Some marriages are more like collaborations than others. Take Sheldon Harnick and Margery Gray Harnick. He’s the renowned show-business figure who wrote the lyrics for, among other musical comedies, Fiorello Buy Windows 7 Product Key! and Tenderloin. When she was still a performer, she sang and danced in both. Which could be considered a collaboration of sorts.

(Harnick’s better known musical comedy collaborator was composer Jerry Bock, of course.)

But now that the Harnicks have been hitched for quite some time, they’ve collaborated much more closely and lovingly on The Outdoor Museum (Not Your Usual Images of New York) — for which she supplied the photographs and he provided the accompanying introductory poetic flights of fancy.

The idea behind the coffee-table tome is to tribute New York City as a sprawling site which may boast of being home to several actual museums but is — more than those institutions imply — a five-borough living-and-breathing museum. To prove the beauty and power of the City’s abundant and omnipresent visual displays, classy shutterbug Harnick includes 11 photo-essays, and by the time she’s snapped her last pic, she’s solidly made her point.

As a photographer, Gray believes in the vivid present — in vivid presences. The colors she captures are knife-edge bright — and irresistible — whether she’s pointing her camera at graffiti that could pass for the work of Jackson Pollack or Jean-Michel Basquiat, at the homeless in doorways or on subway trains or peering into swanky store windows, at a swan preening, at reflections of buildings in other buildings or in puddles Windows 7 Key, at fireworks, or at sections of sky and edifices predominantly white-blue-black.

Although the volume’s subtitle promises the unexpected image, that’s not quite what the contents deliver. Like every artist, Harnick has her obvious influences, including at least one — Ruth Orkin — whom hubby Sheldon invokes in a poem. With her photograph of a man regarding Fernando Botero’s nude male in the Time Warner lobby, Harnick even alludes to Orkin’s picture of a woman examining a statue of an equally robust (and nude) female. Others from whom she’s obviously learned include Eugene Atget, Berenice Abbott and Lisette Model Windows 7 product key free, For just one instance of her using Model as a model, check the latter’s “Reflections, New York, 1939-1945.” There’s even a head-on view of John Augustus Roebling’s Brooklyn Bridge that could have been clicked for posterity by anyone in the last 125 years.

That Harnick cribs from her predecessors — as they had often cribbed from theirs — doesn’t mean her “not your usual images” aren’t indelible in their own right. The photographs of commonplace outdoor objects that could pass for sculpture installations are eye-catching — although mixing them with genuine public art works confuses the intention. The portraits of buildings reflected in nearby glass-walled buildings instantly become metaphors for evanescence. The swan studies are as strikingly composed as many of the Bock melodies on which her husband set his impeccable lyrics.

Lyricist Harnick’s lead-in pieces are mostly charming and, perhaps needless to mention, frequently rhymed — but not as tightly as they might be were he going to have them set to music. (He reads them on an accompanying CD.) The final two poems fall below his usual high standards — one called “This Alien Race,” preceding a section featuring photographs of mannequins, and one called “Landmarks,” preceding photographs of not necessarily world-famous sites (e. g, a dysfunctional public telephone booth, a saxophonist near Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain).

The other nine intros are Harnick at, or near, his best. Here are two wry pieces from the forward to “7 Subway Haiku”:

If your train pulls in
just as you arrive, this does
not mean God loves you.

Those flamboyant scrawls
spray-painted on subway walls…
are those our Lascaux?

I am a living legacy to the leader of the band.
– Dan Fogelberg

Mother’s day has normally been melancholy for me. My mother and sister died in 2006, the same year my marriage ended. After they died, my nephew moved to Kentucky to live with me while he attended college at Eastern Kentucky University.

My mother and his mother were single mothers. We weren’t the Brady Bunch or the Waltons; our moms were all we had.

On 2007, mother’s day hit on my sister’s birthday, which also happened to be the anniversary of my crumbled marriage.

My nephew is an uber macho guy but suddenly started crying. When he started, I joined him for the rest of the day.

No tears this year. I’m using the day to reflect on what a terrific role model my single mother was.

And why Mother’s Day is a 365 day a year position for single mothers.

I’m surrounded by a lot of terrific single mothers. I am marrying one in a few weeks.

In the past ten years, she raised three children, became a highly acclaimed school principal and obtained a series of advance degrees and education honors.

I figured that after all that, she can tolerate my egocentric traits, or at least some of them.

My youngest daughter is currently engaged but has raised my 11-year-old grandson as a solo act. A key staff member is doing her first Mother’s Day as a single mom.

None of them complain about how hard it is, they just do it.

The way my mother replica watches, Ollie McNay, did.

I was too young to appreciate the sacrifices my mother made. She went from being a homemaker in a comfortable suburb to loading boxes at night in a potato chip factory.

During the day, she went to nursing school.

Once she became an operating room nurse, she had the steady income and steady career to raise us. It also meant that she worked insane hours and normally missed major holidays.

Mom wasn’t a “soccer mom.” I didn’t play soccer and if I had, she didn’t have time to attend. She was lucky to catch a football game now and then.

Her focus was to keep us in our house, in a nice neighborhood, and to pay for me to attend a terrific Catholic high school.

The tuition was about 10 percent of her net income. I suspect she did it by juggling credit cards and all the things I tell you not to do in my Wealth Without Wall Street book but it put me in a position to receive a high powered education and successful career.

Thank you mom.

I wish I had been mature enough to thank you then.

It’s easy to bash on the next generation as being self-absorbed, unable to communicate, and happier interacting with technology than people.

Then I see the children of the single mothers who touch me.

My fiance children spent the weekend fixing things around her house, doing yard work and gave her a big mother’s day celebration. They truly adore her.

My daughter posted on Facebook that her 11-year-old son made her breakfast in bed. I never thought about doing something that sweet and meaningful.

My staff member and her near teenage son did a mother-son outing where he did and said a number of things to make his mom feel special. I would have never dreamed of spending a day, or an out of town trip, with my mom at any point during my teen years.

They all seem to have a leg up on me.

Being the son of a single mother, I spent time feeling like I missed out.

I felt particularly isolated as one of the very few children of a divorced family in my neighborhood and schools.

I was lucky that my dad remained a strong part of my life but divorce was a stigma that I felt every day.

Along the way, I embrace the idea that being “different” were the keys to my success and happiness.

It’s no accident that I fell in love with a single mother. They know how to give unconditional love in a way the average people can’t.

Being a single mom was not really a choice. It was motivated by leaving an intolerable situation, losing most of her money and material possessions, and seeking a better life for herself and her children.

Just like my mother, it showed her that she had unique and special talents. It let her understand that she was smart, resourceful and has a work ethic that stuns and amazes people.

Like Nietzsche said, “That which does not kill us makes me stronger.”

What I know is that single mothers are stronger than I am. They draw upon strengths they didn’t know they had.

It’s easy to say that I miss my mother on Mother’s Day. Then I realize that she is part of me and always will be. Every day of every year.

Thank you mom.

Don McNay replica watches, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is the author of two bestselling books. McNay replica watches, who lives in Richmond, Ky., is an award-winning financial columnist and Huffington Post contributor. You can learn more about him at www.donmcnay.com.

He is one of the world’s leading authorities on what lottery winners should do with their money.
He is the Chairman of the Board for the McNay Settlement Group (www.mcnay.com) which provides structured settlement consulting for injury victims, lottery winners, and the families of special needs children.

McNay founded Kentucky Guardianship Administrators LLC, which assists attorneys in as conservators and setting up guardianships. It is nationally recognized as an administrator of Qualified Settlement (468b) funds.

This article originally appeared on MeritalBliss.com. Micky Sharpz Tattoo Machines

There’s really only one good reason to get married: because you’ve found your soul mate, you know each other well enough and long enough to be positive you want to spend the rest of your lives together, and you’re mature enough to work hard at keeping your relationship strong. But there are so many bad ones. Here are the seven worst.

Your ex is engaged.
I can’t pretend to know how excruciatingly painful it is when you learn that someone you thought you might one day marry is marrying someone else. Still, his or her impending nuptials shouldn’t accelerate the relationship you’re in toward forever. Whenever celebrity exes get engaged to new loves around the same time, I can’t help but think the first engagement is the main reason for the second betrothal.

Related: The scary new way brides are losing weight for their weddings.

You’ve been dating a while.
Longevity alone isn’t enough to qualify your relationship for a successful marriage. It’s certainly a nice foundation, but it takes much more, like shared dreams and mutual respect, to have a great shot at working out. Don’t take the next step solely because it’s the next step; be sure you’re perfect together.

You are Tattoo Gun Tattoos, or she is, pregnant.
Rush to the altar because you have a baby on the way and you’ll probably trip. You don’t need to be committed to someone to have sex that ends up creating a person. You should be committed to someone before you marry them. Sure, you two will share a link as long as you two and your child are alive, but plenty of well-adjusted children come from happy single-parent homes — and they may be better off than those children who come from unhappy two-parent homes. If you were moving toward marriage anyway and, whoops!, there’s now a baby on board, by all means Professional Tattoo Kits, go full steam ahead with your wedding plans.

Your friends are married.
It’s nice not to be a third, fifth, or seventh wheel when you go out with your coupled-off pals. It’s not as nice when you wish you held out for someone besides the person who makes you a twosome. Besides, good married buddies will hook you up so you won’t be single for long.

See more: The worst possible thing a bride could do to a bridesmaid

Your family wants you to.
Arranged marriages have worked for centuries in non-Western cultures (and probably some Western ones too). But if you don’t see yourself being happy with whomever your relatives see as your match, don’t get hitched. Or maybe Mom and Dad like the boyfriend you’ve chosen for yourself and are pressuring you to get engaged immediately because they’re dying to throw you the wedding they’ve dreamed of planning. Nope, still not a good reason to head into matrimony. Only you and your guy can decide when you’re ready.

He or she’s loaded.
While it seems to work fine for the current Mrs. Trump, money only takes a marriage so far. Yes, there is a lot to be said about leading a comfortable life, yet if you’re not living it with someone you love, what’s the point?

You’re worried you won’t find anyone else.
You will.

Do you think any of the above are actually good reasons to exchange vows? Any other extraordinarily crappy ideas to get married?

The Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration (ORAM) has just released the first-ever guide to welcoming lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people fleeing persecution in their home countries. As increasing numbers of these refugees flee to the United States What Are The Best Tattoo Guns, ORAM produced the guide for the American LGBT community and other groups willing to aid displaced LGBTI individuals. ORAM is the only organization focused exclusively on helping vulnerable LGBTI refugees worldwide find safety and rebuild their lives in welcoming communities.

Rainbow Bridges, a 48-page guide developed in a pilot project to resettle LGBT refugees in San Francisco, offers practical Where Can i Buy Tattoo Ink, step-by-step guidance on welcoming new refugees, ensuring their mental and physical well-being, and helping them find support in their new home country. It includes sample forms and a suggested code of conduct and outlines avenues for refugees to receive housing, employment, and federal assistance.

“There are immediate ways those of us in the U.S. can support members of our LGBT community facing persecution overseas,” said Neil Grungras, Executive Director of ORAM. “Uniting in support of queer asylum seekers and refugees is a powerful way of building community and reversing homophobia.”

ORAM estimates that the U.S. receives about 2,000 refugees a year who are fleeing persecution based on their gender orientation or identity, representing 6 percent of all refugees in America. Unlike other displaced migrants, those who are LGBT or intersex often undergo the integration process alone, shunned by religious and immigrant communities that form the safety net for most newly arrived immigrants, especially refugees and asylees. Rainbow Bridges can help LGBT, faith-based, and other communities welcome and support these individuals as they build new lives in the United States.

“LGBT refugees need a different reception for our differences and culture. If I were not gay, I would have easily been accepted into the African-American community and offered the services I needed; instead I faced further discrimination and restricted resources,” said Buchi Miles-Tuck, a gay asylee from Nigeria who fled two days before he was going to be killed. “If you have support from the LGBT community Luos Handmade Machines, you can get off the plane and experience how to be free in your own skin.”

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Yahoo Inc director Patti Hart Discount Hale Bob Dresses, who led the hiring of CEO Scott Thompson, will give up her seat on Yahoo’s board as the Internet company launches an investigation into the chief executive’s educational background.

Yahoo’s board said on Tuesday that is has appointed a special committee and retained a law firm to review CEO Scott Thompson’s educational credentials.

The three-person committee will review the “facts and circumstances” surrounding the hiring of Thompson, who it was revealed days ago does not have a computer science degree despite what was stated on his official company biography and in regulatory filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The controversy has rocked the struggling Internet company, raising questions about the future of Yahoo’s fourth CEO in five years and the latest plan to revive the company’s revenue growth.

Hart led the search committee that hired Scott Thompson, the president of PayPal, to take the CEO reins at Yahoo in January.

She said in a statement on Tuesday that she was leaving Yahoo’s board in order to “eliminate activities” that could interfere with her primary responsibilities as CEO of International Game Technology, a maker of electronic gaming machines.

The Chairman of IGT, Philip Satre, said in a statement on Tuesday that the company’s board had asked Hart not to seek re-election on Yahoo’s board, noting that the company believed it could become “a distraction” from her responsibilities.

Yahoo said in a statement that it had been informed by Hart that the IGT board requested she not seek re-election as a Yahoo director and thanks her for her years of service. Following the completion of Hart’s term at the annual meeting, Yahoo said its board will comprise nine directors.

The revelation about Thompson’s educational background was brought to light last week by activist hedge fund Third Point, which is Yahoo’s largest outside shareholder and is waging a proxy battle to install its own slate of directors on Yahoo’s board.

Third Point has called for Yahoo to turn over all records related to Thompson’s hiring and for Thompson to be fired.

The controversy marks the latest setback for Yahoo, a Web pioneer that has seen its popularity and revenue growth ebb amid competition from Google Inc Buy DKNY Clothing, Facebook Inc and other online companies.

Since taking the reins, Thompson has moved fast to shake things up at Yahoo, laying off 14 percent of the staff last month and filing a patent infringement suit against Facebook.

Thompson sent an email to Yahoo’s employees on Monday apologizing for the fallout from the controversy and noting that he hoped the board’s review would be concluded promptly, but has not publicly addressed the discrepancy in his educational background.

According to one Yahoo insider, Thompson’s brash style has alienated many people inside the company, leaving him with little internal support at a critical time.

“I don’t think he’s won himself the hearts and minds of everybody at the company,” said the Yahoo insider, who did not wish to be named.

Shares of Yahoo, which are down 22 percent from their 52-week high of $19.15, finished Tuesday’s regular trading session down 18 cents at $14.94.

Citing the “urgency” of the situation, Yahoo’s board said on Tuesday that the special committee will conduct the review in an “independent, thorough and expeditious manner” and will make appropriate disclosures to shareholders when the review is completed.

The committee will be led by Alfred Amoroso, an independent director who joined Yahoo in February, and has hired Los Angeles law firm of Bird, Marella, Boxer, Wolpert, Nessim, Drooks and Licenberg.

Hart, a board member since 2010, will be the latest of several directors to step down from Yahoo’s board, amid long-running investor discontent with the company’s performance and management.

In February, Yahoo said that Chairman Roy Bostock and three other directors would step down. One month before that, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang resigned from the board.

Hart also was accused by Third Point of embellishing her educational record. Third Point alleged last week that she has a degree in business administration, rather than in marketing and economics, as was stated in regulatory filings.

Yahoo confirmed that Hart has a bachelor of science degree in business administration with “specialties” in marketing and economics from Illinois State University.

IGT’s Satre said on Tuesday that the company’s board had found no inconsistencies in Hart’s academic credentials.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Carol Bishopric, Phil Berlowitz and M.D. Golan)

Tech Related Quotes and News Company Price Related News

A couple of years ago, pickup truck comparisons were all about power and towing capacity. Today Tattoo Supplies, fuel efficiency is the new battleground. For the 2009 model year, the GMC Sierra and Chevrolet Silverado XFE took their fuel economy figures up a notch by hitting 21 mpg on the highway and 15 in the city. Then Ford unveiled the F-150 SFE that matched those numbers, though without requiring the use of a tonneau cover. The Blue Oval dropped the SFE badge for 2010, but kept the improved fuel economy.

General Motors, however, is not content with a tie, and is upping the EPA numbers for its 2010 XFE Silverado and Sierra to 22 mpg on the highway, which just so happens to match the highway figure for the Sierra Hybrid. The combined fuel economy of both GMT900 trucks has also increased from 17 to 18 mpg.

Chevrolet spokesperson Brian Goebel told Pickuptrucks.com that the increased fuel economy is due to several engineering improvements. The XFE model’s 5.3-liter V8 now has variable valve timing, optimized shift pattens in its six-speed transmission Tattoo Supplies, and new tweaks for its Active Fuel Management system that enables the truck to run on four cylinders at cruising speeds for longer.

[Source: Pickuptrucks.com]

2010 Mercedes E63 AMG Wagon — Click above for high-res image gallery

The most pressing things we have to say about the 2010 Mercedes E63 AMG Wagon here at the Frankfurt Motor Show have nothing to do with the wagon. On the car itself, everything about it makes us go “Hot Replica DKNY Clothes!” It’s got 525 hp and 464 lb-ft from AMG’s well known naturally aspirated 6.3-liter V8 Discount White Herve leger, it’s got badass written in every body panel Discount DKNY Dresses, and it’s got the room and undercover cred of a wagon. It is also most tasteful inside Herve Leger sale, the carbon fiber trim playing its beautifully woven support notes for the cream interior.

But once past the “Hot Cheap DKNY Clothes!” the only thing looking at the E63 AMG Wagon does it make us drop to our knees and hold our heads in our hands, wondering why Mercedes won’t give us an E63 AMG Coupe. The real reason, not the hints and obfuscations. Then we could have one of each. And be happy for the rest of our lives. Don’t worry DKNY Clothing sale, Mercedes, we don’t mind starting with the wagon. But don’t be too long with that coupe, all right?

Related GalleryFrankfurt 2009: 2010 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG wagon

Xenatech conversions – Click above for image gallery
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Wonder where this firm Xenatech came from? The German company made headlines a couple of weeks ago with sketches of a Maybach coupe it intends to bring to market, but as you may well have guessed Buy Christian Audigier Clothes, the luxo-Merc isn’t the first chop job the company has undertaken.

Swing by the company’s website and you’ll find photochops of all manner of vehicles – most of them German Buy DKNY Dresses, natch – that have been turned from sedan into coupe Replica Herve Leger gown, coupe into sedan Cheap Herve Leger v neck, and much more. The first few look like simple stretch jobs of sport-utes and sedans like the Audi Q7, Mercedes G-Class and Bentley Continental Flying Spur. But delve a little deeper and you’ll find an Aston Vanquish shooting brake, Lexus LS460 coupe and pickup versions of the Porsche Cayenne and Volkswagen Touareg. A few of them are even a little prophetic: a Mercedes CLS wagon and four-door versions of the Porsche 911 and BMW 6 Series.

The best part is that Xenatech claims some of these have actually been made Cheap DKNY Clothes, though it isn’t saying which. Our fingers are crossed for that 7 Series with the extra headroom. Check out some of our favorites in the gallery below.

Related GalleryXenatech conversions
[Source: Xenatech via PistonHeads]

What did President Obama mean when he told Dmitry Medvedev that he’d have more "flexibility" after the election?

EPA/Ekaterina Shtukina/Ria Novosti/Kremlin.

Much fuss has been stirred over President Obama’s open-mic remark to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he’ll have more “space” and “flexibility” to negotiate the dispute over missile defense after he’s reelected.

Several Republicans have charged that his remark reflects a secret plan to “sell out” the U.S. missile-defense program and thus “capitulate” to the Russians (who, Mitt Romney seems to believe, are still “our No. 1 geopolitical foe”).

Obama has since explained that he merely meant that the issue’s “technical aspects” are too “complicated” to resolve in the heat of an election year—as this trumped-up controversy shows.

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What to make of this kerfuffle? Obama’s explanation, while clearly true, seems a little bit disingenuous. But the Republicans’ accusations, while theoretical, are totally out of whack with reality on several levels.

It’s obvious that presidents have more flexibility when they’re no longer facing another election. The question is, what are they likely to do with it? Newt Gingrich has thundered that Obama will make war on the Catholic Church from the first day of his second term. This, of course, is sheer lunacy. But is there anything to the prediction that Obama will set out to destroy missile defense?

If there is Cheap Missoni Dresses, he has a funny way of going about it. The military budget he submitted to Congress last month cuts the allotment for a lot of high-profile weapons projects—but it requests $9.7 billion for missile defense (with forecasts of $47.4 billion over the next five years). In other words, no cut at all.

And it’s not just the money. One item on the agenda at the NATO summit in Chicago this May is the announcement that the missile-defense system will have achieved “interim capability”—which is to say that, to a limited extent Replica White Herve leger, it’s right on schedule. The USS Monterrey, the first Aegis-class cruiser designed to carry a ballistic-missile-defense system, will in fact be carrying SM-3 interceptor missiles in the Mediterranean. At the same time, as agreed late last year, an early-warning radar system will be switched on at the Kurecik base in Turkey. Meanwhile, Spain has agreed to serve as the home port for four Aegis cruisers. Agreements have also been signed with Romania and Poland to serve as sites for land-based SM-3s in 2015; already Replica Emilio Pucci Dresses, Polish and Romanian officers have been rotating in and out of a training base for operating the sites.

Now it’s true, Obama could junk all these accords after swearing the oath for his second term. They are executive actions, requiring no congressional approval. But why would he have gone to the trouble of spending all this money, redesigning all these ships, and arranging all these NATO agreements, if he was just going to scuttle them? It’s a lot to scuttle. If his real agenda all along were simply to cuddle up with the Russians, it would have made more sense not to build these projects and make these commitments in the first place; the cuddling wouldn’t seem such a conspicuous reversal.

Obama entered the White House a skeptic on missile defense, but after his first few months in office, for better or worse, he came around. First, the program in development was no longer Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” fantasy of a space-based missile shield; it had been whittled down to a more reality-based defense against limited nuclear attacks launched by rogue regimes or terrorists—a much more plausible mission scientifically. Second, tests of the SM-3, which is designed to shoot down short- to medium-range missiles, have been more successful than earlier generations of interceptors (though there’s still controversy over just how successful the tests have been).

In September 2009, Obama did abandon George W. Bush’s plan to deploy interceptors inside the Czech Republic and Poland, deciding instead to go with a “phased adaptive approach” to install the interceptors on ships at sea, with the possible option of putting some a few years later in Poland and Romania. This decision stemmed, in part, from Obama’s broader desire to “reset” U.S.-Russian relations, which Bush had left in deep disrepair. But it also stemmed from the Pentagon’s analysis that a sea-based system would be better; the interceptors would be less vulnerable to a preemptive strike, and, because ships are mobile, they could deal with attacks from a broader range of foes.

So what did Obama mean when he said he’d have more “flexibility” in his second term? Flexibility to do what? To get at this requires Discount Emilio Pucci Dresses, first, an understanding of why the Russians are so nervous about the prospect of a U.S. (or NATO) missile-defense program so close to their border, in the heart of their former empire.

That second question almost answers itself. No weapon is purely defensive, not even one that’s designed to shoot down an offensive missile. Back in the darkest days of the Cold War, the superpowers maintained a durable peace because of nuclear deterrence: If one side launched a nuclear attack, the other would retaliate in kind. Victory in any meaningful sense was impossible. But if one side developed an effective ballistic-missile-defense system, it could launch a first strike and, when the other side retaliated with whatever weapons survived the attack, it could shoot most of them down. Victory was possible, at least on paper.

This scenario, of course, was loony. Even in the most optimistic scenarios, the “winning” side would lose at least 10 million people, and suffer hundreds of billions of dollars in damages, as a result of the retaliation. (As Gen. Buck Turgidson Emilio Pucci Dresses sale, the George C. Scott character, in Dr. Strangelove put it Discount Marc Jacobs Dresses, “I’m not saying we won’t get our hair mussed up …”) But really (readers under the age of 30 or so will have to trust me on this), educated scholars and statesmen actually held forth on such scenarios, with straight faces and  furrowed brows, not just in the depths of the Cold War but well into the 1990s.

It is definitely bizarre that the Russians seem to be obsessing over this scenario so many years later. After all, even George W. Bush’s plan envisioned a couple dozen interceptors in Eastern Europe. No way they could have neutralized the Russians’ arsenal of well over 1,000 ballistic-missile warheads.

This is all true, for now. But a Russian might wonder about the future. NATO’s plan calls for these interceptors to grow in number, and to expand in range and power. By 2020, an upgraded version of the SM-3 will have, at least on paper, the ability to shoot down not just short-range missiles but intercontinental-range models as well. And the interceptors in Poland and Romania, as well as the radar in Turkey, may be well-situated to deal with missiles launched from Iran. But if you twist the compass a little, they could also deal with some launched from Russia.

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Read Slate’s complete coverage of the GOP Convention.

John McCain at the Republican National Convention

John McCain wanted to make a clear contrast Thursday with Barack Obama, and he did: His acceptance speech was as halting as Obama’s was fluent. With the neon-blue screen behind him, McCain could have been your local TV weatherman—a map could pop up at any moment!—or a contestant on Jeopardy. His call to national service was lost in a rushed delivery, and his crescendo at the end was drowned out by an audience that had been told to stand up but did so before the candidate called on them to “stand up!” (It turns out it’s a little harder to pull off one of these speeches than some think.)

Click on the player below to see Slate’s reaction to McCain’s speech.

If there’s one thing speechwriter Mark Salter wanted you to hear, it came at the end, after McCain told the story of his captivity. “I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else’s. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency; for its faith in the wisdom, justice Replica MB&F Watches, and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again. I wasn’t my own man anymore. I was my country’s.”

The passage is an eloquent reminder of McCain’s wartime courage—and it is a foreshadowing of the campaign to come. Now that the conventions are over, the presidential race will become a crude Fake Baume & Mercier Watches for sale, basic battle of issues vs. character. There was nothing adventuresome in McCain’s proposals, which are standard GOP fare. (The main thrust was that whatever McCain’s views, he’ll do the right thing, whatever the right thing may be.) Obama’s strategy, meanwhile, was best framed last week by Bill Clinton, who said that on the two signature issues of this campaign—the economy and foreign policy—McCain’s positions are indistinguishable from those of the deeply unpopular president.

The coming battle will range over the question of change that has been at the center of this campaign since both party primaries: Which candidate can improve the atmosphere in Washington and reshape the institutions of government that people distrust so deeply? McCain has the harder task. He’s a 26-year veteran of the capital, and he’s tied to the unpopular administration. (If you haven’t seen the picture of the two men hugging, someone from the Obama campaign will be happy to hand-deliver one to your house. If you’re not home, they’ll wait.)

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McCain tried to distance himself from Bush repeatedly in his speech. He didn’t even mention the president’s name (though he mentioned Laura’s), and he talked about getting the country moving again, even though his party has controlled the White House for eight years. For the rest of the campaign, McCain strategists will keep him away from the current president.

And yet in his speech, McCain borrowed one of Bush’s tactics. McCain used a version of the same argument Bush used against him during the 2000 Republican primaries, when Bush called himself a “Reformer With Results.” The message: McCain was all talk. Now McCain is pitching himself as the reformer with accomplishments against Obama’s mere words. “I will reach out my hand to anyone to help me get this country moving again,” he said. “I have that record and the scars to prove it. Senator Obama does not.”

There are just 60 days to go before Election Day. Subtract the wasted days for the four debates, debate preparation, and a down day here and there, and you get something closer to 40 days the candidates can spend in key battleground states. Just as the calendar is shrinking, so is the map. Millions have watched these two pageants. Now it’s time to ignore much of the country and pay attention to the people in the handful of states that will determine the next president.

Here’s where things stand: If you look at the latest national polling Fake Ulysse Nardin Watches for sale, Obama is up by an average of about five points. That gap may shrink if McCain gets a bounce from his convention, but with each passing day Replica Aigner Watches, national numbers are increasingly meaningless. What’s most important now is how things are going in the battleground states. In those states, things look much better for Obama than they do nationally. If you look at the pollster.com map of state polling Imitation Parmigiani Fleurier Watches, Obama has 260 of the 270 electoral votes he needs. John McCain has 186.

If current trends hold, Obama needs only to pick up Virginia and Colorado, two states where he’s ahead Where to buy Replica Vacheron Constantin Watches, where trends favor him, and where he won in the primaries. Obama is not only ahead in all the states John Kerry won, he’s virtually locked down Iowa, a state George Bush won. (He’s ahead by 15 in the latest CNN poll.)

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