text:
Is the Christian church losing critical mass?
It is amazing how Christmas has come full circle. In the pre-Christian era, it used to be a fertility festival celebrated by European pagans, who did not believe in a male "jealous god" and his "only son".
Two thousand years later, the pagans are gone but Christmas is now celebrated by Europeans, who do not believe in a male jealous god or his only son. Today in much of the Western world Christmas is almost completely shorn of its religious association.
It is because of this delinking of Christmas from Christianity, that Christmas has become a truly global festival. For instance, I find myself irresistibly drawn towards Christmas. Where earlier it used be just a day to sit at home and do nothing, now I'm drawn into the dazzle and sparkle of the festival.
Poking around I discovered that many non-Christian, non-European immigrants now celebrate Christmas, sometimes going all the way with Christmas trees, exchanging gifts, partying and merry making just as Christians and people of European origin do. (It's a bit like non-Hindus celebrating Diwali) For atheists like me, Christmas is tailor made for the good times. I'll say hallelujah to that!
That's not what we wanted!
You'd think with the entire world celebrating its festival, the Christian church would be feeling smug and satisfied. Well, not quite.
As per a survey conducted by the Barna Group, a leading research organisation which focusses on the relationship of faith and culture, less than 1 per cent of the young adult population in the United States has a biblical worldview. Even more striking, the data show that less than one half of 1 per cent of Christians between the ages of 18 and 23 has a biblical worldview.
Is Christianity facing an exodus of, well, Biblical proportions? There are clear signs the passion of Jesus's followers is ebbing and the congregation is losing critical mass.
On July 28, 2010 in a spectacular renunciation of her faith, celebrated Christian author Anne Rice announced on Facebook that she was quitting the Roman Catholic Church.
Rice wrote: "For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being 'Christian' or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to 'belong' to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else."
She also pointed to recent statements from several radical Christian groups that have threatened the lives of gay citizens. "In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life," she added.
In yet another celebrated case, in August 2010, Hollywood star Julia Roberts declared she, her husband and their three children were practising Hindus. Roberts, who was born to Baptist and Catholic parents in Bible belt Georgia, is thought to have made the religious conversion while in India where she was shooting her new film, Eat, Pray, Love, in which she plays a woman hoping to find herself through Hindu spirituality.
Maids in Japan: Japanese revellers get a head start on this year's Christmas festivities.
Heartland Crisis
While these high-profile exits, coming shortly after the damaging exposes of rampant paedophilia in Christian churches worldwide, have no doubt caused disquiet in the over 2000-year-old faith, it is the less publicized but inexorable exit of once staunch members that is a pointer to the real crisis.
According to the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey, the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 per cent. Overall, the percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 percentage points since 1990, from 86 to 76 per cent.
The proportion of Americans who think religion "can answer all or most of today's problems" is now at a historic low of 48 per cent. Meanwhile, the number of people willing to describe themselves as atheist or agnostic has increased nearly fourfold from 1990 to 2009, from 1 million to about 3.6 million.
Worse, the biggest decline in US church affiliation was concentrated in the north-east, America's Christian heartland. This massive decline in the Mayflower sector, where Christians first settled has caused acute anguish among conservative Christian leaders who fear America will soon become a post-Christian country.
Ain't giving up
Of course, there is denial. Christian commentators like to talk about revolving door membership, that people quitting the traditional churches are signing up at Born Again denominations. Sure, more than 34 per cent of adult church goers today consider themselves Born Again or Evangelical Christians, but as the surveys says, "The challenge to Christianity in the US does not come from other religions but rather from a rejection of all forms of organised religion."
Indeed, 27 per cent of Americans do not expect a religious funeral at their death, indicating that they dismiss Christianity's zero-sum offer of heaven or hell.
European sector
Across the Atlantic, northern Europe is a virtual graveyard of abandoned churches. In the south, in predominantly Catholic Italy, over 60 per cent of Italians have stopped attending confession. An entire generation of European Catholics has become indifferent - or openly hostile - to the church, mainly because of the sexual abuse of young children by priests.
In fact, there is a rapidly growing movement that seeks to rediscover the original fertility religions of pre-Christian Europe, Wicca being the most well known. Incidentally Wicca practitioners, or witches and warlocks, were Europe's medicine people. Falsely accused of black deeds, hundreds of thousands of them were burned at the stake by the church.
Born Again arrogance
Born Again Christians have long lived under the delusion that their storm troopers, a new breed of uncompromisingly fundamentalist pastors, are ready to kick in the doors and spread the Lord's faith worldwide. They also believe their moral compass is perfectly tuned towards god. According to them, they are simply better human beings with special suites reserved for them in heaven.
But surveys have repeatedly proved there's little measurable difference between the moral behaviour of churchgoers and the rest. Evangelist George Barna, the founder of The Barna Group, has found that born-again Christians are more likely to divorce than atheists and agnostics, and are more likely to be racist than others.
And while evangelical adolescents overwhelmingly say they believe in abstaining from premarital sex, they are more likely to be sexually active - and at an earlier age - than peers who are mainline Protestants, Mormons or Jews, says University of Texas researcher Mark Regnerus.
Christian activist Ronald J. Sider writes in his book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: "By their daily activity, most Christians regularly commit treason. With their mouths they claim that Jesus is their Lord, but with their actions they demonstrate their allegiance to money, sex, and personal self-fulfillment."
Counter attack and reform
However, the Christian church is not giving up without a fight. In a debate last year on "The Uniqueness of Christ in Multi-Faith Britain", Nezlin Sterling, general secretary of the New Testament Assembly, a black majority church, told the Church of England's governing body, the General Synod: "There is no room for complacency, no room to procrastinate or retreat but like a mighty army of the church we Christians must go forward, spread the Gospel and the good news of salvation. Every person in my mind is a potential convert."
While missionaries such as Sterling want to revert to their lapel grabbing mode, others have tried more creative methods. A pastor in New Zealand, hoping to arrest falling church attendance, delivers his Sunday sermon in rap form.
However, it's the Catholic Church's 'modernisation' that is most puzzling. In March 2008, the Pope, playing God, announced seven new sins to be placed alongside the Biblical seven deadly ones.
To add onto Envy, Pride, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Hate, and Sloth, the seven "mortal" ones are: Environmental Pollution, Genetic Manipulation, Excessive Wealth, Inflicting Poverty, Drug Trafficking and Consumption, Morally Debatable Experiments, and the Violation of Human Rights.
Observe that paedophilia - the church's most persistent problem - has been left out.
Eastern comfort
It is indeed ironic that while its European flock is seeking comfort and meaning in the East, the church is desperately seeking adherents in the same catchment area. In my view, the church is abandoning the questioning West and seeking converts in countries where people are (as yet) unaware of its human rights record.
Here's a new action plan for the 21st century. Instead of being obsessed with the harvest of souls, the church needs to build a new order that values spirituality, which millions of former Christians have found in New Age beliefs, yoga, meditation, Tantra, Buddhism and Hinduism.
Those who believe spirituality and meditation are un-Christian are not just bigoted but also ignorant. Christ's followers were not very different from the Eastern religions in the early years; spirituality was at the core of Christianity, before the clergy hijacked the faith. In fact, the spirituality of the ancient church is still preserved in the Orthodox Church of Russia.
As Anne Rice summed up, "Maybe commitment to Christ means not being a Christian."
Rakesh Krishnan is a proud pagan, infidel, kafir and atheist


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Have you used a Bank Vault Door to make a larger room / closet safe?
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January 12, 2013, 08:49 PM
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Have you used a Bank Vault Door to make a larger room / closet safe?
We're considering converting a large closet to a secure room with a surplus bank vault door. I'm looking for someone who has actually taken an old bank vault door and put in on a room to make a larger than average gun safe. This seems like a better option than individual safes, and provides enough space for much more than just weapons.
Questions are:
How did you test the door prior to installation or did you?
Did you reinforce the walls inside the room / closet around the door for structural reasons to support the door?
For higher security, did you consider reinforcing the walls all the way around that room / closet and / or the ceiling?
Do you have a 'backdoor' way into the room?
Do you have a way out in the event you're locked in?
Did you hide it behind a regular door or is it otherwise obscured from easy view?
Any other words of wisdom or advice you would provide?
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Heterogeneity, correlations and financial contagion
We consider a model of contagion in financial networks recently introduced in the literature, and we characterize the effect of a few features empirically observed in real networks on the stability of the system. Notably, we consider the effect of heterogeneous degree distributions, heterogeneous balance sheet size and degree correlations between banks. We study the probability of contagion conditional on the failure of a random bank, the most connected bank and the biggest bank, and we consider the effect of targeted policies aimed at increasing the capital requirements of a few banks with high connectivity or big balance sheets. Networks with heterogeneous degree distributions are shown to be more resilient to contagion triggered by the failure of a random bank, but more fragile with respect to contagion triggered by the failure of highly connected nodes. A power law distribution of balance sheet size is shown to induce an inefficient diversification that makes the system more prone to contagion events. A targeted policy aimed at reinforcing the stability of the biggest banks is shown to improve the stability of the system in the regime of high average degree. Finally, disassortative mixing, such as that observed in real banking networks, is shown to enhance the stability of the system.
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|Date of creation:
|Sep 2011
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| Web page: http://arxiv.org/
References listed on IDEAS
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- Edson Bastos e Santos & Rama Cont, 2010. "The Brazilian Interbank Network Structure and Systemic Risk," Working Papers Series 219, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
- Michele Manna & Carmela Iazzetta, 2009. "The topology of the interbank market: developments in Italy since 1990," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 711, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
- Gai, Prasanna & Kapadia, Sujit, 2010. "Contagion in financial networks," Bank of England working papers 383, Bank of England.
- Co-Pierre Georg, 2010. "The effect of the interbank network structure on contagion and financial stability," Global Financial Markets Working Paper Series 12-2010, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
- Nier, Erlend & Yang, Jing & Yorulmazer, Tanju & Alentorn, Amadeo, 2007.
"Network models and financial stability,"
Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control,
Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 2033-2060, June.
- Nier, Erlend & Yang, Jing & Yorulmazer, Tanju & Alentorn, Amadeo, 2008. "Network models and financial stability," Bank of England working papers 346, Bank of England.
- Iori, Giulia & De Masi, Giulia & Precup, Ovidiu Vasile & Gabbi, Giampaolo & Caldarelli, Guido, 2008. "A network analysis of the Italian overnight money market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 259-278, January.
- Iori, G. & Masi, G. D. & Precup, O. V. & Gabbi, G. & Caldarelli, G., 2005. "A network analysis of the Italian oversight money market," Working Papers 05/05, Department of Economics, City University London.
- Michael Boss & Helmut Elsinger & Martin Summer & Stefan Thurner, 2004. "Network topology of the interbank market," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(6), pages 677-684. Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)
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Document Type
Publication Date
January 2007
Digital Commons Citation
Torres, Andrés, "From Inquisitorial to Accusatory: Colombia and Guatemala's Legal Transition" (2007). Law and Justice in the Americas Working Paper Series. 4.
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Comparative and Foreign Law Commons, Criminal Law Commons, International Law Commons, Judges Commons, Legal Writing and Research Commons


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Home » Audio & Multimedia » Audio Encoders & Decoders » 4Musics WMA to WAV Converter
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Saturday's Renaissance Stakes winner Jamesie is likely to return to the Curragh for the Derrinstown Stud Flying Five Stakes on 14 September.
The six-year-old struck gold at the Dubai Carnival at Meydan earlier in the year and having run a number of creditable races in defeat, David Marnane's sprinter was certainly not winning out of turn when narrowly denying multiple Group One winner Gordon Lord Byron in Saturday's Group Three contest.
Marnane said: "We were delighted and he definitely deserved to it having run well in all those races all year. Thankfully it was his turn on Saturday.
"It was his third run in 16 days in stakes company on good, fast racing ground, so it was a good performance and he stuck his neck out to the line and touched it out.
"He won in Dubai earlier in the year, so he's having a good season and we'll probably go back to the Curragh for the Flying Five now.
"Five furlongs is probably a bit sharp for him, but it's a stiff five at the Curragh, it's a good pot and we'll have a crack at it.
"A little bit of ease in the ground would probably help his cause."


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Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso says his team realizes it can't fix its problems overnight.
Ferrari has struggled and failed to build on Fernando Alonso's surprise win at the Malaysian Grand Prix last month, with the Spaniard placing ninth at the Chinese GP on Sunday and teammate Felipe Massa finishing down in 13th.
"There's no point denying we are disappointed," team principal Stefano Domenicali said. "We had the potential to get a better result than this, but we did not manage it."
One of Ferrari's biggest problems so far this year is a lack of pace in both qualifying and races - an issue that can't be addressed until after next week's Bahrain GP, Alonso said.
"Obviously, this does not leave me very optimistic for Bahrain, on a track where traction and speed are vital, exactly the areas where we are weakest," he said after the race.
Earlier this week, Alonso said the team was working to improve the car's aerodynamics to improve its speed.
"We know we are far behind and we need to work," he said. "One second is a big gap to recover. But the car has some big problems in terms of aerodynamics, which give us the optimism inside the team that we can recover. Maybe not one second, but a lot of time if we put a couple of things that are not working in the right place.
Massa is under pressure to justify his position in the team. In three races so far this year, he's yet to score a point.
KIMI'S COMEBACK: For a handful of laps toward the end of Sunday's race, it looked like 2007 F1 champion Kimi Raikkonen was going to reach the podium for the first time since his comeback for Lotus.
The Finn moved up to second place on the 41st lap and managed to hold off numerous challenges by Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel until the German finally passed him on the inside of Turn 6 seven laps later.
By then, Raikkonen's tires were just about shot with the Finn having only pitted twice in the race - the last time on the 28th lap. Vettel went by him first, then Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber in quick succession.
On the next lap, six more drivers passed him, leaving Raikkonen in 12th place. He finished a disappointing 14th.
"We tried to run two stops as it looked to be the fastest strategy, and up until the last 10 laps it was looking good. But we ran out of tire performance at the end," Raikkonen said. "We had good pace in the race, we tried a different strategy and it didn't pay off today. It's as simple as that."
Raikkonen has had fairly decent results since returning to the track this year, finishing seventh in Australia and fifth in Malaysia.
"It is getting more frustrating for us as we are clearly very close to achieving a very good result," Lotus team principal Eric Boullier said.
HE SAID, HE SAID: Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel and Narain Karthikeyan have had a hard time putting their very public spat behind them.
Vettel was enraged when he collided with the back-marker HRT driver with nine laps remaining at the Malaysian GP last month, knocking him down to 11th place by the end of the race.
After the race, Vettel called Karthikeyan a "cucumber" and an "idiot" for the way he was driving, prompting Karthikeyan to later respond by calling the Red Bull driver a "cry baby."
Vettel said this week at the Chinese GP that the two drivers had talked and Karthikeyan had apologized.
The news of an apology took Karthikeyan by surprise.
"We happened to meet here outside of the paddock and we talked about it. But it was a normal racing incident, so why should I apologize?" he was quoted as saying by the German daily Bild-Zeitung.
However, Karthikeyan said he's ready to bury the hatchet.
"It's all OK now and I hope it will be for the rest of the season. There is no bad blood," he insisted.
He also said Vettel's words hadn't really bothered him that much.
"Cucumber? I don't know that as an insult," he told the paper.


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text:
The Irvine Slammers FC girls 10-and-under team kept its winning streak alive with two victories over the weekend.
On Saturday, the girls traveled to Villa Park High School to play the Anaheim Surf Blue team in windy conditions. From the start, Slammers midfielders Amorah Castro-Kim and Abby Taylor and forward Presley King had solid shots on goal. Late in the half, midfielder Sarah Ibrahim passed the ball to King to make the score 1-0.
In the second half, the Slammers went to work offensively with Taylor passing to Castro-Kim for a nice shot over the goalie. With five minutes to play, midfielders Chloe Guntrip, Laci Kim and Sloane DeTorres had additional attempts at goals including a battle for the ball in the goalie box that had the sideline crowd on their feet. At the whistle, the score was 2-0 in favor of the Slammers.
On Sunday, the TVSA Hawks came to Irvine. Slammers defender Allison Kramer fought for each possession, and sweeper Grace Mulligan worked the angles and stifled the Hawks' progress. Midfielders Brittany Kantangian and Sarah Ibrahim wrestled the ball free from the Hawks' possession; then Laci Kim found Presley King to give the Slammers a 1-0 lead.
The Hawks came back and scored two goals early in the second half, but the Slammers did not get down.
Deep in Hawks territory, Emily Steinman applied pressure on the goalie, giving King the opportunity to sneak past for the goal. Within a minute, Steinman was back attacking; the shot bounced off the goalie and Kim was there for the rebound and the score. Late in the game, King had a breakaway run and scored a sliding goal to secure a 4-2 Slammers win.


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Gov. Jerry Brown is known for saying and doing many eclectic things, but did you know that he's also the father of California farmer's markets?
In 1978 the governor signed the Direct Marketing Act, which allowed farmers to sell food directly to consumers. That sparked the growth in those open-air markets now ubiquitous across the state. It's a simple case of deregulation allowing a type of enterprise to thrive.
The governor's office mentioned the 1978 act in a statement last week announcing his signing of three new laws designed to further promote what is being touted as the "farm-to-fork" movement. Mainly, it's about encouraging the distribution of "fresh, locally grown food in communities across California," according to the governor.
Many regions, including San Diego, have witnessed growth in this movement. Sacramento – with its location in the fertile Central Valley – claims to be the nation's "farm-to-fork" capital. It's a bit pretentious and contrived, perhaps, but many consumers enjoy the access to fresh, local produce.
California's agricultural bounty is particularly diverse given its Mediterranean climate. When I lived in central Iowa, there was actually little locally grown produce – most of the land was used for feed corn for the massive hog population. But there's much to offer around here.
But it is odd to think that the government needs to get too involved in this marketplace. AB 224 seems to add burdens rather than reduce them: "The bill would require producers that market whole producers that market whole produce, shell eggs, or processed foods through single-farm or multi-farm community-supported agriculture programs … to register annually with the department (of food and agriculture)."
By contrast, AB 551 is meant to help localities create Urban Agriculture Incentive Zones that are basically small farms within cities. AB 654 extends a state certified farmers' market program. My sense, though, is that such a movement needs less formal approvals and rules – and a more tolerant attitude by officials toward these small-scale food alternatives.
Many of us have seen national stories where SWAT teams arrest those who sell illegal "raw" milk. Recently, though, various cities – including Sacramento – have taken a more lenient stance toward people who raise backyard chickens.
The Sacramento Bee's editorial page editor Stuart Leavenworth recently published a column celebrating the city's first Farm-to-Fork Festival, but his policy prescriptions for encouraging this movement included various government mandates (procurement guidelines to use local food, land-use restrictions to maintain more nearby farms, etc.).
But his one point was dead-on: "Inflexible rules make such (agri-tourism) ventures difficult or impossible." Too many rules can ruin an emerging market.
I live on six acres and my youngest daughter, who studies agricultural sciences at the local high school, raises chickens, makes goat milk and goat cheese and is eagerly waiting for our emus to lay some eggs, which she plans to sell. What she needs the most is what most small-time "farmers" need -- to be left alone.


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South Dakota: Wine by mail passes first legislative hurdleFebruary 12, 2014
A bill that would make it legal for South Dakotans to order wine by mail cleared its first hurdle on Tuesday. Barely. Senate Bill 114 establishes a licensing system through which in and out-of-state wineries can legally send residents wine by mail. South Dakota is one of 10 states that do not allow direct shipping of wine, according to the Wine Institute. The bill deadlocked on a 3-3 vote in the Senate Commerce Committee with one senator, Dan Lederman, excused. The committee then voted 4-2 to send it to the Senate floor without a recommendation.


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It has been nearly a year since Dunnellon gave the green light to red-light cameras, but to date, no lead-footed scofflaws have received a single ticket in the mail.
DUNNELLON -- It has been nearly a year since Dunnellon gave the green light to red-light cameras, but to date, no lead-footed scofflaws have received a single ticket in the mail.
That's because Traffipax, the firm the City Council hired last April to install cameras and run the automated program, has not followed through with its promise to conduct traffic surveys to determine where the cameras should be placed.
In the meantime, the city has been negotiating with a rival firm, American Traffic Solutions, which has already targeted the city's problem red lights.
"It seems to me they [Traffipax] just seduced us and used us for marketing to get bigger clients," said Mayor Fred Ward during city council workshop Monday.
The council plans to discuss hiring ATS at a workshop Wednesday and is set to vote on cancelling the contract with Traffipax at the Feb. 8 city council meeting.
City Manager Lisa Algiere said ATS is "very excited" about the program and that the company has a "big time" presence in Florida.
Algiere added that the company reported 81 violations during a 12-hour daylight period at three of the main intersections on U.S. 41.
That's no surprise to Ward, who commented that "when people are coming into Dodge, or getting out of Dodge, they're hitting it."
The traffic-light cameras automatically snap two photographs of the license plate and capture videos of vehicles racing through intersections after the signal turns red. Police must review each violation before tickets are mailed to offenders.
No points may be assessed on a driver's license for a photo enforcement citation and the citations cannot be used to set auto insurance rates.
Dunnellon's Automated Red Light Violation program, approved by a 3-2 vote, would net the city two-thirds of the proceeds from each red-light ticket, with the vendor collecting the rest. The program was adopted in the rush to beat then-pending legislation that would sharply curtail the amount of revenue the city could collect from the violations.
While that legislation did not pass, a new Senate bill is ready for state lawmakers to consider this year which would give authority of the cameras to the Florida Department of Transportation; FDOT would also receive approximately half the proceeds. Existing automated programs, however, would likely be exempt from revenue sharing.
"This is what everybody's doing," said Marsha Segal-George, assistant city attorney. "With a small police department, we can't afford to put officers in little speed traps because there's just not that many [officers] out there."
Segal-George said the city had tried to do "as much due diligence" with Traffipax as possible, but that it is time to move on.
The city had dealt with Dan Foglton, Traffipax's vice president and regional sales manager, who pitched his company's services to the city council last spring. When reached for comment Tuesday, the Star-Banner was told Foglton no longer works for the company and that Traffipax is unaware of Dunnellon's concerns. Calls left requesting further information were not returned by press time.


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This one was at Carlisle...
That '69 is in very nice shape. I spoke with the owner for a few minutes (nice guy), He mentioned the GT emblems were unique to his car and each one seemed to be a little bit different.
Hey Iceman,
Are your two pictures one of the same as the ones I posted?


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HP OpenVMS Systemsask the wizard
The Question is:
Open VMS 7.1 to 7.3 Vax and Alpha platforms Hi Wizard, Our server IP's must be changed, but there are many batch and IP printer queues that explicitly refer to these IP's in their autostart and initialization strings. IP print queue: INITIALIZE/QUEUE/START/ON="220.127.116.11:9100" - /PROCESSOR=TCPIP$TELNETSYM - /DEFAULT=(NOBURST,NOFLAG,NOTRAILER,NOFEED - /BASE_PRIORITY=4/SCHEDULE=NOSIZE - /PROTECTION(S:M,O:D,G:R,W:S)/LIBRARY=PCLDEVCTL /FORM=DEFAULT/OWNER=[SYSTEM] LASER_PTR_02 Is there a way of having these strings refer to a logical defined in a central file (site_logicals.com?), or use IP's pulled from the DNS table? If so, how could that be set up? Thanks, Chris
The Answer is :
You might choose to use an IP host name, as that is how most folks avoid hard-coding an IP host address -- the translation of the host name to host address is the most obvious, of course. You could also use network servers which translate IP addresses -- one of the more common terms is network address translation (NAT) -- and implement a hardware-level redirection of the traffic. As a rule, the OpenVMS Wizard would use the host name; it is easy to implement, easy to explain to others, and easy to maintain. If the host name specification is not available or not working -- and you have not indicated TCP/IP Services version and ECO -- please ensure you are running a supported version and the current ECO and then (if the problem persists) please contact the support center directly. Expect to be asked details of the versions and ECOs loaded for TCP/IP Services and for OpenVMS, and details of the command(s) used and any error message(s) displayed. Various OpenVMS releases do have limits on the length of the host name specified on the INITIALIZE command, and a fully-qualified host name of moderate length may not fit within the allowable command limits. If so, please contact the support center.


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Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010.
A young man takes three journeys, through Greece, India and Africa. He travels lightly, simply. To those who travel with him and those whom he meets on the way - including a handsome, enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers and a woman on the edge - he is the Follower, the Lover and the Guardian. Yet, despite the man's best intentions, each journey ends in disaster. Together, these three journeys will change his whole life.
A novel of longing and thwarted desire, rage and compassion, In a Strange Room is the hauntingly beautiful evocation of one man's search for love, and a place to call home.
Damon Galgut was born in Pretoria in 1963. He wrote his first novel, A Sinless Season, when he was 17. His other books include Small Circle of Beings, The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs, The Quarry, The Good Doctor, and The Impostor. The Good Doctor was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Dublin/IMPAC Award. The Imposter was also shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. He lives in Cape Town.
©2010 Damon Galgut (P)2010 Atlantic Books Ltd
"Superb... With this new book Galgut has struck out in a new direction and taken his writing to a whole other level. It is a quite astonishing work." (William Skidelsky, Observer)
"Truly superlative... Extraordinarily readable... Galgut displays his wonderful sense of place, but also profoundly explores intimate relationships between people... A very beautiful book, strikingly conceived and hauntingly written, a writer's novel par excellence without a clumsy word in it." (Jan Morris, Guardian)
"Galgut is an outstanding writer: his prose is acute, beautiful, unsettling. I have rarely felt so moved whilst reading." (Sarah Hall, The Times)
"Utterly sublime"
Having read (and loved) the book I wondered how well the author would do with the different voices... I shouldn't have worried, he's done a fantastic job and I enjoyed this enormously. One for a long journey. Sit back and enjoy!
"In a strange room, and a dark place"
Having listened to the audio of The Impostor and found it compelling and plot-driven, I had high hopes for this book. It was clear from the beginning that the nature of the tale would be more philosophical, a musing on the nature of travel and identity, but I struggled at times with the third part, where the narrator plays the role of the Guardian. One needs great inner resilience to listen and not to be reminded of other friends lost in a similar way. Clearly this is a true, and haunting tale, but too, too poignant at times.
That having been said, there is so much to praise here: the narration is good, and once again the landscape is vividly described and comes to life before one's eyes.
Prof of Global Health & Development - wide interests, fiction & non-, politics, justice & rights, culture & food, travel, art & creativity
This book explores the desire, pressure and joys of travel - interfaced with self-exploration and a set of relationships with other travelers, random acquaintances and close friends. Traversing a number of settings in Africa - Zimbabwe, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania - and others in India, the reflective author explores friendship, love, loneliness, interfacing with experiences of corruption, power, terror, and anxiety. Nicely written and narrated with some beautifully written passages and insights, at times unsettling. Recommended.
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The Smartest Money Book You'll Ever Read: Everything You Need to Know About Growing, Spending, and Enjoying Your Money (Hardcover)
Everything You Need to Know About Growing, Spending, and Enjoying Your Money
Perigee Trade, 9780399537219, 304pp.
Publication Date: December 27, 2011
List Price: 25.00*
* Individual store prices may vary.
Not Currently Available for Direct Purchase
Stop working for money
and put your money to work for you
and put your money to work for you
Tens of thousands of readers trust Dan Solin's advice when it comes to investing, managing their 401(k)s, and planning for retirement. Now Solin offers the smartest guide to money management and financial planning yet.
From managing your debt, boosting your savings, and owning (or renting) a home to buying insurance, maximizing investment returns, and retiring when you want to, "The Smartest Money Book You'll Ever Read" is your road map to financial freedom-and to enjoying yourself along the way.
About the Author
Dan Solin, a wealth advisor to high net worth investors and retirement plans for Buckingham Asset Management and The BAM ALLIANCE Director of Investor Advocacy, is the author of "The Smartest Retirement Book You ll Ever Read, Does Your Broker Owe You Money?," and the "New York Times" bestsellers "The Smartest Investment Book You ll Ever Read"and "The Smartest 401(k) Book You ll Ever Read." His award-winning books have been widely praised by "The New York Times," "The Wall Street Journal," "The Library Journal," and many financial writers, leading economists, and others.Solin is one of the most popular financial bloggers on The Huffington Post. A frequent guest on national television and radio shows, Solin has addressed professional organizations of accountants, advisors and financial planners and has testified before Congress on investor issues."


text:
What is domain registration?
By registering a domain we ensure that certain formal rules are complied with and that domain names are unique worldwide. Domain are registrated by organizations (registrars), which were authorized by the IANA or ICANN. Registrations are chargeable. By registering a domain, the registrant as the holder of the domain becomes the owner.
Questo articolo contiene:
|le informazioni che cercavi?
|informazioni chiare?
|sufficienti dettagli?


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You have entered… The Twilight Zone…
So, Feathermoon has had some, er, stability issues since 2.4. Major stability issues. And not just the "omg combat log lag" that everyone is dealing with, or the Shattered Sun lag.
We gear up, gather up, enter SSC and head towards Hydross. Some oddities go on, but nothing particularly abnormal for 2 days post patch. And then we fight Hydross. I died early in the fight when a transition went wonky. So I hit reincarnation, which is when the weirdness began…
Because I rezzed. Or at least, it looked like I did on my computer. But the rest of the raid still saw me as dead, I couldn't cast any spells, and I didn't regen any health or mana. And my reincarnation timer was tripped. /reloadui did nothing. So I was, in fact, only "mostly dead". No biggie, I'll reload after the fight.
Hydross dies, someone loots the gold – I don't get the gold – and then the server dies. Hard reset, Feathermoon is *down*.
10 minutes later we all log in at the beginning of the instance, run back in… and Hydross' corpse is gone. And everyone kept their buffs/flasks, except me (*curses at the reincarnation bug*).
Whatever – we rebuff, submit a GM ticket, and move along. Kill all the trash down to Lurker, not too much problem there; Kill Lurker, and start on the Tidewalker trash… at which point things started to get fun again.
We start to get lag spikes – 2-3 seconds of inaction, periodically. And then on the first murloc pull, we all get disconnected again. Apparently those Murlocs got a buff and now hit hard enough to reset the server. Relog, show up back at the beginning of SSC, go to run back – and only the first elevator is there. Not only that, but nobody takes damage from falling off the first elevator. Someone managed to get up to the boss area, and there were no mobs in the instance. At all. Even bosses.
5 minutes of skydiving later, we crash out again. Come back up, in SSC again, back at the beginning of the instance. Run back through – and there are no bosses, but all the trash after Lurker has respawned. And then Vashj's little bridge comes flying across, she yells her stuff, the whole bit – except that we've only killed Hydross and Lurker. So we all go running over there… and she's not there. Her platform is completely empty.
Server crashes again. We're all automatically back in Shattrath. And anyone that dismounts way up high in the air starts to swim. <cue synchronized swimming music>
The word on the street is that there's a problem with the AT&T connection at the LA Datacenter in California, and Feathermoon is a Pacific Timezone server on that particular set of servers. Either way – it was a *very* freaky night, highly entertaining, and I was very glad I had my knitting with me. And hopefully we get our badges of justice at the very least. Stupid Hydross.
*Yes, I knit during raid downtime. I've made some pretty complicated lace (during BWL Vaelastrasz wipe resetting) and right now I'm working on… a secret project… *shhhh!*. Oh – and there's no way I could knit during uptime – I'm a HEALER – so don't worry about that Tarq.
**images from www.wowwiki.com and my own screenshots.
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It only takes a minute to get started. Fill out our uncomplicated sign up form and login to the website.
This step is up to you but will drastically increase your chances of people actually reading your profile and contacting you. Let people know a bit about yourself, your pasttimes and attach any nice photographs of yourself.
Use our website's state-of-the-art search to pinpoint over 60s members who meet your requirements. Or just flip through listings and pinpoint singles that you find interesting.
Located someone who tickles your fancy? Send them a message or just a wink and see if they're interested. With a little luck you'll be on your way to true love.
It'll only take 30 seconds


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The Dakota State University outdoor track and field teams will compete in the 86th annual Howard Wood Relays Friday and Saturday in Sioux Falls, S.D. More than 3,000 middle school, high school, college and university student/athletes will be competing.
The Howard Wood Relays has experienced phenomenal growth since the first one-day event was held on May 4, 1923. Over the years, it has become one of South Dakota's premier athletic events.
The meet will feature three schools from NCAA Division I and four schools from NCAA Division II.
The Trojans participate in the Howard Wood Relays this weekend to prepare for the DAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships to be held on May 7th in Rapid City, S.D. The meet is very competitive all-around with some of the top runners from the Midwest scheduled to compete.
Nick Huntimer, Dakota State University Sports Information Director


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Times' editorial board recommends McCollum and Sink in gubernatorial primaries
Sunday's newspaper will have the St. Petersburg Times editorial board's recommendations for the gubernatorial primaries: Bill McCollum for Republicans and Alex Sink for Democrats.
"Two uninspiring candidates are pandering to the state's most conservative voters in the Republican primary for governor. Rick Scott is a hospital executive who ran a company that was fined a record $1.7 billion for Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Attorney General Bill McCollum offers few new ideas, and his proposals are warmed-up leftovers from previous campaigns. But Scott, who has spent his personal millions on television ads attacking McCollum and glossing over his own ignorance of state issues, is an irresponsible choice. McCollum, a longtime standard-bearer for conservative Republicans with a transparent record of public service, is better prepared to be governor than a disgraced businessman who wants to buy the office..." Click here for full McCollum recommendation
"Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink did not have an opponent in the Democratic primary for governor until the last minute. Then Brian Moore, the perennial little-known candidate from Spring Hill, qualified for the ballot. Sink remains the only credible Democratic candidate and awaits the outcome of the hotly contested Republican primary..."Click her for full Sink recommendation.
To read Editorial Board Editor Tim Nickens' column explaining the Times' recommendation process, click here.
For links to all the Times' recommendations for the Aug. 24 primary.


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|Forum Rules
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|January 19, 2000, 05:41 PM
Join Date: June 30, 1999
Posts: 76
I have an 870 and the finish is pretty bad on it. That doesn't really bother me, but what does is that if I leave it wet or even touch it for more than a day, it will rust.
I had a recommendation to use Brownells teflon moly spray. It will wear off, but is supposed to protect the metal long after the finish is gone, which is just what I'm looking for.
Anyone used this stuff before?
Don't turn around, uh oh oh, der kommisar is in town, uh oh oh!
|January 20, 2000, 07:58 AM
Staff In Memoriam
Join Date: October 13, 1999
Location: Columbia, Md, USA
Posts: 8,812
I'd be worried more about what's happening on the inside, if it's that prone to rust.
IMO, you should completely disassemble the weapon and clean same, then use a good oil and rust preventative on every part. Reassemble and wipe a thin coat on the outside also...
|January 20, 2000, 10:41 AM
Senior Member
Join Date: April 25, 1999
Posts: 189
The teflon/moly finishes are really easy to apply, look super and are highly resistant to chemicals. However, they are not impervious to damage. They will scratch and wear about like a good blued finish will (maybe a *little* tougher) and once worn off a spot, that spot will rust just like any other un-coated spot. Also, they will not do anything, like Dave points out, to protect parts like the inside of the barrel that are next to impossible to get to with the spray. If you are leaving your gun wet, you are going to get rust whether you can see that rust or not.
[This message has been edited by pbash (edited January 20, 2000).]
|January 20, 2000, 05:27 PM
Join Date: June 30, 1999
Posts: 76
I never leave my gun wet. I have stripped it several times, after every season, sometimes more. The only part that will rust easily is the top of the reciever, as it has 4-5 small rust specks on it.
Remoil is a looser, and I started using CLP and haven't had a prob since, but I still want a tougher finish.
Don't turn around, uh oh oh, der kommisar is in town, uh oh oh!
|January 21, 2000, 07:11 AM
Join Date: January 7, 2000
Location: Carmel NY USA
Posts: 49
Why not send it to Wilson/Scatterguns Tech. for a rebuild. They have a special package for a little over $100 or so. From what I hear the gun will look and function like new. Matter of fact I'm looking for an 870 in bad shape to send to them(wanna make a pickup truck gun outa it)
|January 22, 2000, 02:59 AM
Senior Member
Join Date: November 14, 1998
Location: Carlsbad, CA USA
Posts: 348
Wilson's ( ScatterGun Tech...) will Armor-Tuff finish the weapon for a reasonable price. Also call up Dan at Tactical Weaponry and Refinishing (909) 696-2550
He will do a complete Olive Drab, Grey or Matte Black Moly coating for $145.00. I have seen his work and it is SUPERB. I am having him do my Marine Magnum in Olive.
|January 22, 2000, 04:28 PM
Senior Member
Join Date: January 17, 2000
Location: Tacoma, Wa
Posts: 130
You know you would probably be best off buying a new shotgun. I bought my Rem. 870 Marine Magnum for $270. This shotgun was designed to get wet. I bet I could leave it in salt water for a month and it will still fire. Very nice gun.
"Guns don't kill people the government does", Rusty Shackleford.
|January 22, 2000, 05:18 PM
Senior Member
Join Date: October 16, 1999
Location: Surprise, Arizona, USA
Posts: 171
All of the "Moly" sprays marked by the various vendors are intend to provide a dry lubricant to the moving parts of the firearm. The molybydium forms an electro-chemical bond to the metal and provides superior lubrication.
But as a preservative on the exterior barrel, I feel it is not as effective as some of the other products having more of a silicon base. These include such products as Birchwood-Casey Sheath and plain old silicon impregnated cloths.
Your best bet is to have the firearm refinished to protect the bare metal. My personal preference is to refinish in accordance with the original finish of the weapon....blue to blue, park to park, etc.
The absolute worst thing to do is to neglect the firearm finish. Regards, Mikey.
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Ping-Pong? That's So Old China.
Thursday, August 14, 2008; Page A01
BEIJING, Aug. 13 -- On Wednesday, relegated to a half-empty gymnasium at Beijing University, a sport that once thrilled a nation seemed like a relic.
Far from the iconic Bird's Nest and the incandescent Swimming Cube, a steady clocklike rhythm -- tick, tock, tick, tock -- filled the air as players swatted tiny balls back and forth. There were no space-age swimsuits, no towering NBA players, no state-of-the-art fireworks displays. Instead, there was only the first day of the table tennis competition, and it felt almost retro.
"Ping-pong is a game for kids," declared Sun Yu, 12, who nevertheless came to watch the competition with his grandmother and a classmate. "I've played it since I was 5, but now I've lost interest."
Millions continue to call ping-pong China's national game. But for younger generations, whose sports horizons have been broadened by satellite TV, Internet chat rooms and star-making advertising now available in China, there is less interest.
Many are too young to remember Chairman Mao's "ping-pong diplomacy," when members of the U.S. table tennis team were invited to China in 1971, paving the way for President Richard M. Nixon's historic visit the next year.
When it comes to thwacking a small, hollow ball above a taut net, the Chinese have long been very, very good.
The world's nine top-ranked players are Chinese, and China has won 16 of 20 Olympic gold medals in the sport. Every player on the U.S. team was born in China.
But the game -- referred to exclusively as ping-pong here -- has been pushed to the sidelines, in part because the government has begun to focus more resources on sports traditionally dominated by the West, such as basketball, swimming, canoeing, rowing, sailing, and track and field. The hurdler Liu Xiang is wildly popular here. Basketball player Yao Ming of the NBA's Houston Rockets is so revered that he led the Chinese team as it paraded in these Olympics' Opening Ceremonies.
Among some ordinary Chinese, ping-pong just seems less fashionable than it once was.
"Ping-pong became a popular national sport because of politics," said Cui Xingming, 22, leaving the gymnasium with his girlfriend. "But nowadays I think even pool is more popular than ping-pong."
Ping-pong was declared a national sport in the early 1950s, when the International Table Tennis Federation became one of the few world bodies of sport to recognize China instead of Taiwan. China later boycotted the Olympic movement for more than two decades because organizers allowed Taiwan to compete.
As China's economy has boomed and its culture has become more westernized, more people have started to play tennis, basketball and other sports, said Shi Chunyuan, communications director of the Liaoning Sports Bureau. Still, the Chinese can find a table in nearly any school or public park.


text:
wrestling / News
WWE Stars Volunteer at Food Bank
– AJ Lee, David Otunga and Alicia Fox all volunteered at Gleaner's Food Bank in Indiana during the weekend. The food bank, AJ and Otunga all tweeted about it:
Food Bank: "@WWEAJLee all the volunteers made a huge difference in the lives of many children today! Thanks a ton again for comin out today AJ"
AJ: "Food banks like @GleanersFBIndy have helped my family and I very much over the years. Good people. Felt amazing to give back even a little."
Otunga: "Giving is good for the soul! RT @nadjima69: @[email protected] David Otunga is really generous"
More must-read wrestling news:
* Matt Hardy injured at Extreme Rising show
* Latest on Cody Rhodes' injury
* Steve Austin comments on potential WWE return
* Booker T talks about separating Chris Benoit's accomplishments from his death
* 411 PPV Roundtable Preview – WWE Survivor Series 2012


text:
This is not a vent board or any other kind of therapy. Before you hit the POST button, ask yourself if your contribution will add to the level of discussion going on.
Important notes on articles:
Not usually - no by BigNDfan
I don't think this year is any different - he's only speaking to the media if something big is happening.


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By Angela Denstad Stigeler
And when it comes to simple, frugal food, few dishes are as beloved as the Irish potato cake known as boxty. Derived from the Irish for "poor-house bread," boxty is a grated potato cake, crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and simple to prepare. This version, accredited to Granny Toye, aged 88 at the time she related it, is as bare-bones as it gets, and yet it's satisfying and complete. This is the sort of boxty schoolchildren used to carry with them for their lunch, and later wax nostalgic over in song and folk rhyme. So it just goes to prove that simple blessing can be the most dearly appreciated, and being grateful for some grated potatoes is not only good for building character, it's a good box lunch, as well.
Pan Boxty
6 medium potatoes
a handful of all-purpose flour
fresh herbs, optional (parsley, chives and/or thyme would be good choices)
Scrub the potatoes well, but don't peel them. Line a bowl with a clean kitchen towel. Grate the potatoes into the bowl, gather up the edges of the towel and squeeze the liquid out of the potatoes into the bowl. Set the potatoes aside, still wrapped tightly in the towel and let the liquid settle, about 20 minutes, until the potato starch collects at the bottom of the bowl. Drain off the water, leaving the starch behind. Add the grated potato back into the bowl. Mix in a handful of flour, some salt and the herbs, if using.
Melt a nice bit of butter in a heavy iron pan and pour the potato mixture into it, pressing it into a cake. It should be between ¾ and 1-inch thick. Cook over medium heat, letting it brown nicely on one side, about 15 minutes, before turning.* Brown it on the other side, another 15 minutes, depending on the heat. It's much better to cook it too slowly rather than too fast. It should be crisp and golden on the outside. Cut the boxty into four wedges. It may be served hot or cold or made ahead and reheated in the pan.
*Author's note: Unless you're very brave, I suggest flipping the boxty onto a plate, sneaking a little more butter in the pan, and then sliding the cake back in to brown the other side.
Recipe adapted from Irish Traditional Cooking by Darina Allen


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Johannesburg - The Limpopo textbook saga seems to have spilt over into the new year, with schools in the Modjajieskloof area of the province not receiving textbooks for some subjects since schools opened last month.
DA provincial leader and MP Jacques Smalle said the situation had been revealed in a letter to parents and pupils by the "despondent" principal of Duiwelskloof Primary School.
In a letter dated January 29, the school's principal, Hennie Greyling, apologises to parents and the pupils of his school for the fact that there are still no textbooks.
"The same problem also occurs in our neighbouring schools and other schools in Limpopo," he said.
The province's failure to deliver textbooks dominated headlines last year, with some calling for Education Minister Angie Motshekga's head.
Thousands of Limpopo pupils were without textbooks for the greater part of last year when education authorities failed to ensure that learning materials were delivered on time.
A task team appointed to get to the bottom of the crisis recommended an investigation into basic education director-general Bobby Soobrayan for his role in the delay.
"Schools in the Modjajieskloof area and elsewhere in Limpopo have not received a single textbook for core subjects two months into the school year. The education department has lied to the public on several occasions that all books have been delivered," Smalle said.
He added that the DA would write to the provincial legislature's education committee chairperson to request an urgent meeting where the department would be called to account.
"Duiwelskloof Primary School has so far only received textbooks for science, English home language and life skills. The life skills books are only in English, even though the school is dual medium.
"To compound the problem for the educators, they still have not received workbooks to enable them to implement the new curriculum," Smalle said.
He said Greyling's letter to parents was a clear sign that neighbouring schools had also not received textbooks, and that the problem was occurring elsewhere in the province.
"As a result of this, the school has had to postpone the first tests this semester because the learners will not be adequately prepared," Smalle added.
Limpopo education spokesman Pat Kgomo said the department would make a statement, but failed to respond on Wednesday. Attempts to get hold of the head of department, Jackson Thamaga, were also unsuccessful.
Attempts by his colleague Desiree van der Walt for an urgent meeting with Education MEC Dickson Masemola to deal with the problem had been ignored, Smalle said.
The Star


text:
Harden Underscores Resiliency of Thunder Roster
The Thunder had hit only one of its first 12 shots and trailed the Miami Heat, 16-2, with 5 minutes, 13 seconds remaining in the first quarter.
Enter Harden, the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year.
He hit his first shot, a 3-pointer from the wing, and would score 10 of the Thunder's 15 points in the period, with each basket coming at a time when the floodgates were about to open. The 10 points, the highest total in the quarter for either team, doubled his output in Game 1.
"James had a good, aggressive game going," Thunder Head Coach Scott Brooks. "He was making shots, he was making good decisions."
Harden added seven points in the second quarter – also the most by any player – and finished with 21 points in the 100-96 loss Thursday night, underscoring the resiliency of the Thunder roster and the confidence to bounce back from adversity.
Those traits were on full display in the fourth quarter, when the Thunder stormed back from an 11-point deficit after three quarters and pulled within two with 12.3 seconds remaining.
Harden scored baskets on two determined drives to the hoop during at 14-7 run that cranked up the volume in Chesapeake Energy Arena, the first pulling the Thunder within 82-76, the second making it 87-83.
"I think we did a pretty good job in the second half of fighting and coming back, but by then it was too late," Harden said.
So the best-of-seven series now shifts to Miami for three games, beginning Sunday. The Thunder has had success on the road in its march to the NBA Finals, winning two games in Dallas and one in both Los Angeles and San Antonio.
"We've done a great job all postseason of having very good starts, especially at home," Harden said. "These last couple of games have been slow, but we'll pick it up in Game 3.
Said Brooks: "We didn't come out with the toughness that we need to come out with. We're an aggressive team, we're a physical team. Our defensive mindset was not where it needs to be and hopefully we change that going into Game 3."


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DDoS solution
I'm running a very simple webserver and would really appreciate any wisdom on how to prevent DDoS attacks.
Thanks in advance!
As you maybe know DoS stands for "Denial of Service", using up a machines resources in a way it can no longer fulfill its purpose. Depending on how a machine is DoSsed you have a range of direct and indirect measures to try cope with increased or malicious traffic ranging from the SYN cookies sysctl (make the kernel deal with SYN flooding differently), rate limiting, tar-pitting and other packet filtering (let the firewall function as a revolving door of sorts), application level firewall (let mod_security determine if a request is valid), IDS (let an intrusion detection system like Snort or Prelude if traffic has a malicious payload) and (reverse) proxying (buffer traffic to filter and lighten load) to load balancing and multi-colocation (depending on the size of ones wallet). If none of the methods deployed can filter or slow down traffic in a way that the machine can deal with it then you can only route traffic away and sit it out. For a SOHO server that would mean firewalling it or shutting it down, in other situations it might require the ISP to temporarily route traffic to the bit bucket.
In DDoS the first d starts for "distributed" meaning the adversary has access to a structure, a "network inside a network" comprising of thousands to tens of thousands of machines (zombies) to perform the actual attack. In such situations the pressure will be on the ISP to work with routing peers to temporarily route traffic to the bit bucket because at that volume traffic threathens their infrastructure.
As such DDoS attacks can't really be "prevented", it more comes down to a form of "trying to cope with". What's often forgotten to mention is that prevention may well start by not publishing content that works like a red rag on a bull for certain groups (I'm thinking certain pr0n, 88, belief-related content or revisionism, not the average petty "I hate you" site), not bragging about or deliberately taunting people...
For more information about DoS and DDoS search LQ, The LQ Security references part about DoS and DDoS (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...579#post222579) and the SANS Reading Room (http://www.sans.org/reading_room/), they have gathered much material about different topics over the past years like http://www.sans.org/reading_room/whi...&cat=intrusion
Hmm, isn't there like a software that disables these constant "attacks"?
How can I check for logs of constant bombardments of DDoS Attackers? I can just find their IP and ban right?
heh heh sorry i didn't mean to be rude.
Heh so help me pls :D
You can use fail2ban, but for a serious (as opposed to a few automated script-kiddy break-in attempts), contact your ISP.
It can't be dealt with at the endpoint.
my isp is sort of unmanaged heh heh
Once DDoS attacks start you really have to wait it out. I help a message board that is on an off shore account... It gets DDoS attacks a lot because of that, there is nothing we can do but wait... Think of a person getting screamed at by 100x people? Now if you were one of those people and you were trying to tell them to ignore everyone else how well do you think that would work? You might get their attention for a second and then it's lost, just like your connection to your server during a DDoS attack. Think of running a GeF 3 for todays video games, what happens? It locks up...
If a person can acquire more physical resources than your server can handle they can shut it down based off the principal that your server overloads. There are many ways to do DDoS attacks, and there are many ways to cause "less" damage. The reality is nothing can be done, even major websites today get shut down by DDoS attacks:
there have been a couple other DDoS attacks recently on major websites, but the sad reality is there is no prevention.
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Fiji Olympic Order for Coach Petersen
Mr. "P" as he was fondly known by his swimmers, went from initially supervising the pool and teaching morning swim classes for toddlers and youngsters to becoming head coach of Suva's only swimming club, Dolphin, in 1971-1995 and from 1979 to 1992 as the National Head Coach of Fiji Swimming.
A strict and demanding taskmaster, Mr. P recognized raw talent and patiently nurtured it, requiring total commitment and dedication of his swimmers. The excellence of a coach is determined by the quality of swimmers he has trained. During Horace's 16 year career, his swimmers included Carl Probert, Sharon Pickering, The Sorby's – Mark, Warren and Shayne, Justine Macaskill, Dennis Miller, Gordon Peterson, Samu Tupou and many others.
Many of his swimmers represented Fiji at Olympic, Commonwealth and South Pacific Games with several winning Pacific Games medals whose records still stand today. Mr P created and maintained a Golden Age for competition swimming in Fiji by his determination and the high quality of his coaching.
For his commitment, dedication and contribution to the development of swimming plus excellent achievements of Fiji national representative swimmers, FASANOC is very pleased to confer the FIJI OLYMPIC ORDER to HORACE PETERSEN.
Comment Guidelines: The SportsTG Network is made up of players, families and passionate sports followers like you who have a strong opinion about sport. That's great - we want you to have your say and share your thoughts with the world. However, we have a few rules that you must follow to keep it fun for all. Please don't be rude, abusive, swear or vilify others. Apart from some pretty serious sport sanctions, we also can ban you and report you if things get out of hand. So play fair and have fun, and thanks for your contribution.


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TAMPA — Alonso senior Anthony Chickillo, who started his career at Gaither, had his most memorable performance in a game marred by two bench-clearing incidents.
The tight end/defensive end scored the first three touchdowns of his career as the visiting Ravens clinched a Class 5A, District 5 playoff berth.
Chickillo, who transferred to Alonso (4-5, 2-1) two years ago, scored on a 1-yard run, 12-yard pass from Dylan Fisher and 35-yard interception return.
After Chickillo's return, with 1:10 left and on Gaither quarterback Shug Oyegunle's fourth interception, the teams engaged in two altercations halted by game officials, coaches and school administrators.
During the final minute, Gaither (3-7, 0-3) took a knee twice with Alonso's defense 20 yards from the line of scrimmage. The teams exited on their respective sidelines.
Don Jensen, Times correspondent


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Golfers We Like To Look At: Adam Scott [PHOTOS]
Why, hello there! I was perusing the interweb when I came across the dishiest golfer I've seen this week (fine, the first golfer I've seen this week). Adam Scott of Australia (I like the sound of that) is 32 and has been a pro golfer since 2000.
Today (August 8th) he looked on during a practice round of the 94th PGA Championship at the Ocean Course in Kiawah Island, South Carolina. Scott recently lost at the British Open, and we'd like to offer him a shoulder to cry on. "I've been disappointed a lot of times at majors, even though I've never been closer to one maybe," Scott said at a press conference, according to the Boston Globe.
The PGA Championship begins on Thursday.
See? We know so much about sports here.


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London Midland
London Midland - Book in advance for cheap train tickets
London Midland operates services from London Euston in the South, to Birmingham in the Midlands and Liverpool in the North, running mainly in the West Midlands and along the West Coast Mainline.
For cheap train tickets on London Midland routes, buy in advance with thetrainline.
From December �08, London Midland will invest �190 million in new trains and refurbish its existing fleet.
Ticket alert
Ticket alert
Receive an email as soon as "advance tickets" are available on main London Midland routes.
Best Fare Finder
Cheap tickets for main London Midland routes. See fares our customers found.
Station Finder
Type in where you want to travel and we'll locate the closest station for you


text: Hopefully my engine will be complete on Friday. I am making one final order to round everything out. So as the title says, do I need a fuel pressure regulator? Also, will the 24#rs be enough? Setup is TFS 170s, Stage 1 cam, 1.6 RR, ported cobra lower, 70mm TB, 73mm MAF, shorties, off road h, flowmaster 40s


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Gators Carlos Dunlap, Brandon Spikes on Bednarik Watch List
Junior DE Carlos Dunlap and senior LB Brandon Spikes have been named to the 2009 Watch List for the Chuck Bednarik Award, given to the most outstanding collegiate defensive players of the year, since 1995.
Dunlap, the Defensive MVP of the BCS national championship game, had 39 tackles last season, including 21 solo and 18 assisted. He also had a team-leading 13.5 tackles for loss and 9 1/2 sacks.
Spikes was a consensus first-team All-American and first-team All-SEC performer in 2008. He was a finalist for the Bronko Nagurski Trophy and a semifinalist for the Lombardi Award and Bednarik Award. He was one of only five linebackers in the nation with two interception returns for touchdowns last season, which tied the school record.


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The Journey Towards Western Australia
posted in: Australia, Comedy Travel Tales | 18
Driving to Western Australia from Darwin, we breezed through Katherine to stock up on shopping before heading west along the Victoria highway. We passed huge cattle stations and sandstone outcrops as the landscape and climate changed from tropical to semiarid desert. … Continued


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Family Holidays in Tirol
The Mayrhofen-Hippach holiday resort is the ideal destination for your family holiday.
With great fun and action, surprises, numerous children's facilities and a sympathetic ear for special requests - your holiday in the Zillertal Valley will pass by in a flash!
Holidays in Zillertal are so easy, with colourful children's and family events. Guests of all ages can enjoy active days in all seasons - with adventures at the river's edge, on the farm, in the forest, barbequing on a camp fire - and that's just summer!
The fun continues in winter, with the mountains swathed in glistening snow, building snowmen, ice skating, tobogganing and of course skiing - this has got to be the biggest holiday experience for the little ones.
Children`s Programme
The children`s programme offered by the Mayrhofen-Hippach holiday resort is jam packed with fun and adventurous activities supervised by trained staff. Parents can take the day off to enjoy the luxury of a little "couple" time.
How about a day or evening without the children during your holiday to the Mayrhofen-Hippach holiday resort? Trained baby sitters are more than happy to help out with childcare.
Children`s Ski Schools
Children learn quickly and simply in a different way to adults. That"s why there are children"s ski schools and ski kindergartens in Mayrhofen Hippach, Zillertal where learning to ski is so much fun.
Interested in planning that big and important "wedding" day, perhaps even here whilst on holiday in the Zillertal, in Mayrhofen? Tying the knot in Zillertal is a truly unforgettable experience.
Children`s Playground
Built out of wood and stone, Nature's Playground in Mayrhofen is a real experience for not just the little ones, but parents too!
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|17th November 2011, 11:38 AM
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Counterfeit Electrical Safety Marks on Chinese Goods
I've been aware of possible issues with counterfeit electrical safety marks on low-cost manufacturing market imports in general for a few years; my first "heads-up" involved some simple lamps imported to Canada a few years ago that were sold in the tens of thousands.
I subscribe to the Canadian government recall and safety warnings via eMail; the US has a similar service available and I would not be surprised to learn the UK, Australia, the EU, etc have similar services available. It's kind of "wordy" in that you can expect an eMail every day. Whether it's worth it to you or not to get that volume of mail is up to you; all I would say is for DIY'ers and parents it's probably worth it, since kids toys and electrical products are commonly cited (food recalls are also common, but are generally well reported in the media).
There are a huge number of products in the market, and it's not reasonable to expect everything to be on the regulatory radar constantly ... nobody has that much time or money.
In the last week there have been warnings of counterfeit UL-Canada (also applies to the UL-US certification) marks and items that pose a shock hazard due to faulty wiring. I found it notable in that it seems a change in focus ... for the last three years or so there were at least daily recalls of Children's toys ... so possibly it reflects a new emphasis in the regulatory radar.
With regard to UL-Canada, UL-US, CSA-Canada and CSA-US marks, t's my understanding that you can check the certification number on the sticker attached to the product against a database to see which product was certified, or if the number is simply made up and refers to nothing at all. I will try to look into this further in the next day or so, anyone with specific information is invited to chime in here.
Also, it's obvious that no matter what product you are using, to practice and perhaps teach your family to practice good electrical safety practices, rather than rely simply on the standard safety wiring methods to keep you safe. Back in High School a very good friend of mine died using an electrical drill in his garage with a wet concrete floor.
Be safe, everyone. Again, anyone with good familiarity with best practices should wiring be faulty is welcome to chime in ... although I think I'm reasonably informed on that, I'd rather leave it to someone with formal education and experience in case I inadvertently lead someone astray.
Here are the more recent recalls involving electrical issues:
AC Voltage Meter:
Consumer Product Recalls - Consumer Product Safety
Cellphone battery chargers:
Consumer Product Recalls - Consumer Product Safety
NiMH battery charger (a hobby item potentially considered by Class-D DIY'ers)
Consumer Product Recalls - Consumer Product Safety
Counterfeit CSA safety marks on Xmas decorations:
Consumer Product Recalls - Consumer Product Safety
Counterfeit UL safety mark on CFL bulbs:
Consumer Product Recalls - Consumer Product Safety
Counterfeit CSA safety mark on electric bicycle battery charger:
Consumer Product Recalls - Consumer Product Safety
Mods: I placed this in the Class-D thread because of the one particular battery/charger listed that potentially could be considered by someone interested in a portable chip amp build, but if there's a more appropriate forum feel free to move it.
" ... Go back to the beginning of a technology before the priesthood was established; that was the time when people were communicating information, not proving why there needs to be Priests. This is why the old texts tend to be so good. ..."
Last edited by Johnny2Bad; 17th November 2011 at 11:54 AM.
|19th November 2011, 01:38 AM
diyAudio Member
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Carlisle, England
In the UK you can self certificate for EMC.
But if something goes wrong you have to show you took due diligence in the design.
Murton-Pike Systems PCBCAD51 pcb design software. http://www.murtonpikesystems.co.uk
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