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Tackling Online Hate Speech in Kenya [1]
As the Kenyan government steps up efforts to curb hate speech in the run-up to the March 4 elections, observers say it remains extremely difficult to control what people say online.
Internet use in Kenya has doubled every year since 2010. A major problem in combating hate speech on the web is the anonymity that users can exploit.
In some cases, fake accounts are opened using the names of popular leaders who command a lot of respect, particularly among their own ethnic communities.
"A fake Makau Mutua account on Twitter talks about how he hates a particular tribe," said Ngahira Gitahi of Strathmore University Law School in Nairobi. "People don't know it's a fake account, so they follow what he says because he's an influential member of society."
The real Makau Mutua is a lawyer and a well-known columnist for Kenya's Sunday Nation newspaper.
The internet is now much more widespread compared with the situation at the time of the last presidential election in December 2007, and there are fears that left unchecked, online hate speech could exacerbate tensions and trigger violence around the polls.
"It will definitely affect the forthcoming elections and may lead to bloodshed," Gitahi said.
Months of violence after the 2007 election left over 1,100 people dead and forced 600,000 others from their homes.
Four individuals, including one journalist, will go on trial at the International Criminal Court, ICC, in The Hague in April for orchestrating the 200708 unrest. Two of the suspects, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, are running together for the presidency and vice-presidency, respectively.
In 2008, the government established the National Cohesion and Integration Commission, NCIC, to promote peace and reconciliation. The National Cohesion and Integration Act passed the same year criminalised hate speech. Section 13 of the law makes it illegal to use threatening, abusive or insulting words, acts or materials liable to stir up ethnic hatred. Section 62 outlaws speech intended to incite feelings of contempt, hatred, hostility, violence or discrimination against any person, group or community on the basis of ethnicity or race.
For offences of this kind, the law sets out fine of up to one million Kenyan shillings, 10,000 US dollars, a three-year prison term, or both.
Kenya's new constitution, voted in two-and-a-half years ago, protects freedom of expression, but the National Cohesion and Integration Act sets certain limits to this.
"The Constitution of Kenya 2010 guarantees fundamental rights including the freedom of expression," NCIC vice-chairperson Milly Odongo explained. "Freedom of expression is, however, not absolute and can be limited when exercised in a manner that violates the rights of others."
While a few individuals have been arrested, none have been prosecuted for hate speech. A major problem facing the authorities is that when incriminating material is disseminated online, they are frequently unable to prove who was responsible.
Police can track the IP address of a computer used to post offensive material online, and potentially this can help them identify the individual who sent or uploaded it. But this is of little use if the computer is in an internet café, where it will be used by many different people in the course of a day.
"Even if you use an IP address to locate the device used to post hate speech online, you cannot be able to prove your case because most computers are shared, especially in the case of a cyber café," Michael Kiprotich, an IT expert based in Nairobi, said.
When suspects are identified, the investigators' task is still not complete. Since it is easy to set up an account on Facebook or Twitter, offenders can deny all knowledge of accounts bearing their names, so that no case can be built against them.
"In many cases the accused persons are set free because of lack of sufficient evidence to prove that they own social media accounts that have been used to propagate hate speech," Kyalo Mwengi, a senior legal officer at the NCIC, said.
Ahead of the election, Kenyan police have been issued with recording devices to help them monitor hate speech at political rallies or public meetings, but tracking communications on the internet is much harder. The police force is also short of staff with specialised IT skills.
"We are trying our best to combat hate speech online, but it's hard for us because many officers fighting cyber crime have insufficient or no knowledge at all about the dynamics of technology," said one senior officer based at police headquarters in Nairobi, who did not want to be named.
The NCIC is working with the police's Criminal Investigations Department and with the Director of the Public Prosecutions, and the three have formed a Task Force on Hate Speech. The task force meets regularly to discuss current cases and seek solutions.
"We are working with government security organs like the cyber-crime unit of the CID," said Halakhe Waqo of the NCIC. "We are also linked up to telephone providers and telecommunication system providers, among other institutions, that have the capacity to monitor and control negative communications like SMS."
Kenya's communications and information ministry has warned internet service providers not to allow IP addresses to be used to spread inflammatory and divisive messages as the March election approaches. The ministry's permanent secretary, Bitange Ndemo, says provider firms will be held accountable for any such messages communicated via their systems. He also warned them against allowing multiple users to share a single IP address, as this makes tracing offenders harder.
Tom Makau, a telecoms professional in Nairobi, doubts this approach is workable.
"Unless CCK [Communications Commission of Kenya] changes the license conditions to include responsibility of the licensee on what type of content traverses their network, CCK cannot legally monitor what's passing through an internet service provider's pipes to the internet," Makau said.
Legal experts, meanwhile, warn that tracking web traffic could be seen as an invasion of privacy. Luka Sawe, a lawyer based in Nairobi, says Article 31 of Kenya's constitution grants all citizens the right to privacy, including in the sphere of communications.
Enforcing the rules may also be impractical when websites are hosted on servers outside Kenya.
"With the international nature of the internet, CCK is bound to run into jurisdiction problems when enforcing their proposed monitoring," Makau said. "If a Kenyan ISP hosts a server in a data centre in the UK, that server is technically under the UK's jurisdiction and not Kenya's."
Kenyan lawyer Grace Mutungu has called on the government to design mechanisms to take offensive material off the internet once it is there.
Ndemo says that this, too, is impossible, since the authorities can only act against the individual who creates content, not the website that hosts it.
"Nobody has power to take down any website without following correct procedures," Ndemo said. "One needs to make a formal complaint to the host, and if they consider the material offensive, they can pull it down."
Bernard Koech is a news editor for Kass FM in Nairobi.
This article was produced as part of a media development programme implemented by IWPR and Wayamo Communication Foundation.


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Mississippi Historical Records Advisory Board
The Mississippi Historical Records Advisory Board provides professional assistance, resources, and programming to support the preservation and accessibility of the state's invaluable historical documents and records. MHRAB serves as the central advisory board for historical records planning and project assistance in Mississippi.
Annual funding for the Mississippi Historical Records Advisory Board and its programs is provided by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. The board is responsible for insuring the objectives of the NHPRC are implemented.
The mission of the Mississippi Historical Records Advisory Board is to
- promote awareness of, and improve education about, historical records
- foster and enhance the preservation, identification, and care of records
- improve access to historical records for all Mississippians; and
- advocate and encourage collaborative funding for historical records preservation and resource sharing

subset: commoncrawl


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Ratko Mladic's trial halted because of his health
THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Ratko Mladic's genocide trial was halted Friday for a second day running because the former Bosnian Serb military commander was undergoing medical tests and under observation after being rushed to a hospital a day earlier.
Mladic's seat in in the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal courtroom was empty as the trial briefly resumed.
Tribunal spokeswoman Nerma Jelacic said Friday afternoon that Mladic was discharged from a hospital and sent back to his cell.
"Ratko Mladic has returned to the detention unit after medical examinations confirmed there were no abnormalities in his health status and that no treatment is required," Jelacic said in a statement. "The previous determination that Mladic is fit to stand trial therefore remains unchanged."
Mladic's lawyer said he initially feared the 70-year-old former general had a stroke when he complained of feeling ill in court Thursday, but that tests had ruled that out.
"Now we think either it's a high level of sugar in his blood or high blood pressure, since he had both higher than normal yesterday," Branko Lukic told reporters outside the courtroom. "We are hopeful that we will continue on Monday."
However, Lukic warned that Mladic's frail health could be imperiled by his trial and hinted he would apply to further reduce the time he spends in court each week.
The complex trial, covering atrocities spanning the entire 1992-1995 Bosnian war that left 100,000 people dead, already is expected to last years and has so far had sittings scheduled for only one morning or afternoon session per day.
"There is some kind of recommendation from the medical staff as well that he should have more rest during the day and we think we should have less working days during the week as well," Lukic said. "It is too much for him. It's not only sitting and listening, it's stressful too. Obviously, it did affect him."
Lukic's concerns raise the specter of the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, which had to be aborted without a verdict when he died in his cell of a heart attack in 2006.
Milosevic's trial dragged on for four years in part because of his ill health repeatedly holding up proceedings.
The leader of a group that represents family members of some of the 8,000 Muslim men killed in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre said she hoped Mladic would survive.
"We wish him a good recovery. We pray to God that he gets well because if he dies, justice will die with him and the victims will be betrayed again," said Munira Subasic, the head of the Mothers of Srebrenica group. "We need him to be convicted. We need it for our own history. We do not want the Milosevic situation to be repeated."
Mladic also has had poor health during his 16 years as a fugitive from international justice and since his arrest last year and transfer to a cell in The Hague.
Since arriving in the Netherlands, Mladic has undergone surgery for a hernia and been treated for other ailments including a kidney stone and pneumonia.
But as witness testimony at his long-awaited trial got under way this week he looked healthier than at any time since his arrest.
Fearing a similar scenario to Milosevic's aborted trial, prosecutors last year unsuccessfully applied to judges to split Mladic's trial into two separate cases, fearing his health was too fragile for such a lengthy case.
Prosecutors proposed trying Mladic first for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, for which he is accused of genocide, before starting a separate trial on charges of masterminding other Serb atrocities throughout Bosnia's 1992-95 war that left 100,000 dead.
Mladic denies any wrongdoing during his time as leader of the Bosnian Serb military, arguing that his forces were defending Serb interests.
The trial is scheduled to resume Monday and continue for the remainder of the week before pausing for the tribunal's three-week summer recess.


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Monday, January 24, 2011
Arne Naess and the Call of the Mountain
Today I was reminded by a friend about a man called Arne Naess, a visionary philosopher who was central to the foundation of the deep ecology movement. His writings were a massive inspiration for me when I studied ecology in the '90s, starting with this excellent little book. After having spent several years studying particle physics, which could be seen as an extreme form of reductionism and of abstracting oneself from the world (it needn't! but it can seem that way sometimes), this approach to investigating reality was a real breath of fresh air.
He spent nearly 25 years living in a hut high on a Norwegian mountain, and wrote An Example of a Place as a celebration of it. He saw the mountain in many ways, including as 'a great father'. Naess considered all of these relationships to be as genuine as any material reality, and saw them as calling out to be deeply experienced. He referred to them as being the key to "the establishment of a place as a Place."
I have a great deal of respect for someone who can exemplify and articulate his own radical philosophy with such brilliance. His approach could be described as being deeply spiritual (it certainly is by him), but it doesn't compromise on anything that science has revealed to us about our world.
We seem to be creatures evolved to encompass only our immediate environment and tribe. It is deeply challenging for us to take on board the reality the global reach of our interdependence with each other, with other species, with ecosystems and landscapes and the climate. The scientific facts themselves convey very little of the reality they describe. The reality cannot but be transformative for anyone ascribing to any kind of deeply-considered and heartfelt value system. It doesn't matter how much hyperbole is used, or how much melodrama and over the top CGI they are presented with, or how loudly or how often they are repeated, the facts themselves cannot give us that.
In addition, we're asked to rely on increasingly complex scientific inquiry to hand the current picture down to us, which puts us at an even further remove from it. It shouldn't surprise us if people prefer to turn away altogether from consciously putting their trust in science and devote themselves to the safe haven of simplistic opinion.
One of the primary motivations of deep ecology, as Bill Devall says elsewhere in the documentary (see link at bottom), is "the search for meaning in a world of facts."
We need to build our own philosophy, as an active participant, to find our own personal way of seeking that meaning. The aim is "self-realisation", a way of being in the world that embraces our interdependence with nature, using imagination, deep reflection, appreciation of wildness, fullness of experience and, above all, action.
It stands in contrast to the continual stream of denial that modern life twists our arm to accept on a daily basis. It's so easy to find ourselves falling into the trap of believing that the less attention we pay to the source of everything we eat, drink, breathe and travel through, the better. For some of us – at least some of the time – a kind of wild awareness that this is no way to live becomes a thing to be cherished. For Naess it was far more: experiencing our interdependence as fully as possible lies at the heart of inquiry, and living in accordance with that inquiry lies at the heart of the true Self.
This might look like fluffy subjective ecopolitics, at least at first glance, to someone of a materialist disposition. For me personally, this man's vision stands at the very heart of what science is all about: the attempt to transform the way we see our world, and live in it, in accordance with What Is.
Arne Naess died in 2009 at the age of 96, two years ago as I write this. I feel sad that I found out only today.
The full 51 minute documentary can be watched here, on Daily Motion.
12 comments:
Hi Bob, I have been trying to find an answer to the question what is the fabric of space-time made of. Generally, the answer I get is that it is not a physical object and that it does not exist as such, but rather a mathematical object only. Yet, it is said that objects in space curve this fabric, which creates gravity. So, how can object curve nothing and create something? As I researched further, I came along with the dark matter concept, which is supposed to be 98% of space. Some claim that this dark matter is the space-time fabric, but the reason it is invisiable is because it does not interact with matter. This opened another question for me, if it does not interact with matter, how can then matter curve it to create gravity. I sent this question to Nassim too, but he never answered.
- 7:53 pm, June 08, 2011
- Bob said...
Hi anonymous. That's a great question.
Firstly, let me say that there are lots of speculative theories about the detailed structure of spacetime, and therefore lots of possible answers to your question from a theoretical point of view. Speculative theories can be fun, but you never know whether there's any truth in them.
So it's best to focus on what we know about spacetime, which is what comes from two very well-established theories: QFT (quantum field theory) and GR (general relativity), both of which have been tested to astonishing degrees of precision. I think your questions are more related to GR, so I'll try to explain in those terms.
In GR, as you say, massive objects curve spacetime, and this curvature gives rise to what we experience as a 'force' of gravity. The nature of how this happens is very unusual. When we say a massive object curves spacetime, what we mean is that the presence of mass (or energy) actually causes distances to change around it. (And times too, but let's stick to distances.)
For example, the mass of the Earth has a measurable effect on the space around it. Normally a circle has a circumference of pi times the diameter of the circle. But if you measure a circle around the earth, it is one inch less than it should be. It's an inch less than pi times the diameter.
This might seem very small, but it actually has some very strange geometrical effects, for example that straight lines cease to exist. If you throw an object in a curved space like this, it won't follow a straight line (because there aren't any), it will follow a curve.
Sometimes people say that gravity is not a 'real force', it's merely an illusion of a force because of curvature of spacetime. I think this is a very good way to think about gravity. It's how Einstein was thinking when he came up with GR. I'll try to explain...
If you were in empty space, with no massive objects and no gravity, and you threw a ball, it would travel in a straight line. If you are on the earth and you throw a ball, it doesn't - it follows a curve. It looks like there's a force acting on it, pulling it down. But it's not really a force - it's just moving through a space where distances have been distorted.
But the distortions are so small? Why would such a small distortion curve the path of a ball so much that it would come right back down in a matter of seconds? The reason the ball curves so much is because it has a long time to do it.
If you throw a ball in the air for two seconds, that may not seem like long to you, but then you're not used to relativity. Think how far a light beam would travel in that time! Nearly to the moon and back! The ball might not move far through space, but it moves a long, long way through time. Two seconds is a very long time. The spacetime path is extremely long, but all we see is the space part, the curved trajectory. The time part is long enough to curve the path of a ball very significantly.
Throw the ball faster between the same two points, and it won't curve so much, because the spacetime path is so much shorter.
So gravity is best seen as the illusion of a force. Our feeling of weight is entirely due to the fact that we're being prevented from following a natural path through the curved spacetime around the Earth. It's an illusion. Jump off a cliff, and you'll feel weightless - no problem. If you go into orbit, you're in a perpetual freefall, which is why astronauts feel weightless.
(cont'd below)
- 10:29 pm, June 08, 2011
- Bob said...
(continued from above...)
We're prevented from being in freefall by the ground. It's the ground that makes us feel heavy. Anything that forces you into an unnatural motion will give you weight - that's what g-force is about. Confined by the ground, we feel g-force in exactly the same way that a racing driver feels g-force when confined to his seat as his car takes a corner quickly.
This doesn't answer your question of what the fabric of spacetime is made of. The answer from GR is that it doesn't need to be made of anything.
When physicists talk about the fabric of spacetime, all they're talking about is the distances between points in space and time. The technical term is the metric. There doesn't need to be anything of any substance there at all for gravity to work. If the distances are distorted even slightly, things will move in curves and act as if there was a force on them. And if you prevent them from moving in those curves, they will feel the illusion of weight.
Of course this is only one way of looking at it, but it's a very fruitful one.
Regarding dark matter - let's clear this up a bit. It's often said that 98% of the mass/energy in the universe is dark. We can only see 2% of what (we believe) is out there.
The other 98% is not all dark matter. It's made of:
2% normal matter that's just not visible from Earth (for example interstellar gas)
23% dark matter (some substance we haven't been able to identify)
73% dark energy (the strangest one of all, but a natural part of GR)
It's not true to say these are 'space' or 'the space time fabric'. They are forms of energy.
It's also not true to say that they don't interact with matter. They do. Like all forms of energy, they have this effect of distorting spacetime - for example by changing distances around them like the Earth does. And this influences the motion of matter. In other words, they all interact gravitationally with matter.
I hope some of that helps. It's a difficult topic to try to discuss, but I've done my best to address your questions in a way that's understandable. There is a lot more that can be said, of course, but I was trying to give a brief response! You may find that the more you think about it, the more questions you have. Some things may start to make sense if you keep returning and asking the same questions. I hope you'll want to explore further.
If you do, I highly recommend these two BBC programmes:
They're an hour long each, but I think you'll like them.
When you've watched those, read this again, and see if it makes any more sense. You never know. And be careful of anyone who offers you what seem like easy answers. Simple pictures can be great, so long as they're held lightly, and so long as they don't prevent you from asking more if you want to get to the bottom of something.
Good luck!
- 10:29 pm, June 08, 2011
Thanks for the info. I just have one more question. I did experiment with a metal ball on a string. If you put magnet next to it, magnetic force will beat up gravity and we can see deflection of the string being pulled by the magnet. Now, I put ball on a string next to skyscraper. This big building should excert force on surrounding space. I put ball very close to the building (like 1mm or so, it took me some time to get a moment with no wind). I used laser mesure to check if there was deflection on the string, but I measured none. I know that gravity is very weak force, so should I be looking at really small deflection, like micrometer? Is it even detectable? The size of thr ball is just standard glass marble. Thanks
- 10:18 am, June 10, 2011
- tarunkrsnadas said...
Hi Bob
My friend Steve used to say "The mountains are really powerful". I had no trouble understanding his meaning and I agree. I also agree with Arne. The high mountain experience is one wherein the soul can stake her claim to the conscious being that experiences her.
Being at one with the forces that nurture one's heart is a most rewarding reality.
Which brings me to the use of the word fruitloop. You say it as if it had some derogatory meaning. I think what happened to you here is good for everyone to learn from. When you criticise, people defend themselves, sometimes even angrily and irrationally. Srila AC Bhaktivedanta Swami said "Tell the truth but tell it nicely". We can understand the reason for this.
However, not enough impetus and the ball won't roll, too much and all hell breaks loose. I guess wisdom will teach us, eventually.
Once, in India, whilst travelling by train, my friend Jagadish became embroiled in a heated philosophical discussion with some Indian gents. I was concerned as to what to do if a fight broke out.
The arguement continued for hours. About sunset, I decided to munch on some sweet cakes I had brought along. I offered them to Jagadish and his companions. Immediately, they began congradulating my intelligence for knowing how to change the mood. Actually, duhh! I was just being a gentleman. I applaud your intelligence for this post.
Nevertheless, when I read from "How to Make Friends ..." x Dale Carnegie, he says "Always allow the other man to save face".
If your heart is like the mountain, you'll always find a way to return to peace. Nassim has PROVED NOTHING but he HAS asked a lot of interesting questions. Give him credit for his oblique thinking and forget the rest.
- 10:02 am, June 22, 2011
- Bob said...
I think fruitloop is pretty a generous term. If he were just asking interesting questions, rather than manipulating vulnerable people into thinking he's an authority in order to sell his brand of misleading pseudoscience and prejudice against honest inquiry, and if he didn't respond to valid criticisms of his science with a stream of rhetoric, immature personal attacks and blocking all further communication, then I'd be happy for him to save face. As it is, I think it's more important to counteract some of the damage he is doing to people by exposing him for what he is.
It's not as if he won't continue to be surrounded by fans who value blind faith over honesty. He'll be fine - you don't need to worry about him.
- 4:26 pm, June 25, 2011
I just wanted to say Thankyou :)
i work in the environmental engineering sector and am constantly amazed by the utter rubbish some companies get away with selling to a willingly deluded public.
I am more disturbed and depressed than amazed by how willing adults are to believe sheer nonsense - i believe in some part we prime people to believe lies as children -- we all want the fairy tales to be true to some extent.
I read with great pleasure your clear and surprisingly calm dissemination of some seriously deluded and misguided "scientific" claims.
I take my hat off to you for your well rounded and stead fast response against a seemingly endless tidal wave of utter rubbish spouted by what seems like an almost cultish support for Nassim.
You have repeatedly asked in almost all of your responses for someone to in any way disprove your debunking of Nassims clearly wrong scientific claims.
It is no surprise that anyone has taken you up on this clear and polite invitation.
SO Thank you for taking the time in writing your responses i hope it manages to guide some people towards a more honest and genuine appreciation of the universe we live in and away from delusional feel good nonsense.
- 1:51 pm, September 13, 2011
- Mark said...
Think that Nassim answered you pretty good.
When the educated intellectuals of the day believed the earth to be flat, they even had a mathematical proof for it. They could literally blind you with math. I think you're just pissed with Nassim because not only does he have a personality, he is clearly alot smarter than you aswell - that must really hurt. It's so unfair. Must bust your world view wide open
- 1:32 pm, November 29, 2011
Yes Mark, whatever. Keep dreaming pal.
- 1:56 pm, November 29, 2011
- Bob said...
Mark is one of many people who just "think" things. About the laws of physics and the nature of the universe. They choose what they like best, and stick to it. They don't give any reasoning.
Because, for them, the most reliable source of all knowledge about the universe is their feelings. And their prejudices. They trust their gut. If they like what some bloke on the web is telling them, that'll do for them.
I'm one of many people who thinks that if you want to know about the physical nature of the universe, it's best to take a detailed look at the physical nature of the universe and see what it's like. I think that's far more important than whether or not I happen to like an idea.
I can't argue with Mark's gut feelings about the universe. All I can do is say honestly, dude. Do you really think you can just choose what the laws of physics are like that?
If I've got you wrong, that would be unfair, of course, so I'd like to hear more. Maybe you're not coming from prejudice and the belief that the world revolves around your personal feelings. If not, then please share your physical evidence or reasoning or explanations for anything that I've said being wrong. Or anything that Haramein has said about physics being correct. That would be interesting. Anything at all.
- 4:21 pm, November 29, 2011
Hi Bob, I'm not a scientist at all just fascinated with quantum physics and the potential for it to explain what is commonly considered unexplainable. Which is how i found Nassim's work, but I am not one to just believe anything. Id love to find out that we are all one consciousness which has subdivided itself for the purposes of experiencing different perspectives , but first id need to see some science. Real science... anyhow, Have you heard of the holographic model of the universe - not Nassim's Holo- fractal model but the model put forth by Karl Pribram and David Bohm, (as i recall one was an understudy of Einstein's) which was detailed in layman's terms in "the holographic universe" by Michael Talbot? It has some very interesting perspectives on the whole "why are we here and what are we??" Question. It seems very plausible to me but I'm just an electrician not a big brained scientist like yourself so I'd really like to know what you think as some of your explanations actually clear certain concepts up for me. Thanks! -Mike from Canada
- 1:03 pm, July 14, 2015
- Bob said...
Hello Mike from Canada.
This is a post about Arne Naess and ecology. Forgive me if I decline to discuss Haramein or Talbot or their misconceptions about science here.
- 1:47 pm, July 14, 2015
Post a comment
If you have questions not relating to this post, you can email me.


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Among recent actions by the SEC were charges against a Texas couple for fraud in a Visa scheme and against China-based executives for fraud and insider trading; an asset freeze against a Las Vegas firm for a Ponzi scheme preying on residents of Japan; charges against a New Jersey firm and one of its founding partners for failed audits; charges against a south Florida woman for a Ponzi scheme that targeted Colombian-Americans; against three auditors for audit failures in a gatekeeper crackdown; and against an Omaha advisory firm and its owner for best execution failures.
In addition, FINRA sought a cease-and-desist order in a case of fraud and stock manipulation.
SEC Halts Texas-Based U.S. Residency Scam
The SEC has charged Marco and Bebe Ramirez, a Texas husband and wife, with fraud after they concocted a scheme to steal funds from foreign investors while passing it off as an investment opportunity to create U.S. jobs and provide a path to U.S. residency. In addition, the couple's assets — and those of three companies they own, USA Now LLC, USA Now Energy Capital Group and Now Co. Loan Services — have been frozen, so that they can't bring in or spend further investor money.
The agency said that the Ramirezes and their three companies have fraudulently raised at least $5 million from investors under the guise of soliciting investments as part of the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Pilot Program, which allows foreign investors to earn conditional visas and eventually green cards. To do so, they must make investments in U.S. economic development projects that will create or preserve a minimum number of jobs for U.S. workers.
In 2010, the couple tried to register USA Now with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) as an EB-5 regional center that would accept and direct investments from foreign investors into investment opportunities that would purportedly satisfy the EB-5 visa requirements. But they and their employees didn't wait for the USCIS decision, soliciting investors and claiming that their money would be placed in escrow till approval was granted.
The Ramirezes didn't bother to put the money they raised in escrow, or even to invest it for the people they bilked. Instead they funneled it to other undisclosed businesses, including a Cajun-themed restaurant, sometimes the same day the money came in, as well as using it for personal expenses and to settle a lawsuit that had nothing to do with the scheme. In at least one case, they used new investor funds to make Ponzi-like payments to an existing investor.
The SEC seeks various relief, including preliminary and permanent injunctions, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains with prejudgment interest and financial penalties.
SEC Fines Advisor, Firm for Pushing High-Cost Share Classes
In what one expert called a groundbreaking move, the SEC used a best-execution charge to hit a firm for offering its clients A shares instead of lower-cost institutional shares and pocketing the fees through its brokerage firm.
Manarin Investment Counsel and Roland Manarin were charged by the SEC with violating their best execution obligation by consistently steering clients into higher-cost shares of the three mutual funds they managed, even though cheaper shares in those funds were available. That resulted in clients paying avoidable fees, which were passed through to a brokerage firm owned by Manarin in a way not disclosed to investors.
The SEC said that Manarin Investment Counsel provides investment advice to a mutual fund called Lifetime Achievement Fund (LAF), and to two private funds called Pyramid I Limited Partnership and Pyramid II Limited Partnership. As funds of funds, they invest their assets principally in the shares of various mutual funds.
From 2000 to 2010, Manarin and his firm steered fund clients to invest in class A shares of these funds when instead they could have owned lower-cost institutional shares in the same mutual funds. The A shares meant the clients paid ongoing 12b-1 fees that could often have been avoided with I shares.
The fees were passed through to Manarin's broker-dealer Manarin Securities Corp. Although his brokerage firm eventually refunded 12b-1 fees paid by LAF, it did not refund fees to the Pyramid funds. From June 2000 to October 2010, Manarin Securities Corp. received approximately $685,000 in 12b-1 fees from mutual funds in which the Pyramid funds could have purchased institutional shares.
Without admitting or denying the SEC's charges, Manarin and his firms agreed to pay more than $1 million to settle them; they will pay disgorgement of $685,007 and prejudgment interest of $267,742. Manarin himself agreed to pay a $100,000 penalty. He and his firms also consented to censures and cease-and-desist orders.
Clipperman Compliance Services commented on the SEC's action, pointing out that "The funds' disclosure statements indicated that the a firm's affiliate would receive 12b-1 fees on the investments, but the SEC faulted the firm for failing to disclose that it could purchase the institutional share classes of the same funds without 12b-1 fees."
As a result, the firm suggested, "This case appears to enter new regulatory territory. The SEC could have brought this action as a classic conflict of interest case about an affiliate receiving compensation. However, the SEC went further, asserting that an advisor has a best execution obligation to purchase the lowest-cost share class available. This follows a line of cases that FINRA brought several years ago where brokers were charged with suitability violations for buying class B shares (no front-end load but higher fees) instead of class A shares. Could the SEC take this a step further and assert that advisors must find the lowest cost fund that has a similar investment mandate?"
China-Based Education Execs Charged by SEC With Fraud, Insider Trading
Chan Tze Ngon, former CEO and chairman of the board of ChinaCast Education Corp., and Jiang Xiangyuan, ChinaCast's former president for operations in China, were charged by the SEC, the former with stealing tens of millions of dollars from investors in a U.S. IPO and the latter with illegally dumping his company stock after he helped steal valuable company assets.
According to the SEC, Chan transferred $41 million out of the $43.8 million raised from investors to a purported subsidiary in which he secretly held a controlling 50% ownership stake. From there, he moved money to another entity outside ChinaCast's control. He also secretly pledged $30.4 million of ChinaCast's cash deposits to secure the debts of entities unrelated to ChinaCast. Of course he failed to disclose any of this in the reports he signed and filed with the SEC.
Jiang, for his part, was charged with avoiding more than $200,000 in losses by illegally selling approximately 50,000 ChinaCast shares after participating in the ownership transfer of one of company's revenue-generating colleges before it was publicly disclosed by a new management team.
Before the two frauds were discovered, ChinaCast had a market cap of more than $200 million. After a new management team removed the two and made their misdeeds public, the value dropped to less than $5 million.
The SEC, whose investigation is continuing, is seeking disgorgement of ill-gotten gains plus prejudgment interest, financial penalties, permanent injunctions, and officer-and-director bars.
Firm Owner Accused of Bill-Collection Ruse to Pay Alimony, Child Support
The SEC announced an emergency asset freeze against a Las Vegas-based firm and its sole owner, who were charged with setting up a Ponzi scheme involving thousands of investors living primarily in Japan.
Edwin Fujinaga and his company MRI International raised more than $800 million from investors, telling them that their money would buy accounts, at a discount, from U.S. medical providers with outstanding balances to collect from insurance companies. The discount would provide investor profits when Fujinaga and his firm would collect the full outstanding balances.
No such collection ever took place; in fact, no accounts were ever bought. Instead, investor money was used to pay funds due to earlier investors in a Ponzi setup — as well as to buy luxury cars and pay Fujinaga's credit card bills, alimony and child support.
The SEC was granted a temporary restraining order, asset freeze, and other emergency relief against MRI, Fujinaga and CSA Service Center, which is a company controlled by Fujinaga that is the nominal owner of homes that he occupies in Las Vegas, Beverly Hills and Hawaii. CSA Service Center is named as a relief defendant for the purposes of recovering any ill-gotten assets.
The SEC's investigation is continuing. Meanwhile, it seeks disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, financial penalties, permanent injunctions and other emergency relief.
New Jersey Firm, Founding Partner Charged by SEC in Failed Audits
New Jersey-based audit firm Patrizio & Zhao (P&Z) and one of its founding partners, Xinggeng (John) Zhao, who is head of the firm's China practice, were charged by the SEC for the part they played in botching the audits of China-based Keyuan Petrochemicals, which failed to disclose related party transactions by its CEO and others. The latter firm was charged by the SEC earlier in the year for accounting and disclosure violations.
P&Z, which is registered with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), conducted audits and interim reviews during the periods when Keyuan failed to disclose the material related party transactions, and did so with Zhao acting as the engagement partner.
P&Z's audit workpapers and other documents show many of the same types of related party transactions that Keyuan failed to disclose. Zhao determined that related party transactions were an audit risk area. He reviewed audit documentation reflecting that Keyuan was engaged in such transactions, but went ahead and approved the issuance of unqualified audit opinions, as well as interim review reports on Keyuan's financial statements that violated U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles by failing to include the disclosure of material related party transactions.
Zhao also committed other significant audit documentation violations.
Without admitting or denying the SEC's findings, P&Z and Zhao agreed to settle the charges. They will be prohibited from practicing as an accountant on behalf of any publicly traded company or other entity regulated by the SEC, and P&Z is required to pay a $30,000 penalty.
Woman Charged by SEC in Bail Bond Scheme
The SEC charged Jenny Coplan, a woman living in south Florida, with defrauding investors in a Ponzi scheme and affinity fraud that targeted the local Colombian-American community and involved purported investments in immigration bail bonds. She also faces parallel criminal charges.
Coplan told investors that her company, Immigration General Services, operated through an investment broker that would invest the funds she raised in immigration bail bonds and turn a profit. She promised interest payments ranging from 60% to 108% per year, and assured investors their money was FDIC insured and therefore safe.
But Coplan paid early investors with the proceeds from later ones, and in the meantime never invested anything but stole approximately $878,000 of investor money for her own personal use. She created fictitious investor statements to hide her actions, and even emailed one investor two fake FDIC statements reflecting insured balances of $107,000 and $250,000.
When things started to come apart in 2011, she blamed the nonexistent investment broker for the delay in interest payments to investors, claiming that the broker held investor funds to cover deficiencies because she had failed to meet certain monthly investment quotas.
Even though Immigration General Services had virtually no funds in its bank accounts and was unable to honor investors' increasing redemption requests, she tried later that year to cover it up, issuing bad checks that were supposedly investor profits. She even managed to raise another $578,000 from new investors, thanks to her lies, before the scheme collapsed entirely.
The SEC seeks disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, financial penalties and permanent injunctions.
SEC Gatekeeper Crackdown Nabs Three Auditors
Three auditors were charged by the SEC in the most recent action taken in "Operation Broken Gate," the pursuit by the agency of gatekeepers who fail in their duties.
Malcolm Pollard, who practices in Erie, Pa., and Wilfred Hanson and John Kinross-Kennedy, who live in the Irvine, Calif., area, were charged with violating federal securities laws or failing to comply with U.S. auditing standards during their audits and reviews of financial statements for publicly traded companies.
Pollard and his firm, according to the agency, engaged in improper professional conduct while auditing three companies that are empty shells or in the developmental stages. The companies' public stock is quoted on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board, and the audits conducted by Pollard and his firm failed to include evidence of procedures performed or conclusions reached.In addition, they failed to retain required documentation, perform the required engagement quality reviews, and consider fraud risks and obtain written management representations. But Pollard and his firm nevertheless claimed in each audit report to have conducted the audits in accordance with Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) standards.
The SEC said that Kinross-Kennedy has been the independent accountant for as many as 23 public companies since 2009. The agency found significant deficiencies in six of Kinross-Kennedy's audit engagements, and failures to obtain engagement quality reviews (EQRs) for more than 30 other audit engagements. Kinross-Kennedy falsely represented that he conducted his audits in accordance with PCAOB standards.
Hanson conducted EQRs for five of Kinross-Kennedy's audits, but was not competent to serve as the engagement quality reviewer; he failed to exercise due professional care and also failed to conduct multiple EQRs in accordance with PCAOB standards.
Pollard and Hanson agreed, without admitting or denying the charges, to settle the respective actions against them and will be prohibited from practicing as an accountant on behalf of any publicly traded company or other entity regulated by the SEC. Kinross-Kennedy is fighting the charges before an administrative law judge at the agency.
FINRA Files for Cease-and-Desist Order on Fraud, Stock Manipulation
FINRA filed for a temporary cease-and-desist order against John Carris Investments, LLC (JCI) and its CEO, George Carris, to stop the firm's solicitations of customers to buy shares of Fibrocell Science, Inc. stock in the absence of proper disclosures.
According to FINRA, during May of 2013, JCI pushed its customers to buy Fibrocell stock without disclosing that at the same time Carris and another firm principal were selling their shares. In an amended complaint, FINRA also charged JCI, Carris, and five other firm principals with additional violations, alleging that that while JCI acted as a placement agent for Fibrocell, Carris and the firm pushed up the stock price with prearranged trades and unauthorized purchases of the stock in customer accounts.
Carris and JCI were also charged with the fraudulent sale of stock and notes in its parent company, Invictus Capital, by not disclosing its poor financial condition. Instead, FINRA said that early investors were paid dividends that came from new sales of Invictus stock, and that neither JCI nor Carris had reasonable grounds to expect that investors would actually make money on the stock.
In March of 2013, Invictus Capital defaulted on $2 million in Invictus notes sold to early JCI customers and said it might have to use the proceeds from its ongoing offering to make repayments. But JCI has continued to solicit new Invictus investments despite its complete unsuitability.
FINRA also said that JCI falsified documents that hid the fact that Carris used firm funds to pay for such personal expenses as tattoos, pet care and a motorcycle, while failing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in employee payroll taxes to the U.S. Treasury.
Check out SEC Awards $14 Million to Whistleblower on ThinkAdvisor.


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Souvenirs are a nightmare for the frugal traveler. From high markups to exploitative labor, souvenirs are a lousy way to bring travel memories home.
If you like meeting new people and playing host, offering short-term rentals of your extra space might be an easy and fun source of extra income.
Schedule a break in your busy routine before your routine schedules a break in you.
Tell your extra space to get a job — turn a spare bedroom into a vacation rental for friendly, frugal-minded travelers.
For an awesome winter vacation spot, head for the Nicaraguan highlands, filled with food, wildlife, and friendly people.
I recently found myself sitting around a dinner table in Hawaii with a number of new traveling acquaintances. We met at the place of accommodation we were staying at, and enjoyed e
It's the easiest thing to do, and yet the hardest. But employ this technique, and not only will your wallet thank you, but so will your family and friends back home.
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The shell-developers invented $* and $@ for this purpose.
Without being quoted (double-quoted), both have the same effect: All positional parameters from $1 to the last used one >are expanded, separated by the first character of IFS (represented by "c" here, but usually a space):
Without double quotes, $* and $@ are expanding the positional parameters separated by only space, not by IFS.
#!/bin/bash export IFS='-' echo -e $* echo -e $@
$./test "This is" 2 3 This is 2 3 This is 2 3
(Edited: Inserted code tags)


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¾ cup nondairy creamer
4 cups miniature marshmallows
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, broken into ½ to1-ounce pieces
¾ cup pareve whip
1 teaspoon vanilla
Combine nondairy creamer, marshmallows and chocolate in a medium pot. Melt over low heat, stirring constantly. When mixture is smooth, remove from heat and let cool slightly. Beat whip and vanilla together until stiff peaks form. Fold into chocolate mixture until completely incorporated. Refrigerate.


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About Todd
This certainly brings to mind (and is somewhat inferred from the post) the inevitable escalation. Drone flyovers forbidden. OK.
If the police are able to record comings and goings of everyone everywhere with innocuous metadata captured with a camera, then why can't citizens do the same. It is not for lack of camera equipment, nor for lack of network connectivity, nor for lack of technical knowledge. The only reason that immediately comes to mind is lack of initiative.
There may already be activities going on in this area that I somehow missed, but it seems like a really big citizen data repo enabling a bit of observation of "the watchers" could be useful for a lot of stuff.
There is a nefarious dynamic at work here, which is undoubtedly too subtle for the parties involved to easily pick up on in the heat of battle. By putting legal pressure on companies who know that what they are doing is quite OK, the easy way out for the target is to say "it's illegal, so we're doing everything we can to stop it". It puts the target into a much more defensible legal position, and it also does something to quell the public who often says "ah, it's not their fault, it's just illegal". Let's call this "good marketing" for the sake of argument.
Rather than actually calling it what it is, and educating people about the subtle legal issues, the safe route is to claim that the response is a necessary and valid thing.
An example of the problem at work, from the first time I came across something like this and it really bothered me, is from Sprint. I got a Samsung phone on which they had disabled a trivial Android setting - shutter sound. After spending a bit of time scratching my head about why I could not even find the setting, I went searching the forums and FAQs for the answer. What I found shocked me. They turned off the ability to set "none" as the shutter sound on the camera because they stated that they were legally required to do so. By whom, I do not know. The official answer was short on specifics. My understanding (at the time, and probably still true) is that there is no legal requirement for an electronic camera manufacturer to simulate an analog camera shutter to warn people that their picture is being taken, but that is flat out what Sprint claimed they were bound by. I rooted my phone and fixed the problem. Most people won't.
My take on this is that a company that simplifies a legal question in this way, to make it easily understandable as a binary right/wrong issue, plays directly into the hand of their opponent.
Agreed, there will be a black market.
Today, I can send a copy of my prescription from a doctor in the US to a Canadian pharmacy and legally get a prescription filled. In that scenario, nobody has broken a single law.
Tomorrow, I may be able to find someone to illegally fill that same prescription. For many people, these are not the same things.
It's not "Nah". It's "ok, if you want to do this illegally, there is a way to do it". If "Nah" means I can still get my legally prescribed drugs illegally, well, I guess that will always be the case.
FWIW, I'm completely in agreement with your argument. There is a price that will settle somewhere between the ridiculous amounts being charged in the US, and the "friction free" CDN prices of today that will reward smugglers. My take on it is that this is not what we (collectively) want.
The real fight here is not search listing or discoverability. Mike pointed out the crux of the legitimacy issue, which is foreclosing delivery. As soon as nobody in the US can purchase the product, it won't matter much if you can find them in Google.
This was exactly my reaction, as soon as I started reading the post. It has nothing to do with how many people would naturally use the .pharmacy TLD, and everything to do with establishing control over "legitimacy". The .pharmacy moniker is a crappy TLD. Nobody would ever use it. Unless it was the only way to purchase an entire class of products online. That would seem to be the motivation. Expect rapid progress, given the amount of dollars involved.
Thanks for the correction. Seems like a silly mistake in retrospect. I also am not an expert.
I really wish the topic of IP law was either much simpler, or much less necessary. If it is going to be necessary for everyone to understand this kind of stuff in depth just to carry out normal, everyday life, what hope do most people have of staying on the right side of the law?
I spend way too much time digging into this stuff and trying to understand it already, and still there are surprises and logical pretzels everywhere you look.
Awesome explanation - thanks for laying the situation out clearly. Sounds to me like NASCAR didn't do anything particularly wrong (legally), but they did do something particularly dumb (Streisandly).
I thought the takedown request was initially being justified by the assignment of copyright on the ticket. I haven't seen the text, but by walking in the gate you assign all copyright in any video you take to NASCAR. Sort of like a EULA for taking your rights away in the physical world.
It's interesting seeing the "no" votes on some of these things. I submitted a question about the CFAA, and there are almost as many thumbs down as thumbs up. I suppose there are some self-appointed fans of the DOJ who are policing these questions?
The way this thing is set up, that may be a good strategy. If a question is hit early with negative votes it seems to keep it from being very visible. I suppose that could work in reverse too, so I guess I'll spend some time hunting down some infant questions I disagree with and trying to kill them (or at least wound them severely).
If you are investigating an assassination, wouldn't "political leaders and dignitaries" be pretty high on the list of people to look at? Maybe if the request was just for all of the data from "political leaders and dignitaries" it would make a lot more sense.
If you happen to talk to the lawyer, see if you can get him to explain who wrote the second paragraph of that letter. Looks like it was a Nigerian scam author. Do they not teach grammar in law school?
Another factor contributing to Lamar's win may also come from redistricting. Mr. Smith has been my non-representative representative for as long as I've lived in Travis county. I didn't get a chance to vote against him this go-around, which makes me wonder if some of the creative map scribbles were an attempt to get him away from some of the tech heavy areas around Austin.
You MAY have a lot of movies being made, but some of them are bad.
We certainly know, for a fact, that the MPAA (and Hollywood generally) has no tolerance for the production of bad movies, which proves the point nicely.
I think they win this one.
That techcrunch prediction won't fit nicely on any list in a few decades. The difference is that all of those memorable quotes from important people mattered. The techcrunch thing is just some irrelevant idiot showing his lack of imagination on the internet. Hardly unique. And, yes, I see the irony of making that statement.
I don't know the score from last night's NFL football game, but I am quite sure that it will be remembered more widely and for far longer than the journalistic gem that you linked to here.
I'm really becoming concerned about how the recent fundamental shift in our patent system plays into nonsense such as this. It seems obvious that in the world that existed up until our "reform", this type of situation is troubling but solvable.
Now, with the first to file system being the law of the land, it seems to matter a lot less that someone did this fairly trivial implementation at the dawn of the internet.
The clever, enterprising version of the patent troll species [cf. capitagium-ereptor] seems to have a golden opportunity now, where they can become the patent holder for lots of stuff that was just so obvious that nobody ever filed for it. It saddens me that there used to be a reasonable defense for that (a.k.a. prior art) and now, I fear, you may just be out of luck.
I could be misunderstanding something important about the way the new version of the law works, in which case someone please set that straight, but it feels a bit ominous when pondering what will likely happen in the near future. I fear that when the trolls realize the potential of this game changing law, they will go on a more aggressive land grab. If the prior art argument becomes a moot point, then it seems like these guys will only be limited by their imagination in terms of what they can encumber and monetize.
This is so obviously true. Now that Google and Reddit have lost their standing in the community and also lost my trust by standing up for my rights, I have no other option than to simply trust the RIAA instead. Thanks anon coward!
I was struggling for a minute there trying to figure out where the idea of "Big Search" came from. I guess it is simply intended to be a derogatory slam on the market position of Google. It's either that, or it might be because you are just a small independent search artist trying to make it big and having problems because "the man" won't let you shine.
Certainly, the Google has its advantages, having provided a useful product to people (unfairly FREE I might add) which enables their astroturfing campaigns to run rampant across the web.
All is not lost, however, and as an independent search artist you should take heart. As soon as we pass some really onerous laws that prevent most people from being able to have any concept of privacy of their own living rooms, you will be suddenly (and somewhat magically) enabled to do just exactly the same thing that you are doing now. By that, I mean that you will be able to blame other people for your own failures, but with the smug confidence of knowing that you have completely destroyed their ability to do anything productive to advance the art beyond what it is today. It will not advance your interests one iota, nor bring any value to anybody, but the legislation does bring with it the supreme confidence of knowing that you were "right" and those that were wrong now can't do anything useful for anybody.
Since I'm also a constituent of Rep. Lamar Smith, I'll be sure to put in a good word for you when it comes time to divide up the spoils. I'm sure we can figure out some way to fine "Big Search" for more than a couple of billion dollars for their predatory practice of giving away a service of real value at the expense of those who have worked so hard to create and lock these things up.
Buck up, young search provider. They may have won this battle, but they can't possibly win the war. Unless they do, of course, in which case you may want to consider a new line of work.
I would say it's less of an issue of underestimating Jon Stewart's skills and more a question of why is that not what our legislator's careers rest on too?.
I find it ironic (and also quite sad) that a comedian can figure out the core issue within two days and that congress has been working on this for two years and still hasn't gotten the point.
ACTA is a dirty acronym (it's not a word) because it was a secretive process negotiated behind closed doors. It was duplicitous in its drafting and now every trick in the book will be used to ram it through the various legislatures that need to sign off on it. Well, not ours of course, because the ultimate slimy trick is to just bypass the legislature entirely. It's an international treaty (oh, except not in the U.S. it's not).
I honestly could not care less about harmonization with Europe as justification for bad law. Since when do we take our orders from them? Saying that "they made us do it" rings a bit hollow, especially given the current state of play on who is driving what in the global war on common sense that is the "IP harmonization" effort.


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Price: $ 1,680.00
Now available for the JZA80 Toyota Supra (manual and automatic transmission)! This modular assembly is the perfect new titanium exhaust system for your Supra.
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Paired with the Tomei Full Titanium Exhaust system for the 2015+ Ford Mustang EcoBoost to keep a proper and closed look to the factory rear diffuser.
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Redefine your Mustang with a dramatic weight reduction! This full titanium exhaust system carries many improved features compared to the stock exhaust system. Such features include a 3.15in (80mm) pipe...
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Tomei has really done it this time. Notice a lack of a certain word in the title of this product? The missing word is tip. That word is missing because...
$ 216.00 $ 240.00
Tomei Procam for Mitsubishi EVO X CZ4A 4B11 Intake 270/11.50 The PROCAM series are for the serious users who need results when every milli-seconds count. These will deliver the added...


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From WikiFur, the furry encyclopedia.
|This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to WikiFur style and standards.
For specifics, check the edit history and talk page. Consult the Furry Book of Style for editing help.
|This article does not cite its references or sources. You can help WikiFur by adding references.
For specifics, check the edit history and talk page. Consult the Furry Book of Style for editing help.
Rockfanatik (aka Foxy Girl, born December 24, 1986) is an artist whose fursona is a fox.
Rockfanatik creates portraits of people in the park, their cars, and/or pets. She also makes and sells paintings of anime characters.
However, all of said portraits that were uploaded to Fur Affinity were stolen from Google and passed off as her own art. She was called out by an admin, laughed at, and banned[citation needed], ending up being generally ridiculed.[1]
What didn't help was the exchange between the so-called artist and a commenter where Rockfanatik made allusions that she was using a secret risky dangerous art program that could damage your computer.[1]
External links[edit]
|This person is a WikiFur user:
- Rockfanatik on Fur Affinity
- Rockfanatik on YouTube
- rockfanatik on Freewebs
- rockfanatik on IMVU
|This stub about a person could be expanded.


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I eat sweet potato fries all the time. Sweet potatoes are one of those veggies that I didn't touch as a child. I wouldn't even eat them in casserole form topped with marshmallow, syrup & nuts. Nope. I was only interested in your "normal" mashed potatoes as a child. I didn't even really try, or remember trying, sweet potatoes until just a few years back. Now, I eat them several times a week. My new favorite way is to eat them in steak fry form. I used to make them in rounds, more like thicker chips, as you can see here. Friday night, I tried the new, better way and love them!!
These are so easy to make, it isn't even funny. I sliced a single sweet potato into steak fry shapes first. Then, I sprayed with Pam and seasoned to my liking (I just used sea salt, pepper & cinnamon). I tossed into the oven at about 375 – 400 and let them go. I checked on them every 10 minutes or so and flipped about half way through and then towards the end again to brown up on all sides. They ROCKED!!
I served them along side of an open-faced fried egg sandwich. I toasted 2 slices of Kinnikinnick's Many Wonder Multi-Grain Bread and then topped with fresh baby spinach, fried eggs and fresh chopped basil. So good and went perfectly with the sweet potato steak fries!!
If you like sweet potatoes, give these fries a try!
Filed under: Family, Gluten-Free, Gluten-free Products, Gluten-Free Recipes | 10 Comments »


text: Check Details on Dealer Sales & Service for Yamaha Bikes in Himatnagar. Phone Number, Address and pincode, E-mail ID and Mobile numbers. Dealer Deals in – Fascino, Ray Z, Ray ZR, Alpha, Saluto RX, Saluto 125, SZ-RR V2.0, FZ Fi V3.0, FZ-S Fi V3.0, YZF R15 V3.0, Fazer 25, FZ 25, YZF R3, MT 15, […] Read more


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Paula Wolfson, wtop.com
WASHINGTON — When to take the keys away from elderly drivers is an age-old argument and a recent crash involving a 100-year-old driver shines a spotlight on the issue once again.
Last week, the centenarian driver plowed into a group of people at a Los Angeles elementary school, injuring nine children and two adults. Four of the children were seriously injured. The driver told police the brakes on his 1990 Cadillac failed.
The number of older drivers is increasing as the baby boomer generation ages. Older drivers keep their licenses longer, drive more miles, and make up a bigger portion of the nation's population than in past years, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Nationwide, the number of drivers ages 70 and older totaled 22 million in 2008, based on data from the Federal Highway Administration. In comparison, fewer than 18 million people ages 70 and older had a license in 1997, the institute says.
More than half of states have specific renewal requirements for older drivers. The stipulations include shorter renewal cycles, required vision or road testing, and in-person instead of mail or electronic renewal, the institute says.
In D.C. and Maryland, drivers over the age of 70 must renew their licenses in person and they must take a vision test. In Virginia, similar rules apply to drivers over the age of 80.
All three local jurisdictions say they follow up with a doctor if they suspect an older driver is physically impaired. However, all fall short of the law in Pennsylvania, where doctors are required to report such conditions to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Pennsylvania also provides families with a booklet to help them decide when and how to get involved in an older person's decision whether to continue driving.
D.C. DMV recommends that senior drivers test or refresh their road skills with an online defensive driving course.
Virginia offers a list of questions drivers can ask themselves to check if they are still safe to drive on its Mature Driver page.
Questions include:
- Getting lost in familiar areas?
- Confusing the gas and the brake pedals?
- Stopping for green lights or when there is no indication that you need to stop?
Tips for a safe trip include:
- Plan trips during low traffic times.
- Take a driver improvement class to maintain driving skills and learn the newest highway laws and vehicle changes.
- Know how medication side effects could impair driving skills
- Wear flat shoes or sneakers when driving
Maryland breaks down what to consider when deciding whether a driver should get behind the wheel based on health conditions like Glaucoma and stroke.
Follow WTOP on Twitter.
(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)


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Hi, all!
We are researchers at Arizona State University. We invite you to complete the survey below to help us further our understanding of motivations, practices, methods, and communities around DIY musical instruments. The survey should take less than 10 minutes to complete.
Here is the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/V65WD7K
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DIY musical instruments
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Earth from Space: Depression in North Atlantic
This Envisat image captures a depression, or low pressure system, covering most of the North Sea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean, on Monday 2 November.
Low pressure systems are storms that rotate around a central area of extreme low pressure, pulling in air from the surrounding area. Winds begin rushing inwards and upwards around this low-pressure zone. As the air rises, it cools and forms clouds and precipitation.
The area of low pressure developed to the southwest of Britain on Saturday night. Heavy rains spread through England (visible), Wales (partly visible), Northern Ireland and Scotland (partly visible) on Sunday morning.
Scotland was one of the worst hit areas, with 13 flood warnings issued. According to the UK Met Office, 53 mm of rain fell in the Scottish city of Aberdeen on Sunday, nearly three-quarters of the usual rainfall for the month of November.
The various colours of green visible in the sea around the River Thames in England are due to sediments being transported in the water. Western France is visible in the bottom right.
Envisat's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) optical instrument acquired this image working in Full Resolution mode to provide a spatial resolution of 300 m.


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Examples of dieselpunk fashion
@Anita - Is it dieselpunk?
I met this great couple over the Valentine's Day weekend, selling cool clockwork pendants and various weaponry-props - "re-fabricated finery for the fashionable adventurer".
Flotsum's and Jetsam's Emporium is their business, making Dieselpunk-ish stuff to sell at events. They don't have an Etsy store or merchandise listed on their Facebook page, but if you bump into them at an event say "hello". They're really nice and have one-of-a-kind finds.
great gallery gives me great halloween costume ideas...
It´s a fascinating gallery right here and a wonderfull resource for those who want some inspiration to put on dress in a dieselpunk style.
Thank you
(also thanks @Larry for post this on Sindicato Dieselpunk group on facebook)
Nice gallery and I love that you included Boardwalk Empire, since it's not overly obvious, yet it's also where I get some inspiration from (e.g. for my latest haircut) :)
© 2020 Created by Tome Wilson. Powered by


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Stating the Obvious: Actors
Lately I've been feeling sympathy for actors. I never used to feel that. I used to think actors deserved NOTHING, because they're already beautiful and adored. And people are swoon over how clever and cool they must be in real life, because apparently they improvised their best lines and YOU KNOW WHAT NO THEY DID NOT. They played the damn character that was written for them, that's what they did. The alternative only gets play because people believe in their hearts that movies are real.*
Essentially, I viewed actors as mindless automatons waiting to be filled with words. Attractive automatons, to be sure. They're a fine looking bunch. And they're good at pretending. But that's not a particularly impressive skill. I mean, kids do it. So I've never really rated actors as more deserving of respect than, say, jugglers. Especially jugglers who can balance on things while they juggle. That shit is not easy.
But this was before I actually spent time on a film set. I found that educational in a few ways. For one thing, I had to act. Only a little. I'm kind of abusing the term here. I mostly had to stand in one place and not sneeze. But there was a time when I had to move parts of my body in a coherent way while fifty people and a very expensive camera stared at me, and that turned out to be harder than I expected. There is a pressure element. So I concede that acting, or doing anything, really, is more challenging when a lot of people's time and money is riding on you not screwing it up.
But the real eye-opener was how actors have to do what they're told. Not always. Sometimes actors can say, "I'm not really feeling that line," and the director will say, "Let's try it both ways," and the actor can perform a take differently while knowing in their soul that it will never be seen again. Actors are also free to perform minor on-the-fly sentence surgery, so long as they get the essence right. In some cases, they really can propose something different, and if the director agrees, they get to do it. But mostly they have to say the lines.
So if I write, "6 looks surprised," then Amber Heard has to go ahead and look surprised. I want you to take a moment to think about how much you would enjoy it if you were world famous and had to look surprised just because I wanted you to. Because I would hate it. I would be all, "I tell you what, how about you go fuck yourself?" Now, okay, this probably just means I would make a crappy actor. I already knew that. And I knew actors had to say the lines. That is the most fundamental part of their job. If they weren't prepared to do it, they would find something else to do, like juggle while balancing on things.
But still. I realize more and more how spoiled I am to own the entire process of creating a novel. I don't need anyone's permission to start writing. I don't need to convince people to sign off on doing a part of the story a particular way. I just do it. You might argue that this isn't a good thing. And I might argue, why don't you get off my site, if you hate me so much. But for better or worse, I enjoy the ability to determine how I do my job.
Actors don't have that. They have to give themselves to a role no matter how shitty. They're totally dependent on being offered good scripts, and if they're not, they have to perform bad ones. When they perform bad roles, even when they do a good job, people think they're bad actors, because people think movies are real.* An actor might never once get the chance to perform a role at their best. Which is kind of horrifying.
Of course, they can console themselves with their immense beauty.
(* They are real. All stories are real.)


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I think someone in the hiring department is playing politics. Is there a fix pay scale? Do you have to know someone, not mentioning name, to get hire? Is Tesla an equal opportunity employer? Rumors are they are ramping up production and ignoring quality.
That rumor -statement makes you sound like a troll. If there is such rumor it could not be farther from the truth.


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I recently gauged my ears straight to a 10 Gauge about 5 weeks ago.
I don't want to stretch until the holidays but have been curious on new 10 gauge plugs. (Jewelry in general)
So, I'm curious on when it would be an okay, timeline to follow, to at least change up the jewelry?


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In cities around the world it has provoked grumbles about invasion of privacy and jeopardising national security – and has caught unsuspecting members of the public with their pants down. So when Google's Street View cameras came to Botswana, a country of 2 million people and 70% covered by the Kalahari desert, the company might have expected to avoid such controversy. Not so.
"We feel such places as the military base and the office of the president, the American embassy and any other such high-security areas should not have been allowed to be published," the Monitor newspaper opined in an editorial on Monday. "This compromises our security."
It went on: "What is also amazing is that prior to the shooting of the map, there was assurance that residential areas would be left out … but now these are in the Google map."
Government officials moved to dismiss the complaints as a storm in a teacup in an opposition-owned newspaper. Spokesman Jeff Ramsay said: "We don't have an issue at all. We had an internal debate because we recognise there are sensitivities but we are an open society.
"Google were working with our security people on a checklist of what to photograph and what not to photograph. If anything falls between the cracks, our people have a right to remove it."
He added: "Some reporters get Street View confused with Google Earth, which shows all sorts of things that we can't do anything about."
Google says it applies face-blurring and licence plate blurring to protect people's privacy in Street View. Once images are available, users can report images for removal by clicking on "report a problem" on the bottom left hand corner of the image.
Botswana is the second African country to be featured after its neighbour South Africa just before the 2010 football World Cup. Google deployed 4x4 vehicles to photograph difficult off-road areas.
The company said users could virtually explore the Kalahari and the world's biggest inland river delta – the 16,000 sq km Okavango – as well as the Makgadikgadi Pan and Chobe National Park, home to the biggest concentration of African elephants in the world.
The service, offering panoramic street-level images, is available in more than 30 countries. "We hope to add more cultures, landscapes and sites as Street View continues to expand to new places," said Ory Okolloh, policy manager for Google Sub-Saharan Africa.


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New video shows masked gunman in action
Recently released surveillance video shows the heart-stopping moment when an employee of the Family Dollar was shot during an attempted robbery.
Surveillance cameras captured the entire incident on Tuesday. The 22-year-old clerk, who was new, put his hands up in fear.
The masked gunman demanded money, lunged repeatedly and then fired at the clerk's leg. Police said the clerk was shot because the robber wanted him to open the register faster.
Pat McGrow works at the car wash next door to the Family Dollar. When he saw what was going on, he ushered the people in the store into a closet and called 911.
"Everybody else was pretty quiet, a little bit of crying , a little bit of nervousness. I just tried to keep everybody calm," McGrow said.
The clerk called 911 as well.
Albuquerque police are still searching for the gunman. Anyone with information is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 505-843-STOP.


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Imagine creating an entirely new genre of luxury beachfront family hotels – from scratch. You'd start with the most unspoiled white-sand beaches in Mexico and Jamaica. You'd cater to families, but welcome couples, brides, grooms and groups.
Accommodations would be luxurious, from beachfront Jacuzzi® swim-up suites to rooftop Sky Suites to private oceanfront villas. Here you'd discover personal concierge, 24-hour room service, baby amenities and toys. You'd offer supervised daytime activities and clubs for teens, tweens and toddlers, allowing parents to enjoy luxuries such as cozy beach beds with beach butler service, adult pools, swim-up bars and Zen-inspired spas. Then you'd make the entire experience Gourmet Inclusive®, with superb international à la carte cuisine and other gourmet delights.
What would you call these enchanting Caribbean beach escapes under brilliant indigo skies? You'd call them Azul.
Savor every moment.
Azul's dedicated chefs have refined their craft in some of the world's foremost dining establishments. From themed à la carte eateries to bountiful serve-yourself Food Displays to beach picnics and 24-hour room service, you're free to experience them all, when you want and as often as you want. And just to ensure you never go hungry, there are always Gourmet Bites to satiate the palate in-between meals.
Of course, as the accolades pour in for Azul's cuisine, let's not forget about satisfying your thirst. With swim-up bars, themed bars brimming with top shelf brands and wine selections, the pleasures of premium drinks need never run dry.


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Pakistani officials say the death toll from a suspected U.S. drone strike in a restive tribal region has risen to 9, all of whom were militants.
Two intelligence officials said Saturday that three members of the Pakistani Taliban movement wounded in the Friday strike on a militant compound died overnight. They had originally put the death toll at six.
The officials said their field informants confirmed two members of al-Qaida, Abu Majid Al Iraqi and Sheikh Abu Waqas Al-Yamani, were among the dead. They said the remaining seven were all members of Pakistan's branch of the Taliban. Both officials spoke anonymously as they weren't authorized to speak to the media.
The Taliban did not immediately comment on the strike in the Bobar Ghar area of South Waziristan.


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In our final edition of the Healthy Horizons series, we look back--and ahead--to the issues affecting senior wellness.
Over the past couple of years, the media have drummed it into our heads: The baby boomers are striding en masse past middle age and into fitness clubs. By 2020, the number of people in their 40s, 50s and 60s will triple. According to the Sporting Good Manufacturers Association (SGMA), since 1990 the number of health club members aged 35 to 54 has grown from 6.3 million to 10.5 million, and the number of members aged 55 and above has increased from 1.9 million to a whopping 4.9 million.
This boomer boom portends great opportunities for the fitness industry. But have club owners been heeding the numbers? In this, the last in a long-running Club Indus-try series on senior fitness, we'll take a look at how the fitness industry has changed in the face of this ever-expanding older market-and what still needs to be done to ensure success in the future.
Attitude Shift
Not only is the older adult market quickly outpacing the younger market, but seniors' attitudes toward fitness are changing faster than ever.
"There's been so much media coverage on the importance of physical activity that the older adult market is becoming much better educated," says Kay Van Norman, founder of SENioRS Unlimited in Bozeman, Mont., a consulting firm specializing in exercise and wellness programming for older adults. "They're starting to realize that if they stay physically active, they can function at a high level and not have to give up their favorite activities." Van Norman says that this realization has led to a surge in personal trainers for older adults.
Research has played no small part in this attitude shift; more and more studies are confirming that exercise can keep older adults limber, decrease the incidence of disease and even reverse some signs of aging. For example, a 1994 study by Tufts University researchers that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association de-termined that exercise can reverse the disuse factor at any age-a conclusion that's been duplicated by a number of other studies in the past few years. And in 1999, the Mac-Arthur Foundation released the re-sults of a study on successful aging conducted over 10 years on thousands of older adults (the results are summarized in the book Suc-cessful Aging by John Rowe, M.D., and Robert Kahn, Ph.D.).
"The key component in all studies was meaningful physical activity," according to Jan Montague of Montague, Eippert and Associates in Highland Heights, Ky., which designs, develops and implements wellness programming, models and philosophies for the retirement housing industry.
The media also play an important role in changing older adults' attitudes toward exercise. "Journal-ists are trying to interview the right people and portray a positive image for senior fitness," says Montague. "It used to be an attitude of 'Isn't that cute?' or 'Isn't that unusual?'-just joking about it."
"You don't have to advertise about the benefits of health and fitness because it's in all the magazines and papers," adds Glenn Colarossi, president of AgeFit in Stamford, Conn., which manages 14 assisted and independent living facilities for the aged. "The New York Times recently had a cover on immortality, Parade ran a 'living longer better' piece, and Tuesdays with Morrie [by Mitch Albom], which deals with issues of dependence, is a best-selling book."
The Good News
In light of the changing marketplace and encouraging research touting the benefits of exercise for older adults, how are fitness clubs faring? First, the good news: "Fit-ness clubs are recognizing the fact that the number of older adult participants is starting to increase, and that they're a great group of people to have as members," according to Van Norman.
This realization has been reflected in the number of degrees and courses addressing senior fitness that have cropped up recently. For example, says Montague, California State University at Fullerton offers undergraduate- and graduate-level certification through the Ruby Gerontology Center, while the Fisher Institute of Wellness and Gerontology at Ball State Univer-sity in Muncie, Ind., offers a gerontology track in its fitness degree program. Finally, explains Monta-gue, "There are a lot more grant opportunities for organizations as well as for students who are pursuing those tracks."
Suppliers of fitness equipment have also been working to keep pace with this expanding market. Some manufacturers are even adding educational channels and Internet access to their cardio equipment in an attempt to entice older adults.
The Not-So-Good News
According to Van Norman, lip service to the idea of accessibility has been more evident in fitness clubs than the real deal. A few clubs may have taken steps to make their facilities more attractive and accessible to older adults, but many have just refurbished their regular programs in hopes of drawing in the older crowd. "They do low-impact aerobics or play oldies and call it a senior class," says Van Norman.
Montague agrees. "I see a lot of the same old, same old," she says. "It's the same old program with a different label-just toning things down."
Colarossi also believes that the fitness industry still has a way to go when it comes to serving older adults. When asked whether clubs have made their facilities more accessible, he replies, "They like to say they have. But we're still a relatively youthful industry."
The challenge, Colarossi says, is not so much in attracting boomers as in welcoming the physically frail. "Boomers who are in shape will continue to go to a fitness facility," he explains. "Clubs will make gradual changes for them. But the senior population can't join a normal health club."
To determine whether they've done enough to make older adults feel at home, Van Norman suggests that club owners look at their operations with a critical eye and ask themselves some hard questions, such as: Is the decor of the club inviting, or does it feature posters of young hard bodies? Is the equipment in the pro shop geared to 6-foot-plus male athletes? Is anything in the newsletter relevant to older adults?
Colarossi also believes that if fitness clubs don't improve their offerings and work harder to draw in older adults, the senior housing industry will step up to the plate, leading to increased competition between senior housing and fitness clubs. "The senior housing market is being recognized as a trendsetter," he says. "They started overbuilding housing and then needed to differentiate themselves, so they decided to focus on health and fitness."
Looking to the Future
Van Norman predicts that in order to attract and keep older members, fitness clubs will need to expand their repertoire from the usual body fitness angle. "It's clear that older adults are not interested just in exercise and fitness, but in the whole mind-body-spirit connection," she says. "When the fitness clubs understand that they can administer to more than just physical needs, they'll realize their potential in this area."
Once clubs renovate their offerings, they'll need to change their advertising and the way they market to members, says Montague. "Soon the old advertising won't work, because the common denominator won't be age but ability," she says. "Programs will have to be designed to meet needs based on ability."
This means that advertising will have to play to that fact. "Baby boomers won't come if your ads call it a senior program," says Montague. "You'll have to learn about the different cohorts and how to speak to them."
Although the media have been feeding the surge of interest in fitness for older adults, Montague believes that there's a lot of room for improvement on this front as well. "The real twist is to ask not what's wrong with people, but positive questions about what's right with people," says Montague. "That shift needs to occur faster than it is. We still see gloom and doom in the ads; everything's phrased as a negative."
Baby Boom = Business Boom
The past few years have seen great strides in senior fitness and in older adults' attitudes toward exercise. Researchers, the media, universities and equipment manufacturers have reacted to the shift in the marketplace and charted the course for the fitness industry.
Now it's time for club owners to follow their lead and tap into this booming market.


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A Letter to the President
On the occasion of the first Yahrzeit of his mother, a renowned Torah scholar in Jerusalem, American-born Rabbi Yisrael Berle, published a distinguished commentary on prayer. In his introduction he includes the following story about his mother:
More than half a century ago U.S. President Harry S. Truman decided to give a series of weekly radio talks to the nation in imitation of the famed "fireside chats" of his predecessor. The time chosen was Friday evening. Fearful that some Jews would be so anxious to hear the President that they would put aside observance of Shabbat in order to do so, Mrs. Berle dashed off a letter to the President calling his attention to the fact that Jewish Sabbath observers would be denied the privilege of hearing him if the broadcast were on the Sabbath eve.
Her efforts were rewarded with success. A letter from the President's secretary informed her that her letter was being given serious attention. Ten days later an announcement was made that the President's talks would be switched from Friday night to Tuesday.


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Penske Porsches Qualify Solidly For ALMS Series Finale
October 17, 2008
MONTEREY, Calif. (October 15, 2008) – With a driver's and team championships already clinched for the 2008 season, the DHL Penske Porsche RS Spyder drivers have put their teams in position to help Porsche clinch their third consecutive LMP2 class manufacturers championship with solid qualifying efforts for Saturday's Monterey Sports Car Championships, the final race of the 2008 American Le Mans Series (ALMS) season. The No. 7, No. 6 and No. 5 DHL Penske Porsche RS Spyders will start third, six and seventh overall/in-class on the challenging 2.238-mile, 11-turn Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca road course.
2008 ALMS Driver Champion Timo Bernhard (Germany), co-driving the No. 7 DHL Penske Porsche RS Spyder with co-champion Romain Dumas (France), will start the four-hour event in third place on the grid, behind two Acura LMP2 prototypes. Porsche currently leads Acura by eight points in the LMP2 class, and with 25 points to the winners in each class, 21 points for second and 18 points for third, Porsche will only need a podium finish to clinch the title.
Sascha Maassen (Germany), who will co-drive with Patrick Long (USA) in the No. 6 DHL Penske Porsche RS Spyder, qualified sixth, while Petit Le Mans winners Ryan Briscoe (Australia) and Helio Castroneves (Brazil) in the No. 5 machine, will start seventh.
The Monterey Sports Car Championships presented by Patrón from Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca is scheduled to start at 2:45 p.m. PDT on Saturday, October 18. NBC Sports will air the race from 2 to 4 p.m. EDT on Sunday, October 19 and XM Satellite Radio's Channel 144 will air the race from 4 to 8 p.m. EDT on Sunday. American Le Mans Radio will have live coverage on americanlemans.com, which also will feature Live Timing & Scoring.
Monterey Sports Car Championships presented by Patrón
Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Monterey, Calif.
Qualifying Results:
1. Scott Sharp, Jupiter, FL; David Brabham, Australia; Acura ARX-01B (P2), 1:10.103, 114.93 mph
2. Luis Diaz, Mexico; Adrian Fernandez, Mexico; Acura ARX-01B (P2), 1:10.202, 114.77
3. Timo Bernhard, Germany; Romain Dumas, France; Porsche RS Spyder (P2), 1:10.351, 114.52
4. Simon Pagenaud, France; Gil de Ferran, Brazil; Acura ARX-01B (P2), 1:10.451, 114.36
5. Tony Kanaan, Brazil; Franck Montagny, Brignoles France; Acura ARX-01B (P2), 1:10.567, 114.17
6. Patrick Long, Oak Park, CA; Sascha Maassen, Germany; Porsche RS Spyder (P2), 1:10.586, 114.14
7. Ryan Briscoe, Australia; Helio Castroneves, Brazil; Porsche RS Spyder (P2), 1:10.606, 114.11
8. Chris Dyson, Pleasant Valley, NY; Guy Smith, England; Porsche RS Spyder (P2), 1:11.010, 113.46
9. Emanuele Pirro, Italy; Christijan Albers, The Netherlands; Audi AG R10/TDI (P1), 1:11.264, 113.06
10. Marco Werner, Germany; Lucas Luhr, Germany; Audi AG R10/TDI (P1), 1:11.825, 112.17
11. Marino Franchitti, Scotland; Butch Leitzinger, State College, PA; Porsche RS Spyder (P2), 1:12.089, 111.76
12. Johnny Mowlem, England; Stefan Johansson, Sweden; Zytek 07S (P1), 1:12.819, 110.64
13. Ben Devlin, England; Gerardo Bonilla, Orlando, FL; Raphael Matos, Brazil; Lola B07 46 Mazda (P2), 1:13.321, 109.88
14. Jon Field, Dublin, OH; Ryan Lewis, UK; Richard Berry, Evergreen, CO; Lola B06/10 AER (P1), 1:13.379, 109.80
15. Stephen Simpson, South Africa; Jamie Campbell-Walter, England; Liz Halliday, Rancho Santa Fe, CA; Creation CA 07 AIM (P1), 1:13.481, 109.64
16. Chris McMurry, Phoenix, AZ; Tony Burgess, Canada; Lola B06-10 AER (P1), 1:14.549, 108.07
17. Jan Magnussen, Denmark; Johnny O'Connell, Flowery Branch, GA; Corvette C6.R (GT1), 1:19.291, 101.61
18. Oliver Gavin, England; Olivier Beretta, Monaco; Corvette C6.R (GT1), 1:19.790, 100.98
19. Dirk Werner, Germany; Bryce Miller, Hoboken, NJ; Porsche 911 GT3 RSR (GT2), 1:22.060, 98.18
20. Wolf Henzler, Germany; Jörg Bergmeister, Germany; Porsche 911 GT3 RSR (GT2), 1:22.380, 97.80
21. Dirk Mueller, Germany; Dominik Farnbacher, Germany; Ferrari F430 GT (GT2), 1:22.701, 97.42
22. Johannes van Overbeek, San Francisco, CA; Patrick Pilet, France; Porsche 911 GT3 RSR (GT2), 1:22.869, 97.22
23. Jaime Melo, Brazil; Mika Salo, Finland; Ferrari F430 GT (GT2), 1:22.962, 97.11
24. Pierre Kaffer, Germany; Ben Aucott, England; Ferrari 430 GT (GT2), 1:23.243, 96.79
25. Nic Jonsson, Sweden; Tracy Krohn, Houston, TX; Ferrari F430 GT (GT2), 1:23.928, 96.00
26. Tom Milner, Leesburg, VA; Joey Hand, Sacramento, CA; Panoz Esperante Ford (GT2), 1:24.084, 95.82
27. Nicky Pastorelli, Netherlands; Francisco Pastorelli, Netherlands; Marc Basseng, Germany; Porsche 911 GT3 RSR (GT2), 1:24.111, 95.79
28. Paul Drayson, London, UK; Jonny Cocker, UK; Aston Martin Vantage (GT2), 1:24.626, 95.20
29. Anthony Lazzaro, Acworth, GA; Andy Pilgrim, Del Ray Beach, FL; Tim Pappas, Boston, MA; Doran Ford GT-R (GT2), 1:24.711, 95.11
30. David Murry, Cumming, GA; Andrea Robertson, Ray, MI; David Robertson, Ray, MI; Doran Ford GT-R (GT2), 1:24.727, 95.09
31. Alex Figge, Hollywood, CA; Pierre Ehret, Santa Rosa, CA; Harrison Brix, San Jose, CA; Ferrari F430 GT (GT2), 1:24.970, 94.82
32. Joel Feinberg, Ft. Lauderdale, FL; Chris Hall, Daytona, FL; Dodge Viper Comp Coupe (GT2), 1:26.124, 93.55
33. Darren Law, Phoenix, AZ; Seth Neiman, Burlingame, CA; Lonnie Pechnik, Pacific Grove, CA; Porsche 911 GT3 RSR (GT2), 1:26.704, 92.92
34. Hideki Noda, Japan; Andrew Prendeville, Chatham, NJ; Radical SR10 AER (P1), No Time.


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This link is from Shin's Baldy Conditions thread on the Whitney Portal Message Board.
Note the level of experience of the victims, one dead and one injured.
I have seen two YouTube videos of ascents of the Devil's Backbone in the winter where everything looked fine. Very different conditions, in one case complete coverage with good snow, the two hikers sinking in about ankle deep, wearing ski/snowboard boots and carrying skis/snowboards. In the other case, the very opposite, skimpy snow. No signs of ice axes or helmets in either case.
But who is going to tell you what awaits you up there? The story says they camped on the summit, but does not mention their ascent route, so perhaps they did not have a good idea of what they would find on the way down.


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wasakiki wrote:I just joined this forum but following this site for awhile and would like to join a fantasy league if there's an opening. Let me know thanks...
Hey bro.. Welcome
There will most likely be a spot for you. we just need to organize our draft format ect.
keep your eyes posted on this section of the board & will have more info in the next couple of days.