Nauru a Spy Guide

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Strategic and practical information on government, national security, army, foreign and domestic politics, conflicts, relations with the US, international activity, economy, technology, mineral resources, culture, traditions, govt

Nauru Foreign Policy and Government Guide (World Spy Guide Library)

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Nauru Foreign Policy and Government Guide (World Spy Guide Library)

Manufacturer: Intl Business Pubns USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Federal Government | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0739783440

Nauru Investment and Business Guide (World Spy Guide Library)

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Nauru Investment and Business Guide (World Spy Guide Library)

Manufacturer: Intl Business Pubns USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Exports & Imports | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | International | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Investing | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0739769804

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This investment guide contains basic information on economy, business, export-import and investment climate, opportunities and regulations. Provides strategic information on economy, industrial development, banking, and government. Includes information on the most important business contacts and business travel. Updated annually.

Book Description

Big-ticket litigation is a way of life in this country. But something new is afoot--something typified by the $246 billion tobacco settlement, and by courtroom assaults that have followed against industries ranging from HMOs to gunmakers, from lead paint manufacturers to "factory farms." Each massive class-action suit seeks to invent new law, to ban or tax or regulate something that elected lawmakers had chosen to leave alone. And each time the new process works as intended, the new litigation elite reaps billions in fees--which they invest in fresh rounds of suits, as well as political contributions. The Rule of Lawyers asks: Who picks these lawyers, and who can fire them? Who protects the public's interest when settlements are negotiated behind closed doors? Where are our elected lawmakers in all this?The answers may determine whether we slip from the rule of law to the rule of lawyers. AUTHORBIO: WALTER K. OLSON is the author of The Litigation Explosion (1991). A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Olson has written on law and lawyers for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, City Journal, and others. He lives and works in Chappaqua, NY.

Customer Reviews:

Excellently written, but read with caution........2007-07-26

Walter Olson, as other reviewers have noted, is biased. He is a pro-business conservative who works for pro-business causes. This book, as other reviewers have noted, does not address the corrupt nature of corporations or their lack of accountability to the consumer.

On the other hand, those points have nothing to do with his thesis: that a small elite of plantiff trial lawyers, using government influence and sloppy law, have turned the civil justice system of the United States into a gigantic blackmail machine for their own enrichment. Olson supports this thesis with chapter after devastating chapter showing how nepotism, abuse of class action, junk science, the triumph of emotion over fact, and above all the ability to sue without any grounds whatever without any consequences have destroyed justice in the civil system.

Olsen offers several solutions to these abuses. He proposes instituting European standards for civil suits- that is, the loser pays all the winner's legal costs. He proposes a ban on percentage-of-settlement contingency fees. He proposes massive class action tort reform- under the current system class action lawyers win massive payoffs while their clients, who generally don't even KNOW they're clients, at most get a coupon for a product they no longer want. Most of all, he calls on his readers to be aware of the issues of tort reform in the political arena- an awareness made all the more necessary by the prevalence of trial lawyers in legislative office and the massive campaign donations trial lawyers give to establishment officials.

Don't take everything in this book as gospel, and certainly question Olson's bias. Even after doing so, the simple facts in the book demonstrate beyond doubt that corrupt lawyers not only use the system to their own advantage, but in so doing endanger the freedom of all Americans- particularly the freedom from judicial extortion.

Biased, unbalanced, conservative...complete garbage.......2006-09-10

This book is terrible on multiple levels. Rather than discuss tort litigation with a balanced approach, and then leading to a "tort litigation is bad" conclusion, it starts with the premise that tort litigation is bad and goes downhill from there.

Everything, including facts, discussion, opinion, and analysis, is biased. For example, attorney generals who are true consumer advocate hawks (e.g., Eliot Spitzer) are deemed "hyperactive"; referring to an associate of Ralph Nader as the "chief pot stirrer" who has a "relentlessly accusatory public persona" and is "always on the attack." His bias is also subtle. In one instance, he sings the praises of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), which found evidence that silicon [...] implants do not expose patients of rheumatic disease. This is a subtle slight of hand because Olson conveniently forgets to point out that the ACR has a vested interest in funding and/or publishing research that leads to this conclusion (there is NO way the ACR would publish a paper leading to the conclusion its practictioners have been partially responsible for the poisoning of thousands of women; it is a peer group made up of practictioners!!!).

Olson demonizes specific targets that suspiciously reflect those of conservatives. The media, trial lawywers, consumer watchdogs, etc., are deemed evil. The media (read: the "liberal" media) perpetuates tort scares, and serves as the unwitting (or witting) accomplices to the plaintiff's bar. Apparently, Olson has never watched Fox "News" or "far and balanced" idiots like O'Reilly. Ralph Nader is also attacked endlessly. Nader made his mark in the 1970's bringing the Pinto class action against Ford. Olson mentions the suit, but fails to look into the deeper issues of corporate responsibility, the fact that individual claimants cannot individually match the resources of Ford in bringing the suit, etc. Consumer advocates are painted as being in the pocket of the plaintiff's bar, needlessly aggressive, unscrupulous, etc. Olson's ideology defies common sense. Does he actually believe Enron was a good thing, or that Consumer Reports is a bad thing? His approach inescapably leads to this illogical conclusion.

What becomes evident are those things that are "good." Corporations are revered, and good for America; their executives would never choose profits over ethics. In Olson's world, there is no such thing as inequality of resources in bringing suit (which the class action suit can help remedy). In his world, medical malpractice damages caps are welcome, but liability premium caps by insurers (to doctors) are not.

Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of his ideological approach to "tort reform" is his failure to recognize what tort law does, and that many tort lawyers are ethical and truly care about the well-being of their clients. For example, he fails to discuss that products, although made by responsible individuals and/or corporations, sometimes have defects that when the conditions are right, can lead to truly disasterous results. Instead, he pontificates about how products like the Pinto had a comparatively safe record. This is NOT the point. The point is that the single defect that makes it hideously dangerous should be corrected. If the defect is not fixed (e.g., not cost effective), the ONLY avenue to remedy this problem is to bring suit. In Olson's world, this is a bad thing; a person who is harmed by a corporation that produces a dangerous product should not be able to bring suit against that corporation. Olson fails to realize that the corporation saves money for not correcting the product, while the person harmed may be straddled with debilitating injuries and medical bills. Apparently, in his world, this inequity is a just result; "buyer beware" is the only warranty that should be permitted. Likewise, in his world, a lawyer who brings a suit against the corporation is, by default, greedy and evil. Again, he fails to know (or discuss) that bring suits are VERY expensive, and plaintiff's lawyers take enormous financial risks to bring such suits. It never seems to dawn on Olson that damages plaintiff lawyers receive are offset by costs to bring suit, similar to "net profits" to a company. In Olson's world, such lawyers should be paupers and should take any such risks without any form of compensation. His logic is moronic.

In short, Olson is a tool of the insurance industry and conservative ideology. He only presents a one-sided view of the issues, and does not give the discussion (or the plaintiff's bar) any form of respect. If you would like a meaningful discussion of tort law and litigation, avoid this book, and its author, like the plague.

anti-Southern bigotry notwithstanding, a thorough attack.......2005-05-31

In The Rule of Lawyers, Walter Olson describes how a Southern "Jackpot Belt" from South Carolina to Texas awards ridiculous damages against "foreign corporations." Olson perceives the slick trial lawyers as taking advantage of parochial, bigoted jurors in what others might call the "Bible Belt." Such jurors, whom Olson derides as "the few, the proud, the ill-informed," (p. 245) are ignorant participants in a massive "get-rich-quick" scheme that redistributes corporate wealth to greedy lawyers with political ties.

Of course, Olson does not wittingly insult conservative Southerners. From his vantage at the Manhattan Institute, he charitably acknowledges their "fabled hospitality" (p. 209) while striving to arouse their fervor against lawyers who might pose beneath a "picture of a naked lady" (p. 74). Yet when Olson suggests Midwestern and Southern jurors are particularly susceptible to "junk science" sold by slick lawyers to ignorant, bigoted, rural folks in asbestos, breast-implant, automotive, tobacco, and other litigation, one wonders why they wouldn't take umbrage.

All the expected pellets are fired in this barrage of grapeshot against the plaintiff's bar: the lawyers fly around in private airplanes (much like the corporate executives they sue), they profit tremendously from their trade (much like the corporations they sue), and they lobby politicians (much like the corporations they sue). While seeking a quick buck, the slick lawyers stretch and break the law (much like the corporations they sue). These dastardly characters are not to be trusted (much like...).

As Olson tells it, a couple of corporations may have done a few bad deeds, but Southerners in the "Jackpot Belt" punish the guilty and innocent alike. As he tells it, corporations would never hurt a fly, let alone kill a human being by hiding hidden risks in a dangerous product. When Swiss banks benefit from the Holocaust, Olson turns a blind eye; but if American corporations benefited from the slave-trade, Olson writhes with anger at the greedy lawyers seeking a quick buck for seeking reparations.

Notwithstanding the anti-Southern bigotry which a casual reader might overlook by failing to connect the dots between the chapters, the book inventories all the slurs available against the plaintiff's lawyers. Olson merits a quick glance, in case one failed to realize that slick lawyers earn money by winning lawsuits. For fairness or balance, look elsewhere.

A Highly Relevant Expose.......2004-07-12

Walter Olson's The Rule of Lawyers is a highly relevant book for our ever more litigious society. In a well-written 307 pages, Olson presents a scathing indictment of what he refers to as "the Fourth Branch of Government"- trial lawyers. Olson clearly and persuasively argues in this book against the tort industry- beginning the book with a history of how our nation has allowed open season on a variety of industries- tobacco, car manufacturers, and gun manufacturers (among others) and walks the reader through the various campaigns the litigation elite have waged against Dow Corning, asbestos suppliers, and others. Olson also examines other litigation phenomena such as how TV newsmagazines act as mouthpieces for trial attorneys and how attorneys manipulate our jury system to achieve huge verdicts for their clients. Particularly interesting to me was the chapter entitled "The Jackpot Belt" where Olson analyzes trends in jury awards in states from Texas to Florida (the Jackpot Belt supposedly stretches from Beaumont to Pensacola) where juries have been especially generous in punitive damage awards.

I would recommend this book for anyone from lawyers, to law students or even to the layperson with an interest in this subject. Olson avoids technical, complex language and jargon and the book is highly readable.

Clear and Direct.......2004-02-13

Walter Olsen has done a fine job of analyzing the inherent conflict of interest between the legal profession and Justice and the threat it posses to the ideals of Democracy.

Even those who support our odd system of civil justice will find things to think about.

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The Rule of Lawyers: How the New Litigation Elite Threatens America's Rule of Law
Walter K. Olson
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTKJ9E

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The Rule of Lawyers: How the New Litigation Elite Threatens America's Rule of Law
Walter K. Olson
Manufacturer: Truman Talley Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTJMP6

Book Description

This book provides a synthesis of the current knowledge in this area and its application to contemporary land management. A key topic is the exploration of the concept of the fire regime, the cumulative pattern of fires and their individual characteristics of fire type, frequency, intensity, and season, and its interactions with biodiversity. The volume includes contributions by thirty two leading experts covering a broad sweep of topics.

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Langenscheidts Fachwörterbuch, Fachwörterbuch Chemie und chemische Technik, Deutsch-Englisch
Helmut Gross
Manufacturer: Verlag Langenscheidt Fachv., M.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 3861170809

Book Description

This book presents a self-contained treatment of the principles, techniques and applications of optical holography, with particular emphasis on recent developments. The first part deals with the theory of holographic imaging, the characteristics of the reconstructed image and the different types of holograms. The next section covers the practical aspects of holography - optical systems, light sources and recording media - as well as the production of holograms for display, colour holography and computer-generated holograms. Finally, there is a detailed description of the most important applications of holography. These include particle-size analysis, high-resolution imaging, holographic optical elements and information storage and processing, as well as holographic interferometry and its use in stress analysis, vibration studies and contouring.

Customer Reviews:

Great Book!.......2001-09-02

This book is a great overview of all the different methods of using and making holograms. It has extensive references. It assumes the reader has a mathamatical background. I refer to it more than any other holography book in my library.

Book Description

ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED

BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP

A collection of short works by one of America's most revered, iconoclastic, and enduring voices¿Mark Twain.

EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES:

• A concise introduction that gives readers important background information

• A chronology of the author's life and work

• A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context

• An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations

• Detailed explanatory notes

• Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work

• Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction

• A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience

Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential.

SERIES EDITED BY CYNTHIA BRANTLEY JOHNSON

Book Description

In addition to the classic novels Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, this set includes Humorous Stories and Sketches (featuring "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses," "The Stolen White Elephant," and 5 other items) plus "The Mysterious Stranger" and Other Stories ("The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" and 3 others).

Book Description

Is the Kensington Rune Stone an authentic relic of European travel in the New World over a century before Columbus sailed on his voyages of discovery? Evidence of pre-Columbian European travel in North America has been unearthed in Vinland, Northeastern

Customer Reviews:

Great Book! Truly answers the Mystery...Plus I knew Tom:>).......2004-03-09

I found the book originally at the Alexandria location of the Kenington Rune Stone in Minnesota a few years back. I read the book & had to meet Thomas Reiersgord in Edina, Minnnesota, also my home town, too!

I throughly enjoyed the book, brought many copies from Tom, personally, & distributed them to my friend all over the states.
We only disagreed one point in his experience of writing the book, that was he clearly was involved in a past life with monks that wrote the Rune Stone ~ found by a farmer, Olof Ohman in 1898 wrapped in an Aspen tree's roots.

I'm sorry to hear my friend has passed on. At least he knows, now I was right, too, like he was on the Rune Stone depiction of the monks dying from the Black Death, actually the anthrax version of the bubonic plague!

But then, how did he know that & prove it? Read the book!:>)

New Twist to an Old Story.......2004-01-01

Last year, shortly before his passing away, I had the opportunity to interview Mr. Olson. Lloyd grew up in the 20's on a farm near Kensington. He was best friends with Nils Flatten's son and knew the Ohman children as well. Lloyd has always defended his old neighbor, Olaf Ohman, by saying, "Olaf never carved anything in his life." The only question left for Lloyd was, "How did the KRS end up in Olaf's back forty?"
In his book, "KRS It's Place in History," Thomas Reiersgord finally answers that question. His book is as fresh as a Minnesota morning in June. It's cleverly written with tons of facts, readable maps, and loads of logical deductions. Mr. Reiersgord may go down in history as the "Sherlock Holmes of Minnesota." Great book!

Wonderful, written by my great uncle.......2003-12-09

My name is Sheryl Reiersgord and Tom Reiersgord was my great uncle. He recently passed away and that is when I decided that I didn't know him well enough. This book was one of his many passions in his life so I decided to read it. It was wonderful. He has great historical account and tells amazing facts. I'm thankful that my great uncle wrote this book, now I can cherish it forever!

Book Description

In Theorizing Revolutions some of the most exciting thinkers in the study of revolutions today examine the many theoretical and disciplinary frameworks through which revolutions can be understood, applying them to specific cases. They systematically study approaches such as state-centered perspectives, structural theories, world-system analysis, elite models, demographic theories, and feminism, ranging from the French Revolution to Eastern Europe, and from Vietnam to Nicaragua.

Contributors include: Jeff Goodwin, Timothy P. Wickham-Crowley, Richard Lachmann, Jack A. Goldstone, Eric Selbin, Valentine M. Moghadam, Christopher McAuley, and John Foran.

Customer Reviews:

Amazing.......2002-11-18

This is the only book on revolutions you will ever need. John Foran's work is especially interesting with his boolean analysis of the causes of third world revolutions. Overall, thorough and excellent

Book Description

Utilizing a human-centered approach, this text bases its ideas for environmental science on ecological principles and extends coverage to the interactions between humankind and the environment. It covers the basic principles of ecology, Homo Sapiens in the scheme of natural things, the impact of human activities on health and the environment, and problems and solutions. For professionals in environmental science.

Books:

New Perspectives on International Functionalism (International Political Economy)

Odd Markets in Japanese History: Law and Economic Growth (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions)

Organising and Managing Work: Organisational, Managerial, and Strategic Behaviour in Theory and Practice

Pacific Asia in the Global System: An Introduction

Papua New Guinea: The Struggle for Development (Growth Economies of Asia)

Policy Regimes and Industrial Competitiveness: A Comparative Study of East Asia and India (International Political Economy)

Post-Bubble Blues: How Japan Responded to Asset Price Collapse

Reconstituting the Market: The Political Economy of Microeconomic Transformation

Recovery from the Depression: Australia and the World Economy in the 1930s

Recreating Asia: Visions for a New Century

Books Index
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