Too Much Information

If you read about the topics below, you will know what has been consuming my time and impeding my ability to post - that, and the fact Jude and I are having a contest to see who can go the longest without writing. Start small.

Table of Contents
-Business Intelligence
-Balanced Scorecard
-ETL
-Informatica
-Operational Data Store (ODS)
-Database
-Data Warehouse
-Star Schema
-Snowflake Schema
-Dimension
-Foreign Key
-Primary Key
-Microsoft SQL Server
-SQL
-Cognos

Business intelligence

The phrase business intelligence (BI) may refer to:
1. a set of business processes
2. the technology used in these processes, and
3. the information obtained from these processes.

Organizations typically gather such information in order to assess the business environment, and cover fields such as marketing research, industry or market research, and competitor analysis. Competitive organizations accumulate business intelligence in order to gain sustainable competitive advantage, and may regard such intelligence as a valuable core competence in some instances.

Persons involved in business intelligence processes may use application software and other technologies to gather, store, analyze, and provide access to data (also known as business intelligence). Some observers regard BI as the process of enhancing data into information and then into knowledge. The software aims to help people make "better" business decisions by making accurate, current, and relevant information available to them when they need it.

Generally, BI-collectors glean their primary information from internal business sources. Such sources help decision-makers understand how well they have performed. Secondary sources of information include customer needs, customer decision-making processes, the competition and competitive pressures, conditions in relevant industries, and general economic, technological, and cultural trends.

Each business-intelligence system has a specific goal, which derives from an organizational goal or from a vision statement. Both short-term goals (such as quarterly numbers to Wall Street) and long term goals (such as shareholder value, target industry share / size, etc) exist.

Industrial espionage may provide business intelligence by using covert techniques. A gray area exists between "normal" business intelligence and industrial espionage.

Some people use the term "BI" interchangeably with "briefing books" or with "executive information systems". One can regard a business intelligence system as a decision-support system (DSS).

Business performance management offers software-oriented business intelligence systems that some see as a new generation of business intelligence, though most people in the field use the terms interchangeably.

Contents
• 1 History
• 2 Metrics / Key Performance Indicators
• 3 Application software types
• 4 Designing and implementing a business intelligence programme
• 5 See also (companies)
• 6 See also
History

An early reference to non-business intelligence occurs in Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Sun Tzu claims that to succeed in war, one should have full knowledge of one's own strengths and weaknesses and full knowledge of one's enemy's strengths and weaknesses. Lack of either one might result in defeat. A certain school of thought draws parallels between the challenges in business and those of war, specifically:

• collecting data
• discerning patterns and meaning in the data (generating information)
• responding to the resultant information

Prior to the start of the Information Age in the late 20th century, businesses sometimes took the trouble to struggle to collect data from non-automated sources. Businesses then lacked the computing resources to properly analyze the data, and often made commercial decisions primarily on the basis of intuition.

As businesses started automating more and more systems, more and more data became available. However, collection remained a challenge due to a lack of infrastructure for data exchange or to incompatibilities between systems. Reports on the data gathered sometimes took months to generate. Such reports allowed informed long-term strategic decision-making. However, short-term tactical decision-making continued to rely on intuition.
In modern businesses, increasing standards, automation, and technologies have led to vast amounts of data becoming available. Data warehouse technologies have set up repositories to store this data. Improved ETL and even recently Enterprise Application Integration tools have increased the speedy collecting of data. OLAP reporting technologies have allowed faster generation of new reports which analyze the data. Business intelligence has now become the art of sieving through large amounts of data, extracting information and turning that information into actionable knowledge.

In 1989 Howard Dresner, a Research Fellow at Gartner Group popularized "BI" as a umbrella term to describe a set of concepts and methods to improve business decision-making by using fact-based support systems. Dresner left Gartner in 2005 and joined Hyperion Solutions as its Chief Strategy Officer.

Metrics / Key Performance Indicators

BI often uses Key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess the present state of business and to prescribe a course of action. More and more organizations have started to make data available more promptly. In the past, data only became available after a month or two, which did not help managers to adjust activities in time to hit Wall Street targets. Recently, banks have tried to make data available at shorter intervals and have reduced delays. For example, for businesses which have higher operational/credit risk loading (for example, credit cards and "wealth management"), A large multi-national bank makes KPI-related data available weekly, and sometimes offers a daily analysis of numbers. This means data usually becomes available within 24 hours, necessitating automation and the use of IT systems.

Application software types

People working in business intelligence have developed tools that ease the work, especially when the intelligence task involves gathering and analyzing large quantities of unstructured data.

Tool categories commonly used for business intelligence include:
• OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) sometimes simply called "Analytics" (based on dimensional analysis and the so-called "hypercube" or "cube")
• Scorecarding, Dashboarding and Information visualization
• Data warehouses
• DM - Data mining
• Business performance management
• Document warehouses
• Text mining
• EIS - Executive Information Systems
• DSS - Decision Support Systems
• MIS - Management Information Systems
• GIS - Geographic Information Systems

Designing and implementing a business intelligence programme

When implementing a BI programme one might like to pose a number of questions and take a number of resultant decisions, such as:

• Goal Alignment queries: The first step determines the short and medium-term purposes of the programme. What strategic goal(s) of the organization will the programme address? What organizational mission/vision does it relate to? A crafted hypothesis needs to detail how this initiative will eventually improve results / performance (i.e. a strategy map).

• Baseline queries: Current information-gathering competency needs assessing. Does the organization have the capability of monitoring important sources of information? What data does the organization collect and how does it store that data? What are the statistical parameters of this data, e.g. how much random variation does it contain? Does the organization measure this?

• Cost and risk queries: The financial consequences of a new BI initiative should be estimated. It is necessary to assess the cost of the present operations and the increase in costs associated with the BI initiative? What is the risk that the initiative will fail? This risk assessment should be converted into a financial metric and included in the planning?

• Customer and Stakeholder queries: Determine who will benefit from the initiative and who will pay. Who has a stake in the current procedure? What kinds of customers/stakeholders will benefit directly from this initiative? Who will benefit indirectly? What are the quantitative / qualitative benefits? Is the specified initiative the best way to increase satisfaction for all kinds of customers, or is there a better way? How will customers' benefits be monitored? What about employees,... shareholders,... distribution channel members?

• Metrics-related queries: These information requirements must be operationalized into clearly defined metrics. One must decide what metrics to use for each piece of information being gathered. Are these the best metrics? How do we know that? How many metrics need to be tracked? If this is a large number (it usually is), what kind of system can be used to track them? Are the metrics standardized, so they can be benchmarked against performance in other organizations? What are the industry standard metrics available?

• Measurement Methodology-related queries: One should establish a methodology or a procedure to determine the best (or acceptable) way of measuring the required metrics. What methods will be used, and how frequently will the organization collect data? Do industry standards exist for this? Is this the best way to do the measurements?

How do we know that?

• Results-related queries: Someone should monitor the BI programme to ensure that objectives are being met. Adjustments in the programme may be necessary. The programme should be tested for accuracy, reliability, and validity. How can one demonstrate that the BI initiative (rather than other factors) contributed to a change in results? How much of the change was probably random?

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Balanced scorecard

In 1992, Robert S. Kaplan and David Norton introduced the balanced scorecard (BSC), a method for measuring a company's activities in terms of its vision and strategies. It gives managers a comprehensive view of the performance of a business.

It is a management tool that continuously reveals whether a company and its employees achieve the results set forth by the strategy. But it is also a tool that helps the company express the necessary objectives and initiatives to support the strategies.

Contents

• 1 A comprehensive view of business performance
• 2 Purpose of the balanced scorecard
• 3 Adoption results survey
• 4 See also
• 5 References
A comprehensive view of business performance

The scorecard seeks to measure a business from the following perspectives:

• Financial perspective - measures reflecting financial performance, for example number of debtors, cash flow or return on investment. The financial performance of an organization is fundamental to its success. Even non-profit organizations must make the books balance. Financial figures suffer from two major drawbacks:

o They are historical. Whilst they tell us what has happened to the organization they may not tell us what is currently happening, or be a good indicator of future performance.

o It is common for the current market value of an organization to exceed the market value of its assets. Tobin's-q measures the ratio of the value of a company's assets to its market value. The excess value can be thought of as intangible assets. These figures are not measured by normal financial reporting.

• Customer perspective - measures having a direct impact on customers, for example time taken to process a phone call, results of customer surveys, number of complaints or competitive rankings.

• Business process perspective - measures reflecting the performance of key business processes, for example the time spent prospecting, number of units that required rework or process cost.

• Learning and growth perspective - measures describing the companies learning curve, for example number of employee suggestions or total hours spent on staff training.

The specific measures within each of the perspectives will be chosen to reflect the drivers of the particular business. The method can facilitate the separation of strategic policymaking from the implementation, so that organizational goals can be broken into task oriented objectives which can be managed by front-line staff. It can also help detect correlation between activities. For example, we might find that the internal business objective of implementing a new telephone system can help the customer objective of reducing response time to telephone calls, leading to increased sales from repeat business.

In many senses, the objectives chosen are leading indicators of future performance. Effort we make today is reflected in the future profits of the company. In this way, current expenditure can be viewed as investment in the future of the company.

Purpose of the balanced scorecard

Kaplan and Norton found that companies are using the scorecard to:
• Clarify and update strategy
• Communicate strategy throughout the company
• Align unit and individual goals with strategy
• Link strategic objectives to long term targets and annual budgets
• Identify and align strategic initiatives
• Conduct periodic performance reviews to learn about and improve strategy

Adoption results survey

In 1997 Kurtzman found that 64% of companies questioned were measuring performance from a number of perspectives in a similar way to the balanced scorecard.

It is difficult to interpret the impressive survey based adoption statistics for the Balanced Scorecard, however, without being clear on how the term was both defined and understood by those participating in the survey. In practice, it appears, there are wide variations in understanding between organisations. In 2002, Cobbold and Lawrie developed a classification of Balanced Scorecard designs based upon intended method of use within an organisation. They describe how Balanced Scorecard can be used to support two distinct management activities, management control and strategic control, and asserts that due to differences in the performance data requirements of these applications, planned use should influence the type of Balanced Scorecard design adopted. They also describe characteristics of Balanced Scorecards appropriate for each purpose, and suggests a framework to help select between them.

Later that year the same authors reviewed the evolution of the Balanced Scorecard as a strategic management tool, recognising three distinct generations of Balanced Scorecard design. In their paper, they relate the empirically driven developments in Balanced Scorecard thinking with literature concerning strategic management within organisations. Cobbold and Lawrie argue that over the dozen years that have passed since its introduction significant changes have been made to the physical design, application and the design processes used to implement the tool within organisations. This Balanced Scorecard evolution can largely be attributed to empirical evidence of changes driven primarily by weaknesses in earlier design processes, rather than in the architecture of the original idea they write. They conclude that it is these changes, in what they refer to as 3rd Generation Balanced Scorecard that have enhanced the utility of Balanced Scorecard as a strategic management tool.

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Extract, transform, load

Extract, transform, and load (ETL) is a process in data warehousing that involves
• extracting data from outside sources,
• transforming it to fit business needs, and ultimately
• loading it into the data warehouse.

ETL is important, as it is the way data actually gets loaded into the warehouse. This article assumes that data is always loaded into a data warehouse, whereas the term ETL can in fact refer to a process that loads any database.

Contents

• 1 Extract
• 2 Transform
• 3 Load
• 4 Challenges
• 5 Tools
o 5.1 Some ETL tools
• 6 See also
• 7 External links
Extract

The first part of an ETL process is to extract the data from the source systems. Most data warehousing projects consolidate data from different source systems. Each separate system may also use a different data organization / format. Common data source formats are relational databases, and flat files, but other source formats exist. Extraction converts the data into records and columns (aka fields).

Transform

The transform phase applies a series of rules or functions to the extracted data to derive the data to be loaded. Some data sources will require very little manipulation of data. However, in other cases any combination of the following transformations types may be required:

• Selecting only certain columns to load (or if you prefer, null columns not to load)
• Translating coded values (e.g. If the source system stores M for male and F for female but the warehouse stores 1 for male and 2 for female)
• Encoding free-form values (e.g. Mapping "Male" and "M" and "Mr" onto 1)
• Deriving a new calculated value (e.g. sale_amount = qty * unit_price)
• Joining together data from multiple sources (e.g. lookup, merge, etc)
• Summarizing multiple rows of data (e.g. total sales for each region)
• Generating Surrogate_key values
• Transposing(turning multiple columns into multiple rows or vice versa)

Load

The load phase loads the data into the data warehouse. Depending on the requirements of the organization, this process ranges widely. Some data warehouses merely overwrite old information with new data. More complex systems can maintain a history and audit trail of all changes to the data.

Challenges

ETL processes can be quite complex, and significant problems can occur. Improperly designed ETL systems or an unexpected change in format of one of the source systems can cause serious problems in the ETL process potentially destroying or corrupting significant amounts of data in the target system. An additional difficulty is making sure the data being uploaded is relatively consistent. Since multiple source databases all have different update cycles (some may be updated every few minutes, while others may take days or weeks), an ETL system may be required to hold back certain data until all sources are synchronized.

Tools

While an ETL process can be created using almost any programming language, creating them from scratch is quite complex. Increasingly, companies are buying ETL tools to help in the creation of ETL processes.

A good ETL tool must be able to communicate with the many different relational databases and read the various file formats used throughout an organization. ETL tools have started to migrate into Enterprise Application Integration, or even Enterprise Service Bus, systems that now cover much more than just the extraction transformation and loading of data. Many ETL vendors now have data profiling, data quality and metadata capabilities.

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Informatica

Informatica PowerCenter

Unlock the Value of Your Strategic Data Assets

Informatica PowerCenter provides a single enterprise data integration platform to help organizations access, transform, and integrate data from a large variety of systems and deliver that information to other transactional systems, real-time business processes, and people. PowerCenter supports the activities of a business' integration competency center (ICC) and other integration experts by serving as the foundation for data warehousing, data migration, consolidation, “single-view,” metadata management, and synchronization. By enabling enterprises to create a single, consistent enterprise-wide information resource, PowerCenter helps them reduce IT costs and complexity, harness new technologies, and empower the business.

Your business turns to IT to support its needs, whether the issue is mergers and acquisitions, compliance, customer profitability, or any other strategic initiative. But IT often can't respond effectively. Hindered by a complex environment of systems that were not designed to share data, they respond slowly and often ineffectively, potentially compromising your business. Organizations must integrate data and manage their metadata using a robust enterprise data integration platform.

With Informatica PowerCenter you can:
Integrate data to provide business users holistic access to enterprise data—data is comprehensive, accurate, and timely
Scale and respond to business needs for information—deliver data in a secure, scalable environment that provides immediate data access to all disparate sources
Simplify design, collaboration, and re-use to reduce developers' time to results—unique metadata management helps boost efficiency to meet changing market demands

Ingredients for Success

Enterprise-level data integration

Informatica PowerCenter helps organizations respond to the business in a more coordinated, strategic way by bringing together all enterprise data and ensuring it's trustworthy and timely. Leverage of standards, metadata, and near-universal mainframe data access enables you to unlock the value of information from your disparate applications and databases. PowerCenter ensures accuracy of data through a single environment for transforming, profiling, integrating, cleansing, and reconciling data and managing metadata. It also helps ensure the right data reaches the right people at the right time, through real-time, on-demand, or periodic data updates.

Scalability

As your integrated IT resource becomes even more mission-critical, it must consistently provide secure, scalable, on-demand data. PowerCenter ensures security through complete user authentication, granular privacy management, and secure transport of your data. Linear scalability optimizes use of available resources—including 64-bit processors and Linux systems. Open APIs make it easier to add new data sources for extensibility. Processing options—including data-smart parallelism, partitioning, and the ability to scale out to heterogeneous grids—deliver flexibility in meeting increased demands. Interoperable and extensible, PowerCenter is portable across platforms without re-coding.

Developer productivity

Your development teams must be able to respond promptly to your business' changing needs, rapidly designing, collaborating on, and building solutions that address your latest requirements. PowerCenter simplifies design processes by making it easy to search and profile data, reuse objects across teams and projects, and leverage metadata. It facilitates collaboration across teams, sites, and projects by providing granular version control and automated configuration. To minimize risk and increase speed of deployment, PowerCenter maximizes re-use of code and provides impact analysis and data lineage information to assess the consequences of each change before you implement.

PowerCenter Editions

PowerCenter is available in two editions:
PowerCenter Standard Edition—The industry's leading software for accessing, integrating, and delivering data, PowerCenter Standard Edition cost-effectively leverages data from any system, to any system. PowerCenter Standard Edition allows installation in under thirty minutes.
PowerCenter Advanced Edition—In addition to all the features of PowerCenter Standard Edition, PowerCenter Advanced Edition provides broad enterprise data integration with a single platform, robust metadata analysis and rich reporting capabilities, cost-effective grid computing and team-based development capabilities. With PowerCenter Advanced Edition, organizations can realize the benefits of a unified platform that addresses the full data integration lifecycle-helping to drive productivity, lower maintenance costs, and gain a substantial cost advantage with a rapid out-of-the-box experience. PowerCenter Advanced Edition allows installation all from one CD, all in under an hour.

Informatica PowerExchange

Unlock Complex Data. On Demand.

Informatica PowerExchange, based on a services-oriented architecture (SOA), provides on-demand access to data in all critical enterprise data systems, including mainframe, midrange, and file-based systems. Available as a standalone service or tightly integrated with Informatica PowerCenter, PowerExchange helps organizations leverage mission-critical operational data by making it available to people and processes without requiring manual coding of data extraction programs. Its SQL access to native database APIs provides high-performance extraction, conversion, and filtering of data without intermediary staging and programming. Shared services offer data delivery options that enable IT organizations to flexibly and efficiently manage processing demands.

Organizations today demand immediate access to accurate information for quick decision making and high-speed operations. At the same time, the volume and variety of data is exploding, stretching the capacity of IT resources and infrastructures. To leverage the full value of their information, organizations must be able to integrate data from a wide variety of transactional applications and systems for easy access and "right time" delivery.

PowerExchange provides on-demand access to immediate, accurate, and understandable data. With Informatica PowerExchange you can:
Access and deliver data in "right time"
Extend existing IT investments
Unlock complex systems without coding

Access data on demand

PowerExchange offers several options for capturing data and making it available to a range of targets. It can capture data from relational and non-relational data sources either as whole data sets or as incremental changed data, in real-time or in a scheduled batch process. PowerExchange enables organizations to schedule data delivery to multiple targets weekly, daily, hourly—even at the sub-second. Informatica PowerExchange provides a single architecture that allows a seamless transition from batch and bulk, to batch and changed data capture, to real-time changed data capture delivery. PowerExchange also eliminates the need for multiple-step processes with extraction, file transfer, and load scripts for batch data processing.

Extend existing IT investments

Based on an extensible, service-oriented architecture, PowerExchange supports a variety of platforms. As a business decides to make more of its data sources available to other applications across the enterprise, it can add platforms easily. SQL access to native database APIs delivers high performance: PowerExchange extracts, converts, filters, and makes data available to target systems without intermediary staging and program coding.

Unlock complex systems without coding

Unlocking the value of legacy systems once meant costly new system development and data migration, or complex hand coding to access critical data. Informatica PowerExchange significantly reduces the time and resources required to leverage existing investments, streamlining access to legacy systems and delivering data to a range of business applications. It masks the complexity of source systems from developers and offers an intuitive GUI with SQL-like access, eliminating the need for lengthy training and implementation.

PowerExchange Architecture

Supported Platforms
See the complete list of supported platforms for PowerExchange, including options for batch, real-time and changed data capture.

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Operational data store

An operational data store (or "ODS") is a database designed to integrate data from multiple sources to facilitate operations, analysis and reporting. Because the data originates from multiple sources, the integration often involves cleaning, redundancy resolution and business rule enforcement. An ODS is usually designed to contain low level or atomic (indivisible) data such as transactions and prices as opposed to aggregated or summarized data such as net contributions. Aggregated Data usually is stored in the

Database

A database is an organized collection of data. The term originated within the computer industry, but its meaning has been broadened by popular use, to the extent that the European Database Directive (which creates intellectual property rights for databases) includes non-electronic databases within its definition. This article is confined to a more technical use of the term; though even amongst computing professionals, some attach a much wider meaning to the word than others.

One possible definition is that a database is a collection of records stored in a computer in a systematic way, such that a computer program can consult it to answer questions. For better retrieval and sorting, each record is usually organized as a set of data elements (facts). The items retrieved in answer to queries become information that can be used to make decisions. The computer program used to manage and query a database is known as a database management system (DBMS). The properties and design of database systems are included in the study of information science.

The central concept of a database is that of a collection of records, or pieces of knowledge. Typically, for a given database, there is a structural description of the type of facts held in that database: this description is known as a schema. The schema describes the objects that are represented in the database, and the relationships among them. There are a number of different ways of organizing a schema, that is, of modelling the database structure: these are known as database models (or data models). The model in most common use today is the relational model, which in layman's terms represents all information in the form of multiple related tables each consisting of rows and columns (the true definition uses mathematical terminology). This model represents relationships by the use of values common to more than one table. Other models such as the hierarchical model and the network model use a more explicit representation of relationships.

Strictly speaking, the term database refers to the collection of related records, and the software should be referred to as the database management system or DBMS. When the context is unambiguous, however, many database administrators and programmers use the term database to cover both meanings.

Many professionals would consider a collection of data to constitute a database only if it has certain properties: for example, if the data is managed to ensure its integrity and quality, if it allows shared access by a community of users, if it has a schema, or if it supports a query language. However, there is no agreed definition of these properties.

Database management systems are usually categorized according to the data model that they support: relational, object-relational, network, and so on. The data model will tend to determine the query languages that are available to access the database. A great deal of the internal engineering of a DBMS, however, is independent of the data model, and is concerned with managing factors such as performance, concurrency, integrity, and recovery from hardware failures. In these areas there are large differences between products.

Contents

• 1 History
• 2 Database models
o 2.1 Flat model
o 2.2 Network model
o 2.3 Relational model
 2.3.1 Relational operations
o 2.4 Dimensional model
o 2.5 Object database models
• 3 Database Internals
o 3.1 Indexing
o 3.2 Transactions and concurrency
o 3.3 Replication
• 4 Applications of databases
• 5 Common Database Brands
• 6 See also
• 7 References
History

The earliest known use of the term data base was in June 1963, when the System Development Corporation sponsored a symposium under the title Development and Management of a Computer-centered Data Base. Database as a single word became common in Europe in the early 1970s and by the end of the decade it was being used in major American newspapers. (Databank, a comparable term, had been used in the Washington Post newspaper as early as 1966.)

The first database management systems were developed in the 1960s. A pioneer in the field was Charles Bachman. Bachman's early papers show that his aim was to make more effective use of the new direct access storage devices becoming available: until then, data processing had been based on punched cards and magnetic tape, so that serial processing was the dominant activity. Two key data models arose at this time: CODASYL developed the network model based on Bachman's ideas, and (apparently independently) the hierarchical model was used in a system developed by North American Rockwell, later adopted by IBM as the cornerstone of their IMS product.

The relational model was proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. He criticized existing models for confusing the abstract description of information structure with descriptions of physical access mechanisms. For a long while, however, the relational model remained of academic interest only. While CODASYL systems and IMS were conceived as practical engineering solutions taking account of the technology as it existed at the time, the relational model took a much more theoretical perspective, arguing (correctly) that hardware and software technology would catch up in time. Among the first implementations were Michael Stonebraker's Ingres at Berkeley, and the System R project at IBM. Both of these were research prototypes, announced during 1976. The first commercial products, Oracle and DB2, did not appear until around 1980. The first successful database product for microcomputers was dBASE for the CP/M and PC-DOS/MS-DOS operating systems.

During the 1980s, research activity focused on distributed database systems and database machines, but these developments had little effect on the market. Another important theoretical idea was the Functional Data Model, but apart from some specialized applications in genetics, molecular biology, and fraud investigation, the world took little notice.

In the 1990s, attention shifted to object-oriented databases. These had some success in fields where it was necessary to handle more complex data than relational systems could easily cope with, such as spatial databases, engineering data (including software engineering repositories,) and multimedia data. Some of these ideas were adopted by the relational vendors, who integrated new features into their products as a result; the independent object database vendors largely disappeared from the scene.

In the 2000s, the fashionable area for innovation is the XML database. As with object databases, this has spawned a new collection of startup companies, but at the same time the key ideas are being integrated into the established relational products. XML databases aim to remove the traditional divide between documents and data, allowing all of an organization's information resources to be held in one place, whether they are highly structured or not.

Database models

Various techniques are used to model data structure. Most database systems are built around one particular data model, although it is increasingly common for products to offer support for more than one model. For any one logical model various physical implementations may be possible, and most products will offer the user some level of control in tuning the physical implementation, since the choices that are made have a significant effect on performance. An example of this is the relational model: all serious implementations of the relational model allow the creation of indexes which provide fast access to rows in a table if the values of certain columns are known.

A data model is not just a way of structuring data: it also defines a set of operations that can be performed on the data. The relational model, for example, defines operations such as selection, projection, and join. Although these operations may not be explicit in a particular query language, they provide the foundation on which a query language is built.

Flat model

Some would disagree that this qualifies as a data model, as defined above.

The flat (or table) model consists of a single, two-dimensional array of data elements, where all members of a given column are assumed to be similar values, and all members of a row are assumed to be related to one another. For instance, columns for name and password that might be used as a part of a system security database. Each row would have the specific password associated with an individual user. Columns of the table often have a type associated with them, defining them as character data, date or time information, integers, or floating point numbers. This model is, incidentally, a basis of the spreadsheet.

Network model

The network model (defined by the CODASYL specification) organizes data using two fundamental constructs, called records and sets. Records contain fields (which may be organized hierarchically, as in COBOL). Sets (not to be confused with mathematical sets) define one-to-many relationships between records: one owner, many members. A record may be an owner in any number of sets, and a member in any number of sets.

The operations of the network model are navigational in style: a program maintains a current position, and navigates from one record to another by following the relationships in which the record participates. Records can also be located by supplying key values.

Although it is not an essential feature of the model, network databases generally implement the set relationships by means of pointers that directly address the location of a record on disk. This gives excellent retrieval performance, at the expense of operations such as database loading and reorganization.

Relational model

The relational model was introduced in an academic paper by E. F. Codd in 1970 as a way to make database management systems more independent of any particular application. It is a mathematical model defined in terms of predicate logic and set theory.

The products that are generally referred to as relational databases (for example, Ingres, Oracle, DB2, and SQL Server) in fact implement a model that is only an approximation to the mathematical model defined by Codd. The data structures in these products are tables, rather than relations: the main differences being that tables can contain duplicate rows, and that the rows (and columns) can be treated as being ordered. The same criticism applies to the SQL language which is the primary interface to these products. There has been considerable controversy, mainly due to Codd himself, as to whether it is correct to describe SQL implementations as "relational": but the fact is that the world does so, and the following description uses the term in its popular sense.

A relational database contains multiple tables, each similar to the one in the "flat" database model. Relationships between tables are not defined explicitly; instead, keys are used to match up rows of data in different tables. A key is a collection of one or more columns in one table whose values match corresponding columns in other tables: for example, an Employee table may contain a column named Location which contains a value that matches the key of a Location table. Any column can be a key, or multiple columns can be grouped together into a single key. It is not necessary to define all the keys in advance; a column can be used as a key even if it was not originally intended to be one.

A key that can be used to uniquely identify a row in a table is called a unique key. Typically one of the unique keys is the preferred way to refer to row; this is defined as the table's primary key.

A key that has an external, real-world meaning (such as a person's name, a book's ISBN, or a car's serial number), is sometimes called a "natural" key. If no natural key is suitable (think of the many people named Brown), an arbitrary key can be assigned (such as by giving employees ID numbers). In practice, most databases have both generated and natural keys, because generated keys can be used internally to create links between rows that cannot break, while natural keys can be used, less reliably, for searches and for integration with other databases. (For example, records in two independently developed databases could be matched up by social security number, except when the social security numbers are incorrect, missing, or have changed.)

Relational operations

Users (or programs) request data from a relational database by sending it a query that is written in a special language, usually a dialect of SQL. Although SQL was originally intended for end-users, it is much more common for SQL queries to be embedded into software that provides an easier user interface. (Many web sites — including MediaWiki which is the engine that runs Wikipedia — perform SQL queries when generating pages.)

In response to a query, the database returns a result set, which is just a list of rows containing the answers. The simplest query is just to return all the rows from a table, but more often, the rows are filtered in some way to return just the answer wanted.

Often, data from multiple tables gets combined into one, by doing a join. Conceptually, this is done by taking all possible combinations of rows (the "cross-product"), and then filtering out everything except the answer. In practice, relational database management systems rewrite ("optimize") queries to perform faster, using a variety of techniques.

The flexibility of relational databases allows programmers to write queries that were not anticipated by the database designers. As a result, relational databases can be used by multiple applications in ways the original designers did not foresee, which is especially important for databases that might be used for decades. This has made the idea and implementation of relational databases very popular with businesses.

Dimensional model

The dimensional model is a specialized adaptation of the relational model used to represent data in data warehouses in a way that data can be easily summarized using OLAP queries. In the dimensional model, a database consists of a single large table of facts that are described using dimensions and measures. A dimension provides the context of a fact (such as who participated, when and where it happened, and its type) and is used in queries to group related facts together. Dimensions tend to be discrete and are often hierarchical; for example, the location might include the building, state, and country. A measure is a quantity describing the fact, such as revenue. It's important that measures can be meaningfully aggregated - for example, the revenue from different locations can be added together.

In an OLAP query, dimensions are chosen and the facts are grouped and added together to create a summary.

The dimensional model is often implemented on top of the relational model using a star schema, consisting of one table containing the facts and surrounding tables containing the dimensions. Particularly complicated dimensions might be represented using multiple tables, resulting in a snowflake schema.

A data warehouse can contain multiple star schemas that share dimension tables, allowing them to be used together. Coming up with a standard set of dimensions is an important part of dimensional modeling.

Object database models

In recent years, the object-oriented paradigm has been applied to database technology, creating a new programming model known as object databases. These databases attempt to bring the database world and the application programming world closer together, in particular by ensuring that the database uses the same type system as the application program. This aims to avoid the overhead (sometimes referred to as the impedance mismatch) of converting information between its representation in the database (for example as rows in tables) and its representation in the application program (typically as objects). At the same time object databases attempt to introduce the key ideas of object programming, such as encapsulation and polymorphism, into the world of databases.

A variety of ways have been tried for storing objects in a database. Some products have approached the problem from the application programming end, by making the objects manipulated by the program persistent. This also typically requires the addition of some kind of query language, since conventional programming languages do not have the ability to find objects based on their information content. Others have attacked the problem from the database end, by defining an object-oriented data model for the database, and defining a database programming language that allows full programming capabalities as well as traditional query facilities.

Object databases suffered because of a lack of standardization: although standards were defined by ODMG, they were never implemented well enough to ensure interoperability between products. Nevertheless, they have been used successfully in many applications: usually specialized applications such as engineering databases or molecular biology databases rather than mainstream commercial data processing. However, object database ideas were picked up by the relational vendors and influenced extensions made to these products and indeed to the SQL language.

Database Internals

Indexing

All of these kinds of database can take advantage of indexing to increase their speed, and this technology has advanced tremendously since its early uses in the 1960s and 1970s. The most common kind of index is a sorted list of the contents of some particular table column, with pointers to the row associated with the value. An index allows a set of table rows matching some criterion to be located quickly. Various methods of indexing are commonly used; B-trees, hashes, and linked lists are all common indexing techniques.

Relational DBMSs have the advantage that indices can be created or dropped without changing existing applications, the application which indices to use. The database chooses between many different strategies based on which one it estimates will run the fastest.

Relational DBMSs utilize many different algorithms to compute the result of an SQL statement. The RDBMs will produce a plan of how to execute the query, which is generated by analysing the run times of the different algorithms and selecting the quickest. Some of the key algorithms that deal with joins are Nested Loops Join, Sort-Merge Join and [[Hash Jo

Transactions and concurrency

In addition to their data model, most practical databases ("transactional databases") attempt to enforce a database transaction model that has desirable data integrity properties. Ideally, the database software should enforce the ACID rules, summarized here:

• Atomicity - Either all the tasks in a transaction must be done, or none of them. The transaction must be completed, or else it must be undone (rolled back).

• Consistency - Every transaction must preserve the integrity constraints -- the declared consistency rules -- of the database. It cannot place the data in a contradictory state.

• Isolation - Two simultaneous transactions cannot interfere with one another. Intermediate results within a transaction are not visible to other transactions.

• Durability - Completed transactions cannot be aborted later or their results discarded. They must persist through (for instance) restarts of the DBMS after crashes.

In practice, many DBMS's allow most of these rules to be selectively relaxed for better performance.

Concurrency control is a method used to ensure that transactions are executed in a safe manner and follow the ACID rules. The DBMS must be able to ensure that only serializable, recoverable schedules are allowed, and that no actions of committed transactions are lost while undoing aborted transactions.

Replication

Replication of databases is closely related to transactions. If a database can log its individual actions, it is possible to create a duplicate of the data in realtime. The duplicate can be used to improve Performance or Availability of the whole database system. Common replication concepts include:

• Master/Slave Replication: All write requests are performed on the master and then replicated to the slaves

• Quorum: The result of Read and Write requests is calculated by quering a "majority" of replicas.

• Multimaster: Two or more replicas sync each other via a transaction identifier.

Applications of databases

Databases are used in many applications, spanning virtually the entire range of computer software. Databases are the preferred method of storage for large multiuser applications, where coordination between many users is needed. Even individual users find them convenient, though, and many electronic mail programs and personal organizers are based on standard database technology. Software database drivers are available for most database platforms so that application software can use a common application programming interface (API) to retrieve the information stored in a database. Two commonly used database APIs are JDBC and ODBC.

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Data warehouse

A data warehouse is, primarily, a record of an enterprise's past transactional and operational information, stored in a database designed to favor efficient data analysis and reporting (especially OLAP). Data warehousing is not meant for current "live" data.

Data warehouses often hold large amounts of information which are sometimes subdivided into smaller logical units called dependent data marts.

Usually, two basic ideas guide the creation of a data warehouse:

• Integration of data from distributed and differently structured databases, which facilitates a global overview and comprehensive analysis in the data warehouse.

• Separation of data used in daily operations from data used in the data warehouse for purposes of reporting, decision support, analysis and controlling.

Periodically, one imports data from enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and other related business software systems into the data warehouse for further processing. It is common practice to "stage" data prior to merging it into a data warehouse. In this sense, to "stage data" means to queue it for preprocessing, usually with an ETL tool. The preprocessing program reads the staged data (often a business's primary OLTP databases), performs qualitative preprocessing or filtering (including denormalization, if deemed necessary), and writes it into the warehouse.

Business Intelligence reports (e.g., MI reports) may then be generated from the data written to the warehouse. In this way the data warehouse supplies the data for and supports the business intelligence tools that an organization might use.

Dimensions and Measures

A data warehouse is created by analyzing ways to categorize data using dimension (data warehouse)s and ways to summarize data using measure (data warehouse)s. Dimensions can be used to filter data by excluding results or by displaying data in different cells of a presentation. Measures are used to create averages and totals using precomputed aggregates.

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Star schema

The star schema (sometimes referenced as star join schema) is the simplest data warehouse schema, consisting of a single "fact table" with a compound primary key, with one segment for each "dimension" and with additional columns of additive, numeric facts.

The star schema makes multi-dimensional database (MDDB) functionality possible using a traditional relational database. Because relational databases are the most common data management system in organizations today, implementing multi-dimensional views of data using a relational database is very appealing. Even if you are using a specific MDDB solution, its sources likely are relational databases. Another reason for using star schema is its ease of understanding. Fact tables in star schema are mostly in third normal form (3NF), but dimensional tables in de-normalized second normal form (2NF). If you want to normalize dimensional tables, they look like snowflakes (see snowflake schema) and the same problems of relational databases arise - you need complex queries and business users cannot easily understand the meaning of data. Although query performance may be improved by advanced DBMS technology and hardware, highly normalized tables make reporting difficult and applications complex.

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Snowflake schema

The snowflake schema is a more complex data warehouse model than a star schema, and is a type of star schema. It is called a snowflake schema because the diagram of the schema resembles a snowflake.

Snowflake schemas normalize dimensions to eliminate redundancy. That is, the dimension data has been grouped into multiple tables instead of one large table. For example, a product dimension table in a star schema might be normalized into a products table, a product_category table, and a product_manufacturer table in a snowflake schema. While this saves space, it increases the number of dimension tables and requires more foreign key joins. The result is more complex queries and reduced query performance.

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Dimension table

A dimension table is a data warehousing concept. It is one of the set of companion tables to a fact table.

The fact table contains business facts or measures and foreign keys which refer to candidate keys (normally primary keys) in the dimension tables.

The dimension tables contain attributes or (fields) used to constrain and group data when performing data warehousing queries.

Over time, the attributes of a given row in a dimension table may change. For example, the shipping address for a company may change. Kimball refers to this phenomena as Slowly Changing Dimensions. Strategies for dealing with this kind of change are divided into three categories:

• Type One - Simply overwrite the old value(s).
• Type Two - Add a new row containing the new value(s), and distinguish between the rows using Tuple-versioning techniques.
• Type Three - Add a new attribute to the existing row.

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Foreign key

A foreign key (FK) is a field or group of fields in a database record that point to a key field or group of fields forming a key of another database record in some (usually different) table. Usually a foreign key in one table refers to the primary key (PK) of another table. This way references can be made to link information together and it is an essential part of database normalization. Foreign keys that refer back to the same table are called recursive foreign keys.

For example, a person sending an e-mail need not include the entire text of a book in the e-mail. Instead, they can include the ISBN of the book, and interested persons can then use the number to get information about the book - or even the book itself. The ISBN is the primary-key of the book, and it is used as a foreign-key in the e-mail.

Note that using a foreign key often assumes its existence as a primary key somewhere else. Improper foreign key/primary key relationships are the source of many database problems. Further, a foreign key constraint is where data that serves as a foreign key in one database record cannot be removed as there is still data in another record that would need to be deleted.

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Primary key

In database design, a primary key is a value that can be used to identify a unique row in a table. Attributes are associated with it. Examples are names in a telephone book (to look up telephone numbers) and words in a dictionary (to look up definitions).
In the relational model of data, a primary key is a candidate key chosen as the main method of uniquely identifying a tuple in a relation. Practical telephone books and dictionaries can not use names or words or Dewey Decimal System numbers as candidate keys because they do not uniquely identify telephone numbers or words.

In some design situations it is impossible to find a natural key that uniquely identifies a tuple in a relation. A surrogate key can be used as the primary key. In other situations there may be more than one candidate key for a relation, and no candidate key is obviously preferred. A surrogate key may be used as the primary key to avoid giving one candidate key artificial primacy over the others.

In addition to the requirement that the primary key be a candidate key, there are several other factors which may make a particular choice of key better than others for a given relation:

• The primary key should be immutable, meaning that its value should not be changed during the course of normal operations of the database. (Recall that a primary key is the means of uniquely identifying a tuple, and that identity, by definition, never changes.) This avoids the problem of dangling references or orphan records created by other relations referring to a tuple whose primary key has changed. If the primary key is immutable, this can never happen.

• Candidate keys have the advantage of uniquely identifying a row without requiring additional storage space. However, it is exceedingly rare that a candidate key remains immutable throughout the life of the database, and changing keys may necessitate significant application reprogramming. As a result, a surrogate key taken from a randomly generated 32-bit integer and validated for redundancy works exceedingly well. They require only four bytes of storage space each, permit just over four billion combinations, and, since they have no meaning in and of themselves, need never be changed.

• The primary key should generally be short to minimize the amount of data that needs to be stored by other relations that reference it. If no single domain of the relvar qualifies as a key, a compound key may be appropriate. Physical constraints on the implementation may suggest adding a shorter surrogate key, in order to reduce the redundant storage used. (However, this is a physical design consideration, and some database management systems may be better than others in this regard.)

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Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system produced by Microsoft. It supports Microsoft's version of Structured Query Language (SQL), the most common database language. It is commonly used by businesses for small- to medium-sized databases, and - in the past five years - large enterprise databases. Microsoft SQL Server competes with other relational database products for this market segment.

Contents

• 1 History
• 2 Versions for Windows
• 3 Description
• 4 Variants
• 5 Sub Products
• 6 See also
• 7 Further reading
• 8 External links
History

The code base for Microsoft SQL Server originated in Sybase SQL Server, and was Microsoft's entry to the enterprise-level database market, competing against Oracle, IBM, and Sybase. Microsoft, Sybase and Ashton-Tate teamed up to create and market the first version named SQL Server 4.2 for OS/2 (about 1989) which was essentially the same as Sybase SQL Server 4.0 on Unix, VMS, etc. Microsoft SQL Server for NT v4.2 was shipped around 1992 (available bundled with Microsoft OS/2 version 1.3) and was a simple port from OS/2 to NT. Microsoft SQL Server v6.0 was the first version of SQL Server that was architected for NT and did not include any direction from Sybase.

About the time Windows NT was coming out, Sybase and Microsoft parted ways and pursued their own design and marketing schemes. Microsoft negotiated exclusive rights to all versions of SQL Server written for Microsoft operating systems. Later, Sybase changed the name of its product to Adaptive Server Enterprise to avoid confusion with Microsoft SQL Server. Until 1994 Microsoft's SQL Server carried three Sybase copyright notices as an indication of its origin.

Several revisions have been done independently since with improvements for SQL Server. SQL Server 7.0 was the first true GUI based database server, and a variant of SQL Server 2000 was the first commercial database for the Intel IA64 architecture. During this time there was a rivalry between Microsoft and Oracle's servers for winning the market over enterprise customers.

The current version, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, was released in November of 2005. The launch took place alongside Visual Studio 2005 and BizTalk Server 2006. The SQL Server 2005 Express edition is currently available for free download.

Versions for Windows

• 1993 - SQL Server 4.21 for Windows NT
• 1995 - SQL Server 6.0, codenamed SQL95
• 1996 - SQL Server 6.5, codenamed Hydra
• 1999 - SQL Server 7.0, codenamed Sphinx
• 1999 - SQL Server 7.0 OLAP, codenamed Plato
• 2000 - SQL Server 2000 32-bit, codenamed Shiloh
• 2003 - SQL Server 2000 64-bit, codenamed Liberty
• 2005 - SQL Server 2005, codenamed Yukon

Description

MS SQL Server uses a variant of SQL called T-SQL, or Transact-SQL, an implementation of SQL-92 (the ISO standard for SQL, certified in 1992) with some extensions. T-SQL mainly adds additional syntax for use in stored procedures, and affects the syntax of transactions support. (Note that SQL standards require (ACID) Atomic, Consistent, Isolated, Durable transactions.) MS SQL Server and Sybase/ASE both communicate over networks using an application-level protocol called Tabular Data Stream (TDS). The TDS protocol has also been implemented by the FreeTDS project ([1]) in order to allow more kinds of client applications to communicate with MS SQL Server and Sybase databases. MS SQL Server also supports Open Database Connectivity (ODBC).

Variants

A stripped-down version of Microsoft SQL Server known as MSDE (Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine) is distributed with products such as Visual Studio, Visual FoxPro, Microsoft Access, MS Web Matrix, and other products. MSDE has some restrictions: a limit of 2 GB databases, and it comes with no GUI tools to administer it. It also has a workload governor which reduces its speed once you exceed 8 concurrent workloads on the engine.

Microsoft recently released the successor to MSDE, dubbed SQL Server Express. Similar to MSDE, SQL Express includes all the core functionality of SQL Server and the workload governor was removed, but places restrictions on the scale of databases. It will only utilize a single CPU, 1 GB of RAM, and imposes a maximum size of 4 GB per database (log's size doesn't count). Microsoft provides a separate download ("feature pack") for the Express edition that includes less feature rich version of Reporting Services. SQL Express also doesn't include enterprise features such as Analysis Services, Data Transformation Services, and Notification Services. Unlike MSDE, SQL Express includes a management console, called SQL Server Management Studio Express.

Sub Products

• SQL Server Integration Services
• SQL Server Analysis Services
• SQL Server Reporting Services
• SQL Server Notification Services

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SQL

SQL (commonly expanded to Structured Query Language - see History for the term's derivation) is the most popular computer language used to create, modify and retrieve data from relational database management systems. The language has evolved beyond its original purpose to support object-relational database management systems. It is an ANSI/ISO standard.

Contents

• 1 History
• 2 Scope
• 3 SQL keywords
o 3.1 Data retrieval
o 3.2 Data manipulation
o 3.3 Data transaction
o 3.4 Data definition
o 3.5 Data control
o 3.6 Other
• 4 Database systems using SQL
• 5 Criticisms of SQL
• 6 Alternatives to SQL
• 7 External links
o 7.1 Tutorials
• 8 References
History

A seminal paper, "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks", by Dr. Edgar F. Codd, was published in June, 1970 in the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) journal, Communications of the ACM. Codd's model became widely accepted as the definitive model for relational database management systems (RDBMS).

During the 1970s, a group at IBM's San Jose research center developed a database system "System R" based upon Codd's model. Structured English Query Language ("SEQUEL") was designed to manipulate and retrieve data stored in System R. The acronym SEQUEL was later condensed to SQL due to a trademark dispute (the word 'SEQUEL' was held as a trademark by the Hawker-Siddeley aircraft company of the UK). It should be noted that although SQL was influenced by Dr. Codd's work, it was not designed by Dr. Codd himself; the SEQUEL language design was due to Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce at IBM.[1], and their concepts were published to increase interest in SQL.

The first non-commercial non-SQL relational database was developed in 1974.(Ingres from U.C. Berkeley.)

In 1978, methodical testing commenced at customer test sites. Demonstrating both the usefulness and practicality of the system, this testing proved to be a success for IBM. As a result, IBM began to develop commercial products that implemented SQL based on their System R prototype, including the System/38 (announced in 1978 and commercially available in August 1979), SQL/DS (introduced in 1981), and DB2 (in 1983).[2]
At the same time Relational Software, Inc. (now Oracle Corporation) saw the potential of the concepts described by Chamberlin and Boyce and developed their own version of a RDBMS for the Navy, CIA and others; and in the summer of 1979, Relational Software, Inc. introduced Oracle V2 (Version2) for VAX computers, as the first commercially available implementation of SQL. Oracle is often incorrectly cited as beating IBM to market by two years, but in a great public relations coup, beat IBM's release of the System/38 by only a few weeks. Considerable public interest then developed; soon many other vendors developed versions, and Oracle's future was ensured.

It is often suggested that IBM was slow to develop SQL and relational products, possibly because it wasn't available initially on the mainframe and Unix environments, and that they were afraid it would cut into lucrative sales of their IMS database product, which used navigational database models instead of relational. But at the same time as Oracle was being developed, IBM was developing the System/38, which was intended to be the first relational database system, and was thought by some at the time, because of its advanced design and capabilities, that it might have become a possible replacement for the mainframe and Unix systems.

SQL was adopted as a standard by the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) in 1986 and ISO (International Organization for Standardization) in 1987. ANSI has declared that the official pronunciation for SQL is /ɛs kjuː ɛl/, although many English-speaking database professionals still pronounce it as sequel. Another widespread misconception is that "SQL" is an initialism that stands for "Structured Query Language" — this is not the case.

The SQL standard has gone through a number of revisions.

Scope

The SQL standard is not freely available. SQL:2003 may be purchased from ISO or ANSI. A late draft is available as a zip archive from Whitemarsh Information Systems Corporation. The zip archive contains a number of PDF files that define the parts of the SQL:2003 specification.

Although SQL is defined by both ANSI and ISO, there are many extensions to and variations on the version of the language defined by these standards bodies. Many of these extensions are of a proprietary nature, such as Oracle Corporation's PL/SQL or Sybase, IBM's SQL PL(SQL Procedural Language) and Microsoft's Transact-SQL. It is also not uncommon for commercial implementations to omit support for basic features of the standard, such as the DATE or TIME data types, preferring some variant of their own. As a result, in contrast to ANSI C or ANSI Fortran, which can usually be ported from platform to platform without major structural changes, SQL code can rarely be ported between database systems without major modifications. There are several reasons for this lack of portability between database systems:

• the complexity and size of the SQL standard means that most databases do not implement the entire standard.

• the standard does not specify database behavior in several important areas (e.g. indexes), leaving it up to implementations of the standard to decide how to behave.

• the SQL standard precisely specifies the syntax that a conformant database system must implement. However, the standard's specification of the semantics of language constructs is less well-defined, leading to areas of ambiguity.

• many database vendors have large existing customer bases; where the SQL standard conflicts with the prior behavior of the vendor's database, the vendor may be unwilling to break backward compatibility.

• some believe the lack of compatibility between database systems is intentional in order to ensure vendor lock-in.

SQL is designed for a specific, limited purpose — querying data contained in a relational database. As such, it is a set-based, declarative computer language rather than an imperative language such as C or BASIC which, being programming languages, are designed to solve a much broader set of problems. Language extensions such as PL/SQL are designed to address this by turning SQL into a full-fledged programming language while maintaining the advantages of SQL. Another approach is to allow programming language code to be embedded in and interact with the database. For example, Oracle and others include Java in the database, while PostgreSQL allows functions to be written in a wide variety of languages, including Perl, Tcl, and C.

One joke about SQL is that "SQL is neither structured, nor is it limited to queries, nor is it a language." This is founded on the notion that pure SQL is not a classic programming language since it is not Turing-complete. On the other hand, however, it is a programming language because it has a grammar, syntax, and programmatic purpose and intent. The joke recalls Voltaire's remark that the Holy Roman Empire was "neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."

SQL contrasts with the more powerful database-oriented fourth-generation programming languages such as Focus or SAS, however, in its relative functional simplicity and simpler command set. This greatly reduces the degree of difficulty involved in maintaining SQL source code, but it also makes programming such questions as 'Who had the top ten scores?' more difficult, leading to the development of procedural extensions, discussed above. However, it also makes it possible for SQL source code to be produced (and optimized) by software, leading to the development of a number of natural language database query languages, as well as 'drag and drop' database programming packages with 'object oriented' interfaces. Often these allow the resultant SQL source code to be examined, for educational purposes, further enhancement, or to be used in a different environment.

SQL keywords

SQL keywords fall into several groups.

Data retrieval

The most frequently used operation in transactional databases is the data retrieval operation.

• SELECT is used to retrieve zero or more rows from one or more tables in a database. In most applications, SELECT is the most commonly used DML command. In specifying a SELECT query, the user specifies a description of the desired result set, but they do not specify what physical operations must be executed to produce that result set. Translating the query into an efficient query plan is left to the database system, more specifically to the query optimizer.

o Commonly available keywords related to SELECT include:

 FROM is used to indicate which tables the data is to be taken from, as well as how the tables join to each other.

 WHERE is used to identify which rows to be retrieved, or applied to GROUP BY.

 GROUP BY is used to combine rows with related values into elements of a smaller set of rows.

 HAVING is used to identify which of the "combined rows" (combined rows are produced when the query has a GROUP BY keyword or when the SELECT part contains aggregates), are to be retrieved.

 ORDER BY is used to identify which columns are used to sort the resulting data.

Example:

SELECT * FROM my_table WHERE id > 10;

Data manipulation

First there are the standard Data Manipulation Language (DML) elements. DML is the subset of the language used to add, update and delete data.

• INSERT is used to add zero or more rows (formally tuples) to an existing table.
• UPDATE is used to modify the values of a set of existing table rows.
• MERGE is used to combine the data of multiple tables. It is something of a combination of the INSERT and UPDATE elements. It is defined in the SQL:2003 standard; prior to that, some databases provided similar functionality via different syntax, sometimes called an "upsert".
• DELETE deletes all data from a table (non-standard, but common SQL command).
• TRUNCATE removes zero or more existing rows from a table.

Example:
INSERT INTO my_table (field1, field2, field3) VALUES ('test', 'N', NULL);
UPDATE my_table SET field1 = 'updated value' WHERE field2 = 'N';
DELETE FROM my_table WHERE field2 = 'N';

Data transaction

Transaction, if available, can be used to wrap around the DML operations.

• BEGIN WORK (or START TRANSACTION, depending on SQL dialect) can be used to mark the start of a database transaction, which either completes completely or not at all.

• COMMIT causes all data changes in a transaction to be made permanent.

• ROLLBACK causes all data changes since the last COMMIT or ROLLBACK to be discarded, so that the state of the data is "rolled back" to the way it was prior to those changes being requested.

COMMIT and ROLLBACK interact with areas such as transaction control and locking. Strictly, both terminate any open transaction and release any locks held on data. In the absence of a BEGIN WORK or similar statement, the semantics of SQL are implementation-dependent.

Example:
UPDATE inventory SET quantity = quantity - 3 WHERE item = 'pants';

Data definition

The second group of keywords is the Data Definition Language (DDL). DDL allows the user to define new tables and associated elements. Most commercial SQL databases have proprietary extensions in their DDL, which allow control over nonstandard features of the database system.

The most basic items of DDL are the CREATE and DROP commands.

• CREATE causes an object (a table, for example) to be created within the database.

• DROP causes an existing object within the database to be deleted, usually irretrievably.

Some database systems also have an ALTER command, which permits the user to modify an existing object in various ways -- for example, adding a column to an existing table.

Example:
CREATE TABLE my_table
(
my_field1 INT UNSIGNED,
my_field2 VARCHAR(50),
my_field3 DATE NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (my_field1, my_field2)
)

Data control

The third group of SQL keywords is the Data Control Language (DCL). DCL handles the authorisation aspects of data and permits the user to control who has access to see or manipulate data within the database.

Its two main keywords are:

• GRANT — authorises a user to perform an operation or a set of operations e.g. grant all privileges to user identified by passwd?

• REVOKE — removes or restricts the capability of a user to perform an operation or a set of operations.

Example:
GRANT ALL ON my_db TO someone@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'somepass'

Other

ANSI-standard SQL supports -- as a single line comment identifier (some extensions also support curly brackets for multi-line comments).

Example:
SELECT * FROM inventory -- Retrieve everything from inventory table

Database systems using SQL

• List of relational database management systems
• List of object-relational database management systems

Criticisms of SQL

Technically, SQL is a declarative computer language for use with "relational databases". Theorists note that many of the original SQL features were inspired by, but in violation of, tuple calculus. Recent extensions to SQL achieved relational completeness, but have worsened the violations, as documented in The Third Manifesto.

In addition, there are also some criticisms about the practical use of SQL:
• The language syntax is rather complex (sometimes called "COBOL-like").
• It does not provide a standard way, or at least a commonly-supported way, to split large commands into multiple smaller ones that reference each other by name. This tends to result in "run-on SQL sentences" and may force one into a deep hierarchical nesting when a graph-like (reference-by-name) approach may be more appropriate and better repetition-factoring.
• Implementations are inconsistent and, at times, incompatible between vendors.
• It is at times too difficult a syntax for DBAs (DataBase Administrators) to extend.
• Over-reliance on "NULLs", which some consider a flawed or over-used concept.
• For larger statements, it is often difficult to factor repeated patterns and expressions into one or fewer places to avoid repetition and avoid having to make the same change to different places in a given statement.
• Unexplained difference between value-to-column assignments in UPDATE and INSERT syntax.

Alternatives to SQL

A distinction should be made between alternatives to relational and alternatives to SQL. The list below are proposed alternatives to SQL, but are still (allegedly) relational. See navigational database for alternatives to relational.

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Cognos

Cognos TSX: CSN NASDAQ: COGN is an Ottawa, Ontario based company which makes business intelligence (BI) and performance planning software. Founded in 1969, Cognos employs over 3,300 people and serves more than 23,000 customers in over 135 countries. Cognos was originally known as Quasar but changed its name in 1982. It has since acquired NoticeCast Software, Adaytum, and Frango.

Cognos' Metrics Manager won the Intelligent Enterprise Award for the Best Business Performance Monitoring Solution 2004. Metrics Manager, which is a next-generation scorecarding technology, is aimed at corporate performance management. It is tightly integrated with its own Business Intelligence series of products which consist of tools like ReportNet, PowerPlay and others, and also with the Enterprise Planning Solutions.

With its latest product Cognos 8 BI, launched in September 2005, Cognos unites its former products ReportNet, PowerPlay, Metrics Manager, Noticecast, and Decision Stream.

Serendipity

A delightful discovery: wireless internet channel with encryption off.

Let's take the opportunity to catch up.

I've been around the cities taking a few pictures. I snapped this one in front of a fire department on University. Safe place? Tell me how you feel.

World Citizens Guide

Engineers Report Breakthrough in Laser Beam Technology
llllaser beams

Republicans Ask Oil Industry for Help With Fuel Prices
Republicans should be charged with deserting their principles. The headline should read "Republicans ask free market for help with fuel prices." Apostates.

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When anti-Americanism affects business, the threat is serious...

The World Citizens Guide was put together by students to use when going abroad. This project started when a group called Business for Diplomatic Action, Inc. (BDA) realized that America's favorability in other countries was decreasing. In a search for answers there was a huge listening exercise with people all over the world participating. BDA reached out to the world and here at home to find out what U.S. travelers of all ages should know before they leave the country.

Four root causes of anti-American sentiment surfaced in all that listening and they are: our US public policy, the negative effects of globalization, our popular culture, and our collective personality. The negative stereotypes about our collective personality are something we travelers can help to change. Every year an estimated 170,000 college students from the US study abroad. That's a lot of potential ambassadors who can make a change simply by being good world citizens.

the abridged guide

Jude and I talked extensively about the four root causes of anti-American sentiment. I will post our conversation tomorrow.

Apocalypse

On Saturday Nebraska lost to Brad Smith, 24-41. Mr. Smith plays for Missouri. He had 246 yards rushing and 234 yards passing. That’s great. What happened to our defense?

And why did our offense have to make me cry?
Nebraska rushing yards versus Missouri: -2

On a positive note, holding was called on the opposing offense for the first time this season when Missouri was flagged early in the third quarter.

In the news…

Poor Nations Are Littered With Old PCs, Report Says
why don't poor people care about the environment

Senate Pushes Back Stem-Cell Debate to '06
this will give the edifice of bain time to lobby

House Republicans Put Off Vote on Cuts
of course they did, they are fiscally irresponsible
fiscally flatulent

Belarus Resumes Farming in Chernobyl Radiation Zone
organic farming?

Mao: The Real Mao
mao was good, or was he evil.

Paying for media content
Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy, and recombine - too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That tension will not go away.

Erasing the Image of the Ugly American
arrogance, ignorance, insensitivity
hmmmm

A dose of double standards over bird flu
The US has convinced Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche to share its patent on Tamiflu, the only drug capable of fighting the H5N1 strain of bird flu. Yet the West has never shown similar flexibility on drugs produced by its pharmaceutical companies, despite such medicines being desperately needed in the Third World.

Rice's tour raises China's energy hackles
Hovering in the background of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent visit to five Central Asian states was the energy competition between China and the US, involving various aspects including pipelines and the PetroKazakhstan takeover by China's CNPC.

Unions woo Indian call centers
India's business outsourcing industry is growing in leaps and bounds, and many Indians are more prosperous as a result. But in developed-nation terms, the industry is an IT sweatshop. Enter the unions.

House Approves Bill Shielding Gun Industry From Suits
This just in: guns don't kill people. Congress gave the gun lobby its top legislative priority Thursday, passing a bill that would protect the firearms industry from massive lawsuits brought by crime victims.
The bill is S. 397.

Extreme Makeover: Lake Street
Hennepin County and Minneapolis are spending millions to rebuild south Minneapolis's main east-west thoroughfare in a new image. But whose vision is it?

Fotos

Here are the beautiful bride and handsome groom in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin. Minnesota is in the background across the St. Croix river. Chris Mitchell was the wedding photographer. October 15 was sunny and 65.














At Trinity Lutheran Church in Osceola, Wisconsin, we were reminded that Dr. Ciriacks must submit to Dr. Klinker, because the husband is head of the wife, just as Christ is the head of the church. Submit is not defined in the Bible, however, the husband deserves considerable leeway in the interpretation of the word. We were also reminded that marriage is between a man and a woman, which ideally requires you to see your partner naked before you are betrothed.

As you can see here, nothing makes for a better picture than a toothy grin while grabbing the lapels of one's suit jacket. Good form Klink.

From left to right: Dr., Dr., Dr., and Dr., in the philosophies of chemistry, chemistry, chemistry, and physics, respectively. Please note that Jose's girlfriend is not imaginary. She is both intelligent and pleasing to the eye.

Allergies

Last Thursday night there was a celebration of manliness, of the bachelor Eric Klinker.

Friday night started with steaks wrapped in bacon, progressed to crown royal, and ended with the magic microphone.

Saturday was a beautiful day. Allergies.

I even enjoyed the unwrapping of the gifts on Sunday, mostly because Klinker rated the utility of gifts by his ability to drink beer out of them. Good man.

Anyway, I can't say enough. I'll post a couple pictures later.

Doctor Doctor

So, I was out for a run yesterday along river road when I met Farhad Jafari. Farhad is a professor in the mathematics department at the University of Wyoming. He is attending a conference at the University of Minnesota and was out for a distance run, keeping sharp for the New York marathon on November 6, which he will hopefully complete under three hours. The 49-year-old Dr. Jafari has run a 2:48 before and a 2:58 at Boston this year. Farhad is a doctor doctor: physics and math. We talked about running more than the conference, but if I understand correctly, Dr. Jafari is interested in the use of near-infrared radiation to perform diagnostic imaging – light scatters off biological tissues and doctor doctors interpret the results. Fascinating. Also, Dr. Jafari was born in Iran, educated in Switzerland, and schooled at the University of Wisconsin.

GMAC

G.M and Union in a Deal to Cut Health Benefits
General Motors said on Monday that it had reached a tentative agreement with the United Automobile Workers union to cut $1 billion in annual health care benefits for more than 750,000 blue-collar workers, retirees and their families as part of an effort to climb out of a financial crisis.

And... on a related note, General Motors is considering selling all or some of General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC). GMAC’s net income in 2004 was $2.9 billion. Wow.

In the early days of the motor vehicle industry, dealers paid cash to stock their inventory, purchasing just a few vehicles at a time. With the onset of the assembly line, manufacturers wanted dealers to buy vehicles in large quantities in order to keep factories running regularly.

As a result, General Motors Acceptance Corporation was formed in 1919 to provide GM dealers with the financing they needed to maintain their vehicle inventories as well as give dealers' retail customers the ability to purchase new vehicles easily and conveniently. Insurance products soon followed.

GMAC Financial Services includes automotive financing, commercial finance, insurance and mortgage products, and real estate services. We have a presence in more than 40 markets around the world and have been a wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors since 1919.

Martins works at GMAC-RFC

GMAC-RFC applies its expertise in securitization, lending and investment to provide a broad portfolio of innovative capital and liquidity solutions or residential real estate finance markets worldwide. The company also offers customized financing to timeshare resort developers and healthcare enterprises in the U.S. GMAC-RFC is a leading private issuer of mortgage-backed securities with operations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Europe.

Speaking of GM, check out these bad boys:

Fortune 500
Based only on revenue.

Forbes 500
The list is calculated by combining five factors: sales, profits, assets, market value, and employees.

Other Forbes lists.

Bankruptcy: Chapter 11

Bankruptcy in the United States

Bankruptcy in the United States is a matter placed under Federal jurisdiction by the United States Constitution (in Article 1, Section 8), which allows Congress to enact "uniform laws on the subject of Bankruptcy throughout the United States." Its implementation, however, is found in statute law. The relevant statutes are incorporated within the Bankruptcy Code, located at Title 11 of the United States Code, and amplified by state law in the many places where Federal law either fails to speak or defers expressly to state law.

While bankruptcy cases are always filed in United States Bankruptcy Court (an adjunct to the U.S. District Courts), bankruptcy cases, particularly with respect to the validity of claims and exemptions, are often highly dependent upon State law. State law therefore plays a major role in many bankruptcy cases, and it is often quite unwise to generalize bankruptcy issues across state lines.

Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

A Chapter 11 filing is an attempt to stay in business while a bankruptcy court supervises the "reorganization" of the company's contractual and debt obligations. The court can grant complete or partial relief from most of the company's debts and its contracts, so that the company can make a fresh start.

McDonald's and Nintendo, at last

Hunting Habits of Wolves Change Ecological Balance in Yellowstone
In 1995, 14 wolves from Canada were brought into the park by truck and sleigh in the dead of winter, held in a cage for 10 weeks and released. Seventeen were added in 1996. Now, about 130 wolves in 13 packs roam the park.

As Young Adults Drink to Win, Marketers Join In

The bar is packed, the floor is wet, and dozens of glassy-eyed young people are squeezed around tables trying to lob Ping-Pong balls into cups of beer.

Budweiser says Bud Pong does not promote binge drinking because official rules call for water to be used, not beer. Miller frowns upon beer pong, but condones its promotion by Miller distributors.

China Builds Its Dreams, and Some Fear a Bubble
This year alone, Shanghai will complete towers with more space for living and working than there is in all the office buildings in New York City. That is in a city that already has 4,000 skyscrapers, almost double the number in New York.

McDonald's and Nintendo in Wi-Fi Deal

Nintendo of America is expected to announce today that it will offer free wireless Internet access for its Nintendo DS portable game system at McDonald's restaurants. Customers will be able to play select DS games with other players around the world.

McDonald's offers wireless Internet, or Wi-Fi, access to laptop users for a fee in 6,000 restaurants nationwide, but the free Nintendo arrangement will permit the DS machines to play without a laptop.

With New IPod, Apple Aims to Be a Video Star

Now Playing on a Tiny Screen

In the past year, media companies have begun experimenting with broadcasting original programming made specifically for mobile phones to increase awareness of their television shows and movies. And interest in such programming may grow further: last week, Apple introduced a video iPod, which, while not a mobile phone, is another test of consumers' interest in portable entertainment.

So far, efforts by media companies are modest, limited largely to games, ring tones and wallpaper. But interest is growing, particularly in "mobisodes," short series that are already popular abroad.

Chaos Grows in Darfur Conflict as Militias Turn on Government

States Protest Contributions to Drug Plan
The Bush administration notified states on Monday that they would have to pay billions of dollars to the federal government next year to help finance the new prescription drug benefit for people on Medicare.

Other news:

Trying to Get, and Keep, Care Under Medicaid

Treated for Illness, Then Lost in Labyrinth of Bills

MP3 Cubed Can Double as Fashion

Big Hitters Said to Want Piece of AOL

In Texas, Marriage Is on Ballot

Bush Criticized Over Emphasis on Religion of Nominee

Data on Marriage and Births Reflect the Political Divide

Mendocino Ecological Learning Center

from Leslie:

I've been waiting for this moment for a few weeks. Prolonged use of a computer. Life has been very different lately. No more cubicle, no more Ramen noodles for lunch, no more city buses, no more city nightlife, I have been and still am doing a work exchange program at a place called the Mendocino Ecological Learning Center (MELC). I get to work and learn there in exchange for room and board.

MELC is located in rural northern California on the side of a forested mountain. We have 32 acres and as of now we use about 1.5 of them. Max is the director and Maria is his girlfriend. They are the only two who actually live there permanently right now. In two years they have been using the ethics of permaculture to create their home. Permaculture is short for Permanent Culture and is a practice that uses architecture, forestry, design, agriculture and energy systems, community, plus more all together to create a completely sustainable way of life. So far, I think sustainable partly means that you create all your own materials, food and energy on your own land so that you do not have to rely on commercial products. This takes many years to actually accomplish when you're a struggling non-profit, but Max and Maria are well on their way. Another thing that makes this place amazing is that Max is in a wheel chair and has developed his land and home so that it is handicapped accessible (if you don't mind off roading in your wheelchair or scooter). It is only the 2nd accessible permacultural farm in the country.

As for me, I live in their house with them and I share a room with other volunteers who come and go at different times. I have sort of become a semi-permanent volunteer. We all get along so well and I'm having such a great time that I decided just to stay here until about Christmas time with a few short breaks in between. Right now it is harvest time, so we are using and selling lots of wonderful fresh vegetables from the garden. We are also working on building an outdoor bathroom and shower for volunteers to use in the warmer months. The building is made out of all natural materials including wooden poles harvested from our own forest and a wall plaster that is called Fiber-Adobe which is made of paper pulp and clay (I think). This week we started to build the roof. We cut down 10 trees that were not healthy from the forest and we skinned them and put linseed oil on them. Now we're shaping them into beams for the round ceiling so that a piece of sheet metal can sit on top of them. I love this project because it is so physically demanding and satisfying when any one part of it is done. I've been reading a lot about other natural building techniques and so far this is the part of permaculture that I am most interested in. Another building technique is using Cob. This is clay and water and straw. I helped finish building an outdoor cob oven here. When it was finished we built a fire inside it and cooked pizzas, bread, cookies and beans. Cob is just like working with clay so it is like you are making a sculpture out of whatever functional thing it is you're building. Maybe someday I can build myself a Cob home.

I'm also interested in the gray water and black water systems that they are working on here. A gray water system takes all your water from your sinks and showers through a natural underground filtration system and all that water that we usually waste ends up irrigating the entire farm. You can even do it with toilet water, and that's called a black water system. An, just as a side note; I love the chickens.

In my free time I hang out with my housemates, we watch movies a few times a week and I have been reading, writing letters, taking walks and trying to practice more yoga. The land here is beautiful, and if I ever figure out how to use my dad's digital camera I will send a few pictures along. So far this has been a great experience and I hope someday to be able to tie skills and values I have learned here with the social services aspect of myself. I do miss being in the city a lot. After this adventure I'm planning on finding a job and moving to a small city in Northern California. But, anything could happen at this point to make those plans change. I have met so many great people here, and many of them lead this gypsy life where they just travel and work in amazing places like this. I can see now how that would be easy to fall into, but at this point I would like to be a little more stable than that.

So, that's it in a nutshell.

Guatemala

This letter is from a young woman who has been living in Chiapas doing human rights work for the past three years.

*

Last Monday October 3rd, I traveled to Tapachula on the coast of Chiapas to meet with immigrant rights organizations there on the border of Guatemala. It was already raining hard (but it¹s the rainy season) and the trip was slowed by several mud slides and a protest that blocked the highway (bus drivers demanding some sort of licensing concessions). The next day Hurricane Stan hit Veracruz, Chiapas and Guatemala, but in Tapachula the phone lines and internet had already been cut off, so I had no idea how extensive the damage would be (this will be an ongoing theme).

I had several meetings with human rights groups, going with one group to help transport peoples possessions out of their already flooded homes. Tapachula was already severely flooded and I got around town by wading through the streets with water up to my knees. I stayed one more night, thinking the rains would die down and that I could meet with more groups the next day. HA!

Wednesday news trickled down that the main bridges that connected Tapachula with Mexico and Chiapas had collapsed, that the bulk of the city was severely flooded and that already they were starting to run out of food and gasoline. Time to go. However, transportation was also not running between Tapachula and Guatemala. I decided to take the risk (this will also be an ongoing theme) and headed out to the nearest border crossing. It was still pouring. On the way to the border all of the towns had water up to their windows, people are standing in crowds watching the river, which had already eaten hundreds of houses, grow and grow.

At the border I walked through water up to my waist to get to immigration. Immigration officials had already been evacuated, one shouted at me as he hopped into his pick up truck, that I could cross the bridge into Guatemala at my own risk. Not seeing any options behind me (Tapachula, now an island, later became a site of vicious riots and looting as they ran out of food and water and no help arrived), I headed for the bridge.

The bridge was shaking with the force of the river that had consumed 4 city blocks on either side of it and was carrying away whole trees and houses. It became impassable about 5 hours after we crossed it. At this point I fell in with a group of young Central Americans who were also crossing. It was inevitable that we began commiserating and trying to make light of the desperate situation. They were all would-be immigrants to the U.S. who for various reasons (running out of money, getting attacked by gangs, falling off the death train, getting cheated by coyotes) were headed home to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. They were ideal traveling companions, despite none of us having money (I had my ATM card, but no banks were functioning) we were all generous and supportive of each other (at one point pooling all of our money for 4 pieces of fried chicken between 5 of us, the only thing we had eaten all day) and despite me being a white woman traveling alone, none of them were remotely sleazy or asked me if I had a boyfriend (usually the first question out of any male¹s mouth).

Once on the Guatemala side we were informed that things were much much worse in Guatemala than they had been in Mexico (I will spend many spare moments contemplating rumors and exaggeration and the ways information travels when there is no access to outside sources) and that no transportation was leaving the border town. This would begin a long day of us following tenuous leads when the majority told us ³no hay paso,² there¹s no way through, hitching rides in the backs of trucks to the next little town in the still torrential rain.

Everywhere villages had turned into lakes. People perched on top of their houses and in trees. Cars and trucks were now merely glints of metal rooves under water. We were disappointed when we hit an obstacle we couldn¹t pass- another swollen river that was now going over its bridge. There was a police line keeping people away, but after they were called to a nearby landslide the people began running over the brige anyway.

Being determined and stupid we decide to run, then we decide not to run, then we decide to run, then we decide not to run. I imagine the bridge crumbling in front of me. What would it feel like to be swept away, would there be time to realize it? We watch the people arriving on the oppisite side, terrified and muddy but triumphant, and we decide to run. There was about a foot of thick, muddy, fast moving water going over the bridge and the huge river splashed up over our heads on the left side as it collided with the side of the bridge. We arrived at the other side panting and scared and exhilerated. We chuckled nervously, knowing things very easily could have turned out differently. It was also palpable that we had crossed a line. Until then we had been doing uncomfortable but more or less reasonable things to get out of the hurricane, crossing the bridge upped the anty for things we and others did to get to safety. We hitched to two more towns before we were stopped completely- in both possible directions there were downed bridges and landslides. We stopped for the night in Mazate.

By the evening I would ring puddles of water out of the clothes that were inside my backpack, putting on to sleep the wet clothes I had put in plastic in Tapachula as they would be the driest thing around. And that was when I succumbed to fever and a cold. We crammed into one hotel room (Mazate was relatively unflooded, just cut off from the rest of the country, so they had no hurricane shelter) that charged us $2 dollars a piece. It was crawling with cockroaches and slugs. Everything was damp, including us, but we were content. I was now one hour from my destination, Xela, but still with no word from anyone, and no way to send word about myself.

The next day we spend the morning contemplating hair-brained schemes. We went 15 minutes out of town to see if one of the downed bridges was crossable. The river had eaten about 30 ft of it, but desperate people had strung up a cable (about the size of a phone cord) and were swinging down over the rapids to the other side. None of us were that crazy. But later in the afternoon the boys hear of a way to get to Guatemala City (their destination) that involved several hours of walking through the woods. They head out and I stayed because I was already so close to Xela. I still don¹t know if they made it.

Those hours in Mazate by myself were excrutiating. Every person I talk to raising or crushing my hopes- there¹s a way to go to the northeast, it will take 3 weeks to clear the roads, mamacita come with me i know the way, all the creeps, ready to take advantage, coming out of the woodwork, and also all the good beautiful souls who just want to help. This is when I overhear a store clerk bragging that he got a phone call out to the US (there is still no phone or internet service anywhere), he has some cell service that for some reason could make international calls but not local or to Mexico. I beg him to let me make a call to mom. It is obvious in her tone of voice that she has no idea that I had been practically swimming to get out of the hurricane for 3 days, and I try to get her to send a message to my board of directors and the people in Chiapas that might be wondering why they hadn¹t heard from me. By the time the 2 minute call cuts out, I¹m crying so hard the man won¹t let me pay him.

Back at the hotel room I have clothes strung out everywhere hoping that they¹ll dry a little. It is still raining, there is no water and electricity goes in and out, the town is running out of food and gasoline, and I have $5 dollars left. I fall asleep shaking with fever, thinking, I don¹t know how, but tomorrow I have to get out of here.

Friday morning it is raining less. I make the usual rounds asking people for new news, new ideas. It is all the same, on the road to Xela the bridge has collapsed, the tunnel has collapsed and there are 2-300 landslides (depending on how much the person you¹re talking to likes to exaggerate). But today a new rumor is circulating- someone has arrived in Mazate from Xela walking 2-10 hours (depending on who you¹re talking to). I pack up my wet clothes and start hanging out near where the Xela bus usually leaves from. Before long we are a group of 8ish ready to try our luck walking. We find a truck driver who says he¹ll take us as far as he can and we head out.

Only 20 minutes out of town we hit the first landslide. The people from that village are trying to clear it with shovels, they all tell us to turn back, but we run into people who are arriving from Xela, wet and tired but alive. It is amazing how many people try to discourage us- especially me from crossing (I¹m wearing my sandles, am the only woman, and carrying a small backpack, more stuff than most). Some of our group is skiddish and turns back. But I fall in with a highschool kid and an older man who turn out to truly be miracles.

The first section is uphill through ankle deep mud. My shoes fill with mud and rocks and since they haven¹t been dry for days the eventually rub quarter-sized bloody wounds into my feet. We reach a small bridge over another bloated river- the locals are throwing in hundreds of dead chickens that have drowned. We catch another 15 minute ride to the next landslide. I get declared the mascot of our motley crew- it is just too amusing and baffling that I¹m there with them.

For the next 6 hours we walk sometimes on the abandoned highway, sometimes over enormous landslides that are 10 ft thick and blocks long, they contain whole trees and bolders, nearly cover billboards. We wade through 2 rivers that are now going over the highway. Pass a ghostly line of about 40 abandoned semi trucks still filled with rotting produce and dying livestock. Some of them up to the drivers window in mud, some half hanging off cliffs. We carefully step over a dead horse. The tunnel has not collapsed but is damaged, as we go through random rocks fall from the ceiling. It is pitch black and eery. Many frightened people begin to run. But I take deep breaths and think (as I have many times on this trip) if it¹s time for a rock to smash me in the head, then there¹s not much I can do about it. We reach the other side and exchange relieved glances.

We pass villages completely abandoned, all the crops under water. We cross a precarious, improvised rope bridge. We walk up and up and up. Now there are many people coming in both directions, a refugee river, whole families carrying children, furniture, food. People going down because they have no news from loved ones on the coast. We finally get to a village that is not cut off- they give us food and water. We walk further and out of the rain comes a bus ( a real bus! Guatemala buses are U.S. Blue Bird school buses, that always make me feel like I¹m in elementary school) that we take 25 more minutes into Xela.

I say goodbye to my hiking companions and head into town to get a hostel. I suffer from extreme culture shock when I get to Xela, a town flooded but not destroyed by the hurricane, a town of many foriegners who relate to the hurricane as something that has interupted their tourist plans. I am a wreck, sick and barely walking, all my possessions soaked and smelly, I seek refuge with the Guatemalans that own the cantina next door, they feed me rice and beans and I watch the first news coverage I¹ve seen all week- Tapachula is now a disaster, there are virtually no highways or bridges left in Guatemala, a landslide consumes an entire village of 800 people, the numbers of lost and dead continue to rise.

Later I check email and find 4 friends that have also taken refuge in Xela (3 rode out the whole hurricane there, 1, like me, scraped her way up from the coast staying in hurricane shelters and hiking). As soon as they opened the InterAmerican highway again we headed home, a 10 hour trip involving 6 buses.

Now back in San Cristobal the sky is a cloudless blue. I let the sun soak into me. It is good and strange to be back home. Everything back to normal, I guess, and that is the weird part. Business as usual, except that I have less patience for the silly ³crisis² of the people around me, and I still have dreams of bloated, terrifying rivers.

There is a lot to say, a lot I am thinking about- How much we take for granted, how much suffering there is, how easy it is to feel like the end of the world is near when rains destroy one country and earthquakes destroy another, how useless ³civilization² is during a disaster (financial instituations and communication systems were the first down, and any business or resturant that depends on shipping were useless), how many needs are imaginary (how I barely ate, drank water, bathed or had dry clothes for days. My friend Akane, who also traveled through the hurricane, was a vegan who had no choice but to eat eggs and meat and whatever there was along the way, said, My veganism ceased to matter the minute my traveling companion¹s brother was swept away in the river.).

How I owe my life to people who have been kicked out of my country, how people go to my country in part because of natural disasters (migration basically began from the coast of Chiapas after Hurricane Mitch in 1998), how the risks we took and the journey we had were not that unlike the journey thousands attempt to make to the U.S. How the death toll of Hurricane Stan is just slightly more than the death toll this year on the U.S. Mexico border.

Many many thoughts

take that veil off baby

Content: executive order obscuring history, tariffs on lumber strain us-canada relations, western companies creating web-censoring software, china, taxes, ramadan as a commercial holiday, supreme court and wetlands protection, xbox, econ books, book about iraq, electrons, apple earnings, google charity

Bush's Veil Over History

But perhaps the most egregious example occurred on Nov. 1, 2001, when President Bush signed Executive Order 13233, under which a former president's private papers can be released only with the approval of both that former president (or his heirs) and the current one.

Before that executive order, the National Archives had controlled the release of documents under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which stipulated that all papers, except those pertaining to national security, had to be made available 12 years after a president left office.

Now, however, Mr. Bush can prevent the public from knowing not only what he did in office, but what Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan did in the name of democracy. (Although Mr. Reagan's term ended more than 12 years before the executive order, the Bush administration had filed paperwork in early 2001 to stop the clock, and thus his papers fall under it.)

Canada Warns That Tariffs on Lumber Could Imperil U.S. Access to Oil

Upset over persistent American tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber, Canadian leaders are warning the Bush administration that it is risking secure access to Canadian oil supplies.

In recent days Canada has begun playing a newly minted China card, suggesting in a series of subtle threats that it was willing to satisfy China's growing appetite for Canadian oil and wood that would otherwise go south to the United States.

The trade conflict has been growing worse ever since August, when the Bush administration refused to obey a direction from a special North American Free Trade Agreement panel to refund $5 billion in tariffs collected from Canadian softwood lumber exporters.

About 85 percent of Canadian exports, including nearly all of its crude oil exports, are shipped to the United States. Canada exports more than 1.5 million barrels of oil a day south, or nearly 8 percent of American consumption, and that is quickly increasing with the fast development of Canadian oil sands.

Central to the lumber dispute is the fact that most wood harvested in Canada comes from land owned by provincial governments that set cutting fees that American companies say are artificially low. Even with the tariffs, Canadian wood has supplied much of the recent American housing boom.

Study Says Software Makers Supply Tools to Censor Web
A new report from the OpenNet Initiative, a human rights project linking researchers from the University of Toronto, Harvard Law School and Cambridge University in Britain, once again raises tough questions about the use of filtering technologies - often developed by Western companies - by autocratic governments bent on controlling what their citizens see on the Web.

China Hopes Economy Plan Will Bridge Income Gap
The Communist Party leadership, concluding its annual planning session on Tuesday, approved a new economic blueprint that it says will address the country's yawning wealth gap and reduce "outstanding contradictions" that have led to a rash of social unrest.

What to Do About China and the Yuan
renminbi reevaluation
National Association of Manufacturers

Tax Panel Says Popular Breaks Should Be Cut
President Bush's tax advisory commission indicated on Tuesday that it would not propose replacing the income tax with a national sales tax or a value-added tax, but would recommend limits in the popular tax deductions for mortgage interest and employer-provided health insurance.

Ramadan Ritual: Fast Daily, Pray, Head to the Mall
Once an ascetic month of fasting, prayer and reflection on God, Ramadan has gradually taken on the commercial trappings of Christmas and Hanukkah, from the hanging lights that festoon windows to the Ramadan greeting cards and Ramadan sales and advertising campaigns that have become the backbone of commerce for the month.

Supreme Court Takes Up 2 Cases Challenging Powers of U.S. Regulators to Protect Wetlands

The cases, both from Michigan, challenge regulators' definition of federally protected wetlands under both the Clean Water Act and the Constitution. The question is whether the federal government is properly asserting jurisdiction over wetlands that may be part of a drainage area or tributary system but do not actually abut the "navigable waters" to which the Clean Water Act refers.

Rapanos v. United States, No. 04-1034
Carabell v. United States United States Engineers, No. 04-1384

The court accepted a third Clean Water Act case on Tuesday that presents a different issue under a separate section of the law. The question in that case, S. D. Warren Co. v. Maine Department of Environmental Protection, No. 04-1527, is whether a dam through which water flows requires certification under the statute even if nothing is added to the water, either from outside or by the dam itself.

The Clean Water Act requires a "water quality certification" before making "any discharge" of a "pollutant" into navigable waters. The owner of five 100-year-old hydroelectric generating dams in Maine, which provide electricity to a paper mill, is arguing that flowing water does not constitute a "discharge."

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court rejected that argument on the ground that "water that has left its natural state and has been subjected to man-made control" could be considered a discharge. In this case, the state's environmental agency was administering the law in cooperation with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which was reviewing a license renewal application from the company that owns the dams.

Rocky road for Xbox 360 launch
Microsoft is trying to do something its rivals have never done and it has 2,500 people working hard to ensure the global launch goes according to plan. In the past console makers have staggered the release of a new machine, like Sony did with the PlayStation Portable. The device first saw the light of day in Japan, three months later in the US and almost a year later in Europe.

History of Economic Thought

Thomas R. Malthus (1795), "An Essay on the Principle of Population," Book 3

Adam Smith (1776), The Wealth of Nations, Book I and Book V

David Hume (1752), "Of the Balance of Trade"

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848), "Manifesto of the Communist Party"

Karl Marx (1849), "Wage Labor and Capital"

Karl Marx (1867), "The Working Day," chapter 10 of Capital, vol. I

The Assassins' Gate by George Packer

The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq recounts how the United States set about changing the history of the Middle East and became ensnared in a guerrilla war in Iraq. It tells the story of the people and ideas that created the Bush administration's war policy and led America to the Assassin's Gate--the main point of entry into the American zone in Baghdad. The consequences of that policy are shown in the author's vivid reporting on the ground in Iraq, where he made several tours on assignment for The New Yorker. We see up close the struggles of individual American soldiers and civilians and Iraqis from all backgrounds, including returning exiles, thrown together by a war that followed none of the preconceived scripts.

The Assassin's Gate also describes the effect of the Iraq war on American life, including the ordeal of a fallen soldier's family and the shortcomings of a political culture too impoverished in its knowledge of the world and too bitterly polarized to debate complex moral and strategic questions. George Packer's intimate first-person narrative navigates this journey through the landscapes of America and Iraq while tracing the author's own evolving views, bringing to the page the full range of ideas and emotions stirred up by our most controversial foreign-policy venture since Vietnam.

Chemistry
electrons

Apple's Profit Quadruples, Yet Stock Falls
Apple Computer reported Tuesday that its earnings quadrupled in its fourth quarter on strong demand for both iPods and Macs. But overall sales of iPods fell short of analysts' high expectations, causing Apple shares to plunge in after-hours trading.

Google Earmarks $256 Million for Charity and Social Causes
The company will focus its charitable efforts in two areas: global poverty, and energy and the environment.

Lots

Contents: arctic territory, terror in europe, game theory, genetic information, crop subsidies, waves, flu, columbus day, response to id, sartre, usb declaration of war

As Polar Ice Turns to Water, Dreams of Treasure Abound

...the Arctic is undergoing nothing less than a great rush for virgin territory and natural resources worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Even before the polar ice began shrinking more each summer, countries were pushing into the frigid Barents Sea, lured by undersea oil and gas fields and emboldened by advances in technology. But now, as thinning ice stands to simplify construction of drilling rigs, exploration is likely to move even farther north.

Belgium Is Trying to Unravel the Threads of a Terror Web

On a damp, gray day in March 2004, the Dutch traffic police stopped a Belgian driver for a broken headlight and accidentally stumbled onto a major investigation of Islamic radicals.

The driver was Khalid Bouloudo, a sometime baker and former Ford autoworker born in Belgium. During a routine check, his name turned up on an Interpol watch list, for an international arrest warrant from Morocco charging him with links to a terrorist organization based in Morocco and involvement in suicide bombings in Casablanca in 2003.

The random arrest set in motion a cascade of events that underscored the extent of the radicalization of young Muslims throughout Europe - and a rapidly expanding and homegrown terrorist threat.

The case suggests a loose arrangement of terrorist sympathizers around Europe who officials say have provided support to terrorist operations in a number of countries. This has presented even small countries like Belgium with difficult law enforcement problems, forcing them to employ new investigative methods and pass tougher laws.

Game Theorists Win Nobel Prize for Economics

Israeli and U.S. citizen Robert J. Aumann and American Thomas C. Schelling won the 2005 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Monday for their work on game theories that help explain economic conflicts, including trade and price wars.

Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that uses models to study interactions with formalised incentive structures ("games"). Unlike decision theory, which also studies formalised incentive structures, game theory encompasses decisions that are made in an environment where various players interact strategically. In other words, game theory studies choice of optimal behavior when costs and benefits of each option are not fixed, but depend upon the choices of other individuals.

International Business Machines to Put Genetic Data of Workers Off Limits

As concerns grow that genetic information could become a modern tool of discrimination, I.B.M. plans to announce a new work force privacy policy today.

I.B.M., the world's largest technology company by revenue, is promising not to use genetic information in hiring or in determining eligibility for its health care or benefits plans. Genetics policy specialists and privacy rights groups say that the I.B.M. pledge to its more than 300,000 employees worldwide appears to be the first such move by a major corporation.

The new policy, which comes as Congress is considering legislation on genetic privacy, is a response to the growing trend in medical research to focus on a person's genetic propensity for disease in hopes of tailoring treatments to specific medical needs.

Gene tests are not yet widespread, but start-up companies are already intent on developing a market for genetic testing and counseling. I.B.M. has a business stake in promoting genetic data gathering and processing, as a leading information technology company with a growing presence in the medical industry.

How does IBM get the genetic information?

Trade Chief Makes Offer to Reduce Crop Subsidies

The Bush administration will try to jump-start stalled negotiations over a global trade deal on Monday by offering to make steep cuts in domestic farm subsidies and export subsidies if other countries make similar concessions, senior administration officials said on Sunday.

The American offer comes after weeks of closed-door negotiations between the United States trade representative, Rob Portman, and members of Congress who have said they would not approve any deal unless they were convinced that American farmers could make up for the loss of government aid through new access to foreign markets. Farm subsidies in the United States total more than $19 billion annually.

The United States has lower tariffs on most farm imports, but it retains high barriers for products like sugar and orange juice - both of which have powerful lobbies in Washington - and it pays out billions of dollars in subsidies to producers of cotton, corn, beef and other commodities.

The reluctance by the United States and the European Union to reduce tariffs on imported crops and subsidies for domestic farmers has been assailed by large developing countries, including Brazil and India, which are demanding more access for their own farm products in exchange for lowering barriers to manufactured goods and services.

Leopold B. Belsen, 81, Expert on the Properties of Waves, Dies

An author of more than 300 articles and several books, Dr. Felsen and Nathan Marcuvitz wrote "Radiation and Scattering of Waves," which experts called one of the seminal works in electromagnetics.

Scientists Renew a Warning About a Himalayan Danger Zone

Great earthquakes - magnitude 8 or larger - occurred in the Himalayas in 1803, 1833, 1897, 1905, 1934 and 1950. But in the last half century, the region has been relatively quiet, with no earthquakes anywhere near the one with a magnitude of 7.6 that struck northern Pakistan on Saturday.

Danger of Flu Pandemic Is Clear, if Not Present

What worries scientists about the current strain of bird flu, known as H5N1, is that it has shown some ominous traits. Though it does not often infect humans, it can, and when it does, it seems to be uncommonly lethal. It has killed 60 people of the 116 known to have been infected.

The timing of the bird flu's emergence also makes scientists nervous, because many believe that based on history, the world is overdue for a pandemic.

I'm also worried that as the number of pirates has fallen, the global temperature has risen.

Columbus Day

'1491': Vanished Americans
American Indians have usually been presented as either underachieving metahippies, tree-hugging saints or some combination of the two. that's dehumanizing Because history is change, they were people without history."

Index to Creationist Claims, with Responses
Good. Exhaustive.

3 Share Nobel for Work on Behavior and Use of Light
Does anybody understand light?

The Value and Complexities of an Existential Love Affair

Hazel Rowley writes about the relationship of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Rowley has written biographies of the writers Christina Stead and Richard Wright.

Osama bin Laden's Declaration of War

Getting There

Circa November 20, 2010 I will turn 1,000,000,000.
One billion seconds, that is.
I find the prospect exciting.

Sundry Articles

Gross Domestic Happiness, Bike Seat Blues, Google Computer Software, Cellphone Use During Flights, I Am Exotic, Nobel Prize, Hauls Ass Sucks Gas

I mentioned this in January 2005 after I read the year-end Economist issue that Frank left at our house:

A New Measure of Well-Being From a Happy Little Kingdom
Gross Domestic Happiness in Bhutan.

Maybe biking to work isn't such a great idea...
Serious Riders, Your Bicycle Seat May Affect Your Love Life
On a positive note, I finally learned what the area between the external genitals and the anus is called: the perineum. In men, a sheath in the perineum, called Alcock's canal (all-cock, hee hee hee), contains an artery and a nerve that supply the penis with blood and sensation. The canal runs along the side of a bone and when a cyclist sits hard on a narrow saddle, the artery and the nerve are compressed. Over time, a reduction of blood flow can mean that there is not enough pressure to achieve full erection.

Google and Sun Challenge Microsoft's Office
This is big news. Google Inc. took a step toward challenging Microsoft Corp.'s dominance of computer software with the announcement Tuesday of a collaboration agreement with Sun Microsystems Inc. The move could lead to Google offering next-generation word processing, spreadsheet and collaboration tools that would take on Microsoft's industry-leading Office suite of software.

Silence Aloft Is Under Threat
Many have come to cherish the airplane as the long metal tube of silence; however, Federal regulators are reassessing the rules barring phones in the air and some international airlines are gradually introducing Internet access to their planes. The emerging debate over whether to allow phone use on planes is taking on a larger symbolism. Airplanes have become the last place where people in business do not feel obliged to be constantly and immediately available. Perhaps counterintuitively, airplane travel has become for many people a highly productive time, either because it permits uninterrupted work, or simply a reflective time that has been lost in a world of 24/7 digital stimulation.

Study Suggests Most in U.S. Will Be Fat
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm exotic.

like shoving frogs into a wheelbarrow

Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine
discovery of bacterium tied to stomach ailments

Big SUVs Lag in Sales, Hindered by Gas Cost
At Ford, sales of the Explorer, Expedition and Lincoln Navigator fell more than 50 percent compared with the same month a year earlier. At G.M., sales of the Chevrolet Suburban and Tahoe fell more than 50 percent, while the GMC Yukon was down 46 percent and the Cadillac Escalade fell nearly 23 percent, with the supersize Escalade ESV falling 40 percent. Sales of the Hummer H2, made by G.M., fell 32 percent.

Twin Deficits

ATOL
America's nightmare: Becoming Britain
Heavy borrowing, particularly from Japan and China, is increasing the leverage of America's foreign creditors over the superpower. The dollar will eventually pay the price for this and the country will go Britain's way, losing military and political primacy after shifting from creditor to debtor status, warns a new study.

Follow to the source...

Council on Foreign Relations

Getting Serious about the Twin Deficits, first in a new series on the future of American competitiveness.

Summary

Twenty years ago, the United States was the world’s largest creditor nation, unsurpassed in its ownership of assets outside of its borders, even after deducting what foreigners owned inside its borders. Yet over the past two decades, America has been transformed into the world’s largest debtor nation.

The focus of Getting Serious About the Twin Deficits by Menzie D. Chinn, a professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who served as a senior economist for international financial issues on the president’s Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, is on the economic consequences of inaction with respect to the fiscal and current account deficits. “The longer we wait,” the report explains, “the greater the likelihood of a global financial and economic disruption. Even absent a discrete crisis, hewing to the current course raises the chances of stagnant economic growth, if not recession, in the future.” The report also shows that there may well be other ramifications.

“A striking cautionary note regarding America ’s current path is provided by Britain ’s loss of military and political primacy in the twentieth century; that development followed a shift from creditor to debtor status. Similarly, a prolonged decline in the dollar’s value and increasing indebtedness will erode America ’s dominance in political and security spheres. These trends threaten the dollar’s role as the global currency that facilitates international trade and finance, something the United States has gained immeasurably from over the years. A weaker dollar also reduces American leverage in international financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). Finally, a diminished U.S. currency means that each dollar’s worth of military and development assistance has less impact at precisely the time when the nation faces the greatest challenges. Those threats we ignore at our own peril.”

Stay with me...

Twin Deficits

1. Federal government budget deficit. The Republican-controlled congress spends more than it collects in revenue. The government/national/public debt is composed of the debt generated by deficits.

2. Current account deficit. The current account is the trade balance, adding in net factor income and transfers (US earnings from its assets abroad minus what the US pays on foreign-owned liabilities in the US). The trade balance is the difference between exports and imports of goods and services. The current account balance does not stray far from the trade balance, meaning the trade balance largely determines the current account balance.

The US consumes more than it produces. The US must borrow to pay for the current account deficit, and the amount shows up as capital flowing in. This borrowing results in the accumulation of debt or the selling off of assets held in the form of US-owned factories and securities abroad.

Net capital inflows is the difference between capital inflows (borrowing) and capital outflows (lending). Capital flows are composed of private and official flows. Official flows, for instance, include foreign central bank accumulations of US assets (usually either in dollars or US Treasury securities). The current account deficit must equal net capital inflows, up to a (sizeable) statistical error, and a difference due to the basis for accounting.

As long as a country runs a current account deficit, it must borrow to cover that deficit, or run down its foreign exchange reserves. Usually this process means that a country becomes ever more indebted to the rest of the world. Large revaluations in assets and liabilities due to exchange rate changes or price changes can affect this relationship.

Remedies

* Reduce the federal budget deficit
Call your profligate Republican representative today and tell himher to stop spending so much gd taxpayer money. Tell himher to get out the ax and start chopping programs. What the hell happened in the past five years.

* Reduce the quantity of oil imports
The value of imported petroleum and oil products equals about one-third of the trade deficit.

* Coordinate a revaluation (appreciation) of East Asian currencies
a la Plaza Accord

Debt
Deficit
Government Debt
Balance of Trade
Balance of Payments
Current Account
Purchasing Power Parity
Capital Account

Twin Cities Marathon

Congratulations TCM runners!

Paul 2:56:55
Yarrow 3:00:27

Congratulations especially to Paul on successfully racing his first marathon. We first saw Paul at Nokomis, and although he was more focused than to greet us by pretending his hands were six-shooters, I was happy to see that he looked like the Big Chillin', relaxed, on cruise control. Paul maintained a placid countenance until mile twenty-one, where a look of aggressive focus accompanied his implacable stride. This is where Paul started to eat the competition, passing people left and right. The man could not be stopped. On Summit, Paul opened his mouth a little wider, perhaps to suck in more oxygen or to avoid grinding his teeth. Whatever the case, it worked. As the mileage continued to reel in runners, Paul defied the lure of fatigue. The downhill by the cathedral elicited a grimace from quads crying for mercy. With the marathon finished, Paul had to complete the straight-legged walk to the car and journey a couch.

In other news:

On Friday night, I watched the Chinese Connection. Good stuff.

On Saturday, we went to Whistle Farm to pick Honeycrisp apples and then to Afton to enjoy a hike in the absurdly nice weather.

Also on Saturday, the Huskers defeated the Cyclones of Iowa State University in overtime. Rejoice, rejoice, again I say rejoice.

On Saturday night we basked in the company of Steve, Yarrow, Liz, Megan, Tim, John, Mike B and peeps. Good times.

Chinese Banks

Pete, we anticipate your arrival.
I've read two Jared Diamond books: Guns, Germs, and Steel and The Third Chimpanzee. I don't know if I want to summarize GGS for you. I will summarize the 3rd Chimp book later. But for now, more important affairs:

Feeding frenzy for overseas banks
Foreign investments into Chinese commercial banks, which began just a few years ago, have accelerated to a frantic pace in recent months, with record-shattering deals being announced seemingly almost weekly. Three of the four big state-owned commercial banks (SOCBs) that acquired foreign funding - Bank of China (BOC), China Construction Bank (CCB), and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) - have received the most attention from the media, as each is preparing for a listing on overseas stock exchanges within the next two years. Bank of America (BoA), UBS, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) are just a few of the major foreign financial institutions that joined the bidding race. Considering the fact that the three SOCBs collectively have 900 billion yuan (US$111 billion) of non-performing loans (NPLs) on their balance sheets, why would BoA or RBS spend north of $3 billion for just a 10% non-controlling equity stake in a Chinese bank? There is no simple answer to this question.

You down with GOP?

For GOP, DeLay Indictment Adds to a Sea of Troubles
A Texas grand jury indicted House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) yesterday on a charge of criminally conspiring with two political associates to inject illegal corporate contributions into 2002 state elections that helped the Republican Party reorder the congressional map in Texas and cement its control of the House in Washington.

Statement by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is facing questions from the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission about his sale of stock in his family's hospital company one month before its price fell sharply.

Abramoff Indicted in Casino Boat Purchases
Jack is a republican lobbyist.