text: Short sleeve graphic t-shirt from Crusher collection. This laidback style has the staying power to prove instant classics don't just happen. All-time favorite just skims the body for an easygoing vibe. Details: 95% cotton, 5% polyester, classic fit, garment washed for softness, durable ribbing at the neck, ''Do what you love. Love what you do.'' locker patch, 5.9 oz. Material: Cotton, Polyester.


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They are close in price. I've looked at specs. So now I would love some feedback from folks with experience with these two guns or one with comparable features and price
Requirements :
Ambi mag release
SA/DA TRIGGER external hammer
double stack
The Ruger 15+1
Attachment 71136
The Taurus 17+1
Attachment 71137
I've heard the Taurus is a decent pistol..but I'd take the Ruger any day of the week. U.S. made and the P series has a reputation of good reliability. If your not set on a DA/SA pistol theres the Ruger SR9 that can be had at a good price.
I had a Ruger P-95 and I never had a problem with it. I had one jam up and it was due to the ammo that I used. I used the wolf or the reloads that I had. One of the bullets was not seated right.
The SR9 is so ugly IMO
I think its the sights
Until recently, I wouldn't have said this, but spend the extra cash and get a Glock or Springfield XD. For the extra cash, you get reliability and durability that Ruger and Taurus can't match.
And if you search hard enough, you'll find a price in the $450 range.
I also have an XD40 no problems with this one either. I would also go with Springfield not because of reliability but the XD is not as bulky. The Ruger P95 is is very reliable.
If money was no option id get a sig or Beretta or S&W 59 or HK
I never saw the big deal about a Glock, until I shot a Glock 34. I now own a Glock 34 and Glock 19 FDE for CC.
I'm not looking back.
I have owned a Beretta M9, S&W M&P, Sig P226 and Springfield XD 9 compact. In my opinion, Glock is better than them all.
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text:
People: Michelle Obama, Katy Perry, John Mayer, Daphne Oz and Robin Roberts.February 27, 2014 9:54 PM
Michelle Obama is heading to Pawnee.
The FLOTUS will appear in the "Parks and Recreation" season six finale as herself. The special one-hour episode "Moving Up" is slated to air at 8 p.m. April 24 on NBC, E! News reports.
Obama filmed her cameo appearance with series star Amy Poehler in late February when the two appeared together as part of Mrs. Obama's "Let's Move" initiative dedicated to ending childhood obesity. Might the first lady help Pawnee with its ever-growing obesity problem?
This isn't the first time politics and "Parks and Rec" have collided. Vice President Joe Biden appeared as himself in season five of the NBC comedy. Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barbara Boxer and former Sen. Olympia Snowe have all appeared as themselves.
After the FLOTUS's appearance, that means Leslie Knope just needs to meet the president and Hillary Clinton.
"Parks and Recreation" will return for a seventh season on NBC. While the network hasn't put out the official announcement, NBC's Robert Greenblatt told reporters at the 2014 Television Critics Association winter meeting that the comedy will return. But could it be for its last season? Executive producer Mike Schur told EW, "No decision has been made on that, but it wouldn't surprise me if next year were the final season."
"Parks and Recreation" airs at 8:30 p.m. Thursdays on NBC.
On the day that news broke that they split, Katy Perry and John Mayer kept busy with friends and work, People reports.
Mayer, 36, was in New York City working in the studio and prepping for last night's performance on "Late Night With Seth Meyers." He also checked out pianist Chick Corea's performance at Blue Note Jazz Club on Wednesday night.
"Chick sitting in with Roy Haynes and Ron Carter at the Blue Note. Helluva night," he wrote on his Instagram.
Meanwhile, Perry, 29, took a break from prepping for her upcoming Prismatic tour for a very special occasion -- assisting in the birth of a child in her living room. No word yet on who the mother or child is, but possibly it could be Perry's older sister, Angela Hudson, who was expecting.
"Finally you can add 'helps delivers babies in living rooms' to my resume! It's been a miracle of a day ... Auntie Katy aka Stylist Auntie," the "Dark Horse" singer tweeted Wednesday night.
The news that Perry and Mayer broke off their romance comes as a surprise to many after the on-and-off couple were fueling engagement rumors over the past few weeks.
"She was talking about him like everything was normal about two weeks back," a source told People, noting Perry and Mayer "seemed pretty happy."
Still, an industry source says they are indeed off again.
"They definitely went their separate ways," says the source.
In other Perry news, her music video for "Dark Horse" has been edited after a petition demanded that she remove a pendant with the word "Allah" written on it, E! News reports.
Shazad Iqbal, the U.K. resident who started the petition on Change.org, claimed that the usage of the word was "highly controversial."
Around the video's 1:15 mark, a man who is trying to court Perry is seen wearing the necklace as he is being burned.
"Such goes to show, that blasphemy is clearly conveyed in the video, since Katy Perry (who appears to be representing an opposition of God) engulfs the believe and the word God in flames," the petition read.
"This is the reason for lodging the petition, so that people from different walks of life, different religions and from different parts of the world, agree that the video promotes blasphemy, using the name of God in an irrelevant and distasteful manner would be considered inappropriate by any religion."
The petition garnered more than 65,000 signatures and Wednesday Iqbal announced that the image had been edited out.
"Guys I'm thrilled to let you all know the name of Allah has been removed from the 'Dark Horse' video," he said.
"We couldn't have done it without everyone's support, so I thank each and every one of you deeply."
Perry premiered the colorful video Feb. 20 and has been performing live renditions at both the 2014 Brit Awards and the Grammys.
Daphne Oz, a co-host on ABC's daytime program "The Chew," has given birth to a girl, The Associated Press reports.
A representative for the 28-year-old Oz says the baby was born in New York City on Wednesday, weighing 6 pounds, 13 ounces. Oz, the daughter of talk-show host Dr. Mehmet Oz, is married to John Jovanovic. It is the couple's first child.
Robin Roberts will be the keynote speaker at the 2014 MLB Beacon Awards Luncheon honoring Maya Angelou, the AP reports.
Major League Baseball announced Thursday that the "Good Morning America" anchor will speak at the May 30 event in Houston before the annual Civil Rights Game. The Houston Astros will host the Baltimore Orioles.
Motown Records founder Berry Gordy and football legend Jim Brown also will be honored.
Grammy-winning violinist Miri Ben-Ari and rising singer Aloe Blacc, known for the hits "Wake Me Up" and "The Man," will perform.
The MLB Beacon Awards Luncheon is among the events surrounding the Civil Rights Game that pay tribute to people who fight for equal rights.
The game will air on the MLB Network.


text:
Politics and Vision:
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Chapter 1
. . . To express various meanings on complex things with a scanty vocabulary of fastened senses.
This is a book about a special tradition of discourse--political philosophy. In it I shall attempt to discuss the general character of that tradition, the varying concerns of those who have helped to build it, and the vicissitudes that have marked the main lines of its development. At the same time, I shall also try to say something about the enterprise of political philosophy itself. This statement of intentions naturally induces the expectation that the discussion will begin with a definition of political philosophy. To attempt to satisfy this expectation, however, would be fruitless, not merely because a few sentences cannot accomplish what an entire book intends, but also because political philosophy is not an essence with an eternal nature. It is, instead, a complex activity which is best understood by analyzing the many ways that the acknowledged masters have practiced it. No single philosopher and no one historical age can be said to have defined it conclusively, any more than any one painter or school of painting has practiced all that we mean by painting.
If there is more to political philosophy than any great philosopher has expressed, there is some justification for believing that political philosophy constitutes an activity whose characteristics are most clearly revealed over time. Stated somewhat differently, political philosophy is to be understood in the same way that we go about understanding a varied and complex tradition.
Although it may not be possible to reduce political philosophy to a brief definition, it is possible to elucidate the characteristics that distinguish it from, as well as connect it with, other forms of inquiry. I shall discuss these considerations under the following headings: political philosophy's relations with philosophy, the characteristics of political philosophy as an activity, its subject-matter and language, the problem of perspectives or angle of vision, and the manner in which a tradition operates.
Ever since Plato first perceived that the inquiry into the nature of the good life of the individual was necessarily associated with a converging (and not parallel) inquiry into the nature of the good community, a close and continuing association has persisted between political philosophy and philosophy in general. Not only have most of the eminent philosophers contributed generously to the main stock of our political ideas, but they have given the political theorist many of his methods of analysis and criteria of judgment. Historically, the main difference between philosophy and political philosophy has been a matter of specialization rather than one of method or temper. By virtue of this alliance, political theorists accepted as their own the basic quest of the philosopher for systematic knowledge.
There is a still another fundamental sense in which political theory is linked to philosophy. Philosophy can be distinguished from other methods of eliciting truths, such as the mystic vision, the secret rite, truths of conscience or of private feelings. Philosophy claims to deal with truths publicly arrived at and publicly demonstrable.1 At the same time, one of the essential qualities of what is political, and one that has powerfully shaped the view of political theorists about their subject-matter, is its relationship to what is "public." Cicero had this in mind when he called the commonwealth a res publica, a "public thing" or the "property of a people." Of all the authoritative institutions in society, the political arrangement has been singled out as uniquely concerned with what is "common" to the whole community. Certain functions, such as national defense, internal order, the dispensing of justice, and economic regulation, have been declared the primary responsibility of political institutions, largely on the grounds that the interests and ends served by these functions were beneficial to all of the members of the community. The only institution that ever rivaled the authority of the political order was the mediaeval Church; yet this was made possible only because the Church, in assuming the characteristics of a political regime, had become something other than a religious body. The intimate connection existing between political institutions and public concerns has been taken over in the practices of philosophers; political philosophy has been taken to mean reflection on matters that concern the community as a whole.
It is fitting, therefore, that the inquiry into public matters should be conducted according to the canons of a public type of knowledge. To take the other alternative, to ally political knowledge with private modes of cognition, would be incongruous and self-defeating. The dramatic symbol of the right alliance was the demand of the Roman plebs that the status of the Twelve Tables of the law be transformed from a priestly mystery cognizable only by the few to a public form of knowledge accessible to all.
Turning next to the subject-matter of political philosophy, even the most cursory examination of the masterpieces of political literature discloses the continual reappearance of certain problem-topics. Many examples could be listed, but here we need mention only a few, such as the power relationships between ruler and ruled, the nature of authority, the problems posed by social conflict, the status of certain goals or purposes as objectives of political action, and the character of political knowledge. No political philosopher has been interested in all of these problems to the same degree, yet there has been a sufficiently widespread consensus about the identity of the problems to warrant the belief that a continuity of preoccupations has existed. Nor does the fact that philosophers have often violently disagreed about solutions cast doubt upon the existence of a common subject-matter. What is important is the continuity of preoccupations, not the unanimity of response.
Agreement about subject-matter presupposes in turn that those who are interested in extending knowledge of a particular field share in a common understanding about what is relevant to their subject and what ought to be excluded. In reference to political philosophy, this means that the philosopher should be clear about what is political and what is not. Aristotle, for example, argued in the opening pages of the Politics that the role of the statesman (politikos) ought not to be confused with that of the slave-owner or head of a household; the first was properly political, the latter were not. The point that Aristotle was making is still of vital importance, and the difficulties of preserving a clear notion of what is political form the basic theme of this book. Aristotle was alluding to the troubles that the political philosopher experiences in trying to isolate a subject-matter which, in reality, cannot be isolated. There are two main reasons for the difficulty. In the first place, a political institution, for example, is exposed to impinging influences of a non-political kind so that it becomes a perplexing problem of explanation as to where the political begins and the non-political leaves off. Secondly, there is the widespread tendency to utilize the same words and notions in describing non-political phenomena that we do in talking about political matters. In contrast to the restricted technical usages of mathematics and the natural sciences, phrases like "the authority of the father," "the authority of the church," or "the authority of Parliament" are evidence of the parallel usages prevailing in social and political discussions.
This poses one of the basic problems confronting the political philosopher when he tries to assert the distinctiveness of his subject-matter: what is political? what is it that distinguishes, say, political authority from other forms of authority, or membership in a political society from membership in other types of associations? In attempting an answer to these questions, centuries of philosophers have contributed to a conception of political philosophy as a continuing form of discourse concerning what is political and to a picture of the political philosopher as one who philosophizes about the political. How have they gone about doing this? How have they come to single out certain human actions and interactions, institutions and values, and to designate them "political"? What is the distinctive common feature of certain types of situations or activities, such as voting and legislating, that allows us to call them political? Or what conditions must a given action or situation satisfy in order to be called political?
In one sense, the process of defining the area of what is political has not been markedly different from that which has taken place in other fields of inquiry. No one would seriously contend, for example, that the fields of physics or chemistry have always existed in a self-evident, determinate form waiting only to be discovered by Galileo or Lavoisier. If we grant that a field of inquiry is, to an important degree, a product of definition, the political field can be viewed as an area whose boundaries have been marked out by centuries of political discussion. Just as other fields have changed their outlines, so the boundaries of what is political have been shifting ones, sometimes including more, sometimes less of human life and thought. The present age of totalitarianism produces the lament that "this is a political age. War, fascism, concentration camps, rubber truncheons, atomic bombs, etc., are what we think about." In other and more serene times the political is less ubiquitous. Aquinas could write that "man is not formed for political fellowship in his entirety, or in all that he has . . ."2 What I should like to insist upon, however, is that the field of politics is and has been, in a significant and radical sense, a created one. The designation of certain activities and arrangements as political, the characteristic way that we think about them, and the concepts we employ to communicate our observations and reactions--none of these are written into the nature of things but are the legacy accruing from the historical activity of political philosophers.
I do not mean to suggest by these remarks that the political philosopher has been at liberty to call "political" whatever he chose, or that, like the poet of Lord Kames, he has been busy "fabricating images without any foundation in reality." Nor do I mean to imply that the phenomena we designate political are, in a literal sense, "created" by the theorist. It is readily admitted that established practices and institutional arrangements have furnished political writers with their basic data, and I shall discuss this point shortly. It is true, too, that many of the subjects treated by a theorist owe their inclusion to the simple fact that in existing linguistic conventions such subjects are referred to as political. It is also true, on the other hand, that the ideas and categories that we use in political analysis are not of the same order as institutional "facts," nor are they "contained," so to speak, in the facts. They represent, instead, an added element, something created by the political theorist. Concepts like "power," "authority," "consent," and so forth are not real "things," although they are intended to point to some significant aspect about political things. Their function is to render political facts significant, either for purposes of analysis, criticism, or justification, or a combination of all three. When political concepts are put into the form of an assertion, such as, "It is not the rights and privileges which he enjoys which makes a man a citizen, but the mutual obligation between subject and sovereign," the validity of the statement is not to be settled by referring to the facts of political life. This would be a circular procedure, since the form of the statement would inevitably govern the interpretation of the facts. Stated somewhat differently, political theory is not so much interested in political practices, or how they operate, but rather in their meaning. Thus, in the statement just quoted from Bodin, the fact that by law or practice the member of society owed certain obligations to his sovereign, and vice versa, was not as important as that these duties could be understood in a way suggestive of something important about membership and, in the later phases of Bodin's argument, about sovereign authority and its conditions. In other words, the concept of membership permitted Bodin to draw out the implications and interconnections between certain practices or institutions that were not self-evident on the basis of the facts themselves. When such concepts become more or less stable in their meaning, they serve as pointers that "cue" us to look for certain things or to keep certain considerations in mind when we try to understand a political situation or make a judgment about it. In this way, the concepts and categories that make up our political understanding help us to draw connections between political phenomena; they impart some order to what might otherwise appear to be a hopeless chaos of activities; they mediate between us and the political world we seek to render intelligible; they create an area of determinate awareness and thus help to separate the relevant phenomena from the irrelevant.
The philosopher's attempt to give meaning to political phenomena is both assisted and delimited by the fact that societies possess some measure of order, some degree of arrangement which exists whether philosophers philosophize or not. In other words, the boundaries and substance of the subject-matter of political philosophy are determined to a large extent by the practices of existing societies. By practices is meant the institutionalized processes and settled procedures regularly used for handling public matters. What is important for political theory is that these institutionalized practices play a fundamental role in ordering and directing human behavior and in determining the character of events. The organizing role of institutions and customary practices creates a "nature" or field of phenomena that is roughly analogous to the nature confronted by the natural scientist. Perhaps I can clarify the meaning of "political nature" by describing something of the function of institutions.
The system of political institutions in a given society represents an arrangement of power and authority. At some point within the system, certain institutions are recognized as having the authority to make decisions applicable to the whole community. The exercise of this function naturally attracts the attention of groups and individuals who feel that their interests and purposes will be affected by the decisions taken. When this awareness takes the form of action directed towards political institutions, the activities become "political" and a part of political nature. The initiative may originate with the institutions themselves, or rather with the men who operate them. A public decision, such as one controlling the manufacturing of woolens or one prohibiting the propagation of certain doctrines, has the effect of connecting these activities to the political order and making them, at least in part, political phenomena. Although one could multiply the ways in which human activities become "political," the main point lies in the "relating" function performed by political institutions. Through the decisions taken and enforced by public officials, scattered activities are brought together, endowed with a new coherence, and their future course shaped according to "public" considerations. In this way political institutions give additional dimensions to political nature. They serve to define, so to speak, "political space" or the locus wherein the tensional forces of society are related, as in a courtroom, a legislature, an administrative hearing, or the convention of a political party. They serve also to define "political time" or the temporal period within which decision, resolution, or compromise occurs. Thus political arrangements provide a setting wherein the activities of individuals and groups are connected spatially and temporally. Consider, for example, the workings of a national system of social security. A tax official collects revenue from a corporation's earnings of the preceding year; the revenue, in turn, might be used to establish a social security or pension system that would benefit workers otherwise unconnected with the corporation. But the benefits in question may not actually be received by the worker until a quarter of a century later. Here, in the form of a revenue agent, is a political institution whose operation integrates a series of otherwise unconnected activities and imparts to them a significance extended over time.3
A contemporary philosopher has said that, by means of the concepts and symbols used in our thinking, we try to make a "temporal order of words" stand for "a relational order of things."4 If we apply this to political matters, we can say that political institutions provide the internal relationships between the "things" or phenomena of political nature and that political philosophy seeks to make meaningful assertions about these "things." In other words, institutions establish a previous coherence among political phenomena; hence, when the political philosopher reflects upon society, he is not confronted by a whirl of disconnected events or activities hurtling through a Democritean void but by phenomena already endowed with coherence and interrelationships.
At the same time, however, most of the great statements of political philosophy have been put forward in times of crisis; that is, when political phenomena are less effectively integrated by institutional forms. Institutional breakdown releases phenomena, so to speak, causing political behavior and events to take on something of a random quality, and destroying the customary meanings that had been part of the old political world. From the time that Greek thought first became fascinated by the instabilities that afflicted political life, Western political philosophers have been troubled by the wasteland that comes when the web of political relationships has dissolved and the ties of loyalty have snapped. Evidence of this preoccupation is to be found in the endless discussions of Greek and Roman writers concerning the rhythmic cycles which governmental forms were destined to follow; in the fine distinctions that Machiavelli drew between the political contingencies that man could master and those that left him helpless; in the seventeenth-century notion of a "state of nature" as a condition lacking the settled relationships and institutional forms characteristic of a functioning political system; and in the mighty effort of Hobbes to found a political science that would enable men, once and for all, to create an abiding commonwealth that could weather the vicissitudes of politics. Although the task of political philosophy is greatly complicated in a period of disintegration, the theories of Plato, Machiavelli, and Hobbes, for example, are evidence of a "challenge and response" relationship between the disorder of the actual world and the role of the political philosopher as the encompasser of disorder. The range of possibilities appears infinite, for now the political philosopher is not confined to criticism and interpretation; he must reconstruct a shattered world of meanings and their accompanying institutional expressions; he must, in short, fashion a political cosmos out of political chaos.
Although conditions of extreme political disorganization lend an added urgency to the quest for order, the political theorist writing for less heroic times has also ranked order as a fundamental problem of his subject-matter. No political theorist has ever advocated a disordered society, and no political theorist has ever proposed permanent revolution as a way of life. In its most elemental meaning, order has signified a condition of peace and security that makes civilized life possible. St. Augustine's overriding concern for man's transcendent destiny did not blind him to the fact that the preparations for salvation presupposed an earthly setting wherein the basic requirements of peace and security were being met by the political order, and it was this recognition that drew from him the admission that even a pagan polity was of some value. The preoccupation with order has left its mark on the vocabulary of the political theorist. Words like "peace," "stability," "harmony," and "balance" are encountered in the writings of every major theorist. Similarly, every political inquiry is, in some degree, directed at the factors conducive to, or militating against, the maintenance of order. The political philosopher has asked: what is the function of power and authority in sustaining the basis of social life? what does the preservation of order demand of the members in the way of a code of civility? what kind of knowledge is needed by both ruler and ruled alike if peace and stability are to be maintained? what are the sources of disorder, and how can they be controlled?
At the same time, and with important exceptions, most political writers have accepted in some form the Aristotelian dictum that men living a life of association desire not only life but the attainment of the good life; that is, that human beings have aspirations beyond the satisfaction of certain elemental, almost biologic needs, such as domestic peace, defense against external enemies, and the protection of life and possessions. Order, as Augustine defined it, contained a hierarchy of goods, rising from the protection of life to the promotion of the highest type of life. Throughout the history of political philosophy, there have been varying notions about what was to be included under order, and these have ranged from the Greek idea of individual self-fulfillment, through the Christian conception of the political order as a kind of praeparatio evangelica, to the modern liberal view that the political order has little to do with either psyches or souls. Irrespectively of the particular emphasis, the preoccupation with order has drawn the political theorist into considering the kinds of goals and purposes proper to a political society. This brings us to the second broad aspect of the subject-matter: what kinds of things are proper to a political society and why?
In our earlier discussion of political philosophy and its relation to philosophy, we touched very briefly on the notion that political philosophy dealt with public matters. Here I should like to point out that the words "public," "common," and "general" have a long tradition of usage which has made them synonyms for what is political. For this reason they serve as important clues to the subject-matter of political philosophy. From its very beginnings in Greece, the Western political tradition has looked upon the political order as a common order created to deal with those concerns in which all of the members of society have some interest. The concept of an order that was at once political and common was stated most eloquently in Plato's dialogue Protagoras. There it was related that the gods gave men the arts and talents necessary for their physical survival, yet when men formed cities, conflict and violence continually erupted and threatened to return mankind to a brutal and savage condition. Protagoras then described how the gods, fearful that men would destroy each other, decided to provide justice and virtue:
Zeus feared that the entire race would be exterminated, and so he sent Hermes to them, bearing reverence and justice to be the ordering principles of cities and the bonds of friendship and conciliation. Hermes asked Zeus how he should impart justice and reverence among men:--Should he distribute them as the arts are distributed; that is to say, to a favored few only [or] . . . to all? "To all," said Zeus; "I should like them all to have a share; for cities cannot exist, if a few share only in the virtues, as in the arts . . ."5
The "commonness" of the political order has been reflected both in the range of topics selected by political theorists as proper to their subject and in the way that these topics have been treated in political theory. It is seen in the basic belief of theorists that political rule is concerned with those general interests shared by all the members of the community; that political authority is distinguished from other forms of authority in that it speaks in the name of a society considered in its common quality; that membership in a political society is a token of a life of common involvements; and that the order that political authority presides over is one that should extend throughout the length and breadth of society as a whole. The broad problem that is posed by these and similar topics comes from the fact that the objects and activities that they treat are not isolated. The member of society may share some interests with his fellows, but there are other interests that may be peculiar to him or to some group to which he belongs; similarly, political authority is not only one of several authorities in society, but finds itself competing with them on certain matters.
That the political inheres in a situation of intersecting considerations suggests that the task of defining what is political is a continual one. This becomes more evident if we now turn to consider another aspect of the subject-matter; namely, political activity or politics. For the purposes of this study I shall take "politics" to include the following: (a) a form of activity centering around the quest for competitive advantage between groups, individuals, or societies; (b) a form of activity conditioned by the fact that it occurs within a situation of change and relative scarcity; (c) a form of activity in which the pursuit of advantage produces consequences of such a magnitude that they affect in a significant way the whole society or a substantial portion of it. Throughout most of the last twenty-five hundred years, Western communities have been compelled to undergo drastic readjustments to changes induced from both within and without. Politics as one reflection of this phenomenon has come to be an activity expressive of society's need for constant readjustment. The effects of change are not only to disturb the relative positions of social groups but also to modify the objectives for which individuals and groups are contending. Thus the territorial expansion of a society may open new sourcesof wealth and power which will disturb the competitive positions of various domestic groups; changes in the modes of economic production may result in the redistribution of wealth and influence in such a way as to provoke protest and agitation on the part of those whose status has been adversely affected by the new order; vast increases in population and the injection of new racial elements, as took place at Rome, may bring demands for the extension of political privileges and by that demand offer an inviting element for political manipulation; or a religious prophet may come proclaiming a new faith and calling for the extirpation of the old rites and beliefs which time and habit had woven into the existing fabric of epectations. Looked at in one way, political activities are a response to fundamental changes taking place in society. From another point of view, these activities provoke conflict because they represent intersecting lines of action whereby individuals and groups seek to stabilize a situation in a way congenial to their aspirations and needs. Thus politics is both a source of conflict and a mode of activity that seeks to resolve conflicts and promote readjustment.
We can summarize this discussion by saying that the subject-matter of political philosophy has consisted in large measure of the attempt to render politics compatible with the requirements of order. The history of political philosophy has been a dialogue on this theme; sometimes the vision of the philosopher has been of an order purged of politics, and he has produced a political philosophy from which politics, and a good deal of what has been meant by political, have been expunged; other times, he has permitted such a wide scope to politics that the case for order appears to have been neglected.
One important characteristic of a body of knowledge is that it is conveyed through a rather specialized language, by which we mean that words are used in certain special senses and that certain concepts and categories are treated as fundamental to an understanding of the subject. This aspect of a body of knowledge is its language or vocabulary. To a large extent, any specialized language represents an artificial creation because it is self-consciously constructed to express meanings and definitions as precisely as possible. For example, mathematicians have developed a highly complex system of signs and symbols, as well as a recognized set of conventions governing their manipulation; physicists, too, employ a number of special definitions to facilitate explanation and prediction. The language of the political theorist has its own peculiarities. Some of these have been pointed out by critics who have complained of the vagueness of traditional political concepts as contrasted with the precision characteristic of scientific discourse, or they have drawn equally unfavorable parallels between the low predictive quality of political theories and the great success of scientific theories in this respect.
Without wishing to add one more contribution to the dreary controversy over whether political science is, or can be, a true science, some misconceptions may be avoided by stating briefly what political theorists have tried to express through their specialized vocabulary. We might begin by quoting a few characteristic statements selected from some political philosophers:
Security for man is impossible unless it be conjoined with power. (Machiavelli)
Admittedly the language and concepts contained in the above statements are so vague as to defy the rigorous testing prescribed by scientific experiments. In the strict sense, concepts like "the state of nature" or "civil society" are not even subject to observation. Yet it would be wrong to conclude that these and other concepts of political theory are deliberately employed to avoid describing the world of political experience. The sentence quoted from Machiavelli alludes to the fact that life and possessions tend to become insecure when the governors of society lack the power to enforce law and order. "Security," on the other hand, is a kind of shorthand expression for the fact that most men prefer a condition of assured expectations for their lives and property. Taken as a whole, the sentence from Machiavelli states a generalization consisting of two key concepts, power and security, both of which "contain," so to speak, a common-sense understanding of their practical implications. Thus security implies certain activities; namely, that the members of the society can use and enjoy their possessions with the full knowledge that these will not be taken away forcibly. Similarly, the exercise of effective power will be accompanied by certain familiar actions, such as declaring laws, punishments, and so forth. What is not so apparent to common sense, however, is the connection between power and security, and it is this the political theorist seeks to establish. The use of concepts and a special language enable him to bring together a variety of common experiences and practices, such as those connected with the enjoyment of security and the exercise of power, and to show their interconnections.
Although these generalizations may state important things, they do not permit exact predictions in the way that a law of physics will. The concepts are far too general for this, and the evidence would be too flimsy to support any of the assertions quoted earlier. This is not to say that it is impossible to formulate rigorous propositions concerning politics which could be subjected to empirical testing. It is only suggested that these are not the sort of statements that have traditionally occupied the attention of political theorists. Therefore, instead of assigning low marks to the theorists for a badly executed enterprise which they never entertained, it would be more useful to inquire whether the political theorist was attempting something similar to prediction but less rigorous. Instead of predictions, I would suggest first that theorists have been intent on posting warnings. Machiavelli cautions that in the absence of an effective ruling authority there will be insecurity; Halifax, that an authority that places excessive reliance on fear will eventually provoke resistance. Although each of these admonitions bears some similarity to a prediction, it differs in two important respects. In the first place, a warning implies an unpleasant or undesirable consequence, while a scientific prediction is neutral. Secondly, a warning is usually made by a person who feels some involvement with the party or person being warned; a warning, in short, tokens a commitment that is lacking in predictions. In keeping with this function of posting warnings, the language of political theory contains many concepts designed to express warning signals: disorder, revolution, conflict, and instability are some of them.
Political theory, however, has involved more than the prognostication of disaster. It deals also in possibilities; it tries to state the necessary or sufficient conditions for attaining ends which, for one reason or another, are deemed good or desirable. Thus Machiavelli's statement contained both a warning and a possibility: power was the condition of achieving security, but ineffective power would open the way for insecurity.
One obvious objection to the line of argument above is that it places the political theorist in a position of being able to advance propositions and to employ concepts that cannot be adjudged true or false by a rigorous empirical standard. This objection is readily admitted insofar as it pertains to a large number of the statements and concepts contained in most political theories. It is not, however, a conclusive objection, because it assumes that an empirical test affords the only method for determining whether or not a statement is meaningful. Rather than dwell on the scientific shortcomings of political theories, it might be more fruitful to consider political theory as belonging to a different form of discourse. Following this suggestion we can adopt for our purposes a proposal advanced by Carnap.6 He has suggested the term "explication" to cover certain expressions used both in everyday speech and scientific discussion. Explication employs meanings that are less precise than those ideally suited for rigorous discussion, yet they are handy and, when redefined and rendered more precise, can perform extremely useful service in a theory. Examples of such words would be "law," "cause," and "truth." Inasmuch as these words are advanced as proposals, they cannot be qualified as true or false. The language of political theory abounds with concepts that are used to explicate certain problems. Frequently they are words that are similar to those in ordinary usage, but they have been redefined and touched up to make them more serviceable. The word that the theorist uses may be guided by common usage, but it is not necessarily restricted by the common meaning. For example, Aristotle's definition of a good citizen as one who had both the knowledge and the capacity for ruling and being ruled contained much that was familiar to Athenians. At the same time, the issues that Aristotle was seeking to clarify required that he refashion or reconstruct the accepted meanings. This same procedure has been followed in the formation of other key concepts in the language of political theory; concepts like "authority," "obligation," and "justice" retain some contact with common meanings and experience, yet they have been refashioned to meet the requirements of systematic discourse.
This point has been emphasized at some length in order to bring out the connections between the concepts of political theory and political experience. This connection suggests that a political theory is not an arbitrary construction, because its concepts are linked at several points with experience. A systematic theory, such as the one formulated by Hobbes, consists of a network of interrelated and (ideally) consistent concepts; none of the concepts is identical with experience, yet none are wholly severed from it. Perhaps the whole procedure may be better understood if a genetic explanation is introduced. Political theory forms no exception to the general principle that most specialized vocabularies in the early stages of their development rely on the vocabulary of everyday language to express their meanings. The concepts of early Greek political thought, for example, could be understood in reference to ordinary usage and hardly went beyond. With the systematization of political thinking, as exemplified by Plato and Aristotle, the language of political theory became more specialized and abstract. The language of everyday conversation was modified and redefined so that the theorist might state his ideas with a precision, consistency, and scope that ordinary usage would not allow. Yet a connecting thread persisted between the polished concept and the old usages. It has often been pointed out that the concept of justice (diké) underwent a long evolution before it became a political concept. In Homeric times, it had carried several meanings, such as to "show," "point out," or to indicate "the way things normally happen." In Hesiod's Works and Days, it is appropriated for political use. Hesiod warned against the prince who rendered "crooked" diké, and he reminded men that they were different from the animals who were ignorant of the rules of diké.7 In the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, the concept of justice was formulated in more abstract fashion and could hardly be said to be identical with common meanings. Yet it is worth noting that in Plato's Republic the discussion of justice was initiated by having several speakers advance common notions of justice. Although some of these were discarded, others were treated as insufficient, which is to say that they were incorporated in modified form into the more comprehensive and abstract definition of justice which we associate with the dialogue. In this way, Plato constructed a concept of justice that was linked at many points with a tradition of common usage.
Although the vocabulary of the political theorist carries the traces of everyday language and experience, it is largely the product of the theorist's creative efforts. The concepts that constitute his vocabulary are shaped to fit the over-all structure of meanings of his theory. This structure of meanings contains not only political concepts, such as law, authority, and order, but also a subtle blend of philosophical and political ideas, a concealed or latent metaphysic. Every political theory that has aimed at a measure of comprehensiveness has adopted some implicit or explicit propositions about "time," "space," "reality," or "energy." Although most of these are the traditional categories of metaphysicians, the political theorist does not state his propositions or formulate his concepts in the same manner as the metaphysician. The concern of the theorist has been with space and time as categories referring not to the world of natural phenomena, but to the world of political phenomena; that is, to the world of political nature. If he cared to be precise and explicit in these matters, he would write of "political" space, "political" time, and so forth. Admittedly, few if any writers have employed this form of terminology. Rather, the political theorist has used synonyms; instead of political space he may have written about the city, the state, or the nation; instead of time, he may have referred to history or tradition; instead of energy, he may have spoken about power. The complex of these categories we can call a political metaphysic.8
The metaphysical categories resident in political theory can be illustrated by the notion of political space. One might begin by pointing out how this had its origin in the ancient world in the evolution of national consciousness. The Hebraic idea of a separate people, the Greek distinction between Hellene and barbarian, the Roman pride in Romanitas, the mediaeval notion of Christendom, all contributed to sharpen the sense of distinctive identity which then became associated with a determinate geographic area and a particular culture.
But the concept of political space turned on more than a distinction between the "inside" of a specific and differentiated context of actions and events and an "outside" that was largely unknown and undifferentiated. It involved also the crucial question of the arrangements for settling the problems arising out of the fact that a large number of human beings, possessing a common cultural identity, occupied the same determinate area. If for the moment we were to suspend our sophisticated notions of a political society, with its impressive hierarchies of power, its rationalized institutional arrangements, and its established grooves through which behavior smoothly runs, and think of these as constituting a determinate area, a "political space," where the plans, ambitions, and actions of individuals and groups incessantly jar against each other--colliding, blocking, coalescing, separating--we could better appreciate the ingenious role of these arrangements in reducing frictions. By a variety of means, a society seeks to structure its space: by systems of rights and duties, class and social distinctions, legal and extra-legal restraints and inhibitions, favors and punishments, permissions and tabus. These arrangements serve to mark out paths along which human motions can proceed harmlessly or beneficially. We can find this sense of structured space reflected in most political theories. It was strikingly illustrated by Hobbes:
For whatsoever is so tyed, or environed, as it cannot move, but within a certain space, which space is determined by the opposition of some externall body, we say it hath not liberty to go further . . . The Liberty of a Subject lyeth therefore only in those things, which in regulating their actions, the Soveraign hath praetermitted: such is the Liberty to buy, and sell, and otherwise contract with one another . . .9
In a similar vein Locke defended the utility of legal restraints: "that ill deserves the name of confinement which hedges us in only from bogs and precipices."10
As we have inferred above, political space becomes a problem when human energies cannot be controlled by existing arrangements. During the Reformation and its aftermath, it was the vitalities of religion that threatened the structural principles fashioned by mediaeval political societies. In the eighteenth century, it was the ambitions of the entrepreneur that were cramped by the elaborate network of mercantilism. "We have no need of favour--we require only a secure and open path."11 The theories of the Physiocrats, Adam Smith, and Bentham responded by drawing new avenues and redefining the spatial dimension. If one wished to continue this analysis, it could be shown how Malthus called into question the spatial theory of the liberal economists by warning of the rising pressures stemming from the growth in population. It might also be possible to interpret the great revolutionary movements of the nineteenth century, such as Marxism, as articulate challenges to, as well as a demand for the reorganization of, the space-structure created by bourgeois industrial society. Or a novel, like Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus, might be taken as representative of the viewpoint of the generation at the turn of the last century and its frustrating sense of suffocation at the restraints imposed by national and international arrangements:
A new break-through seemed due . . . We were bursting with the consciousness that this was Germany's century . . . it was our turn to put our stamp on the world and be its leader; . . . that now, at the end of the bourgeois epoch begun some hundred and twenty years before, the world was to renew itself in our sign . . .12
Our discussion of political space provides a clue to another aspect of political philosophy. The varied conceptions of space indicate that each theorist has viewed the problem from a different perspective, a particular angle of vision. This suggests that political philosophy constitutes a form of "seeing" political phenomena and that the way in which the phenomena will be visualized depends in large measure on where the viewer "stands." There are two distinct but related senses of "vision" that I wish to discuss; both of them have played an important part in political theory. Vision is commonly used to mean an act of perception. Thus we say that we see the speaker addressing a political rally. In this sense, "vision" is a descriptive report about an object or an event. But "vision" is also used in another sense, as when one talks about an aesthetic vision or a religious vision. In this second meaning, it is the imaginative, not the descriptive, element that is uppermost.
Ever since the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this first type of "objective" vision, devoted to dispassionate reportage, has been commonly associated with scientific observation. It is rather widely acknowledged now that this conception of science errs by underestimating the role that imagination plays in the construction of scientific theories. Nevertheless, there remains a persistent belief that the scientist is akin to a highly skilled reporter in that he strives to provide a verbatim report of "reality." This notion has been repeatedly translated into a criticism of political theorists. Spinoza, for example, accused political theorists of being satirists. They assume, he wrote, that "theory is supposed to be at variance with practice . . . They conceive of men, not as they are, but as they themselves would like them to be." Although Spinoza may have overlooked the point that many political theorists have seriously tried to look at political facts as they "really" are, he was quite right in saying that the picture of society given by most political theorists is not a "real" or literal one. But the question is, are these pictures in the nature of satires? Why is it that most political writers, even avowedly scientific ones like Comte, have felt constrained to envision a right pattern for the political order? What did they hope to gain in the way of theoretical insight by adding an imaginative dimension to their representation? What, in short, did they conceive the function of political theory to be?
We can easily dispose of the possibility that political theorists were unaware that they were injecting imagination or fancy into their theories. There are too many testimonials to their self-awareness on this score.13 Rather, they believed that fancy, exaggeration, even extravagance, sometimes permit us to see things that are not otherwise apparent. The imaginative element has played a role in political philosophy similar to that Coleridge assigned to imagination in poetry, an "esemplastic" power that "forms all into one graceful intelligent whole."14 When Hobbes, for example, depicted a multitude of men self-consciously agreeing to form a political society, he knew quite well that such an act had never "really" occurred. But by means of this fanciful picture, he hoped to assist his readers in seeing some of the basic presuppositions on which a political order rests. Hobbes was aware, as most political philosophers have been, that fanciful statements are not of the same status as propositions that seek to prove or disprove. Fancy neither proves nor disproves; it seeks, instead, to illuminate, to help us become wiser about political things.
At the same time, most political thinkers have believed imagination to be a necessary element in theorizing because they have recognized that, in order to render political phenomena intellectually manageable, they must be presented in what we can call "a corrected fullness." Theorists have given us pictures of political life in miniature, pictures in which what is extraneous to the theorist's purpose has been deleted. The necessity for doing this lies in the fact that political theorists, like the rest of mankind, are prevented from "seeing" all political things at first hand. The impossibility of direct observation compels the theorist to epitomize a society by abstracting certain phenomena and providing interconnections where none can be seen. Imagination is the theorist's means for understanding a world he can never "know" in an intimate way.
If the imaginative element in political thought were merely a methodological convenience which enabled the theorist to handle his materials more effectively, it would hardly warrant the extended attention we have given it. Imagination has involved far more than the construction of models. It has been the medium for expressing the fundamental values of the theorist; it has been the means by which the political theorist has sought to transcend history. The imaginative vision to which I am referring here was displayed at its artistic best by Plato. In his picture of the political community, guided by the divine art of the statesman, reaching out towards the idea of the Good, Plato exhibited a form of vision essentially architectonic. An architectonic vision is one wherein the political imagination attempts to mould the totality of political phenomena to accord with some vision of the Good that lies outside the political order. The impulse towards the total ordering of political phenomena has taken many forms in the course of Western political thought. In the case of Plato, the architectonic impulse assumed an essentially aesthetic cast: ". . . the true lawgiver, like an archer, aims only at that on which some eternal beauty is always attending . . ."15 Something of the same quality reappeared in the finely chiseled system of Aquinas where the political order was allotted a precise niche in the soaring cathedral that was all of creation. At other times, the ordering vision has been an aggressively religious one, as occurred in seventeenth-century England when the millenarian sects dreamed of a resplendent New Jerusalem to replace the hopelessly corrupt order then existing. Or, again, the vision may take its origin in a view of history like that of Hegel, where the phenomena of politics acquire a temporal depth, an historical dimension, as they are swept up into an overriding purpose that shapes them towards an ultimate end. In more recent times, fittingly enough, the outside vision has frequently been colored by economic considerations. Under this view, political phenomena are to be harnessed to the demands of economic productivity, and the political order becomes the instrument of technological advance:
. . . The sole aim of our thoughts and our exertions must be the kind of organization most favorable to industry . . . The kind of organization favorable to industry consists in a government in which the political power has no more force or activity than is necessary to see that useful work is not hindered.16
Whatever the form manifested by the architectonic impulse, its result has been to lend differing dimensions to the perspectives of political philosophy: dimensions of aesthetic beauty, religious truth, historical time, scientific exactitude, and economic advance. All of these dimensions possess a futurist quality, a projection of the political order into a time that is yet to be. This has been true not only of political theories that have been avowedly reformist or even revolutionary, but of conservative theories as well. The conservatism of Burke, for example, consisted in the attempt to project a continuous past into the future, and even a confessed reactionary, like de Maistre, sought to recapture a "lost past" in the hope that it could be restored in the future.
For most theorists, the imaginative reordering of political life that takes place in theorizing is not confined to helping us to understand politics. Contrary to what Spinoza argued, most political thinkers have believed that precisely because political philosophy was "political," it was committed to lessening the gap between the possibilities grasped through political imagination and the actualities of political existence. Plato recognized that political action was highly purposive in character, that it was largely conscious and deliberate; to "take counsel" before acting was seen to be a distinguishing requirement of political activity, as characteristic of Homeric kings as of Athenian statesmen. But to act intelligently and nobly demanded a perspective wider than the immediate situation for which the action was intended; intelligence and nobility were not ad hoc qualities, but aspects of a more comprehensive vision of things. This more comprehensive vision was provided by thinking about the political society in its corrected fullness, not as it is but as it might be. Precisely because political theory pictured society in an exaggerated, "unreal" way, it was a necessary complement to action. Precisely because action involved intervention into existing affairs, it sorely needed a perspective of tantalizing possibilities.
This transcending form of vision has not been shared by the scientist until modern times.17 When the early scientific theorists described with poetic overtones the harmony of the spheres, their vision lacked the essential element present in political philosophy: the ideal of an order subject to human control and one that could be transfigured through a combination of thought and action. (continues)
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T-Mobile G2 now only $49.99 on contract
Initially available at T-Mobile USA for $199.99 on contract, the HTC-made G2 Android smartphone is now $150 cheaper, so you can get it for only $49.99 (new 2-yr contract required, of course).
The offer seems to be available only online, at T-Mobile's official website.
Known as HTC Desire Z outside the US, the G2 features a sliding QWERTY keyboard, WVGA multi-touch display, HSPA+, Wi-Fi, GPS, 5MP autofocus camera, HD video recording, 4GB on-board memory, and an 800MHz processor.
The G2 / Desire Z runs Android Froyo 2.2 at the moment, but it will most probably be updated to Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Here's hoping the update will be rolled-out soon.
Via TmoNews


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Carnitta was sitting on the floor. There was a curtain going down the middle of the floor with the boys on the other side. Each side had all the varsity and reserve teams, usually with the reserve players sitting and waiting.
"It was one of those things where I could sit around and complain about how bad things are and be part of the problem, or I could get involved and try to do something," Gregory said.
So he became a "girls" coach and started the Lady Legit AAU basketball team in 1992 as a way to give some girls more chances to play. Though Gregory had coached some YMCA basketball, it was mostly to keep the boys on his PAL football team around and active during the offseason.
In one of Lady Legit's first games, the team played the defending state champions and future Purdue star Katie Douglas and lost something like 79-19.
Gregory, and all of his girls, learned quickly, and Lady Legit broke through with their first state title in 1994. Now they've won more than 10, though Gregory can't say for sure how many. He's probably the most successful coach in Fort Wayne you've never heard of.
What he cares about are the dozens of girls he has seen earn college scholarships.
"Through his involvement in Lady Legit, he has given numerous young ladies at many schools the opportunity to participate and improve their skills to the point where many have received college scholarships to continue their education while playing basketball," Bishop Dwenger coach Dave Scudder said. "Many of these ladies would not have had this opportunity without Art's help."
Some of those players include Candy Crawford, Liza Clemons, Amy Waugh, Vamenia Reese, Lacia Gorman, Kia Jones and a few boys, too. Gregory always promoted academics, even hosting SAT classes to help his players prepare.
"As good of a coach as he is, he is an even better person," said Waugh, now the head coach at Xavier University. "He gets to know everyone and relates well and understands what makes each kid tick.
"He is an incredible man and one that I am happy is still in my life. He pushed me at a young age to be the player I was and has continued to support me as I moved into the coaching ranks. I could never say a bad word about Coach G and respect everything he's done for me and the youth of Fort Wayne."
Former Snider coach Ryan Gould, who resigned last year to become the tennis coach at Trine University, said he never used Gregory's first name during seven years sitting on the same bench. It was always Coach Gregory.
"Coach Gregory expects the best from all of the girls he coaches and he provides a great example through his work ethic," Gould said. "He is famous for telling the girls 'not every day is going to be a great day' and not to allow that to be an excuse for giving a poor effort. Coach Gregory has provided the example of being someone who refuses to be outworked or underprepared."
Now Gregory, 61, is not perfect, as anyone who has sat beside him at a game knows. He's not a yeller, but he moves around the bench as if he's actually on the floor, sometimes even boxing out his fellow assistants.
"I'm the one who wills the team to win," he says with a smile.
Yeah, but it's with arms swinging, legs kicking and sometimes a few stomps. He's even broken a finger slamming his hand down on a bench. Because he's an assistant coach, he's not allowed to get up from the bench, but the Panthers make sure there are open seats on either side of him.
At various times during his career, when he was with Lady Legit, Gregory even unknowingly wandered down to the opposing team's bench, sat back down on other coaches and even broken the nose of one poor assistant with an arm swing.
"It's just me trying to adjust to everything they are doing," Gregory said. "The funny thing is they can all do my mannerisms on the bench."
He may be the most-imitated coach around, too.
The really funny thing is that Gregory is the coach who handles most of the scouting reports. He believes better preparation means you don't have to do much coaching during the game. He spends both ways of his 35-mile commute to work in Paulding, Ohio, thinking, preparing and analyzing basketball.
So why can't he sit still? No one knows. They just know to stay out of the way.
Soon that will change because Gregory is retiring at the end of the season. He gave up control of Lady Legit a few years ago to Juan Gorman and has been an assistant with Snider's girls for the past seven years.
"Retiring" is kind of a misnomer because he's always been a volunteer coach. Still, Chenitta expects their budget to improve next year.
By the time Lady Legit was going full strength, there were four teams involved, and not every kid could afford everything. Somehow the money was provided, countless meals were paid for and kids were picked up and dropped off before and after practices. He drove on the road trips, kids were taken on college visits and some needed highlight videos were made.
"From my wife, basketball's been the other woman," Gregory said. "Some guys do golf, some guys go bowling, some guys go to the bar, but I do basketball. It's what takes me away from home. With her, it's been a sore spot over the years because of the time commitment and the financial commitment."
Asked how much money he's received from being a basketball coach, Gregory quickly says, "Zero."
And it's been worth every penny.


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Designer Q&A: L'Agent
| Lingerie
When you think of the Cruz sisters, what comes to mind? If it's the phrase "mind blowingly gorgeous," then you're totally on the same page as us. Penelope + Monica Cruz are the ultimate girls' girls. (They're the ultimate guys' girls, as well.) They're beautiful, smart, and wicked talented. It's only natural then, that when they teamed up with Agent Provocateur's Creative Director Sarah Shotton to create a lingerie line, the resulting L'Agent was an absolute bombshell. The line is everything lingerie should be times a million. It's got a sense of classic femininity, a bit of a modern twist, and juuuust the right amount of sex appeal (it is by Agent Provocateur, after all). We were lucky enough to chat inspiration, muses and what the future holds with the lovely ladies behind the line – and just in time for Valentine's Day. Ladies (and gentlemen), take note.
Names: Penelope Cruz and Monica Cruz, co-designers alongside Agent Provocateur's Creative Director, Sarah Shotton
Provenance: The Cruz sisters are Spanish, Penelope is best known for her acting roles, and Monica is a dancer/model.
How did the initial conversation to work with Agent Provocateur begin?
Monica: I starred in my first campaign for Agent Provocateur in 2012, and the possibility of designing a collection for them with my sister arose.
Penelope: We were so happy to be given the chance to work with this amazing team and to create something that is very much our own, but also has the Agent Provocateur DNA running through it in every piece.
Was it difficult to collaborate on the designs with your sister, or did you have similar styles?
Penelope: Monica and I have worked together on a number of projects and love working together. We grew up dreaming about these things; it was a game when we were little. To be able to make it a reality is just great and we couldn't be happier with what we have achieved with Sarah so far.
Describe the L'Agent ethos.
Penelope: We want women to feel empowered and sexy, but also comfortable. It is really important to us that our collection can be worn by woman of different shapes, sizes, and ages; so as you can see the collection is quite diverse.
Let's talk muses. Are there any women who have inspired the brand?
Monica: I've been inspired by many very different things, from books, to women that I know or cities that I've visited, but I'm especially inspired by vintage pieces.
What can we see in the future of this five-year partnership?
Penelope: We hope to expand the collection, in the future adding swimwear and perhaps more sleepwear. This is going to be a long-term relationship, so there will be lots more to come.
Do you play favorites within the collection? Which piece or pieces are you personally most excited about (besides your namesake pieces)?
Penelope: Vanesa, our debut bridal set, is one of my favorite pieces. The design is very classic; made from white lace, it has a typical bridal feel to it, but with a youthful, L'Agent edge.
Silk or lace?
Monica: Lace!
We all have running wish list of projects we just can't seem to find the time for, are there any concepts or ideas you have yet to explore with the line that you would like to in the future?
Penelope: I would also like to do more dresses, maybe 2 or 3 per collection. I like the idea of designing something that can be worn at home, but then you can throw an old rock 'n' roll t-shirt over the top and wear it out. L'Agent is primarily a lingerie brand and will remain that way, but we are keen to introduce more elements to it, so as for the future, we will see.
Valentine's Day is…..
Monica: The perfect excuse to treat yourself, or someone else.


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Drive With Pride Driving School
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Veja que interessante este trecho do Hit and Run, da ótima Reason:
Voters have always considered physical attributes when selecting a chief executive. For example, tall has always been in. An instructive Wikipedia article on presidential stature reveals that the average American male was slightly over five feet nine inches in 2005, but only 14 of our 43 presidents have been under five feet 10 inches while 18 have been 6 feet tall or more. We've always wanted to look up to our leaders, beginning with the father of our country, 6-foot-tall George Washington, the seventh-tallest president in history. Honest Abe Lincoln was an impressive six feet four inches, tied for tallest with overbearing Texan Lyndon Baines Johnson.
É ou não divertido estudar? Claro que é.


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NetWellness is a global, community service providing quality, unbiased health information from our partner university faculty. NetWellness is commercial-free and does not accept advertising.
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Obesity and Weight Management
VL calorie diet and gallstones
Why do very low calorie diets cause gallstones to occur? What is happening in the body?
Obesity is a risk factor for gallstones, particularly in women. Weightloss-dieting increases the risk of developing gallstones. Rapid weight loss may cause silent gallstones to become symptomatic as dieting may cause a shift in the balance of bile salts and cholesterol (2 important factors in developing gallstones)in the gallbladder.
A diet too low in fat or dieting in a manner that produces long periods without eating may decrease gallbladder contractions, preventing the gallbladder from emptying out enough bile leading to gallstones.
For more information go to the following reference:
Benita Jackson, MD, MPH, FACPM
Assistant Professor, Epidemiology
College of Public Health
The Ohio State University


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Baltimore (Oct. 7)
More than $10,000,000 a year is being spent on Jewish education in the United States, it was reported here at a two-day conference on post-war planning arranged by the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, and attended by professional and lay leaders from fifteen of the largest organized Jewish communities in this country and Canada.
The report was made by Israel S. Chipkin, executive director of the American Association for Jewish Education. He predicted that during the next five years there will be an increase in the number of all-day Jewish private and "parochial" schools where the pupil will receive an integrated program of Jewish and general subjects.
The conference, at which various other problems were discussed, was also addressed by Dr. E. M. Bluestone, director of Montefiore Hospital for Chronic Diseases in New York; H.L. Lurie, exedutive director of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds; I. Edwin Goldwaseer, chairman of the distributing committee of the New York Federation; Irwin Rosen, assistant to the executive vice chairman of the New York Federation; Elkan Voorsanger, executive director of the Milwaukee Jewish Welfare Funds; Isidore Sobeloff, executive director of the Detroit Jewish Welfare Federation; Dr. Maurice Hexter, executive vice chairman, New York Federation, and Harry Greenstein, executive director, Baltimore Associated Jewish Charities.
The communities represented at the CJFWF conference were Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Hartford, Kansas City, Miami, Milwaukee, New Haven, Newark, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Toronto.


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Pioneer Elite PRO-940HD Plasma Display Page 2
A Color Management selection offers control over the three primary and three secondary colors. While these adjustments did move the color points, they did not produce any net improvement in the measured results. Instead, they often improved one coordinate while degrading the other. And if you fiddle with them without the proper test tools, the most likely result will a worse picture than you'll get by leaving them at their factory (zero) settings. That's where I left them for my critical viewing.
There are five aspect ratio selections. Three are for the usual 4:3, 16:9 (Full), and letterbox (Zoom) requirements. There is also a Wide option (one of those stretch modes designed to fill the screen with 4:3 material), and Cinema (which provides an unusual, 14:9 result). There are also three options for PC only: Dot-by-Dot, Full1, and Full2.
The menus also provide selections for various types of digital video input signals, either Digital RGB (Color-1) or Digital Component (Color-1 for 4:2:2, Color-2 for 4:4:4). A full explanation of these options might well take more space than this entire review. Fortunately, all you really need to know is to leave this control at its Auto setting. If you ever get a truly bizarre color palette from a new source (or no picture at all), one of the other settings should get you back to normal—for that source.
A feature called Home Media Gallery (not tested) lets you connect the PRO-940HD, via Ethernet, to a home network containing movie, music, or photo files. With appropriate software you can then navigate through the contents of your server via the set's Home Media Gallery GUI and select what you want to hear and/or view. The owner's manual (downloadable from Pioneer's website) devotes 16 pages to this feature.
The on-board audio system, which will also accept audio from the HDMI inputs, is decent enough for casual listening. It provides some of the usual enhancements, but is certainly no substitute for a good outboard surround sound system. The set does have a TosLink (optical) digital audio output for routing the sound from the onboard tuner to an external AV receiver or preamp-processor.
The Real Deal
I've never felt shortchanged by a Pioneer plasma, and the Elite Pro-940HD continues that winning streak. We don't often review flat panel displays this small, but the set performed superbly. Its only significant limitation was its black level, but even that was lower than we have measured on most digital flat panel sets. Its blacks were even marginally darker than the blacks on the Pioneer Elite PRO-1130HD I reviewed last year.
The Pioneer's scaling and deinterlacing were fair. Not exceptional, but worthy of a passing grade in most respects. While it locked onto the racetrack bleacher test for 3/2 pulldown on the Silicon Optix HQV Benchmark test DVD, it took longer to do so than usual. It failed the 3/2 pulldown test on the Faroudja test DVD. It also flickered badly on the HQV Benchmark's 2/2 video cadence test, and failed the Faroudja disc's video over film test as well. But it passed all the other tests. I saw some subtle deinterlacing artifacts on the infamous opening title sequence of Star Trek Insurrection, but such artifacts were rare on most program material.
When I tried the PureCinema ADV setting (as discussed above, 72fps display with no 3/2 pulldown) I had mixed results. At this past CES, Meridian Audio was demonstrating the effect of their prototype 24fps Faroudja processor using a variety of program material into Pioneer plasmas (not the PRO-940HD). The most memorable was chapter seven from Star Trek Insurrection. At about 34 minutes into the film there's a scene in which the camera rotates around three characters in the foreground, while columns in the set rotate behind them. Using this scene on the Pioneer, in ADV, the motion of the main characters was smoother than in Standard mode, but just barely. The columns behind the main characters, however, were subtly more blurred in ADV, particularly at their trailing edges. On that scene, at least, the result was a tossup between the 24fps-to-72fps ADV mode and the 3/2 pulldown, 60fps Standard setting. (The Meridian demo produced quite different results, but their processor does more than just triple the 24fps frame rate to 72fps; it interpolates the added frames. It also is expected to cost close to $30,000, so I don't imagine we'll see too many of them being used on 42-inch, $3,300 plasmas!).
I preferred the Gamma 2 setting. The Low setting of the Dynamic Contrast also added a little welcome pop to the image. In the manual, Pioneer calls the Mid setting of Dynamic Contrast the standard setting, but I found the Low setting more natural.
It's no faint praise to say that the Pioneer PRO-940HD, with or without ADV, produced a very good picture. My recent experiences with 1080p displays makes it difficult for me to use the word "outstanding" in referring to a 1024x768 model, though a year ago I would have gladly used that term for the Pioneer.
But the Pioneer will outperform any of the 1080p LCD displays I've reviewed recently in one important respect: the richness of its blacks. While they still aren't down to the level of a good CRT, they almost never looked grayed or washed out. It's a curious characteristic of plasmas that their black level looks mediocre when they are displaying a full black image (a fadeout between scenes or a "video black" test pattern); but good sets like the PRO-940HD don't look nearly so gray on normal program material, even on relatively dark scenes. And while once or twice I thought I spotted a bit of false contouring in darker images, it passed quickly and was never distracting.
The colors on the Pioneer were also natural looking, as long as you stick to the Color Space 2 setting, which also measured best.
Many of my favorite DVDs and high-definition discs looked as impressive on the PRO-940HD as they do on much larger, more expensive projection systems, apart from the impact that comes with a larger screen. You will see more detail on a larger 1080p display, but that has as much to do with the characteristics of the eye as with the display itself.
You really appreciate higher resolution as the image gets substantially larger, but at 42-inches, well, I'll have to wait until we see 1080p plasmas of this size (and they're coming) before criticizing the lower resolution of the Pioneer. At eight feet or so from the screen, there was no sense that anything was left out—even on standard definition DVDs. The Superbit version of The Fifth Element was loaded with detail, and my long-time favorite reference DVD, Charlotte Gray looked superb, from its natural flesh tones to its fine image depth.
I did most of my serious viewing in HDMI, and recommend you do the same for your critical sources. You'll get more detail and a sharper image overall. Gladiator on DVD looked almost shockingly crisp and detailed, and while its colors are stylized by design, they never looked wrong. Some of the film's darker scenes looked a little muddy, but not washed out.
High-definition was just as impressive, if not more: Batman Begins on HD DVD for its overall quality and impressive dark scenes, The Wild on Blu-ray for brilliant color and crisp detail, and a demo Blu-ray disc from Pioneer for the overall brilliance of its many stunning images. This Pioneer disc is the best-looking Blu-ray Disc I've seen, and while the selections were likely chosen to avoid tripping up Pioneer displays(!?), they look great on other sets as well. Yes, they do look more impressive on a (much) bigger 1080p display, but they really show off what the PRO-940HD can do. And it gets the job done in great style.
No 42" set will wow you with immersive impact, and no 768p set can match the fine detail available from a 1080p design. But you won't be conscious of these limitations when you first view a properly calibrated Elite PRO-940HD. All you'll see is a great picture.
It would be wrong not remind you here of our reports from the recent CES 2007, reports indicating that Pioneer has some exciting new technologies planned for its next line of plasmas. These are scheduled to appear later this year. But new models are always just over the horizon. In the here and now you're unlikely to find a better 42-inch plasma than the Pioneer Elite PRO-940HD.
A punchy image with good contrast and very respectable blacks
Good color (in Color Space 2) before calibration (Mid-Low setting); excellent color after calibration
Offers a wide range of useful adjustments
Will not accept native 1080p/60 sources
Overwrought color (in Color Space 1)
Limited component 480i/p bandwidth


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Mental Health
Have Mental Health Questions? Ask a Psychiatrist Online
Hello Sir, very good morning
as you can guess that my repeated asking is also a part of my obsessions
Sir, I visited another psychiatrist today and she prescribed the following :
1) Fluvoxamine 50 mg daily for 5 days and then 100 mg daily afterwards.
2) Pregabalin 75mg daily
3) Clonazepam 1mg sos.
and has called me up after 7 days
the fact that she has stopped Aripiprazole 15mg totally
Now, sir, I m very confused whether to go with Fluvoxamine or Clomopramine ?Which one is superior for me as I have very deep-rooted obsessions.
yes sir
she just saw the reports , not seriously
I m very confused whether to go with Fluvoxamine or Clomopramine ?Which one is superior for me as I have very deep-rooted obsessions.
sir, plz dont be angry with me
i really need help from experts like you
there r no good psychiatrists here
so, will you not recommend one , sir
plz suggest me the better one
thinking abt my other symptoms too
panic attacks
severe anxiety
the above problems have also to be addressed
i c
ok, lewts discuss the medications for me sir please, this will be a final discussion with you sir for the time being :
considering all my conditions
then sir, clomipramine or fluvoxamine
clomipramine will be good sir ?
but what abt my other anxiety problems
will GAD, be cured by clomipramine ?
ok, so first drug is clomipramine (this one is decided)....now lets come to the anti-psychotic
whether Aripiprazole is more suitable or me or Amisulpiride , considering my treatment resistant anxiety disorders
i was afraid , u left the chat
plz dont be angry with me
i just need to confirm the meds and then i shall strongly discuss this with my doctor
plz suggest oen , sir
better one, i mean
thanks a lot for understanding me sir
ok sir
second drug has been finalized
its Arip
finally, i shall need pregabalin and clonazepam, which we had already discussed
Sir, i apologise, but i still have one doubt
i have so many severe anxiety disorders
and Paroxetine addresses so many of them
will Paroxetine be better top take or Clomipramine will be better to take.......
i read that Paroxetine controls OCD too
does Paroxetine control OCD properly ?
where can i find that sir
something called brain...
ok, i shall go with clomipramine
sir, finally
plz suggest me one medication for my memory....
i have a weak memory and lack concentration
i have been evaluated by psychologist
and its confirmed that i have impairment of visual learning n memory, verbal llearning n memory
psychologist have told me that
will MODAFINIL help me sir
so, modafinil not required ?
ok sir, thanks a lot....i shall take CLOMIPRAMINE, ARIPIPRAZOLE, PREGABALIN, CLONAZEPAM religiously for 1 month and then I shall contact you Sir with my progress
i see
i shall get back to you after 1 month with my progress
thanks a lot
it was really very very nice to have talked with you
i m going to avoid the doctor who had stopped Arip\
good bye sir
Dear Sir,
I have just one question to ask. Plz do help me.
1) Which anti-psychotic among Aripiprazole and Risperidone is better for severe Anxiety and at what dose ?
Thanks a lot and waiting in great anticipation for your kind response.
Thanks a lot Sir. I shall get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks indeed.


text: Hey folks, is there a proper orientation from a mechanical standpoint as to which side of a Rim sprocket is facing outwards. I always assumed that the side bearing the manufacturer (stihl in my case) and size (3/8-7, .325-7, etc) should face outwards. However, two of the saws I acquired recently had the Rim reversed with the "holes" showing. Does it make a mechanical difference, or as in bar side rotation, is it actually good to occasionally rotate your Rim to give it even wear on each bearing side? Or maybe like cords/belts in a tire, it is best to maintain it in one torsional direction for its service life. Anyone have an opinion out there?


text:
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text:
On Tue, 2010-10-26 at 10:48 +0300, Heikki Linnakangas wrote: > > The reason I didn't use ReadRecord is because it sets a global variable > > to point to the next location in the log, so that subsequent calls can > > just pass NULL for the location. > > True. XLogPageRead is new in 9.0, however. We'll have to use ReadRecord > or invent something new for back-branches anyway. > > > It looks like the patch leaves the global variable pointing just after > > the redo location rather than the checkpoint. I haven't tested your > > patch yet, but it looks like some of the following code depends on > > ReadRecord(NULL,...) fetching the record right after the checkpoint > > record; so I think something else is required if you want to use > > ReadRecord. > > Hmm, the next call to ReadRecord is this: > > > /* > > * Find the first record that logically follows the checkpoint --- it > > * might physically precede it, though. > > */ > > if (XLByteLT(checkPoint.redo, RecPtr)) > > { > > /* back up to find the record */ > > record = ReadRecord(&(checkPoint.redo), PANIC, false); > > } > > else > > { > > /* just have to read next record after CheckPoint */ > > record = ReadRecord(NULL, LOG, false); > > } > > In the first case, the location is given explicitly. In the second case, > the redo pointer equals the checkpoint record, so the current position > is correct even with the patch. It makes me slightly nervous, though. > It's correct today, but if someone adds code between the backup_label > check and this that assumes that the current position is the checkpoint > record, it'll fail. Then again, any new ReadRecord call in such added > code would also break the assumption in the above block that the current > position is the checkpoint record. > > In the case that the redo pointer is the same as the checkpoint record, > we don't need to re-fetch the checkpoint record. I've added a test for > that in the attached patch. There is a problem with this patch. ReadRecord() not only modifies global variables, it also modifies the location pointed to by "record", which is later used to set "wasShutdown". How about if we only set "wasShutdown" if there is no backup_label (because the checkpoint for pg_start_backup() will never be a shutdown checkpoint anyway)? Trivial patch attached. It's not easy to reproduce a real problem, but the easiest way that I found is by creating a commit record at the REDO location. Put a sleep() in CheckPointGuts() to give you time before the checkpoint completes. Session1: CREATE TABLE foo(i int); BEGIN; INSERT INTO foo VALUES(1); Session2: SELECT pg_start_backup('foo'); Session1 (before checkpoint for pg_start_backup() completes): COMMIT; Then, perform backup, stop backup, shutdown the server. Then try to restore the backup, and you'll get a PANIC. This seems like a pretty serious issue to me (backups could appear unrecoverable), so please consider this before the next patch-level release so that the bad fix doesn't go out to the world. Also, you might want to double-check that there aren't other side effects that we're still missing. Regards, Jeff Davis
Next: From: Devrim GÜNDÜZ Date: 2010-11-11 02:05:22 Subject: Re: BUG #5746: /etc/init.d/postgresql-9.0 status returns the wrong value Previous: From: Chris Browne Date: 2010-11-10 22:56:23 Subject: Re: BUG #5747: TimeStamps too far into the future are invalid


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Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty has struggled to crack double digits in the race for the Republican nomination. But don't count him out, writes Michael Crowley in TIME. Once the competition has either stepped back or flamed out, he might well be the last guy standing. Going for him: a good story – blue-collar son of a truck driver, etc. – a Minnesota-nice demeanor, a respectable record in office, a skeleton-free closet, and conservative bona fides of the non-crazy variety. Against: he's almost a cartoon of blandness; and he's on record as having taken climate change seriously, which doesn't go over well with the Republican base (even if he did recently apologize for his crime). Plus, based on a few details in this piece, I'd say he has some fire-in-the-belly issues. Crowley asks him when he first believed he was presidential material.
"[H]e answers in less than grandiose terms, explaining how he'd set up a political-action committee in 2009. I try again, saying I am curious about when he first imagined himself worthy of the history books, ready to send soldiers to their deaths and endure the national stage's harsh toll. "I don't know," he replies. 'I wish I had a good answer for you on that.' ... He adds that he almost didn't run at all. 'Mary and I talked about this at length, and many times, and it was a close call,' he says, mentioning his wife of 24 years. He adds with a laugh, 'It could have gone the other way for all the reasons you're suggesting.'"
OK, admittedly, that's kind of endearing; a guy who could tell you when he was called by Destiny to lead the free world is a guy with problems, no doubt. But come on!
PLUS: Check out this incredibly dramatic Pawlenty campaign video, titled Could Have Gone the Other Way Courage to Stand.


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Tart 'n' Tangy Vegetables Recipe
We have a long growing season here, so we find many ways to use fresh vegetables from our garden. This is a Southern favorite in my family that is both easy and flavorful.
- 1-1/2 cups white vinegar
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons mixed pickling spices
- 4 small cucumbers, sliced
- 2 large tomatoes, cubed
- 2 medium carrots, thinly sliced
- 1. In a 1-1/2-qt. bowl, combine the vinegar, water, sugar, pepper and salt. Place pickling spices on a double thickness of cheesecloth; bring up corners of cloth and tie with string to form a bag. Add to vinegar mixture.
- 2. Stir in the cucumbers, tomatoes and carrots. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight. Discard spice bag before serving. Yield: 4 cups.
Nutritional Facts
1/2 cup: 76 calories, 0 fat (0 saturated fat), 0 cholesterol, 85mg sodium, 19g carbohydrate (14g sugars, 2g fiber), 1g protein.
Reviews for Tart 'n' Tangy Vegetables
Average Rating
Reviewed Nov. 2, 2016
"My mom used to make a recipe similar to this and I have been searching for something like it and this is it - I am so happy - it is just delicious"
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