They strut about on blue feet and are the only kind of poultry to be honored with France’s designation of Appellation d’Origine Controlee, an honor generally reserved for wine and cheese. Sporting dazzlingly white plumage and a fiery red crest, Bresse Blue lends new meaning to the word magnificent. Bresse, France, runs from the Saone River eastwards to the foothills of the Jura Mountains. Poulet de Bresse are raised on lush grass and, by law, must be raised on plots of land totaling at least 5,000 square meters. Debbie and I have never tasted such glorious fowl and often look for Bresse on the menu in advance of our night’s gastronomical forays. Bresse is most often served for two, carved with aplomb table-side.
In our travels, the king of Bresse is Chef Johan Bjorklund, owner of L’Hotel de Beaune and Bistro de L’Hotel in Burgundy. We stay at the hotel, eat at the bistro and visit with Johan on every visit to the wine capital of Burgundy. You will not find a nicer place in Beaune to stay or dine. And yes, indeed, Bresse do have blue feet, both of which will most likely make the trip to your carving table at Bistro de L’ Hotel. If you require just one reason to embark on a high-speed TGV rail adventure out of Paris, L’Hotel de Beaune, Johan Bjorklund, and Bresse fowl team up to await your arrival.
From Gare Lyon in Paris, the deluxe high-speed TGV takes about two hours to Dijon. Next up will be your connection to Beaune (about 45 minutes by auto). Debbie and I have rented from Hertz twice, and while each trip has been a bit of an adventure, we have obviously survived, as will you if you follow a few of the basic French guidelines I have offered in previous What I Learned In Paris
posts. I am a most concerned traveler and need to know that all my bases are covered well before I leave the states. A huge assist in this regard is all the legwork our France facilitator and reservations expert Ryland Stacy ([email protected]) does for us months in advance of each trip to France. I am sure I drive Ryland nuts with each new concern, but on we go with nary a hitch. Be certain Hertz confirms a GPS for you and shows you how to shift a European car into reverse. We paid the penalty for not knowing the little trick in Dijon on our first drive to Beaune. A French Swat team at the rail station came to our aid. On one of our visits, we enjoyed driving the wine route to Puligny-Montrachet, wine touring and lunching at Olivier Laflaive’s, and stopping at various places along the way. Another option is taking the local train from Dijon to Beaune. Check with Ryland and confirm on the Internet your hang time. If you would like to take a great Burgundy wine tour, contract with our preferred wine tour team, David Verez and Jerome Allexant. (www.bourgogne-avec-chauffeur.com). If you book a wine tour with them, they can pick you up in Dijon or even Paris. In either case, I would email the hotel as to your plans and request that they make a confirmation call to David and Jerome the morning of your arrival. Let them plan a day tour for you. Burgundy is a mini region running only a narrow 30 miles from top to bottom. By touring with Jerome or David, you get the added benefit of their local knowledge of Burgundy and its lore and the almost mystical importance of terroir. Debbie, David and I had a great day together. We learned so much and were grateful the hotel had steered us to David and Jerome. Beyond your touring, Beaune is a walkable, charming city, with many wine stores, bistros and shops. Plan to reserve for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to avoid a Ferme sign on the other two great Beaune dining spots I will bring to you in my next installment. Obviously, Debbie and I are excited about the adventure that awaits you in Beaune. And we are looking forward to sharing with you the investment we made on our last visit. A unique experience awaits you.
 
  
 
  
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You’ll have a better idea by this time tomorrow what type of country your grandchildren will inherit. Will it be one where they will be overrun by public-sector pension obligations, or will it be one where they as taxpayers control their state’s purse strings?. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has made the necessary reforms by putting control of the public sector back where it belongs: with the taxpayers. Public-sector union leaders are fuming and are in the fight of their life. If Walker wins the recall vote today, expect this to be the beginning of reform around the country. For union leaders, it may be too late if union members are given a choice, as they are in Wisconsin, to pay union dues or not to pay. They’re not paying.
Armed with the choice to pay or not to pay union dues, thanks to Gov. Walker, they have decided not to. Union membership is sinking like a rock. According to The Wall Street Journal, since Walker’s reforms, membership has cratered by more than half for the second-biggest union AFSCME. Its membership has dropped from 62,818 in March 2011 to 28,745 in February. Plus, not only are members not paying dues, unions are not recertifying because it’s too hard.
To recertify, thanks to Gov. Walker’s reforms, it takes 51% of the votes of all organization members, whereas in the past it only took 51% of those voting. Once a union is decertified, it is no longer recognized by the state in official negotiations. Therefore—and this is why it’s so important to taxpayers—the state no longer has to stick within the bargaining guidelines union leadership had written into law.
Walker’s reforms do two things: one, give union members a choice not to have their dues automatically deducted, and two, require a true majority to recertify a union rather than only 51% of those who vote. It’s about money and control. When given a choice to pay dues, members don’t pay and they don’t vote to recertify. As the Journal reports, Tina Pocernich, a researcher at Wisconsin, paid dues for 15 years but not anymore. “It was a hard decision for me to make. But there’s nothing the union can do anymore.”
This is the type of public-sector union reform that states need. Forget about special tax breaks to lure companies to your state, like the ones Rhode Island has tried and failed at. Put control of the state coffers back into the hands of taxpayers, and step back and wait. The jobs will come. This is the final stand. Public-sector union leaders and their 37% membership rate, versus only 6.9% in the private sector, have had it too easy for too long. They’ve bankrupted cities and towns across the country with sweetheart pension deals and contracts impossible to break. It’s time union leaders are shown the door so you can make sure your grandchildren don’t have to have this fight when you’re no longer around to help them.
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 The Advanced Gun System (AGS) will provide flexible, sustainable and affordable firepower against a wide range of littoral and inland targets, as well as highly-advanced gunfire capabilities for anti-surface warfare. The AGS, with the highly lethal Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP), will support the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps expeditionary and joint operations warfighters in the littorals and deep inland.
Drawing from a fully-automated, below-deck weapon handling and storage system for up to 750 rounds, the AGS will be capable of a maximum sustained firing rate of 10 rounds per minute and will fire at ranges of up to 83 nautical miles. By eliminating the need for personnel in the magazine, the AGS design supports the Navy’s goals to significantly reduce overall crew requirements.
AGS is being developed as a complete weapon system through the extensive use of rapid virtual prototyping, with the gun, magazine, ammunition and support subsystems integration all within the responsibility of the BAE Systems team. The extended range for AGS payloads will be achieved through an optimized balance of gun-launch and projectile rocket motor energies.
The AGS integrated system control, or ISC, combines both gun control and fire control elements within the AGS architecture for seamless integration to the total ship computing environment. AGS design innovations also incorporate advanced thermal and erosion management technologies to ensure extended barrel life and to minimize infrared signature.
Completing several successful test fires in 2005, the 155-mm AGS with LRLAP will support U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps expeditionary and joint operations warfighters in the littorals and deep inland.
Drawing from a fully-automated weapon handling and storage system for up to 600 rounds, AGS will employ a family of GPS/inertial measurement unit-guided and ballistic 155-mm munitions capable of delivering a unitary, high-explosive warhead at extreme range.
With DDG 1000 as part of a naval task force or as an independent expeditionary strike force, AGS will launch LRLAP at high velocity from over the horizon to prepare and shape the battlefield. AGS will be capable of a maximum sustained firing rate of 10 rounds per minute to deliver high-volume, 155-mm LRLAP fires at ranges of up to 74 nautical miles. Each DDG 1000 can mass 140 to 160 projectiles in the air at once and direct multiple round simultaneous impact effects against single or multiple targets.
AGS and LRLAP continue to demonstrate success in 2005 and 2006. The BAE Systems’ DDG 1000 Armament Team is currently developing the transformational 155-mm AGS and LRLAP munition under the ongoing engineering development model contract phase. While virtual development of key elements is moving forward, testing at other BAE Systems and AGS Team facilities is demonstrating physical and operational capabilities of AGS and LRLAP. BAE Systems’ subcontractors have already demonstrated LRLAP concepts for suitability of structural integrity, flight stability, navigation, guidance and control system characteristics. Tests have already demonstrated the propulsion approach required to achieve the challenging range goal of 63 nautical miles.
In developing the LRLAP Tactical Baseline Design, BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin tests will establish confidence in meeting challenging performance and reliability goals, and in addressing requirements directly related to LRLAP fielding.
Specifications
Primary mission: Land attack
Secondary mission: Antisurface warfare
Round-
Projectile: 155-mm
Propulsion: Rocket motor
Guidance: GPS/IMU guided
Length: 88 inches/2.2 m
Weight: 230 lbs/104.3 kg
Range: up to 74 nautical miles
Rate of fire: 10 rpm
MRSI: 6 rounds within 2 sec
Source: BAE Systems
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A convincing win in Wednesday’s Wisconsin recall election catapults Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, along with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, onto the national stage as a leader in what is now a national movement for better education for America’s children and grandchildren. These two governors will provide national leadership for a new model that literally will reshape American  politics.
At National Review John Fund writes in his essay (quoting labor historian Fred Siegel), “Ending dues deductions breaks the political cycle in which government collects dues and gives them to the unions, who use the dues to back their favorite candidates and also lobby for bigger government and more pay benefits.” It will soon be clear to voters around America that a stake has been driven into the heart of the outdated public-sector union movement. According to Mr. Fund, the Wisconsin union that last year had 22,300 Wisconsin state workers “has seen its membership sink by two-thirds to 7,000.”
This fall, candidates seeking election can now run on a simple platform of states’ rights, decertification of public sector employee unions, and the charter school option for all Americans. This also means the adoption of right to work laws. Success will quickly translate to a WE ARE OPEN FOR BUSINESS mantra that can be plastered on ads, placards and billboards across every state that wins the battle.
Wisconsin is adding jobs at a historical rate. This historical job growth is due to the relentless efforts of one man, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. The outflanked, timid and overmatched administration of President Barack Obama is on the ropes. A centralized, big government model influenced by the specific principles of Marxism is a failed strategy. On a national level, the only employees being added to payrolls aggressively are federal regulators. The national employment picture is a nightmare, as I detail in my upcoming Richard C. Young’s Intelligence Report. My clients, America’s small business owners, will not add employees in the type of national economic environment created by this failed Obama administration.
Wisconsin voters have proudly banded together to deliver a death knell to public sector unions, and now the movement will thunder forth nationally. I expect the Tea Party movement, greatly energized by Scott Walker, to be the leading edge of the movement for WE ARE OPEN FOR BUSINESS. All Americans have Governor Walker and the hard working people of Wisconsin to thank for the exciting opportunities that lie ahead for our children, grandchildren and our Federal Republic form of government. Thomas Jefferson is smiling somewhere. Congratulations Governor Walker.
Warm regards,
Dick Young
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The Obama administration, more so than any in memory, is all about strengthening the office of the president and increasing federal power. Both fly in the face of our Founders’ wishes. The Founders intended a weak office of the president with strictly limited powers as enumerated clearly in the Constitution. Those limited powers include his job as commander in chief, issuing pardons, appointing officials, signing treaties, receiving reports from his cabinet, and reporting the State of the Union. There are no healthcare overhauls or “kill lists” to be found in the Constitution. The central government was also to have been strictly limited. Here again, the enumerated duties of Congress are defined clearly in the Constitution. Over the years, both the Office of the President and the involvement of Congress have been dramatically expanded far beyond the intent of the Founders.
Voters in Wisconsin have gotten the message, and the Tea Party is delivering the message across the country. Glenn Beck continues to expand on his now broader-based effort to educate Americans on understanding the foundation of a federal republic form of government. Later this month, the Supreme Court will weigh in on the constitutionality of Obamacare. Regardless of the outcome, the fate of a huge percentage of our national economy is going to rest in the hands of one or maybe two individuals, whom none of us had a vote in putting into a lifetime position.
The Supreme Court, like the Office of the President and Congress, has been allowed to morph into a creature never envisioned by America’s Founders. The Cato Institute’s Ilya Shapiro, in unique fashion, weighs in on the Supreme Court’s upcoming Obamacare decision. I have had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Shapiro at Cato Institute policy get-togethers and am delighted to be able to bring to your attention his thoughtful outlook. Enjoy Why Obamacare Strikes Out In Court.
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