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Stylish? ABSOLUTELY!
One of my favorite clients I have been working with via eDesign just sent me a shot of her "New" Ottomans. I say "New" because they originally looked like this…
Functional? Yes.
Stylish? Eh.
While others may have discarded them, we knew better.
(Luckily my client had some vision for these guys as well!)
In my crazy head, I saw this…
Dressed in this…
Functional? Yes.
Stylish? ABSOLUTELY!
Stylish? ABSOLUTELY!
Stripes are tough with tufting (but it can be done!). Just make sure your Upholsterer is confident about working with stripes. My client's first upholsterer wasn't… But she found another one who was & I want to personally give them a big hug. Just what I had envisioned.
We decided to pair the two ottomans together with a tray on top as the coffee table after seeing this inspiration shot.
Oh wow!
Love stripes, love tufting, love navy blue!
If you ask me, it`s perfect! 😉
I've been on the hunt for 2 good stools like that for a while now…for the same spot as your inspiration pic! I think they are fabulous in front of the fireplace. Great extra seating and easy to move if needed. I have my two fur stools that I leave there periodically, but would really like to find a pair with a more rectangular shape. GREAT vision for your client, I love the oversize nail head trim also.


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subset: commoncrawl


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The official Disney Parks blog recently published a helpful post for any fans of Disney merchandise: answers to the most frequently asked questions about shopping at the Disney parks. If you like to collect all the unique swag that you can from the parks, this post is just for you. Let's look at the points.
The first is that some merchandise is completely unique to the Disney Parks. While the Disney Store and other affiliates do sell some pieces in locations all around the world, there are some things that you can only get if you're in one of the Happiest Places on Earth.
How do you tell that what you're checking out is unique to the Disney Parks? It's easy: look for the official logo. If that collectible is something special, it'll come with a logo that says "Authentic Original Disney Parks." That's how you'll know you've got something unique on your hands. The goods that most commonly come with the authentic seal are seasonal items, apparel, and special collectibles.
The second point is that yes, some collectibles from the Disney Parks are available online. There is a Disney Parks Boutique within the official Disney Store website. It even sells some items with the official "Authentic Original Disney Parks" stamp. Yes, that seems a little counter intuitive: I thought the whole point of the stamp is that you could only get it at the Disney Parks. I guess the Disney Parks online boutique counts as that.
Not all authentic stamped items are online, and there are more, less unique items also being sold. Basically, if you missed your chance to get something at the parks, or you'd like some parks merchandise but don't think you'll be able to make a trip anytime soon, you just might get lucky shopping online.
The last two points also relate to online services. If you become a fan of Disney Parks Shoppes on Facebook, you'll get all the latest information on new merchandise coming to the parks. There are even some "Facebook Firsts" items on display, just for people who have become fans of the Shoppes on Facebook.
The final point is that if there's ever an item unique to the Disney Parks or Aulani that you'd like to learn more about, there's a service available for you: Disney Parks and Resorts Merchandise Guest Services. Are you trying to track down a special present for a loved one (or for yourself)? They just might be able to get it for you. They can't help you find any item that's available at the two domestic parks or the Hawaii resort, but they can help you with select items. To contact them, call 877-560-6477 or email firstname.lastname@example.com.
*(The above image by Phil South is licensed under the Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution License).


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Don't miss out on a lower price on this hotel
Get an overview of this hotel4-star hotel near Church of St. Michael
Collecting Nectar Points
Special Offer: Book by 2 August 2017 and collect double Nectar points!
Simply enter your Nectar card number when you check out. Your points will be credited 35 days after you return from your trip.
*Terms and conditions apply.
Popular property highlights
Located in the heart of Hildesheim, this hotel is within a 15-minute walk of Theater fur Niedersachsen and Church of St. Michael. St. Mary's Cathedral is 0.8 mi (1.3 km) away.
Hotel Features
A restaurant, a bar/lounge, and a rooftop terrace are available at this hotel. WiFi in public areas is free. Other amenities include self parking, a business center, and meeting rooms.
Room Amenities
All 120 rooms offer free WiFi, minibars, and flat-screen TVs with satellite channels. Guests will also find wired Internet, room service, and coffee makers.Information missing or incorrect? Tell us!Opens in a new window
Novotel Hildesheim
Hotel Amenities
Hotel Amenities
The hotel offers a restaurant. A bar/lounge is on site where guests can unwind with a drink. Business-related amenities at this 4-star property consist of a business center and meeting rooms.
Wireless Internet access is complimentary. This business-friendly hotel also offers a rooftop terrace, barbecue grills, and a garden. Onsite parking is available (surcharge).
- Restaurant
- Bar/lounge
- Total number of rooms - 120
- 24-hour front desk
- Number of floors - 2
- Breakfast available (surcharge)
- Elevator/lift
- Free WiFi
- Business center
- Dry cleaning/laundry service
- Rooftop terrace
- Express check-in
- Barbecue grill(s)
- Laundry facilities
- Meeting rooms 7
- Garden
- Luggage storage
- Safe-deposit box at front desk
- Self parking (surcharge)
- Year Built 2000
- Conference space size (meters) - 700
Family Friendly Amenities
- Family Hotel
- Free Wi-Fi
- Laundry facilities
- Playground on site
Available in all rooms: Free WiFi ,
Available in some public areas: Free WiFi
Self parking (surcharge)
Room Amenities
- Phone
- Minibar
- Coffee/tea maker
- Daily housekeeping
- Private bathroom
- Hair dryer
- Shower only
- Satellite TV service
- Desk
- Iron/ironing board (on request)
- Blackout drapes/curtains
- Flat-panel TV
- Free WiFi
- Wired Internet access (surcharge)
- Hypo-allergenic bedding available
- Room service (limited hours)
- Cribs/infant beds (surcharge)
Where to Eat
Buffet breakfasts are available for a surcharge.
Onsite venue - This restaurant serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. A children's menu is available.
Room service (during limited hours) is available.
Nearby Things to Do
The recreational activities listed below are available either on site or nearby; fees may apply.
- Playground on site
If you have requests for specific accessibility needs, please note them at check-out when you book your room.
- Accessible bathroom
- Roll-in shower
- In-room accessibility
Hotel Policies
Check-in time ends at midnight
Check-in time starts at 3 PM
Check-out time is noon
Payment types
Children and extra beds
- Children are welcome.
- Kids stay free! Up to 2 children 16 years old and younger stay free when using existing bedding.
- Rollaway/extra beds are not available.
- Cribs (infant beds) are available for EUR 0 per stay.
- Pets allowed for an extra charge of EUR 12 per pet, per night
You need to know
Extra-person charges may apply and vary depending on property policy.
- A tax is imposed by the city: EUR 3 per person, per night, up to 14 nights. This tax does not apply to children under 18 years of age.
Optional extras
- Fee for buffet breakfast: EUR 19 per person (approximately)
- Fee for in-room wired Internet: EUR 6 per 24-hour period (rates may vary)
- Self parking fee: EUR 8 per night (in/out privileges)
- Pet fee: EUR 12 per pet, per night
- Crib (infant bed) fee: EUR 0 per stay
Hotel Name
- Novotel Hildesheim
- Novotel Hotel Hildesheim
- Novotel Hildesheim Hotel
- Hildesheim Novotel
We should mention
Up to 2 children 16 years old and younger stay free when occupying the parent or guardian's room, using existing bedding.
National Rating
Hotelstars Union assigns an official star rating for properties in Germany. This property is rated 4 stars.


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So it's past noon `round here so we'll pull back the curtain on this one. I'm not particularly interested in seeing just how litigious Doctor's Associates is anyways. Click below to see our past year's jokes. Here's the original headline:
Punknews and Subway launch "Break Up? Eat Fresh!" Punknews.org is thrilled to announce a new partnership with popular multinational sandwich franchise Subway and the launch of our "Break Up? Eat Fresh!" campaign.
Regular Punknews readers will have frequently seen comments like "sandwich time!" or "I'm going to get a sandwich!" as a means of trivializing the break-up of an unliked band. The meme, inadvertently started by an editor in September of 2002, has become so popular that it reached the boardroom of the Milford, Connecticut-based sandwich kings. In a statement company president Fred De Luca commented "most advertising requires you to entice potential customers into your establishment, but here's a case where the customer's hungry, they're passionate, they have no regard for punctuation, and they're screaming out for a meal. You can't buy opportunities like this."
The pilot project linking the music news moguls and the restaurants kicks off today, April 1st. Whenever a band breaks up, print out the Punknews article announcing the split and bring it to any of the company's over 27,200 locations for a free 6 inch sub with the purchase of a large drink (some conditions apply - only valid on the date the article was posted - not valid in Quebec). Furthermore, Punknews.org will feature spokesman Jared Fogle in an upcoming series of articles detailing how a sandwich with 6 grams of fat (or less!) plus a night out slamming in the mosh pit is a great way to get in shape.
Past Fools:
2006 - Confusing meta "the joke is that there was no joke but we'll say there was" joke
2005 - Horse The Band signs to East/West
2004 - Tim Armstrong co-writes new Avril Lavigne album
2003 - Fat Mike joins the Foo Fighers
2002 - Columbia Records buys Punknews.org
2001 - Sony buys Epitaph
2000 - We actually didn't post any stories at all, news or otherwise.
That happened a lot back in the early days. I guess it's funny.


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HUNTINGTON — Ready, set, snap. Run ball, get to line, snap. Pass ball, get to line, snap.
Snap again, score. And score some more.
That's pretty much been Marshall football the past two years, and you know what? It's been a whole lot of fun to watch.
Does anybody sporting kelly green miss this program's "dead ball" era, which ran roughly from 2004-2011? I mean, who yearns for those 16-13 overtime wins and 30-14 losses?
Yeah, that's what I thought.
Saturday begins Year 3 of Marshall Football As You Knew It, in which scoreboards go into overdrive, defenders are gassed and fans experience the best 3 1/2 hours of their week.
Following is a stat nerd's interpretation of the last two years, compared to the offensively lackluster final two years of the Mark Snyder regime, 2008-09.
In all cases, the first number(s) in each stat category are from 2012-13.
n Offensive scoring (taking out defense/special teams touchdowns): 1,042 points (40.8 average) vs. 515 (20.6); running and passing touchdowns 139 (5.35 average) vs. 62 (2.48).
n Plays per offensive touchdown: 15.68 vs. 26.60.
It's funny, I just went over the Herd's reduction in plays per game from 90 in 2012 to 78 in 2013. Sure, the Herd turned down the tempo at times, but quick touchdowns sometimes played a part. Against ultra-hapless Florida International, for example, the average MU TD drive was 1 minute, 7 seconds.
n Total yardage: 13,416 (516.0) vs. 8,419 (336.8).
n Rushing yardage: 4,913 (189.0) vs. 3,744 (149.8).
n Passing yardage: 8,503 (327.04) vs. 4,755 (190.2).
n Passing efficiency rating: 148.50 vs. 113.47.
n Red-zone touchdowns: 99 of 130 (76.1 percent) vs. 39 of 76 (51.3 percent).
Shoot, I could go on all week, but you get the point. And you'll get it again at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, when this Herd team dumps 40 or 50 or so on host Miami (Ohio), giving new RedHawks coach Chuck Martin his formal baptism into Division I head coaching.
▪ ▪ ▪
Let's temper all that good cheer a little, by reminding you of historical items that should have no bearing on Saturday's game.
Or so a Herd fans hopes.
First, there is the grim fact that MU hasn't won a road opener in this millennium. Yes, you have to go all the way back to Sept. 4, 1999, when the Herd overcame a half-mile of penalties to win a 13-10 slugfest over Clemson.
Quality of competition plays a role here, as the Herd took on some of the better West Virginia teams, as well as Ohio State, Virginia Tech, etc. The roll call includes WVU (three times), Ohio State (twice), Virginia Tech (twice), Wisconsin, Tennessee, No. 1 Florida, Michigan State and Miami (not Ohio).
But the Herd also spit the bit last year at Ohio and in 2005 at Central Florida.
Anybody remember the latter game? I surely do.
At the Florida Citrus Bowl, UCF personnel made visiting media park four blocks away in an unlit lot in a bad neighborhood, an Orlando bike patrolman mistakenly shot an undercover UCF officer in a crowd of terrified tailgaters and Mark Snyder's Herd lost its inaugural Conference USA game.
And broke UCF's 17-game losing streak.
Nobody knew the Knights would win the East Division at the time, but the Herd was embarrassed. It was the last time fans of an MU opponent ripped down the goalposts.
And now, the Herd faces a Miami (not Florida) team with a 16-game losing streak, and I guarantee the RedHawks will not win the East Division. Surely, the goalposts in Oxford will survive.
They will, right?
Reach Doug Smock at firstname.lastname@example.com, 304-348-5130 or follow @DougSmock on Twitter.


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text: Hi all Newbie here, lovin my Audi. Need to reset the service indicator, believe it can be done by some clever button pressing. Had vehicle serviced using genuine parts, reluctant to pay Audi £350 for an oil change and a pollen filter! Any help greatfully received. Thanks Davey no dollars (its all in the name!)


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- Includes 1 sheet of 22 multi-size tattoos
- FDA approved
- Lasts 4�6 days
- Made in the USA
- 10''L x 8''W sheet of multi-size tattoos
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art collaborates with Lulu DK Tattoos in an exclusive collection of metallic jewelry tattoos. This selection of temporary tattoos has been adapted from and inspired by stunning pieces of ancient Egyptian jewelry from the Met's renowned collections.
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Perhaps fitting for a woman who came to fame for crashing a party at the White House, Michaele Salahi and her fiance, Journey guitarist Neal Schon, are letting fans crash their wedding - via Pay-Per-View.
The couple will tie the knot at a televised ceremony Dec. 15 at the Palace of the Fine Arts in San Francisco.
The $14.95 PPV price tag for what's been dubbed "Neal & Michaele: The Winter Wonderland Wedding and Music Event" will feature a performance from a very famous wedding band - Journey - and will be hosted by former "The View" panelist Debbie Matenopoulos and former "All My Children" actor Cameron Mathison.
Journey Guitarist Neal Schon and "Real Housewives Star" Michaele Salahi Engaged
In addition, some of the proceeds from what organizers say will be the world's first PPV wedding will benefit typhoon relief in the Philippines, home country of Journey lead singer Arnel Pineda.
Salahi and Schon have known each other for 18 years but only reunited in 2011 after the "Real Housewives of D.C." star left first husband Tareq Salahi. The couple got engaged in Oct. 2012, after Schon, who has been married four times previously, popped the question on stage during a concert in Baltimore.
Watch Michaele Salahi's 'Journey' to See Neal Schon
Schon plans another surprise on stage at his wedding: the debut of a new song, "The Triumph of Love."
"Anybody that's seen us, or watched us go through what we've been through in the last two years, knows that's truly what it is," he told OMG Insider.


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Johannesburg - The ANC will pay homage to the African Union (AU) and its predecessor Organisation of African Unity (OAU) during their respective anniversaries, the party said on Tuesday.
African National Congress sub-committee on international relations chairman Obed Bapela said the AU would celebrate its 10th anniversary, and the OAU, its 50th.
The AU replaced the OAU.
"As part of the celebrations of the anniversary of the OAU/AU which was set up to fulfil its mission of uniting the African continent... the ANC will also be hosting seminars, road shows, lectures, and publications on, amongst others, the importance of Africa Day," Bapela said in a statement.
Africa Day is the annual commemoration on May 25 of the 1963 founding of the OAU.
He said the ANC would distribute the AU anthem to its structures and encourage government departments to distribute it in schools and other public institutions.
"The flag of the AU must be hoisted as a permanent practice for the Republic of South Africa," Bapela said.
He said the ANC's national executive committee would discuss the OAU and AU between May 17 and 19. Anniversary seminars would also be held at universities across the country.
Bapela said the sub-committee held a meeting on May 5 and discussed comments reportedly made by Zambian Deputy President Guy Scott.
According to a United Kingdom report last week, Scott had likened President Jacob Zuma to last apartheid-era president FW de Klerk.
"He (Zuma) tells us: 'you just leave Zimbabwe to me'. Excuse me, who the hell liberated you anyway, was it not us? I mean, I quite like him, he seems a rather genial character, but I pity him (and) his advisers."
Scott went on to speak about South Africans, and black citizens.
"The South Africans are very backward in terms of historical development... I hate South Africans... they really think they're the bees' knees and actually they've been the cause of so much trouble in this part of the world," he was quoted as saying.
"I have a suspicion the blacks model themselves on the whites now that they're in power."
Bapela said the Zambian government had apologised.
"The ANC values these historical friendships with peoples of Africa, and thus we welcome the apology by the government and people of Zambia on the unfortunate utterances made by the Zambian deputy president about South Africa and her people," he said. - Sapa


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In reply to Don Ballard's letter advocating for election districts for the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners I would like to express an opposing view.
In 2006, proponents of districts put forth a shameful plan that had no provisions for reapportionment as populations shift.
It was designed for political outcomes that would favor incumbents. It was designed without any public input and it was soundly defeated for very good reason by a margin of 59.49 percent to 40.51 percent. As I recall Ballard favored that plan too.
At that time one of the "battle cries†was "districts work for the schools, why not for the BOC?†There was much misinformation distributed during that campaign and as we all now know school districts have not worked for 35 years. Yes, after 35 years there is finally an attempt to make them fair.
Districts create opportunities for "career politicians.†They are little more than toys for politicians to manipulate to gain political advantage. Districts create an environment for political mischief. Any district plan should also include term limits. I believe that as a rule at-large elections are more likely to produce the best qualified and least corrupt officials.
Its only been five years since the last referendum on districts. We have had to wait 35 years to get fair districts for the BOE. Why don't we wait and see how this works out before we rush willy nilly into another districting proposal? Why don't we take up the BOC districts on a Lincoln County timetable, say in the year 2040?
Jerry Haney,
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text: Dinos, giant pencils, and a Silly String ambush at this Melbourne wedding #Wedding Porn#australia#black dress#dinosaurs#melbourne#outdoor#red hair December 20 | Catherine Clark bijouxandbits Ben and Heidi are laid-back people and wanted their mid-day lunch wedding to reflect that. But they also wanted some personal touches with a black dress, super-charged red hair, dinosaur decor, and a giant pencil for the guest book. I love that combination. Lakshal Perera photographed the day and all it's eccentricities (including a Silly String going-away car ambush!). Take a peek at the photos: Related Post Lith & Ealesy's Formal Feminist *Not Legal* Wedding The offbeat bride: Lith, Pregnancy and Postpartum Doula Her offbeat partner: Ealesy, Community Corrections Officer Location & date of wedding: Tecoma Pavilion in the Royal... Read more For loads more photos of this amazing Melbourne wedding, head over to Lakshal Perera's blog post. This post features Offbeat Vendors! Check out their vendor listing to see how they cater to Offbeat Brides: Lakshal Perera Get your daily dose of Offbeat AWESOME Reporter Name * Reporter Email * Original text Enter the original text here. Edited text* Enter your suggested copyedit here. Notes You can add a note for the editor here. * Required information. Fix Typo Catherine Clark Catherine Clark is Offbeat Bride's Senior Editor. In her spare time she loiters at her local library, makes art, watches movies en masse, plays video and tabletop games, poorly cooks healthy things, cuddles with her feline fur baby, and blogs at BijouxandBits.com. @enidjcoleslaw @bijouxandbits @bijouxandbits PREVIOUS Make a portable favor with cupcakes in a jar (PLUS free printable labels!) NEXT Deck your nails in festive Christmas trees Show/Hide comments [ 4 ] Looks like a beautiful wedding. A black dress was the perfect choice to show off her beautiful hair. Love! 1 agrees Reply I'm trying to work out where this was held! It looks so darn familiar! Reply Same here! I've also been to a few weddings with the same Celebrant. Reply The venue is actually the CWA in Toorak. Did you guess right? 🙂 Reply Join the conversation Cancel Reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment Participate in this conversation via emailGet only replies to your comment, the best of the rest, as well as a daily recap of all comments on this post. No more than a few emails daily, which you can reply to/unsubscribe from directly from your inbox. No-drama comment policy Part of what makes the Offbeat Empire different is our commitment to civil, constructive commenting. Make sure you're familiar with our no-drama comment policy. Biz owners & wedding bloggers Please just use your real name in your comment, not your business name or blog title. Our comments are not the place to pimp your website. If you want to promote your stuff on Offbeat Bride, join us as an advertiser instead.


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Outfit: Slouchy Sunday
Oh em gee. I am so terrible at outfit photos. Can someone give me some lessons? I think it might start with not being so lazy. My laziness makes me snap photos on our tiny porch so I can't get a full body shot and I can't really control the light. So step one: get off my bum and find some good light. And pretty scenery, while I'm at it.
I love this outfit. It is easy and really comfortable. I have no idea why but I always like my Sunday outfits. They are usually really comfy, which is my fave.
Denim shirts. Yes, please.
This is my favorite hairstyle, I think. It's code for I-haven't-washed-my-hair-in-awhile. Regardless, I love a thin jersey headband and curls popping out. How about that patio background? Don't ask me why I thought it was a good idea to hang a basket of Christmas lights.
I recently thrifted this awesome down vest. It's perfect for Colorado weather. In the mornings or evenings when there is an extra chill in the air, I throw this vest on.


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Hi I've been wondering about postgresql's handling of repeated subqueries in statements for a while, and thought I'd ask here. If the exact same subquery appears in multiple places in a complex query, it seems to be executed separately each time it appears. I'm wondering if there's any way, without moving over to PL/PgSQL, to "collapse" such multiple executions down to a single one. Consider this simplistic example, which while useless demonstrates the issue in a self contained way: explain analyze select (select count(id) from booking) as x where (select count(id) from booking) > 100; QUERY PLAN ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Result (cost=37023.85..37023.86 rows=1 width=0) (actual time=668.922..668.922 rows=1 loops=1) One-Time Filter: ($1 > 100) InitPlan -> Aggregate (cost=18511.92..18511.92 rows=1 width=4) (actual time=335.150..335.150 rows=1 loops=1) -> Seq Scan on booking (cost=0.00..17627.13 rows=353913 width=4) (actual time=0.128..200.147 rows=353913 loops=1) -> Aggregate (cost=18511.92..18511.92 rows=1 width=4) (actual time=333.756..333.756 rows=1 loops=1) -> Seq Scan on booking (cost=0.00..17627.13 rows=353913 width=4) (actual time=0.133..198.261 rows=353913 loops=1) Total runtime: 668.993 ms (8 rows) The query: (select count(id) from booking) is executed twice, even though it's guaranteed by MVCC that the result will be the same in both subqueries. Ideally you'd be able to say something like: select (select count(id) from booking) as x where x > 100; I realize that in this case the query can be rewritten as: select x.c from (select count(id) AS c from booking) as x where x.c > 100; but in more complex queries introducing an additional FROM clause for a single value can be undesirable and/or ugly. Is there any way to get postgresql to detect such repeated query parts and evaluate them only once? -- Craig Ringer
Next: From: Craig James Date: 2008-03-13 04:55:18 Subject: Benchmark: Dell/Perc 6, 8 disk RAID 10 Previous: From: Merlin Moncure Date: 2008-03-12 20:55:26 Subject: Re: Are piped columns indexable


text:
Spring is blooming and for many people that means buying a new car.
Whether you're trading in or trading up, prepare before you shop so you don't make an emotional decision that will cost you more than you wanted to spend.
Evaluate needs vs. wants. Do you need the sunroof and double DVD players? Would a hybrid work with your commute? Do the kids and dog fit in the back seat? Asking yourself some basic questions can save you time and money when you're ready to shop.
Have your homework handy. Do a little web research and arm yourself with your trade-in value, the current manufacturer deals on models you are interested in, and incentive programs available.
Get pre-approved first. Knowing how much loan you qualify for and what fits your budget can narrow your choices and put you in a better negotiating position. Since many dealers make their money in the financing and not the sale price, you'll be one step ahead.
Call us at 800.991.2221 or visit ConsumersCU.org so we can help with your next auto loan. We can provide car pricing information and our rates are competitive. It makes sense to do business locally, with people you know and trust.


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Sgt Don Wilkinson's killers jailed
A suspected P manufacturer who gunned down an undercover police officer after a covert operation went wrong will serve at least 15 years in jail.
This morning, during an emotional victim impact statement, the mother of the slain officer, Sergeant Don Wilkinson, called her son's killers "cowards" who she could never forgive.
"Donny's loss has devastated me. My only child is dead and all I have left is memories."
In June, a jury found John Ward Skinner, 37, guilty of murdering Mr Wilkinson on September 11, 2008.
Mr Wilkinson, 46, was shot three times after he tried to install a tracking device on a car outside a suspected P lab in Hain Ave, Mangere, South Auckland. His partner, identified only as Officer M, was shot four times but survived.
Skinner's co-accused, Iain Lindsay Clegg, 33, was found not guilty of Mr Wilkinson's murder but guilty of his manslaughter. Skinner was also found guilty on a count of attempted murder of a second officer, whose name is suppressed. Clegg was found not guilty on the same charge. Skinner was also found guilty of assault with a firearm.
Today, at the High Court at Auckland, Justice Geoffrey Venning sentenced Skinner to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 15 years. He was sentenced to 10 years for the attempted murder charge and one year for assault with a firearm. These will be served concurrently.
Clegg was sentenced to eight years imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of four years for the manslaughter of Mr Wilkinson.
Justice Venning said he rejected Skinner's claim he had only shot Mr Wilkinson in self-defence.
He said the belief that Skinner and Clegg held that the two officers were "intruders" did not mitigate their actions.
"They posed no further threat to you, your family or your property at that stage. Instead you acted deliberately to impose your own justice on these men, you hunted them down and attacked them in order to do so."
"No sentence the court can impose can ever address the loss suffered by the victims, particularly Sergeant Wilkinson's family."
During the trial the court heard police had begun investigating Skinner, a suspected methamphetamine manufacturer, in May, 2008.
Police had applied to a district court judge for a tracking device to be placed secretly on Skinner's car. On the night of the shooting police held a briefing at 12.30am to discuss the night's task.
One of the officers involved in the operation reported that he had walked past Skinner's house twice, the lights were on and an unknown car was parked outside.
But the decision was made for the operation to go ahead and two Technical Support Unit (TSU) officers, Mr Wilkinson and Officer M, moved on to the property.
Soon afterwards, the two officers were "sprung" after the occupants at the house allegedly saw them on security cameras and chased them more than 100 metres down the street.
The court heard that once Clegg and Skinner caught up with officers, Officer M was punched in the face by Clegg with such force his retina was detached and his nose broken.
It was then Skinner, armed with a high-powered air rifle, shot Officer M four times before turning to shoot Mr Wilkinson three times.
In a victim impact statement delivered to the court this morning, Mr Wilkinson's mother, Beverley Lawrie, 69, said the "bottom fell out of my life" the day her son was killed.
Her son, "Donny", had spent his life working in "some incredibly dangerous situations", she told the court.
"The irony of the whole thing is he came back to New Zealand because he believed it would be a safer place to work.
"Of all the people he worked for and all the places he worked, the last place I expected him to be killed was in New Zealand.
"I'm incredibly proud of my son and everything he achieved in his life...but I also know he had the potential to do so much more."
Mrs Lawrie recalled the day she found out her son had been murdered.
"When I heard it on the news, call it mothers intuition, I just knew that it was Donny who had died.
"It is very difficult to come to terms with the fact that Skinner made the choice to kill my son.
"They didn't have to chase Donny and his colleague down, they didn't have to shoot them.
"They showed no respect for human life. Donny was shot three times and the other officer four, leaving my son dead and his colleague wounded.
"Both men are cowards, personally I will never forgive them for what happened."
Skinner's lawyer, Marie Dyhrberg, said during the trial that her client wished he could turn back the clock to a time before the shooting.
Skinner had believed that Mr Wilkinson and Officer M were burglars when he saw them on CCTV in his driveway that night, Ms Dyherberg told the court.
"It's not disputed that John Skinner believed throughout that Sergeant Wilkinson and [Officer M] were intruders or burglars.
"They were dressed like them, they acted like them, they were carrying what appeared to be their tool bags.
"The actions of these two men as they ran off after being challenged were perfectly consistent with the notion that these were bad guys up to no good.
"John Skinner freaked out, he panicked. So they made the fateful decision to run after them," Ms Dyhrberg said.
Moments later Skinner and Clegg came across the two officers down a dark driveway down the street.
Skinner had again asked for an explanation of what they were doing, Ms Dyhrberg said.
"Now at that point, John Skinner saw the other burglar, intruder - as he believed them to be - who was standing back a bit behind [Officer M], he saw him make a reaching movement...with his hand towards his waist area.
"And Mr Skinner at that precise moment thought that the burglar was reaching for a gun and that, within moments, split seconds, Mr Skinner... would be shot.
"He had one thought only, he's going for a gun.
"And it's in this background that John Skinner reacted and ended up with the two officers being shot. He had no idea that that airgun could do the damage that it did.
"He was in total shock when, at the police station, he learnt the extent of the injury and not only that, that somebody had actually been killed.
"At the time, the critical time, he was full of fear, adrenaline, acting purely on instinct and reaction and it was just seconds."
During the trial, a senior police officer involved in the case heavily criticised police-issue body armour, labelling it "unsafe, unpractical and bulky".
The officer, who has permanent name suppression and can only be referred to as Officer W, wiped away tears as he told the court he had worked with Mr Wilkinson for over nine years.
Officer W said Mr Wilkinson had not been wearing any stab resistant body armour on the night of the covert operation.
Mr Wilkinson's colleague, Officer M, who survived the shooting, had been wearing a vest, Officer W told the court.
"I find these pieces of equipment virtually impossible to use in the environment we work in.
"There is different sizes but we don't have an option of different types of body armour we can wear."
Officer W then held up the body armour in the dock and told the court:
"There is obviously far better options than this.
"It's very hot, it's very bulky and if you're trying to do covert duties it's very detectable.
"It's an issue for the police department and it's a shame to bring it out in this arena but it's something that has to be addressed.
"It's an officer safety issue."
Police National Headquarters declined to comment on the issue until after the 20-day-appeal period in the case.
After the guilty verdicts, it was revealed Clegg had past criminal convictions related to methamphetamine.
He has 80 previous convictions dating back to 1991.
Clegg was sentenced to four years and six months for manufacturing methamphetamine in 2003. He had finished parole less than a year before the shooting.
At a parole hearing in 2005, Judge J Rota said: "He [Clegg] was at a loss to explain why a person with such intellectual capability, personal attributes and opportunities throughout his life would take the criminal offending road he has."
He was freed in July 2006 on parole lasting until December 18, 2007, because of his "history and the seriousness of his offending".


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Artist description:
I started sketching and this is what came to me,I hope people like it.
Java Draw Created Dec 20, 2010 640 x 460px Unless noted Copyright 2010 drobert486.
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WOW... impressive!!!
Great draw!
Very dramatic ..and very cool 5/5
Wow ! Wonderful drawing.5♥s
Wow this is very tough. The drawing itself is very well done (5 hearts for that) and the feelings in it are so powerful.
great job!
goodlord! that is intense! :D
A wonderful drawing ... 5/5


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January 25th, 2013 (InsideCostaRica.com) The Costa Rican government is launching what it calls its "Green Taxis" initiative, under which at least 200 taxi drivers may get the chance to swap their fossil-fuel burning taxis for less polluting, electric vehicles.
The Ministry of Environment and Energy (Minaet) signed an agreement on Monday with Cori Motors Company, part of the Purdy Motor group, which represents automaker, BYD.
The company has already made similar contracts in China, where it has already put 1,000 such taxis on the road, and in Colombia, where about 50 such taxis have been delivered.
Rene Castro, Minister of Environment, said that they have already spoken with business leaders and groups representing taxi drivers about the benefits of the program. Still needed, though, is the installation of public recharging stations for the electric vehicles.
The electric taxis can be purchased for a monthly payment of $1,000, without a down payment. Import duties and taxes will also be waived as part of the program.
A survey conducted by the International Center for Economic Policy (CINPE) of 667 taxi drivers from across the country indicated that 72% would be willing to purchase a vehicle that uses alternative energy.


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May 3, 2013 2:46 pm
Why Jack Morris' accusation doesn't stand up to the evidence.
As you've probably heard, pitcher-turned-commentator Jack Morris has accused Red Sox hurler Clay Buchholz of throwing pitches with illegal substances on his hand during his start on Wednesday against Toronto. Buchholz, his manager, and his catchers have taken turns explaining that that's a ridiculous proposition.
April 3, 2013 4:25 am
The scoop on of the strangest home runs you'll see hit this season.
If, like me, you switched to Cardinals-Diamondbacks after the end of Yu Darvish's almost-perfect game against the Astros on Tuesday night, you were immediately treated to the sight of something almost as interesting:


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Love is in the air! Cupid a.k.a FTD.com arrived at our office a bit early this year, and wants to spread the love. They are generously dishing out five $100 gift cards to our FatWallet members! FTD.com offers a wide selection of flowers, plants, spa baskets, jewelry, crystal vases, and gifts from premier brands that include chocolates, gourmet snacks, and fresh fruits.
With Valentine's Day just around the corner, it's time to start planning what you want to get your special someone or friend. Try to avoid joining the mass of people who make the mad dash to the drug store for the picked over roses and unadorned stuff animals. Believe me, it's not going to woo anyone over. What will excite them is a fresh bouquet of flowers or tasty box of cookies. For every Valentine's Day, my husband usually has fresh flowers delivered to my work, and has a box of pixies waiting for me when I get home. It's not that I really value the materialistic things, but it's the message that counts. It's an act of love that makes the person feel special inside.
If Valentine's Day isn't your thing, FTD offers the perfect gift for all occasions. From anniversaries to birthdays, they've got you covered. One product that I thought was especially cool was their college rose collection. It's a wide selection of bi-colored roses that match your school's colors. With college basketball coming up, it would be a nice surprise to wish your friend or relative's favorite team good luck!
For all other products to shop, make sure to utilize their sales that they have going on:
- 15% Off Site Wide (expires 2/4/2013)
- 10% Off Site Wide (expires 2/14/2013)
- Check out the rest of FTD's Coupons & Deals on FatWallet!
Here's how to enter for a chance to win one of 5 $100 Gift Cards from FTD:
Step 1: Fill out the form on Facebook to enter or enter on FatWallet.
Step 2: Visit FTD's website and enjoy 14% cash back through FatWallet!
Eligibility: Eligible entries will be received between February 1st, 2013 12:00 PM CT and February 8th, 2013 at 12:00 pm CT. Limit one entry per eligible individual.
Five FatWallet members will be chosen randomly to receive the $100 Gift Cards from FTD. Please read the Official Rules of this giveaway. (Hey NY, FL and RI members: You're also included in this Giveaway! So have at it & have fun!) Winning member will be notified by PM (private message) and email.


text: My husband and I were at Blackbird Caye Resort on Turneffe Atoll from May 11-18, 2013. We cannot stop talking about what a wonderful experience it was. We have snorkeled in many places but have never had better snorkeling than at Turneffe Caye with Chris as our guide. We saw everything......starfish, sand dollars, barracuda, turtles, octopus, shark, stingray, dolphins, lobster,... More


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Audio Device Promises New Highs in Lows
You can never have too much bass, some people believe. Guitammer Company, a Westerville, Ohio startup, is taking low-frequency reinforcement to the next level: the seat of your pants. Its new product, the ButtKicker, promises to deliver intense, visceral bass where it counts. About the size of a one-horsepower electric motor, the device is a low-frequency electromagnetic transducer that is said to deliver the bottom-end impact of much larger speaker systems by mechanically coupling the bass vibes directly to your floor and/or seating arrangement. Users can feel the beat as much as they hear it, according to company executives.
Designed by music-industry producer and songwriter Ken McCaw and engineer Marvin Clamme, the ButtKicker can translate a line-level signal from a CD player, preamp, or amplifier in "perfect sync" with the bass coming from your main system. The device "shakes and vibrates to the point that 'feeling' becomes as important to the home-theater experience as seeing and hearing," according to a report by the Columbus/Franklin County News Bureau—at considerable savings in equipment weight and volume.
The ButtKicker is claimed to be almost indestructible and to have an extremely smooth frequency response of 5-200Hz. The professional model is manufactured by the Eminence Loudspeaker Company in Kentucky, and began shipping last fall for $799 retail. A consumer version is planned with a target price of $299.
Ultra-low-frequency "motors" have been introduced into the audio market before, with varying degrees of success—such as Pioneer's under-seat subwoofer, hyped primarily for car-audio applications. In the late 1970s there was a device called the Bone Phone, marketed as a "personal subwoofer." A yoke worn around a listener's shoulders, the device transmitted low-frequency impulses directly to the user's clavicles. The Bone Phone was not a commercial hit. An attempt was made in the early 1960s to sell low-frequency transducers to fruit farmers as tools to knock ripe fruit from their trees—also without success. And weapons researchers have experimented with the military potential of high-intensity low bass. We hope the ButtKicker will be devoted to peaceful pursuits.


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FFM removal skill gone bad...
A little self disclosure here to stress the importance of practice, even for those little used skills. After practicing this complex skill in the pool and feeling confident about it, I jacked it up pretty good on a skills dive. We SCRUBS often do two dives in a day; the first dive being a wreck dive with decompression, and the second dive being a shallow reef drift dive that some of us use for skills practice. Here's the days events...
I had a series of equipment problems yesterday leading up to the dive, and then during the second dive, while 'practicing' a complicated skill, I screwed up and it turned into a thumbed dive for me. I'll explain:
I've had a pesky number 2 AI cell that was getting voted out after about an hour underwater on previous dives. I put all my cells on the Narced @ 90 tester located at Fill Express in Pompano Beach (Thanks go out to Mark for providing this free of charge diagnostics tool!). The number two checked out fine on the test showing a nice linear profile and expected tolerances. I decided to buy a spare for my kit, just in case it crapped out. It would come in handy yesterday. First, I setup and calibrated my head unit the day prior to the dive. All 3 cells calibrated fine, and I packed my kit for yesterdays dive. I turned the unit on after loading it on the boat, and the number two was reading .21 in air. On the ride out, I decided to finish my predive checklist and prebreathe the unit. I switched the injection from manual to a setpoint of .4 and started to breath the loop. The number 2 went to zero. It had completely died. I luckily had the spare, and I completed a cell swap and recalibration during the ride out to the wreck. The new cell performed flawlessly on the dives.
Prior to splash on the first dive, I heard hissing coming from my bailout 1st stage. I had checked the pressure on the tank the night before and not seen any problems with the regulator. Now, it was leaking gas, and it turned out to be a crimped o-ring on a LP hose used for a whip to my BOV. While kitted up and ready to spash, I took the reg off the bottle, removed the hose, inspected the o-ring, and reassembled everything. Problem solved. My compradres were starting to wonder if I was jinxed and whether they should dive around me! :o
You know how things happen in threes? Well, the first dive was spectacular, other than a slight hiccup in stowing the grapnel for drift deco. The second dive would turn out to be a little different for me.
I had planned on doing a FFM removal exercise on the second dive. This is a fairly complex and task loaded event, so practice is important. The Drager has a mouth bite, so even during a flood, the loop stays closed. The only two reasons to ever really remove it and don a half mask are for complete catastrophic flood where vision is hindered, or a caustic cocktail that has contaminated the mask or mouth bite. Here are the steps I briefed prior to splash to my buddy (padipro) and the videographer (netmage).
1. Identify the need to remove mask
2. Bail out to BOV
3. Retrieve spare half mask from pocket
4. Verify offboard tank pressure and deploy 2nd stage regulator/purge
5. Shutoff BOV/nasal reg gas supply from offboard bailout tank
6. Remove FFM
7. 2nd stage in mouth/purge/breathe
8. Don half mask and clear
Well, I f'd up and forgot to do step 5. Guess what happened? I got a massive free flow from both the BOV and nasal second stage in the FFM. I donned the OC second and half mask and finally got the freeflow stopped with the help of padipro. I had lost much of my OC gas supply and ascended with my buddy after giving him the OOA signal and thumbing the dive. Scott deployed his offboard regulator and had it ready to donate if was needed. I surfaced with about 400 psi. Stupid mistake. I'm headed out this afternoon to do the same drill again in 20 fsw instead of 70.
Thanks to Scott for the help! He's a great buddy. Once I was on the boat, he descended again down the drift bouy to join the rest of the group whom I'm sure were either laughing at me or shaking their heads! :o
All in all, the first dive was great and the second dive was a learning experience. Practice makes perfect if it doesn't kill you first!
I posted this here so that those looking to transition to a FFM take the skills and practice needed to be proficient seriously. You don't really need to take a class, but you need to think through the skills and contingencies needed in the event of something goes wrong. Plumbing and familiarity are important, and can mean the difference between lost gas and a fumbled procedure.
Hope this sheds some light, and practice, practice, practice!


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There will be Plenty of new Hostages to Choose from in the Near Future
Over at Politico Byron Tau and Ben Smith are raising the red flag about the possibility of Republicans using the expiration of the 18.4 cent per gallon gas tax on September 30th as their new hostage in the next stage of disaster legislating. The anti-tax Republicans are already making noises about not extending this tax. From Politico:
Already, a handful of conservative groups are eyeing the expiration as the next potential front in the spending and tax fight — including Grover Norquist's influential Americans for Tax Reform group — but are mum about any potential legislative strategy.
"In general, ATR has always supported the idea of ending the federal tax on gas and having states pay for their own roads," Norquist told POLITICO, but he declined to say whether he or his group plans to pressure congressional Republicans to let the excise tax expire.
It would seem that taking this tax extension hostage would fit the GOP's new game plan. Given President Obama's pattern of folding and that the tax will expire unless the GOP actively extends it, I wouldn't be surprised if they exploit the event for some spending cut concessions.
Whether are not Republicans try to exploit the gas tax expiration is less important than the fact that it shows there are plenty of potential items coming up that the House Republicans can use to create a hostage situation.
This is the inherent flaw in the logic of those trying to say the debt ceiling deal wasn't so terrible because most of its cuts are delayed. Large near term cuts are still going to happen. The GOP will simply exploit some of the new potential hostage situations to get them.
This is why President Obama's behavior in the debt ceiling was so horrifyingly bad. He actually had the leverage in this fight to take as stand against this tactic and proved he was serious by minting a $1 trillion coin or using the 14th amendment.
In these small future moments of disaster legislating, the President will have less leverage and less ability to rally public opinion.


text:
Yet another propelling rhythm loop
Wow, cool sound, haven't heard anything like this one!
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text: Port Washington will remember its war dead with a traditional parade and program on Memorial Day. The Monday, May 26, events sponsored by the Van Ells-Schanen American Legion Post 82 will begin with a 10:30 a.m. parade through downtown. The parade will begin at the corner of Wisconsin Street and Grand Avenue, head east on Grand Avenue, north on Franklin Street and then follow Pier and Lake streets to Veterans Memorial Park. A program at the park will follow, featuring Jim Johnson, commander of the post and Ozaukee County undersheriff. Paul "Butch" Tutas, a 60-year member of the Van Ells-Schanen American Legion, and Cliff Radtke, a 50-year member, will be honored. The Badger Boys and Girls sponsored by the Legion post will also be introduced. The Port Washington High School and Thomas Jefferson Middle School bands will perform patriotic songs. To salute deceased veterans, a wreath will be placed in the park and taps played. A rifle salute will also be presented by the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5373. Those attending are asked to honor fallen soldiers with silence during this portion of the event. Following the program, ice cream and soft drinks will be provided by the Legion to youngsters.


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Toshiba's 7-inch Encore Mini is one of the most affordable Windows tablets yet
The tablet market is saturated with cheap Android devices, but there's also a growing number of Windows-powered slates pushing down the average price. The Toshiba Encore Mini is a 7-inch device unveiled at IFA 2014 today and it comes with a price tag of just $119.99.
While this is already a low price, it's possible that retailers will drop the price even further when it ships around September 17. Don't let the price point fool you -- this is not a Windows RT device; you get fully fledged Windows 8.1. But, of course, compromises have been made.
The quad-core Intel Atom Z3735G processor is backed up by just 1GB RAM, and the multi-touch screen has a resolution of just 1024 x 600. Internal storage is limited to 16GB, but there is a microSD slot that can be used to boost this. There is, of course, wireless connectivity and the ubiquitous front and rear cameras. The specs may be nothing to get too excited about, but the price is enticing, particularly with the Toshiba name attached.
Microsoft's decision to scrap licensing fees for Windows on smaller devices will have helped to drive down the price as much as the corner-cutting, and the Encore Mini is a good investment as a "spare" tablet, or a device to throw in a bag and take on trips. The tablet comes bundled with a one year subscription to Office 365 Personal, and includes 1TB of storage on OneDrive, adding further appeal.


text:
100 Best Songs of the 2000s
100 Best Songs of the 2000s
More News
20. Justin Timberlake, 'Cry Me a River'
The video, in which Justin stalks a Britney look-alike, made clear the inspiration for this breakup aria. But the real story was the formation of the Timberlake-Timbaland team: a match made in pop heaven.
• Photos: Teen Idols On the Cover of Rolling Stone
• Video: Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake Parody Themselves on 'SNL'


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Are you always pushing creative boundaries? Are you not afraid to show your own creative eye? Do you seek perfectionism in every project, no matter what shoot?
Grow Haus Film Production is seeking a Brisbane-based Videographer and Video Editor to work on their growing real estate branch of the company. This is not your average "listing video" gig - our DOP shoots on Red and we aim to produce the highest quality videos, not matter what project. There will also be opportunities in the future to work on larger scale projects with our commercial company.
We want someone who can transform something "average" into something "outstanding".
You will work with an award-winning camera operator of nearly 20 years experience. We have a vibrant culture and great conditions, including a vehicle.
We are wanting someone with the following characteristics:
- dedicated
- hardworking
- tolerrant
- creative
- open-minded
This person will have a strong understanding of video editing - gear/software/computer isn't required.
*please do not apply if you don't have both camera and editing skills*
If this sounds like you, please email your cover letter, CV & portfolio.


text:
Hotter water for San Diego's fire department
State commission launched gender-discrimination investigation
Dorian Hargrove 11:30 a.m., Sept. 24
Big donors are opening up their pocketbooks in support of the three-big-name mayoral candidates running in the upcoming November 19 special election.
As is the case with any election, developers and labor unions have gone all in to get their candidate elected.
On the developer front, the Associated Builders and Contractors group has wasted no time in setting up a fundraising arm for Republican-backed candidate, Kevin Faulconer. According to a September 24 disclosure, William Baber, Director of Government Affairs for the trade group began raising contributions for Faulconer the day before filing. The disclosure did not reveal the amount raised.
The San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce also stepped up for Faulconer. Executive Vice-President Aimee LePore Faucett wrote a $1,000 check for Faulconer. The head of the Chamber of Commerce, former Mayor Jerry Sanders has already endorsed Faulconer and is said to have done so at a gathering of GOP-powerbrokers earlier this month, as reported by Voice of San Diego and more recently by the Los Angeles Times.
As for unions, Councilmember David Alvarez will soon reap the benefits of a massive $50,000 donation from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. The union wrote the check on September 23 to the pro-Alvarez committee Working Families for a Better San Diego to Support David Alvarez for Mayor 2013. And while Alvarez and his campaign are not allowed to touch the stack of cash, the independent expenditure committee sponsored by the local Labor Council are sure to spend every cent on his behalf.
And don't forget, former Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher. Although unsuccessful in obtaining the support from the Labor Council and from the Democratic Party, there are no signs that his fundraising efforts will be slowing down anytime soon. After all, he's got one of the wealthiest men in the country on his side. On Tuesday, Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs and his wife Joan Jacobs both gave the maximum contribution allowed of $1,000 to Fletcher's campaign.
Fletcher also collected some campaign cash from William Ayyad, President of real-estate firm, the United Development Group.
The cash flow doesn't seem to be reaching the other eight candidates, however, former City Attorney Mike Aguirre vowed not to accept contributions over $250.


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Sunday, March 07, 2010
Matthew insists on puffed sleeves
22 comments:
- firstname.lastname@example.com said...
I am one of those who truly believes here is a difference between gray and gray. and not just because I live four months a year in Scotland!
To me, gray is a less exciting color, a bit bland whereas grey is deeper, cooler, like stones washed by the sea. Gray signifies stones that may have been wet at some point but are now dry and have lost all their beauty.
- 11:00 AM, March 07, 2010
- grrlpup said...
Madeleine L'Engle had a thing about gray and grey. From A Circle of Quiet: "Then there's grey, which is English, and one very definite, bird-wing, ocean-wave color to me; and gray, which is American, and a flatter, more metallic color."
She must have arrived at this after The Moon By Night, because slick Zachary's last name is Grey there and Gray in the books after it (and Vicky even goes on about his eyes being gray like his name, not grey).
- 11:21 AM, March 07, 2010
- IrreverendAmy said...
The spelling and even the shape of words definitely affects their connotations, to me. The thing that makes "ax" set my teeth on edge feels like part of the same kind of awareness of words that also makes me almost always remember how they're spelled. People can have an excellent ear for language in every other way and be lousy spellers, no question. But I wonder if there is a correlation between those who are naturally good spellers and those who insist that gray and grey, and most definitely Anne and Ann are different (Anne--so sophisticated! Ann--so dowdy!).
There, now I've pissed off Anns and bad spellers in one swell foop.
- 3:05 PM, March 07, 2010
- Roger Sutton said...
Well, to piss off Jane and the ghost of L'Engle, my eyes always roll a bit when I see "grey" in an American book. I even hated Joan Baez when she released that album called Colours so you can see this is a prejudice of longstanding.
- 3:33 PM, March 07, 2010
- kristin cashore said...
"Grey" is how I've always spelled "gray," having grown up reading so many British classics and not really thinking about the difference -- until I got my first copyedited ms back and all my "greys" had been changed to "grays." It made me sad. :( But then, a few months later, I got that same copyedited ms back from my U.K. publisher, and they'd switched all the "grays" back to "greys," so I was happy again!
For the record, the references to Matthew, Anne with an E, and PUFFED SLEEVES made my day.
- 4:48 PM, March 07, 2010
Grays are opaque; greys are slightly translucent. Suede gloves are gray; dry slate is gray; but the ocean generally looks green-grey when it is acting up, and the glaze on celadon pottery has a good deal of grey in it. My computer disapproves of "grey" and tries to keep me from using it. This renders me infuriate. Where do we expect to end up, if we blur all these fascinating distinctions? Lying in the gutter, all of us--and not a star in sight.
- 7:37 AM, March 08, 2010
Meanwhile, soldiers are dying in the mountains of Afghanistan...
- 11:17 AM, March 08, 2010
- Peter said...
Congratulations. Your blog has been nominated for our Library Blog Awards. In fact, your blog was suggested more than once. We're in the process of assembling information about all those nominated and will be sending a short questionaire, including the categories of awards and the judges involved. Would you please send me your email address so that I can send you the questionaire? If your email is on your blog, I couldn't locate it.
Thanks in advance,
Peter W Tobey
- 1:39 PM, March 08, 2010
- GraceAnne LadyHawk said...
Gray has too much pink in it; grey is what the color is.
- 7:40 PM, March 08, 2010
- Shoshana said...
"The only real cat is a grey cat." -Emily of New Moon
"Gray" just isn't as soft and furry, is it?
- 9:56 PM, March 08, 2010
I don't get the reference to Matthew and puffed sleeves.
betty t, Minneapolis
- 11:13 PM, March 08, 2010
Joan Baez is Canadian and we spell colours with a U.
- 10:42 AM, March 09, 2010
Anon @ 10:42 -- I think you've confused Joan Baez with Joni Mitchell. Or k.d. lang.
- 12:47 PM, March 09, 2010
- Melinda said...
I agree with all the folks (including Katharine S. White) who equate gray with skies and grey with kittens.
For me, it's also part of liking the cooler-looking word. I prefer doughnuts, catalogue, etc. There's a little town to the north of here named Fortescue, or Fortesque -- the latter spelling is much more fun!
- 1:07 PM, March 09, 2010
So, no one's going to help out poor Betty in Minneapolis?
*evil laugh*
- 4:37 PM, March 09, 2010
- Shoshana said...
Betty, Matthew insists on puffed sleeves in a dress for Anne because they're desperately, dramatically important to her, rather like the e in her name and pretty much everything else she sets her heart on.
- 10:05 PM, March 09, 2010
That would be Anne of Green Gables, Betty.
- 11:24 PM, March 09, 2010
Cynthia Kadohata writes in her beautiful new book, A MILLION SHADES OF GRAY, "The next morning he woke up before sunrise. The green shades of the jungle seemed gray in the dim light. A million shades of gray, just like the hide of an elephant."
- 2:27 PM, March 10, 2010
- Melinda said...
"Shades of gray, wherever I go; the more I find out, the less that I know."
Tip of the pen (keyboard) to Billy Joel
- 4:31 PM, March 10, 2010
- IrreverendAmy said...
I agree that "Colours" is pretentious (Anonymous @ 10:42, maybe you're mixing up Joan Baez with Joni Mitchell--Baez is US American) but IMO gray/grey is different, since both are permissible under US spelling.
- 5:52 AM, March 11, 2010
- IrreverendAmy said...
Oh, and my gray cat is definitely gray. Maybe if she tilted more toward the brown than the blue, she'd be grey. Then again, maybe anyone who spells her name Stephenie shouldn't be trusted on such matters.
- 5:57 AM, March 11, 2010
- Roger Sutton said...
Susan, that's a great line. And if Kadohata had used grey I would be too distracted by the spelling to see the color.
- 10:08 AM, March 11, 2010


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On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 12:34 PM, Christopher Frank <c(dot)frank(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote: >> I'm not sure how many JDBC hackers hang out here; you might be better >> advised to ask on the pgsql-jdbc list. >> >> regards, tom lane > > As for JDBC, there may be something that gives equivalent information, but I > couldn't find it. http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/sql/DatabaseMetaData.html getCatalogs() -- Regards, Richard Broersma Jr. Visit the Los Angeles PostgreSQL Users Group (LAPUG) http://pugs.postgresql.org/lapug
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Fans of the show often ask, "what will Earth be like when they find it?" Ronald Moore always refuses to answer that question, and at times he suggests he has not even fully decided what form it will take. However, there is a fairly strong case to be made that, unlike the original, this show is set many thousands of years in our future, and that Kobol is a colony of Earth, not the other way around as told in the colonial mythology. There probably never was a 13th tribe that went to Earth. Instead, that story is a myth to cover the reality.
The original series in 1978 began with an introduction said to the audience: "There are those who believe that life here, began out there, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians…" And indeed, by the end of that series, and in the dreadful sequel in 1980, it was revealed that the show was set in current times. That, however, was then, and this is a re-imagining with many key differences.
Adama says that "Life here began out there" is the first line of the Sacred Scrolls, and indeed for the colonials this is true, they come from Kobol. But where did life on Kobol come from? As the first line of the scrolls, there is a strong argument it was written on Kobol, from a Kobolian perspective, pretty much declaring in the miniseries that Kobol is a colony.
Clues in the show
The show actually gives us several clues. Most important is the scene in the Tomb of Athena on Kobol. In that scene, they see a projection showing all the constellations of the real Earth Zodiac. We're told those star patterns appear on the flags of the twelve colonies. We're also told the 12 tribes had older names which match the Earth names of the Zodiac. Starbuck says "they looked up and saw their twelve brothers," a line which upon further analysis makes no sense. The names themselves don't tell you a lot but the star patterns are an absolute giveaway. Why would 12 tribes chose as emblems for their flags star patterns only seen from the mythical planet of a barely remembered and lost 13th tribe? Indeed, the very fact that they have a story of the tribe on Earth requires that ships went from Earth to Kobol, and does not require any travel in the other direction. Later, when Starbuck goes to Earth, she photographs the Zodiac and confirms that it matches.
So Kobol's twelve tribes took their flags and names from the Earth sky. You can come up with convoluted explanations of how a 13th tribe went to Earth, then came back to Kobol and brought their new culture with them, and this culture then took over Kobolian culture so that its symbols became the symbols of the other tribes. But frankly, that just multiplies entities far beyond necessity. It's far simpler to accept that the culture originated on Earth and moved to Kobol.
If that's not enough, there is a clincher so strong in the same scene that is so absolute we almost wonder if it's a writing error. Adama sees the Lagoon Nebula in the simulated Earth sky, and recognizes it. The Lagoon Nebula is about 4,000 light-years from us, in the direction of the galactic center. But the kicker is that Adama calls it "M8." This (short for Messier-8) is an 18th century catalog designation for the Lagoon, well known to astronomers. This is not simply a translation of English into whatever language the colonials speak, this is a catalog number. The only way Adama could know the Lagoon as M8 would be if this takes place in our future.
Elosha, a priestess in the show gives a lesson to Laura Roslin about the book of Pythia. It is these books which tell the (false) story of Earth, but Elosha also relates that:
…in the sacred scrolls. 3,600 years ago, Pythia wrote about the exile and the rebirth of a human race: "And the lords anointed a leader to guide the caravan of the heavens to their new homeland and unto the leader they gave a vision of serpents, numbering two and ten, as a sign of things to come."
This story of exile and rebirth, written in the past tense 3,600 years prior indicates a third exodus, which strongly suggests Kobol is not the original world but the site of the described rebirth.
They also have a lot of legends of Earth, including books with pictures of Earth cities and a Temple of Aurora — which they find in the ruins when they get to Earth.
Zoom to Earth
At the end of season 3, right after Starbuck says she's been to Earth, the camera pulls out of the galaxy, and then back in at essentially the same place. From there it zooms to the real Earth. And for those noticing, it's a present-day or later Earth, because it has the current Mississippi delta lobes, which are only a few hundred years old. (However, that is probably simply because they used a current photo.) However, what this does tell us is that Starbuck has been to the real Earth, and it's nearby, not an illusion or vision.
Real science
The biggest clue, however, comes from reality. We viewers all know that Earth is the real home of humanity, and was not colonized by people from another planet. We knew this in 1978 as well, but there was just the smallest shadow of a doubt back then to allow Glen Larson to get away with that plot. That doubt has since been erased.
It's been erased because we have learned to decode DNA, and we've developed a new system of classifying and understanding the tree of life which we call cladistics. DNA shows us that all life on Earth is related. All the other life forms on Earth share lots and lots of DNA with us. You are actually quite closely related to a mushroom — much more closely related than you would be to any alien being. So while we only have several thousand years of written human history, our relationship to all the other life shows that we — by which I mean we and our ancestors — have been on this planet for at least 3 billion years.
(If that's too much for you, consider that all primates, including us, need to eat vitamin C to live, while other animals generate it internally. We and many of our cousin primates have the same copy of the gene you need to produce vitamin C internally — but it's broken. Broken in just the same way. So it's just not possible that we would be the result of a different evolution than our monkey cousins.)
There are people who theorize that our ancient single-celled ancestors may have come from space, on Mars rocks or similar, but that's 3 billion years ago. Our planet is full of fossils and other records that trace our history back through those billions. If humans were the result of a colonization 10,000 years ago, we would not share all the DNA with the mushrooms and other life forms that have without question been here for billions of years.
So no, life here did not begin out there, at least not at the multicellular level. Nobody doubts this in the scientific community today. Creationists, who try to pretend the universe is 6,000 years old, doubt the fossil record but they are not taken seriously. And even they agree that this is the homeworld of humanity.
RDM has stated he wishes to write BSG as naturalistic science fiction. That means he won't contradict established science if he can avoid it. And here he can so easily avoid it. While a writer can write their story any way they want, the old plot of the original BSG was fantasy, not SF. In the old days, an SF writer could write a story about Mars with canals and an ancient martial race. Then science improved and probes went to Mars. Today, a writer could write such a story, but nobody would consider it SF. It would at best be a romantic fantasy, harkening back to more innocent days when we knew less about Mars. Indeed, when Moore declared he wanted to reimagine the BSG story as more realistic SF, the two most obvious things he needed to change was the poor sense of distance and speeds in interstellar travel, and the "Earth as a colony" notion. He (mostly) fixed the first one right away, the fixing of the other one is left as a surprise, it seems.
Official source
Moore, in his blog, was asked how he would reconcile reality (humans evolved on Earth) with BSG's original story.
A: I don't have a direct answer for this question yet. There are a couple of notions rolling around in my head as to how we reconcile the very real fact of evolution with the Galactica mythos, but I haven't decided which approach to take. However, it was a fundamental element of the original Galactica mythos that "Life here began out there…" and I decided early on that it was crucial to maintain it.
His answer appears to be that for the colonists, life here did begin out there, and that they believe that Kobol is the homeworld. However the fact that he addressed this question in his writing, and was dedicated in staying as true to scientific reality, should be answer enough.
Alternate Reality
Sometimes I am asked, "couldn't this be an alternate reality, an Earth which, unlike ours, is populated with space colonists?" It could. But realize that this would be an alternate reality where the "split" from reality goes back billions of years, not thousands. It would not have any of the same people, nations or history as our planet. Our planet is full of fossils — this one would be empty, just as Caprica is presumably empty. All of our history would be different. Real humanity consists of various ethnic and racial groups which spread around the world anywhere from 100,000 to 12,000 years ago.
On real Earth, sub-saharan Africans are black. First Nations ("native americans") are Asian-derived, and got to the continent at least 12,000 years ago. Native Australians are black but highly different from Africans and made the trip 50,000 years ago. (There seem to be only a tiny number of black people in the fleet, too.) There's just no way to explain our history in terms of a set of colony ships arriving 4,000 years ago. So this would have to be a completely different planet. Thanks to the Creationist-vs-science debate that has raged in the USA for many years, it's safe to say that the "Ark" theory, which has Earth "colonized" recently, is perhaps the most debunked theory in history.
In other words, colonization by Kobol is very clearly not in our past. It could be in the past of a very different fictional Earth that bears no resemblance to ours historically and culturally and racially. I have written a more detailed analysis of this issue.
But in that case, what's the point? It removes all the relevancy to our own story, which is the whole reason to play these characters out as seeking Earth. Why bother have them seek Earth that bears only a geographic resemblance to the real thing?
Allegorical Earth
Of course, what turned out to be the case was an alternate-reality Earth that is largely Earth in name only. A planet founded by Cylon colonists, where All Along the Watchtower was written by Anders, not Dylan. Where this planet has things from the real version of Earth, it would not be for any scientific reason, but rather simply as an act of author's fiat. As such, more a fantasy or allegory than the real planet. I think this is a terrible shame, but I'm not the show-runner.
Ancient Atlantis
Some have suggested that the show could present a human colonization of Kobol in the distant past, through an ancient Earth civilization (ie. Atlantis) which then fell. That's a workable plot, but there is no record of this civilization. It would have to have erased all record of itself, not just from Earth but from the Moon and Mars. This is a spacefaring civilization, and while you can imagine its Earthly remnants being covered over, this would not happen to anything they built on the Moon. And of course they would have built things on the Moon. So I rate this as a stretch. To use Occam's words, it multiplies entities beyond necessity in order to shoehorn a plot that really isn't all that novel or interesting.
Others propose that aliens could have abducted humans long ago from Earth and put them on Kobol. Possible, but RDM has declared he will not include aliens in this show, nor time travel, and I applaud both decisions. And again, to what purpose would he write such a plot. Just so he can duplicate Galactica 1980? We know he doesn't want to do that.
Trip to Earth or from Earth?
The colonial sacred scrolls tell what is surely a lie in our universe — that there was a 13th tribe that colonized Earth, 2000 years before the tribes left Kobol on their own. So they assume they are following a trail left on a journey from Kobol to Earth. That's not impossible, presuming there was 2-way commerce for a time. But their scrolls tell of the tribe landing on Earth, which thus requires at least one trip from Earth to Kobol to get the message through.
The fleet presumes the trip was to Earth, but that's quite odd. For example, once they see the nova explode in Rapture, they imagine the mandala was left as a signpost to identify the Ionian nebula. But if you're out hunting your new home, you don't know exactly which direction you're going. It makes much more sense to leave a trail of clues behind you pointing to where you came from rather than clues about where you are going — especially if you don't know where you're going yet.
The concept of a "lost 13th tribe" comes from Mormonism. Glen Larson, who wrote the original BSG story, was a Mormon and based many of its aspects on Mormon legends, including this tribe. There is no particular reason Ronald Moore, who is not a Mormon, would wish to stick to that story when it makes no sense in the context of modern science.
What will Earth be like?
Even knowing this is set 4,000 years or more in the future — which makes it more relevant to us, I believe — there is still a lot of freedom for the writers. Earth could be an advanced world. It could be a world that expelled the Kobolites. It could be a dead world, like Kobol. It could be a world that fell and rose again to whatever level of technology the writers desire.
Update: We seem to have come to a ruined Earth, which was one of the scenaria I thought fairly likely, though it looks like it was ruined much more recently than 3,600 years ago. This suggests that Earth has risen and fallen, with the most recent fall perhaps a few hundred years prior. Rumours suggest it has inhabitants we will see at the end of the series.
The recent trip of Starbuck to Earth does put some constraints on this. See the previous post for more details.
New clarifications have arrived. The Rebel Hybrid declares that "The Five" are "From the home of the 13th." While her use of the term "the 13th" seems to contradict the thesis that there was no 13th, from the point of view of the colonials and S7 Cylons, that is how they know them and it makes sense in her little number-poem. However, the ancient Final Five are from Earth, another sign it's the origin of all these people and technology.
The song, "All along the Watchtower" has provided confusing signals. Some hints from staff say it's just a song. Others say it is the real Dylan tune. This is in line with the Final Five being from Earth, and having been born/created in the 21st century. Taken literally, this insists the show is set in our distant future. However, hints from Moore are ambiguous but he does say the song is intended to show a connection between our Earth and their world. He has also said there is a reason the props and sets look Earth-derived; it is intended to show the connection between the colonials and us.
And of course in Revelations we arrive on the target planet, almost surely Earth. It's in ruins but once held a civilization. Many people feel the images suggest they are sitting in Brooklyn, but that can't be confirmed yet. Whoever controls the triggers of the Final Five and who took Starbuck wanted them to go there, joined with the Cylons.
If it is not Earth, and just another colony, it doesn't say much to us that it's in ruins. It's just a sad story, that this trip was a waste. It makes much more sense in the context of Earth as the ancient home, and of a repeating cycle of man-machine war and exodus, starting here, with the most ancient Cylons from here.


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Currently, there seems to be a lot of talk about the need for a new economic global architecture. This statement is usually made in conjunction with crises, mostly financial crises.
It was once again the central theme of the 1999 World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. President Clinton wants to ``adapt the international financial architecture to the 21st century.'' British Prime Minister Tony Blair wants ``a new Bretton Woods for the new millennium.''
A new Web page on the Asian crisis offers a myriad of links to an abundance of international finance reform proposals. (http://equity.stern.nyu.edu/~nroubini/asia/AsiaHomepage.html)
First, let's review a brief history of the old architecture.
Architecture is the science of the design and construction of something, such as a house. In our case, this science is concerned with the design and construction of a financial system which will enable the people around the globe to earn a livelihood by producing and exchanging the fruits of their work for things that they need but do not have.
The need for such an architecture was recognized immediately after World War II. During the entire 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the architects were the British. The United Kingdom made all the rules of exchange of goods and services. From London to Bombay people exchanged their wares using the Pound Sterling as the medium. Everybody accepted the pound which Britain was more than happy to supply.
The end of World War II found Britain incapable of supplying the liquidity needed for international trade and investment. Lord Keynes, the most prominent economist at the time, and his American counterpart, Harry Dexter White, called for a meeting of the allied forces to create an architecture for the international transactions of all the countries of the world. The meeting took place in Bretton Woods, N.H. in 1944. Two issues were discussed: free exchange of goods and services and availability of funds to facilitate the exchange.
Discussions on the first issue led to the creation of the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade, the so-called GATT. GATT aimed at minimizing, and eventually eliminating, all tariff and non-tariff trade barriers.
The issue of adequate liquidity was a bit more complex. The basic aim was to secure enough short-term cash to lubricate trade and at the same time leave enough funds free to be invested into fixed productive facilities and equipment to create the goods that will be traded. The real issue was to find a patron who would be willing and able to supply a stable and convertible currency. The choice was obvious. The United States represented the only country with strong and plenty currency. The dollar was already used by the allied forces as the official medium during World War II.
Thus, the Bretton Woods agreement created the so-called fixed-exchange rate system or the gold-standard system. All currencies would be aligned (pegged) to the U.S. dollar, which would be pegged to gold. The United States accepted the responsibility of exchanging $35 for every Troy Ounce of gold. To make sure that this system would work, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was created as an advising and, to some extent, policing authority over matters pertaining to currency alignments.
To be able to trade, however, one must be able to produce. Most of the world's developing countries had no funds to invest in productive facilities. The United States concentrated primarily on Western Europe. The rest of the world would have to somehow find funds to develop. That was precisely the role of the sister institution, the World Bank. The Bank, as it is known, collected funds from contributions by the developed member countries and distributed it to the developing countries, in the form of grants and low interest loans.
All seemed to work very well. The developed countries got rich, and the developing countries made some progress. Trade created enough cash which was invested in productive facilities. A perpetual wealth-creating machine was invented. Governments were able to control the cash and to keep it within their national borders. Cash was free to move around the globe as long as it didn't create massive outflows or inflows that might disturb their harmony between the real economy of goods creation and money creation.
All would have continued to run its course were it not for the war in Vietnam. The Europeans, primarily the French, began to suspect that the United States would not be able to make good on its promise to exchange $35 for each ounce of gold and began cashing in their dollars for gold. By the summer of 1971, the United States ran out of gold, and President Nixon was forced to close the so-called ``gold window.'' That was the end of the gold/dollar standard.
The next 15 years witnessed a number of schemes aimed at providing some kind of currency stability. The '70s saw the creation of the Eurodollar market, a huge pool of U.S. dollars that were not sent back to the United States. Huge oil prices made the oil-producing countries into de facto bankers of the world.
With interest rates in Europe hovering around 15 percent to 20 percent, businesses were reluctant to repatriate their profits to the United States where the interest rates were around 6 percent.
By the mid-1970s, the U.S. experienced a liquidity draught. The president appealed to the patriotism of Americans not to take vacations and spend money in the developed countries of Europe. By 1981 the dollar began to rejuvenate.
Its value against the Japanese yen reached unusual height. Japanese exports flooded the U.S. markets while U.S. businesses could not export their highly priced products. Finally, in August of 1984 the big seven countries (G7) negotiated the so-called Plaza agreement that realigned the U.S. dollar against the Japanese yen.
For a while the Japanese felt that they were destined to take over the world starting with the United States. Intoxicated by the strong and plenty yen, the Japanese went into a real estate buying spree paying exuberant prices for American property. The dollar continued to decline.
Nevertheless, the almighty greenback continued to be the king of currencies. Today, it is said that two-thirds of U.S. dollars in circulation are overseas. And that's precisely the problem. People around the globe love the dollar, and when it is offered by the international financial institutions, governments and businesses around the world make a run for it. And therein lies the rub.
A. G. ``Stell'' Kefalas, Ph.D, is Professor of Management in the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business.
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