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To have left it this late to start my Christmas shopping?(121 Posts)
So everybody I have spoken to is fully organised for Christmas. Presents bought, wrapped and parts of the dinner cooked then frozen for the big day.
I haven't started anything yet! Not even my Christmas cards.
Please tell me I'm not the only unprepared one?
I've figured out why I can't be arsed to start - it's because I find it stressful trying to find places to hide stuff, whereas at least when the decs are up and the tree is up (admittedly not until the week before Xmas here ) I can just wrap stuff and put it straight under the tree, rather than have to wrap it, hide it, remember where you've hidden everything, get it all back out again and put it under the tree. It's a lot of faffing.
It all makes sense now
to me anyway
I have bought nothing yet. Not a sausage.
However I have been planning. There are lists and ideas etc. And I have a date in the diary when I will action all these things and will be able to do them quickly because I'm set.
I've bought almost everything I need present wise, but I started weeks ago as I am trying to budget carefully and if I try and save the money up it just gets eaten up by other stuff. I just need to get stocking fillers for the boys, and a couple of little bits for them. All the adults except Exp and exH are done - all amazon and play.com
I don't have a Christmas tree or any decorations so will need to buy them. The tree doesn't go up until the 15th though.
I don't send Christmas cards, and rarely get any either. The boys might want some for school though.
I don't do Christmas food shopping either, other than some chocolates and treats as I don't do Christmas dinner. The boys are at their dads for Christmas and my toddler won't eat it so there is no point cooking a turkey just for me.
I want an Xmas fridge!
I only have to buy about ten presents. I have to get a few before Dec 5th when my parents arrive to take up to family up North, and I have to get on & order my daughters' micro scooters, but other than that, no rush really!
I did get a few bits in October but haven't looked at what I've bought for ages and really should set about making a list.
This year I'm more disorganised than usual, cards have been ordered but are not here yet (National Autistic Society ones). I'd normally have written them by now, and be finished with gift buying. Instead I still have 3 presents to get.
Still need to wrap gifts and put up the deccies (1st Dec here).
Meat is ordered from the butcher for collection on Christmas Eve.
I have to do it this way for budgeting reasons, find the best price online to get the most I can from my money. Plus in December it gets really busy with school productions and I like to be able to kick back and enjoy rather than worry about whether or not everything is sorted.
DS2 and DD's school christmas fete is tomorrow!!
Plus I might just be sneaking the odd bottle of drinkies into my online grocery shop every week to accrue enough to splurge on the big day.
Glitter...yes I feel the same. I would hate having to run around in December. Have a major project on at church and the usual pre school and school activities and I would really like to go to an NT property to see the Xmas decs at some point.
Have a months worth of Sunday school to prep and a crib service to plan (weeps)
Done loads of cleaning today so although I am knackered I only have the bathroom and WC tiles to wash down now and the kitchen cupboards to tidy and wipe.
Dh is doing the windows outside - hopefully tomorrow!
Washed blankets and cushion covers and cleaned the dining chair seat pads.
At least now if I do nothing else, a quick clean through each week will keep the house looking ok between now and Xmas.
Need to sort the conservatory out but sadly the roof is leaking again so we have to wait to get that sorted....sigh.
I start buying presents anytime from the end of September if I see a good deal on something.
I don't drive so would be impossible to do it all in a day as wouldn't be able to carry it home! I do quite a bit online too and get it delivered to my mum's so I don't have to hide it.
Food etc doesn't get done early. Nor does wrapping. Cards get done at some point in December, i usually miss the post.
Have not read the whole thread as I am on a MNing and dashing but why one earth are you late. It is November, Christmas is at the end of December. I will pop out probably on the 23rd and buy the children a gift, it will take a few hours. I may even go wild and spend an hour on the Internet.
Arisbottle, forgive me I'm curious
nosey, do you only buy your dc one gift? Am I wrong to presume they are too old for stockings? And do you buy for no one else?
Genuinely am curious by the way, but then why would buying 1 gift take a couple of hours? I find your post very intriguing!!!
i start in september becasue i am on a very tight budgit. i also have a birthday in nov and the 28th december so like to be organzied.
i find it insulting that thouse who said start early have no life and cant possiably enjoy december with no to do!
i still have presents to buy. it just means i dont have an alot to spend out at one time. also frees up my time to do nicer things like make decorations with my children. watch christmassy movies and enjoy time with people with out worrying about how im going to pay for so n so and so n so and so n so.
Is this late?? Oh shit!!
I've bought one thing, and that's because it needs sent this week coming. I wouldn't usually have done that.
They have stocking, we have five children to buy for. They get one or two things each .
We tend to have a shopping day to get the presents done. We probably spend more time drinking mulled wine and eating than actually shopping
I also have a November birthday, as does dh, so it's a house rule that Xmas is unmentionable until 'after mum's birthday'.
Not that I make a big hoo-ha over my birthday, it's just a useful excuse not to get SUCKED IN to Xmas any earlier than December!
Tree up first weekend of December, presents bought mostly online as soon as one of gets paid in December, supplemented by anything dh/I happen to see whilst out doing normal shopping, wine from wine club & Xmas dinner's just a roast, complicated slightly because it's the only day of the year I cook meat (if we have non-veggie family).
I can totally see the point of budgetting for it from after the summer hols on, just not why anyone would be writing lists & going shopping a month ahead of time - & as for cooking - that's really quite odd...
YANBU. I point-blank refuse to do any Christmas preparation/shopping until December. It's November ffs. No-one suggests starting MY birthday celebrations a month early!
Sorry bedmonster, I missed the rest if your message . I may buy for our parents . DH and I don't buy for one another though .
I have been cooking for Christmas for some time, cakes made, mincemeat to make next weekend , lots of preserves, pickles and jams made.
I'm well on top of it. I have a box of After Eights
half price from the co-op
Fair enough arisbottle, and on my last shopping trip I managed to drink 7 cocktails and come home with 2 books - dp was a bit miffed!
Are the 1 or 2 things in addition to the stocking? Well, they must be! Stupid question really, think the vodka is kicking in...
I'm very organised-have bought 3 tins of biscuits.Not a single present yet.Its only NOVEMBER-why is everyone panicking?
YANBU. I've just had a little look today at things to get for my hreat nephew and niece,but haven't actually bought anything yet. We are in the middle of a hving an Kitchen extension so haven't thought about food yet. Well actually I have as we will probably go out for Christmas Dinner and I've just made an enquiry to Harvesters.
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bludge was our Word of the Day on 05/14/2009. Hear the podcast!
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Did You Know?
Though they can be annoying, people who bludge - bludgers - are relatively harmless. On the other hand, a bully armed with a bludgeon - a bludgeoner - can cause serious harm. In the 19th century, bludgeoner was shortened to bludger and used as a slang word for "pimp." That bludger was certainly a kind of bully, one apparently willing to wield a bludgeon now and then to insure his livelihood. In the early 20th century, bludge became the verb for what a bludger does. By then, a somewhat softened bludger had appeared in Australia and New Zealand: the pimping and the bullying were eliminated, and the parasitical tendencies reduced to mere cadging or sponging.
Origin and Etymology of bludge
back-formation from British argot bludger pimp, probably contraction of bludgeoner one wielding a bludgeon, from bludgeon
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|"Ben (JIRA)" <j...@apache.org>
|[jira] Commented: (AMQ-2480) Stomp Transport Dispatcher Fails on NPE
|Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:35:53 GMT
[ https://issues.apache.org/activemq/browse/AMQ-2480?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=55248#action_55248 ] Ben commented on AMQ-2480: -------------------------- Debugging this and reproduced with a breakpoint in the presumed erroneous code. It seems to be the getText() method of the ActiveMQTextMessage is returning null and the convertMessage of the LegacyFrameTranslator is trying to getBytes() of the null text. Still looking further into this. > Stomp Transport Dispatcher Fails on NPE > --------------------------------------- > > Key: AMQ-2480 > URL: https://issues.apache.org/activemq/browse/AMQ-2480 > Project: ActiveMQ > Issue Type: Bug > Components: Transport > Affects Versions: 5.3.0, 5.4.0 > Environment: Windows XP, JRE6 > Reporter: Ben > > We have been using ActiveMQ 5.2 on Windows for about 6months with a relatively low message throughput (a maximum usage 1 message every 4 seconds, nothing crazy) and it was working perfectly. We have several clients that connect through either an OpenWire or Stomp connection and communicate through Queues. > Several days ago I started testing higher throughput (several messages/second) messaging by publishing to a Queue from an OpenWire connection and consuming the message on a Stomp connection. At some point there is a failure in the Dispatcher for the Stomp connection and my client stops receiving messages. The OpenWire connection is unaffected and continues filling the Queue. I have since upgraded to ActiveMQ 5.3 because there were some issues fixed related to Stomp connection, but still see the same issue. The only exception is : > Exception in thread "ActiveMQ Connection Dispatcher: /127.0.0.1:3047" java.lang.NullPointerException > at org.apache.activemq.transport.stomp.LegacyFrameTranslator.convertMessage(LegacyFrameTranslator.java:69) > at org.apache.activemq.transport.stomp.ProtocolConverter.convertMessage(ProtocolConverter.java:594) > at org.apache.activemq.transport.stomp.StompSubscription.onMessageDispatch(StompSubscription.java:92) > at org.apache.activemq.transport.stomp.ProtocolConverter.onActiveMQCommand(ProtocolConverter.java:576) > at org.apache.activemq.transport.stomp.StompTransportFilter.oneway(StompTransportFilter.java:56) > at org.apache.activemq.transport.MutexTransport.oneway(MutexTransport.java:40) > at org.apache.activemq.broker.TransportConnection.dispatch(TransportConnection.java:1190) > at org.apache.activemq.broker.TransportConnection.processDispatch(TransportConnection.java:779) > at org.apache.activemq.broker.TransportConnection.iterate(TransportConnection.java:815) > at org.apache.activemq.thread.DedicatedTaskRunner.runTask(DedicatedTaskRunner.java:98) > at org.apache.activemq.thread.DedicatedTaskRunner$1.run(DedicatedTaskRunner.java:36) > I thought I would also note that with the nice new "Connector" page on the admin interface it shows the connection to my Stomp client as connected, and similarly the "Queues" page lists the Stomp consumer on the Queue, but the pending messages just keeps growing. > The client library we are using for the Stomp connection is from Codehaus (http://stomp.codehaus.org/C). Our OpenWire connection is utilizing Spring frameworks JMS library. > I'm going to continue to look for a test case to reproduce my error. -- This message is automatically generated by JIRA. - You can reply to this email to add a comment to the issue online.
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Destination: Rome
Books: The Masters of Rome Series by Collen McCullough
It seems to me that is essential to have some understanding of ancient Rome if you are going to travel to today's Rome. All those piles of rock and bits of arches in the forum, with the magnificent hulk of the Coliseum watching over it all look a lot less confusing if you know something about the daily life of the Romans at the pinnacle of the Roman Empire.
I imagine that I see togaed figures reclining on benches in the baths, or scurrying around from shop to shop trying to strike a good bargain so they can afford all those splendid mosaics in the courtyard of the summer place down at Herculaeum.
Colleen McCullough's book are just the time ticket you need to get a look at Roman life among the wealthy, and a few hints about the life of other people in the Roman Empire also. Like every period of history, when I imagine myself in a far distant time, I pick a good stratum of society. Wouldn't you love to have lived in Renaissance Italy? Well, as a noble, or at least high merchant class, not as a peasant. With my love of Greece, I daydream about living in Athens in the 5th century B.C. However, not as a slave, of course. Although some scholars claim that all women were treated pretty much as slaves, others say the mothers and managers of households were revered. And in the Roman Empire, I am the wife of a Senator (at least–if not a Caesar.) And as in Greece, the female role of courtesan sounds pretty cushy.
Back to the point. McCullough wrote seven books based on life in Rome. The First Man in Rome started the series, and while I enjoyed it, I found it had almost too much detail. There are Roman experts who quibble with her history, although for a novelist, she did a mighty fine pile of research, in my opinion.
So dramatic was ancient Rome that many fiction books exist based on the real history. A web page devoted to such books, Fictional Rome, contains a page on Colleen McCullough. If you love Rome, or love ancient history, you'll be trapped and find it difficult to emerge. Try to get out by tomorrow when we talk about the movie Angels and Demons, which looks at ecclesiastical Rome rather than ancient Rome, but provides a heck of a travelogue along the way.
Photograph by VMB, all rights reserved.
We have spent this week at A Traveler's Library focused on Italy. Do you like several days of focus on one country? Or would you rather mix things up and have a different destination each day? Let me know, because I'm planning a celebration of the opening of the Greek's New Acropolis Museum in June. One day or several?


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Left-handed pitcher Martin Perez will likely make his much-anticipated major league debut this week after being recalled from Triple-A Round Rock on Tuesday.
If needed, the 21-year-old prospect could work out of the bullpen in a long relief role. Rangers manager Ron Washington has also said Perez may start against the Oakland Athletics on Saturday. That's the rotation spot currently occupied by righty Justin Grimm, who surrendered six runs in one-plus innings during his most recent start.
Regardless of his role, Perez's first big league stint probably won't be an extended one. He (along with Grimm) is filling temporary roster spot due to a rash of injuries within the Rangers' pitching staff. Starting pitchers Neftali Feliz, Derek Holland, Colby Lewis, and Alexi Ogando are all currently on the disabled list. Reliever Koji Uehara is also on the 15-day DL.
The Rangers expect to get Holland and Feliz back shortly after the All-Star break. Holland is currently the closest to returning, as he'll make the first of three scheduled rehab starts with Triple-A Round Rock on Wednesday.
Currently working with a 12-man pitching staff, the Rangers have called up Grimm, Perez, Michael Kirkman, and Tanner Scheppers from the minor leagues in recent weeks. Veteran starter Roy Oswalt also joined the team earlier this month.
There's no doubting that Perez isn't quite ready for the major leagues yet. But after designating reliever Mark Hamburger for assignment this week––and losing him to San Diego via a waiver claim––the Rangers don't want to drop another player from their 40-man roster.
The other 40-man pitching candidates were Jake Brigham (pitching relatively well in Double-A), Miguel de los Santos (returning from injury in a relief role with Frisco), Wilmer Font (in Myrtle Beach), Roman Mendez (on the Myrtle Beach DL), Neil Ramirez (recently sent down to Frisco from Triple-A), Yoshinori Tateyama (not capable of starting), and Matt West (returning from injury in relief with Myrtle Beach).
The only serious candidates for call-up would appear to be Perez and Brigham. Perez had not only pitched well in his last two starts, but he'd done so at a higher level than Brigham.
While the Venezuela native is having an up-and-down campaign at Triple-A Round Rock––posting a 4.59 ERA in 15 starts––his last two outings have been extremely positive.
On June 15, Perez hurled seven innings of one-hit shutout ball against Oklahoma City, although he walked five and struck out five. He hurled a 90-pitch complete game on June 21 versus Iowa, giving up two runs on three hits while walking two and striking out four.
In a recent interview with Lone Star Dugout, Rangers minor league pitching coordinator Danny Clark spoke in-depth about Perez's progress and developmental plan.
Clark says he challenged Perez with a set of three goals.
"I think the three goals that were set for him four games ago––he has met all of those goals," Clark said. "One was basically getting four pitches or less––getting contact in four pitches or less. His last outing, he was 28 of 31 batters faced in that.
"The second thing was getting deeper into games. He's gone a 5.2, he has gone a six, he has gone a seven, and then he went a complete game.
"The third goal that was laid out for him is to basically leave your game with your team in order to get a win. And the last three games, he has left with that."
At the time of the interview, Clark couldn't have predicted the injury to Colby Lewis and known that Perez would be practically forced up to the major leagues just a day later. But Perez, who has had issues with attempting to overpower hitters and subsequently overthrowing, is beginning to show signs of buying into the overall plan.
Clark said the pitching prospect will see the ultimate reward of a full-time major league gig when he begins consistently reaching those three goals.
"The goals that have been laid out for him––he has accomplished those," Clark said. "So I'm very proud of Martin and what he's doing. We're trying to keep the goals in a smaller, attainable environment versus always looking to the long term.
"We're trying to get Martin to the big leagues. But the major leagues will come when he accomplishes Triple-A and is being more consistent in his starts. And I think he's off to a good start. I think he has had three and a half good outings."
Rangers fans have been hearing Perez's name since he reached Double-A Frisco at just 18 years of age in late 2009. But the bottom line is that he's still just 21, and the Rangers aren't looking to rush him.
This season, Perez has often pitched like a youngster who doesn't quite know how to use his stuff. He's had the issues with overthrowing, which causes him to fly open in his delivery and hurts his command. When he stays under control and keeps a direct line to the plate, he shows the ability to locate a lively fastball down in the zone.
Although he did that in his latest start––certainly a promising sign––he's still yet to prove he can do it consistently. Perez also has a tendency to overthrow when he gets into pressure situations. It's a sign that he's still got room to mature on the mound and still must prove that he can fully buy into the Rangers' plan.
The 6-foot-0, 180-pound hurler has worked best this season when controlling his mechanics and working between 89-92 mph with his fastball, which reaches up to 93-95 when he needs extra velocity.
Perez's fastball has excellent life––particularly when thrown in the low-90s––and he's done a good job of pounding the lower portion of the strike zone. Many of Perez's misses come side-to-side when he is flying open in his delivery.
The combination of fastball movement and location has made him difficult to square up in Triple-A this year. He's yielded 78 hits in 84.1 innings, given up six home runs in 15 starts, and has induced 1.4 groundouts per airout.
When Perez pitches in the major leagues, his fastball and overall solid stuff will probably keep him from getting knocked around. But he could still struggle if he's falling behind hitters and having trouble throwing strikes in general.
The prospect's go-to secondary pitch is his 81-84 mph changeup, a 'dead fish' pitch with fantastic deception and good sinking and fading action. He's comfortable throwing the change in any count against both left- and right-handed hitters, and it has been a big factor in his recent success.
His mid-70s curveball has just been passable. He's often struggled to command the big breaker, and it hasn't been consistently sharp. Perez has added an 82-84 mph slider this season to give him another weapon. Still in its early stages of development, it's a promising-but-raw pitch that he mostly throws across the plate to left-handed hitters.
Now a four-pitch hurler, Perez will throw his fastball anywhere between 89-95 mph. He's got a plus changeup that can miss bats at any level. Both his curveball and slider could be usable in the majors right now, but neither has been consistent of late.
Perez has struck out only 49 batters in 84.1 innings this season. Although he still has good stuff, his command troubles have had him working from behind in counts for much of the season.
Perez likely won't ever be a hurler who strikes out a batter per inning at the highest levels. But if he begins striving for early-count outs––getting ahead and throwing more strikes in the process––he'll be able to set up hitters for the good secondary stuff in 0-2 and 1-2 counts with greater frequency.
The southpaw hasn't proven he can do that with consistency just yet. The Rangers––including Clark––are encouraged by Perez's recent willingness to buy into their three-step efficiency plan. But extended success in Triple-A would only further instill a belief in Perez to fully trust his stuff. It'd only help teach him that controlling his mechanics, locating, and sequencing is more conducive to upper-level success than simply overpowering with velocity.
Clark saw Perez doing exactly that in his last start, and he hopes the prospect is able to build on it.
"When (Perez) tries to overpower guys, that's when he gets out of his delivery," Clark said. "That's when you see the front side really pull away from his alignment.
"Sitting and watching––his changeup was really a plus against Iowa. As I sat back there, his alignment was really good. He used his changeup in appropriate places––especially in a lot of hitters' counts.
"I think all of that combined––it was really a big step for him. It was his first complete game. There were a lot of things that went along with that, and that mindset of getting deeper into games is what this organization is about."
Perez buying into the plan
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Discussion in 'Off-topic Zone' started by FiveRings, Aug 22, 2013.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is brutal. I vote Jon Hamm/Liev Schrieber
This is bad. Real bad. I can't..... Ugh.
Part of me is disappointed in the selection.
Part of me is hopeful that a seasoned actor like Affleck can transcend my preconceived notions.
Part of me is happy that Bale won't be returning and thus the Dark Knight Trilogy will remain separate from this new justice league crusade.
Part of me is thrilled that, with Affleck cast and subsequently the decision to start anew, they can now move forward and actually spend a proper amount of time and prep work developing a movie with less limitations.
I think it was Ben who was in some super hero movie some years back.
I remember watching it on TV. I think the character he played was blind. It was pretty lousy!
When I first heard this, I thought it was a prank. I wasn't exactly bullish on this movie beforehand... now it's just gone into laughingstock-territory.
That was "Daredevil" and I agree that it wasn't good.
I completely forgot the name of the movie other than it was bad. Thx.
I don't understand this, he goes from a hated Bennifer joke and his career being on the ropes, to totally reinventing himself as a serious director/actor, wins awards, gets praise, makes beards more popular in Hollywood, and throws that all away to play second banana in a superhero movie directed by Zach Snyder? He should fire his agent, unless he's on the market for a new wife. This news just makes me think of Clooney's Batman and the dreaded Bat nipples. I wonder if Matt Damon will show up as Robin.
Well there goes that .......
Guarantee you Affleck's name will be in the running for Director if there is a Justice League movie. So I'm sure it's not as "second banana" as it seems.
I remember many people thinking Ledger as the joker wasn't going to work. Never know I guess.
It was reported a while back that they approached him to direct the JL movie and star as Batman. Half of that rumor has come true. I'm guessing the other half will as well. And that's a silver lining I guess because he's one of the best directors in the business.
Second banana in MOS 2, they may never make it to the Justice Legue, my dream of seeing Aquaman surf on a Dolphin will never be realised.
To be fair. Ben Affleck wasn't the reason that movie was bad.
Affleck isn't all that bad of an actor to me. Liked him in Good Will Hunting, Armageddon, Argo, Mallrats, those type of movies mainly. He is definitely becoming one of the best directors, kind of like Tom Hanks. I am not comparing his acting skills to Hanks though
And there goes my desire to even attempt to see the movie
Eh...i'm not sure that I like this. I don't know if I want to see this movie now, at all, because I'm just not a fan of Ben.
People were OUTRAGED when it was announced that Heath Ledger would play the Joker. He was a teen-star, and he was supposed to play a legendary role following Jack Nicholson? All he did was turn in one of the best performances of all time. Withhold judgement, this movie is going to be good or bad based on the script. These people are actors, this is what they do. Ben Affleck was terrible in Gigli, Pearl Harbor, Daredevil and Armageddon. All terrible scripts and movies. Ben Affleck was great in Argo, Good Will Hunting, Dogma and Boiler Room. All great scripts. A great actor can't save a terrible script.
I don't like people using the Heath Ledger comparison. Affleck is a much more established actor than Ledger was at the time of his casting as the Joker. Not to mention Ledger really didn't have a bad performance leading up to the Dark Knight, meanwhile Affleck has a laundry list of them, not to mention one in the exact same genre as the one he was casted in.
Does it change the fact that people were expressing the same outrage and distaste with the casting choice? Affleck is a very capable actor if the script is worthy. There are very few actors that can make a terrible script into a good movie, and Superman/Batman isn't going to rely on acting chops as much as it is FX/script/action.


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1994 Ceasefires
Republicans initially sought to appear sceptical about the Downing Street Declaration - but their appetite had been whetted.
The question remaining to be answered was whether or not it would be enough to convince the IRA to go on ceasefire and allow Sinn Fein, now a growing political force, to negotiate on a purely political path.
Then, in one of the most significant moves of the process, President Bill Clinton enraged London by granting Gerry Adams a United States visa. His supporters saw him and Sinn Fein feted by Irish-Americans and the media as Northern Ireland's peacemakers.
This was the clearest signal that politics was delivering, his supporters told the hardliners. But, they added, a ceasefire was now becoming crucial for the cause.
On 31 August the IRA called a "complete cessation of military operations". Six weeks later, the two main loyalist groups joined them.
The stage was set for talks. But would republicans be admitted and would anyone sit with them?


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MYLEENE Klass was the belle of the ball at the Draper's Fashion Awards last
night and told fans this morning she'd had "no sleep".
The former I'm A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here babe, 34, wore a beautiful
prom dress by designer Jacques Azagury for the stylish bash, held at the
Grosvenor House Hotel, London.
Her frock featured a full skirt with an embroidered, gold metallic overlay.
Myleene, who designs a range for Littlewoods, a baby range for Mothercare as
well as doing regular TV appearances, tweeted this morning: "Just got
into work after no sleep. The nice chap on reception has made me a bed on
the sofa and offered to turn down the lights!"
Yesterday she tweeted: "Off to @Drapers awards. Thank you Jacques Azagury
for being my fairy godfather and dressing me for the ball, quick time."
The awards ceremony recognises the best retailers in the fashion industry,
given by trade publication Drapers magazine.
ASOS grabbed two awards: Larger Etailer of the Year and Growing Retailer of
the Year.
Low cost retailer Primark was also a winner, picking up the Larger Multiple
Retailer of the Year gong.
Other winners included River Island who won the Retailer of the Year –
Consumer Award, voted by the public.


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What do we know of Muhammad? Can we even be sure that such a historical personage existed?
For the vast majority of believing Muslims the question simply does not arise. The Prophet lived in Arabia from the time of his birth in, approximately, the year 570 until his death in 632, during which time he received and transmitted the revelations from God contained in the Koran, while forging the warring tribes of that region into an all-powerful movement under the banner of Islam.
Building on this formidable religious and political achievement, his immediate successors, the Rightly Guided Caliphs, led the triumphant tribes beyond the bounds of Arabia, inflicting almost simultaneous defeats on the two most powerful Near Eastern empires, the Persian Sassanids, who collapsed completely, and the Byzantines, who lost two of their richest provinces – Syria-Palestine and Egypt.
Despite having reservations about the reliability of the oral traditions underpinning the Muslim narrative, most Western scholars have tended to accept its basic premises. There was such a person as Muhammad and it is his utterances – divinely dictated or otherwise – that make up the 114 suras, or chapters, of the Koran. According to the generally accepted Muslim account, the holy text acquired its present form under the Caliph Uthman, Muhammad's son-in-law and the third of his successors as leader of the Islamic community; he reigned from 644 to 656.
There are, however, a number of sceptics, mostly in Western universities, who question the Muslim narrative. Even when accepting that the text of the Koran represents the authentic utterances of Muhammad, they have cast doubt on the details of the Prophet's life, as recorded in the oral literature known as Hadiths (traditions or reports) passed down by the generations following his death. Many of these details, based on stories conveyed through "chains of transmission" of varying reliability, were intended to elucidate the meaning of Koranic passages by reference to "occasions of revelation" in the life of the Prophet.
The earliest written biography of Muhammad, by Ibn Hisham, who died in 833, contains parts of the missing work of an earlier scholar, Ibn Ishaq, who lived from about 707 to 767. The dating of Ibn Hisham's work, composed nearly two centuries after the Prophet's death, may be contrasted with that of Mark's gospel, considered by most New Testament scholars to be the earliest of the three synoptic gospels and to have been written some four decades after the death of Jesus.
The story of Jesus has long been subjected to the rigours of form criticism, with scholars such as Rudolph Bultmann claiming that almost nothing can be known about his life or personality, as distinct from the "message of the early Christian community, which for the most part the Church freely attributed to Jesus". Yet despite widespread recognition of the unreliability of oral traditions, most scholars have tended to accept the Muslim narrative.
A startling exception to this record of scholarly complacency appeared with two landmark studies by the American linguist John Wansbrough (1928-2002), who taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. In Koranic Studies (1977) and The Sectarian Milieu (1978) Wansbrough trawled through a substantial body of the earliest manuscript sources and concluded that Islam may not have arisen in western Arabia, as the traditional narrative holds, but in a "sectarian milieu" of Christians, Jews and monotheistic Arabs in the same lands of the Fertile Crescent (modern Israel-Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Iraq) that saw the emergence of Rabbinical Judaism and Christianity.
"Both the quantity and quality of source materials," he cautiously suggested, "would seem to support the proposition that the elaboration of Islam was not contemporary with but posterior to the Arab occupation of the Fertile Crescent and beyond." Far from being finalised under the Caliph Uthman, the text of the Koran as we now have it, in Wansbrough's view, may have emerged over some two centuries in the course of religious polemics with the older traditions of Judaism and Christianity.
Wansbrough was careful to avoid drawing firm historical conclusions from his studies: His method was strictly textual and literary. But two young scholars influenced by him, Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, endeavoured to put historical flesh on the bones of his literary analysis in their highly speculative and controversial book Hagarism (1977).
Setting aside the Islamic accounts, they examined a number of the earliest non-Muslim sources that treat of the Arab invasion with a view to constructing an alternative version of Islamic origins. On the basis of what they admitted was rather thin evidence, they hypothesised that the original Islam was a messianic movement of Jewish refugees from Palestine who went to the Arabian deserts and joined forces with Arab tribesmen to recover the Holy Land.
The messianic union of Jews and Arabs was short-lived and afterwards the Arabs – known in these sources as Hagarenes from the Arabic muhajirun, or emigrants – contrived to preserve their distinctive identity by adopting Samaritan scriptural positions (rejecting prophetic writings outside the Pentateuch) and moving towards a position of equidistance between Judaism and Christianity. For Crone and Cook, Muhammad emerges as an Arabian Moses recapitulating the Mosaic themes of exile and the dispensing of laws received from God on a holy mountain.
The Crone-Cook theory has been generally rejected, and Patricia Crone has since refined her views, accepting that Muhammad definitely existed as a historical personage, and that most of the Koran is a record of his utterances. Andrew Rippin, a Canadian scholar and leading Wansbrough disciple, argues that although Cook and Crone
successfully draw attention to the problems involved in the study of Islam, they have not been able to get beyond the limitations inherent in the sources, for they are all of questionable historical authenticity and, more importantly, all are treatises based in polemic.
Nevertheless, although Wansbrough's studies are far from being conclusive, they do address some of the difficulties facing the traditional view of Islamic origins, including the fragmentary and allusive character of the Koranic discourse – with its assumption of prior knowledge of many of the stories to which it alludes – as well as some archaeological and numismatic issues, such as the fact that the qibla (direction of prayer) in some of the earliest mosques points not towards Mecca but to a shrine much further north, and the appearance of Christian and other figurative images on coinage with Arab inscriptions. (The consensus of modern scholarship, however, attributes the wrong orientation of early qiblas to simple miscalculation.)
One of the most contentious theories, originally advanced by the Protestant theologian Günter Luling, and elaborated more recently by the pseudonymous scholar Christoph Luxenberg, suggests that the Koran may have originated in the strophic hymns of Aramaic-speaking Christianised tribes. These may have been adapted by Muhammad, or retrospectively projected onto him, after the original messianic movement fell apart.
Volker Popp, a numismatist working in Germany, argues – with Luxenberg – that the name Muhammad, which appears on coins and on the interior of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem (alongside some of the earliest written examples of Koranic texts, dating from the 690s), may actually refer to Jesus: The word "muhammad" can be read as a passive participle meaning the "praised" or "chosen one" raising the possibility that the original Arab conquerors might have been Arian Christians opposed to Byzantine rule. Readers interested in exploring these issues will find articles by Popp, Luxenberg and other sceptical scholars in The Hidden Origins of Islam: New Research into Its Early History, edited by Karl-Heinz Ohlig and Gerd Puin (2010).
It may be a long time before revisionist theories gain the acceptance that higher criticism has obtained in the field of biblical studies, not least because of differences between the perspectives of "early Koran" theorists such as Luling, Popp and Luxenberg, including Wansbrough's former student John Burton, who regards the whole Koran as contemporaneous with Muhammad, and "late Koran" theorists who follow Wansbrough in suggesting that some if not most of the material was compiled after Muhammad's death. Nevertheless the seeds of doubt about the version adopted by nearly all Muslim and most Western scholars have been firmly planted. The green shoots of scepticism concerning Islam's account of its own origins are unlikely to disappear.
Fred Donner's new book, Muhammad and the Believers, is written in an accessible style and is mercifully free from the daunting obscurities, scholarly allusions and technical apparatus that make Wansbrough's books almost impenetrable. * Aimed at a much broader readership of students and interested observers than Wansbrough's work, its approach might be labelled Revisionism Lite.
Unlike the more radical sceptics, Donner accepts the main outlines of the traditional Muslim narrative while questioning many of its details. So after providing an exemplary resume of the orthodox story, he acknowledges that "the vast ocean of traditional accounts . . . contains so many contradictions and so much dubious storytelling that many historians have become reluctant to accept any of it at face value." He insists, however, that rejecting everything in the conventional accounts would be going too far and would involve "as uncritical an approach as unquestioning acceptance of everything in the traditional accounts. The truth," he argues quite sensibly, "must lie somewhere in between."
To the student of religious history Donner's middle path is likely to seem plausible, not least because it replicates the gradual process of separation between parent and daughter religions that scholars such as Geza Vermes see as having occurred between Judaism and Christianity.
One problem it poses, however, is that Donner rejects the theories of the "late Koran" revisionists. If the text had not acquired its final form during Muhammad's lifetime and in the decades immediately after he died, he says, we would be surely aware of this; yet "meticulous study of the text by generations of scholars has failed to turn up any plausible hint of anachronistic references". He argues that such anachronisms would certainly be the case if the text had crystallised later.
Donner argues that the Koran is not only free from such anachronisms, but that its style and vocabulary reflect its origins in western Arabia in the last part of the sixth century and the first part of the seventh.
His acceptance of an early "Muhammadan" Koran allows him to use it, cautiously, as a source for Muhammad's life and the earliest Muslim community. He points out that many more of its messages are addressed to Believers than to Muslims: the word Believers occurs almost 1000 times, compared with fewer than 75 instances of Muslim.
The terms are not interchangeable: "islam" and "muslim" refer to submission or surrender, as in the case of the Bedouin tribes who are said to have submitted to Muhammad in Arabia. "Belief obviously means something different (and better) than 'submission' (islam) and so we cannot simply equate the Believer with the Muslim, though some Muslims may qualify as Believers."
By factoring in some of the themes and insights selectively culled from the same stockpile of sources deployed by more radical revisionists, Donner concludes that the original movement that came to be known as Islam was actually an ecumenical pietistic movement,
centred on the ideas of monotheism, preparation for the Last Day, belief in prophecy and revealed scripture, and observance of righteous behaviour, including frequent prayer, expiation for sins committed, periodic fasting and a charitable and humble demeanour towards others.
All of these ideas and practices, he observes, were well known in the Near East by the seventh century, although the Koran provided them with a unique formulation in the new literary idiom of Arabic.
Donner argues that there is no reason to think that these Believers originally thought of themselves as a new or separate religious confession. The movement was open and inclusive enough to include Christians and Jews of similarly pietistic tendencies. "Because many, if not most, people of the Near East were already monotheists, the original Believers' movement can best be characterised as a monotheistic reform movement, rather than as a new and distinct religious confession." The Koran's apocalyptic and eschatological temper, especially pronounced in passages that exegetes attributed to Muhammad's sojourn in Mecca in the early seventh century, reflects the widespread conviction among the Believers that the Last Hour was imminent. (This same belief, centred on apocalyptic scenarios surrounding Jerusalem, has been ascribed to early Christians and remains strongly entrenched among fundamentalist Jews and Christians at the present time, as well as many Muslims.)
Donner also has an interesting take on the Koranic attitude towards violence, which ranges from pacifist quietism to outright aggression. Traditional historiography explains this as reflecting the growing confidence of the community as it developed from being a persecuted sect in Mecca to the triumphant "super-tribe" of Muhammad's final years. Donner, however, drawing on recent research, suggests that these differing injunctions may reflect "the divergent attitudes of different subgroups . . . of believers."
In subsequent chapters he pieces together a plausible narrative of early Islam following Muhammad's death, drawing on the conventional story while interpreting it in the light of his "moderate revisionist" thesis. For a considerable period, he argues, the arrival of the Believers in the lands of the Fertile Crescent running from Palestine to Iraq did not involve violent confrontations, because a majority of the population was already monotheist. There are no significant Christian or other polemics against the Believers' doctrines for almost a century, ie, until the early 800s. By the same logic, he suggests, there are few archaeological traces of the battles by Muslims against the Byzantine and Sassanid empires that feature in the Muslim sources. When the written sources of polemics against the Believers do appear, in the eighth century, "Islam" has already crystallised as a religion in contradistinction to what he has described as the earlier ecumenical movement of Believers.
Donner argues that the battles that feature in the accounts of early Muslim chroniclers and exegetes who fleshed out Koranic allusions with references to historical events were introduced retroactively, aimed at demonstrating divine approval for a conquest, now defined retrospectively as "Islamic". (Volker Popp makes a similar point: victory in battle is a topos, or theme, of the historical literature of the time, indicating divine approval of conquest.) By now, Donner writes, the historians were paying "much less attention to the way the early Believers integrated themselves into the fabric of local life in various localities and the nature of their relations with the 'conquered' populations".
Boundaries between Believers and other religious groups were set by establishing different cult-like practices (the congregational Friday prayer and the elevated pulpit from which the Friday sermon is delivered, neither of which is mentioned in the Koran). The civil wars that resulted in Islam's three main sectarian divisions – Sunnis, Shias and Kharijites – reflected the classic struggle over leadership and forms of authority, and between piety and pragmatism, that one finds in other religious movements, with the Kharijites the ultimate pietists, the Sunnis focused on Muhammad as a moral exemplar and the Shias oriented towards his family's spiritual legacy.
Donner's position of "moderate revisionism" has already been attacked by Patricia Crone, who argues, in a devastating review in Tablet magazine (the American Jewish, not the British Catholic, journal), that in some matters his "seemingly revisionist view is simply the conventional one" while he fails to produce evidence of his more controversial claims. How, she asks, "could a community endowed with its own law and pilgrimage centre be lacking in confessional identity?" Given the holy book's many detailed legal prescriptions, how could the ecumenically minded Jews and Christians be expected to follow it if the text had not already been stabilised? The implication – not fully spelled out in Crone's review – is that the evidence Donner deploys to support his "ecumenical Believers" thesis points towards a conclusion that he rejects from the start: that the Koran was compiled considerably later than the early and mid-seventh century.
While Crone's critique raises serious questions, it does not supply all the answers. To my mind the most important question it raises is: Can Donner's moderate revisionist approach be used to defend the orthodox position that the Koran reached its final form under the Caliph Uthman before the end of his reign in 656, meaning – in effect – that the ideas of the Believers' movement were incorporated into the text now accepted by Muslims? There are obvious difficulties in reconciling a Believers' movement in Palestine with the Arabian prophet's biography.
One solution may lie in applying Wansbrough's methods without adopting his, admittedly tentative, conclusions. If Wansbrough's "sectarian milieu" – including Jews and Christians – was located in Arabia, before the Prophet's time, the thesis can be salvaged of a "gradual accumulation" of monotheistic beliefs that influenced Muhammad and Uthman and made their way into the Koran. As the German academic Marco Schöller argues in the Encyclopedia of the Qur'an,
There is some rumour . . . among contemporary scholars of early Islam, that Wansbrough's hypothesis of a cumulative creation of the Qur'an and its gradual evolution into scripture in a sectarian setting of broadly Near Eastern monotheistic stamp might still be safeguarded if the period of the Qur'an's origin is no longer placed in the first Islamic centuries but ante-dated to the time of the Prophet's mission
– that is, no later than the first part of the seventh century.
Such an approach may rescue key elements of the traditional narrative by locating it in western Arabia, a region more subject to monotheistic influences than the earliest sources admit. Surprisingly Donner, with his emphasis on the contributions to the Koran from Believers in Palestine and the Fertile Crescent, does not seem to have considered this option, which could harmonise with his view of a "Muhammadan" Koran. Donner is to be commended for posing questions that many mainstream scholars have chosen to leave aside. But much remains to be shown.
Readers bemused by Donner's argument – and sharing Crone's impression that he might be "arguing for incompatible positions" – will find relief in Faith and Power, the latest offering by Bernard Lewis, the prolific Princeton Orientalist born in 1916, whose pathbreaking first book, The Origins of Ismailism, appeared over 70 years ago, in 1940. Lewis is the best-known Middle East specialist in America, if not in the whole Western world. While making only passing references to debates about Islamic origins, he espouses the traditionalist view wholeheartedly.
Lauded by the neo-conservatives, he was the recipient in 2007 of the American Enterprise Institute's prestigious Irving Kristol Award. An unapologetic foreign policy hawk, his best-selling book What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East (2002) was already in proofs when the September 11 attacks took place; and while he explained in his preface that the book did not deal with the attacks themselves, it clearly struck a chord with readers in the aftershock of those dreadful events.
As Lewis explained, his book was related to the attacks, "examining not what happened and what followed, but what went before – the longer sequence and larger pattern of events, ideas and attitudes that preceded and in some measure produced them." Within a year of its appearance Amazon.com was listing it as one of the world's most popular books – in the single figures in several American states and campuses, number 13 in Denmark, number 19 in Italy.
While disclaiming that "Islam" as such was responsible for the attacks on America, Lewis's analysis focused on the failure of Muslims to adapt their religious tradition to present requirements, unlike their age-old Christian rivals, who embraced modernity in its entirety. Lewis lent the enormous prestige he had acquired over many decades to the US invasion of Iraq, the most disastrous Western intervention in the region since the Suez Crisis of 1956.
On September 19, eight days after the attacks on New York and Washington, he was invited by Richard Perle to address the US Defence Policy Board, which Perle then headed. Lewis and his friend the prominent Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi reportedly argued for a military takeover of Iraq in order to prevent worse terrorist attacks in the future.
In his latest book, consisting mainly of recycled articles and lectures produced over the past decade, Lewis dwells on the themes that feature prominently in his more recent publications – the "clash of civilisations" between seemingly incompatible entities called Islam and the West, and the all-embracing totalitarian temptations of Islam, manifested by the failure of Muslim societies to produce vibrant democratic institutions. *
Here Lewis's Islam is conflated with the Arab-Muslim world: There is no recognition that functioning democracies and successful industrial economies have established themselves in Malaysia and Indonesia, two of the most populous Muslim countries. Islam, Lewis tells his audiences, is not just a religion, but a "complete system of identity, loyalty and authority" that provides Muslims with the most appealing and convincing answer to their problems. Unlike Jesus, who distinguished between the duties owed to God and to Caesar, Muhammad established a state. In Islam "there was no need for a church since the establishment, so to speak, of a community and polity in the lifetime of the founder, who ruled as both prophet and sovereign."
In certain respects Lewis's analysis of Islam, unencumbered by doubts about origins, issues of ethnicity, the impact of climate and geography, or the dynamic changes effected by modern education, industrialisation and urbanisation, mirrors the views of fundamentalists such as Osama bin Laden. Lewis, while finding his actions abhorrent, admires the Saudi dissident for his command of classical Arabic, writing that he "is very articulate, very lucid and I think on the whole very honest in the way he explains things".
Rooted in the classical Orientalist tradition of scholarship based in the study of written texts, as distinct from the anthropological observation of actual human behaviour, Lewis arrives at the sorts of judgment that – when enacted into policy – have led to disasters in Iraq and possibly in Afghanistan. He takes textual knowledge at face value, without probing beneath the surface, risking generalisations that would be difficult to defend, for example, in the case of India and sub-Saharan Africa where Islam takes on the colouring of numerous local traditions.
Lewis's disdain for the social sciences and his reliance on textual knowledge derived from classical texts as well as newspapers or government propaganda, can mislead. Thus in stating baldly that two Middle East countries, Iraq and Syria, "went all the way in adopting and applying the continental European model of the totalitarian dictatorship", he takes their own propaganda at face value, seeming to take no account of studies – such as that of the distinguished Dutch scholar and diplomat Nikolaos van Dam – that demonstrate how an East European-style party organisation can be infiltrated and taken over by a sectarian kinship group (in the case of Syria by the Alawite minority).
In some cases, however, even Lewis's textual knowledge may be flawed by his failure, or perhaps his refusal, to take account of written materials that do not fit his preconceptions or his firm pro-Israeli commitment. Thus in stating that Baathism involved the "adaptation of Nazi ideas and methods to the Middle Eastern situation" (a favourite neo-conservative theme), he ignores crucial texts by Michel Aflaq, cofounder of the Baath party, expressing admiration for the "solid conviction that informs . . . the Jewish people with courage and a spirit of sacrifice," as well as Aflaq's efforts to eliminate from the party's constitution the "stupid ideas" he associated with Nazism.
Lewis's insights are sometimes penetrating, but frustratingly he often displays his penchant for the telling anecdote and aphoristic generalisation at the expense of analytical coherence. Thus in a powerful passage on democracy in the Middle East, he makes a telling point (rarely noted by other commentators) about its distinctive political culture:
What is entirely lacking in the Middle Eastern political tradition is representation and what goes with it – the idea that people elect others to represent them, that these others meet in some sort of corporate body, and that that corporate body deliberates, conducts discussions and, most important of all, reaches decisions that have binding force . . . In Roman law and in most of the European systems derived from it or influenced by it, there is such a thing as a legal person, a corporation, an abstraction that nevertheless functions as a legal person.
I have suggested in my Islam in the World (2006) that this absence, derived from a feature of the Islamic Sharia law, which has no concept of legal personality, goes to the heart of the "democratic deficit" of many Middle East polities, where family, tribe, coterie or sect tends to subvert the authority of public institutions at the expense of civil society.
Under these conditions real power almost invariably accrues to the armed forces whose command and control systems and institutional boundaries are determined by the exigencies of military logic rather than by structures responsive to the ebb and flow of political ideas and social needs.
In the long term the participants in mass demonstrations that brought down the Mubarak regime, although responsible for a hugely impressive expression of public feeling, will need to overcome the inertia of military governance – with its networks of properties and other vested interests – in a country where the institutions of civil society have been weakened by decades of top-down, kleptocratic rule by the mukhabarat ("intelligence") state.
If, as Lewis rightly argues, democratic representation is rooted in institutional structures and forms of accountability that are absent from many Muslim and Middle Eastern societies, how can he have blandly endorsed a policy driven by the belief that successful, functioning democracies could be imposed using outside force?
Tunisia and Egypt and, likely, other countries in the region are demonstrating that it is internal forces facilitated by information technologies outside the control of the mukhabarat state that are setting the democratic agenda. The Islamist threat – which the regimes used to blackmail Western governments into supporting them – has so far been conspicuously absent. The battle cry "Islam is the solution" was not to be heard in Cairo's Tahrir Square.
At its heart the "clash of civilisations" thesis originally promulgated by Lewis, and popularised by Samuel Huntington, rests on shaky intellectual foundations. Would the more modest scholars who wrestle critically with the obscure and controversial origins of one of the world's great religions have dared to produce such a facile generalisation? Is there perhaps a connection between the serene dogmatism of Lewis's approach, with its tendency to accept the "traditional" view of Islamic origins, and his failure to scrutinise the propositions put forward by the advocates of intervention, whether these be other hawkish scholars, administration officials or prominent exiles? Lewis is an always entertaining and highly readable commentator on the Muslim world. But for all his brilliance, his judgments are sometimes flawed, and dangerously so in the case of America's adventure in Iraq.
The Australian Financial Review


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Digital Bedrock Aquifer Characteristics by Physiographic Section of Pennsylvania
In 2001, the Bureau of Topographic and Geologic Survey (the Bureau) released the Digital Bedrock Geology of Pennsylvania. This dataset was based on Map 1, Geologic Map of Pennsylvania, by T. M. Berg and others.
In 2004, the Bureau released Water Resource Report 69 (W69), Hydrogeologic and Well-Construction Characteristics of the Rocks of Pennsylvania by Gary M. Fleeger, Thomas A. McElroy, and Michael E. Moore. This report is mainly a Microsoft Access database, which can be purchased from the Bureau. These aquifer characteristics data are from selected water wells that could be field verified.
The digital aquifer characteristics dataset provides selected water-well construction and groundwater statistics for bedrock geologic units by the 23 physiographic sections of Pennsylvania, as shown on the Bureau's Map 13. The dataset represents a derivative product of the two datasets mentioned above. Namely, it is a merger of the digital bedrock geology dataset and selected water well and groundwater data from W69. The derivative data are available for downloading below in "geodatabase" and shapefile formats. Files containing metadata (information about the datasets and how they were prepared) are included within the files.
The datasets were partitioned based on an unpublished dataset of the physiographic sections of the state. In the compilation process, the digital bedrock geology layer was clipped to the boundaries of each physiographic section. Because the physiographic boundaries were based on topography only, they tend to separate small portions of geologic formations that occur predominantly in certain physiographic sections. In W69, a few physiographic section boundaries had been modified to coincide with the boundaries of some geologic units. Therefore, some geologic units clipped by physiographic section are "missing" from the W69 summaries for a particular physiographic section. In the current dataset, the source of the data (that is, the physiographic section) from W69 is indicated to clarify this. Most often, slivers of polygons in one section are assigned data from an adjacent physiographic section where that unit predominantly occurs. Geologic formations that are small in areal extent and have no information were included but were not assigned any aquifer characteristics.
The groundwater data are water-well statistics for most geologic units in the state and include the following parameters:
- well depth (feet below ground surface)
- casing length (feet including any extension above the ground surface)
- static water level (feet below ground surface)
- well yield (gallons per minute)
- specific capacity (gallons per minute per foot of drawdown)
- water-bearing zones (in 50-foot depth intervals)
For the first five parameters, statistical summaries include number of water-well records, minimum and maximum values, and 10th, 25th, 50th (median), 75th, and 90th percentiles of values. Tallies of water-bearing zones and their densities by depth intervals are added as well.
See the metadata for more information. In addition, users will benefit from reading background information on the datasets contained in W69 and the state's digital bedrock geology.
W69 was based on approximately 50,000 water wells. The areal distribution of the wells is an important factor in determining the amount of confidence to place in the information. The density of water wells per geologic unit along with the water wells locations are provided so that the user can judge data representativeness. In some areas, wells occur at a concentration of less than one per 100 mi2 so limited confidence in data representativeness should be given. In other areas with more information, geologic units legitimately exhibit a natural amount of variance in their data values; here the statistical data should be considered more reliable.
We welcome feedback from users regarding these datasets. Please contact Stuart Reese with your comments, recommendations, and suggestions.
Downloading and Viewing the Datasets
After downloading the files, please read the distribution liability statement located in the metadata. Metadata files are incorporated into every shapefile and geodatabase feature class. To download, select either the compressed file for the entire state (geodatabase or shapefiles) or select specific physiographic sections (shapefiles).
The datasets cannot be viewed with a web browser. They must be used with a GIS software program that is capable of importing shapefiles or ESRI geodatabase files. Free software for viewing shapefiles may be obtained from the ESRI web site.
The files have been compressed to limit the time needed for downloading. The compressed files have a ".zip" extension after their names. You will need an "unzipping" tool or utility to successfully extract the information. Sizes of the statewide compressed files are listed below. Sizes of the compressed files for the physiographic sections are all less than 15 MB.
The dataset files do not contain color tables or map explanations. However, colors and symbols for the map units by physiographic section may be assigned by the user through available symbology styles. For detailed information on the geologic units, see the digital bedrock geology page.
Datasets for Entire State
ESRI geodatabase for the entire state: pagsdacgdb.zip (47.6 MB). Contains the following file when uncompressed:
- ESRI geodatabase with feature classes of W69 locations of water wells (points) and digital aquifer characteristics (polygons) for each physiographic section (46 feature classes - 74.5 MB)
Shapefiles for the entire state pagsdacshapes.zip (46.6 MB). Contains the following shapefiles when uncompressed:
- two shapefiles, W69 locations of water wells (points) and digital aquifer characteristics (polygons), for each physiographic section (46 shapefiles, 322 individual files - 76.3 MB)
Datasets by Physiographic Sections
Download the shapefiles using the map or list below by selecting the desired section.
This is an interactive map. Click on an area of the map to download shapefiles of the digital aquifer characteristics for that section, or see the list below.
Physiographic Provinces and Sections
|Atlantic Coastal Plain Province
|New England Province
|Lowland and Intermediate Upland Section
|Reading Prong Section
|Piedmont Province
|Appalachian Plateaus Province
|Piedmont Upland Section
|Glaciated Pocono Plateau Section
|Piedmont Lowland Section
|Glaciated Low Plateau Section
|Gettysburg-Newark Lowland Section
|Glaciated High Plateau Section
|Ridge and Valley Province
|Allegheny Front Section
|South Mountain Section
|Allegheny Mountain Section
|Great Valley Section
|Deep Valleys Section
|Blue Mountain Section
|Pittsburgh Low Plateau Section
|Anthracite Upland Section
|Waynesburg Hills Section
|Anthracite Valley Section
|High Plateau Section
|Appalachian Mountain Section
|Northwestern Glaciated Plateau Section
|Susquehanna Lowland Section
|Central Lowland Province
|Eastern Lake Section


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The Art of Drifting
KaotekPanda and KaotekMonk drifting through the hills of Fujimi Kaido.
!!! UNDER CONSTRUCTION !!!Registration is still being worked on, our apologies.
Here you can learn about our history and check on the statistics on our members. We are still under development, so please give us time to finish our project and continue to check on the website for new information, registration functionality, forum posts, etc. We would appreciate your feedback on our team through our forums or comments section. Please be advice that we do screen comments and feedback to separate constructive comments from trash talk… although, some trash talk with less vulgar language maybe left for conversation purposes.
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Mark S. Wolfkiel
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Astor Capital Management, LLC is registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA) and it is a member of the National Futures Association (NFA), the self-regulatory organization for the futures industry. Astor Capital Management enjoys a team of seasoned market professionals who believe that their experience creates a strategic advantage in delivering quality investments to their clients. Core values of professionalism, integrity and research, combined with an unwavering adherence to full compliance translate into client confidence in The Astor Advantage.
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Listen to free music by Chuck Palahniuk
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Chuck Palahniuk – Choke| play
dailystendhal and now for something completely different... :)
Chuck Palahniuk – Diary| play
quakkaz Havent read this or seen the film, sounds interesting though
Chuck Palahniuk – Choke, Part 01| play
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Saturday, July 27, 2013 | 2 a.m.
Sun coverage
Last year, when Ines Zapatier transferred to Desert Oasis High School, she was disappointed to find out her new school lacked a debate team.
Now a 17-year-old senior, Zapatier was a promising orator at her former school, Spring Valley High School, and she wanted to continue debating. Zapatier thought debate would help hone her communication skills and perhaps help her in applying for college.
Determined to debate, Zapatier went to all of her teachers at Desert Oasis, begging them to help her start a debate team.
"I was upset our school didn't have it," Zapatier said. "I wanted to start a team up."
For a variety of reasons — lack of money, time and resources — Zapatier's teachers declined. That is, until Mary McInturff came to school.
The Desert Oasis English teacher had just finished a master's degree in rhetoric at UNLV and was willing to help Zapatier. With Zapatier's help, McInturff was able to recruit about 50 students to Desert Oasis' inaugural debate team.
Although there was a lot of student interest, McInturff quickly found out creating a debate team from scratch was no easy task. There was paperwork, parental permission slips and travel costs to consider. Most of all, most of her students — except for Zapatier — had no experience.
Enter the Rebel Debate Institute.
For the past two weeks, members of UNLV's nationally ranked team have been teaching local high school students — including six students from Desert Oasis — everything they need to know to succeed in college-level policy debate.
The institute, in its inaugural year, is the brainchild of UNLV associate professor Jacob Thompson, director of the Sanford I. Berman Debate Forum.
Thompson, who led UNLV's team into a top-10 ranking last year, wants to transform Las Vegas into the premier intellectual hub for the nation's top debaters.
To maintain UNLV's standing, Thompson realized his team needed a robust "farm system" to recruit the best high school debaters from across the country.
Thompson and his debate team began partnering with local high schools, bringing students to campus for workshops and helping to run tournaments. He also created the Las Vegas Debate League, which has raised $30,000 to help sustain high school debate teams across the valley.
"A successful, national-caliber debate team needs a good recruitment program," Thompson said. "We need a vibrant local policy debate community."
With the help of a $9,000 grant from AT&T of Nevada, Thompson launched UNLV's first summer camp to train promising young high school debaters. In time, Thompson hopes to raise the reputation of the Rebel Debate Institute so the university can recruit students from across the country to UNLV.
This year, the camp enrolled 25 students from Clark County and California. Each student paid $450 -- cheaper than most debate camps. UNLV also gave $4,000 in scholarships to local students.
Students learned practical skills necessary in debate, such as how to take effective notes during a match and construct a persuasive argument supported by good research. More advanced students practiced their fast-talking, argumentation skills under the tutelage of UNLV's debaters.
Along the way, the students gained critical-thinking chops and confidence in public speaking — important skills for college and career. Research has shown students who debate are more likely to have higher grades, score higher on the SAT and graduate high school.
"Debate is so valuable to prepare students for college," McInturff said. "It's important to teach students good critical-thinking skills and arguments."
For Zapatier, participating in debate has helped her connect with her relatives. The debate topic this summer has been on immigration reform.
"I actually feel pretty amazing that I was able to keep a political conversation with my grandpa," Zapatier said. "I know I'm definitely going to need these skills in college and life."


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Four Texans are on the top 10 mega donor list, right behind the No. 1 slot, Nevada casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife, who have given $36.25 million. The second-largest contributor in the nation is (anti labor union) Robert Perry of Houston's Perry Homes, who has given $16 million so far this election cycle to Republican groups
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/10/15/4337968/wealthy-texans-lead-in-funding.html#storylink=cpy


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Tulsa IT Pros Holiday Party
IT Pros of Tulsa
Tuesday, December 11, 2012 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (CST)
Who's Going
San Francisco, California
London, United Kingdom
Florence, Italy
Event Details
Don't miss Tulsa IT Pros Holiday Party on December 11th.
Our Holiday Party is being held at TulsaConnect's offices at Corporate Woods.
This will be an opportunity for all of us to network and get to know one another better. There will be no presentations or technical topics! So come prepared to just relax and enjoy yourself.
TulsaConnect will be giving tours of their Data Center during the evening for anyone interested in seeing their facilities and learning more about the services that they offer.
Food and drinks will be provided by out wonderful sponsors at Robert Half and TulsaConnect! We will also be emptying the prize vault, so there will be give aways galore!!
When & Where
TulsaConnect - Corporate Woods Office Park
4500 S 129th E Ave
Tuesday, December 11, 2012 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (CST)
Add to my calendar


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Vandergrift councilman struggles to pay back taxes; owes on his home
Vandergrift Councilman Carl Petrarca has to come up with more than $5,000 in back property taxes by Sept. 11 or face losing his home at sheriff's sale.
According to the Westmoreland County Tax Claim Bureau, Petrarca owes two years worth of back taxes on his Pennsylvania Avenue home. Sept. 14 is the date set this year for the auction of properties at least two years in arrears for property taxes. Properties with taxes not paid in full or under an approved payment plan by Sept. 11 are expected to be included in the sale.
Petrarca's home is one of 11 properties he owns in three communities that were listed this year as delinquent. The total back tax bill, according to the tax claim bureau was more than $32,000.
Petrarca has paid the taxes due — nearly $27,000 — from 2007 and 2008 on nine of the 11 properties in Vandergrift, West Leechburg and Allegheny Township, a representative of the bureau said Tuesday. He still owed about $5,000 on his Pennsylvania Avenue home in Vandergrift and about $300 for a lot in Allegheny Township, the bureau said.
Asked about the matter Tuesday, Petrarca said, "I have no money."
A notice of the properties for sale appeared in the Valley News Dispatch on Aug. 5. The bureau said Petrarca paid the taxes on the nine properties on July 30.
Taxes have to be behind at least two years for a property to go up for sale.
Petrarca said he was going to pay the taxes due on the two remaining properties today.
Petrarca, 48, a Democrat in the second year of his first four-year term on council, said the parcels he owed taxes on are rental properties.
Petrarca said his being an elected official "has nothing to do with my property taxes or personal life."
"Taxes are outrageous and it's overwhelming is what it is," he said. "If you don't have the money, you can't pay the taxes."
Of the five parcels listed for sale in West Leechburg, Petrarca owed the most. His property at 1551 Main St. was to be up for sale beginning at about $18,628 before he paid about $12,944 to settle the taxes due.
West Leechburg Mayor James Gallucci said council had discussed that property. He said Petrarca is the owner.
"It doesn't look good, obviously," Gallucci said. "We are expected to be held to a bit higher standard because our lives are pretty much open to the public."
Vandergrift Mayor Louis Purificato said he saw Petrarca's properties listed in the notice, but didn't know anything more about it.
"I really have no comment on that. I don't know what the story is behind it," he said.
Council President Vernon Sciullo said he didn't know about the matter, and hadn't seen the notice.
"As long as I'm not in it ... I don't really care," he said.
Although Sciullo said the unpaid taxes are a personal problem Petrarca would have to deal with, he said he'd have to think about it now.
"That's something I would definitely have to look into and see what's what there," he said.Additional Information:
Back bills
Vandergrift Councilman Carl Petrarca still owes back taxes on two of 11 properties he owns in the Kiski Valley, including his home in Vandergrift. Petrarca's properties and their tax status:
147 Columbia Ave., paid $3,482.95.
508 Hancock Ave., paid $2,049.11.
138 California, paid $1,590.09.
201 Pennsylvania Ave., owes $5,015.71.
Lot, no address, paid $2,674.41.
West Leechburg
1551 Main St., paid $12,943.70.
Allegheny Township
Labelle Vue Road, paid $375.06.
House and lot, no address, paid $510.85.
175 Blossom Lane, paid $2,974.46.
Route 56 lot, paid $351.
Lot, no address, owes $296.12.
Source: Westmoreland County Tax Claim Bureau


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Music...no monetary value, no matter how large, can be placed on how important music is to the human race. Music can bridge most any gap in society from generation to current affairs.
Music can activate emotions and motivate actions that sometimes words can never achieve.
Music can bring peace and contentment to tortured souls and patriotism to cause.
Those fortunate, who share the gift of putting notes and chords together through various instruments (no matter what level) gain a sense of accomplishment that warms the soul and a feeling of belonging to an honored society.
Music...the international language of expression, from the first sticks banging on rocks to the contributions of today, will always be a glowing part of our lives...


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Get involved and/or receive our newsletter
Get involved, help us with events, lobbying, strategizing. Help us be more effective advocates for peace and justice. Attend a vigil, circulate a petition, staff a table at a street fair. Come and share your ideas. Together we can make a difference. To get involved and/or receive our newsletter, complete this form.


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HONG KONG – A 6-year-old Chinese boy who had his eyes gouged out by a woman believed to be his aunt may one day see again after a Hong Kong hospital offered him "electronic eyes."
Hong Kong-based eye expert Dennis Lam said his team would provide the treatment for free to Guo Bin, who was found in the northern Chinese province of Shanxi last month after the horrific attack.
Lam said future technology could restore up to 40 percent of the boy's lost vision. He said that he is still waiting for consent from the child's parents to bring him to his eye hospital in Shenzhen, southern China, where he can be given a pair of false eyes as soon as next week.
A camera would process images and relay a signal to a grid of electrodes attached to the boy's tongue eventually teaching the brain to "see" again.
The final goal is to give the boy bionic eyes linked directly to the brain which would help him partially regain his sight.


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The World Cup 2014 could be the most-watched and most expensive tournament in soccer history. But, it could also be the most-energy consuming World Cup in history.
As Iraq continues to deal with the militant Sunni group ISIS, Kurdistan's leaders are using the situation for leverage against Iraq's government. Kurdistan's oil prospects, however, remain in question.
Sunni militants attacked Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, while Iraq and other OPEC countries meet in Vienna. The world has come to take Iraqi oil for granted, Cunningham writes, and a significant loss of oil production would send prices skyrocketing.
OPEC will meet on June 11 in Vienna with world oil demand rising and production slowing down. Six months ago, it seemed like the oil industry reached 'the age of abundance,' but why did it change?
The Environmental Protection Agency's new regulations for reducing carbon emissions may mean more methane emissions, writes Cunningham. Natural gas may burn cleaner than coal, but what happens when it isn't burned?
Global oil prices could go up by $15 per barrel in about 10 years, if the Middle East doesn't invest more in its oil fields, the International Energy Agency says. The IEA also reports the world may find itself more reliant on Middle East investment for shale oil production.
Gazprom has given Ukraine's government six more days to pay $3.5 billion in outstanding gas charges. It comes as the Ukraine crisis deteriorates in the east, where pro-Russian forces are clashing with the Ukraine military.
Shale oil and gas companies' debt has almost doubled in the last four years. What are the consequences if the US shale industry experiences a shakeout?
Kurdistan exported its first shipment of oil to the international market. What does this mean for Kurdistan's relationship with Baghdad?
Oil companies ExxonMobil and BP defy the United States by collaborating with Russia in the energy sector. ExxonMobil and BP have separately signed agreements with Rosneft, Russia's state-owned oil company.
On May 11, there was enough sunshine and wind in Germany to meet 75 percent of the country's demand for energy. It was also enough to cause Germany's price of electricity to cost practically nothing for an hour.
Russia can't go it alone in drilling for oil and gas off the coast of Crimea, Cunningham writes, and it will have a hard time attracting Western partners that don't recognize Crimea as a legal part of Russia.
ExxonMobil's joint venture-led Papua New Guinea Liquefied Natural Gas plant has started production ahead of schedule, offering new supplies of LNG to Japanese, Taiwanese, and Chinese buyers. The plant is expected to produce more than 9 trillion cubic feet of gas over 30 years of operation.
The US in in the middle of a natural gas boom, and yet cars that run on the fossil fuel have yet to really catch on. The problem with natural gas vehicles is really a chicken-and-egg problem, Cunningham writes.
Russian energy companies begin to feel pinch as the Ukraine crisis continues and Western nations consider sanctions against Russian energy. If Ukraine's turmoil continues, the Russian economy could lose $115 billion in revenues in 2015.
Russia's Gazprom says there isn't significant risk of disruption of gas to Europe because the Russian gas giant expects to have low seasonal demand. Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller announced that Ukraine would no longer receive more gas starting in June unless it will pay for deliveries in advance.
US crude oil imports are down by 23 percent since 2008. Industry officials and experts are considering lifting a decades-old ban on US oil exports.
An oil train derailed near Denver, two days after the Department of Transportation announced an emergency order on transporting crude oil by rail. However, some critics say that they are not satisfied with the department's slow pace.
Lithuania has successfully negotiated down the price it pays Gazprom for Russian natural gas through 2015. The cheaper natural gas comes as Lithuania aggressively pursues global suppliers of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Tensions between China and Vietnam over oil in the South China Sea continue to escalate. The two sides are fighting over control of the Paracel Islands, Cunningham writes, but the problem is that China's claim to territory in the South China Sea has no basis in international law.


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Loyola University Community Action Program
LUCAP, the Loyola University Community Action Program, is a student- initiated, student-led volunteer service and advocacy organization. LUCAP is open to all students, offering them opportunities for direct service; reflection on larger, related social justice issues; and advocacy and organizing through its many projects in areas such as rebuilding, hunger and homelessness, tutoring and mentoring, and environmentalism.
Want to get involved?
Check out our projects page or contact one of our student leaders. Then, fill out our liability form before you volunteer.


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"Ghost Palms"
Photo by Miami-Dade Aviation Dpt.
Opened in 2007, does far more than just help transport one fourth of MIA's passengers from one destination to another. Inside and out, the 1.7-million-square-foot facility dazzles the senses of passengers with its sleek architectural design as much as it meets their travel needs.
Features such as vaulted ceilings, towering windows, natural lighting and Florida-themed artwork make transiting through the terminal a visual delight.
Functionally, South Terminal encompasses a new Concourse with 15 gates and a renovated Concourse with 13 gates, serving 20 domestic and international carriers, including: Aerolineas Argentinas; Aeromexico; Air Canada; Air Europa; Air France; Alitalia; Avianca; Bahamasair; Caribbean Airlines; Copa; Delta; GOL; IBC Airways; LAN; Lufthansa; Swiss; TAM; United.
South Terminal Exterior - Photo by Steven Brooke
It also features:
South Terminal Exterior - Photo by Steven Brooke
November 7, 2010
Barbara Neijna's Extraordinary 'Foreverglades'at MIA Wins Prestigious Award
The vast, compelling work of art celebrates one of the world's great miracles — the slow-moving "river of grass" we call the Everglades. But the art, which fills much of Miami International Airport's Concourse J, is in many ways a miracle on its own. Barbara Neijna's Foreverglades is one of the largest public-art projects ever built, covering floors and walls of two floors of the concourse, filling it with words and images, color and light — and even more, perhaps, with insight and inspiration.
On Friday, Neijna and Foreverglades received the first-ever international Art and Work Award for a project in the built environment, an award of such magnitude that other finalists included the city of London and Royal Dutch Telecom. The award was announced at the 2010 World Architecture Conference in Barcelona. It's an extraordinary honor for an extraordinary accomplishment. Continue
- Airport Master Plan & Capital Imp. Program
- A/E Selection
- Bids
- Miami-Dade County - Office of Capital Improvement
- North Terminal Development Program
- Documents, Manuals and Certificates
- Project Managers
- Status Reports
- The NEW MIA


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Abstract: Given the trend towards more active policies on reducing
the take-up of welfare benefits, the consequences of leaving welfare on
individual well-being constitutes a significant issue. This paper studies
the disposable income and poverty among welfare leavers in Sweden during 19
years (1990-2008). Using a rich set of register data we are able to
accurately measure disposable income and other financial and labor market
outcomes and thereby give a well-founded analysis of the financial
well-being of these individuals. We find that there are large and
significant differences in post welfare financial situation among those
that work full time after leaving welfare and those who work only a little
or not at all. Labor work is associated with a higher probability of
experiencing a financial gain after leaving welfare as well as a lower risk
of repeated dependency. This relationship is not sensitive to changes in
the business cycle, and is stronger for those that leave welfare after
having received relatively high amounts of benefits. Groups that typically
have a weaker attachment to the labor market are more sensitive to
variations in the business cycle. Leavers who neither work nor receive
benefits from social insurance are likely to be financially dependent on
family members, and they are also more likely than other leavers to be in
poverty. We conclude that leaving welfare is not always associated with
becoming financially better off, and post welfare well being depend heavily
on labor market outcomes.
Keywords: welfare leavers; poverty; self-sufficiency; disconnected leavers; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: I31; J01; (follow links to similar papers)
62 pages, October 27, 2011
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Design by Joachim Ekebom


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Today's Devotional
Living for JesusWhat are you thankful for as you consider what Jesus has done for you?
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Plain & Fancy's new door style, Transition, marries modernism and the warmth of wood. The reversed, solid-panel doors are available on custom cabinets crafted with soft-close dovetail drawers and framed, mortise-and-tenon or frameless, dowel construction. A Transition door is shown here in cocoa-stained walnut. Plain & Fancy Custom Cabinetry, 800.447.9006. www.plainfancycabinetry.com
new material


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A museum on the history of Polish Jews has made huge strides toward its planned opening thanks to $13 million in new donations.
The Museum of the History of Polish Jews, going up in the heart of the former Warsaw Ghetto on land donated by the city, will narrate the 1,000-year history of Jews in Poland. It is expected to open in fall 2013.
The museum received a joint $7 million donation on July 4 from the Koret Foundation and the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture, both chaired by Bay Area philanthropist Tad Taube, who left Poland as a child in 1939. This new gift brings their total contributions to nearly $16 million.
"I am proud to support the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which will present the rich, 1,000-year history of Jewish people in the very place where it unfolded," said Taube.
"Poland is where my parents and grandparents were born. This is their story. Poland is where I was born. This also is my story. Most important, more than 70 percent of world Jewry can trace their ancestry to Poland, and this is their story, too."
Jan Kulczyk, a Polish oil tycoon and his country's wealthiest person, also announced a gift of $6 million last week.
Museum officials say the money will allow them to finish the museum's core exhibition, a multimedia space that will guide visitors chronologically from the Middle Ages to the present day.
The museum, which will cost just under $100 million to build, is expected to become Europe's largest Jewish history museum.
It is the first public-private partnership institution of its kind in Poland. — ap & ejewishphilanthropy