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But it took 48 years for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to concede that a plane crash had scarred his left eye and eventually taken his sight.
It took two more years for the VA to agree that Fong suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. And nearly three years before it fully compensated him for his blind eye and for a back injury from the plane crash, VA records show.
Fong's battle with the VA isn't over. He's still seeking back pay for the years 1950-1997 when the VA refused to acknowledge his blindness.
Numerous flight surgeon records document that Fong was badly injured in a plane crash during World War II, was hospitalized and had his flight rating downgraded.
Dr. Harry Hamburger, a Miami eye trauma expert, said there's no question that Fong is blind because of a 1944 plane crash that sent shards of glass into the retina of his left eye.
"He's got a permanent scar there," said Hamburger, a former consulting surgeon at Florida's Homestead Air Force Base who's examined Fong and his military records.
But the VA denied Fong's first disability claim in 1950 after a VA doctor didn't diagnose the scar on his retina and the flight surgeon records of the accident weren't in his official military medical file.
It wasn't until 1997 that Fong sought help from the Florida Department of Veterans' Affairs and learned how to gather evidence to prove his blindness claim. The department's service officer also helped him successfully file claims for a host of other war injuries.
Around the same time, a fellow veteran gave him some advice. "He told me, `Frank, when they turn you down, appeal it. Appeal the crap out of them ... and you'll get something.' And I noticed each time I appealed I got something," Fong said.
But Fong hasn't had any success convincing the VA that he's entitled to nearly 50 years of back pay on his blindness claim.
Early last month, based on questions raised by Knight Ridder, VA officials said they would take another look at Fong's case.
On Feb. 16, the VA agreed that Fong's eye injury existed back in 1950, but says there's no proof that it was disabling enough then to warrant any compensation.
Hamburger, the eye expert, said the damage to Fong's left eye was clear in 1950. "He was blind from the very beginning and should be compensated for it," he said.
Fong says he'll file another appeal.
A new direction in economic policy promised by President-elect Donald Trump could upend long-standing trade, health insurance and tax-and-spending programs.
Trump made trade a top issue in his campaign, accusing U.S. negotiators of approving deals that he said robbed Americans of well-paid manufacturing jobs. He has proposed withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Congress has not yet ratified.
The Republican also said he will threaten to pull the U.S. out of the North American Free Trade Agreement if trade partners refuse to renegotiate the terms to get a better deal for U.S. workers.
John Traynor, executive vice president of People's United Wealth Management in Bridgeport, doubts Congress will permit Trump to "enact a lot of the hyperbolic trade policies."
"We're hoping he certainly didn't mean what he was talking about," he said.
Referring to Trump's executive power to name China a currency manipulator, he said he hopes "cooler heads prevail on that."
Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group in Princeton, N.J., said the U.S. economy could enter a recession next year as a result of the new president's economic policies.
Tariffs against Mexico and China could undermine the U.S. economy and even a bluff "could be credible," he said.
With growth of about 2 percent, the economy has a narrow buffer protecting against the possibility of a recession, Baumohl said. He is forecasting economic growth next year at less than 1 percent, sharply lower than the 2.7 percent increase he projected if Democrat Hillary Clinton had been elected.
Baumohl disagreed with Trump, who argued that his experience as a business negotiator qualified him as president working with other governments on trade agreements.
"Negotiating with companies is not the same thing as negotiating with countries," he said.
In a speech last month, Greg Hayes, chief executive officer of United Technologies Corp., took a swipe at Trump without mentioning the New Yorker's name. An "isolationist approach" will not create growth or establish jobs, he said.
Trump had criticized UTC's Carrier heating and cooling subsidiary for moving 1,400 jobs to Mexico from Indiana. "We cannot let it happen," he said in a debate with Clinton.
On Wednesday, Hayes joined 1,100 other manufacturing and other business executives in a letter to Trump in which they promised to seek areas where of agreement and to "work productively" with the new administration.
"To be sure, we are aware that there will be times when we disagree on the specifics of important policies and we will respectfully make our voices heard when we do," they said.
The Alliance for American Manufacturing, a group including the United Steelworkers and several manufacturers, said Wednesday that Trump and Congress "must come together" with spending plans to build and fix public works such as highways and bridges.
It called for "stronger trade enforcement" against China and a "crackdown on countries" trying to circumvent U.S. trade laws.
Traynor said he and his staff believe Trump will persuade Congress to spend billions on road, bridge, airport and other infrastructure building, benefiting the economy.
Still, clients who mostly have liquid assets valued at less than $25 million are filled with anxiety, if not dread, about whether to quit stocks and put their money in cash. Trump and the Republican-led Congress will seek to end the estate tax that takes 40 percent of the amount more than about $5.5 million directed to children and grandchildren.
Some sectors, such as hospitals, for instance, may be hurt if Trump and Congress repeal the Affordable Care Act, Traynor said. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said Wednesday the Senate will advance legislation repealing the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said he doesn't believe Republicans are "so cold-hearted as to simply repeal a law dropping 20 million people" from insurance coverage. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman urged Connecticut residents Wednesday to continue signing up for Obamacare.
Traynor said the stock market, which advanced Wednesday after futures initially fell in reaction to Trump's election, could continue moving up when Trump moves into the White House in January.
He said 2017 will be a "positive year for equity investment."
Michael E. Chadwick, owner of Chadwick Financial Advisors in Farmington, which serves clients with an average asset base of $500,000, said he expected a "meltdown" in the stock market with Trump's win. He was surprised a collapse in stock prices didn't materialize.
Creepy sounds from Stranger Things are being released on special pumpkin-coloured vinyl this Halloween. Check out the tracklist below.
While the third instalment of the hit Netflix series has been delayed until 2019, fans will be able to bring the Upside Down to their own homes this spooky season.
‘Halloween Sounds from the Upside Down’ features 14 ominous, synthy tracks on pumpkin-themed wax. ”Hide some speakers in your bushes, play this record, and scare those trick or treaters,” advise S U R V I V E, who are behind the show’s atmospheric score.
Track titles include ‘Turn On The Lights’, ‘Shadow In The Tunnel’, ‘Tree Slime’ and ‘Turn Right & Run’. The pieces are taken from Season 2’s “brooding, darker atmospheric score”.
Released via Lakeshore Records/Invada Records outside North America, the vinyl is set to drop around October 26. It was previously only available as an iTunes bonus download. Find more details here.
07. Do You Accept The Risk?
Meanwhile, photos of Millie Bobby Brown shooting an emotional beach scene have been released.
Stranger Things Season 3 is expected to be released in Summer 2019.
Republicans hailed John Roberts as the "brightest of the bright" as the Senate began debate Monday on his near-certain confirmation as the nation's next Supreme Court chief justice.
President Bush said earlier in the day he was "cautiously optimistic" Roberts would be confirmed and indicated he was already working on his next pick for the high court. He hinted that his nominee would be a woman or a minority, saying that "diversity is one of the strengths of the country."
The Senate and the White House will focus both on Roberts and the upcoming replacement for the retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor this week, 19 years after the late William H. Rehnquist was sworn in as chief justice.
Roberts is "the brightest of the bright," declared Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.
Roberts, 50, is the first nominee to the nation's high court since 1994, and was considered to be one of the nation's top appellate lawyers before being promoted to the U.S. Appeals Court by Mr. Bush in 2003. He argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court, becoming very familiar with the eight justices he will lead as chief justice.
"The word is that the justices very much applaud his nomination to be chief justice," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa. "He has the potential, almost from a running start, to bring a new day and a new era to the Supreme Court."
Frist and Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., expect Roberts to be confirmed by Thursday, and Mr. Bush was expected to make his next selection for the Supreme Court soon after that.
"I will pick a person who can do the job. But I am mindful that diversity is one of the strengths of the country," Mr. Bush said Monday. He is under pressure from many quarters — including his wife — to pick a woman or a minority for O'Connor's seat.
Roberts, a conservative federal appeals court judge and former lawyer for the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, is assured confirmation.
Two-thirds of the 100 senators — Republican and Democrats alike – had already announced their support of Roberts as Rehnquist's successor even before the Senate opened debate. Underplaying Roberts' near-certain confirmation, Mr. Bush said he was cautiously optimistic that Roberts would be approved.
"Our duties are clear," Frist said. "The question each of us must answer is: Is John Roberts fit to become chief justice of the United States?"
His Democratic supporters say they're still worried about how Roberts — Rehnquist's former Supreme Court clerk — will rule on the bench, but he is undeniably qualified for the position of chief justice.
"Judge Roberts' impeccable legal credentials, his reputation and record as a fair-minded person, and his commitment to modesty and respect for precedent have persuaded me that he will not bring an ideological agenda," said Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, one of three Judiciary Committee Democrats who crossed party lines and voted for Roberts.
It takes a majority vote of the Senate to confirm a judicial nominee, and all 55 Republicans are expected to unify behind Roberts' nomination.
Thirteen of the 44 Democrats have declared their support, the latest being Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana on Sunday. That easily gives Roberts more votes than the last conservative nominee, Clarence Thomas.
Thomas was confirmed 52-48 in 1991. President Clinton's two nominees, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, were confirmed 96-3 and 87-9, respectively.
Democrats opposing Roberts say they're afraid the former lawyer in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations will be staunchly conservative like Thomas and Justice Antonin Scalia.
They question Roberts' commitment to civil rights and expressed concern that he might overturn the 1973 court ruling that established the right to abortion. The White House refused to release paperwork from Roberts' time as a deputy solicitor general in the first Bush administration, and the nominee refused to fully answer Democrats' questions during his confirmation hearing two weeks ago.
Sen. Evan Bayh, a possible Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, introduced Roberts to the Senate Judiciary Committee for the confirmation hearings. But he will vote against him, he said.
"I cannot vote to confirm, not because I oppose John Roberts, but because we simply do not know enough about his views on critical issues to make a considered judgment," Bayh said.
The limited information from the nominee's paper record raised troubling issues about Roberts' judicial temperament, said Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn.
"I am deeply concerned that he and President Bush's next nominee will shift the Supreme Court close to the extreme right for many years to come," Dayton said.
Some say Democrats are using the Roberts confirmation to prepare for a battle over the O'Connor vacancy.
"The more Democrats who vote for Roberts the better the argument will be for them to oppose the president's next nominee, who will replace Sandra Day O'Connor, the justice who for many years now has staked out the court's moderate center," says CBS News Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen.
"If the president doesn't pick someone in the O'Connor mold I expect the donneybrook we did not see this time out."
Specter said he thinks the president might name a successor within days of Roberts' confirmation. O'Connor often has been a swing vote, a majority maker whose retirement could signal a shift on the court on many contentious issues.
Errol Pierre-Louis Blurb Blurb is a simple, sophisticated self-publishing service for photo books such as cookbooks, wedding albums, photo portfolios, and more. Though it lacks the premium facilities that professionals may want for polishing and marketing their work, it gives consumers a fun, easy way to publish photos.
Downloadable BookSmart app lets you work off-line. Software works on PC and Mac. Connects to iPhoto and photo-sharing sites such as Flickr to import your photos quickly. BookSmart streamlines workflow so that you can create and publish basic photo books in minutes.
Software performs sluggishly at times. Doesn't provide ISBN distribution to sell your work on marketplaces other than via Blurb's online bookstore. No premium editorial or marketing services.
Blurb is a simple, sophisticated self-publishing service for photo books such as cookbooks, wedding albums, photo portfolios, and more. Though it lacks the premium facilities that professionals may want for polishing and marketing their work, it gives consumers a fun, easy way to publish photos.
Where most self-publishing sites cater to your inner author, Blurb caters to your inner photographer, giving you a simple platform for creating gorgeous photo books. The service is geared toward photo-centric projects like wedding albums, yearbooks, and photo portfolios, and it gives users the tools and functionality to let their creativity run wild. Blurb is not only easy to use, it's fun as well. It's not, however, well suited to professional products because of a lack of higher-end tools and marketing services.
First, what Blurb isn't. It isn't a great platform for publishing text-based books. There is an option for creating text-only books through Blurb, but you're much better off using Lulu or Wordclay. Also, Blurb isn't a Web-only service. Instead of forcing you to create your book online, the entire design process is done through Blurb's BookSmart software. The software is compatible with both PCs and Macs and gives you the flexibility to work on your photo project off-line.
The first step to creating a new book with BookSmart is choosing from four book sizes. The square 7-by-7 format is for smaller-size books. The 10-by-8 and 8-by-10 formats are the standard landscape and portrait layouts suitable for typical photo-book projects. Then there's the hefty 13-by-11 format for photo projects that need plenty of space to spread out. If you're looking for inspiration or just want to get an idea of what Blurb is capable of producing, visit the book ideas page to see how others have used the service for their creative endeavors.
BookSmart is great for beginners: Everything's already set up, and there's very little to learn. Just start up BookSmart and let it guide you through the process. If your book needs are basic, you can create a full photo book in minutes. Choose a layout best suited for your project, have BookSmart load and order the photos for you, and you're ready to publish. For ease of use, BookSmart definitely beats out Lulu Studio, the online photo book app for Lulu users.
BookSmart has starter layouts for cookbooks, yearbooks, portfolios, poetry books, and more. There's even a template for blogs, if you want to convert your online photo blog into a book. Although your starter layout is the default layout for your entire book, you can customize each page, and there are 70 additional page layouts from which to choose.
Importing photos into BookSmart is as simple as connecting to Flickr and, as Blurb puts it, "slurping" your photos into your BookSmart photo library and book. You can also connect to Picasa Web Albums and SmugMug.com, and Mac users can import directly from iPhoto. If you're collaborating on a photo book, you can invite contributors to send photos for your project. Instead of getting multiple e-mails with image attachments that you then have to upload into BookSmart, contributors can add photos directly to your photo-book project, so all contributed photos are already compiled in one place. And you can always pull photos directly from your hard drive. Streamline the process even further by choosing the Autoflow option, which automatically adds imported photos to your book in chronological or alphabetical order.
BookSmart impressively accommodates both casual and intricate usage. It's sophisticated enough to do most of the work for you but loaded with enough options to let you dig in and customize every detail. You can choose from several different themes, colors, and fonts for your pages. Ornaments (small artistic embellishments) are also available to add eye candy to your pages. Rearranging and swapping your pages or photos is as simple as dragging and dropping them in whatever order you decide. BookSmart also has a rudimentary photo-editing tool that lets you crop, zoom, and rotate your photos, which is helpful in making sure your images fit perfectly onto the page.
Bottom Line: Blurb is a simple, sophisticated self-publishing service for photo books such as cookbooks, wedding albums, photo portfolios, and more. Though it lacks the premium facilities that professionals may want for polishing and marketing their work, it gives consumers a fun, easy way to publish photos.
The Guardian is right to draw attention to the tax dodging practices of multinational companies (UK tax fraud costs government £16bn a year, audit report says, 17 December). But this staggering sum is dwarfed by the $200bn the IMF estimates developing countries lose to corporate tax avoidance every year. It is a figure that far outstrips the amount given in international aid by rich countries. Healthcare, schools and other key public services are being starved of resources.
The principles of the international tax system were designed a century ago and the reforms being pushed by the G20, OECD and other wealthy countries do not go far enough for developing countries. We need tough new rules to tackle the race to the bottom on corporate tax rates and to stop companies shifting profits from developing countries into tax havens.
• There is something fundamentally dishonest about the way our government demonises the few who abuse our benefits system, the few immigrants who contribute nothing to British society or the economy, while letting off very lightly the many whose contribution to the general welfare of the country, in proportion to their income, is minimal.
And it is not only the top 1%. When the national average annual pay is not even £27,000, why can’t those earning more than £150,000 pay more than a paltry 40% tax, and only on income above what for most people is undreamt-of wealth.
I want to live in a country where everyone makes a contribution to society in proportion to their earnings, where greed and acquisitiveness are not allowed to flourish unchecked, in a country that has self-respect and respect for others.
Peter Orszag’s Wedding Is Like Charlie Rangel’s Birthday Party All Over AgainLet the excuses begin!
Peter Orszag Goes From the Obama White House to the New York TimesThis isn’t going to persuade anybody that the two establishments aren’t in cahoots.
Peter Orszag to Beat Rahm Emanuel Out the DoorThe budget director will be gone in July. Emanuel will leave at some unknown point.
Today on our test bench we have the MSI GeForce GTX 780 Ti GAMING 3G which is factory overclocked from MSI sporting its Twin Frozr IV cooling solution. We will compare it to the ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II OC at both stock and overclocked speeds to determine which of these cards will provide the best performance out there.
Microstar International (MSI) is a Taiwan-based computer hardware manufacturer founded in 1986. Primarily a designer and manufacturer of PC motherboards, MSI has expanded its business into barebones PCs, servers and workstations, communications devices, consumer electronics, Notebooks, Netbooks, graphics cards, and other various electronic products. Its company motto, "Quality Products Create Faithful Customer," believes its underlying corporate strategy of designing and manufacturing quality devices for various markets and letting its high-quality reputation earn it the trust and respect of electronics consumers worldwide.
On our test bench today is the, the MSI GeForce GTX 780 Ti GAMING 3G video card.
The GeForce GTX 780 Ti is based on the GK110 GPU, but all grown up. This is the GK110 at its full potential with all 15 SMX units. We get to see what NVIDIA had planned with the Kepler architecture and full GK110 performance finally. The GPU consists of 7.1B transistors on the 28nm manufacturing process. For comparison, the R9 290X is 6.2B transistors. There are a total of 2,880 CUDA Cores enabled, which is 25% more than the GeForce GTX 780, and even more than the TITAN’s 2,688.
There is 7GHz GDDR5 memory modules in use on the 384-bit memory bus. This allows the card to have a memory bandwidth of 336GB/sec. This exceeds the AMD Radeon R9 290X GPU’s memory bandwidth of 320GB/sec. It is obvious NVIDIA wanted to get this card to exceed the memory bandwidth on R9 290X, since that is a major selling point of the R9 290 series GPU’s 512-bit memory bus. The GTX 780 Ti memory is run at 7GHz to net 336GB/sec, while the 320GB/sec on the R9 290X is achieved with 5GHz RAM.
There are 240 texture units and 48 ROPs in the GTX 780 Ti. For comparison, the R9 290X has 176 texture units, and 64 ROPs. These numbers translate into 176/GTs texture fillrate on the R9 290X and 210/GTs texture fillrate on the GTX 780 Ti. There is 64/GPs pixel fillrate on the R9 290X and 42/GPs pixel fillrate on the GTX 780 Ti. Interestingly, just to point out architectural differences, the L2 cache size on GTX 780 Ti is higher at 1.5MB, while it is 1MB on R9 290X. The TDP of the GTX 780 Ti is 250W, using one 8-pin and one 6-pin PCIe power connector.
The MSI GeForce GTX 780 Ti GAMING 3G comes equipped with a factory base clock of 1020MHz, a 145MHz increase over stock and a boost clock of 1085MHz, a 157MHz increase over the stock boost clock and features MSI’s Twin Frozr IV cooling system. It is configured with 3GB GDR5 memory running at a 7.0GHz effective rate. The cooling system is comprised of four heat pipes that carry heat away from the GPU to an array of aluminum fins that are cooled by a pair of fans. The cooling system is quite tall in comparison to the PCB but gives a very solid hand feel. It is sporting one DVI-I, one DVI-D, one HDMI v1.4a and one DisplayPort connector.