Thursday, July 31, 2014

July 31, 2014.

U.S. Energy Firms Rewarded With Tax Deferrals

The peculiar reverence for O’Brien, which nothing seemed able to destroy, flooded Winston’s heart again. How intelligent, he thought, how intelligent! Never did O’Brien fail to understand what was said to him. Anyone else on earth would have answered promptly that he HAD betrayed Julia. For what was there that they had not screwed out of him under the torture? He had told them everything he knew about her, her habits, her character, her past life; he had confessed in the most trivial detail everything that had happened at their meetings, all that he had said to her and she to him, their black-market meals, their adulteries, their vague plottings against the Party----everything. And yet, in the sense in which he intended the word, he had not betrayed her. He had not stopped loving her; his feelings towards her had remained the same. O’Brien had seen what he meant without the need for explanation.

The U.S. energy boom is producing a little-noticed side effect: American oil and gas companies are paying less in federal income taxes.

"Tell me," he said, "how soon will they shoot me?"

Energy companies are spending billions of dollars a year to drill in shale formations across the country, sending the nation's daily oil output up by almost 50% in just the past few years. Techniques like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, which make it possible to tap petroleum in these new fields, make each well cost millions of dollars.

"It might be a long time," said O’Brien. "You are a difficult case. But don’t give up hope. Everyone is cured sooner or later. In the end we shall shoot you."

All that spending has allowed drillers to take advantage of incentives in the tax code for drilling and capital expenditures, deferring billions of dollars in income tax.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

July 30, 2014.

Movie Film, at Death's Door, Gets a Reprieve

Winston had stopped weeping, though the tears were still oozing out of his eyes. He looked up at O’Brien.

Faced with the possible extinction of the material that made Hollywood famous, a coalition of studios is close to a deal to keep Eastman Kodak Co. KODK -2.97%  in the business of producing movie film.

"I have not betrayed Julia," he said.

The negotiations----secret until now----are expected to result in an arrangement where studios promise to buy a set quantity of film for the next several years, even though most movies and television shows these days are shot on digital video.

O’Brien looked down at him thoughtfully. "No," he said; "no; that is perfectly true. You have not betrayed Julia."

Kodak's new chief executive, Jeff Clarke, said the pact will allow his company to forestall the closure of its Rochester, N.Y., film manufacturing plant, a move that had been under serious consideration. Kodak's motion-picture film sales have plummeted 96% since 2006, from 12.4 billion linear feet to an estimated 449 million this year. With the exit of competitor Fujifilm Corp. last year, Kodak is the only major company left producing motion-picture film.

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

July 29, 2014.

To Unplug on Vacation, Your Own Tech Can Help

"No, Winston, you reduced yourself to it. This is what you accepted when you set yourself up against the Party. It was all contained in that first act. Nothing has happened that you did not foresee."

I wanted to write this column over my vacation last week, but my laptop stopped me. "Your time is up," it flashed after 30 minutes online. Begrudgingly I closed the lid, sipped my coffee, looked out at the sailboats on the ocean, then opened a real printed paperback book. I was having a tech timeout.

He paused, and then went on:

I've never been good at unplugging----not from work, not from social media, not from any screen. Of course, I've heard the advice: Disconnecting is good for the mind, body and soul. Yes, but in my guide to Zen, so is aimlessly scrolling through Twitter TWTR +1.74%  and Instagram and having zero unread emails.

"We have beaten you, Winston. We have broken you up. You have seen what your body is like. Your mind is in the same state. I do not think there can be much pride left in you. You have been kicked and flogged and insulted, you have screamed with pain, you have rolled on the floor in your own blood and vomit. You have whimpered for mercy, you have betrayed everybody and everything. Can you think of a single degradation that has not happened to you?"

This summer I vowed to myself and my family to spend more of my vacation and weekend time with the screens off. I didn't promise to go cold turkey. Our phones are so core to our personal lives, that almost seems impossible. Instead, ironically, the best way I found to control myself and my screen time was to use the devices I was trying to take a break from.

Monday, July 28, 2014

July 28, 2014.

In Argentina, Mix of Money and Politics Stirs Intrigue Around Kirchner

Winston began to dress himself with slow stiff movements. Until now he had not seemed to notice how thin and weak he was. Only one thought stirred in his mind: that he must have been in this place longer than he had imagined. Then suddenly as he fixed the miserable rags round himself a feeling of pity for his ruined body overcame him. Before he knew what he was doing he had collapsed on to a small stool that stood beside the bed and burst into tears. He was aware of his ugliness, his gracelessness, a bundle of bones in filthy underclothes sitting weeping in the harsh white light: but he could not stop himself. O’Brien laid a hand on his shoulder, almost kindly.

RIO GALLEGOS, Argentina----During the 11 years that Argentine President Cristina Kirchner and her husband NĂ©stor Kirchner have dominated national politics, they accumulated a small fortune.

"It will not last for ever," he said. "You can escape from it whenever you choose. Everything depends on yourself."

Between 2003, when Mr. Kirchner was elected president, and 2010, when he died, the couple's net worth rose from $2.5 million to $17.7 million, according to their annual filings with the federal anticorruption office. A lot of people in Argentina want to know where that money came from.

"You did it!" sobbed Winston. "You reduced me to this state."

A string of judicial inquiries have roiled national politics by calling attention to the business dealings of top politicians and their associates. In late June, Vice President Amado Boudou was indicted on a charge of bribery and influence peddling related to the takeover of a bankrupt money-printing firm. A former transportation secretary was indicted in April on charges of illicit enrichment. Both have denied wrongdoing. Two years ago, a former economy minister was convicted of obstructing an investigation into a bag of cash found in her office bathroom.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

July 27, 2014.

How the U.S. Stumbled Into the Drone Era

"Look at the condition you are in!" he said. "Look at this filthy grime all over your body. Look at the dirt between your toes. Look at that disgusting running sore on your leg. Do you know that you stink like a goat? Probably you have ceased to notice it. Look at your emaciation. Do you see? I can make my thumb and forefinger meet round your bicep. I could snap your neck like a carrot. Do you know that you have lost twenty-five kilograms since you have been in our hands? Even your hair is coming out in handfuls. Look!" He plucked at Winston’s head and brought away a tuft of hair. "Open your mouth. Nine, ten, eleven teeth left. How many had you when you came to us? And the few you have left are dropping out of your head. Look here!"

On Sept. 7, 2000, in the waning days of the Clinton administration, a U.S. Predator drone flew over Afghanistan for the first time. The unmanned, unarmed plane buzzed over Tarnak Farms, a major al Qaeda camp. When U.S. analysts later pored over video footage from this maiden voyage, they were struck by the image of a commandingly tall man clad in white robes. CIA analysts later concluded that he was Osama bin Laden.

He seized one of Winston’s remaining front teeth between his powerful thumb and forefinger. A twinge of pain shot through Winston’s jaw. O’Brien had wrenched the loose tooth out by the roots. He tossed it across the cell.

From that first mission, the drone program has grown into perhaps the most prominent instrument of U.S. counterterrorism policy—and, for many in the Muslim world, a synonym for American callousness and arrogance. The U.S. has used drones to support ground troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and, particularly under President Barack Obama, to hammer the high command of al Qaeda. A recent study by the Stimson Center, a think tank in Washington, D.C., estimates that U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan have killed 2,000 to 4,000 people. Other countries are trying to get into the act, including Iran, which U.S. officials say has flown drones over Iraq during the current crisis there.

"You are rotting away," he said; "you are falling to pieces. What are you? A bag of filth. Now turn around and look into that mirror again. Do you see that thing facing you? That is the last man. If you are human, that is humanity. Now put your clothes on again."

Drones seem to be everywhere these days, buzzing into civilian life and even pop culture. French players complained before the World Cup that a mysterious drone-borne camera had spied on their training sessions. Amazon owner Jeff Bezos hopes to use drones for faster home delivery. Tom Cruise starred last summer as a futuristic drone repairman in the sci-fi thriller "Oblivion," and Captain America himself faced down lethal super-drones in this spring's "The Winter Soldier." Hollywood is even using drones in real life, helping to film such tricky scenes as the chase early in the 2012 James Bond caper "Skyfall," when Daniel Craig as 007 races across the rooftops of Istanbul.

Saturday, July 26, 2014

July 26, 2014.

Smart Aid for the World's Poor

He had stopped because he was frightened. A bowed, grey-coloured, skeleton-like thing was coming towards him. Its actual appearance was frightening, and not merely the fact that he knew it to be himself. He moved closer to the glass. The creature’s face seemed to be protruded, because of its bent carriage. A forlorn, jailbird’s face with a nobby forehead running back into a bald scalp, a crooked nose, and battered-looking cheekbones above which his eyes were fierce and watchful. The cheeks were seamed, the mouth had a drawn-in look. Certainly it was his own face, but it seemed to him that it had changed more than he had changed inside. The emotions it registered would be different from the ones he felt. He had gone partially bald. For the first moment he had thought that he had gone grey as well, but it was only the scalp that was grey. Except for his hands and a circle of his face, his body was grey all over with ancient, ingrained dirt. Here and there under the dirt there were the red scars of wounds, and near the ankle the varicose ulcer was an inflamed mass with flakes of skin peeling off it. But the truly frightening thing was the emaciation of his body. The barrel of the ribs was as narrow as that of a skeleton: the legs had shrunk so that the knees were thicker than the thighs. He saw now what O’Brien had meant about seeing the side view. The curvature of the spine was astonishing. The thin shoulders were hunched forward so as to make a cavity of the chest, the scraggy neck seemed to be bending double under the weight of the skull. At a guess he would have said that it was the body of a man of sixty, suffering from some malignant disease.

In September next year, the United Nations plans to choose a list of development goals for the world to meet by the year 2030. What aspirations should it set for this global campaign to improve the lot of the poor, and how should it choose them?

"You have thought sometimes,’ said O’Brien, ‘that my face----the face of a member of the Inner Party----looks old and worn. What do you think of your own face?"

In answering that question, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his advisers are confronted with a task that they often avoid: setting priorities. It is no good saying that we would like peace and prosperity to reach every corner of the world. And it is no good listing hundreds of targets. Money for foreign aid, though munificent, is limited. What are the things that matter most, and what would be nice to achieve but matter less?

He seized Winston’s shoulder and spun him round so that he was facing him.

The origin of this quest for global priorities goes back to 2000, when Mr. Ban's predecessor, Kofi Annan, picked a set of "Millennium Development Goals," eight challenges to be met by 2015, which were adopted by world leaders. Although some of these goals were woolly, the very brevity of the list and the deadline itself meant that they really did catch the world's imagination and force the aid industry to be more selective.

Friday, July 25, 2014

July 25, 2014.

After Flight 17 Crash, Agony, Debris and Heartbreak in Ukraine Villages

"You are the last man," said O’Brien. "You are the guardian of the human spirit. You shall see yourself as you are. Take off your clothes."

PETROPAVLIVKA, Ukraine----Even before Malaysia Airlines 3786.KU -2.22%  Flight 17 was shot down, the war raging between Ukraine and pro-Russia rebels created crushing challenges for the mayor of this small, worn-down village.

Winston undid the bit of string that held his overalls together. The zip fastener had long since been wrenched out of them. He could not remember whether at any time since his arrest he had taken off all his clothes at one time. Beneath the overalls his body was looped with filthy yellowish rags, just recognizable as the remnants of underclothes. As he slid them to the ground he saw that there was a three-sided mirror at the far end of the room. He approached it, then stopped short. An involuntary cry had broken out of him.

Natalya Voloshina couldn't pay municipal salaries, pensions or energy bills because money from the central government in Kiev was frozen. The coal mine where her husband and high-school sweetheart works largely shut down. The fighting was creeping closer.

"Go on," said O’Brien. "Stand between the wings of the mirror. You shall see the side view as well."

Then the plane crashed. The second-row cabin's overhead compartment is in a tree across from the village hall----and suitcases and clothes are in backyards and gardens of square-windowed cottages.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

July 23, 2014.

Facebook Results Keep Surging on Mobile Ad Growth

O’Brien did not speak. Two other voices were speaking. After a moment Winston recognized one of them as his own. It was a soundtrack of the conversation he had had with O’Brien, on the night when he had enrolled himself in the Brotherhood. He heard himself promising to lie, to steal, to forge, to murder, to encourage drug-taking and prostitution, to disseminate venereal diseases, to throw vitriol in a child’s face. O’Brien made a small impatient gesture, as though to say that the demonstration was hardly worth making. Then he turned a switch and the voices stopped.

Facebook Inc. FB +2.92%  showed no signs of slowing down Wednesday, posting a second-quarter profit that more than doubled while wringing more mobile-advertising dollars from its users.

"Get up from that bed," he said.

Results easily beat expectations, pushing shares up almost 4% after hours.

The bonds had loosened themselves. Winston lowered himself to the floor and stood up unsteadily.

Revenue increased 61% as advertisers continued to pour money into the social network's deep well of users and unparalleled stockpile of personal information. This is especially the case on mobile devices, where users are gravitating in large numbers. Mobile-advertising accounted for 62% of advertising revenue in the quarter, up from 59% in the first quarter and 41% a year ago.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

July 20, 2014.

U.S. Points to Russian Missile Connection in Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Crash

"Yes."

New U.S. intelligence assessments indicate that Moscow likely provided pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine with sophisticated antiaircraft systems in recent days, matching evidence put forward by Ukraine and bolstering charges that Russia was the source of the weapon that shot down Malaysia Airlines 3786.KU -11.11%  Flight 17 this week, killing 298.

"If you are a man, Winston, you are the last man. Your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. Do you understand that you are ALONE? You are outside history, you are non-existent." His manner changed and he said more harshly: "And you consider yourself morally superior to us, with our lies and our cruelty?"

U.S. officials say they now suspect that Russia supplied the rebels with multiple SA-11 antiaircraft systems by smuggling them into eastern Ukraine with other military equipment, including tanks.

"Yes, I consider myself superior."

Further, U.S. officials believe the systems were moved back across the border into Russia following the shoot down of the jetliner, buttressing what Ukraine charges is an attempt by the rebels and their Russian advisers to cover up their involvement in the crash.

Friday, July 18, 2014

July 18, 2014.

The Innocent Lives of Flight 17: Parents, Children, Lovers, Friends

"Then what is it, this principle that will defeat us?"

AMSTERDAM----Cor Schilder woke early Tuesday to help his longtime girlfriend, Neeltje Tol, open her flower shop one last day before the couple headed to Bali.

"I don’t know. The spirit of Man."

Ms. Tol asked the shopkeeper next door to collect the mail while she was away, and then left a note on her store window. "Postman, please deliver the mail next door to Radio Jump we are on holiday." (Follow the latest updates on the Malaysia Airlines crash in Ukraine.)

"And do you consider yourself a man?"

Mr. Schilder, who worked at a landfill and played drums in a band, posted on Facebook FB +3.03%  a photograph he took Thursday of the Boeing BA +1.40%  777 that was Malaysia Airlines 3786.KU -11.11%  Flight 17. "Should it disappear," he wrote, tongue-in-cheek, "this is what it looked like." Then he and Ms. Tol boarded.

Thursday, July 17, 2014

July 17, 2014.

Malaysia Airlines Plane Was Hit by Surface-to-Air Missile, U.S. Officials Say

"No. I believe it. I KNOW that you will fail. There is something in the universe----I don’t know, some spirit, some principle----that you will never overcome."

A Malaysia Airlines 3786.KU -11.11%  plane carrying 283 passengers and 15 crew crashed Thursday in the battle-torn east Ukraine region of Donetsk, where U.S. intelligence agencies say it was struck by a ground-to-air missile.

"Do you believe in God, Winston?"

The U.S. agencies are divided over whether the missile was launched by the Russian military or by pro-Russia separatist rebels, who officials say lack the expertise on their own to bring down a commercial airline in midflight.

"No."

"All roads lead to the Russians to some degree," said a U.S. official. (Follow the latest updates on the Malaysia Airlines crash in Ukraine.)

Monday, July 14, 2014

July 14, 2014.

Obama Contends With Arc of Instability Unseen Since '70s

"We control life, Winston, at all its levels. You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable. Or perhaps you have returned to your old idea that the proletarians or the slaves will arise and overthrow us. Put it out of your mind. They are helpless, like the animals. Humanity is the Party. The others are outside----irrelevant."

WASHINGTON----A convergence of security crises is playing out around the globe, from the Palestinian territories and Iraq to Ukraine and the South China Sea, posing a serious challenge to President Barack Obama's foreign policy and reflecting a world in which U.S. global power seems increasingly tenuous.

"I don’t care. In the end they will beat you. Sooner or later they will see you for what you are, and then they will tear you to pieces."

The breadth of global instability now unfolding hasn't been seen since the late 1970s, U.S. security strategists say, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, revolutionary Islamists took power in Iran, and Southeast Asia was reeling in the wake of the U.S. exit from Vietnam.

"Do you see any evidence that that is happening? Or any reason why it should?"

In the past month alone, the U.S. has faced twin civil wars in Iraq and Syria, renewed fighting between Israel and the Palestinians, an electoral crisis in Afghanistan and ethnic strife on the edge of Russia, in Ukraine.

Saturday, July 12, 2014

July 12, 2014.

Will a Wounded Girl Be Saved?

"Nonsense. You are under the impression that hatred is more exhausting than love. Why should it be? And if it were, what difference would that make? Suppose that we choose to wear ourselves out faster. Suppose that we quicken the tempo of human life till men are senile at thirty. Still what difference would it make? Can you not understand that the death of the individual is not death? The party is immortal."

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan----Keyan Riley answered the phone and reached for his green, clothbound notebook. He began scrawling notes about the two Afghan girls whose lives had just fallen into his hands. "5 yr." the doctor wrote of the younger girl. "40 mm grenade."

As usual, the voice had battered Winston into helplessness. Moreover he was in dread that if he persisted in his disagreement O’Brien would twist the dial again. And yet he could not keep silent. Feebly, without arguments, with nothing to support him except his inarticulate horror of what O’Brien had said, he returned to the attack.

On the other end of the line was a surgeon from a Special Forces outpost in the Afghan hinterlands. The girls had accidentally detonated a discarded grenade. The younger one had chest wounds; the second, a six-year-old, was pierced by shrapnel in the abdomen.

"I don’t know----I don’t care. Somehow you will fail. Something will defeat you. Life will defeat you."

Could Dr. Riley send a medevac helicopter, the surgeon asked, to take the girls to the U.S. hospital at Bagram?

Friday, July 11, 2014

July 11, 2014.

Faces of the Affordable Care Act

"It is impossible to found a civilization on fear and hatred and cruelty. It would never endure."

For years, the health coverage Jaime Hood obtained for her 4-year-old son, who has a serious medical condition, hinged on keeping her income to near the poverty level—the threshold for Medicaid, the federal-state insurance for low-income people.

"Why not?"

In the months since one of the health law’s key provisions took effect--banning the insurance-industry practice of rejecting customers with medical conditions—she has taken a full-time job and boosted her income by 50%.

"It would have no vitality. It would disintegrate. It would commit suicide."

That is because Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City now must sell a plan for her son, Devyn, at the same price it charges for covering a healthy child, $186 a month. His private coverage began May 1.

Thursday, July 10, 2014

July 10, 2014.

Few Children Are Deported

"What do you mean by that remark, Winston?"

Thousands of children from Central America are undertaking a perilous journey to the U.S. border despite warnings from the U.S. that they will be sent back. In fact, many will get to stay.

"You could not create such a world as you have just described. It is a dream. It is impossible."

Data from immigration courts, along with interviews with the children and their advocates, show that few minors are sent home and many are able to stay for years in the U.S., if not permanently. That presents a deep challenge for President Barack Obama and lawmakers as they try to shore up an overburdened deportation system.

"Why?"

In fiscal year 2013, immigration judges ordered 3,525 migrant children to be deported, according to Justice Department figures. Judges allowed an additional 888 to voluntarily return home without a formal removal order.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

July 8, 2014.

Brazil Embarrassed as Ruthless Germany Wins 7-1

He paused as though he expected Winston to speak. Winston had tried to shrink back into the surface of the bed again. He could not say anything. His heart seemed to be frozen. O’Brien went on:

It’s been a peculiar World Cup. The group stage, a stupendous goal fest, had people proclaiming this tournament the greatest in history almost as soon as began. Then that period gave way to a series of fraught, low-scoring knockout matches. They’ve been compelling, by and large, but maybe the tournament could do with an injection of that early excitement to remind everybody that it’s still happening.

"And remember that it is for ever. The face will always be there to be stamped upon. The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again. Everything that you have undergone since you have been in our hands----all that will continue, and worse. The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease. It will be a world of terror as much as a world of triumph. The more the Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant: the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism. Goldstein and his heresies will live for ever. Every day, at every moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon and yet they will always survive. This drama that I have played out with you during seven years will be played out over and over again generation after generation, always in subtler forms. Always we shall have the heretic here at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible----and in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own accord. That is the world that we are preparing, Winston. A world of victory after victory, triumph after triumph after triumph: an endless pressing, pressing, pressing upon the nerve of power. You are beginning, I can see, to realize what that world will be like. But in the end you will do more than understand it. You will accept it, welcome it, become part of it."

Brazil-Germany, on Brazilian turf, should deliver. This will be a game of incredible intensity between two teams for whom success on the soccer pitch is a matter of national pride.

Winston had recovered himself sufficiently to speak. "You can’t!" he said weakly.

But what kind of game it will be will come down to how Brazil decides to play in the absence of its biggest star. Without Neymar----the tousle-haired beach infant who was supposed to win glory for Brazil before he fractured a vertebrae against Colombia – his teammates could go down one of two paths. They could:

Monday, July 7, 2014

July 7, 2014.

Some Still Lack Coverage Under Health Law

"I told you, Winston," he said, ‘that metaphysics is not your strong point. The word you are trying to think of is solipsism. But you are mistaken. This is not solipsism. Collective solipsism, if you like. But that is a different thing: in fact, the opposite thing. All this is a digression,’ he added in a different tone. "The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men."He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: "How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?"

Months after the sign-up deadline, thousands of Americans who purchased health insurance through the Affordable Care Act still don't have coverage due to problems in enrollment systems.

Winston thought. "By making him suffer," he said.

In states including California, Nevada and Massachusetts, which are running their own online insurance exchanges, some consumers picked a private health plan and paid their premiums only to learn recently that they aren't insured.

"Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but MORE merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy----everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always----do not forget this, Winston----always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face----for ever."

Others received a policy but then got married, had a baby or another "life event" that required their coverage to be updated, yet have been waiting months for the change to take effect.

Sunday, July 6, 2014

July 6, 2014.

Hillary Clinton Begins to Move Away From Obama Ahead of 2016

Winston made another convulsive movement. This time he did not say anything. O’Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection:

Hillary Clinton has begun distancing herself from President Barack Obama, suggesting that she would do more to woo Republicans and take a more assertive stance toward global crises, while sounding more downbeat than her former boss about the U.S. economic recovery.

"For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions upon millions of kilometres away. But what of it? Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?"

People are "really, really nervous" about their future, Mrs. Clinton said at an event in Colorado last week that included hints of her emerging strategy to convey that she would be more effective in the pursuit of Democratic policy goals than Mr. Obama has been during his time in office.

Winston shrank back upon the bed. Whatever he said, the swift answer crushed him like a bludgeon. And yet he knew, he KNEW, that he was in the right. The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind----surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false? Had it not been exposed long ago as a fallacy? There was even a name for it, which he had forgotten. A faint smile twitched the corners of O’Brien’s mouth as he looked down at him.

"They don't think the economy has recovered in a way that has helped them or their families," Mrs. Clinton said. In contrast, Mr. Obama sounded almost cheery after Thursday's jobs report, saying the country could make even more progress if Congress were willing to "set politics aside, at least occasionally."

Saturday, July 5, 2014

July 5, 2014.

LaFerrari Is a Million-Dollar Dream

"Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-century biologists invented them. Before man there was nothing. After man, if he could come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside man there is nothing."

THAT'S NO TYPO: The name of Ferrari's latest thunderbolt is LaFerrari, with the article lewdly rubbing against the proper noun. It's a great name.

"But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever."

First, note the anapestic gallop: la-fer-RAR-eee. For a company whose symbol is a black horse this is a trick worthy of our beloved Dante. Please observe, too, how it's a name that doesn't give a damn about Anglophones. Is it "the LaFerrari," which parses as "the the Ferrari"? Away from the factory gates, English dog.

"What are the stars?" said O’Brien indifferently. "They are bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out. The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it."

In tune with a Latin ear, the name italicizes exclusivity and rarity. Ferrari has said it would build 499 of the hybrid hypercars in the next two years, and no more. Prices vary with markets but the conversation starts at €1.2 million ($1.6 million). Or started. LaFerrari's order book was filled within weeks of its debut at the 2013 Geneva auto show.

Friday, July 4, 2014

July 4, 2014.

The Declaration of Independence: The Words Heard Around the World

"But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny----helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was uninhabited."

The Declaration of Independence is the birth certificate of the American nation—the first public document ever to use the name "the United States of America"—and has been fundamental to American history longer than any other text. It enshrined what came to be seen as the most succinct and memorable statement of the ideals on which the U.S. was founded: the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; the consent of the governed; and resistance to tyranny.

"Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness."

But the Declaration's influence wasn't limited to the American colonies of the late 18th century. No American document has had a greater impact on the wider world. As the first successful declaration of independence in history, it helped to inspire countless movements for independence, self-determination and revolution after 1776 and to this very day. As the 19th-century Hungarian nationalist, Lajos Kossuth, put it, the U.S. Declaration of Independence was nothing less than "the noblest, happiest page in mankind's history."

"But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals----mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever heard of."

In telling this story of global influence, however, it is important to separate two distinct elements of the Declaration—elements that sometimes get conflated. The first of these is the assertion of popular sovereignty to create a new state: in the Declaration's words, the right of "one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them." The second and more famous element of the Declaration is its ringing endorsement of the sanctity of the individual: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."

Thursday, July 3, 2014

July 3, 2014.

Dow Tops 17000, Investors See More Room for Bull Run

O’Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. "We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation----anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature."

Strong news on the U.S. economy pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average above 17000 for the first time Thursday, bolstering the belief among investors that the five-year bull market has more room to run.

"But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet. What about Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet."

The Dow's move came just 153 trading sessions since it first closed above 16000 on Nov. 21, 2013, making it be the seventh-fastest 1000-point gain in the blue chip barometer's history. The Dow's advance Thursday leaves the index up 3% for the year, having set 14 record high closes along the way, and up 13.9% from a year ago.

"Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. And if we did not, what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence. Oceania is the world."

The jump above 17000 was spurred by a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing U.S. employers added 288,000 jobs in June, well above the 215,000 expected by economists.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

July 2, 2014.

Facebook Experiments Had Few Limits

"We are the priests of power," he said. "God is power. But at present power is only a word so far as you are concerned. It is time for you to gather some idea of what power means. The first thing you must realize is that power is collective. The individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an individual. You know the Party slogan: “Freedom is Slavery”. Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is freedom. Alone----free----the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he IS the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal. The second thing for you to realize is that power is power over human beings. Over the body----but, above all, over the mind. Power over matter----external reality, as you would call it----is not important. Already our control over matter is absolute."

Thousands of Facebook Inc. FB -2.37%  users received an unsettling message two years ago: They were being locked out of the social network because Facebook believed they were robots or using fake names. To get back in, the users had to prove they were real.

For a moment Winston ignored the dial. He made a violent effort to raise himself into a sitting position, and merely succeeded in wrenching his body painfully.

In fact, Facebook knew most of the users were legitimate. The message was a test designed to help improve Facebook's antifraud measures. In the end, no users lost access permanently.

"But how can you control matter?" he burst out. "You don’t even control the climate or the law of gravity. And there are disease, pain, death--------"

The experiment was the work of Facebook's Data Science team, a group of about three dozen researchers with unique access to one of the world's richest data troves: the movements, musings and emotions of Facebook's 1.3 billion users.