Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.
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Question: Last minute Christmas shopping: Five things to avoid. This weekend millions of Americans will take to the mall to get last-minute gifts for their loved ones . They will pour through the already-picked-over selections to try and find "the gift." For those of you who are forced into the mall this weekend : I'm sorry . Here are five things to avoid as we enter the final shopping days before Christmas . 1 \. Believe the best bargains are found if you wait until the last minute . While it's true , retailers are starting their after-Christmas sales earlier than ever - just as the Christmas shopping season starts before you get to Thanksgiving dessert - seasoned shoppers know(1) value and(2) bargain do not mean the same thing . We all know just because something is cheap doesn't mean it's "a bargain" or a "value." It's only a bargain if it is truly something you want or need, and are able to get it at a deep discount . Often last minute shoppers don't know what they want . For those shopping this weekend you will have to settle for what circumstances present , which in many cases will be cheap materials, but not a bargains . The value is the ratio of quality (or quantity) to price . Low quality at a low price is no value , especially when compared to high quality at a low price . Values tend go early in the holiday shopping season . Cheap stays on the shelf until it's all that's left . 2 . Believe there is still money to spend in your budget this month . Last minute shopping, particularly for December, means buying during the back half of the month . That's typically when most income for the month is already committed , and any incremental spending means "borrowing against the future." It's better to buy early - and spread the purchasing over time - so you can more easily absorb the expense . Nobody likes that "January surprise." And for new last- minute shoppers, that surprise can be surprisingly BIG! 3 . Believe you can still find "just the right gift for Uncle George." Waiting until the last minute to shop means having to make compromises . Time and selection are your two greatest "friends" when you shop early . But for last minute shoppers they become your two greatest nightmares : you're pressed for time and all the best colors, sizes and values, are gone . Don't put yourself under a lot of pressure to find that perfect gift . At this stage in the game, a gift will do . 4 . Believe you still need "just one more" gift . We should all take a lesson out of Santa's playbook: 1. Make a list. 2. Check it twice . Too often last minute shopping isn't just an indication you've waited to the bitter end to buy those needed gifts . It also means you've waited too long to plan that shopping . And when that happens you're never quite sure if you have all the gifts you need (it seems keeping track of what you've bought is just as hard as planning what to buy in advance!) . So you keep buying just one more gift... just to make sure you've covered all your bases . By the way, that's when shoppers are especially susceptible to impulse buying . An attention-arresting display will attract last minute shoppers like honey attracts flies! 5 . Believe that the shopper has the advantage . While it is true that the Saturday before Christmas is still one of the busiest shopping days of the year , the advantage has swung back in favor of the retailer . With fewer hours to shop until Santa fills his sack, the retailer has the upper hand , especially if they've had a strong Q4 . For some, shopping the weekend before Christmas can bring the ultimate sense of that holiday experience . For those who enjoy shopping as a pastime, it's one of the best times to be in the mall , but for those folks who need to fulfill a shopping list, it can be one of the worst . The early bird still does get the worm . And the late bird gets ... the opportunity to pick over the dregs with a lot of other "late birds." With the brief time remaining before Christmas, use it to "shop for fun" not for necessity . It will truly help keep you in the Christmas spirit .

Answer: Here are five things to avoid as we enter the final shopping days before Christmas This weekend millions of Americans will take to the mall to get last-minute gifts for their loved ones


Question: President Obama, here's how you build a legacy. Two years from now, the country will be on the verge of inaugurating the 45th president of the United States . The presidency of Barack Obama will be over , and to the joy and relief of many Americans, there will be a new beginning . To quote President Obama's 2008 campaign slogan "Hope and Change" will be the order of the day . Certainly "change" will come with the new occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue . The certainty of who that man or woman will be two years from now is unknown . It will depend on who can survive the already begun long campaign that will easily be the most expensive in history . Immediately after the oath of Office is taken at noon on January 20th, 2017 on the West Portal of the Capitol, the pictures on the walls of the White House and the personal artifacts of Barack Obama and his family will be removed . The legacy left behind and the permanent White House staff will stay on awaiting the new leader of the free world . "Hope" is always in the minds of Americans along with good will for any new president . Much of that good will and almost all of the "hope," that this president could or would be different, is gone . With a little more than half of the president's second term remaining, judgments have been made and speculation is rampant that the White House decisions are now being made is to define that legacy . His expected veto decision on the Keystone pipeline is to appease the environmentalists . His executive orders allowing millions of illegals to stay in the country rather than be deported is also viewed as a pandering to the fastest growing voting group . His alteration by executive order creating changes in his health care law have enraged members of Congress that have the real power to change laws . His attempt to close Guantanamo prison over the objections of Congress is another critical debate . But the biggest and most long lasting mistake maybe his withdrawal of ground troops from both Iraq and Afghanistan . And one he has not yet made may be more severe and dangerous to world peace -- his headlong rush toward an attempt to get a nuclear deal with Iran . A deal that, in spite of all the reassurances from Secretary of State John Kerry, will enable Iran to make nuclear weapons . The mainstream media is feeding into this legacy debate . One of the latest examples, The New York magazine cover story of January 11, called the "Obama History Project." The magazine asked 53 historians to weigh in on Barack Obama's legacy and how they think he will be measured 20 years from now . Historians play a vital role in measuring presidents . Usually their histories are written decades after the fact when they can go back and review documents and gather facts and see the results of presidential actions from afar and in a cold dissected view . Historians have certainly altered the view of many former presidents and have actually restored the reputations of a few . Harry Truman being a perfect example . A man greatly respected today , Truman left office with a tattered reputation, was very unpopular with the public, and could not possibly been reelected when he left office in 1952 . Today, he is ranked among the top 10 presidents by most presidential scholars . A review of Eisenhower is going on now and his marks are high . Lyndon Johnson and George Herbert Walker Bush are getting favorable reviews by the historians after being out of office for decades . I am a partisan Republican who has worked in the administrations of three presidents and served two tours of duty at the highest level of Ronald Reagan's White House . As an American and as the father of a young college-aged daughter, I don't want any president to fail . I want this country to be led by the very best people we can find . It isn't always so . Every president, or people on his staff are looking out for his legacy . But the boss I worked for, President Reagan, operated under a different theory . One day we were returning from a trip out somewhere in the country . We were flying aboard Marine One, the presidential helicopter, across Washington, after leaving Air Force One at Andrews Air Base . The president was very tired and as we landed on the South Lawn, he looked up at pictures of his ranch displayed on the walls of the chopper . He said, pointing to the ranch pictures,"I wish we were landing there!" Not knowing what to say to the leader of the free world who obviously didn't want to go back to work . I said,"Mr  President, it will all be worthwhile. History will be very kind to you someday." He chuckled and said right back."Ed, I don't care about history. I am going to be dead and gone and they will distort it anyways. What I care about is those great young people we saw out there today and making sure they have the same opportunities we all had." He turned to his closest friend, also sitting there, Senator Paul Laxalt (R.-Nev .). He said Paul's father was a Basque immigrant sheepherder and his mother a hotel cook . He turned to me and said:"Your dad was shipyard worker and my own father was a travelling shoe salesman. We are all here because this great country gave us opportunities. We have to make sure that's what we leave behind and those kids out there get those same opportunities. Now let's get back in there and go to work!" Ronald Reagan loved this country and was proud to be the leader of the greatest group of people in the world . President Obama, that's how you build a legacy! President Obama's life story is one of inspiration . To come from a broken home, abandoned by his father as an infant, to be raised by grandparents from the Midwest and to achieve, as a black man, the highest office in the land is inspirational . Unfortunately, he has not been an inspirational president . Mr  Obama, let me speak to you directly . Right now your legacy is that your party suffered historic losses across the country at every level in 2014 . Your health care plan will cost enormous sums above your estimates and even those who didn't have health insurance and now do, can't get health care . The Dodd-Frank bill has cost American business billions of dollars and thousands of lawyers are working around the clock to deal with the implementation of it . You pulled our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan before the job was done . And your lack of strength as a leader has made the strongest nation in the world look weak and vulnerable . You have the greatest political tin ear I've ever seen in a president . Someone should have told you to take your place at the front of the line with other world leaders in Sunday's million person march in Paris, against worldwide terrorism . Or you should have known yourself . Yes , Mr  President, they are terrorists and they hate everything we stand for . You want a legacy? Work with the Congress the American people chose and get something done!

Answer: Two years from now, the country will be on the verge of inaugurating the 45th president of the United States The presidency of Barack Obama will be over


Question: The Observer view on the Paris attacks. Last week's attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris and the subsequent, linked hostage-taking at a Jewish supermarket were appalling acts of inhumanity that should be universally condemned . Despite the killers' grandiose claim to be "defenders of the prophet", their actions amounted to cold-blooded murder of defenceless people . Their pre-planned purpose was to terrorise, divide and dismay . Their aim was cowardly, contemptible and cruel . The perpetrators deserve only ignominy and the bitter scorn of the world . The attacks should be understood, more broadly, as a crude attempt to stifle a publication and its journalists who exercised, in vivid, unapologetic terms, the fundamental, priceless right to freedom of speech and expression . This right, though never absolute, was established through centuries of struggle and is still far from fully accepted around the world . There are many others - governments, dictators, religious fanatics - who would also like to shoot it down . That the killers' made Jews their additional, parallel target lends a woefully familiar, disgustingly antisemitic twist to a three-day trail of carnage and grief . By so doing, they hoped yet another community would be left in fear . This attack was thus also an attack on the French nation as a whole, on the values and beliefs that have sustained it, and on the message of liberty, equality and fraternity it has unevenly but persistently propagated . And while its principal victims were irreverent secularists , it was also an attack on faith - an offence against moral as well as human law . It was an attack on the life spiritual itself, whether conducted through church, mosque, synagogue or personal observance. It was an act of utter godlessness . By attempting to murder love with fear, to kill laughter with hatred, to substitute inflexible dogmas for shared truths, the masked gunmen attacked us all , European, American and Arab, Muslim, Christian and Jew, black, brown and white alike . In doing so, they posed a vital question . How, in the face of this assault on our common home, our common humanity, do we respond? Do we meet terror with a greater terror of our own or do we seek another way? Shall we unite together or shall we give in to division, discrimination and distrust? In Paris, and in other cities around the world, a spontaneous reply has already been given . The marchers, demonstrators, office workers, journalists, bloggers, politicians and governments who declared, with one voice:"Je suis Charlie", sent an immediate, welcome message of solidarity and defiance . Today, this roar of courage and belief will reach ear-splitting levels when people from every background join a march in Paris for unity, freedom and democracy . Out of blood and horror a unique moment has arisen, for France and all Europe . The choice is stark and unavoidable . It is between the ongoing struggle for enlightenment - Europe's gift to the world - and a gathering, hate-filled darkness . The evident danger is that this spirit of unity may not endure . French Muslim leaders have roundly condemned the attackers . "These men are criminals... For me, they are not Muslims," said the imam of Drancy . But at less emotional moments, French Muslims also speak of routine, entrenched discrimination, of insensitive restrictions such as curbs on women wearing the veil, and of a French policy of assimilation and integration, the flipside of Britain's let- it-all-hang-out multiculturalism , which has failed to achieve equal rights and equal treatment . It is this same embattled Muslim community, fractured, underprivileged, marginalised and disrespected which produced the killers . It is clear, conversely, that many French people have a problem with Islam . According to an Ipsos survey last year, 63% of French voters said Islam was not compatible with French values . Almost three-quarters said Muslims wanted to impose their values on others . Surveys also suggest seven out of 10 voters believe sections of the immigrant community have failed to integrate over the past 30 years . Some 65% say immigration levels are out of control . Anti-Muslim and anti-immigration movements are growing in strength in Germany, Britain and across Europe . But France's already powerful far-right Front National is certain to use the Charlie Hebdo affair to exploit these fears and prejudices . The urgent, daunting challenge for President Francois Hollande's ruling socialists, and the centre-right of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, is to plot a different, more conciliatory path . Their task: to tap into this spirit of unity, forging a new reality for both majority and minority communities . Muslim world leaders can help halt the cycles of violence and confrontation , if they wish . But this common challenge will not be assisted by wrong-headed, kneejerk reactions by western security services . In France, there is justified criticism that the Kouachi brothers were not under close watch, given their past record of extremism . Yet it would be wrong to massively increase monitoring of the Muslim community , thereby exacerbating existing tensions . Much better to use any additional resources to engage, rather than confront , while focusing more exactly on identifying truly hardline fanatics . Similarly ,  calls for more cash to counter a mounting but undefined terrorist menace to Britain should be treated with both respect and circumspection . Andrew Parker, head of MI5, warned last week of the "growing gap between the increasingly challenging threat and the decreasing availability of capabilities to address it" . But extended, intrusive internet surveillance does not necessarily bring increased security . What it does do is potentially deal a further blow to personal liberty, including the ability to speak and communicate freely and openly . The response to the Charlie Hebdo killings, in the longer term, should also include wider acceptance of the proper limits to individual and social freedoms, including free speech . It is not acceptable, for example, to use racist terms to describe a different ethnic group . It is not acceptable to resort to stereotypes to vilify minorities or ,  say, members of the opposite sex . And it is sometimes not appropriate, nor particularly funny, to deliberately provoke Muslims by publishing cartoons of the prophet that they view as blasphemous, offensive and insulting . Having said that, individuals or groups should not seek to prevent or ban published material just because they do not like it, do not agree or do not get the joke . Even more so, the ridiculing of Islam, however much resented, cannot be used to justify or explain gross acts of violence . The freedom to speak, write, draw and laugh fearlessly, without censorship and unreasonable restraint, lies at the very heart of a tolerant, democratic and inclusive society .

Answer:
Last week's attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris and the subsequent, linked hostage-taking at a Jewish supermarket were appalling acts of inhumanity that should be universally condemned