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Chronicle 2. MINOAN CRETAN THALASSOCRACY
Χρονικό 2. ΚΡΗΤΟΜΙΝΩΙΚΗ ΘΑΛΑΣΣΟΚΡΑΤΟΡΙΑ
THE MINOAN civilization, as part of the Aegean cultures in the Bronze Age, arose in the island of Crete, flourished from the 27th to the 15th centuries BCE and then vanished. It came to light again at the outset of the 20th century CE thanks to the British archaeologist Arthur Evans. The term Minoan refers to the legendary Minos. We presume, on no evidence, that it was not a name but a royal title. In the Odyssey, composed centuries after the demise of the Minoans, Homer calls the natives of the island Eteocretans ('true Cretans'); probably they were true descendants of the Minoans. In addition, there were several settlements in the Aegean and the Ionian Seas, as well as in Sicily and Canaan, known by the name Minoa. The root min- appears in some Aegean languages, toponyms and in the name of the Minyans, an autochthonous people inhabiting the Aegean. We assume that the Cretans were not Indo-Europeans, but a Mediterranean people related to the Pelasgians – the pre-Hellenic dwellers of the Aegean region – and possibly to the Minyans. Crete remained free from invasions for many centuries, and managed to develop an independent and distinct civilization, one of the most advanced in the Mediterranean area during the Bronze Age, together with that of Egypt. Linear A, the Minoan script, has not yet been deciphered; it possibly represents an Aegean language, not related to any Indo-European tongue.
"Crete was well placed in relation to sea trading routes", Eugene Hirschfeld comments, writing on "Grace in the Aegean: the art of the Minoans". "Thucydides wrote that Minos was the first to build a navy:
'The first person known to us by tradition as having established a navy is Minos. He made himself master of what is now called the Hellenic sea, and ruled over the Cyclades, into most of which he sent the first colonies… and thus did his best to put down piracy in those waters, a necessary step to secure the revenues for his own use.'
"With their merchant fleet, the Minoans came to dominate the seas, sailing for hundreds of miles in search of trade, from Spain in the west to Syria in the east…(a) It is possibly a measure of both the Minoans' geographical isolation and the strength of their fleet that their coastal towns seem to have had few fortifications. Thus their period of ascendancy was called by Arthur Evans the Pax Minoica or 'Minoan peace' – a time when cities needed no walls.(b) Like Pax Romana, of course, such a peace if it existed would have been the product of military strength rather than pacifism."
One after the other, the unique features of this marvellous civilization seem to arise from only one: the Minoans' thalassocracy, their "geographical isolation and the strength of their fleet", as Hirschfeld says and then explains:
"As a maritime trading civilization, it is unsurprising that the Minoans left us some beautiful fresco images of their ships, wooden sailing vessels superior to any others on the Mediterranean. Perhaps because of this fleet and the protecting seas, military images are unusual in Minoan art. Until the attacks by the Mycenaeans in 1450 BC, there is no real evidence that the Minoans fought wars with any other culture. This is in stark contrast to their contemporaries: the city states of Mesopotamia were constantly at war, celebrating their exploits on such works as the Stele of the Vultures, and Egypt covered tomb walls with images of military pomp. The Minoans preferred leisurely scenes or sports. They loved to decorate walls with murals of dolphins, flowers and fish. Their art has a grace, movement and exuberance distinct from the art of Egypt and Sumer, and… their craftsmanship is second to none."
This civilization is an astonishing paradox: A great power without a military aristocracy; a palace that was not a royal residence and neither the king was glorified; a religion with no grandeur, while women were equal to men and free – or so it seems.
This civilization is an astonishing paradox, indeed: A great power without a military aristocracy; a palace that was not a royal residence and neither the king was glorified; a religion with no grandeur, while women were equal to men and free – or so it seems:
"The Minoans were skilled and sensitive architects, and the palaces count amongst their greatest works of art. The most famous is the palace at Knossos, often called the 'Palace of Minos'. A multi-storey complex of corridors, rooms and staircases built around a central courtyard, the palace boasted impressive plumbing as well as lovely frescos, columns and gardens. Visitors found its 'agglutinative' architecture of over 1000 rooms so confusing that it is thought to have inspired the myth of the Minotaur's Labyrinth. Knossos was an entire community, a centre for religion, pottery production and storage of trade goods, and a venue for festivals. For this reason the term 'palace' is not adequate for describing these Minoan complexes."
"Sitting at the apex of a trading empire, the Cretan kings were extremely wealthy. It is therefore interesting that they appear to have ordered no sculpture, memorials, king-lists or other works to boast of their power and status… We find nothing like the mighty monuments to the god-kings of Egypt. We have no record either of a king Minos or of any other named monarch, male or female… Historian R. F. Willetts has suggested that the apparent modesty of the Minoan aristocracy can be explained by a difference in religious emphasis: the Minoans did not seek to associate the king with the immortal gods, like the Egyptians or Mesopotamians, but rather worshiped a particular vision of nature. From this standpoint, images glorifying the king were unnecessary."
"Women seem to have enjoyed higher status in Minoan culture than was usual in the Bronze Age… They served as administrators and priestesses… Women's relative equality may be because of the absence of military threat, giving far less impetus to the development of a male warrior discourse and thus a greater role and respect for women. It is tempting when looking at images of young women somersaulting over bulls with the men to conclude that women enjoyed considerable freedom… As for religion, Minoan art provides us with faience figurines of a 'snake goddess', and frescos… on which women priests outnumber men. No images of male deities have been found from the peak of Minoan civilization. The apparent prominence of women in Minoan religion has led to conjecture that the principal deity or deities of Minoan Crete may have been female, e.g. an earth or mother goddess."
What conclusions can we draw?
"Minoan art does show a greater emphasis on spontaneity and invention, and is more secular and informal… less constrained by rigid conventions and geometry", Eugene Hirschfeld writes. "The absence of battles, kings, boastful inscriptions and historical events in its art is surprising for the time. We need to recognize such distinctions without falling into the crude formulations sometimes used in the past, such as posing cultured Minoans against barbarous Mycenaeans. Arnold Hauser's first explanation for the particular character of the Minoans' art is the relatively modest role of religion in their society. Minoan shrines seem to have been small, even in the palaces, kept in people's homes or built in out of the way places like hills and caves. There is nothing like the great cult of the dead seen in Egypt, or the grandiose works that went with it. There was therefore less impetus towards sternly imposed conventions. He also admires the urbanity of the cultural life that arose around the palaces: 'The freedom of Cretan art can also be partly explained by the extraordinarily important role which city life and commerce played in the island's economy… city life was probably nowhere so highly developed as in Crete'. The 'palace' was the centre of Minoan life: of trade and agriculture, but also of art. It was perhaps this union of trade and culture in a context of long internal stability that gave Minoan art its urbane liveliness. Crete's geopolitical situation may also have exerted an influence. With the natural protection of the sea and backed by their fleet, the Minoans had little need to fear invasion. In the absence of a warrior class, not only were women's rights better than in most Bronze Age cultures, but art was less constrained by the military and religion."
"The absence of battles, kings, boastful inscriptions and historical events in Minoan art is surprising for the time… It was perhaps this union of trade and culture in a context of long internal stability that gave Minoan art its urbane liveliness." (Eugene Hirschfeld)
The influence of the Minoan civilization outside Crete manifests itself in the presence of Minoan handicrafts on the Greek mainland. After around 1700 BCE, the material culture of the Hellenes achieved a new, higher, level due to Minoan influence. Connections between Crete and Egypt were prominent. Minoan wares were found there, while several Egyptian items were imported, especially papyrus, as well as artistic ideas. The Egyptian hieroglyphs served as a model for the Minoan pictographic writing, from which the Linear A writing system developed. The Minoan palaces were later occupied by the Mycenaeans (late 15th–early 14th century BCE) who adapted the Minoan Linear A script to the needs of their own language, a form of Greek, which was written in Linear B.(c) The Mycenaeans generally tended to adapt rather than destroy Cretan culture, religion and art, and they continued to operate the economic system and bureaucracy of the Minoans. After about a century of partial recovery, most Cretan cities and palaces went into decline in the 13th century BCE. When the Bronze Age came crashing down some time later, Crete did not feel the agony of death.
The Minoans were traders, and their cultural contacts reached far beyond Crete – to copper-bearing Cyprus and Asia Minor (Anatolia), Egypt and Canaan (the Levant), the Balkans and the Black Sea area, especially Colchis (Georgia/Abkhazia), Mesopotamia and even faraway Afghanistan. Paintings in Thebes, Egypt, from the 15th century BCE depict a number of Minoans bearing gifts. Inscriptions record these people as coming from the "islands in the midst of the sea", and may refer to gift-bringing merchants or officials from Crete. Minoan techniques and styles in ceramics also provided models for Helladic Greece. Along with Thera, Cretan 'colonies' can be found on Cythera, an island close to the mainland that came under Minoan influence in the 3rd millennium and remained Minoan in culture for a thousand years, until the Mycenaean occupation in the 13th century, as well as in Melos, Kea, Aegina, Rhodes and Miletus. The Cyclades and the Dodecanese were in the Cretan cultural orbit.
Certain locations within Crete emphasize it as an 'outward looking' society. The palace of Kato Zakros, e.g., is located within a bay, 100 metres from the modern shore-line. Its large number of workshops and the richness of its site materials indicate a centre for import and export. Such activities are elaborated in artistic representations of the sea with ships and sailors, e.g. the Flotilla fresco on Thera. Homer recorded a tradition that Crete had 90 cities. Multi-room constructions were found even in the 'poor' areas, revealing a social equality and even distribution of wealth derived through trade. There was a high degree of organization, with no trace of the military aristocracies that characterized the following civilizations. While the Mycenaeans relied mainly on conquest to expand, the Minoans were a mercantile people engaged primarily in overseas trade. No doubt they should have been involved in the Bronze Age's most crucial trade of tin: tin, alloyed with copper, obviously from Cyprus, was used to make bronze.(d) The Minoan decline seems to be correlated with the decline in the use of bronze tools in favour of iron ones.
Multi-room constructions were discovered even in the 'poor' areas, revealing a social equality and even distribution of wealth derived through trade. There was a high degree of organization, with no trace of the military aristocracies that characterized the following civilizations…
The Mediterranean copper island was Cyprus; the word copper comes from the name of the island: from the Latin phrase Cyprium (aes), 'Cyprian (metal)'. A possible etymological origin of the name Cyprus is the Sumerian words for copper or bronze (zubar/kubar), due to the massive deposits of copper ore found in the island. But where did the Minoans find tin, the necessary component to produce bronze? Tin is very rare in the eastern Mediterranean. The only known source of cassiterite in the area was Kestel-Göltepe in the Taurus Mountains of south-central Anatolia. It supplied tin from the late 4th millennium to the mid-19th century BCE, when the ores became uneconomical or ran out. There were three other sources of tin available to the Minoan traders: the distant northeastern Afghanistan, central Europe (Bohemia), and the West, with vast amounts of tin in places such as Iberia, Brittany in northwestern France, and especially Cornwall in southwestern Britain. For the seafaring Cretans, the Occident was the destination they possibly preferred best. And when the mines in Taurus had shut down, Western tin became more important and the Minoans would have totally monopolized the supply of tin into the Eastern Mediterranean with their navy and shipping. Objects made by Minoans suggest there was an extensive network with mainland Greece, Anatolia, Cyprus, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and westwards as far as Iberia, and even further, that is, Bohemia, Brittany and, of course, Cornwall. Trade in nearby lands was direct, while in distant places could also be indirect, through middlemen. Undoubtedly, the Cretan ships should have transported British tin. If they also dropped anchor in British harbours is another story.
Where did the Minoans find tin, the necessary component to produce bronze? Undoubtedly, the Cretan ships should have transported British tin. If they also dropped anchor in British harbours is another story.
The Cretans derived their surplus from trade, unlike Babylon and Egypt that mainly relied on agriculture. They were the unrivalled long-distance traders, masters of the sea routes, having developed the most advanced navy that had ever been seen. They traded not only their own manufactured goods 'Made in Crete', such as ceramics and metalwork, but also acted as intermediaries, trading raw materials and finished products throughout the Mediterranean and beyond. Their most valuable re-exports were pottery, copper, tin, gold, and silver. They were active not only in the East, but also in the West, founding emporia all around. Their most privileged trade contacts in the Orient were certainly those with the Egyptians, while their most significant Occidental partners should have been the Iberians, as the peninsula was rich in metals, especially silver, but also tin. Trade in tin was very lucrative in the Bronze Age, because, as we have seen, it is an essential component of true bronze, and comparatively rare: only gold and silver are rarer. Apart from the cassiterite deposits in Iberia, the locals obviously knew where the Cassiterides were.(e)
- (e)
The metals were just the beginning of a far broader economical and cultural exchange. A lot of Iberians e.g. are nowadays intrigued by the fact that so long ago the Minoans were practicing their own version of 'bullfights'. In his bilingual book (in Portuguese and English) "Fado – Lyrical Origins and Poetic Motivation", Mascarenhas Barreto refers to the Neolithic hunting rituals as a possible origin of bull-leaping ("pegas") and wonders "whether the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula learnt this from the Cretans of the 3rd millennium BC or if they themselves may have been the teachers, since the bulls were taken from their natural habitat in the peninsula to the island of Crete" (see also Voyage 3: Iberia's Odyssey). But, when one speaks of such extensive exchanges taking place in the 3rd millennium BCE, with customs adopted and bulls transported so far away, is it really so important to know who imitated whom?
Mascarenhas Barreto wonders "whether the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula learnt [bull-leaping] from the Cretans of the 3rd millennium BC or if they themselves may have been the teachers, since the bulls were taken from their natural habitat in the peninsula to the island of Crete."


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When the season is done and over with, predict which point guard what you think your top 10 will be
1. Christopher Paul
2. Derick Rose
3. Derin Williams
4. Russell Westbrook
5. Tyreke Evans
6. Brandon Jennings
7. Chauncy Billups
8. Stephon Curbury
9. John Wall
10. Rajon Rondo
Rondos barely a top 10 point guard...if Ty lawson got more minutes, he wouldnt be.
Anyone see him in the Finals? hes the reason his team lost, the Lakers didnt even defend him
And then this summer....Rondo got cut while Rose, Westbrook, and Curry stayed on the team. Who wants a point guard that cant hit an open shot?
And his defense aint even really that nice, he gets alotta steals but has problems keepin his opponent infront of him


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Thank you for visiting the International Scout Support Unit. Our aim is to give practical assistance to leaders who have difficulty in delivering the international programme at section level. We also look at ways to open opportunities for those in training sections to have an international experience when their Group, District, County or Region. We shall strive to make every member aware of the opportunities available and understand the value to the international aspects and structure of Scouting.
A Scout is only limited by the breadth of their imagination, we hope we can help them see beyond their own horizons, thank you for your support.
George Devine, Manager


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Fox Web Stores necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 203 diseños de 46 diseñadores freelance.
Fox Web Stores
We are an ecommerce company with five websites. Our websites sell anything from backyard pools to adult sized heelys shoes. Our most successful site sells blow-up airbeds. A couple of companies that do the same kind of thing are CSN Stores and IVG Stores. We need a logo for the umbrella company, Fox Web Stores, so we can build a corporate website to group all these unrelated websites onto a single website.
Our target audience is small to medium sized manufacturers. The Fox Web Stores website will be used to showcase all of our niche websites and give manufactures a place to learn more about our company so they will let us sell their products online.
You are free to be creative. Simpler is better. We would like the logo to include a nice typeface of Fox Web Stores.com and an icon to go along with it. The icon can be separate or be a part of the lettering. Please also include the words "Niche eCommerce" as the slogan Don't make the logo to similar to any other "Fox" brand company logos. e.g. fox racing or 20th century fox. Be original.
The files we will require are:
print file format- ai (CMYK)
Web file format - .JPG and Layered .PSD (RGB)
Please do not use any stock images or clip art in Logo
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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NEW ORLEANS — Men hoping to boost their fertility may want to eat more fruits and veggies, new research suggests.
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The more produce a man consumed, the less sluggish his sperm, researchers reported at a meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
Forty-eight infertile men and 10 fertile men who had fathered children in the last year completed questionnaires about their diets. Results showed that 83 percent of the infertile men had a low intake of fruits and veggies, defined as fewer than five servings a day, compared with 40 percent of the fertile men.
And overall, men who ate the fewest fruits and veggies had the lowest sperm motility.
"We think that sperm quality is affected by dietary antioxidant intake," said study author Dr. Vivian Lewis, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Rochester in Rochester, N.Y.
Antioxidants, like those found in fruits and vegetables, may help prevent damage to sperm that causes them to become sluggish and lose the ability to fertilize an egg, she said.
In particular, the antioxidants glutathione and cryptoxanthin, which are prevalent in brightly colored produce such as leafy greens, tomatoes, peppers and oranges, were associated with strong, healthy sperm, Lewis said.
She recommended that men hoping to father children eat "a variety of fruits and vegetables, at least five servings a day."
Dr. Rebecca Sokol, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, who was not affiliated with the study, said it's prudent for men trying to impregnate their partners to improve their diets. It could potentially help their sperm, and it certainly helps their overall health, she said.
Men also should avoid prolonged soaks in the hot tub and smoking cigarettes and marijuana, all of which may damage sperm, she said.
Hang up the phone?
Another study presented at the conference linked cell phone use with impaired sperm, but the researchers and other experts said the study is too preliminary to advise hopeful dads-to-be to cut back on their talk time.
"You can only say there's a suggestion of an association," said Sokol. "You certainly can't conclude that it causes infertility."
In the study of 361 men undergoing evaluation for infertility, researchers found that the more time men spent on their cell phones each day, the unhealthier their sperm. For instance, men who spent more than four hours a day on their cell phones had lower sperm counts, less motile sperm and more irregularly shaped sperm than men who didn't use cell phones. The differences ranged from about 30 to 50 percent.
Electromagnetic fields given off by cell phones could potentially impair sperm, said study author Ashok Agarwal, director of andrology at the Glickman Urological Institute at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.
But he noted that his team did not account for the use of laptop computers, PDAs and other devices that also have EMFs, and more studies are needed.
Joseph Farren, a spokesperson for CTIA-The Wireless Association, which represents the cell phone industry, disputed the findings.
"One study, as the researchers note, does not provide evidence of a reduction in sperm quality," he said.
© 2013 msnbc.com


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Last we heard former Steelers, Dolphins, and Cardinals linebacker Joey Porter's name around these parts, Chris Kluwe was telling us he was "a frothing dingleberry." Now those bounty hunters at Busted Coverage have caught up with Porter and found that things aren't goin' so great for him at present.
Porter was arrested in California on Friday night on a warrant for allegedly passing bad checks in Nevada. (In pre-60s parlance, that was called "hanging paper." I wish they still called it that.) The law held him without bail. And, according to the Kern County sheriff's website, Porter is, this morning, still in jail, with a projected release date of Wednesday, Dec. 26. One imagines this is a tough weekend to find judges. But Porter ought to look on the bright side: At least he didn't have to watch Steelers-Bengals.
Porter arrested on felony check-writing charge [Bakersfield Californian]


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COTTON: This month's U.S. 2012/13 cotton forecast shows slightly higher production, resulting in a marginal increase in ending stocks. Production is raised 160,000 bales, as increases in the Southeast and Delta more than offset a reduction for the Southwest. Domestic mill use and exports are unchanged. Ending stocks are raised 100,000 bales to 5.8 million. The forecast range for the average price received by producers of 64-72 cents per pound is narrowed 2 cents on each end.
Slight revisions to the global supply and demand estimates also result in marginally higher ending stocks. World production is raised 500,000 bales, reflecting increases for Uzbekistan, the United States, and some African countries. World consumption is reduced 500,000 bales, mainly in China, where free supplies are tightening due to the accumulation of production in the national reserve. World trade is raised marginally from last month. Forecast world ending stocks now exceed 80 million bales.
Coverage, Analysis of the Nov. 9 USDA Reports
See all of the data, coverage and analysis of today's World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates and Crop Production reports.
WASDE: Soybean Production Forecast Up 111 Million Bushels
USDA S&D Text Highlights -- November 2012


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The offering was very well received, with an order book which was multiple times oversubscribed.
The offering was very well received, with an order book which was multiple times oversubscribed.
Landsvirkjun will deliver 100% certified renewable energy to the high-performance computing data center.
The visitor center is temporarily closed due to COVID-19. This is only a precautionary measure.
The ratings apply to long- and short-term commitments, with and without the guarantee of collection.
Acceptable results in challenging external conditions.
A dialogue between the companies amid challenging conditions in aluminium markets.
An open meeting presenting the details of a new action plan.
Landsvirkjun's results for the first nine months of the year 2019.
According to Moody's, the upgrade reflects the continued improvement in the company's credit profile.
Outstanding companies build their business on a strong foundation and are focused on the interests of investors and shareholders.
Kristín Linda has participated in various international co-operations on environmental issues.
Strong cash generation and a historically high equity ratio.
Follows successful placing of a USD 200m green bond in 2018
The original power contract between the companies dates from the year 1975.
Net debt continues to decrease and the equity ratio strengthens.
The assets and transfer of the shares have negligible effect on the balance sheet and operations of Landsvirkjun.
Jónas Þór Guðmundsson re-elected chairman of the board.
S&P Global Ratings revises Landsvirkjun's rating outlook from stable to positive on improved financial position.
Landsvirkjun owns 64.7% of Landsnet.
The Green Bond Pioneer Awards are the premier annual recognition of achievement by organisations, financial institutions, governments and individuals who have demonstrated leadership through pioneering initiatives and green issuance and have provided positive examples of climate resilient and low carbon investment in a diverse range of nations and markets.
58 megawatts (MW) for a metallurgical grade silicon metal production plant at Bakki
Landsvirkjun's wind turbines prove to be well above the world average in utilisation
This initial 45 MW phase is the first step in the responsible development of the area.
Net debt decreased by USD 238.7 million from the previous year
Rio Tinto Alcan Iceland and Landsvirkjun have today agreed on a modified power supply agreement to better reflect the power requirements of ISAL, Rio Tinto Alcan's aluminium plant at Straumsvik.
Could increase expertise on volcanoes
The first report to be published only via the web
Assessment indicates no or limited risk to Landsvirkjun´s facilities and operations
Profit for the period amounted to USD 34.5 million
Visiting centers open all of August
Halslon and Blanda reservoirs likely to fill up in August
Standard and Poor's credit rating agency has changed Landsvirkjun's outlook from stable to positive. On July 18, Standard and Poor´s announced a similar change for the outlook of the Republic of Iceland´s credit rating.
Operations are expected to begin in the year 2016
Dr Gunnar Guðni Tómasson has been appointed as Executive Vice President of the Project Planning and Construction Division.
Moody's credit rating agency has confirmed Landsvirkjun's credit rating at Baa3, stable outlook. Without the guarantee of collection the rating is Ba2.
Preparation measures for the Þeistareykir Geothermal Power Station will continue this summer.


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One of the metaphors people like to use to describe the preaching office is the witness. One really excellent book by Prof. Thomas Long is The Witness of Preaching. What exactly does being a witness mean? Such a metaphor often conjures up the popular caricature of the soapbox preacher at the street corner or the hard-selling Christian telling others about Jesus. Some may think of using formulaic tools like the Four Spiritual Laws to talk about Jesus. The original word "witness" has been understood to mean "martyr" since the English word martyr comes from the Greek word. Yet, we have no such clear usage of this sense of martyrdom until the 2nd century. So, in the ordinary sense of the word witness in the NT, the word merely just means to testify about what one knows and experiences. The word comes from the context of the courtroom where a person's testimony should uphold the truth. The clearest explanation in the NT is Acts (e.g. Acts 1.8; 22.15). In the book of Acts, the disciples merely told others what they knew whether the message was about Easter or about what God had done through Jesus or some other divine work from the Old Testament. What are the implications of witnessing for preaching?
First, the idea of witnessing goes beyond propositional truth. It is not about "Guess what I know? I know this set of creeds." As important as creeds are for Christian doctrine, the NT sense of witness does not focus on a set of propositions. These days, many in the church still insist that the preacher has to preach propositions in order for the sermon to be biblical. This narrow sense goes against the idea of preaching as witness (I'm not saying that propositions are unimportant. I'm just saying that dogmatizing about propositional preaching is unhelpful).
Second, the idea of witnessing does advocate telling of the truth using truthful means. There is no manipulation element in the NT witness of the apostles. These followers of Jesus did not use seven words sung eleven times (what a friend calls the 7-11 songs) to arouse emotional decisions. The sense of NT witness merely points out what the apostles have experienced. That's it! The rest is up to the audience to accept or reject whether the message was true or not. In fact, overly persuasive speeches were looked upon as suspicious among the first century world. The negative portrait of the Sophists among classical writers verifies what I just described here. Today, I've seen preachers use half-truths, made-up tales and outright lies to preach the gospel. As a result, some might come to know Jesus. The mentality among the populace in the church is, as long as the preaching generates the number of converts, even half-truths or lies are acceptable (e.g. all those involved in the Noah's Ark hoax in Hong Kong). Both the message and the means have to be true in order for the preaching to qualify as witness. Its evidence must hold up to the most stringent legal procedures.
Third, the idea of witnessing does hold the preacher responsible for his spiritual welfare. Think about it, if the preacher's preaching does not reflect his experience in his faith, he's basically telling a lie. There are many preachers out there, especially among those who have ministered for a little while, who love to tell an old and touching tale or two from their yesteryears. These tales are touching but tiresome simply because they sound fake. They reflect of bygone glory days of the preacher when he was experiencing God's grace. Many can't tell you the last time they have noticed God in their lives. If so, they do not reflect their experience in their preaching. The audience today lusts for tall tales and worship heroes, but the Bible demands the preacher to see God in the ordinary mundane everyday tasks. I've heard from famous conservative preachers that forbid using personal examples as illustrations. One even advocates only biblical stories as the only valid sermon illustrations. I say, "Nonsense." Our audience actually needs to know that we're human, and that we have real faith experience. The audience needs fellow pilgrims (and not supermen) who lead them to worship God (and not heroes).
Fourth, the idea of witnessing does assume a rhetorical situation. The witness speaks to an audience. This requires the preacher to articulate his message in contemporary language instead of merely doing an information dump about his own experience.
What does it mean to be a witness? The preacher must prioritize authenticity first before authority. Before preaching, the preacher has to be human. He has to live by being human who is in touch with the divine in mundane daily living. If his message reflects his life, he has preached as a witness to truth. Have we noticed what God has done in our lives lately? That's a question each preacher needs to ask before going up on the pulpit.


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Kristen Stewart To Fans: I'm Sorry I Stole Edward Cullen
Kristen wants to set the record straight — if you're upset she doesn't seem enough like the book version of Bella, she has something to say to all Twi-hards!
Listen up, because Kristen Stewart has something to say. The Twilight actress spoke to the Irish Times, and the writer brought up some interesting things that Kristen had said to him when he first met her after being cast in the franchise. You'll never believe what she had to say about Robert Pattinson!
"Girls, especially at a certain age, can be bullies. But I understand why. I understand their covetousness," she says. "Edward is such an icon. All I can say is 'sorry' to anyone who thinks I'm not Bella Swan. Really. I'm sorry for stealing Edward. I completely relate to that. But I love the book just as much as they do and share their protective urges toward it."
Even though there's only one film to go, we're thrilled these two actually fell in love in real life. They were just at the Cannes Film Festival supporting one another's films, and now they have an entire summer ahead of them!
We just hope Rob shows up to the MTV Movie Awards and kisses Kristen when they win Best Kiss!
— Chloe Melas
More Kristen & Robert News:


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Lete Silk White, Sand Washed Shirt with pockets
Designer: CAMIXA
Feel the free-spirit vibe with this easy-drape pure silk white blouse
- BREATHABLE 100% Washed-Silk. Odor and wrinkle resistant
- RELAXED FIT – Slightly loose fit, Boyfriend Style (check our size chart, you won't go wrong). Size up for a slouchy look or go for your size for a work outfit. Model measurements in Description. All the photos are taken with an original Camixa shirt
- DETAILS THAT WILL GET NOTICED – Sturdy freshwater Mother of pearl buttons, Long sleeves with two button barrel cuffs, to adjust wrist fit -Roll them up for a cool laid back style. Two front flap pockets, wide enough to keep the most common smartphones.
Make a smart investment for your wardrobe with this sand-washed silk shirt. Cut into a relaxed silhouette, this luxe pre-washed silk piece will add a hint of chic to corporate or casual looks. The fabric beautifully drapes into the perfect shape. Team this matte soft piece with distressed denim shorts, or layer under your favorite sweaters come cooler weather.
Note: Sand washing is one of the post-treatments for silk fabrics and it makes the fabric feel softer and removes the shiny appearance you get from silk satin.
Stunningly soft silk inside and outside, cuffs, collar, placket and pocket flaps are slightly corrugated thanks to the fused Interlining we inserted to provide extra structure for a sharper look. Whilst others don't bother, we know it's what distinguishes our shirts from the sloppy ones.
How to find your perfect size:
Customer Reviews
Love the color and the feel of silk. Dressier than my Camixa linen ones which I love for more casual wear.
Beautiful, quality merchandise!!
This shirt is really comfortable, the fabric is very soft and of good quality. I did the first wash and there were no problems. I ordered a size S in blush color. I'll buy more for sure ;-)
The color on-line did not match the color I recieved. Too much green.
The shirt is a beautiful color and well made - love it!


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Annually, the VYI Board of Directors grants two types of awards at the VYI Scholarship and Awards Banquet to graduating high school seniors:
VYI Scholarship
Most Valuable Player (MVP) Awards
The VYI Scholarships and the MVP Awards are different as explained below.
VYI Participation. Applicants must have played for VYI (2 seasons minimum paid participation), or coached, or volunteered in some active capacity at least TWO of the six years encompassing middle and high school years, AND a minimum of THREE years out of the past twelve either playing, coaching or otherwise volunteering for VYI activities. The total seasons played or volunteered for VYI is a primary consideration for the VYI Scholarship. Baseball, softball or soccer are not VYI sports and do not apply.
Minimum GPA. Applicants must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.95 out of 4.0 and are expected to attend a post high school educational program beginning in the Fall following the graduation year, preferably, but not exclusively, a four-year college or university. If the applicant plans to enroll in a program other than a four-year program, applicant should be prepared to describe the planned course of study.
Current High School Transcript. Applicants must provide a copy of a current transcript from their high school and must include grades for the first semester of the senior year. TRANSCRIPTS THAT DO NOT INCLUDE GRADES FROM THE APPLICANT'S FIRST SEMESTER OF HIS/HER SENIOR YEAR WILL BE REJECTED, AND CAUSE THE APPLICATION AS A WHOLE TO BE REJECTED. Official transcripts are preferred but not required.
Upload Formal Picture in JPG Format. Applicants must submit a current FORMAL head and shoulders graduation or senior year picture (without "Copyright" or other marks) in JPG format.
Essay Regarding VYI experience. Applicants must submit an essay in WORD or PDF format of at least 250 words on how VYI has affected the applicant's life (other essays you sent with college applications are NOT acceptable). Applications that do not include an essay with a minimum of 250 words will be rejected.
Recommendation Letter. Applicants must submit a recommendation letter from a teacher, coach, or other non-family adult who has supervised the applicant in a leadership or community service role.
Volunteering with VYI Confirmed. Applicants must demonstrate any volunteer, coach or leadership role with VYI by submitting a letter from the supervisor (commissioner or head coach) verifying the volunteer status. Volunteer years will not be counted without the letter from VYI Commissioner or head coach. VYI will also confirm number of volunteer years in its own system. NOTE: Volunteering with VYI is not in and of itself a requirement to apply for the scholarship. Criteria #7 only applies IF an applicant has volunteered. If an applicant has not volunteered, then Criteria #7 does not apply.
ONLINE Application by Deadline. Applicants must submit the above 7 items via the VYI administrative WEB site at "admin.vyi.org" before 11:59 PM April 30th. Access to admin.vyi.org is granted with a USERID equal to the email address used in the applicant's VYI registration records. The password for admin.vyi.org is any phone number listed on the applicant's VYI registration records. To start the application process, the applicant must first complete an online application/registration form. This form is available on www.vyi.org by clicking on "Register Online" on the left side menu. The application/registration form will be available starting April 4, 2018. All information submitted is expected to be complete, accurate, spelled correctly, and capitalized properly.
Initial selections for VYI Scholarships are made after review of all online applications and requested materials. The Scholarship awardees are typically notified by mid-May.
Once notified, VYI Scholarship winners must complete the Banquet Attendance Form, by clicking on "Register Online" on the left side menu of www.vyi.org. The Scholarship winner or a parent must attend the VYI Scholarship Banquet in order to receive the scholarship. If any VYI Scholarship winner fails to attend the banquet without advance notice via the online form, the scholarship award will be rescinded by the committee. A VYI Scholarship winner that indicates they will not attend (nor a parent) will receive a lesser monetary award, while still being recognized in the program.
The VYI Scholarship winner and two others (usually parents) will be the guests of VYI at the banquet. Additional guests are $50 each, payable by credit card, via the online registration form. (Additional registrations after June 1 carry a $10 late fee.) Failure to provide this information by May 25 may result in the selectee not being seated at the event.
VYI will mail scholarship checks by August 1st to the school's address provided by the recipient in the online application (admin.vyi.org) mentioned above.
MVP Awards are different from the VYI Scholarship. High school seniors do not apply for MVP Awards. MVP award recipients are chosen by each of the current VYI commissioners of each of the current VYI sports. The VYI Scholarship Committee verifies the qualifications of the proposed winners. A high school senior may also contact directly the VYI commissioner of the relevant sport to provide a sports resume and why the senior should be named the MVP for that sport no later than May 10. VYI MVP Award recipients will be notified by VYI prior to the banquet.
MVP Award Recipients must have high character and a cumulative GPA of 2.5 or higher.
MVP Award Recipients must, at a minimum, receive a letter in the varsity sport their senior year for which they are named MVP, have a verifiable history of participating in that sport for VYI, and plan to attend a post high school educational program in the fall following graduation, preferably, but not exclusively, a four-year college or university.
MVP Award Recipients must have played, coached, or volunteered with VYI in some capacity at least two of the six years preceding their graduation from high school.
MVP Award Recipients must complete an online form found as "MVP Information" under "Online Forms" in the left-hand menu at www.vyi.org. The form must be complete online no later than May 25.
MVP Award Recipients must provide a current transcript provided directly from their high school, including grades for the first semester of their senior year.
MVP Award Recipients must provide a current FORMAL senior or graduation head and shoulders photo in JPG format without writing or marks.
Both the transcript and the picture in .jpg format must be uploaded to the VYI administrative website, admin.vyi.org.Username/UserID is the email address used in the MVP's VYI registration record; a phone number associated with this email address is the password.
MVP Award recipients must attend the mandatory VYI Scholarship banquet. Recipients must fill out the Banquet Attendance Form, by clicking on "Register Online" on the left side menu of www.vyi.org. Each MVP recipient and two guests, usually parents, will attend the banquet as guests of VYI. Additional attendees (beyond the recipient + two guests) are $50 per person, payable by credit card via the online registration form. If the selectee indicates in the Banquet Attendance form, that they will not attend the banquet for any unexcused reason, the MVP award will be provided to that individual in absentia, but there will be no monetary award. If after indicating they will attend, the selectee does not appear at the banquet, the selectee will be mentioned at the banquet but there will be no monetary award. MVP Award Recipients attending the Banquet will receive their monetary award at the Banquet.
New Privacy Policy


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Close Scores
Will Leitch
Mike Lupica
Matt Brown
Ross Tucker
Andrea Hangst
David Ubben
Anthony Castrovince
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Latest Videos
Pilgrimage to Field of Dreams
Pilgrimage to Field of Dreams
11/1/17: Top 5 MLB Plays
11/1/17: Top 5 MLB Plays
For What it's Worth: Take a Knee
Flores reflects on Houston
Paul Pierce's statue unveiled
Crawford still can't get a ring
Browns could go 0-16
Flores hits the streets
Unsolicited Advice
Flores previews the McGregor/Mayweather fight
LaVar Ball doing LaVar Ball things
Mr. Met goes rogue
Is Matt Harvey the Dark Knight?
Classic home runs with a Taiwanese twist
There's no dancing allowed in hockey
John Daly makes golf great again
Romo takes his talent to the broadcast booth
Robert Flores with top sports headlines
What it's Worth with Robert Flores
FWIW: Real news and fake tweets
For What it's Worth with Robert Flores
For What It's Worth with Robert Flores
FWIW: This Tweet In History
For What it's Worth with Robert Flores
For What It's Worth with Robert Flores
For What it's Worth with Robert Flores
The Tuck Rules
Ross Tucker breaks down post-Week 1 roster moves
Ross Tucker makes his picks for Week 2 of 2017 season
Ross Tucker makes his picks for Week 1 of 2017 season
Ross Tucker dissects holiday weekend roster moves
Tuck Rules: Starting quarterbacks announced
Tucker discusses Elway, Cowboys, CTE studies
Tucker on Cam Newton running less and the Chiefs GM
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Tucker discusses Maclin, Doug Williams, minicamp
Eric Decker cements the Titans as AFC South favorites
Seahawks interested in Colin Kaepernick
Ross Tucker on the most surprising news from the NFL
Tucker on a huge night for quarterbacks
The Tuck Rules: The NFL Draft is approaching
Ross Tucker addresses recent NFL Draft rumors
The Tuck Rules: Romo retires
Ross Tucker on Darrelle Revis and Jay Cutler
Ross Tucker on Oakland's relocation to the desert
Ross Tucker on Dwight Clark and the latest NFL news
Ross Tucker previews NFL free agency
Ross Tucker on the big deals being signed in the NFL
Ross Tucker on NFL veterans who will resign or be cut
Ross Tucker on Super Bowl LI and Tom Brady
Ross Tucker on the NFL Awards and NFL Hall of Fame
Ross Tucker's thoughts on Super Bowl 51
Ross Tucker makes his Super Bowl LI pick
Ross Tucker on the NFL's latest news and rumors
Ross Tucker's two picks for Championship Sunday
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The Tuck Rules: Wild Card recap
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Walk it Off is in St. Louis for the Winter Classic
Cubs cap off a memorable 2016 with a World Series win
Bryce Harper's free agency speculation and his tweets
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A look at three men designated "Mr. Irrelevant"
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Pilgrimage to Field of Dreams


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Web.com Ranked as One of the Fastest Growing Companies in North America on Deloitte's 2012 Technology Fast 500(TM)November 16, 2012
JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Nov. 16, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Web.com Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:WWWW) a leading provider of internet services and online marketing solutions for small businesses, today announced it has once again earned a place on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500™, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies in North America.
"Increasingly, small businesses are realizing that an effective online presence is critical to their success, making them even more receptive to our end-to-end solutions," said David Brown, chairman and chief executive officer of Web.com. "Because we provide a helpful, one-stop shop for domain registration, website development, online marketing, lead generation, eCommerce, social media and mobile offerings, these businesses are turning to us in greater numbers so that their customers and prospects can find them on the internet."
This is Web.com's third consecutive appearance on the Technology Fast 500™.
"We are proud to honor the 2012 Technology Fast 500™ companies, and commend them for their outstanding growth," said Eric Openshaw, vice chairman, Deloitte LLP and U.S. technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) leader. "These ground-breaking companies have outpaced their competition and are reinventing the way we do business today."
"The companies on the Fast 500 list are among those that have demonstrated remarkable innovation, creativity and business savvy," said Bill Ribaudo partner, Deloitte & Touche LLP and national TMT leader for audit and enterprise risk services (AERS). "As a result, these companies have continued to successfully forge ahead in a challenging economic environment. We applaud the leadership and employees of Web.com for this impressive accomplishment."
About Deloitte's 2012 Technology Fast 500™
Technology Fast 500, conducted by Deloitte & Touche LLP, provides a ranking of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies — both public and private - in North America. Technology Fast 500 award winners are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2007 to 2011.
In order to be eligible for Technology Fast 500 recognition, companies must own proprietary intellectual property or technology that is sold to customers in products that contribute to a majority of the company's operating revenues. Companies must have base-year operating revenues of at least $50,000 USD or CD, and current-year operating revenues of at least $5 million USD or CD. Additionally, companies must be in business for a minimum of five years, and be headquartered within North America.
About Web.com
Web.com Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:WWWW) is a leading provider of online marketing for small businesses. Web.com meets the needs of small businesses anywhere along their lifecycle by offering a full range of online services and support, including domain name registration services, website design, logo design, search engine optimization, search engine marketing and local sales leads, email marketing, general contractor leads, franchise and homeowner association websites, shopping cart software, eCommerce website design and call center services. For more information on the company, please visit http://www.web.com.
Note to Editors: Web.com is a registered trademark of Web.com Group, Inc.
CONTACT: Susan Datz Edelman Web.com (Nasdaq:WWWW) Director, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications (904) 680-6909 email@example.com


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#include <signal.h> int sigwaitinfo(const sigset_t *set, siginfo_t *info); int sigtimedwait(const sigset_t *set, siginfo_t *info, const struct timespec *timeout);
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
sigwaitinfo(), sigtimedwait(): _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 199309L
sigwaitinfo() removes the delivered signal from the set of pending signals and returns the signal number as its function result. If the info argument is not NULL, then it returns a structure of type siginfo_t (see sigaction(2)) containing information about the signal.
Signals returned via sigwaitinfo() are delivered in the usual order; see signal(7) for further details.
sigtimedwait() operates in exactly the same way as sigwaitinfo() except that it has an additional argument, timeout, which enables an upper bound to be placed on the time for which the thread is suspended. This argument is of the following type:
struct timespec { long tv_sec; /* seconds */ long tv_nsec; /* nanoseconds */ }
If both fields of this structure are specified as 0, a poll is performed: sigtimedwait() returns immediately, either with information about a signal that was pending for the caller, or with an error if none of the signals in set was pending.
The set of signals that is pending for a given thread is the union of the set of signals that is pending specifically for that thread and the set of signals that is pending for the process as a whole (see signal(7)).
If multiple threads of a process are blocked waiting for the same signal(s) in sigwaitinfo() or sigtimedwait(), then exactly one of the threads will actually receive the signal if it is delivered to the process as a whole; which of the threads receives the signal is indeterminate.
POSIX leaves the meaning of a NULL value for the timeout argument of sigtimedwait() unspecified, permitting the possibility that this has the same meaning as a call to sigwaitinfo(), and indeed this is what is done on Linux.
On Linux, sigwaitinfo() is a library function implemented on top of sigtimedwait().


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I have the following code that I found on the web and modified to my likings:
import java.awt.*; import java.awt.image.BufferedImage; import java.io.*; import javax.imageio.ImageIO; import javax.swing.*; public class ImagePanel extends JPanel { BufferedImage image; BufferedImage image2; public ImagePanel(BufferedImage image) { this.image = image; } protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) { super.paintComponent(g); g.drawImage(image, 50, 50, this); g.drawImage(image, 100, 100, this); g.drawImage(image2, 120, 120, this); } public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException { BufferedImage image = ImageIO.read(new File("http://www.javaprogrammingforums.com/images/tile1.png")); BufferedImage image2 = ImageIO.read(new File("http://www.javaprogrammingforums.com/images/tile2.png")); ImagePanel contentPane = new ImagePanel(image); ImagePanel contentPane2 = new ImagePanel(image2); JFrame f = new JFrame("Bl"); f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE); f.setContentPane(contentPane); f.getContentPane().add(contentPane2); f.setSize(400,400); f.setLocation(200,200); f.setVisible(true); } }
The code successfully imports and displays two identical images as shown in the paintComponent. What I am trying to do is change it so that it can load multiple different image files and display them separately. As you can see I added "image2" into in a few places in hopes that I might find a way to add a second image. Unfortunately I had no luck with this. What am I doing wrong? Sorry, I'm sure this is probably something that is very obvious to some, but I'm still pretty new to programming.


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Images of life after death
I try to find beauty in all things and all aspects of life, but i sometimes tend to focus on what's wrong with the picture instead of what's right. I look too closely at the little imperfections and forget to stand back and take in the beauty of the big picture.
It is for this reason that I was afraid to go outside into my backyard after last week's snowstorm. I knew that the leaves from my autumn blaze maple tree and quaking aspens would no longer be fluttering in the breeze, but would be crushed and scattered on the ground, in the garden and on the pond. A day's work of cleanup staring me in the face.
I knew that the last remaining vegetables that were so close to being ripe only a few days ago would be inedible. Dead and gone, withered and rotting on the vine. Where only weeks earlier had been a lush, green oasis of life, growth and bounty, would now be an overwhelming picture of death and decay. And even though this day was deceivingly warm and sunny, if I walked into the garden I would surely know that the end of summer had come, there would be no denying it.
So, I challenged myself.
I would take my camera out to the garden and look closely at the details. But this time I would focus on the beauty. The beauty of changing seasons, regeneration and renewal.
What I found when I stepped outside was a garden alive with color and texture. A picture that I had never really appreciated and I was more than pleasantly surprised.
Hope you enjoy the pictures.


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CARFAX One-Owner. Clean CARFAX. Certified. Santorini Black 2019 Land Rover Discovery Sport HSE 4WD 9-Speed Automatic 2.0L I4 Turbocharged Fully Detailed, Fully Serviced, Passed Safety Inspection, Warranty, Back Up Camera, 12-Way Power Front Seats w/Memory, 4-Wheel Disc Brakes, ABS brakes, Adaptive Xenon Headlamps w/LED Signature DRLs, Audio Upgrade Package, Auto High Beam Assist (AHBA), Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), Basic Rear Seat Convenience Pack (Preferred), Blind Spot Monitor w/Closing Vehicle Sensing, Brake assist, Climate Comfort Package, Driver Assist Plus Package (InControl Touch), Dynamic Design Package, Ebony Morzine Headliner, Electronic Stability Control, Emergency communication system: InControl Protect, Exterior Parking Camera Rear, Four wheel independent suspension, Front anti-roll bar, Front dual zone A/C, Front fog lights, Garage door transmitter: HomeLink, Grained Leather Seat Trim, Headlight cleaning, Heated door mirrors, Heated Steering Wheel, Heated Windshield, Heated/Cooled Front & Heated Rear Seats, High intensity discharge headlights: Bi-Xenon, Illuminated entry, Knee airbag, Lane Keep Assist w/Driver Condition Monitor, Low tire pressure warning, Memory seat, Navigation System, Navigation System (Touch), Occupant sensing airbag, Overhead airbag, Panic alarm, Power door mirrors, Power driver seat, Power Liftgate, Power passenger seat, Radio: 190W Land Rover Audio System w/10 Speakers, Radio: Meridian Audio System w/11 Speakers, Rain sensing wipers, Rear anti-roll bar, Rear fog lights, Remote keyless entry, Security system, SiriusXM Satellite & HD Radio, Speed-sensing steering, Speed-Sensitive Wipers, Split folding rear seat, Spoiler, Surround Camera System, Traction control, Traffic Sign Recognition, Vision Assist Package, Wheels: 20 5 Split Spoke w/Gloss Black Finish.Land Rover Approved Certified Pre-Owned Details:* Transferable Warranty* 165 Point Inspection* Warranty Deductible: $0* Up to 7-year/100,000 miles (whichever comes first) from original in-service date, including Trip Interruption Reimbursement* Roadside Assistance* Vehicle History
Pre-Owned vehicle pricing includes all offers and incentives. Tax, Title and Tags not included in vehicle prices shown and must be paid by the purchaser. While great effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information on this site, errors do occur so please verify information with a customer service rep. This is easily done by calling us at (215) 443-5900 or by visiting us at the dealership.
**With approved credit. Terms may vary. Monthly payments are only estimates derived from the vehicle price with a 60 month term, 3.9% interest and 20% downpayment.
*ACPO Coverage, including limited warranty and roadside assistance, expires up to seven years from the original in-service date or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first. Original in-service date is the earlier of the new-vehicle retail sale or in-use date, as reported to Jaguar Land Rover North America, LLC. Select vehicles may have the option for different warranty terms. Vehicles with the 7 years/100,000 miles limited warranty are limited in supply and only available at participating Land Rover Retailers. See your authorized Land Rover Retailer for complete terms and conditions.
**Original in-Service date is the earlier of new-vehicle retail sales or in-use date, as reported to or by Jaguar Land Rover North America, LLC. See your Land Rover Retailer for details or call 1-800-396-7373.
**Coverage begins on the vehicle's original date of retail sale or in-use date. See your Land Rover Retailer for details.
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Ozeki NG SMS Gateway is a software product that provides bulk SMS sending and receiving functionality. With the help of Excel SMS Client II. of the Ozeki NG SMS Gateway you can send data from MS Excel tables as SMS text message to mobile phone numbers. With a simple click in the Excel SMS Client II. your SMS messages will be sent out and you do not need to use other applications and forward your messages using complicated application interfaces. The whole process is faster and simpler with the Excel SMS Client II. and you can also send your messages with all international characters types.
The Excel SMS Client II. enables you to send SMS messages from Microsoft Excel. All you have to do is to fill the Excel cells in a given order. In Excel, entering information in or applying a function to a range of cells can be done by typing, copying and pasting or dragging cells.
The information related to a message to be sent is in different cells of the same row in the Excel spreadsheet. Some of the information has to be entered/edited manually, and some will be entered/edited automatically. Each cell involved in the editing requires a specific kind of information. Please note that cloumn A, B, E have to be filled, they are mandatory values! (Figure 1.)
Figure 1 - Edited Excel spreadsheet for SMS messages
After the Excel spreadsheet is edited so it contains all mandatory values (the phone numbers where each SMS message need to be sent to, SMS message texts, message types), please open the Excel SMS Client II. On the interface of Excel SMS Client II. at STEP 1. you need to give the connection details (Host name, Port number, Username, Password) to connect to the Ozeki NG SMS Gateway software and then please click on Connect button (Figure 2.).
Figure 2. - Connection details of the Ozeki NG SMS Gateway
At STEP 2. you need to browse the edited Excel file which contains your messages, recipient phone numbers and message types. Please click on Open excel file button to start to browse (Figure 3).
Figure 3 - Open Excel file
After clicking on Open Excel file button you can browse your file system and after clicking on Open button, the Excel file path will be given at Excel file location field at STEP 2. (Figure 4.)
Figure 4 - Excel file in the file system
After the Excel file location appeared at the field of STEP 2, please click on Send Messages button (Figure 5.)
Figure 5 - Send messages
If message sending is finished successfully, the following window will appear as the result (Figure 6.). You can see the sent SMS messages with all information at the Even log field.
Figure 6 - Message sending operation has been finished successfully
If you take a look at Ozeki NG SMS Gateway you can see the sent message in its "Sent" message folder (Figure 7).
Figure 7 - Sent messages in the Ozeki NG SMS Gateway
SMS messages with different character types can be sent easily and with high-efficiency using the Excel SMS client II. of the Ozeki NG SMS Gateway. If you implement this solution your corporate communication with customers, business partners and employees will be faster and simpler. The implementation of this client is not complicated, it can be used without complex IT knowledge.You can save much time and energy then using other applications to send your SMS messages from MS Excel.
You can find a comparison chart for our two Excel SMS Clients on this page: Compare Excel SMS Client to Excel SMS Client II..
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15Mb. 128 kbps mono 16 minutes 20 seconds. (Spanish/ en Espanol)
Julie Webb was in Mexico to attend the booklaunch of a translation of the writings of Cuban leader of the revolutionary war of independence from Spain, Jose Marti, into the indigenous language, Nahautl, by an indigenous schoolteacher from Chiapas in southern Mexico. Nico Tototl is introduced by the Cuban Ambassador to Mexico, Manuel Aguillera de la Paz. A bonus to this event was a short statement by Antonio del Conde, the man who sold the boat The Granma to Fidel Castro whom he still remembers and admires.
Julie Webb asistio en Mexico DF a la presentacion de un nuevo libro - una traduccion en la idioma indigena Nahautl de las obras de Jose Marti por el maestro indigena Nico Tototl. Presente con el, el Embajador Cubano Manuel Aguilera de la Paz y Antonio del Conde, el hombre quien vendio el barco Granma a Fidel Castro.


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9 Creative Easter Nail Art Designs Ideas
Nail art is an easy way to add a pop of color and interest to any spring holiday outfit. If you're looking for some cute nail art designs for Easter, you are at the right place. Try one of these Easter nail festive beauty ideas to make Easter even more fun. #1. Nail designs for long…Read more


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The long, difficult journey of how a man became a woman
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story is part of an in-depth special report on transgender issues. For full coverage, visit http://www.timesunion.com/transgender.
MONTREAL — Draped in a pale blue surgical gown, her shoulder-length ginger hair feathered delicately across a pillow, Drew Cordes turned on her side in a hospital bed and watched a Bugs Bunny cartoon on her Mac laptop.
In less than one hour, Cordes, 29, of Albany, will undergo gender reassignment surgery, or GRS, commonly known as a sex change.
It is Memorial Day, a holiday that is not celebrated in Canada.
For Cordes, it seems more like independence day, the chance for a hard-won freedom from the gender discordance — "gender dysphoria" is the clinical term — she has felt since childhood, when she began trying to bury a deep urge to shift from being a he to a she.
"There's not much point in being nervous now," Cordes said in a breathy, feminine timbre she has worked hard to perfect. On the computer, with a large rainbow Apple sticker on its cover, she checked Facebook and last night's Red Sox box score before cueing up the cartoon.
"You did your freaking out two weeks ago," said her mother, Janet.
"This waiting is the worst," said her father, John. He and his wife, who live in Glens Falls, fidgeted in the hospital room and paced the hallways of the Centre Metropolitain de Chirurgie, a private hospital in Montreal with three operating rooms and 17 beds.
This will be a culmination of Cordes' five-year journey to transition from male to female. The process has included psychological counseling, hormone therapy, facial reconstruction, electrolysis, voice modification, learning how to dress and present herself as female in the workplace and out in public and much, much more.
"Excruciatingly painful and very expensive" is how Cordes describes it.
Cordes' transition has cost tens of thousands of dollars, including $20,000 for the GRS procedure, which involves surgical removal of the testicles, amputation of the penis and fashioning a vagina and clitoris from the "de-gloved" skin of the penis. The two-hour surgery is covered by Cordes' health insurance, CDPHP. Recovery takes weeks and is marked by severe, temporary discomfort eased by painkillers.
"It's just hard to think of my child in pain," her mom said, brushing back tears with a tissue as she stroked Drew's hand, into which an I.V. needle had been inserted in advance of surgery.
In order to clear the hurdles of eligibility for GRS, Cordes has had to document that she has lived full-time as a female for more than one year, has been recommended for the surgery by a clinical behavioral scientist and has presented two letters of recommendation from mental health professionals.
Preparations the night and morning before surgery in Montreal reminds patients they have reached a point of no return: fasting, two enemas, shaving the genital area. There are legal forms to sign. The surgery is irreversible.
"Seeing all that Drew has gone through has made me a better person and given me more empathy," her dad said, straining to hold his emotions in check.
In trademark dark humor, Cordes wrote a blog entry on an LGBT website, the Bilerico Project, in an entry titled "An Open Letter to My Genitals in Advance of Surgery." The piece, posted on April 28, was a wry twist on a Dear John letter.
"Well, here we are, coming to the end of our time together," Cordes begins. "I don't operate under the delusion that our split will solve all my problems. I'm hoping it will be an improvement, that's all. I want to say that I never hated you. That word never applied. I used plenty of other words though — annoying (used the most by far), burden, unfortunate, wrong, obstacle, etc."
The Montreal clinic, founded in 1972, does more than 200 male-to-female and about 20 female-to-male GRS procedures each year. It is the busiest clinic for transgender procedures in North America and is highly regarded, which is why Cordes chose to come here. She also liked the convenience of being just a four-hour drive from home. For transgender patients without insurance, Thailand is a popular destination for a sex change. There, the going rate is about $7,000. There's a legitimate quality control concern, though, and the Montreal clinic occasionally does repair work on patients who received a botched GRS procedure off-shore.
"It's major surgery and I'm seriously scared of the complications," Cordes said the week before, relaxing on a couch in her Center Square apartment, with a trio of guitars in a rack on a wall behind her and bookshelves filled with volumes of poetry, philosophy and literary novels.
Two books, Doystoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" and Rilke's poetry collection "Duino Elegies and the Sonnets to Orpheus," rest on a coffee table in the apartment.
Cordes graduated with honors in 2000 from Glens Falls High School and 2004 from Vassar College with a bachelor's degree in English. She brought the Dostoevsky and Rilke books and short story collections by David Foster Wallace to the hospital. There is a stanza from Rilke's "Duino Elegies" that resonates with Cordes: "For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure, and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying."
Cordes is one of the lucky ones. She has not had to confront the terrifying angel of the transgender experience alone. Many trans people are familiar with the pain and suffering of being transgender: estranged from family members, verbally harassed and sometimes assaulted by strangers, discriminated against in the workplace; ostracized and isolated by mainstream society after coming out and beginning to transition publicly from one gender to the other.
Cordes' parents' unconditional love, support and financial assistance at each step of her transition made the GRS procedure possible.
"I wouldn't be here without them," Cordes said, her voice choking up.
In Montreal, the tense morning hours crawled past as Cordes awaited surgery. In the hospital room, Cordes and her parents watched for the umpteenth time a favorite cartoon episode, "Rabbit Seasoning," in which Bugs Bunny cross-dresses as a woman to try to elude Elmer Fudd's shotgun blasts, while Daffy Duck lisps an audience aside warning about "pronoun trouble."
They can laugh about it now, this "pronoun trouble" they have struggled to understand as parents while their only child, Andrew John, who was born a he, yearned to become a she.
Drew, the androgynous name to which Cordes has answered since childhood, is a writer and editor with a flinty command of the language. "Pronoun trouble" was the family's handy euphemism, a humorous way to defuse the tension and travails of a transgender life: beginning with Drew's confused adolescence, deep depression in the teen years, being shunned by former friends and made into an outcast, with suicidal thoughts as a young adult.
Cordes began to wear women's clothes in public after her facial surgery in May 2008 in another stage of her transition from male to female. Soon after, her parents set up a "pronoun jar" at their home in which relatives and guests were required to place $1 each time they referred to Drew as a he instead of a she.
Some family members, stuck in their ways, simply placed a $5 or $10 bill in the pronoun jar at the start of a visit, anticipating numerous unintended errors of gender pronouns.
Cordes has never forgotten the abiding love of her parents and early support from friends and relatives. She saved the cash from that pronoun jar and some of it went to expenses of transitioning.
Cordes joked that she got "the supportive parent talk thing" twice: once when she came out as gay at 14 and then again at 23 when she informed her parents she was transgender and began psychological counseling, hormones and electrolysis.
Her parents said Cordes never exhibited any of the common signs, such as playing with dolls and exhibiting "girly" tendencies while growing up. She wasn't a boy who gravitated to hanging out with the girls on the school playground. She didn't experiment by playing dress-up with girls' clothes or carrying herself in a feminine way.
"I probably over-compensated," Cordes said.
At Glens Falls High School, Cordes was a three-sport athlete on the boys' teams. Back then, his large hands were an asset with which he could dunk a basketball. Cordes' played defensive sweeper in soccer. His muscular 6-foot, 160-pound frame powered him over a high-jump bar at an impressive 5-feet, 10-inches. He covered the tennis court with tournament-winning quickness and played on the high school varsity team starting in eighth grade. He was named captain of both the tennis and soccer teams.
Cordes' dad shuttled Drew to practices in all seasons. Drew loved baseball, a sport Drew's grandfather competed in at Cornell University. Father and son became diehard Red Sox fans.
Two days before Memorial Day, Cordes drove 225 miles with her parents from her apartment in Albany for this surgery.
She drives her parents' old car, a Toyota Camry with a bumper sticker that reads "Yooooouk!" in homage to Red Sox slugger Kevin Youkilis.
At the Canadian border, she handed over an enhanced New York state driver's license that listed her as female, since she had not yet changed the gender on her U.S. passport.
Cordes came here to take a final step in an arduous odyssey from male to female. In Montreal, she would finally cross into a new country, as it were, and stamp her gender passport once and for all the way she felt it should have been marked in the first place.
As the surgery was delayed several hours due to scheduling, the waiting and tension were finally too much for her parents. They kissed and hugged their only child and stepped outside to pace a grassy area behind the hospital under a searing sun shortly before noon.
In the end, independence day is a solo journey.
Cordes stood alone, nervously tapping long fingers on the counter of the nurse's station. She closed her eyes against a headache that had flared on and off that morning. She shuffled her large feet, swathed in surgical booties.
It was approaching high noon.
A medical technician in surgical scrubs arrived, opened a medical chart and asked Cordes to confirm the details of her surgery. He asked if she had any questions or concerns before they proceeded to a second-floor operating room.
Cordes' bottom lip quivered and she whispered: "Nothing to declare."
She hadn't the energy to render it in a feminine tone. It was a low, flat and raspy sound that came from a clenched throat.
The elevator closed softly behind her. The car began to ascend, carrying Cordes to the operating room, the final destination in a long journey of crossing the border from male to female.
On the other side, Rilke's terrifying angel awaited.
Reach Paul Grondahl at 454-5623 or email@example.com.
This is the first installment in a three-part series on Drew's journey. Click here for the second installment.


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Last week ,I decided to clear our refrigerator before we left to West Coast for our Spring Break .The most important food that I needed to used is all the perishable.I have tiny of this and that vegetables in the fridge..Well,what to do with it??Hmmm..I decided to use it to stir-fry with oyster sauce.Here it's goes.....
1 head of broccoli,cut floret and wash
1/2 block silken tofu,cut
8 pieces fish ball,sliced
2 red pepper,sliced
1 medium onion,peeled,and sliced
1 tbsp minced garlic
2 tbsp oil
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp chicken bouillon powder
1 stalk spring onion,wash and cut
1:Microwave broccoli at high for 3 minutes,set aside.Heat wok at medium high heat.Add in oil and minced garlic,fry until fragrant,then toss in broccoli,fish ball,red pepper ,onion and seasoning.
2:Stir-fry all the ingredients at high heat for 3-5 minutes,mixed well.Check the seasoning.Place cut silken tofu in microwave for 2 minutes.
3:Add in tofu before dish out and serve warm.


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As a small team of youth ambassadors for Greenpeace's Arctic campaign begin their trek to the North Pole, I'm reminded of the campaign to save the Antarctic (below), which I led on behalf of Greenpeace in the 1980s.
While politics between the two poles are literally polar opposites, campaigning to protect these last frontiers from unbridled exploitation have much in common. The Arctic, like the Antarctic 25 years ago, is at a crossroads.
Flash back to 1988: Bureaucrats and lawyers from two dozen countries had just popped the champagne corks following more than five years of tough negotiations, adopting a convention that paved the way for multinational corporations to dig, drill, and inevitably destroy the last (relatively) pristine continent on Earth.
Not that they would have admitted it -- there were all sorts of "safeguards" aimed at preventing the kind of damage caused by oil development elsewhere. But when the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska in March, 1989, spilling somewhere between 10 and 30 million gallons of oil and devastating local wildlife, the jig was up.
Within a few short months, the Antarctic mining consensus was on the verge of collapse. Unlike the negotiations, which took place in the rarefied atmosphere of closed-door proceedings, ratification of the convention was a matter for parliaments. And parliaments, of course, are open to public scrutiny. After years of high profile campaigning by Greenpeace and the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, the public wasn't having any of it.
At the October 1989 Antarctic Treaty meeting, the mood was tense and countries were divided. Several favoured scrapping the minerals convention and replacing it with a comprehensive environmental protection protocol. Most, however, weren't there yet. As I said, the Antarctic was at a crossroads, and as the meeting began, we released a powerful statement titled precisely that. It read (in part):
In 1989, Antarctica is a crossroads. We must choose between two paths; we cannot go both ways. Either Antarctica will become the last continent to be exploited of its mineral riches, or it will become the first to be protected, in perpetuity, for its wilderness values.We face increasingly global threats to our environment -- such as the "greenhouse effect" and destruction of the Earth's protective ozone layer -- whose effects we can hope to stem but no longer to reverse. The issues at this meeting however concern a fragile, as yet exploited and relatively unpolluted region. This meeting gives us all, concerned citizens of an international community, a seminal opportunity to act firmly and in unison to prevent problems before they appear. We cannot afford to let this opportunity pass us by.
Fortunately, the leaders of the Antarctic Treaty states did have the wisdom not to let the opportunity pass them by. By 1991 they agreed to a 50-year moratorium on mining, ditched the minerals convention, and signed an Environment Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty.
Could the same sort of turnaround happen in the Arctic? That's a good question. Antarctica has no permanent residents and the region is governed by a Treaty whose decision-making bodies operate by consensus. Just two countries (France and Australia) changed their minds about the mining convention, and the whole house of cards collapsed. Those conditions don't apply in the Arctic.
But victory in Antarctica was never inevitable; the campaign was a long, hard slog. Antarctica was in no one's backyard, and when it came to mining there were no equivalent harpoons to get in front of, toxic discharge pipes to be plugged, or nuclear weapons tests to impede -- all Greenpeace stock in trade for raising public awareness. We were trying to prevent a disaster before it happened. We established a year-round base on Ross Island, and undertook gruelling annual expeditions to resupply it; Greenpeace was on site 24/7 for five years -- one never-ending, stress-inducing "direct action." I have the grey hair to prove it.
And to top it off, the very basis of our demands -- establishing "World Park Antarctica" -- was largely dismissed by the Antarctic policy elite as utopian, naïve, and unrealistic.
And so it was! Sometimes, though, being utopian, naïve and unrealistic is an advantage -- if capturing the public imagination is a key element of the strategy, it's far better to think big than to succumb to the "art of the possible." When Jacques Cousteau called on the French public to support the campaign in early 1989, within two months a million people signed a petition calling on the French government to pull out of the minerals negotiations. And by signing, I mean literally signing -- this was pre-internet and getting a million signatures in a single country in such a short period of time was a very, very big deal.
So here's my advice to Arctic campaigners.
The "greenhouse effect" -- a threat so novel in 1989 that we put it in quotes -- requires that we leave 80 percent of total fossil fuel reserves unburned. This isn't green hyperbole; even the International Energy Agency is sounding the alarm about this "carbon bubble." And let's not forget that 195 governments are legally bound by a Climate Convention designed to, "prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system." They have subsequently defined this to mean holding the increase in global temperature above pre-industrial levels below 2°C.
You can choose whether or not to communicate all of that to the public, but like Gandalf blocking the Balrog with his cry of "you shall not pass," you must take a principled stand -- one that will inspire hundreds of millions of people to stand with you.
To me, that is the central message that must be communicated. Oil spills like the Exxon Valdez make for powerful visual reminders, but at the end of the day even the cleanest, safest drilling operation (an oxymoron when it comes to the harsh polar environment) won't save the Arctic and it won't save us. If we don't figure that out, global warming will be our undoing in the end.
When asked at the time what I thought about "only" getting a 50-year moratorium on Antarctic mining, this was my answer: if in 50 years' time we haven't figured out that we can't afford to drill there, saving Antarctica will be the least of our problems.
A crossroads indeed.
Kelly Rigg is the Executive Director of the Global Call for Climate Action, a network of more than 400 organizations worldwide. She was the Greenpeace International Antarctica Campaign Coordinator from 1987-1990, and the US coordinator from 1984-1987. Follow Kelly on Twitter: @kellyrigg. This article was first published on The Huffington Post website.
(Unregistered) Sun Wu
Among scientists the Climate Action Network (therefor Greenpeace aswell) is said to be part of the problem with efforts to stop global heating have hi...
Among scientists the Climate Action Network (therefor Greenpeace aswell) is said to be part of the problem with efforts to stop global heating have hit the scale somewhere close to AGONY in global terms.
The Climate Action Network (and Greenpeace) suggerate us human kind still has a choice...
They tell us FOR YEARS that we can stop global heating at 2°C, if we work hard the Climate Action Network (and Greenpeace) give us the feeling that we can even make a +1.5°C...
...while Scientists worldwide start to get used to reality which to them seems to be somewhere around 4°C.
2°C plus would be a desaster...scientists get ready for something beyond my imagination, and seem to not even take NGOs too serious anymore...
It is obvious more than ever that NGOs have failed during recent years with them still promoting their anchient and outdated goals at times when there is big doubts about the feasibility of achieving even 2°C...
Come on guys, don't make too much of a fool of yourself, let James and Josefina rather enjoy this one-in-a-lifetime-holiday since you have wasted a fortune of donation-money on this FACEBOOK-EVENT.
Sun Wu
9 April, 2013 at 13:36
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(Unregistered) Because I am a Girl
Because I am a Girl is a global initiative to end gender inequality, promote women's rights and lift millions of girls – and everyone around them – ou...
Because I am a Girl is a global initiative to end gender inequality, promote women's rights and lift millions of girls – and everyone around them – out of poverty.
9 April, 2013 at 14:05
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(Unregistered) Lupetto
Inspiring article. Nils, you need professional help.
9 April, 2013 at 16:19
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who is Niels?
Are you talking of Niels Stolberg, German Fraud and responsible for one of the bigger financial scandals in German history ...
who is Niels?
Are you talking of Niels Stolberg, German Fraud and responsible for one of the bigger financial scandals in German history - financing ships worth billions in the name of climate-protection?
But please be aware of GPI community rules! Stay on topic and name-calling is, according to the moderator, NON-acceptable!
Sun Wu, GODFATHER of the Rainbow Warrior III
10 April, 2013 at 13:10
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(Unregistered) Sun Wue
Do you need references blaming Climate Action Network and Greenpeace to be part of the problem rather than a weapon on the search for solutions?
Do you need references blaming Climate Action Network and Greenpeace to be part of the problem rather than a weapon on the search for solutions?
They would be in German, but you could ask Jan Haverkamp to translate them to you...
Just in case anyone wonders what I am doing: someone who plans to attack the last remaining superpower USA (in terms of the most creative NonViolentDirectAction) you guys possibly can imagine) this person needs to demonstrate his clout...and most likely work on the logistics.
I want the Greenpeace-ships, because I am better than you. And if I was asked most of you guys would be hitting the couch for years (and Greenpeace still Greenpeace)
Niels, you may call me Hitler (don't worry, it is OK with the moderator!)
Ps: I love you all... don't you think I am an excellent warlord?
As I said earlier: think hard or I will wreck you first before taking over.
Or are you trying to say you do not like my 'creative communication'? Shit, I definately will have to improve performance then!
PPS: don't forget to follow the BELUGA-case! State atourneys are said to inform the public on opening of cases after having done 2 years of recherche...SKYSAILS was the financial basis although most people still try to miss this embarrasing thought.
PPPS: DOCTOR Naidoo could stay. Why don't we open a section called Greenpeace Kids where he can play on Facebook and do whatever he likes? But Greenpeace International has to aim at leaders and decisionmakers of TODAY...since you guys unfortunately missed to adress the ones of yesterday.
10 April, 2013 at 13:38
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