I must begin this review by admitting my biases. No, I am not related to David Gallen. Roger Goldman, however, did teach me constitutional law at St. Louis University during Justice Brennan's service on the Supreme Court.

Justice Brennan was one of the longest serving justices on the Supreme Court, serving from his appointment by President Eisenhower in 1956 until his retirement in 1990. A member of the New Jersey Supreme Court before his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, Brennan became one of the court's consistently liberal justices during his 34 year tenure.

This book is in no way a biography of William J. Brennan, Jr., although some biographical details do work themselves into the narrative. This book is an exposition of the judicial legacy of this very important justice of the twentieth century.

This book is organized into three sections. The first section contains tributes to Brennan from others who have known him, primarily his former clerks. Section II contains a summary of the judicial positions which Brennan championed in his opinions. Section III contains a collection of Brennan's most important opinions.

This book is a worthwhile read, whether you are a fan of Justice Brennan or whether you see him as an activist justice run amuck. His fans will revel in his judicial literature. Strict constructionists will find justification for criticism of his kind in the pages of this book. All will notice his shift from an intellectual mainstay of the liberal Warren Court, to a sometime dissenter and sometime majority builder on the Burger Court to his role as a frequent dissenter on the Rehnquist Court, who still packed the punch necessary to bring an occasional majority to his thinking. When he failed to persuade the majority he left his dissents for liberals who he knew would follow later.

Read and enjoy.

While this book did not thrill me, my daughter loves it! She has chosen this book over many others time and again to have read to her. It has been over a year since she first saw it, and she still loves it. I run a childcare in my home and the children enjoy it too. The pull up parts on the pages engages children to participate in the story. Even though an adult may not like a story or the illustrations, children are the ultimate judge. The copy I have is a chunky board book which fits well in small hands.

Philip Jose Farmer makes an excelent job as always. Farmer known primarily for his Science Fiction, but has produced two Fantasy series World of Tiers and Riverworld, the latter an afterlife fantasy in the tradition of John Kendrick Bangs. Farmer words flow as easy as ever and this novel is a work of art. It aint as sexy or shocking as 'An exorcism: ritual one/two' or as deeply involving as 'The river world saga', but he builds his story up as the SF/horror/fantasy master he is. God fun, and with a nice climax as always.

Kimbrough provides an excellent glimpse into 19th century Indiana and the early history of the Tarkington family. In addition, he offers detailed insight into the chronology of the evolution of Methodism. If you're looking for a strict biography of Joseph Tarkington only, this is not the read for you, but if you're looking for a good understanding of the Methodist religion, you'll find it here.

I indexed this book. It's an excellent collection of long essays by different authors on different aspects of Salem, including its architectural history, maritime tradition and, of course, the witchcraft trials. In addition to being easy to read and informative, it's also a handsome edition, with full color photographs on nearly every page. Well worth adding to your history collection. I receive no profit from sales of this book, and recommend it only because it is worth reading.

This book, originally published in 1983, was reissued in 1999, no doubt because of the importance of genetic sequencing in recent years. What is neat about the book is it shows how algorithms from one field can be applied to solve problems in another, possibly totally disparate field, one example being computational linguistics and sequence algorithms in computational biology.

A general overview of sequence comparison is given in chapter 1 with applications to molecular biology, human speech, computer science, coding theory, gas chromotography, and bird songs discussed. The author discusses how deletion-insertion, compression-expansion, and substitution are employed in sequence comparison. Different metrics are introduced, such as the Levenshtein distance. Dynamic programming, which pretty much dominates the book, is introduced here also.

Part 1 of the book discusses sequence comparison in molecular biology. The use of dynamic programming is emphasized and its importance continues to this day. The advantages of using the dynamic programming method are outlined, and it is shown how to find the substring in a longer sequence with most optimum agreement to a shorter sequence. In addition, given an RNA molecule with a known nucleotide sequence, methods are discussed for predicting the way different parts of the molecule will bond to each other. These methods are based on dynamic programming. Mathematicians considering doing research on or about entering the field will profit from the section on the biological background. The treatment of RNA secondary structures is excellent.

In part 2, the emphasis is on speech processing and what is called "time-warping", which is a technique for comparing functions by altering the time axis. An interesting application is given to the comparison of bird songs. An algorithm is given for adjusting the time scales for two songs to arrange them in the most optimal alignment. In addition, the differences between compression and expansion and deletion and insertion are discussed in this part.

In part 3, a modified Smith-Waterman algorithm is employed to find similar portions in two sequences. Called local alignment in computational biology, it is shown in detail how to define the recurrences for the alignment and how to keep track of the pointers for backtracking. This part also generalizes the operations of substitution and Levenshtein distance. In addition, the strategy of doing sequence comparison by allowing transpositions is discussed. Such a strategy entails a generalized concept of trace, wherein trace lines can intersect each other, leading to entangling of the traces into knots or plaids. The usual dynamic programming techniques must then be extended to deal with these complications. One particular algorithm for this is discussed, called CELLAR, which involves the construction of a directed graph whose paths correspond to admissible sequences of generalizations of traces, called cuts. The computational complexity of this algorithm is discussed. In addition, an O(n^2/logn) algorithm is given for computing string-edit distances.

The last part of the book deals with studying comparisons between random sequences. Combinatorial arguments are used to derive upper bounds on the expected length of the longest common subsequences of two random sequences. Other miscellaneous results dealing with comparing common subsequences of two random sequences are given.

Goebbels - Mastermind of the Third Reich David Irving ISBN 1 872197 13 2 An Irving Biography of Joseph Goebbels is of interest for the light it sheds on each of them. Irving is well known for his ability to locate sources missed by others. His interpretations of the documents cause less admiration. Here, he has obtained much material from Goebbel's diaries that lay hidden in Moscow for nearly half a century. The book at times reads like a rather uninspired diarist too busy to sort out important events. For a historical work it is also surprisingly disordered. Irving possibly assumes that the reader is as immersed in the material as he is. It is frequently possible to wonder which year is being recorded. It is important for example that the events on page 388 belong in 1942. Page 390 is all about events in 1941, according to the references, but there is no indication in the text of such a step back in time. The page (390) is interesting for a contrast. Irving rarely tries anywhere to conceal a deep loathing for Churchill. Goebbels here, and in several other places, displays a reluctant admiration.

Irving is also out of step even with some of his subjects in the matter of visual cues. In two fat volumes about the war leaders Churchill and Hitler, both of whom lived surrounded by maps, Irving includes none. In this volume there are collections of photos clumped rather haphazardly. They seem always isolated from any relevant text, and are not listed in the contents or apparently included in the index.

The "Little Doctor" has a reputation as one of the worst in the nasty bunch who ran the Nazi regime in Germany. Irving underlines almost all of that reputation. The first half of Goebbel's life pointed nowhere and had little impact. It appears that he was a real socialist who became snared by the name National Socialist and remained attached by the magnetism of Hitler. From then on he came to resemble Shakespeare's Richard III to an extent that the original probably never did. As Gauleiter of Berlin he ran an operation where only the label distinguished the Nazis from the Communists and both had a strong resemblance to the ethics of Al Capone in Chicago at that same time. He retained his power in Berlin to the end, but when the Party came to government he became more highly visible abroad as well, with work on propaganda, including a film industry. His reputation as a liar rests on his being a very good liar. He knew when to tell the truth. If a lie was convenient and hard to detect he had no scruples. He could hold an audience spellbound for hours at a time. Would he have been able to hold an English speaking audience? Could he now hold any audience accustomed to TV attention spans? It seems unlikely. In a regime that was sometimes publicly prudish, his ill concealed sexual exploits and use of the 'casting couch' slowed but did not stop his ascent.

Having hitched himself to Hitler he became a spokesman for anti-semitism, which was not apparently innate. Curiously, Irving's Goebbels while growing fanatically anti-semite, was more pragmatic than most about trying to use internal unrest of oppressed nationalities against Stalin. Later he was the advocate of abandoning the usages of war against the West as well. Ruthless himself, he expected that of others. His children were killed rather than let them fall into the hands of the conquerors.

He unleashed the barbarians on Kristallnacht and poured venom over Jews everywhere thereafter. Other Nazis occasionally deplored the economic effects. Irving has maintained that Hitler was somehow cocooned from these policies. There is no doubt that Hitler was well aware of, and supportive of, plenty of other ethnic barbarities. Irving keeps himself in a similar cocoon. He never uses the word 'holocaust'. By repute he even denies the fact of the holocaust. One of his weaknesses as a historian is apparently an unwillingness even to explore the implications of facts he clearly knows. He is however well aware of the large scale slaughter of Jews that did occur. It is referred to in several volumes about WWII, without elaboration. In this work the knowledge of the scale is available to the reader as it was to the Nazi leadership. On page 388 it is mentioned that early in March 1942 Goebbels noted the content of a paper probably to do with the notorious Wannsee Conference. There were "still eleven million Jews in Europe" and 'for the time being' they were being sent East. On the same page, a [Goebbels] diary entry states that sixty per cent would be liquidated while "only forty per cent can be put to work." Goebbels may have done the arithmetic as he was dictating his diary. He would appear to have had no illusions either about the brutality of the entire process. Irving is obviously not inclined to pursue the mathematics or any other inconvenient detail. Over six million callously planned deaths meets most definitions of a holocaust. It is a book to plough through. Where Gray could ponder about some 'mute inglorious Milton' at rest in a country churchyard, this century has a nightmare of Eichmanns who had their opportunity. The contagion of horror is visible on pages 370 and 371 where Irving casually slips into Nazi usage and refers to "cleansing of Vienna" [of Jews], without any quotation marks. It is a book worth borrowing, but when the same material becomes generally available there is a better book to come. The holocaust denial industry is the major casualty of the book, and that demolition its most important content, but the author seems not to have noticed.

The Kirkus Review of David Irving's "Goebbels" could not have been more one sided if it had been written by Doctor Goebbels himself as a review of a Jewish author's book. This well researched book, and it's author, have been the subject of a smear campaign because the author has had the audacity to blasphem a religion.

If a person were an ordinary atheist, he would probably be allowed to freely enter Germany and Canada. However, if he were to examine and attempt to publicly debate the religiously significant number of six million, which is now called "Shoah" and a cornerstone of the Jewish religion, he will probably be imprisoned if he does so in Germany or half a dozen other countries. David Irving is probably lucky just to have been banned from these countries.

Yes, this is a look at Goebbels that gives him more depth of personality than is usually politically correct. But to have such an out pouring of hate focused at the author after he has provided us with the new perspective is indicative of the same mentality that had persecuted unpopular beliefs all through out the ages.

In his biography of Joseph Goebbels David Irving has provided some masterful and provocative insights into the inner workings of the Nazi hierarchy. However, the book is sometimes confusingly organized and Irving's use of the present tense when describing past events can be irritating and seem a bit amaturish in so seasoned a writer.

With these caveats in mind, this is still an important book and necessary reading for any student of World War II. Mr. Irving is neither a Holocaust denier nor a proponent of the Nazis or their ideology; he simply has a different point of view. It's amazing how vociferous and censorious the academic history establishment can become when their 'established' truths are challenged; and in this book, Mr. Irving has done just that.

Any book that describes Day Crockett as "the strangest man I ever saw. He had the face of a woman, and his manner was that of a girl" is going to capture my attention. That description appears in "Eccentrics" followed by the qualification that, as the Alamo fell, Crockett "looked grand and terrible, shouting at the front door and fighting a whole column of Mexican infantry."

The authors, who may be a bit eccentric themselves, first define eccentricity, then supply multiple examples arranged in such categories as: The Scientists, Eccentric Childhood, and Sexual Eccentricity (the latter being not quite as titillating as it sounds). They also examine the borderline between eccentricity and mental illness (a fine one) as well as some peculiarities, such as arrested speech development, relating it to eccentricity.

An interesting read, the only latent problem in the book is that, after reading it, you may find yourself looking at some of your acquaintances with different eyes (not to mention yourself.) On the other hand, you might use it as a springboard to finding and developing the eccentric parts of your own character.

I found this book to be fun and rather inspiring. It is grand to read about people who have actually managed to throw off the expectations and limitations of society. I recommend it to anyone who is curious about variations from the standard solutions. Also, I'd like to say that eccentricity offers another take on creativity... one that is structurally different than that provided by the art world. So if you are looking for an alternative foundation for art/writing/invention, you'll find insights between the lines of this book.

At last I can begin to understand my weirdness. Now I know that there is a word to describe my pyschological condition: eccentric. But the authors go at lengths to point out that this is much different from a mental illness. In fact, eccentrics are healthier than normal and show less schizophrenic signs. I would go as far as saying that we are extra sane. (Though my personal theory of pyschology is that *everyone is 'insane') It's not negative at all, in fact (pp.19) "Human evolution needs human eccentricity." Eccentrics, besides being nonconforming, are also commonly scientists or artists--and either or neither are very creative. The researchers let us know that true eccentrics are never acting. They are strong individuals with strange inclinations of their own, which they are not afraid to express. With the study of eccentricity we may finally gain a better understanding of all the revolutionary figures in all walks of history from Jesus Christ to Albert Einstein. However, "for all practical purposes, as far as modern medicine is concerned eccentricity does not exist." Dr. David Weeks and Jamie James have take the first scientific approach to the mutations of social evolution. {i.e., eccentrics} Accordingly I give them a full rating of five stars and recommend this book to every human being.

Should be subtitled, "How Two Seattle Yuppies Retired Early on 3.5K a Month". This book contains some helpful info, but I was hoping to see someone with a negative net worth pay off their debts and become FI. What I got was the story of a couple of yuppies saying, "Whoa, were worth a bundle and if we refuse to pay for our kids' college we can retire early". Not too impressive to me. I would not read this book if I were looking for material on voluntary simplicity. Why does Vicki Robin endorse this book?

We read Duane Elgins excellent book Voluntary Simplicity decades ago, and would simply caution that this book Getting A :Life will probably appeal to those who have lots of money and really do not have to worry about making ends meet. For those who are on some type of a fixed income. or those with middle class incomes in a precarious economy it doesn't have much useful information. And I agree with those reviews that note the "yuppy" element.

We run a small simple living group in the Sierras, that is like the ones we ran in Alameda and San Joaquin counties here in California. So we are not new to the live simply and get out of debt ideas. And I note that there is a big difference between spoiled brats needing to learn what is really important in life and those who know what is important in life and want to know even more about how to simplify their lives.

The Intenet be it google searches or Yahoo groups has a whole lot more free information that is useful than this book. Amazon[.com]offers a whole lot more books on the subject that I would recommend.

After reading Your Money or Your Life by the late Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, Getting a Life: Strategies for Simple Living Based on the Revolutionary Program for Financial Freedom Your Money or Your Life seemed to be a natural progression.

This book *does* offer some very helpful examples of individuals who used the advice in Your Money or Your Life. However, after reading the original book, I was somewhat disappointed by these authors' inconsistent choices in areas of voluntary simplicity. For example, they talk about how they cut their food bill down to just ($) a month for two people, and I know many couples who are into voluntary simplicity who can easily spend much less than that in a month. They also mention that they kept Call Waiting because they only have one phone line, which made me think, What did people do in the past with only one phone line when people were trying to call them? It just seemed inconsistent with some of the other advice they give in the book. Another annoyance was their example of a family who decided to go without health insurance, and just put money away in savings every month in the event of health expenses down the road. This would seem to me false economy. What would happen to this family if after saving a few thousand dollars they were hit with a serious accident or illness? Such an event could easily wipe out all of their savings.

In spite of the inconsistencies, this book does offer some good advice as well as list plenty of helpful resources for anyone interested in voluntary simplicity. The epilogue does a follow-up of the individuals listed throughout the book and tells you where they're at now in their lives. The epilogue is followed by a section of resources listing foundations, books, newsletters, organizations and other helpful resources for those interested in voluntary simplicity and financial independence.

I bought this book because I was trying to teach myself enough to become a Financials Developer. This still MIGHT be the right book for me. However, this is not a step by step guide to the installation. In addition, the book assumes some familiarity with accounting systems.

For those critics of you out there who think that this book was not this or not that, especially the reader from Port Arthur in Tasmania, I suggest you buy an Oracle Reference Manual or Users guide. Get real! This book gives a great introduction to the core Oracle Applications and I believe it was well done. It introduces the business and Functional side to Oracle Financials. For those pretentious readers who can't spell Oracle read the cover "Oracle Financials Handbook" - "Planning and Implementing the Oracle Financial Applications Suite" No where does it say Technical Reference Manual. I'd like to see these half baked consultants write ANYTHING half as good. Well done David and Graham. If anyone cares to discuss this work email me and we'll "CHAT"

Firstly, I have to admit I'm a friend of the primary author David James, but I think they did a great job. Some of the negative reviews have been unfair. A book like this can't possibly be all things to all people. It doesn't cover HR, Payroll, or the core Manufacturing modules - that's why it's the "Oracle Financials Handbook", not the "Oracle Applications Handbook". It's definitely not a reference book or technical manual - you get those from Oracle Corporation anyway. What this book does do, is give an excellent background to real-world implementation of the Financials modules at a functional level. It's great for beginners and the more advanced, but I would defy even the gurus to read it and say they haven't learned from it.

I actually tried to talk David out of the whole endeavour almost three years ago, not because I didn't think he was qualified, but because I didn't think it was possible to write such a book covering all the Financials modules. I think he'd admit he underestimated just how much work it would be. That's one reason why a book like this hasn't been written before - there is just so much information to cover, unless you resort to wholesale cutting and pasting from the manuals and other people's papers.

I think the book is very impressive. I know David's skills, and I know how hard he worked to put everything together, and update it as the product evolved. I would recommend it to anyone working on a Financials implementation.