Tom Brennan S Random Thoughts

For the first time, the entire 18-year collection of Tom's "Random Thoughts" columns from Fire Engineering magazine are assembled and presented in book format.

A powerful story of love and loss, secrets and revelations - and making sense of a past that once seemed perfect. For Tom Brennan, life is about rugby, mates and family - until a night of celebration changes his life forever. Tom's world explodes as his brother Daniel is sent to jail and the Brennans are forced to leave the small town Tom's lived in his whole life. Tom is a survivor, but he needs a ticket out of the past just as much as Daniel. He will find it in many forms . . .

“The best book about America’s first modern secret service.” --Washington Post Book World In the months before World War II, FDR prepared the country for conflict with Germany and Japan by reshuffling various government agencies to create the Office of Strategic Services--America’s first intelligence agency and the direct precursor to the CIA. When he charged William (“Wild Bill”) Donovan, a successful Wall Street lawyer and Wilkie Republican, to head up the office, the die was set for some of the most fantastic and fascinating operations the U.S. government has ever conducted. Author Richard Harris Smith, himself an ex-CIA hand, documents the controversial agency from its conception as a spin-off of the Office of the Coordinator for Information to its demise under Harry Truman and reconfiguration as the CIA. During his tenure, Donovan oversaw a chaotic cast of some ten thousand agents drawn from the most conservative financial scions to the country’s most idealistic New Deal true believers. Together they usurped the roles of government agencies both foreign and domestic, concocted unbelievably complicated conspiracies, and fought the good fight against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan. For example, when OSS operatives stole vital military codebooks from the Japanese embassy in Portugal, the operation was considered a success. But the success turned into a flop as the Japanese discovered what had happened, and hastily changed a code that had already been decrypted by the U.S. Navy. Colorful personalities and truly priceless anecdotes abound in what may arguably be called the most authoritative work on the subject.

This volume describes how to develop Bayesian thinking, modelling and computation both from philosophical, methodological and application point of view. It further describes parametric and nonparametric Bayesian methods for modelling and how to use modern computational methods to summarize inferences using simulation. The book covers wide range of topics including objective and subjective Bayesian inferences with a variety of applications in modelling categorical, survival, spatial, spatiotemporal, Epidemiological, software reliability, small area and micro array data. The book concludes with a chapter on how to teach Bayesian thoughts to nonstatisticians. Critical thinking on causal effects Objective Bayesian philosophy Nonparametric Bayesian methodology Simulation based computing techniques Bioinformatics and Biostatistics

This book is the most comprehensive review of all the major proposals to rewrite, revise, or even replace the U.S. Constitution, covering more than 170 proposals from the nation's beginnings to the present day. The U.S. Constitution was carefully written by a remarkable group of men, but subsequent generations of Americans have devoted enormous time and energy to "improving" it. From colonial times to the present day, Americans of all political persuasions have campaigned to reform, remake, or replace this key document. The growth of the Internet and self-publishing has spawned a virtual explosion of such proposals. This book documents the numerous ideas for change—some practical, some idealistic, and some bordering on fanatical—that reflect America's Constitutional heritage and could shape the nation's future. Re-Framers: 170 Eccentric, Visionary, and Patriotic Proposals to Rewrite the U.S. Constitution sets the stage for this review by describing various prequels to the U.S. Constitution and explaining how the final document emerged at the Constitutional Convention. The subsequent chapters examine many proposed alternatives and revisions to the Constitution from its establishment until the present, illuminating perceived strengths and weaknesses of the current document as well as the pros and cons of possible amendments. Readers ranging from lay citizens who are interested in constitutional issues to historians, political scientists, law professors, and reference librarians will all benefit from this unparalleled examination of proposed constitutional amendment.

This guide contains comprehensive summary and discussion of all 44 prescribed texts in the HSC Standard English course, plus a list of key issues to consider in each chapter related to the relevant syllabus area, helpful advice on how to read different types of texts, plot outlines, character discussion and interpretations.

In this sweeping and revealing insider study, Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel shine a bright light on the life, career, and thought of William Brennan (1906-1997), widely considered the Supreme Court's most influential twentieth-century justice, as well as its greatest liberal and preeminent strategist. Stern and Wermiel make available for the first time a striking new view of Brennan based on what Jeffrey Toobin has called "a coveted set of documents"—Justice Brennan's very personal case histories of the major battles that confronted the Supreme Court during the past half century. Roe v. Wade, affirmative action, the death penalty, obscenity law, and the constitutional right to privacy are among the many controversial and hotly-contested big-picture issues covered in the Brennan annals. But they also provide more intimate glimpses of Brennan's surprising refusal to hire female clerks, even as he wrote groundbreaking opinions relating to women's rights; the complex tension between his commitment to law and his Catholic beliefs; and new details on his unprecedented working relationship with Chief Justice Earl Warren. Drawing upon Wermiel's rare access to the Brennan case histories, half of which will not be released to the public until 2017, and his more than sixty hours of one-on-one interviews with Justice Brennan himself, the authors have crafted a compelling portrait of a judicial giant, filled with details and insights that will further cement Brennan's reputation as an epic playmaker during the Court's most liberal era.