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The 6-foot-9 Isner rode his big serve to win his 11th straight match on Newport's grass-courts.
He was not broken in the match that lasted 1 hour, 20 minutes, taking control by blanking Harrison in the tiebreaker.
Isner, seeded second, broke in the third and seventh games of the second set before Harrison hit a backhand return long on the match's final point.
The 28-year old Isner showed no effects from a left knee injury that forced him to retire from his second-round match at Wimbledon.
In winning the 2012 title in Newport, Isner held serve in 57 of the 58 games he played.
It was a similar formula on Monday.
"Just getting the first one out of the way is critical for me," he said. "I was happy how I played in the second set, took care of my serve well. I felt like I was in a lot of his service games, especially in that second set."
When it was over, Isner let out a loud "Yes!" as Harrison's shot sailed long under sun-drenched skies with temperatures in the low 80s with a slight breeze.
"I remember last year in my first round here, I won 6-4 in the third," said Isner, ranked 19th overall entering the week. " It's always a tough match. Playing Ryan, I beat him here in the semi-finals last year. He's a good grass-court player and he's a friend of mine. But he's someone I don't want to lose to. It's important to win those matches like that. I'm one of the top ranked Americans and I want to continue to stay way for as long as I can, and beating guys like Ryan helps."
Top seed Sam Querrey is slated to face fellow-American Tim Smyczek is his first-round match on Tuesday.
In the most interesting match of the day, Poland's Michal Przysiezny beat 15-year old American Stefan Kozlov, who was making his ATP debut, 6-3, 6-7 (9), 6-4 in a match that lasted nearly 2 1/2 hours.
Kozlov, who lives in the Miami-area, broke to go up 4-3 in the third before calling for the trainer, who worked on his right hip.
"I slipped in the first set on my hip and it kind of got progressively worse," Kozlov said.
The match ended with the youngster limping before falling to the ground as he made his way to the net. He sat in his chair for a while with a towel over his head before slowly walking off the court.
"I was hanging in there and started cramping," he said. "It's kind of tough to play when you're cramping. Now I know I could actually win. I couldn't believe I could win a set."
The tournament is held in conjunction with induction ceremonies into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Martina Hingis leads the 2013 class that will be enshrined on Saturday before the semifinals.
In other first-round play, Ante Pavic of Croatia defeated Australian John-Patrick Smith 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (3); Adrien Bossel of Switzerland ousted Canadian Erik Chvojka 2-6, 7-6 (8), 6-4; American Alex Kuznetsov rallied to beat Farrukh Dustov of Uzbekistan 6-7 (6), 7-6 (4), 6-2; Jan Hernych of the Czech Republic beat Ilija Bozoljac of Serbia 6-7 (14), 7-5, 6-2.


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R. Stern writes –
"I work in a computer lab with a physical computing studio, and recently I cleaned out the component closet. It occurred to me that the reason we had a build up of unlabled resistors was because noone knew how to read them without the Resistulator widget or a resistance calculator website, so I made a sign to tack into the cabinet itself for offline calculation. You can download the PDF for your own use. " – Link.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Private Notepad
Private Notepad - is a simple notepad with a stylish design and function of fast adding, editing and deleting of notes. The application safely protects all data with the help of a password and unique system of coding. You can use a fingerprint in case your device supports such...read more


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My voting record as a member of the House, and now as a member of the Senate, confirms that I am not in favor of tax increases. I have never supported or voted for tax increases, and I don't intend to start now.
I have worked for years with both Republicans and Democrats in Congress on ways reduce our nation's deficit, which is currently at a staggering $16 trillion and growing daily. There are three main elements of meaningful deficit reduction: getting federal spending under control; reforming entitlement spending; and enacting meaningful tax reform that must include lower tax rates for everybody and eliminate special-interest loopholes in the tax code that don't benefit average Americans.
Until we cut spending, control entitlements and enact meaningful tax reform our country will continue to morph into a European-type economy and our freedoms will continue to erode.
In my work with the Senate's "Gang of Eight," I have attempted to build a consensus for fiscal responsibility. During the course of my work, I have had the privilege of talking to thousands of Georgians who are concerned – even frightened – about where America is headed.
And I have consistently said to everyone that first, we absolutely must cut spending. America is in the midst of a fiscal crisis, and Washington is deficit-spending more than $1 trillion each year. Last year, the government spent at a rate of 23 percent of gross domestic product, and took in revenues of only 15 percent of GDP. It doesn't take a mathematician to see that this is unsustainable.
And second, Democrats must be willing to reform entitlements, including Medicare and Medicaid, in a meaningful way. This is the fastest-growing part of the federal budget. We need to shore up these programs' finances to make them solvent for the future.
And third, Republicans and Democrats must be willing to reform the tax code, which, through its loopholes, deductions and exemptions, has become little more than another Washington welfare program to benefit special interests, not taxpayers. The result of Congress' inaction and inability to reform the tax code can result in higher tax rates for everyone.
With the exception of opposition from national Democrats and Democrats in Senate leadership, hardly anyone disagrees that all three of these elements are vital to our nation's future.
And yet, within the framework of these three important issues come some strong disagreements. To accomplish anything in Congress requires that Republicans and Democrats come together, for the good of the country.
That means neither side will get everything it wants. That is the way our Founding Fathers designed the American system, and it has worked well for more than 200 years. I intend to continue to work to bring Democrats in the Senate to the table to work with Republicans to save our country.
Entitlement reform generates heated debates – along with some outright fights – in Congress. This issue is sensitive, yet we must address it and we must successfully reform entitlements if we are ever to reduce the deficit.
And last, tax reform also generates heated, emotional debate. Tax reform is not tax raising. There is a major difference between raising revenues and raising taxes.
We don't have to raise taxes to raise revenue. If we remove loopholes from the tax code while keeping or modifying deductions that benefit many Americans, the revenue generated will actually result in lower tax rates for individuals while giving the government more resources to pay down the debt. That's a win-win. And that is not a tax increase.
Yet there are some who inexplicably call any tax reform that generates additional revenue a tax increase. I call it giving hardworking Americans a tax break while making our country financially solvent.
There are other steps we also need to take, such as lowering corporate rates, which now stand at nearly 40 percent, the highest of the world's large developed economies. And I am the original Senate sponsor of the FairTax, which would allow Americans to pay taxes only on what they spend. But Senate leadership has failed to bring the measure up for a vote. Now we must try other avenues. In fact, we don't have much time to take action.
Today we are face-to-face with decisions that will determine America's future for years to come. My commitment to you continues to be that I will do all I possibly can to preserve and strengthen our country's future so your children and grandchildren can enjoy the same freedoms and opportunities you and I have enjoyed.
My job is to protect taxpayers, not special interests. That means analyzing every aspect of the federal budget – including the tax code – to find savings to help trim our debt, before future generations are forced to raise taxes.
Those you have elected to represent you in Washington are about to face some difficult choices, likely some of the most difficult votes they have ever made. If we continue as we are going now, our nation will sink further and deeper into debt. But if Democrats will join Republicans and work with us, we can come out of this crisis stronger than ever before.
The answer is not to raise taxes and keep spending like there is no tomorrow. The answer lies in both parties coming together for the good of the country to reduce spending, control entitlements and reform our monstrous tax code.
Saxby Chambliss, R-Moultrie, is the senior U.S. senator from Georgia.


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Visit Bing's preferences page to choose a SafeSearch level. A Strict setting filters text, video and images from your search results. A Moderate level filters just images and videos. Remember to click the "Save" button.
- Google - Search Settings
Google's Search Settings allow you to set a SafeSearch filtering level. You can choose whether Google uses moderate or strict filtering to block explicit text, images, and videos from the search results. Click the "Save Preferences" button to confirm your selection.
- Ixquick - My Settings
On the "My Settings" page, you can select which level of the Web/picture family filter you would like to use. There also is an option to filter videos. Click the "Save My Settings" button at the bottom of the page to finish.
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Under the SafeSearch category, click on Edit to restrict adult-oriented content from just image and video search results, or from Web search results, as well. If you have a Yahoo account, you can log in to your account and save your search preferences permanently. Otherwise, your search preferences are temporarily saved to the computer where you are working.


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The First Full Moon
- $3.49 $4.99
- Published By: eXtasy Books
- Author: Christie Gordon
- Page: 280
- Word Count: 70000
- Publication Date: August 13, 2010
- Heat Level:
- Available Formats: Adobe Acrobat, Epub, Hiebook, Microsoft Reader, Mobipocket, Mobipocket (.mobi), Palm DOC/iSolo, Rocket
- Categories: Erotic Romance , Gay, GLBTQIA, Paranormal, Romance , Shounen ai/Yaoi, Vampire
Qty + -
Adam Ross doesn't believe in demons. After a house-fire killed his family at the tender age of twelve, he's not even sure he believes in God. But that is about to change. Under the light of the full moon, in 1930, rum-runners wash ashore dead on the Northern California coast amidst carnage, slashed and drained of blood. Rumors and local Indian lore tell of the existence of creatures out at sea, demons. Among a second rash of dead bootleggers, Adam finds Necalli, a stunning young man with strange physical anomalies and amnesia, who arouses him beyond belief. Adam becomes determined to help Necalli and solve the mystery lurking in his broken memories. Will he fall under Necalli's spell and save himself in the process?
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To be honest, treating politics isn't my favorite pastime. Sure, like other commentators I do it, but it's not something I can truly sink my teeth into. I'll explain why momentarily.
This election season, my pen has directed many slings and arrows Barack Obama's way. I criticized John McCain, too, but that was during the primaries. Now there is what I perceive to be a clear and present danger in the person of a slick demagogue, so my sights – and my site – are trained in one particular direction. Because of this, however, I sometimes receive emails from disenchanted rightist voters. "What do you have to say about McCain?" some ask. "How is he any better than Obama?"
My feelings toward such respondents vacillate between surliness and sympathy. I understand why they feel the way they do, but they don't understand me. I'm neither a party man nor a doctrinarian. I'm probably at least as dissatisfied with our wanting candidates as those who write me, and I can sum up my reasoning very simply:
Both candidates deserve to lose.
Only, one deserves to lose more.
But there is something else I know. Candidates are reflections, and insofar as they are lacking, they're symptoms. If you behave as if they are visited upon us by a supernatural hand or secret conspiracy, you're fooling yourself. An election is simply a choice of exit ramps after a 500-mile leg of the never-ending journey on the eternal highway. You can exit right, you can exit left, but make no mistake, your only decision at that point concerns where to place the power in the locale to which your wheels have taken you. Sure, the hearts of some haven't driven the leg, staying behind in their Model T; those of others have driven ahead in their Model Z. Then there are those with hearts driving the model Eternity, those rare timeless travelers. Regardless, many of these people want to choose a barely-traveled path that, while it may boast beautiful scenery, can never lead to the throne. Where they wish to reside is just too far from where the bus of civilization has parked.
Some understand this, some don't. Our culture is light years from the vision I consider ideal. Some of you may feel like a foreigner in your own land, but I could feel like I'm on the wrong planet. Figuratively speaking, the journey I wish to take requires the aid of Captain Kirk; it may even require time travel. I'm not even a conservative, as that is a person who, generally speaking, is content with the status quo. I want to overthrow it. I'm a revolutionary.
This brings us to the point. Revolutions aren't won or even initiated through elections; they are either launched militarily (which isn't easy with a government that possesses sound-wave weapons and blinding lasers), or culturally. This is the point. "People get the government they deserve," as Thomas Jefferson said, because, one way or another, leaders will be a reflection of the people. Thus, if you want better choices come election time, the people need to be transformed.
That is the battle that matters, and it's one the left understands well. They have long steered that bus with their Gramscian drivers and navigated with their Gramscian maps, with their control of academia, the media, Hollywood, popular culture, the Democrat Party, and enough influential activist groups to wear out gavels in every courtroom in the land. And, then, when voters find themselves on a desolate stretch of highway gazing at monochrome scenery below gray skies, some wonder, or lament, or both. "How is it we only have these two inauspicious exits?" they complain. They write to people like me and ask, "How come you don't condemn the right exit as much as the left?" as if not exiting is even an option, as if picking up your ball and going home will somehow make home better.
But my answer is simple. As per my metaphor, I understand that more than a referendum on where we are to go, an election is one on where we've been. It is but a link in a chain, one of a series of turns, and my only task is – just as it was all along – to try to turn that bus in the best possible direction at the given moment.
In other words, write me to commiserate if you must, but understand the silliness of asking me why I fight for right turns now as I always have. For if you do that, you are compartmentalizing politics, incorrectly viewing it as a realm that operates separately from the culture. It is not. It is a reflection of it, and its elections are thus only one of many related kinds in which we vote. We elect our entertainers and entertainment, media figures and news and commentary through what we watch, listen to and read. We elect our educators by what we tolerate in our local schools and what colleges we support with our money. And we elect our activist groups and religious leaders by whom we choose to donate money to and what events and houses of worship we attend. So, while many may view our November choice as a discrete event, it really is just another in a series of elections (albeit a big one), one whose players were, in a very real way, chosen through those other elections. Thus, here is my perspective: My duty in all these elections is to make the best choice available to me at the moment. If those choices are lacking, don't ask me why I wish to make lemonade out of lemons; I didn't choose the route. Ask yourself what the people did – or failed to do – that brought us to this desert.
Transitioning to the literal, let us discuss what this means. We can curse the darkness as we note that both major party candidates support amnesty for illegals, but who really is culpable? McCain and Obama? Sure, all people must be held accountable, but they are only two men. Do you think they could hold that view and have ascended politically in a thoroughly patriotic nation? No, they can only bloom in a substrate degraded with multiculturalism, anti-Americanism, and the moral relativism that blinds one to cultural dangers. And many are thus imbued because of brainwashing by the media, academia and other entities. Why? Because of all those cultural elections we lost throughout the decades.
Then there is the specter of socialized medicine. We may dodge it in this election, but the writing is on the wall. There was a time when no one – Republican or Democrat – even contemplated such a thing; now its necessity has become Democrat dogma and Republicans are starting to accept it as well. Mitt Romney – a Republican favorite early in the primaries and a future presidential hopeful – instituted socialized medicine when governor of Massachusetts. And this is no anomaly, as a poll earlier this year showed that 52 percent of Republicans supported the principle of forcing Americans to buy health insurance.
Thus, we would have to be blind to not know where the bus is heading. Just as with amnesty, there will soon come a political election in which the 52 percent has become 67, and both candidates "see the wisdom" in government health care. But what lost elections will have brought us to that point?
Perhaps a famous apocryphal quotation may be instructive:
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
This is true, but I must add some nuance. In the case of people of a moral fiber sufficient to sustain a democracy, degradation of that fiber is a prerequisite for the above. Their virtues of self-sufficiency, kindness and generosity must be allowed to wither and be replaced with the vices of a spirit of entitlement, envy and greed. Their grit must be turned to talcum as they are made to believe life should be easy and, if it isn't, someone is obligated to make it so. Then they will be content to rob Peter to pay Paul – as long as they're Paul.
So what are the lost cultural elections here? Again, the academics who teach America's young don't help. But most of all, when we choose how to raise our children, we also vote. We choose what standards to enforce, and when too many of us kowtow to kids' whimsy, fail to hold them accountable and over-indulge them, we shouldn't expect that, upon maturity, they will vote for a civil government any different than the family government that coddled and spoiled them during formative years.
Many of us could provide countless other examples, but need more be said? The people are the vessel and politicians the water, and the latter just take the shape of the former. So, yes, it's easy enough to criticize any of our candidates, for if you look for the worst in politicians, you're sure to find it . . . in abundance. But what are we lamenting really? That John McCain is like so many other older men in that, to quote a comedic quip, wisdom didn't come with age – age just showed up all by itself? That Barack Obama, like so many other black men, was weaned on a diet of pulpit-projected bigotry and Saul Alinsky socialist politics and mistakes foolishness for wisdom? That "conservative" Sarah Palin created a new sub-cabinet in Alaska to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions? That they are all just creatures of the age? What did you expect? We define the age, and they reflect us.
Of course, we could still believe the political is divorced from the cultural, that our current big and bigger-government choices are some isolated political accident. We could, as some did in 2000 and 2004, believe that we will find our shining-city-on-a-hill savior four years hence.
We won't.
That is, unless we could somehow, some way start winning those cultural elections. To believe otherwise is to be blind to the itinerary of that bus.
So don't ask me why I won't level criticism based on quota; don't ask me to be blind to distinctions between dank, dark, miasma-ridden locales. I know our lost cultural elections have placed us on a highway that bends steadily toward the left, but in the upcoming political election – this referendum on our culture – we will choose the right or left exit. And don't tell me that neither exit is worth taking, because, well, that I know also.
one of them is not worth taking more.
By Selwyn Duke


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Follow RFF News on your cell phone. Text follow rff to 40404 you will receive txt messages with RFF News
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Hey, puddin -- this is great. I hate the CBS Insider monkeys with the power of 1,000 burning nuns, and now I can avoid them altogether.
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Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at St. George Karypi
6. August 2013 - 11:23
On Sunday, August 4, 2013, His All-Holiness presided over the Paraklesis Service at the monastery of St. George Karypi on the Princes' Island of Antigoni (Burgazada). The sermon was offered by Archimandrite Kyrillos Syki, a priest of the Metropolis of Didymoteichon, Orestias and Souflion.
Among those in attendance were clergymen from the Princes' Islands, Archons of the Ecumenical Throne, children of the summer camp held on the nearby Proti Island (Kınalıada), as well as faithful from Greece and Turkey.
Source: Ecumenical Patriarchate


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This is a tuff one. To the north of the city you'll find an army observation point atop the highest hill in the area. From here you can see the wave. Unfortunately this beach is surounded by a 3 metre tall razor wire fence and patrolled regularly in case of a North Korean beach invasion. You could possibly get over the fence on your own but you risk being shot as a North Korean spy if the guards notice you surfing. Your best bet is to seek permission from the nearest base which shouldn't be hard to find because there is one every 5 kilometres along this stretch of coast.
DistanceTake a car
WalkGood walk (15-30 mn)
Easy to find?Hard to find
Public access?Private access
Special accessDon't know
Alternative name Machine Guns
Wave qualityNormal
ExperienceExperienced surfers
FrequencyRarely break (5day/year)
DirectionRight and left
PowerHollow, Fast, Powerful
Normal lengthShort (< 50m)
Good day lengthNormal (50 to 150m)
Good swell directionSouthEast, NorthEast
Good wind directionNorthWest, West, SouthWest
Swell sizeStarts working at Less than 1m / 3ft and holds up to 2.5m+ / 8ft+
Best tide position
Best tide movement
Week crowdEmpty
Week-end crowdEmpty
- Rips / undertow
- Sharks
- Mines (Angola only !)
Keep an eye on typhoons and wait until there's one either in the northern corner of the East Sea (Sea of Japan) or very close to the south end of Japan and ROK.
You'd think Koreans would be spewin that their best beaches are fenced off like this but they don't seem to care. Surfing or even swimming isn't a big priority here and they probably know that they'd only trash the place if it was open to the public.
That's a nice wave on its day, about once a year.
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|Aucun voyage
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text: Warren Anderson Mathis (born March 6, 1977), known by his stage name Bubba Sparxxx, is an American Southern rapper. His biggest hit is "Ms. New Booty" featuring The Ying Yang Twins which peaked at #7 in the United States. In addition to the commercial success of his "Ms. New Booty," Sparxxx is noted for his hit singles "Back in the Mud" and "… Leia mais


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Time (again) to picture what it would be like to be the next owner of Derek Jeter's apartment, where he's lived for the last 11 years.
Jeter has been trying to unload his Trump World Tower penthouse, beside the United Nations, for two years now. His original asking price was $20 million. Despite an exhaustive before-and-after slideshow from Business Insider, nobody was willing to meet it.
So now Jeter has finally slashed the price to $17.95 million. The news was announced in today's New York Post, alongside a new batch of sleek pics.
What does Jeter's penthouse include? Per the Post:
The 5,425-square-foot captain's quarters boasts 360-degree views of Manhattan, four bedrooms, 5 1/2 baths, an eat-in kitchen and a fireplace.
The ladies' man's lair has ultra-suede wallpaper covering the 16-foot-high walls. There's a pool table, a poker table that seats eight, a dining-room table with room for 14, and even an old-school bar tabletop Pac-Man game.
Sounds tasteful. But speaking of unimaginably cumbersome financial obligations, what about Alex Rodriguez? How does this East Side penthouse compare to A-Rod's old apartment on the West Side at the Rushmore?
In the taste department, it's hard to side with Trump's United Nations monstrosity, but….at least it isn't a vulgar floor-to-wall-to-ceiling white mess? And Jeter's 5,425 square feet devours A-Rod's roughly 3,500, (with enough room left over for a couple of big one-bedroom apartments for normal people). A-Rod's views: the Hudson and New Jersey. Jeter's? A lot better.
If New York real estate were merely for living in, Jeter would be the winner. But in the department that counts, A-Rod is beating Jeter handily. The third baseman bought his Rushmore condo for $5.5 million, and ruthlessly flipped it, less than a year later, for $8 million. That's a 45 percent increase.
Jeter, meanwhile, originally bought his place for $12.6 million. If he finds a buyer at his new, reduced asking price, he'll have gained 42 percent. That's only a little inferior to A-Rod—except it will have taken Jeter more than 10 times as long to get that return. In four years, if A-Rod keeps flipping, he can buy Jeter's place with his profits.


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The year 2010 was all about phones with 1GHz processor, huge screens, AMOLED displays and loads of internal storage and RAM. Every known hardware manufacturer released a new handset after every 3-4 months. However, only a few of them were good enough to stand out from the crowd.
Also Read: Top 10 Android Phone in the Market
There were some Android phones which gave Apple's iOS based iPhone a run for it's money. Microsoft also entered the foray in late 2010 with their Windows Phone 7 platform which introduced some new phones. Even Nokia came up with a good phone using the Symbian platform. So which are the top 10 phones than made a mark in 2010? Here is a list of them in my opinion.
10 – LG Optimus One
Phones are not only about high-end hardware and Super-AMOLED screen/Retina Display. Not everyone in this world is rich enough to buy a high-end Android/WP7 handset or an iPhone. While most manufacturers do launch low-end to mid-range Android based handset, they sport either a very low amount of RAM, a weak processor, or an odd resolution (Samsung Galaxy 3). The LG Optimus One is a mid-range handset, but it packs quite a punch. The handset has a 3.2-inch HVGA display and packs 512MB of RAM. The handset is powered by a 600 MHz processor, ensuring that the phone chugs along nicely.
While most high-end handsets, including the Samsung Galaxy S series, are still waiting for their Android 2.2 update, the Optimus One runs on Android 2.2 right out of the box. LG has even confirmed that the handset will get the Android 2.3 Gingerbread update. No wonder, the Optimus One is the most popular handset to ever come out from LG's stable.
9 – Samsung Focus
The problem with all Windows Phone 7 based handsets is that they are all too similar, both in hardware and in interface. The only phone which stands out from the WP7 handset crowd is the Samsung Focus. The Samsung Focus uses the awesome 4-inch Super-AMOLED screen found on the Galaxy S line-up of handsets. The Focus is powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor and has 512MB of RAM as well as ROM along with 8GB of internal storage. The back of the handset sports a 5MP snapper with AF (Auto-Focus) and an LED flash.
The Focus runs on WP7 and is carrier locked to AT&T. The only downside of the phone is the very low internal storage space (8GB). The Focus is the lone WP7 running handset in our Top 10 phones of 2010 and barely makes it to our list at number 9.
8 – Samsung Wave
The Samsung Wave retails for around $370 on Amazon, and that's what makes it killer. At such a low price, the phone offers top-notch build quality and hardware. The Wave uses the same CPU that powers the Samsung Galaxy S series the 1 GHz Hummingbird processor from Samsung. The phone also packs a brilliant Super-AMOLED display, albeit a small one, at only 3.3-inches. The Wave was the first handset from Samsung to run its brand new OS Bada.
The phone also sports Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0 and a decent 5MP camera with Flash. The Wave is still the best handset for users who hardly care about apps and games for their phone.
The stellar hardware and the killer price help the Samsung Wave to make it at number 8 on our Top 10 phones for 2010.


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United Kingdom
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Choose a page number to see the recommended websites and downloadable pictures.
Websites to visit
Website 1
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Website 2
Watch a video clip about palaeontologists, scientists who study fossils, and how their work helps us understand the past and the future. (To watch dinosaur and fossil videos, click on a clip in the playlist.)
Website 3
Find out about some of the most exciting dinosaur fossil discoveries.
Website 4
Watch a clip about one group of dinosaurs that lives among us today - birds.
Website 5
Why are birds the only surviving dinosaurs?
Website 6
Explore the dinosaur webpages of the American Museum of Natural History, with facts, video clips and news about discoveries.
Website 7
See the fossil skulls of some early humans.
Website 8
Explore tools made by early humans including the oldest wooden spear. (Click on the images for bigger pictures or find more objects in the menu on the left.)
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Internet-linked history encyclopedias
Encyclopedia of World History
It would be an excellent 'spine' for your history studies. There are many internet links throughout the book which invite the child to explore and learn more about a historical event or time period, as well as links to free downloadable maps and pictures. These internet links would have taken me ages to source, this book has done it all for you.
The Curriculum Choice
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HOPE will endure!
That's the message the Georgia Student Finance Commission, the state agency that provides financial aid to Georgia students, communicated recently to leaders of the Georgia General Assembly.
Thanks to the impact of HB 326, the Enduring HOPE bill that was passed during the 2010 legislative session and enacted in 2011, projections for what many consider to be the most successful merit-based scholarship program in the nation are now looking much better.
Funded through the Georgia Lottery, HOPE is used to fund not only tuition grants and scholarships for eligible students to attend colleges and universities in Georgia, but is also used to fund voluntary pre-kindergarten in our state.
Since its inception in 1993, the HOPE (Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally) Scholarship has awarded more than $6.6 million to over 1.45 million Georgia students and has achieved its intended purpose — to stop our best and brightest students from leaving Georgia to pursue educational opportunities elsewhere.
In fact, the HOPE Scholarship worked so well that in April of 2003, the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs (NASSGAP) ranked Georgia number one among the 50 states in academic-based student financial aid for the sixth year in a row.
However, beginning in 2004, as a result of rising tuition costs, high enrollments and a leveling of lottery revenues, tweaks to the HOPE program began to be made in order to assure its sustainability.
In 2010, following an enrollment explosion that saw a 47 percent growth in Georgia's technical colleges and an 18 percent growth in Georgia's colleges and universities during the previous three years, an even greater dilemma faced Governor Nathan Deal and the Republican-controlled legislature as revenues could no longer keep up with expenditures. Working together, the Governor and Republican-controlled legislature passed HB 326, making changes to HOPE to assure its continued success.
Among the major provisions made to HOPE in HB 326 were the establishment of the Zell Miller Scholarship for high-achieving high school graduates, uncoupling the HOPE benefit from the rate of tuition charged by universities, and increasing the GPA requirement for the HOPE grant awarded to students at Georgia's technical colleges.
Also included in HB 326 were time limitations on eligibility for the HOPE scholarship to seven years after graduating from high school, limits on regaining HOPE once it is lost and no payments for books or fees for all students or remedial college coursework for HOPE scholarship students.
Resisting calls from the minority party to make more changes during the past legislative session, Republican leadership in the General Assembly patiently waited for the changes in HB 326 to take effect and now it appears that patience paid off.
What was originally predicted to be a $220 million deficit for FY 12 before HB 326 was implemented has not come to fruition and instead HOPE funds have stabilized. In fact, at the end of FY 12, lottery revenues were up $50 million while HOPE expenses were down $50 million giving the program a $100 million net gain.
As a result of the changes made in HB 326, the Georgia Student Finance Commission is now projecting that HOPE benefits should stay the same for the next two to three years — obviously good news that shows HB 326 is working.
While we are committed to keeping the best and brightest in our state through programs such as HOPE, other programs to assist Georgia students in their quest for advanced learning opportunities, such as low-interest loan programs, have been funded by the state legislature as well. In FY 12 and FY 13, the state provided $20 million in funding for the Low Interest Loan program to provide financially-needy students with funding for college costs.
We are blessed in Georgia to have a fine higher education system — our universities and technical colleges are among the best in the nation. Access to these opportunities for Georgia students is vitally important to our state's future, for they are the hope of our state's future.
Now, with HB 326, HOPE will endure!
Sen. Buddy Carter can be reached at Coverdell Legislative Office Building (CLOB) Room 301-A, Atlanta, GA 30334.
His Capitol office number is 404-656-5109. You can connect with him on Facebook at facebook.com/buddycarterga or follow him on Twitter @Buddy_Carter.


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Peugeot Paris Natural Beechwood Pepper Mill, 40cm
A great grind is hard to come by, which is why we've come to rely on Peugeot's engineered mills and their classic design.
This particular pepper mill is distinguished by its beautiful natural finish, which will complement any kitchen or dinner table.
Wipe clean.
The pepper mechanism has two helix-shaped rows of teeth that guide and hold the peppercorns for a perfect grind. It has a patented treatment that protects the steel from corrosion whilst maintaining its sharpness and wear resistance. To get the best out of your Peugeot pepper grinding mechanism, we recommend you use peppercorns with a diameter of 5mm or less.
H: 40cm


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Yogurt Market Research
Mintel's yogurt market research reports provide a comprehensive and extensive overview of the marketplace including information on the yogurt market size and yogurt market share.
Mintel's yogurt industry reports can help you gain further insight into the yogurt market trends and gain valuable yogurt consumer data.
Make sure you stay one step ahead of your competition – Mintel's market analysis can help you make informed business decisions by providing up-to-the-minute yogurt industry intelligence. Our market intelligence reports span hundreds of countries and regions.
Online access
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The crowd was treated to a breathtaking finish at The Championship at Laguna National in Singapore on May 4 as Chilean golfer Felipe Aguilar pulled off six birdies and an eagle on the final nine holes to land a second career European Tour title.
The 39-year-old, who has won over 30 career events, began the day four shots off joint overnight leaders David Lipsky from the U.S and Anders Hansen of Denmark. After recording a front nine of 34 Aguilar was all too aware that he needed to reach deep and produce his finest golf. This is exactly what he did.
The birdies came thick and fast on the back nine as the Chilean managed four consecutive on holes 10, 11, 12 and 13 before a par on 14. Yet another birdie followed on 15 before the most spectacular of endings: a coveted eagle on the 18th and final hole.
"Yesterday I thought I had no chance," Aguilar said. "Today I said to my caddie on the 17th, after I made a birdie, 'if we can make a birdie on 18 we can put some pressure on the leader' and he said 'what about making a two? I said to him the way I had been hitting the ball I could well do. It's a long story but I made two on 18, and what a beautiful way to finish."
Valdivia-born Aguilar ended up with an outstanding 10-under par scorecard to record his second success on the European Tour, his first coming a few years ago in the Enjoy Jakarta Astro Indonesia Open in February 2008.
"It's been a bit of a drought for six years," he added. "I've lost a couple of times in play-offs and had a couple of top threes and top fives, but never was able to get the round going on the last day, so it is nice to finally do it."


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JLB Blog
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Changing Search Habits During COVID-19 // Apr 30 // support
The coronavirus epidemic drastically changed our daily lives. State-wide restrictions might soon be relaxing but many communities are going to continue social distancing. Online hangouts, working remotely, grocery deliveries — the social and business landscapes have changed and won't be going back to normal any time soon. The way we get our information has also […]
Google AdWords: Explained // Apr 20 // support
AdWords for Digital Marketing There are a wide variety of ways to advertise your company online. However, they are not created equal. Google AdWords can be a great asset, especially if you work with a company that knows how to properly set up an AdWords campaign. But what is Google AdWords? And how can it […]
How to Improve Your Website's Conversion Rate // Apr 06 // support
The ultimate goal of internet marketing is to get a consumer to take a desired action. This most often comes in the form of a sale. However, it could also include getting someone to sign up for your newsletter, make a donation, or simply make an account on your website. Whatever your goal, there is […]
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Hip furniture at warehouse prices!
You are far too smart to be the only one standing in your way. – Jennifer J. Freeman
Diggs & Dwellings206.802.8096
At Diggs & Dwellings you will find an eclectic mix of home furnishings and décor that will compliment your own unique style from modern to classic, industrial to urban, edgy to rustic, or simple to bold.
Your home is your haven - make it your own! LIVE. DINE. SLEEP. WORK. AND MORE. Stop by our store & check it out!
©2013 Diggs & Dwellings. All rights reserved. View our Terms of Service & Privacy Policy.
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July Consumer Spending Lower Than Expected, Up 0.1%
Brendan Conway joins the News Hub with a look at today's market action, including three stocks to watch. Photo: Getty Images.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... the the ... stock futures are flat in premarket trading today the long weekend Brendan Conway from Barron's joins me right now for twenty one well okay so people there their way of Acacia ready I think that that ... that simply can agree to for a lot of folks out there Rolfe and you know ... when we were sure to finishing a funny month here ... we are kind of some of the most staid ... parts of the stock are you a comment to the works ... well some of the ones that use to you know he considered the riskiest of the best ... like ... you know basically flat on Monday in in in in in in in in in in the tech sector ... aam wears the Dow was down more than four percent ... that's kind of interesting ... I think untie a lot of that back to this and if they weren't ok tell us about a personal income data we got ... consumer spending data came in had outlooks yes so that was just a couple months ago Roth and ... if it undershot the forecast there ... of both personal income in consumer spending were up for the month buying up twenty one percent ... analysts were looking for point to a point three percent this just underscores the consumers ... in whatever they say are still cut a cautious ... you know they're still not reading the box either ... okay I've gold drop below fourteen hundred to ... get gold in the last couple of days has been a beneficiary of all this worry about Syria right ... gold has this old role as a so-called median income in times of crisis but is that kind of receives from the ... the front burner is people see that some of you know ... big gain any kind military action is hung up in the U N and hung up and some other places ... on gold will start reflect that okay let's move on to three stocks were looking at today the first one being the strip company ... the Financial gee ... gee maybe a little less financial next year ... the planned there that stock is up one point seven percent this morning ... on the last return was a story that they're planning to spin off of the most part are the retail financial unit ... of Nassa Group denied his credit card store company credit cards to fifty five million Americans of ... looks like investors like that one okay what's next up ... we get we us in tech earnings last night one was Salesforce ... yet you know Salesforce had a pretty good report in kind of backdrop to this is that ... big businesses are reluctant to spend on systems and technology ... Salesforce didn't see that though they had a pretty good quarter ... that stock is up eight percent this morning ok and last just want to get a company ... Splunk is interesting here because ... is it certain Wednesday data mining companies in IPO last year ... up there some privacy concerns about it but you know I ... businesses spend on this because the value that computing firepower to to to Sir to ... dig into their data Proms and figure out that stocks up this morning


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United Methodist Church
United Methodist Church, in the United States, religious body formed by the union in 1968 of the Evangelical United Brethren Church and the Methodist Church (see Methodism ). Emphasizing ecumenism, the newly united church, the second largest Protestant church in the United States, proposed further amalgamation with other Protestant groups. The church also attempted to broaden its social involvement, concentrating its efforts not only on spiritual, but on also material, aspects of the individual's well-being. In 1988, the General Conference broadened the basis of doctrine to include
the resources of tradition, experience, and reason.In 1996 it eliminated preparatory membership and granted full membership to those who had been baptized. Members confirming their faith at a later age are now professing members. The church has an inclusive membership of about 8.5 million (1997).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Protestant Denominations


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I rarely write about Israel. It's important politically, but intellectually for me a bit of a bore. What more can be said about the country that has not already been said, especially the Arab-Israeli conflict of which the Palestinian problem is the core? You could pile the books, papers, and articles from floor to ceiling on the topic. Israel-Iran? It's covered. The ethnic and sectarian differences in the Holy Land? It's been done. Israel's changing demographics? Lots of smart folks have weighed in. The durability of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty after the Egyptian uprising? I am sort of/halfway intrigued, but only because I once drank the water from the Nile and now I can't quit Egypt. Every now and again though, something comes across my desk on Israel that interests me. In the last week or so, colleagues have suggested I read two short opinion pieces--one by Avi Shlaim Emeritus Professor of International Relations at Oxford University, and one by the New Yorker's David Remnick. Both pieces were a revelation—who writes better than Remnick?—but not necessarily because they offered any new or interesting insights about Israeli politics or society, but rather because of the fascinating way Shlaim and Remnick treat their subject.
How analysts talk and write about Israel has always been a challenge. There is, of course, the perennial problem of perception when it comes to a highly politically charged and emotionally freighted issue like Israel. That's why to some The New York Times' former Jerusalem bureau chief, Ethan Bronner, is either an unrepentant sympathizer of Israel's right wing or an unrepentant fellow traveler of the Palestinian cause. Yet the kind of guff Bronner took and those that follow him will take is not exactly what I am getting at. Too often Israel is rendered in caricature, where only ideology, lust for land, and hatred for Palestinians reign. In this world, politics, agency, and nuance simply do not exist. Remnick could be given a pass because his lamentation titled "Threatened" is beautifully written and he is, after all, an essayist whose forte is a kind of literary impressionism. Not so of Shlaim who, as a scholar at one of the world's most outstanding universities, should know better, but nevertheless lets loose with an angry missive identifying Israel's prime minister as, "a bellicose right-wing Israeli nationalist," "a reactionary who is deeply wedded to the status quo," and "a jimcrack [or gimcrack, meaning cheap] politician."
Let me state (once again), lest anyone misinterpret what I am saying, that Israel's settlement project is a tragic mistake that has denied Palestinians justice, killed thousands of Israelis and Palestinians combined, and for all practical purposes has closed off the possibility of a two-state solution, jeopardizing not only Israeli security and democracy but the country's existence. I hold no particular brief for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or his Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. I believe ideas matter. And, it's perfectly legitimate for professors to have views about the world and express them, even angrily.
Yet Shlaim and Remnick obscure more about Israel and its politics than they reveal. Yes, we know that Netanyahu and his government are right-wingers and we know that many settlers are racists and harbor little commitment to democracy. It would have been more interesting and I might have learned something new if either author had unearthed the crosscutting political pressures that Netanyahu confronts in maintaining his coalition. Netanyahu is a politician and as a result, like all politicians everywhere, he wants to stay in power. Knowing as the prime minister surely does that Israel's right has toppled successive governments since the 1990s including Netanyahu's own between 1996 and 1999, he is unlikely to pursue policies that will jeopardize his coalition. Netanyahu is no statesman, but statesmen are rare in history. A distillation of Israel's electoral laws, which has done more than anything to create the unhappy situation in the Holy Land, would have been far more helpful to understanding how it came to be that "the settlers, the Ultra-Orthodox Shas, and the National Religious Party" are the backbone of the current Israeli government, rather than the wild-eyed ideologues that Remnick and Shlaim portray. A nod to the fact that the settlement ethos is central to Zionism—of all varieties and shades—would have given some sense of the historical context in which Israeli democracy finds itself under threat. There are, of course, a variety of additional interesting avenues to explore.
I am sure Remnick and Shlaim would say that examining these issues was not their goal, which is their right, but it is also too bad. As powerfully as they have written, they haven't told even the casual or left-of-center observer of Israel anything they don't already know or fervently believe. As a (detached) observer, it's curious to me that even ostensibly sophisticated observers of Israel have come to essentialize—to reduce them to some alleged ascriptive or primordial characteristic—Israeli leaders. And as a result, observers like Remnick and Shlaim, who are only two recent and prominent examples among many others, have done precisely what they so revile about their subjects whom they accuse of having a one-dimensional view of the Palestinians as hopelessly retrograde and violent. I am not sure, but it strikes me that when it comes to Israel, Palestine, and peace, we need less polemics.
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Anchorage ăng´kərĭj [key], city (1990 pop. 226,338), Anchorage census div., S central Alaska, a port at the head of Cook Inlet; inc. 1920. It is the largest city in the state, the administrative and commercial heart of S central and W Alaska, one of the nation's key defense centers, and a vital transportation hub. Glenn Highway connects the city to the Alaska Highway and the Parks Highway. The international airport is a regular stop on intercontinental and transpolar flights. The city includes two U.S. military bases, Fort Richardson and Elmendorf Air Force Base. Anchorage is also the headquarters for the major oil and gas companies in Alaska. With oil discoveries in Cook Inlet in the late 1950s, and the discovery of massive petroleum and natural gas reserves in the Prudhoe Bay region in 1968, the population has more than quadrupled. Tourism has also increased dramatically, largely due to improvements in transportation and the creation of numerous national parks. Anchorage was founded (1915) as construction headquarters for the Alaska RR and grew as a railroad town. It also became a fishing center, a market and supply point for gold-mining regions to the north, and the metropolis for the coal mining and farming of the Matanuska valley. World War II brought the establishment of the large military bases and the enormous growth of air and rail traffic. The city suffered severe damage in the 1964 earthquake. Points of interest include Earthquake Park and several notable museums. The annual Iditarod Race (see under Iditarod ) starts from Anchorage, and a
Fur Rendezvouswinter carnival is held in the city every year. The city is the seat of Alaska Pacific Univ. and a campus of the Univ. of Alaska. Portage Glacier and Lake Hood are nearby, and Denali (Mt. McKinley) is visible from the city.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: U.S. Political Geography


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There is one golden rule with retirement planning. Work out how much money you think you are going to need after you retire.
It does not matter when you intend to retire, if you do not start planning for it now, there is a real danger that you could outlive your savings. It will soon no longer be unusual for people to spend nearly as long in retirement as they did in employment.
Our retirement planning calculator is designed to provide an indication of the monthly savings needed to fund the gap in your required income at retirement, and your expected income from existing funds.
St. James's Place has a range of plans to help provide for your retirement, no matter what stage of planning you are at. You must have flexibility in all aspects of your planning as your needs will change as your future earnings and career evolve.
We offer a service that is personal to you, delivering bespoke advice. Planning your retirement with us puts you in control, so that you can be confident about your future pension.
The value of a pension will be directly related to performance of the funds selected, and will fall as well as rise. You may get back less than the amount invested.


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Highlights / General details
Lucca and Pisa are two of the most important historical towns in Tuscany and are not-to-be-missed sights for tourists visiting the region. You will immerse yourself in the history and traditions of the two cities that are close in proximity, yet very different in personality. A charming Tuscan landscape will be the frame to your day, spent relaxingly in company of our knowledgeable guides. You will find Pisa along the road that leads to the coast from Florence. Our guide will show you the most important squares and monuments in Pisa: the famous Piazza dei Miracoli with the Leaning Tower, the Cemetery and the Cathedral. The tour continues with a visit to a typical local wine shop, where you will taste the wines of the area. Free time available at lunchtime. Afterwards the tour continues to Lucca, where you will have free time on arrival. It is a distinctive city of art and Renaissance style surrounded by walls interrupted by beautiful gates and ramparts. First you will take a pleasant walk on your own along a section of the town walls and enjoy a beautiful view over the roofs, alleys, house-towers, churches and marvellous noble palazzos. Then you will be led to the old town centre to see Piazza Anfiteatro, Guinigi tower, St. Martin's Cathedral and the typical street of antique shops. End the day with a pleasant ride back to Florence.
Pick-up on request; Travel by GT coach or minivan with air conditioning; Expert multilingual escort available in English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Russian, German; Guided visit of Pisa; Self-guided tour of Lucca; Wine tasting; Entrance to Pisa Cathedral.
Gratuity; Drop-off €6.00 per person (Optional).
Hours of operation
Available: Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, departing at 9:00am.
Approximately 10 hours.
Meeting Point: Montecatini, Piazza Italia – Check point Bus, near the train station(check in closes 15 minutes before departure time).
Participant restrictions
Pisa Excursion WITH Leaning Tower is not suitable for children under 8 years old.
Guests must be able to climb and descend stairs.
Guests are required to be at the meeting point 15 minutes before departure time.
Complete information, including local telephone numbers at your destination, will be included on your Confirmation Voucher.
**All information requested must be supplied or booking is subject to automatic cancellation**


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After countless auditions and critiques this season, after plenty of forced smiles listening to yet another rendition of "All By Myself," Jennifer Lopez, "American Idol" judge, is embarking on a new project.
Entertainment Weekly reports that Lopez is partnering up with "American Idol" producer Simon Fuller along with Lopez' hubby Mark Antony to make a Latin American musical talent search. The project is tentatively called "Que Viva."
The show is still in early development and currently searching for a network.
U.S. & World
It begs to be asked—if Lopez is starting a new talent-based program, will she continue judging "Idol"?
Entertainment Weekly says that, based on her positive ratings, Fox will most likely ask for the singer back. On top of that, Fuller wouldn't do something so conflicting with a show as popular as "Idol," EW says.
Lopez hasn't committed to an answer yet.
"I don't know if I will do another season," J-Lo said recently. "I'm taking it day by day at the moment, and we'll see what happens."


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That's the title of a new book by Daniel E. Hoffman, about an engineer high in the Soviet military industrial complex who voluntarily spied for the United States in the late '70s and the '80s, and eventually paid for it with his life. The man's name is Adolf Tolkachev. I'd never heard that name before - have you? But I don't think I will forget it.
Again and again I was reminded of John Le Carré's spy novels. The main differences: this is not about British intelligence but the CIA. There were no masterminds, no George Smiley or Karla. And, of course, Hoffman's story in all its details is not fiction. Tolkachev's revelations enabled the US to build jet fighters that exploited the weaknesses in the Russian MiGs for many years; in the war against Iraq, American planes shot down 48 MiGs without a single loss. All this at a savings of years of research and development which our military estimated in the billions of dollars - hence the book's title. He was betrayed by a disaffected American whom the CIA had trained for service in Moscow, then fired. The book actually contains a photo of Tolkachev's arrest by the KGB, presumably taken by a KGB man (but how did Hoffman get it?).
Here's the review after which I got the book out of the library as soon as I could, and read it cover to cover including the footnotes:
Review: In 'The Billion Dollar Spy,' David E. Hoffman Recalls a Cold War Spy
By SCOTT SHANE
In an era of suicide bombers and ISIS beheadings, the spy dramas of the Cold War can seem tame, almost polite affairs. Central Intelligence Agency officers who worked in the Soviet capital complained about operating under "Moscow rules," meaning the relentless scrutiny of the K.G.B. And they knew that any Soviet citizen caught spying faced certain execution. Still, there were rules.
Those rules may actually be a reason that David Hoffman's "The Billion Dollar Spy," about Adolf Tolkachev, a Soviet radar expert who spied for the C.I.A., is such an engrossing tale. The story played out over several years, almost entirely on the streets of Moscow, in a twilit chess game that pitted American intelligence officers against their Soviet counterparts. Each side knew exactly what the other was trying to do and was determined to thwart it.
In the middle was Mr. Tolkachev, an electronics engineer in his 50s, a man of unassuming manner but titanium will, who was determined to do as much damage to the Soviet Union as he possibly could. His job gave him access to highly classified details of military technology, a coveted prize for the United States. The title "The Billion Dollar Spy" refers to the research and manufacturing costs saved by the United States as a result of Mr. Tolkachev's revelations from 1978 to 1985; the actual savings were estimated to be more than $2 billion.
The Tolkachev story has been told before, notably in a C.I.A. monograph and in the epic 2003 book "The Main Enemy," by Milton Bearden, a former C.I.A. officer, and James Risen, a reporter for The New York Times. But it has never been told in such detail. Mr. Hoffman, a former Moscow correspondent for The Washington Post and the author of "The Dead Hand," a 2009 book on the last years of the United States-Soviet arms race, had the assistance of C.I.A. veterans eager to relive the good old days. Even more important, the agency shared 944 pages of declassified documents, including the cables sent between C.I.A. headquarters and the agency's cramped station inside the American Embassy in Moscow.
Mr. Tolkachev must have been the most determined volunteer spy in history. For more than a year, at huge risk, he scouted out the cars of American diplomats and thrust notes through the windows, offering his spying services to the baffled drivers. The Americans ignored his approaches, worried that he might be a K.G.B. "dangle" seeking to entrap them. Only after he gave them 11 handwritten pages, including his full name, job description and family details, did the C.I.A. bite.
As often is the case in espionage, with its combination of flagrant betrayal and true belief, an intriguing question was motive. The traditional possibilities were in the old C.I.A. acronym MICE, for money, ideology, compromise (i.e., blackmail) and ego. Mr. Tolkachev seems to have been driven by all but compromise. His wife's parents' appalling suffering under Stalin was one source of his burning desire for vengeance. He had also become deeply disillusioned with what he called the "hypocritical demagoguery" that he believed the Soviet Union had come to represent.
He was, he told his first C.I.A. contact, "a dissident at heart." In one of his long, often introspective notes to the C.I.A., he explained that the examples of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov had inspired him. "Some inner worm started to torment me," he explained. "Something had to be done." Yet he also wanted money, lots of it, perplexing his C.I.A. case officers by simultaneously demanding millions and saying he had little use for it. He seemed to see capitalist cash as a palpable measure of his own significance, a reassurance that he was not just another dreary technocrat but someone extraordinary.
In return, he delivered thousands of top-secret documents, usually spirited out of his institute at lunch hour, taken home and photographed with a Pentax camera clamped to a chair. At other times, he hid in a men's room stall at work, using a C.I.A. Tropel camera hidden in a key fob. Then he had to meet C.I.A. officers to hand over film and pilfered electronic parts. In a Moscow crawling with surveillance, the task required not just courage on his part but wiliness on theirs. Mr. Hoffman's book particularly shines in cinematic accounts of their anxious encounters.
Managing Mr. Tolkachev "was undertaken with the concentration and attention to detail of a moon shot," Mr. Hoffman writes. C.I.A. officers realized they could spot surveillance cars because the K.G.B. carwash left a distinctive triangle of dirt on the grille. They studied how to operate in "the gap" — the moments when a car or a person turned a corner and disappeared briefly from view. They used the J.I.B., or jack-in-the-box, a spring-loaded cardboard cutout of the C.I.A. officer in the passenger seat, which would pop up and take his place when he jumped from the car. (The driver was often the officer's wife; the intrepidity and patience of C.I.A. spouses is a recurring theme.)
The chief of the agency's Moscow station, meanwhile, was often fighting a rear-guard action against headquarters in Langley, Va. Bosses there long rebuffed Mr. Tolkachev's urgent requests for an "L-pill," a lethal cyanide dose hidden in a pen, even after his contacts decided it would give him critical reassurance. Likewise, headquarters insisted on giving him a new communications device called Discus, over the objections of officials in the Moscow station.
A poignant detail in "The Billion Dollar Spy" is what Mr. Tolkachev asked for besides money and banned books. Like many Soviet couples, he and his wife, Natasha, had one child in whom they invested their hopes. Oleg, 14 when the spying began, shared the fascination of Soviet teenagers with Western rock music. Later, when he entered architectural training, he wanted decent drawing and drafting equipment. His father, risking his life in every exchange with the C.I.A., nonetheless asked repeatedly for items that he thought would please his son: a Sony Walkman, albums by Led Zeppelin and Alice Cooper, and "pencils of various hardness." For this lonely, driven man — and therefore for the C.I.A. — such trivial things had become invaluable.
The title of Graham Greene's great 1978 spy novel had it right: the key to espionage is always "the human factor."
A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal
By David E. Hoffman
Illustrated. 312 pages. Doubleday. $28.95.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/06/books ... r-spy.html
The Billion Dollar Spy
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Welcome to the Ronald O. Perelman Department of Emergency Medicine at NYU Langone Health.
The Ronald O. Perelman Department of Emergency Medicine is committed to making a meaningful difference in the lives of our patients, our students and trainees, and the broader community through excellence in patient care, education, and research.
We have the privilege of caring for over 300,000 patients annually at our clinical sites across Manhattan and Brooklyn. Our patients represent the full spectrum of the human condition: a culturally diverse and ethnically rich community. We are committed to providing the highest level of care and comfort during their time of greatest need.
The Ronald O. Perelman Department of Emergency Medicine is invested in developing the next generation of healthcare leaders—those who will help transform care and improve our neighbors' lives. We aim to populate academic medical centers, international health systems, community hospitals, research centers and public health agencies with committed, dedicated, well-rounded professionals. We have an unwavering commitment to create a department with a rich learning environment. We continuously evaluate and evolve our educational curriculum and incorporate innovative learning theories and strategies including: asynchronous learning, flipped classroom, FOAM, social media, interactive small group discussion and simulation.
Addressing society's most complex problems is the mission of our clinical research division. We conduct cutting edge research with local, national and global impact across various themes including homelessness, alcoholism, end-of-life care, health literacy, predictive analytics, and safe care delivery systems. We continue to advance our efforts and recently developed programs in the NYC public school system and to help vulnerable and other at risk immigrant populations.
Our goal is simple: to make a meaningful difference in the lives of our patients, to elevate the health of our local and global communities, and to innovate and lead as we prepare our trainees to become future healthcare leaders.
We are here to make a difference…every day.
Rob Femia, MD, MBA
Chair, Ronald O. Perelman Department of Emergency Medicine
NYU Langone Health


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In search of the most creative inventions at this year's Sea Otter Classic
My mission for the first official day of the Sea Otter Classic was to seek those creative inventor types, the ones who have an innovative or unique idea that clearly stands out from the rest of the crowd. As I began my tour of the Expo on this gorgeous April day in Monterey, I expected to find at least a handful of interesting and even crazy inventions. But after walking for hours, I could only find two ideas that were truly unique.
With special cork padding inside the helmet, the Tree Piece lid absorbs sweat while providing superior impact protection.
Tree Piece Natural Fiber Helmets
Dan Coyle hails from Corvallis, Oregon, where trees are grown and harvested in abundance; the perfect place to source materials for his bike helmets. That's right, his helmets are made of wood. What started as a hobby making helmets for whitewater kayaking slowly grew into eyeglasses and kayaking paddles, shaping them with nothing more than a chainsaw and grinder.
In 2010 Coyle moved into bicycle helmets, but instead of firing up a chainsaw, he decided to use a CNC router to shape them. Using 100 percent sustainable materials including cork and a variety of softwoods and hardwoods, Coyle's Tree Piece Natural Fiber Helmets are fully customizable for any head shape, using CAD software to set dimensions. Custom visors and venting can also be incorporated to the user's exact specifications.
The Madrone pricetag isn't cheap, but you'll be guaranteed to have the most unique and stylish helmet ever made.
The inside of each shell features a Polyurea coating also used in the military to enhance energy absorption from impact to crack or crush without fragmenting or blowing apart. The renewable and recyclable sheets of cork are laser cut for padded inserts, not only helping cushion impact, but also providing non-allergenic, antimicrobial and antifungal sweat absorption and all-day comfort. Every helmet is hand-sanded and sealed with three coats of epoxy and Linear Polyurethane for durability and UV protection that far exceeds the life of foam and plastic helmets.
So yeah, of course they look super cool and unique, but the big question is, are they safe? Wood and cork are natural open-cell materials that can crush and deform to absorb impact rather than transferring energy. To prove the safety of his helmets, Coyle sent his helmets to ACT Lab, a CPSC accredited testing facility that is considered the standard in safety testing for not only bicycle helmets, but also composite bicycle frames for leading brands like Trek, Giant, Cervelo and Fuji.
Dan Coyle explains the engineering and craftsmanship behind the Tree Piece Natural Fiber Helmet.
Coyle's helmets have passed every test without exception, with ACT technicians regarding the performance of the cork as "fantastic". The only reason Coyle cannot receive certification for his design is because there are no current standards for certifying a non mass-produced, custom-built helmet of any kind regardless of material. Rest assured, these helmets are not only stylin', but they're also completely safe to wear. But like traditional helmets, Coyle's works of are only good for one impact.
Of course, like any handmade American product, quality is exceptionally high and price is not cheap. Expect to pay anywhere from $375 to $550+ depending on options and wood, but rest assured, you're going to have one of the most unique, comfortable and beautiful handmade helmets ever created that will perform as well as any high-performance helmet from the big name brands.
Visit Dan Coyle at his Sea Otter Booth and get more information at www.coyledesignandbuild.com
The Adaptrac system features patented hubs designed to hold air pressure lines.
Adaptrac Adjustable Traction Control System
One of the most overlooked yet most crucial elements to effective handling and traction on a mountain bike is tire pressure. In many cases proper tire pressure can be the difference between cleaning a rocky, loose climb and having to walk it. Adaptrac makes proper tire pressure as simple as the flick of a switch, featuring an on-the-fly adjustable tire pressurization system that can inflate or deflate both front and rear tires while you ride.
Much like the pressurization system on military HUMVEEs, the Adaptrac system features a multi-part system with patent pending rear 142x12mm and front 15mm front through-axle hubs threaded for pressurized air lines, a dual control valve, a regulator and a bottle of CO2 good for 10 complete cycles from 20 to 50 psi (26"x2.35" tires) from a 12 ounce tank. An air hose connects from the hub to the Presta valve on the rim for inflation and deflation. Two analog tire pressure gauges mounted next to the inflation/deflation switches on the handlebars tell you exactly what pressure the tires are at.
The Adaptrac system features tire pressure gauges and two switches for inflation and deflation of the front and rear tires.
Inflation time from 20-50 psi is a mere seven seconds, and in 20 seconds the tires can deflate from 50 to 20 psi. Total system weight is only about 1.5 pounds with an empty 9 ounce CO2 tank.
Flicking the switches and hearing the air automatically pump up the tires as you ride is an incredible sensation, and for owners of fat bikes who ride pavement to the snow, the Adaptrac system is absolutely killer. Ride high pressure on pavement or hard pack, and once you hit snow or sand, drop the pressure to four psi and get your fat on. When it's time to head back home, forget the hand pump. Just flick the switch and the Adaptec system re-inflates your tires to street pressure. For people familiar with four-wheeling, it's like having your own onboard air system.
Brandt Weibezahn standing with his fully suspension fatbike creation – The Zeppelin.
The man behind Adaptrac, Brandt Weibezahn, is clearly a man who can turn ideas into reality. Not only did he design the entire Adaptrac system, but he even designed and welded up his own custom full-suspension fat bike for Sea Otter dubbed The Zeppelin under the Devise Cycles brand. The Zeppelin features a triple crown front fork with pressure dials on the top crown, a sealed down tube that serves as an expansion tank for the Adaptrac system for faster fill times and a light and efficient SRAM XX1 drivetrain.
Although this system will probably never see the mainstream, especially with weight weenies who don't want the extra 1.5 pounds of mass on their bikes, for downhill rigs and especially fat bikes, the Adaptrac system could very well be a huge hit. It works awesome, looks super trick and serves a very functional and useful purpose for those not as concerned about overall weight. Visit them at their Sea Otter booth and get more info at www.adaptrac.com.


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It had been a long, thirsty day, and we were kicking back at Prado No. 12, a tiny bar in a flat iron building very close to the spray-soaked Malecón seawall that frames the north side of Havana.
At a nearby table was Steve, weighing the merits of the Montecristo Especial No 2 he held thoughtfully between his fingers. Steve was from Tampa, and made his living escorting Americans on limited tours into Havana. How hard was it to get a licence from U.S. authorities to do that? "It was like walking over eight miles of broken glass," he replied. He looked around happily as the sun set over the Strait of Florida and young people drifted over to the seawall.
"You know, my government calls Cuba a terrorist state. Not Pakistan. Cuba." A little girl skipped by, her curly ponytail tied up with red ribbons, holding tightly onto her small brother who clutched a baseball in one hand and trailed a glove in the other. Steve pulled reflectively on his cigar, blew out a smoke ring and drawled, "Do they look like terrorists to you?"
Havana is a city half in ruins, thanks to the 50 plus year old U.S. economic embargo. It shouldn't work, but it does, and in a spectacular fashion, and with the loosening of economic policies under Raul Castro, the emergence of a new kind of Cuba is evident on its streets. Twenty-six years ago, I travelled here with a backpack and no reservations, at a time when the Russians were calling the shots. Havana seemed a dark, dour and sometimes scary place then. The 1950s era cars that chug along the eight-kilometre Malecón are still there, but other things are changing, and fast. Private businesses are popping up all over, from the old men selling leaf-wrapped maize snacks from buckets strapped to their bikes, to private taxi cabs, to neighbourhood beauty parlours and privately owned restaurants, called paladares.
If you want an insight into the lives of ordinary Cubans, stay in a casa particular. Cubans have been welcoming travellers into their homes since 1996 in casas that are strictly licensed and regulated by the government. Once you hook into that network, your accommodation problems in Havana, or anywhere else in Cuba, are over. If one casa is filled, the owners will simply pass you along to a friend, neighbour or relative. In a country where Internet access is limited, that help is essential.
We lucked out at Casa Diana, a graciously disintegrating home in Vedado, a leafy area well away from the hustle and noise of Centro Habana and the touristy old city. Casa Diana was an oasis of peace, with a cool, fern-filled patio, an interior courtyard covered by an airy mesh that filtered the noon-day heat, and elegant rooms filled with paintings, ceramics and a lifetime of memories.
Our small, comfortable room with ensuite was spotless, and our hosts spoke excellent English. Each morning Diana's husband, Tony, who is well into his 80s, served us fresh fruit, coffee, scrambled eggs and bread.
We paid for our stay in Cuban Convertible Pesos – CUCs for short. One CUC equals about $1.06 Canadian. At 40$CUCs ($42.40) a night plus breakfast, the casa was a good deal. But like everything in Cuba, the currency can be confusing. There are two in play. Tourists convert cash into CUCs, but they can also get Cuban pesos, which is what the locals use. The trouble is, you can't always spend the local currency in places that cater to tourists. Conversely, you might pay for a juice at a roadside stand with a CUC, and get change back in Cuban pesos. I told you it was complicated. It's useful to have some Cuban pesos on hand for small purchases (and they make great souvenirs), but otherwise, just stick with the CUCs. Cuba's hard enough to figure out without spending your time calculating coinage in two currencies.
One morning after breakfast, Tony pulled out the family photo album. After a brief stint as a croupier in a Batista-era casino, he joined the Havana police force and became part of their acrobatic motorcycle team. The photos show him shooting his bike through hoops of fire, or riding two abreast while more than a dozen officers hang off the bikes. Tony went on to work logistics for the Cuban military, and travelled the world – Angola, China, North Korea. We could have sat there all day listening to his stories.
But most visitors to the island don't get a chance to look over family photo albums with local Cubans, and they don't stay in casas. It's very tempting and just easier to simply book into an all-inclusive resort, and enjoy a beach vacation. Many tourists are perfectly happy taking escorted day trips into Havana from resorts in Varadero, about two hours away. They are deposited directly on the doorsteps of the meticulously restored squares of Old Havana, and shepherded along the Calle Mercaderes, where the pink, yellow and green pastels of the architectural jewels that line the street enchant the visitor. Against all the economic odds, Havana has managed to make the restoration of the area a priority and is doing an internationally acclaimed job of preserving the city's history and architecture, and employing hundreds of people in the process.
But it's perfectly safe to wander around the city without a guide, although the usual cautions apply: wear a money belt (and it's a cash economy so you'll need lots of those CUCs), watch your day pack, and be prepared to bargain the price of a taxi fare. Polite and repeated "no, gracias" gets rid of any persistent touts. The biggest risk you run is dodging traffic. Watch out for zippy little three wheeled coco-taxis, which look for all the world like hollowed out yellow coconuts, hence the name. Add in broken down Ladas from the Russian days, and chrome-laden and fin-tailed classic American cars from the '50s all jostling for space and fares as they careen along Havana's disintegrating roads, and you'll need to keep your wits about you.
The Malecón seawall is a magnet at sunset. The light turns the crumbling buildings lining the harbour a rich, lemony-custard yellow, and Habaneros head there to play music, hang out, and plan the evening's fun. After our legs gave out, we hailed a coco-taxi and hurtled off to the Hotel Nacional for a drink, where you can watch all the action from the terrasse. The Nacional's the place where mobsters Lansky Meyers and Lucky Luciano hung out in pre-revolution days, and where the opponents of former dictator Fulgencio Batista were gunned down in the lobby. Today, you get to soak up all that history and a lot more for the price of a drink.
One day, tiring of the noise and chaos of the streets, we ducked into the lobby of the opulent 5 star Parque Central Hotel. We'd been told that for a few CUCs anyone could use their rooftop swimming pool. "No, madam," said the concierge dismissively, "The pool is for hotel guests only." He turned his back. We made a break for the elevators. Topside, we ordered up a mojito, enjoyed the band and were treated to a poolside fashion show. With the Capitolia glistening white in the background, doe-eyed male and female models loped alongside the azure pool, wearing the latest in designer wear from Cuba as they struck provocative poses.
Ah, well. Viva la revolutión!
Later that evening, we set out for Havana's famed jazz nightclub La Zorra y El Cuervo. Beefy, red-coated bouncers who managed to look both welcoming and threatening pulled open the door of a giant red telephone box, and down we went. Show time was 11 p.m., and the CUC$10 ($10.58) charge covered a couple of drinks. To our delight, Yasek Manzano took the stage. He's one of the most exciting young jazz trumpet players to come out of Cuba in the last decade. Manzano sent notes spinning into orbit one moment, and made his trumpet weep like a baby the next, playing original compositions and a version of the old standard Blame It on My Youth that had me in tears. Definitely time to go home. The nice bouncers at the door made sure we got safely into a cab for another bone-rattling ride back to the casa.
The next day, we made tracks for the eye-popping Callejón de Hamel, a short, narrow street where every wall is covered with outrageously vibrant murals and the surrounding streets reverberate with frenetic rumba music. We wandered the back alleys of Centro Habana, making friends with a trio of little girls working on their ABCs with a broken pencil and a scrap of paper. We took the local ferry across the harbour to Casa Blanca and were rewarded with a stunning view back at this sprawling city of two million people.
Cuba has a well-deserved reputation for spectacularly bad food, but that's largely based on what's offered at resorts on the Atlantic coast, where resort chains are doing their best to serve hundreds of people in massive meal halls. Eating in Havana was an eye-opener. From tiny neighbourhood cafés like El Bosquecito in Habana Veija , where CUC$4 ($4.25) gets you a delicious omelette and salad with cheese, to the classy, outdoor grill El Idilio in Vedado, where we dined on mouth watering paella, with appetizers and wine, for CUC$50 ($52.89), Havana has it all. With ordinary Cubans facing daily food shortages and rationing, that abundance is another Cuban contradiction that gives you pause.
The paladar La Guarida is by far the coolest place to eat in Havana. Its' reputation exploded in 1993 when the movie Fresa y Chocolate (Strawberries and Chocolate) was shot there. The film tells the story of a love affair between two young men, a free-spirited artist and a doctrinaire communist. The movie was an international hit and it put La Guarida on the culinary map. A couple of swashbuckling reviews in The Guardian and The New York Times didn't hurt, either, according to Lonely Planet.
Getting there was half the adventure. We piled into Tony's Lada, but even he got lost in the darkened maze of Centro Habana. We bumped over potholes, and swerved around dogs picking over spilled garbage as young people gathered on street corners to argue and flirt. We finally pulled up in front of a three-storey, spectacularly dilapidated mansion-turned-tenement building. The two cheerful youths manning the ornately carved double wooden door took one look at us and jerked their thumbs towards the stairs.
We stepped into a dimly lit foyer dominated by a sweeping marble staircase, broken statuary, and a quotation from Fidel carved into the wall. The first floor revealed a vast colonnaded room open to the night air, and piles of construction material and rubbish in one corner. Down the corridor, lights spilled from rooms and explosions of laughter echoed through the stairwells.
We reached the second landing, pushed open a door, and fell into another world. Movie prints and framed photographs of ballet dancers covered honey-coloured walls, and glittering chandeliers hung from 15-foot ceilings. We were shown to our table on a tiny balcony, and enjoyed one of the best meals we've had anywhere. The service was exquisite, as was the food. We opted for spinach crêpes stuffed with chicken, fungi sauce and beef vinaigrette, swordfish and vanilla with seafood sauce, and for dessert, guava mousse with orange coulis and lemon tart with almonds, all washed down with a decent Chilean cabernet sauvignon. Dinner for two, with tip, was about CUC$100 ($105.77).
As darkness fell, we lingered over the wine, and tried to make sense of the contradictions that define this country. We know the meal we just ate cost three times as much as what many Cubans earn in a month – even IF their education and health care is free and they pay next to nothing for utilities. We know the Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez has an international reputation for her sharply critical views of the current government and her descriptions of the hardship of daily life in Cuba. Her blog, Generation Y, evades censorship because she emails it to friends outside the country who then publish it on line. We're aware that sex tourism is a problem here, and yes, we realize Canadians like us risk addiction to a romanticized idea of what Cuba is, or might be.
But there's something very special about the place, because of its past, and the way it manages the present. Who knows what the future holds?
We raised a glass and toasted this stubborn and boisterous city and the irrepressible people who call it home.
Flights: Air Canada offers regular service to Havana from Montreal with a stopover in Toronto, starting at $664.80 return, all taxes in. Cubana, Cuba's national airline, offers direct flights to Havana from Montreal, and gets mixed reviews for service and delays, starting at around $568.
Where to stay: For a full listing of casas throughout Cuba, check out cubacasas.net.
Casa Diana, Calle 21 # 1408, Vedado, Havana, double room with ensuite at approximately $31 a night excluding breakfast. firstname.lastname@example.com.
Casa Antigua, Calle 28 # 258 Vedado, offers similar accommodation and prices, breakfast from $2 to $6. firstname.lastname@example.com.
The five-star Iberostar-operated Parque Central Hotel in central Havana offers doubles starting at $177. hotelparquecentral.com.
Money: Change your money on arrival at the Jose Marti Airport near the luggage carousel or outside the doors where families wait, at your hotel, or at any bank. The tourist currency is the CUC — the Cuban Convertible Peso. Once in Havana, you can also exchange Canadian dollars for CUCs at a Casa de Cambio. You can use some ATMs to get CUCs with a Visa or MasterCard, but NOT if those cards were issued by U.S. banks. U.S. dollars are not accepted in Cuba.
Deborah Woolway is a freelance journalist based in Dartmouth, N.S.