D.C., North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona. [...]
Interesting, that Oregon had been the top state drawing new people for the past three years. I'm pretty sure though, that most people coming to Oregon are looking to retire, not find work. Read the whole article for embedded links and more.
[...] In May 2015, a group of global leaders known as the Elders visited Moscow, where we had detailed discussions with the American ambassador, former President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, former Prime Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov and representatives of international think tanks, including the Moscow branch of the Carnegie Center.
They pointed out the longstanding partnership between Russia and the Assad regime and the great threat of the Islamic State to Russia, where an estimated 14 percent of its population are Sunni Muslims. Later, I questioned President Putin about his support for Mr. Assad, and about his two sessions that year with representatives of factions from Syria. He replied that little progress had been made, and he thought that the only real chance of ending the conflict was for the United States and Russia to be joined by Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia in preparing a comprehensive peace proposal. He believed that all factions in Syria, except the Islamic State, would accept almost any plan endorsed strongly by these five, with Iran and Russia supporting Mr. Assad and the other three backing the opposition. With his approval, I relayed this suggestion to Washington.
For the past three years, the Carter Center has been working with Syrians across political divides, armed opposition group leaders and diplomats from the United Nations and Europe to find a political path for ending the conflict. This effort has been based on data-driven research about the Syrian catastrophe that the center has conducted, which reveals the location of different factions and clearly shows that neither side in Syria can prevail militarily.
The recent decision by Russia to support the Assad regime with airstrikes and other military forces has intensified the fighting, raised the level of armaments and may increase the flow of refugees to neighboring countries and Europe. At the same time, it has helped to clarify the choice between a political process in which the Assad regime assumes a role and more war in which the Islamic State becomes an even greater threat to world peace. With these clear alternatives, the five nations mentioned above could formulate a unanimous proposal. Unfortunately, differences among them persist.
[...]
The involvement of Russia and Iran is essential. Mr. Assad’s only concession in four years of war was giving up chemical weapons, and he did so only under pressure from Russia and Iran. Similarly, he will not end the war by accepting concessions imposed by the West, but is likely to do so if urged by his allies.
Mr. Assad’s governing authority could then be ended in an orderly process, an acceptable government established in Syria, and a concerted effort could then be made to stamp out the threat of the Islamic State. [...]
I'm not a Jimmy Carter fan. But if you read the whole thing, for the full context, it actually makes sense. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Carter may be right about this. It should be seriously considered.
A Titanic-sized supership that once ferried presidents, Hollywood royalty, actual royalty and even the Mona Lisa has a place in the history books as the fastest oceanliner in the world. The owners are now racing to avoid having the ship, the S.S. United States, relegated to the junk heap.
A preservationist group, the S.S. United States Conservancy, saved the vessel from being scrapped a few years ago. Its members are working with a developer to give the mothballed vessel a new life as a stationary waterfront real-estate development in New York City, the ship’s home port in her heyday.
Their big dreams, however, now face a financial crisis: Short of money, the conservancy in recent days formally authorized a ship broker to explore the potential sale to a recycler. In other words, the preservationists might have to scrap their vessel.
It came down to hard numbers. The preservationists have struggled for years to raise the $60,000 a month it costs to dock and maintain the ship, known as the Big U, which is longer than three football fields and once sailed the Atlantic with three orchestras on board. A developer only recently started shaping plans to fill the ship with tenants, an undertaking of the kind that can stretch for years even when it is not this unusual.
“The project is not cookie-cutter,” said Susan Gibbs, the conservancy’s executive director. “This has complicated our efforts.”
The conservancy continues to seek out donors, investors or a buyer to preserve the ship and press forward with development. But unless something happens by Oct. 31, the group said in a statement, “We will have no choice but to negotiate the sale of the ship to a responsible recycler.”
The decision to seek bids from scrappers was “excruciating,” said Ms. Gibbs, particularly since the development plan emerged in the last year. “We’ve never been closer to saving the S.S. United States, and we’ve never been closer to losing her,” she said.
Her connection is personal. Ms. Gibbs’s grandfather William Francis Gibbs, a giant of 20th century naval architecture, designed the ship and considered it his masterwork. [...]
See the whole thing for more photos, embedded links, slideshow and more.
I remember visiting the Queen Mary Cruise Ship in Long Beach California, where it is permanently moored as a floating tourist attraction, with a hotel, restaurants, convention center, museum and more. It was very enjoyable and a memorable experience. Could not the same be done for the S.S. United States, before it disappears forever? I wish for it this:
It's an artist's rendition, but with the right investors, it could become a reality. Will it, before time runs out? Such a rich piece of history, let's not throw it away when it could be recycled in a productive, useful new way, and provide enjoyment for generations to come.
I've been posting about this previously. Here is chapter 4:
Published on Apr 5, 2013
CHAPTER 4: DARKEST DAYS. The SS United States is America's Flagship — a perfect marriage of design and engineering all wrapped in one amazing sea-going symbol of post-war America. Built in 1952, she handily beat the transatlantic speed record on her maiden voyage. No ocean liner has ever broken this record. Now, this amazing ship needs our help. Save America's Flagship from being lost forever at http://SaveTheUnitedStates.org.
I've been blogging about a documentary about the ship, made by an organization that's trying to save it from the scrap heap. Today's installment is Chapter 3:
CHAPTER 3: BUILT TO LAST. The SS United States is America's Flagship — a perfect marriage of design and engineering all wrapped in one amazing sea-going symbol of post-war America. Built in 1952, she handily beat the transatlantic speed record on her maiden voyage. No ocean liner has ever broken this record. Now, this amazing ship needs our help. Save America's Flagship from being lost forever at http://SaveTheUnitedStates.org.
The grand old ship that's fighting for it's life. I first posted about it here, with a link to a video about the ship. Below is the second of four parts.
I was gonna do a post about this great old ship a few years back, when they were planning to refurbish and relaunch her. But it seems that bringing her up to modern code proved to be too cost prohibitive; those plans all fell through. Now she is in a fight for her life:
The SS United States is sending out what may be its final distress call.
The 990-foot-long ship could be sold for scrap within two months unless the grass-roots preservation group that's working to secure a home and purpose for it can raise $500,000 immediately, the group told The Associated Press. Talks are under way with developers and investors about the ship's long-term future, but without the emergency funding, its caretakers fear they will run out of money before a deal is inked.
The historic ocean liner carried princes and presidents across the Atlantic in the 1950s and 1960s but has spent decades awaiting a savior at its berth on the Philadelphia waterfront.
"We've made progress on the fundraising side and the redevelopment side," said Susan Gibbs, executive director of the SS United States Conservancy and granddaughter of the ship's Philadelphia-born designer, William Francis Gibbs. "Our immediate goal is to buy some time."
The group has raised $1 million through fundraisers and a website, where contributors can sponsor a piece of the ship for $1 per square foot, but has received no public funding. What is desperately and immediately needed, they said, are donors with deep pockets and high profiles.
"Are we giving up on successfully redeveloping the ship as a self-sustaining entity? Absolutely not," said Dan McSweeney, head of the redevelopment efforts. "We continue to have active discussions with potential partners, we have ideas of potential sites for the ship, but we need more time to get it off the ground ... and we're running out of runway."
It costs $80,000 a month just for mooring, basic maintenance, insurance and security, he said.
The conservancy is exploring potential partnerships with four entities in Philadelphia and New York City to refashion the vessel as a stationary entertainment complex with 500,000 square feet of space for a hotel, theater, restaurants and shopping. The sluggish economy and other factors have slowed negotiations, McSweeney said.
As talks continue, he said, the hope is to convince corporate sponsors, influential politicians and prominent business leaders — are you listening, Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg? — to lend their political and financial capital to the effort.
"Any way you look at it, there is no downside to this project," McSweeney said. "It's an economic and community development project that's going to create jobs."
The SS United States carried more than 1 million passengers at record-breaking trans-Atlantic speeds over the course of 400 round trips from 1952 to 1969, among them President John F. Kennedy, Prince Rainier of Monaco, Salvador Dali and Elizabeth Taylor. A joint venture between the Navy and ship designer Gibbs & Cox, the luxury liner was made with hidden military might: It could have been converted in a single day to transport 14,000 troops for 10,000 miles before refueling.
After being decommissioned it changed hands multiple times, from the Navy and on through a series of restoration-minded investors.
It was towed from Virginia to Turkey to Ukraine, finally arriving in Philadelphia as a gutted hulk in 1996. Another succession of developers and a cruise lines failed to return the ship to service as retrofitting costs proved too great. [...]
I remember reading about this ship when I was a kid, I was a real fan. Our local library had and encyclopedia, that had a three panel color fold-out of a cutaway diagram showing all the inside parts and levels of the ship. I had a model kit of the ship that I built and painted. It was the greatest ocean liner ever.
How ironic that it can't be brought up to "modern" standards. It was not unsinkable, but it was hard to sink. It had five chambers. Even if all 5 chambers were to flood, up to the waterline, it would still not sink. Compare that to modern cruise ships, that have only two chambers. And their "modern" propensity to break down at sea and become floating toilets.
The hope now is to turn the ship into a permanently docked museum/hotel/office space/restaurant/conventions center complex. It seems like a worthy venture. We once visited the RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, California. It had been converted thus, and it was a very enjoyable visit. I would love to see that happen for the S.S. United States, since it can't be allowed to compete with our modern floating toilet bowls.
Here is a video about the ship. It's part of a series, I think I shall try to post one a week, for the next several weeks.
