text:
Let the spectacle begin!
Our reporter ventured a glimpse behind the glittering facades of Versailles
According to the history books, one positive outcome of the French Revolution was class equality, and so the Palace of Versailles now belongs to the people. The result: Every year, seven million stream into its immaculate gardens, disturbing the majestic serenity of the place with their selfie sticks. Liberty, equality and fraternity reign supreme in the perfect symmetry of the orangery. I sigh graciously and let my gaze drift over the palace gardens. Still deserted, Versailles belongs to me. I will be staying here for the next few days and suspect that there's far more to see behind its golden gate than the Marble Courtyard, the Hall of Mirrors, and the King's upholstered commode.
The name Versailles stands for megalomania and perfection The 51 000-square-meter palace with its summer residence, annexes and gardens once demonstrated the power of the Sun King, Louis XVI. He threw sumptuous parties here to keep his nobles from rebelling. Some monarchs impress with saber rattling, others with mirrors. The heads of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette may have rolled from the platform 223 years ago, but at Versailles, the show goes on – at least for the common folk. Today, as then, the staff are devoted to preserving pomp and circumstance. I want to visit them all: the restoration and conservation experts, the fountain masters, the gardeners and the opera director.
From the window of the Trianon Palace hotel, I survey the outlying palace grounds; the meadows are still silver with morning dew. The grazing sheep are among the estate's permanent residents. They stand with their wooly posteriors turned to the wind. I have an appointment with Alain Baraton near the Grand Trianon, which once served Louis XIV as a retreat.
Baraton, 58, is head gardener here. He watches over the flora of Versailles, the English Garden and the French, the Orangery, the vegetable beds and the fruit trees. He lives in the grounds of Versailles, in a house of pale stone that belongs to a small farm. We meet in his office. He has flower prints on his walls and laugh lines on his face. "A garden is like a love story," he tells me in his rich baritone, "living without one is a possibility, but a sad one." He has mused much on the relationship between the human and plant worlds, and in the past 40 years has written a dozen books about the gardens here.
Baraton takes me to the kitchen gardens, which also supply vegetables to the Plaza Athénée in Paris, the restaurant of illustrious chef Alain Ducasse. For him, five of the 45 gardeners employed at Versailles cultivate pak choi, peas, tomatoes and blackberries, which arrive a the three-star restaurant's kitchen no more than two hours after they are picked. In a greenhouse, we walk past fresh herbs, rosemary and chives, and tender scallions. "Our plants have time to grow. Nature decides when they are ready to harvest. We respect the plants," says this man who knows the 815 hectares of this park like the back of his hand and regularly walks its many paths. His favorite creatures are the ducks. "But none of this exists for my pleasure," he says, "the garden belongs to the visitors." On his walks, he encounters tourists dressed as princesses, young Japanese men proposing to their girlfriends, and elegant women stealing his flowers.
Living without a garden is a possibility, but a sad one
It's always quiet at the Fountain of Apollo, says Baraton, despite the crowds of visitors. More than 50 fountains grace the gardens of Versailles, and all are fed by a good 30-kilometer-long closed system of pipes. The water reaches the many pools and fountains thanks to the skillful use of gradient and gravity. The truly amazing thing is that 90 percent of the pipes date from when the system was installed.
"The system is so well conceived that it has never been changed, only repaired," says Guillaume Acarregui. He is one of 12 fountain masters, whose job is to keep Versailles' water features in good working order. In the summer months, they turn the fountains on and off, and in winter they deal with blocked nozzles and leaky pipes. We are standing in the catacombs, puddles collecting in the clay beneath my feet as this morning's rainwater seeps through the ground above us. Acarregui, 36, points to a nut that's not the usual hexagonal shape, but trapezoidal. "That's how you recognize the original 18th-century parts. You're unlikely to see a nut like that anywhere else!" I stare at the rusty nut and the old lead pipes. "Isn't lead poisonous?" I ask.
It is, but the philosophy here is to preserve the old Versailles as authentically as possible. So when Acarregui repairs the lead pipes the traditional way, he dons a breathing mask and protective clothing. Down in the tunnel, headquarters contacts him via radio. We have to go back because the other fountain masters need him to help operate the Neptune Fountain.
The spectacle begins every weekend from April to October at 8:05 pm. For seven minutes, water leaps upward to strains of Baroque music. "Techno would make a welcome change; I can't stand this music anymore, but everything in Versailles is old, old, old," says Acarregui with exaggerated despair, laughing. In October, when the weather discourages most people from coming here, the 12 fountain masters frequently find themselves quite alone in front of the huge fountain, patiently awaiting the final note so they can switch off the water supply once more: diversions for the people, whether they come to see them or not.
I find myself wishing for a horse (paths are long at Versailles) as I head to the rowing club beside the cross-shaped Grand Canal where the Cercle Nautique de Versailles has been training for over a century. Thomas Baroukh, 28, grew up on the palace doorstep in the town of Versailles. He started rowing here when he was eleven. He has to row around the pool three times to achieve his training target of 20 kilometers, he explains, and these days he's preparing for his second shot at an Olympic medal. Baroukh waits almost every day for the tourists to return their rental boats so he can row.
Back in the 18th century, the palace estate was home to some 10 000 people. The royal family shared the 1800 rooms inside the palace with their kin and servants. Ministers, nobles and personnel were allotted the more cramped quarters of the annexes, where apartments often lacked a kitchen and walls were black with soot from hearths and candles. The invention of the water closet had come to England but not yet made it to France. The privies in the stairwells of Versailles befouled the air and, as contemporary witnesses reported, liquid secretions would persistently trickle through the walls. Such unhealthy and malodorous conditions notwithstanding, a noble would deem being furnished with an apartment in town an insult to his honor and tantamount to banishment, the palace being the political and cultural center of France.
"Save my poor Versailles," Louis XVI reportedly said, when an angry mob drove him from his palace at the start of the French Revolution. His French descendants are still trying. Wind and rain erode its stones, worms eat through its ancient timbers, and visitors scratch their names into the looking glasses in the Hall of Mirrors. The Royal Opera House reopened in 2009 after a 12-million-euro restoration. It was originally built for the wedding of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI in 1770 and in the following 20 years, was used for performances only 16 times.
Laurent Brunner, 51, head of the entertainment program at Versailles, makes far more use of the stage. In 2015, there were 250 performances at the Royal Opera House spanning a repertoire of modern ballet, theater and classical concerts. "There are so many possibilities," says Brunner, perched comfortably on a turquoise plush stool in the waiting room outside the entrance to the opera house. Today he is welcoming guests to the premiere of the ballet Piaf. The Baroque period is famous for its extravagance, but when it comes to entertainment, Brunner is a match for it. He stages water displays, children's parties and masked balls, and this summer, pianist Lang Lang and artist Ólafur Elíasson will be coming to Versailles. The people would appear to take great pleasure in such spectacles: The entertainment boss recorded 1.5 million visitors for last year's events.
In the days of Louis XVI, the Versailles household devoured six percent of France's gross domestic product. Today, two thirds of the palace upkeep comes from admission fees, says Hélène Dalifard, who is in charge of PR. The rest? State subsidies and donations. Versailles still stands for luxury and tradition, which brings the palace some pretty exclusive partners: Hermès, for example, donated the saddles for the equestrian academy, while perfumer Guerlain designed a limited-edition Versailles fragrance and donates a portion of the proceeds of its sale towards the palace's restoration. Ducasse felt drawn even closer to the kitchen garden and is opening a restaurant inside the palace this summer.
The ballet will begin soon, but Brunner asks Dalifard to guide me through the deserted palace corridors to see one last thing. I follow her through chambers hung with brocade, lush with velvet and glittering gold, to the Hall of Mirrors – 73 meters long, mirrors to the left, the windows overlooking the palace grounds to the right. The chandeliers, golden in the evening glow, twinkle in all 357 mirrors. We stand at the windows and look out onto the Grand Canal, which carries our gaze all the way to the horizon, creating an impression of endless expanse. There's no one to be seen in the park at this time. "Looking out from here," says Dalifard, "there's nothing to indicate the age in which we live – it looks exactly like it did 300 years ago."
Four insider tips
Morning workout
Watch the riders from the equestrian academy train from 10 am to 12 noon – opposite the palace.
Water games
The fountains play on Tuesdays and on the weekends, when admission is charged for the park.
Take a stroll among the hens at Hameau de la Reine, Marie Antoinette's rustic retreat at Versailles.
Guided tour
The royal chambers may only be visited on a guided tour. Make sure to book in advance.


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Bashara And Crookham Lead Monarchs Over VSU, 13-3
By ODU Athletics
March 20, 2013
NORFOLK, VA--ODU junior secondbaseman Brian Bashara, and freshman shortstop Conner Croookham drove in six runs on five hits to lead the Old Dominion Baseball Monarchs (10-9) to a 13-3 victory over Virginia State (13-8) Wednesday evening at the Bud Metheny Baseball complex, ending a four-game losing streak.
Brian Bashara had three hits and four RBI, while Crookham had two hits and two RBI. Freshman thirdbaseman Ben Verlander, the Monarchs leading hitter had two more hits, both doubles and scored twice. ODU pounded out 13 hits on the night.
Eight Monarch pitchers held the Trojans to five hits and fanned 10 batters. Freshman Mitch Moynihan picked up his first collegiate victory. Moynihan along with Erick Baker, Brandon Smith didn't allow a run and only two hits in the six innings. Starter Jake Joseph's pitched two scoreless and hitless innings with three strikeouts.
ODU led 3-0 thanks to a two-run triple by Bashara in the second inning. Virginia State rallied in the top of the third to tie the game at 3-3 on RBI doubles from Tyler Coleman and Nicholas Christopher.
In the bottom of the third, ODU scored four runs on RBI doubles by Crookham, Bashara and a VSU throwing error and a steal home by freshman Brian Beard. In the ODU fourth Ben Slaton and freshman catcher Alex Kowalczyk had RBI hits to increase the score to 9-3.
Bashara, Crookham, freshman Chris Livers and P.J. Higgins each knocked in runs in the four-run sixth to complete the scoring for ODU. Vernon Vaughan led Virginia State out of the CIAA with two hits.
The Monarchs host Towson in a three-game CAA series beginning Friday evening at 6 p.m. at the Bud Metheny Baseball Complex. Both Friday night's contest and Saturday's 3 p.m. game will be broadcast live on Star94.1 radio with ODU Director of Broadcasting Ted Alexander providing the play-by-play.
VSU 003 000 000=3-5-3 ODU 034 204 00x=13-13-1
VSU Battery: Gunn, Fitzgerald (3), Cotton (6) and Mccarty ODU Battery: Joseph's, Dian(3), Rienerth(4), Moynihan(5), Jessee(6), Baker(7), Gero(8), Smith(9) and Kowalczyk, Livers (7).
WP: Moynihan(1-0) LP: Gunn (3-3)

subset: commoncrawl


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Selecting the right spanner or wrench
Spanners and wrenches are hand tools that are used to tighten and loosen fixings such as a nut or bolt. The spanner grips the fixing, allowing it to be turned by applying torque.
With so many types of spanner and wrenches available to be used with different fasteners, it is important to choose the correct type to ensure a good fit. They are available in various sizes, lengths and materials with different profiles and head types.
Here is a brief overview of the main types available and their common uses:
- Open-ended spanners - usually doubled ended with a 'c' shaped opening in different sizes at each end. A spanner set will comprise multiple sizes of spanner. Ideal for DIY, plumbing and mechanics when space is limited.
- Ring spanners - have an end that is enclosed in a full ring that applies even pressure when turning. Requires access to fit over the nut, the handle can be offset from the head to help with this.
- Combination spanners - have a ring end and an open-ended end in the same size to save carrying different types of tools to fit the fixing.
- Adjustable spanners - have 1 open end with a moveable jaw that can be adjusted so that the spanner fits different sized nuts and bolts. A common version is a monkey wrench.
- Ratchet spanner - use a ratchet system to allow the fixing to turn one way and not the other. This allows fast removal as the ratchet wrench doesn't need to be removed and replaced after turning. Great for inaccessible fixings.
- Torque wrench - used to apply a specific amount of torque to a fastener. Commonly used with vehicles and wheel fittings as there are safety specifications to meet.
- Socket set - a socket covers the whole fixing, applying even pressure and make removal and tightening really easy. Sets are available with varying numbers of pieces in multiple sizes, offering a compact alternative to a spanner set.
- Hex keys - also know as Allen keys, have a male hexagonal end and are usually L shaped and small in size around 4-10mm
Spanner sizes
Size is important when it comes to selecting a spanner as an incorrect size could result in slipping or damaging the fastener, either rounding the edges or removing the head completely.
Spanner sizes relate to the size of the fastener that will fit inside the jaws. Theyre available in either imperial (in) or metric (mm) measurement.


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CleanSlate Outpatient Addiction Medicine - Phoenix, AZ has a job opening for a qualified Emergency Medicine physician in Phoenix, AZ
Job Details
Practice Type: Employee
Setting: Outpatient
Accepts J1 Visa? No | H1B Visa? No
Requires BE? Yes | BC? Yes
Setting: Outpatient
Accepts J1 Visa? No | H1B Visa? No
Requires BE? Yes | BC? Yes
- Full Time
- Hours: Clinic Hours: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday 9 AM - 5 PM, Wednesday 9 AM - 8 PM, Friday 9 AM - 2 PM
- Employed
- New Graduates
- Relocation Assistance Available
- Average patients seen: 25% Administrative 75% Clinical
- Call Schedule: No Call
- Loan Repayment
- Sign-On Bonus
- Compensation: $220K - $230K
- Benefits: - Student Loan Options Beyond NHSC
- Sign-on and Relocation Assistance Negotiable
- Medical, Dental, Vision with Employer Contribution
- Basic Life and AD&D
- Employer Paid Short and Long Term Disability
- Health Advocacy
- 4 Weeks PTO, 6 Paid Holidays
- 401k with 3% Match
- Additional Info:
- Must be board certified unless a new graduate
- Valid License in the State Applying
- DEA license required
- X-DEA waiver, which CleanSlate will assist you in obtaining.
- Experience with addiction not required to apply
- Demonstrated leadership abilities.
- Open to any Board Certified specialty physician
- Opportunity for growth to become a Regional Medical Director
- Provide supervision to NP/PAs in the center.
- The team will consist of at least 1 physician, 1 NP/PA, 1 Center Manager, MA/Phlebotomist, Receptionist, Care Coordinator, LCSW (OH, KY, and FL).
- As part of a carefully designed treatment team, you will help patients develop their knowledge and understanding, and utilize the tools they need to recover from substance use disorders and avoid relapse.
- CleanSlate is a leading provider of outpatient clinics treating substance dependency and is dedicated to finding the best clinician for this life-changing program.
- EMR: Stratus


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Romney tears into Gingrich over immigration and personal wealth in Thursday's debate.
Ex-PRC commissioner Jerome Block Jr. faces sentencing today on multiple charges. KOAT leaks what the state's auditor's office says are emails detailing Block's drug transactions.
More than 30 killed in Baghdad blast during funeral procession.
Albuquerque woman buys phone at a Cricket store. And it's full of porn.
Police say they have video of city Human Resources Transit Director during her DWI arrest.
Arizona cop who took a picture of armed teenagers holding a bullet-riddled President Obama T-shirt refers to it as "a political statement."
Some of the worst album covers of all time. Apparently Burt Reynolds was a svelte masseuse before making it big time.
Robot science could make navigating the vast corridors of Walmart a bit easier.
Texas news source says pastor threw his neighbor's cat off a bridge.
North Carolina woman charged with prostitution. John tells police he gave her $6.
Day care center admits that 1-year-old was duct-taped to the floor.
List of really dumb books includes book by a ship captain callled How to Avoid Huge Ships.


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ROCHESTER — In answer to whether Rochester School Board members should be allowed to hand out diplomas at secondary school graduations, members voted in a tie on the question Thursday night, with a final amendment to allow School Board members and others to participate in the ceremonies.
Board member James Gray first offered an amendment to proposed policy BH at a recent Police Committee meeting, requesting School Board members and others be allowed to participate in ceremonies so they could be "unique to each school," with programs developed and reviewed by the superintendent.
During last week's Policy Committee meeting, the panel voted down Gray's amendment, stating they wished to only allow Rochester and Wakefield superintendent's to participate in ceremonies with students from both communities, as well as principals of those schools. Some pointed out more people in the program would slow down the graduation ceremony while others argued the day is meant for students, not the bureaucrats.
Thursday night, board members sounded off on both sides of the issue. Board member Julie Brown said presenting diplomas in the past has been a great honor for her and board member Karen Stokes said she attended three graduation ceremonies last school year. She looked forward to going again and being a part of the presentation.
"I know a lot of these students are at the school and I would never take away from those teachers that are working hard but I would consider myself one of those people," Stokes said. "…For those of us who want to be there, I think we should support that."
Board member Dan Harkinson argued as he did at the last Policy Committee meeting he believed it would be far more significant for a graduate to receive the award from someone they know personally.
After a roll-call vote, where 12 present board members voted in a 6-6 tie, the vote for the limited policy initially failed. Harkinson then moved to amend the policy to Gray's original suggestion and the board voted unanimously to allow each ceremony to be unique.
Board member Caroline McCarley said for the future, she hoped this would be the last discussion on the subject for the currently elected board.
"I would just hope that this is the last time we do this for several years," she said. "We went through this a year ago because all of a sudden, lots of people wanted to be on stage."


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The European Commission's proposals to help businesses and consumers resolve cross-border legal disputes more easily received the support of the European Parliament today. Commission Vice-President Viviane Reding, the EU's Justice Commissioner, welcomed the overwhelming support (567 votes in favour, 28 votes against and 6 abstentions) to back the reform of rules to determine which national court has jurisdiction in cross-border cases and how court judgements issued in one EU country are recognised and enforced in another (also known as the "Brussels I reform", see IP/10/1705 and MEMO/10/677).
"Removing bureaucratic obstacles, extra costs and the legal uncertainty of having 27 different and often contradictory systems makes the single market more attractive. This is a very good example of how justice policies can stimulate growth," said Vice-President Viviane Reding, the EU's Justice Commissioner. "This reform will save time and money for businesses and consumers because judgements from one EU Member State will be automatically recognised in another EU Member State. It is a small revolution for the European area of justice which brings us closer to the model of the U.S. Single Market, where, in the words of the U.S. Constitution, judicial proceedings are given 'full faith and credit' in every other state of the union.
"I would like to thank the rapporteur Mr Zwiefka and his colleagues in the European Parliament for their hard work in getting these important proposals approved and I look forward to their swift adoption under the Cypriot EU Presidency."
The legislation proposed by the Commission in December 2010 aims to strengthen the Single Market and cut red tape. It proposes to abolish the costly "exequatur" procedure which requires companies to first go through a time-consuming and costly procedure in courts to get a judgement in civil and commercial matters recognised in another EU country. Abolishing this administrative procedure is expected to save businesses and consumers up to EUR 48 million a year. Today's vote by the European Parliament plenary follows the positive vote by the Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) on 11 October 2012 (MEMO/12/775) which endorsed the reforms. The draft legislation will now pass to the Council for final adoption, expected to take place at the next Council of Justice Ministers in December 2012.
For more information
European Commission – recognition and enforcement of judgements
For press release:


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In April of 2009, the William F. Laman Public Library System's main library unveiled a state-of-the-art, climate-controlled exhibit hall that was designed to American Association of Museums standards.
About a year later, Laman Library became the first organization in North Little Rock to host a Smithsonian Exhibit.
The exhibit hall hosts about four to six exhibits each year, all of which are free to the public, not just library card holders.
to choose service
Need Help? Browse all our answers to your questions.
The Laman Library System:
2801 Orange Street
North Little Rock, AR 72114
Phone: 501-758-1720
Map & Directions • Hours
420 Main Street
North Little Rock, AR 72114
Phone: 501-687-1061
Map & Directions • Hours
Copyright © 2020 Laman Library System. All Rights Reserved.


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Expert: Governments Are Masking Their Pension Liabilities
Governments are so easily able to manipulate and hide their looming pension liabilities in the current reporting system that it's tantamount to a crime, one finance expert said Thursday.
Governments are so easily able to manipulate and hide their looming pension liabilities in the current reporting system that it's tantamount to a crime, one finance expert said Thursday.
Stanford University Finance Professor Joshua Rauh said using past investment performance to plan for future investment returns was so dangerously optimistic, it would be a jailable offense if done in the private sector. Rauh, whose comments came at a Manhattan Institute for Policy Research event in New York City on reforming pensions, is also a senior fellow at Stanford's conservative-leaning Hoover Institution. Pointing to the oft-used 7.75 percent rate of return that many pension plans project, Rauh said that means governments are planning on every dollar invested doubling roughly every 10 years.
"In the private sector, with that kind of accounting…you'd be hauled off to jail," he said. "But in government accounting, that's the way it works."
Corporate pension plans, by contrast, are required to incorporate market costs into their funding scheme. As a result, the projected rates of return are more conservative, usually falling in the 3 to 4 percent range.
Traditional public pension advocates believe that the 2008 market crash – and the chunk it took out of pension funds – will smooth out over the next decade and interest rates will return to historic norms. Therefore, an investment return assumption of 7 to 8 percent is completely reasonable.
Read more articles about public finance.
"The problem with [the market rate] argument is there isn't significant evidence other than the short term blip during the economic crisis that there's been that shift," Chris Hoene, executive director at the California Budget Project, recently told Governing. "It's a speculative argument coming out of a very deep recession."
But Rauh counters that the higher assumption carries more risk. "It's that old adage that 'past performance is no guarantee of future performance,'" Rauh said. "But these pensions are guaranteed – they have to be paid no matter what the assets."
In that context, the event's panelists painted a picture of pension liabilities crushing city budgets to the breaking point. Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan went the furthest, declaring, "In the coming years we will see city after city go bankrupt," thanks to the burdensome legacy costs. Detroit, now in the second day of its bankruptcy eligibility trial, was often cited as an example: roughly $3.5 billion (nearly 20 percent) of the city's $18 billion in debt is from pension liabilities. (On the whole, 10 cities or counties have filed for bankruptcy since 2008 and three of those cases have been dismissed while Detroit's eligibility is pending.)
Riordan went on to add that the federal government should offer a helping hand to cities – at a price. He advocated for a bailout fund that struggling cities and states could be eligible for as long as they stuck to "realistic accounting measures." Requirements should also include moving new employees into a 401(k)-style plan instead of a guaranteed payment plan, he said.
"The president can't stand there and watch his country go to waste and not do something about it," Riordan said.
But those who want to keep public pensions unchanged labeled such comments as an attempt to undermine public pensions altogether. "Instead of using fear and blame to eliminate public pensions, the Manhattan Institute should focus on fiscally-responsible policies," said Jordan Marks, executive director of the National Public Pension Coalition.


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Most of us know that warm sensation of "home." Step inside the place we hang our hats and the feelings of familiarity, comfort and privacy are there to embrace us each time we return.
Strangely, those same emotions were evoked when I climbed aboard a 2012 Ford F-150 FX4 SuperCrew recently. Equipped with the much-lauded EcoBoost engine, the four-door was white, spotlessly clean and loaded to the teeth, including a 6.5-foot box. Outfitted almost exactly as I would order an F-150, it felt almost like stepping into my own home, partly because of the truck's footprint but also because the F-150 just feels so … right.
Whether that's the latent pickup part of my brain talking (all people have this, studies have shown, it's just usually dormant until he or she climbs inside a truck) or just plain lunacy, I'm not sure; but Ford really does build appealing trucks, not only on the exterior, but interior too. I would even go far so far as to say the F-150 is the best vehicle in Ford's portfolio.
The SuperCrew's rear-seat legroom is ample enough to ferry heads of state, any one of whom would appreciate the easily accessible 110V and 12V outlets. The front thrones are extremely comfortable, too, and the commanding view of the road makes the driver feel fully in charge, just like a site boss should. The sculpted hood looks good from the driver's seat and the truck isn't difficult to negotiate in traffic, though the long bed makes parking and U-turns a more delicate affair.
Ford still needs to swap the amount of plastic in the F-150 interior and opt for a wider variety of soft-touch materials. But the rest of the interior is properly assembled, with legible gauges, ample storage pockets, a massive middle bin and an integrated radio, phone and navigation system still working off the much simpler Sync system, rather than the busy MyFord Touch in most other Fords. The interior, with thankfully no faux wood in sight, needs its own switch for the interior light and one for the dash lights, as well as an individual switch for the bed light — which could also benefit from LED treatment to make things brighter. The sunroof could use a better deflector to quell wind noise when open, and the mirrors could be more aerodynamic to reduce what little wind noise they produce. Apart from those mirrors, there's almost no wind noise in the cabin at all.
The big question for many considering an F-150 is whether to choose the EcoBoost or the 5.0L V8. Ford makes plenty of noise about how fuel efficient the EcoBoost engine is but I can assure you much of that is hyperbole. The EcoBoost, while still being the engine I would choose if buying an F-150, is only marginally more efficient than the 5.0. If you're thinking EcoBoost for the economy — don't. The best highway consumption I could achieve at 100-120 km/h was 14.5L/100 km. In the city, the figure was closer to 19L/100km average.
The real reason to choose the EcoBoost is the big bucket of available torque, all 420 lb.-ft. of it ready and eager as low as 2,500 rpm, which lends itself to a tow rating of between 8,000 lbs. and 11,100 lbs. depending on the tow package. Maximum payload with the proper towing package is 2,310 lbs. But the other bonus that comes from the V6 Turbo development is the unbelievable smoothness and silence. Honestly, this engine is as quiet as an S-Class Mercedes at idle. Under load, if you listen carefully, you can just hear the whisper of the twin turbos spooling up. There's virtually no turbo lag under acceleration. Under load, the engine pulls with an impressive lack of vibration, making the tasteful cabin that much more enjoyable. While it's unfortunate the EcoBoost option costs an extra $1,250, it is money that will return itself in dividends of satisfaction.
As for the FX4, this is the trim level that brings the lines of the F-150 to life, with plenty of blacked out parts, a grey grille, body-colour front and rear bumpers, fog lamps, angular cab steps and 18-inch machined aluminum wheels. While I may have scoffed at the optional $300 tailgate step and $300 box access side steps, I found myself using them just about every time I used the cargo bed. It's the best $600 you'll ever spend on your back.
The FX4 also adds a locking rear differential for genuine off-road use, all of which brought our tester to just under $60,000. While that's before discounts and factory incentives, which remain plentiful, it's still a substantial sum for something that's just as much a working tool as it is sophisticated transportation, and well above a handsomely-equipped Toyota Tundra.
Introduced in 2009, the current generation F-150 may just be starting to show its age, missing such increasingly-common technologies as push-button start, smart-key locking and unlocking, start/stop fuel saving, HID headlamps and a tasteful use of brighter LED lighting on the exterior and interior.
But the F-150 remains a versatile, hard-working truck that's always a joy to come back to, continuing to offer the comforts of home regardless of where you live.


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[Intro: Adele]
There's a fire burning in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch, and it's bringing me out the dark
[Verse 1]
June 20th a Gemini is born
Ain't no secret I'm murdering anything I get on
Ain't no reason for surgery, silence, so we can mourn
I literally leave a murder scene every time I perform
It's a state of emergency, been a bit of a disturbance, see
Artists showin' no courtesy, rap is out of its form
Should be locked up for perjury, lyin' about what you're doin'
Sellin' your soul for currency, anything to get on
Hell is for an eternity, hope you know where you're goin'
An industry full of wannabes, never will I conform
Light years ahead of you rappers that started flowin'
And half of the ones that got it don't even know what they doin'
You write a rap and it's wack, it's the rappers that you influence
So backwards half of the time, don't know if you're comin' or goin'
Your lack of passion for rap is the reason rap has been ruined
The fashion is where your passion is, that's what you should be doin'
They claim they cut from the fabrics that they paint in their drawings
But as soon as they get to eatin' you're back and touchin' your groin, so
Riddle me, riddle me, how many rappers physically
Drizzle with the ability, that can mess with me lyrically
Mimic or even mirror me, hell will freeze over literally
Wildebeast with the similes, metaphors and agility
Little you to belittle me, jealous of what I'm willed to be
Still a beast with the killer speech
If it's mental then it'll be typically easy as me on top of this instrumental beat
I'm a problem, admit it you scared, Imma make it hard to eat
Still a gorilla killer, retardedly solemnly swore that I would go get it scared
Well you oughta be called a priest if he really should kill a prayer and prophecy
Follows me through the wilderness, Father put me where I should be
Pray that the shawties follow me
But I ain't follow Chuck D
Give 'em visions so they can see
But Waka Flocka to them is who B.I.G. was to me
2Pac on that hologram could never replace the grief
And had he still been alive you rappers would never be
Don't act as if you're surprised, you know it as well as me
Just happened to be the guy to report it on a CD
I listen to artists and be like, "Man, he listen to me"
Steal your ingredients but they don't want to let you to eat
Got friends that's envious of the talent cause I'm a beast
Mad at me for reachin' the levels that I done reached
Fell off? I wasn't ready to feast
I walked away from the table and Drizzy sat in the seat
Knock it off with the fables, 'fore you put me to sleep
Gemstones for life's the logo, loco with the speech
These artists are so-so, they just hidin' behind the beat
The production is dope though, so it's harder for you to peep
And you fall for the bozos, spittin' bars like they ain't weak on these blogs
And got the nerve to be salty at Chief Keef
The way the industry doggin' these elites (I'm appalled)
Got the people in awe, like these beats (and they frauds)
They'll hop on anything dog with a sweet leaf (like a frog)
Are we mentally all in a deep sleep? (from the fog)
They've offended me and all of these bleep bleeps
With a God and they think they don't amended me all cause I speak deep
But I'm Jaws, I'll eat anything numb with these teeth
Through the walls of this weak industry, targetin' these geeks
For the cause, until I diminish them all and they retreat and dissolve
I'm academically out of these boys reach
I've evolved to destroy anything bloggin' and retweet
I'll be doggin' 'til I'm frozen in a coffin and deceased
Lyrical miracle since they cut my umbilical
Still a fool with the syllables, guess you think it's some spiritual
I will cook up a batch of these bomb atomically chemicals
Pick up scoop and sling it right at you like some gorilla poop
Killa shoot if he feel like he thrilla, hope you gorilla proof
Still the truth, I suggest that you kneel and stoop, I conceal a nuke
That was proof 'fore I killed the booth, just as easy as peelin' fruit
Pitiful, I should steal on you for misleadin' our little youth
You're gonna wish you (never had met me)
All you rappers, all you rappers
All you fake MC's that's misleadin' our youth
Talkin' about cars that you ain't got, crack that you never sold
Neighborhoods that you know that you can't go in
You ain't real, be yourself
It's Gemstones
It ain't no question who's the elephant in the room
You're gonna wish you never had met me
Shout out to Adele
You already know what it is, Gemstones for life
In this song Gemstones's raps passionately over Adele's "Rolling In The Deep" instrumental.


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In a league where homefield advantage plays a huge part, the San Jose Earthquakes haven't had any such help this season.
It's not that the five-figure crowds in cozy Buck Shaw Stadium aren't giving the home side their full support. The results simply haven't been forthcoming for San Jose, who are one of only two teams in the league who currently have picked up more points on the road (12) than at home (11).
The Quakes had a chance to remedy that situation Saturday, but instead suffered a 1-0 defeat to Seattle. San Jose haven't won at home since May 8, going 0-2-2 in that stretch while getting outscored 7-4.
"We come home and we don't perform," Quakes coach Frank Yallop said during an in-game interview just after Fredy Montero scored in the 26th minute. "We're scared to play. And it's bad."
Yallop also said that his team was showing "no emotion" and didn't look like it wanted the game, and winger Arturo Alvarez picked up that theme in a quiet post-game locker room.
"It's very, very disappointing," Alvarez said. "We're at home. I think we didn't need to get to the point of chasing the game like that. We need to come out with everything we have. We knew how important this game was. We can't come out flat like that. We kind of put ourselves in a hole there."
But there also is a tactical shift the Quakes are failing to successfully negotiate. San Jose have been at their best all season long when they soak up pressure from the opposition and hit them with a counterattack – see the Quakes' 2-1 win, secured in injury time, at PPL Park against the Union on July 10.
That plan of waiting to pounce on an opponent's mistake doesn't work at home, however, where visiting teams are happy to play for the tie and take a free point if pressure isn't applied to them. And when San Jose try to play such a high-press style, it doesn't work, as in the case of Montero slipping deftly through the Quakes' defense Saturday and slamming home an open header from the edge of the six-yard box.
"I think when we're on the road, there's this us-against-the-world mentality," right back Jason Hernandez said. "We're going into a hostile environment. We kind of sit back in our bank of eight or bank of 10 defensively and counterattack more. Here, I think we press the issue more and try to get the other team on the back foot, which creates a lot of gaps because we're running and pushing and trying to get after them a bit.
"It's two different game plans, and at home we haven't seemed to figure out a way to press the other team and make it difficult for them without giving up space for them to play. That's something we need to work on."
Geoff Lepper covers the Earthquakes for MLSsoccer.com. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com, on Twitter @sjquakes.


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Paul Rudd's Dan Charles Is One Direction's No. 1 Fan on 'SNL' [VIDEO]
Paul Rudd played Dan Charles, One Direction's No. 1 fan, on last night's (Dec. 7) episode of 'SNL.' Charles, who is married with kids, didn't just fangirl over 1D. He fanadulted!
It was creepy, slightly inappropriate and played to perfection by Rudd, who had demonstrated his fangirl nature over 1D in previously released promos for the ep.
Surrounded by tons of Directioners, Rudd, wearing his too-tight 1D tee, schooled the girls on their trivia and lead them in chants of Harry Styles' name and broke the news that Niall Horan is a natural brunette. He also broke up the syllables of "One Direction" so it emphasized "erection" during a chant. Hey-yooooooooooo!
In the space of the skit, he names his newborn son Zayn and lost his you-know-what when he met the band, not even pretending that he had a daughter that was their biggest fan.
Dan is 1D's No. 1 fan and a complete and total stan.


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NYTimes: The Island Where People Forget to Die
The entire allopathic model is essentially geared to modeling sickness and disease, not health, so most are sadly ignorant of the factors that actually contribute to good health. In that article you will learn that the reason why Ikaria is a pocket of longevity is because it has been isolated from the normal shipping lanes of Greek islands for longer, that the people there dislike clocks and watches which reduces the tyranny and stress of mechanically measured time, that they relax, exercise frequently by walking or gardening, that they often nap, eat a mostly plant based diet, have strong community(which Greeks have a more encompassing term for κοινωνία). So what makes you live longer, must almost necessarily be bad for the God of almost everyone in this forum pretending to be Buddhist or atheist, economic Growth.
Medical canon has little or no mechanisms to recognize that people have dysfunctional families, poor paying jobs that also have an associated low social status, lack of community, no true friends, that they live in environmentally degraded areas, etc. It cannot factor in social and other conditions caused largely by capitalism, since the medical field is structured to ignore that people are sacrificed as externalities to economic growth. If things were otherwise, health professionals like doctors, psychiatrists, therapists, physicians, surgeons would have to be at the forefront of fighting economic growth by primitive accumulation, capitalist maximization and other methods. Instead the medical fields systematically teach their too numerous victims that their health is bad because of their personal failings manifested as an innate genetic defects unique to themselves and not situated anywhere in actual social space-time or as Buddhists would say, independently arising. That is a grave crime... The system is designed, so that when you are down, if you are poor, you are mentally damaged, you are genetically predisposed to disease, it is your fault. Thus medical victims are not recognized as the sacred sacrifice to the God of Growth. Too convenient.
Here is an example from a totally alien type of society to ours, where sickness could not be perceived as individual or arising from the discrete and separate self:
Overall the medical profession does mostly net harm in anything outside of emergency care(IE. If I saw off my finger, they are excellent at sewing it back) and their purpose is to adjust people to capitalist growth and progress. You don't see many doctors out there at the front line presenting medical objections against pollution from the new factory opening near a residential area, opposing new highways which will cause lung problems from all the increased particulate matter in the air, opposing the increasing work hours most people are undertaking which always takes a bodily and psychic toll, opposing nuclear plants, or doing anything in general to promote health in a preventative matter. Actually there are a few exceptions which I could name, but they are too few. What they do instead is damage control for the God of Growth on the tail end by dis-empowering people from taking steps to prevent health problems before they arise, emphasizing an approach laden with invasive testing, pharmacology and surgery. If it were otherwise every time anything that leads to more growth or commerce would be proposed to be built, the doctors and physicians would have to take the lead in preventing it on the grounds it is an obstacle that would have be subsidized in terms of public and private health, less life expectancy, and that it would cause more stress and decrease life satisfaction.Charles Eisenstein wrote: The Ascent of Humanity: Chapter III: The Way of the World
We can hardly conceive of an origin of life that does not start with an original living creature, discrete and separate from its environment, because that is how we conceive an organism, a "being". Yet other cultures recognized a more fluid identity in which the defining unit was the family, the tribe, the village, the forest. The very meaning of "I" is culturally determined. The shaman Martin Prechtel speaks of a culture in which a person beseeching a medicine man to cure his ailing wife says not, "My wife is sick" but rather, "My family is sick."V The sickness is as much his own as his wife's. Or if a few individuals in the village are sick, he might say, "My village is sick." Even if a Western doctor might judge him a magnificent specimen of bodily health, he would not agree with the statement "I am healthy" because to him, "I" means something different than it does to us. Its boundaries are more fluid. For him to say, "I am healthy but my family, village, forest, or world is sick" would be as absurd as to say, "I am healthy but my liver, kidneys, and heart are sick." Someone immersed in such a culture might not see the appearance of a replicator as the key event in biogenesis at all.
V. Talk to the Green Gathering conference, September 2003.
Here is what an alleged founder of Western medicine said:
Today that sounds so quaint and foreign to modern ears. In 1910 business interests interests conspired in the United States to release the Flexner report which backed by the American Medical Association cartel, created the modern allopathic system based on the public as passive observers consuming only pharmacological pills and surgery. Thus today on average American doctors receive only 23.9 hours contact hours on nutrition during their whole mis-education. Now if Hippocrates was really the founder of medicine and doctors were really on our side in terms of health, would this be the case? Health in our society is not something you participate in via your diet or lifestyle, it is something you consume as an insipid type of dis-empowered consumer known as a medical patient. They cannot question the social construct of food, which allows food conglomerates to make huge profits by allowing the public to be mislead that any processed or pre-cooked garbage from company A is good as company B.Hippocrates wrote: http://www.greekmedicine.net/hygiene/Fa ... ation.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Everyone has a physician inside him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food. But to eat when you are sick is to feed your sickness.
Finally a prominent dissident within the medical community:
Dr. Robert Mendelsohn wrote: http://www.whale.to/vaccine/quotes20.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The door to the doctor's office ought to bear a surgeon general's warning that routine physical examinations are dangerous to your health. Why? Because doctors do not see themselves as guardians of health, and they have learned precious little about how to assure it. Instead, they are latter-day Don Quixotes, battling sometimes real but too often imaginary diseases. The disastrous difference is that doctors are not tilting at windmills. Rather, it is people who are damaged by their insistent search for dubious diseases to conquer.
Greed plays a role in causing unnecessary surgery, although I don't think the economic motive alone is enough to explain it. There's no doubt that if you eliminated all unnecessary surgery, most surgeons would go out of business. They'd have to look for honest work, because the surgeon gets paid when he performs surgery on you, not when you're treated some other way. In pre-paid group practices where surgeons are paid a steady salary not tied to how many operations they perform, hysterectomies and tonsillectomies occur only about one-third as often as in fee-for-service situations." ---- Robert S. Mendelsohn, MD. Confessions of a Medical Heretic (1979) Chapter 3 ("Ritual Mutilations"), pp. 58-59.
Modern Medicine would rather you die using its remedies than live by using what physicians call quackery.
Medical students are further softened up by being maliciously fatigued. The way to weaken a person's will in order to mold him to suit your purposes is to make him work hard, especially at night, and never give him a chance to recover. You teach the rat to race. The result is a person too weak to resist the most debilitating instrument medical school uses on its students: fear.
If I had to characterize doctors, I would say their major psychological attribute is fear. They have a drive to achieve security-plus that's never satisfied because of all the fear that's drummed into them in medical school: fear of failure, fear of missing a diagnosis, fear of malpractice, fear of remarks by their peers, fear that they'll have to find honest work. There was a movie some time ago that opened with a marathon dance contest. After a certain length of time all the contestants were eliminated except one. Everybody had to fail except the winner. That's what medical school has become. Since everybody can't win, everybody suffers from a loss of self-esteem. Everybody comes out of medical school feeling bad.
Doctors are given one reward for swallowing the fear pill so willingly and for sacrificing the healing instincts and human emotions that might help their practice: arrogance. To hide their fear, they're taught to adopt the authoritarian attitude and demeanor of their professors. Confessions of a Medical Heretic
Doctors turn out to be dishonest, corrupt, unethical, sick, poorly educated, and downright stupid more often than the rest of society. When I meet a doctor, I generally figure I'm meeting a person who is narrowminded, prejudiced, and fairly incapable of reasoning and deliberation. Few of the doctors I meet prove my prediction wrong.


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K Train
I learned two important things after writing last week's column on the recent struggles of defensive linemen selected first overall in the NFL Draft. One is that there are a hell of a lot of readers who thought I had overlooked Lee Roy Selmon and Ed "Too Tall" Jones, when, in fact, I was discussing the failures of defensive linemen drafted within the last 30 years. The other is that there are a handful of readers out there who think the 2000 draft class produced some of the worst first-round picks in recent history, including its top selection and the inspiration for last week's column, Cleveland Browns defensive end Courtney Brown. It was this second lesson that got me to roll back my sleeves and delve into some draft evaluations for this week's column.
full story: Analyzing every first round from 1995 through 2004
full story: Analyzing every first round from 1995 through 2004


text:
Send us a message
with your desired room type, arrival date and number of nights you'd like to reserve,
and we'll contact you in no time.
Settlment Konjsko B.B.
6000 Ohrid - Macedonia
Phone:+(389)46277660 +(389)46203001 Fax: +(389) 46 277212
Email: email@example.com
© 2017 Metropol Lake Resort - OHRID. All Rights Reserved


text:
The time has come, thanks to age and Agent Orange, for me to sell my Pristine 2002 R1150RS. How and where do I post it for sale? How do I determine a fair price?
The time has come, thanks to age and Agent Orange, for me to sell my Pristine 2002 R1150RS. How and where do I post it for sale? How do I determine a fair price?
Post somewhere other than a forum dedicated to late stone age points and kickstart bikes
Just funnin - don't get mad
Post on the Flea Market - via the MOA home page.
Also post a For Sale in the Oilhead section of the IBMWR.org classified ads pages.
Paul Glaves - "Big Bend", Texas U.S.A
"The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution." - Bertrand Russell
You can get an idea of value here: http://www.kbb.com/motorcycles/
Your zip code needs to be entered in the top right corner for more accurate value.
01 F650GS Dakar
The "Used Bike Value Guide" in the November issue of MOTORCYCLE CONSUMER NEWS lists your bike at $4385. Doesn't hurt to get as many "ideas" as possible. Good luck with your sale - I miss my RS. There's really nothing quite like it.
Bill Mayer
Ebay. The market will set the price.
Jerry Dockery
309 N. 3rd. Ave.
Kure Beach, NC 28449
2009 R 1200 RT,1996 R1100RT, 1985 K100RS...too fast to believe.
Or...you could hold on to it until next summer, and then bring it to Salem, Oregon. I understand that there are going to be a few BMW guys/gals there in July!
All joking aside, that might actually be where I start the selling process for my R11S.
Bill Johnston
I have an airhead for sale. It became quickly obvious that it will be wise to wait until spring to sell.
I have bought several of my bikes around this time of year and a little later. I bought them at this time of year because they were far cheaper. Besides it being winter, the holiday season finds many potential buyers and sellers short of money. Wait until spring approaches along with tax refunds.
'You can say what you want about the South, but I almost never hear of anyone wanting to retire to the North.
I just sold my 2003 R1150R last week to a local buyer who spotted my Craigslist ad. I also had it listed on the MOA Flea Market and the IBMWR websites.
I had picked up an R1150RT a couple of months ago and was out of space in my garage or I would have held onto it until spring when the prices start going up. Even here in the south where we can ride all year, motorcycles tend to be a seasonal item with prices lower in the winter and higher in the summer. Check the net for your model bike for sale in similar climate zones for a good seasonal price. Also watch for the prices on ones that sell quickly and ones that linger for months (usually overpriced, some owners are not realistic).
Good luck with the sale.
What tax refund?
As to pricing, it takes knowledge & maybe experience too. If you spend a lot of time monitoring ebay for final sale prices & look long & hard @ Cycle trader & IBMWR you will get closer to reality.
How old is "too old" to ride?
My dad still rides at 82!!! A newer Royal Enfield. Dayly in a 75 miles radius. How's that.
Where is Dayly Washington?
'03 R1150R, '03 F650GS, '97DR200SE,'78 Honda CT-90, '77Honda CT-90
I have had the best luck with CycleTrader.com and IBMWR. Sadly, I never got a response from any of my MOA Flea Market ads.
2007 F650GS (sold)
2004 R1150RT (daily rider)


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Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, including fundamentals, privacy, security, and common myths. This course will shows you where and how HIPAA affects health care and insurance through modifications to other related laws. Offered in an easy-to-follow format, the text includes examples, real-life scenarios, and optional interactive features to help you better understand important concepts, test that understanding, and prepare you for a rewarding career in health care.
Prerequisite: Knowledge of Healthcare Technology
Course Concepts
- The original reason for writing HIPAA
- The scope of HIPAA law to both health care and the insurance industry
- The need to protect privacy and security of health information
- Types of entities who are Covered Entities
- The importance of the HIPAA Officer
- Scenario to bring the ruling into work place perspective
- Know the definition of protected health information (PHI).
- Recognize the difference between consent and authorization and their use in HIPAA.
- Be familiar with required disclosures, those permitted without authorization, and those permitted with authorization.
- Identify when Business Associate contracts must be obtained.
- Understand how HIPAA mandates training for the public and health care workforce.
- Grasp how the DHHS has ordered compliance with HIPAA law.
- The need for national standards for electronic transactions
- The code sets mandated by HIPAA law
- The structure of the electronic transactions to simplify reimbursement for health care services
- The value of Trading Partner agreements
- The enforcement guidelines set up by the Department of Health and Human Services
- The need for safeguards of electronic protected health information (ePHI)
- The basics of administrative, physical, and technical safeguards for ePHI
- The role of the HIPAA security officer who is responsible for local training and enforcing of HIPAA security regulations
- The government's role in overseeing compliance and receiving a complaint
- The unique identifiers defined by HIPAA
- Identifiers that have been mandated and status of other identifiers to date
- Where to find latest information of changes to HIPAA law
- The problems of medical identify theft
- Some myths related to HIPAA


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Computerworld is undertaking a series of investigations into the world of programming languages. We've already looked at some other functional languages such as Haskell, Erlang, and (also running on the JVM) Clojure.
In this interview, we talk to Martin Odersky about Scala; a language we named as one of Six Scripting Languages your developers wish you'd let them use. Scala is one of the newer languages which runs on the Java Virtual Machine, which has become increasingly popular.
A Twitter developer has said that Scala could become the language of choice of the modern Web 2.0 startup. LinkedIn also uses the language. So do with many other big corporate names including Sony Pictures, EDF and SAP. Martin Odersky tells us about Scala's history, its future and what makes it so interesting.
Why did you call the language Scala?
It means scalable language in the sense that you can start very small but take it a long way. For newcomers, it looks a bit like a scripting language. For the last two years we have actually been invited to compete in the JavaOne ScriptBowl, a Java scripting language competition. But Scala is not really a scripting language — that's not it's main characteristic. In fact, it can express everything that Java can and I believe there are a lot of things it can offer for large systems that go beyond the capabilities of Java. One of the design criteria was that we wanted to create a language that can be useful for everything from very small programs right up to huge systems and without the need to change structure along the way.
What led you to develop Scala?
In the 90s I became involved in the development of the Java language and its compiler. I got together with another researcher, Philip Wadler, and we developed Pizza that eventually led to Generic Java (GJ), and then to Java version 5. Along the way I got to write the javac compiler. The compiler for GJ, which was our extension, was adopted as a standard long before Sun decided to adopt the GJ language constructs into Java — they took the compiler first.
When I moved to Switzerland 10 years ago I started to work on more fundamental topics. I did some research experiments to see if we could usefully combine functional and object-oriented programming. We had tried that already in 95/96 with Pizza, but that was only a half way success because there were a lot of rough edges, which all had to do with the fact that at the time we used Java as our base language. Java was not that malleable. So starting around 2000, I developed with my group at EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne) new languages that would continue to inter-operate with Java but that would usefully combine object-oriented and functional programming techniques.
The first of these was called Funnel and the second was called Scala. The second experiment worked out pretty well, so we decided to wrap up the experimental phase and turn Scala into a real production language that people could rely on. We polished some edges, did some minor syntax changes, rewrote the Scala tools in Scala to make sure that the language and its tools could sustain heavy usage. Then we released Scala version 2 in 2006. It's been rapidly gaining popularity since then.
What are the main benefits of combining Object-oriented and functional programming techniques?
They both bring a lot to the table. Functional programming lets you construct interesting things out of simple parts because it gives you powerful combinators -- functions that take elements of your program and combine them with other elements in interesting ways. A related benefit of functional programming is that you can treat functions as data. A typical data type in almost all programming languages is "int": you can declare an int value anywhere, including inside a function, you can pass it to a function, return it from a function or store it in a field. In a functional language, you can do the same thing with functions: declare them inside other functions, pass them into and from functions, or store them in fields. These features give you a powerful way to build your own control structures, to define truly high-level libraries, or to define new domain specific languages.
Object-oriented programming, on the other hand, offers great ways to structure your system's components and to extend or adapt complicated systems. Inheritance and aggregation give you flexible ways to construct and organise your namespaces. There's good tool support like context help in IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) that will give you pop-up menus with all the methods that you can call at a given point.
The challenge was to combine the two so that it would not feel like two languages working side by side but would be combined into one single language.
I imagine the most significant part of that challenge was in deciding what to leave out?
Yes, if you took each language style in its entirety and combined them, you would end up with a lot of duplication and you would just have two sub-languages with little interaction between them. The challenge was to identify constructs from one side with constructs from the other. For instance, a function value in a functional programming language corresponds to an object in an object-oriented language. Basically you could say that it is an object with an "apply" method. Consequently, we can model function values as objects.
Another example is in the algebraic data types of functional languages that can be modelled as class hierarchies on the object-oriented side. Also, the static fields and methods as found in Java. We eliminated these and modelled them with members of singleton objects instead. There are many other cases like these, where we tried to eliminate a language construct by matching and unifying it with something else.
What has been the overall greatest challenge you have faced in developing Scala?
Developing the compiler technology was definitely a challenge. Interestingly, the difficulties were more on the object-oriented side. It turned out that object-oriented languages with advanced static type systems were quite rare, and none of them were mainstream. Scala has a much more expressive type system than Java or similar languages, so we had to break new ground by developing some novel type concepts and programming abstractions for component composition. That led to a quite a bit of hard work and also to some new research results.
The other hard part concerned interoperability. We wanted to be very interoperable so we had to map everything from Java to Scala. There's always that tension between wanting to map faithfully the huge body of Java libraries while at the same time avoiding duplicating all constructs of the Java language. That was a persistent and challenging engineering problem. Overall I am quite happy with the result, but it has been a lot of work.
There are a lot of positive comments on forums about Scala's efficiency and scalability but another thing people often mention is that it is a very fun language to use. Was that also one of your aims in designing this language?
Absolutely. My co-workers and I spend a lot of time writing code so we wanted to have something that was a joy to program in. That was a very definite goal. We wanted to remove as many of the incantations of traditional high-protocol languages as possible and give Scala great expressiveness so that developers can model things in the ways they want to. While writing javac I did a lot of Java programming and realised how much wasted work Java programmers have to do. In Scala we typically see a two to three times reduction in the number of lines for equivalent programs. A lot of boilerplate is simply not needed. Plus it's a lot more fun to write.
This is a very powerful tool that we give to developers, but it has two sides. It gives them a lot of freedom but with that comes the responsibility to avoid misuse. Philosophically, I think that is the biggest difference between Scala and Java. Java has a fairly restrictive set of concepts so that any Java program tends to look a bit like every other Java program and it is claimed that this makes it easy to swap programmers around. For Scala, there's no such uniformity, as it is a very expressive programming language.
You can express Scala programs in several ways. You can make them look very much like Java programs which is nice for programmers who start out coming from Java. This makes it very easy for programming groups to move across to Scala, and it keeps project risks low. They can take a non-critical part first and then expand as fast as they think is right for them.
But you can also express Scala programs in a purely functional way and those programs can end up looking quite different from typical Java programs. Often they are much more concise. The benefit that gives you is that you can develop your own idioms as high-level libraries or domain specific languages embedded into Scala. Traditionally, you'd have to mix several different languages or configuration notations to achieve the same effect. So in the end, Scala's single-language approach might well lead to simpler solutions.
The learning curve for a Java developer wanting to use Scala would be quite small but how easy would it be for programmers used to working with dynamic languages with dynamic disciplines such as PHP and Python and Ruby to use?
Clearly it is easiest for a Java or .NET developer to learn Scala. For other communities, the stumbling blocks don't have so much to do with the language itself as with the way we package it and the way the tools are set up, which is Java specific. Once they learn how these things are set up, it should not be hard to learn the language itself.
What are your thoughts on Twitter using Scala? Is it good for the language's development that such a high profile site is using it?
That was great news. I am happy that they turned to Scala and that it has worked out well for them. Twitter has been able to sustain phenomenal growth, and it seems with more stability than what they had before the switch, so I think that's a good testament to Scala. When a high profile site like Twitter adopts a new language, it is really an acid test for that language. If there would be major problems with that language they'd probably be found rather quickly and highlighted prominently.
There are also a lot of other well-known companies adopting Scala. Sony Pictures Imageworks is using Scala to write its middle-tier software and Europe's largest Energy company EDF is using Scala for contract modelling in its trading arm. SAP and Siemens are using Scala in their open source Enterprise Social Messaging Experiment (ESME) tool. That's just three examples of many.
One of Twitter's developers, Alex Payne, was saying that Scala could be the language of choice for the modern web start-up and could be chosen over other languages like Python and Ruby, which have been very popular but they are not as efficient as Scala. Do you agree and did you have Web 2.0 start-ups in mind while developing Scala?
I think Scala does make sense in that space. Twitter is not the only company who has realised this; LinkedIn also uses Scala.
I think what Scala offers there is the ability to build on a solid high performance platform - the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) – while still using an agile language. There are some other options that fall into that category such as Jython, JRuby, Groovy, or Clojure, but these are all dynamically typed languages on the JVM.
In the end the question comes down to whether you are more comfortable in a statically typed setting, be it because that will catch many errors early, because it gives you a safety net for refactorings, or because it helps with performance. Or you may think you need a fully dynamic language because you want to do fancy stuff with metaprogramming. In the end it comes down to that choice. If you prefer a statically typed language, I think Scala is definitely the best option today.
What is your favourite feature of the language, if you had to pick?
I don't think I can name a single favourite feature. I'd rather pick the way Scala's features play together. For instance, how higher-order functions blend with objects and abstract types, or how actors were made possible because functions in Scala can be subclassed. The most interesting design patterns in Scala come precisely from the interaction between object-oriented and functional programming ideas.
Where do you see Scala headed in the future?
In the near term, we are currently working hard on the next release, Scala 2.8, where we are focusing on things like high performance array operations and re-defined collection libraries with fast persistent data structures, among others. That should be out by autumn [Northern Hemisphere] this year.
Then in the long term we see interesting opportunities around concurrency and parallelism, so we are looking at new ways to program multicore processors and other parallel systems. We already have a head start here because Scala has a popular actor system which gives you a high-level way to express concurrency. This is used in Twitter's message queues, for instance. The interesting thing is that actors in Scala are not a language feature, they have been done purely as a Scala library. So they are a good witness to Scala's flexibility: You can program things that will look like language features to application programmers by shipping the right kind of primitives and abstractions in a library.
We are hoping that what works for actors will also work for other concurrent abstractions such as data parallelism and stream programming. I think that in the future we will probably need several concurrency abstractions to really make use of multicore because different profiles of parallelism and concurrency will require different tools. I think that Scala's library based approach is relevant here, because it lets us mix and match concepts implemented as Scala classes and objects, thus moving forward quickly rather than having to put all of this into a language and a compiler. I think this work will keep us busy for the next four or five years.


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Stock availability is subject to prior sale.
A metal base hand-finished in silver leaf with a cool-toned silver travertine top add up to an aesthetically pleasing accent table for any room. The soft color scheme mellows the stark forms of contemporary design, creating a room that's both relaxed and elegant. An open, glass display shelf is included to make the table truly versatile. It works great in the living room, hall, dining room, or as a stand for your TV and media players.
The Laurel Canyon Griffith Park Console Table by Lexington at C. S. Wo & Sons California in the Southern California, Costa Mesa, Orange County, Long Beach, Anaheim, Los Angeles, South Coast Collection area. Product availability may vary. Contact us for the most current availability on this product.
Less is more. Fewer pieces can make a bigger impact if they are carefully chosen and meticulously designed. Impeccable contemporary forms with a soft and pleasing touch are the hallmark of the Laurel Canyon collection. Bringing together timeless, architecturally-inspired shapes and statement pieces with a stunning blend of materials, Laurel Canyon provides dreamy furnishings for homes everywhere. The look of Laurel Canyon starts with sleek, contemporary furniture crafted from Cathedral Cherry, but is enriched with surprising detail in the form of silver travertine tops, hand-burnished silver leaf, and sculptural modern hardware. Two sizes of dining table are available to bring Laurel Canyon's soft, contemporary look to both formal dining rooms and the flexible arrangements of open plan homes. Distinctive upholstered pieces in a spacious scale turn your living room into a luxe lounge cushioned by blended down seat cushions. For those who arrange their decor with the eye of a perfectionist, for those who know what they like but can't always find it - your search is finally over, thanks to Laurel Canyon.
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Hello everybody, my name is Diego and I don't want to be spammy so let me know if this post is not appropiate for the forum.
I've developed a cool test prep app (which is completely free and has no ads) to help students prepare their admissions tests and I'd just like you check it out and give me some feedback because being aware of students needs will help me to improve it.
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It's called Test Me! and you can get it in Play Store as well as iTunes with "testme universal test app" keywords.
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"The Parish Book of Chant is the answer to a church musician's prayer!" Sacred Miscellany.
The Parish Book of Chant is published by the Church Music Association of America as a unique resource for choirs, priests, families, and congregations who seek to sing and understand the universal musical tradition of Catholic people. It is a 6×9″ hardbound volume, 350 pages, with a very beautiful cover and outstanding print quality. It is published under the Creative Commons attribution license 3.0, which means that you can copy, distribute, record, or distribute electronic files with no restrictions and no license whatsoever. It is published as part of the commons of the faith.
It has been developed with the hope of bringing to life, in every parish and home, what the Second Vatican Council called a "treasure of inestimable value," which is our Gregorian tradition of song.
It is compiled and expertly typeset by Richard Rice (Communio) with the assistance of the CMAA and many people involved in sacred music in the United States.
It is available direct from CMAA or from Paraclete Press. If you have questions or special requests or want to place a bulk order, call the CMAA at 505-263-6298.
You can examine the entire contents in this full PDF.
Among its features:
These features were chosen with the parish experience in mind. There is no existing resource that combines them into a single volume: the Mass, the people's music, tutorial, and translations. Again, this is not a reprint but a newly created book that offers the core of the people's Gregorian music. This book could be the most valuable resource yet produced to help Gregorian chant assume its "pride of place" in Catholic liturgy.
It is our sincere hope that this book will make possible the full integration of Gregorian chant, as sung by the people, into both forms of the Roman Rite in English-speaking countries.
Some extra downloads:
and these additional chants:
And the complete book:
Call our office with questions (our number is at the bottom of the page), or write email@example.com


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Jenks is not a happy man, and it has nothing to do with another offseason beginning with trade rumors. Instead, during a weekend chat with MLB.com, Jenks took umbrage with the White Sox once again calling out his conditioning at the end of the 2009 season.
"I've done everything I can do, I've done everything that is physically possible, to make myself in better shape this year. Where the years previously I didn't lose weight in-season, I didn't want my weight issue to be a factor as to why I had an off season.
For four years now, I've been the same guy, and when I slow down a little … Bad things happen to anyone, not because I need to get into shape. This has been me the whole time, so where is the problem?
Honestly, I've given it a lot of thought these last couple of weeks. The actions of the last two weeks … am I unhappy with them? Yes. Anyone in my situation would feel the same way, but I want to be part of the White Sox 100 percent. Physically and mentally, I'm going to be ready. If I'm not in the White Sox plan, I know there's a plan for me somewhere."
Jenks also didn't like how the Sox handled the rehab of his season-ending injury:
The White Sox left Jenks home to rehab the injury rather than take him on their final road trip, and that did not sit well with Jenks, either. Jenks could walk on the injury while wearing a protective boot and said he would have liked to have joined his teammates for those six games.
"They sent me home early, when I could have gone on the road and rehabbed there, instead of going to a place near my house," Jenks said. "I [complained] to my wife every day, 'Why am I home?'"


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Date: Monday 27th August 2018
Time: 14:30
Rogue Theatre presents 'Wild'
A tangling of well-loved tales
From the heart of the fairy tale forest.
Created by Cornwall's award winning Rogue Theatre.
(What's On Cornwall award winners for "Best Theatre Show" and "Best Theatre Company")
( The Sunlight part of Rogue's spellbinding Summer Double-Bill).
Leave the path.
Step into a fairy tale.
Those who stick to paths
Seldom have tales to tell.
Wild is an immersive theatre adventure into the most thrilling fairy-tale landscape; the forest, whose wildness calls to us all.
Lose yourself in the forest and find yourself in the world of wolves and those who have strayed;
Lost wanderers call it "Wilderness",
Beasts call it "Home",
Witches; "Wonderful",
We call it "Wild" and you are welcome here.
Wild is a fast paced, funny, mischievous and spellbinding show in the heart of the woods mixing some of Rogue's favourite fairy tales including: Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Beauty and The Beast and Sleeping Beauty.
This immersive theatre adventure starts with an enthralling journey along the wandering paths of Cornwall's breathtakingly beautiful Tehidy Woods North Cliffs.
Journey through the trees where chance meetings with wolves, witches, faeries, princesses and fairy tale creatures will weave you into the magic of the Wild world.
The paths follow the scent of wood smoke and twist together in a clearing, where we shall gather in the grand theatre of trees.
Here our tale comes to life.
Wild is an eye popping, heart pumping, spirit raising, laughter making feast for the senses and is designed for Wild minds and those whose imaginations like to wander.
The show part of the event is shorter than our usual shows (about an hour) giving us more time for a party at the end where you can stay for free face painting, woodland craft making, woodland vegetable stew (served from the cauldron), Rogue's refreshment and bar tent, and of course wild music so you can dance on the stage with the Beauties, Beasts, Fairies, Witches and Wolves of the Wild world.
Let there be Wild dancing!
Written by Ollie Oakenshield and Directed by Angelina Boscarelli, Wild is;
Perfect for imaginations of all ages, wolves, witches, woodcutters, adventurous families, wide eyed children and grandmothers.
Fairy Tale costumes, fancy dress, otherworld outfits, party frocks, wild life masks, funny hats, forest finery, frippery, feathers and fancy hairdos are encouraged though not essential. (Grown-ups as well as children)
All are welcome, from near or far!
Follow the smoke to the wild heart of Cornwall and find the bright and enthralling flames of Rogue's Wild Theatre.
A glimpse of Rogue Theatre's previous Summer Ball
The experience –
Arrive and park up between 2.00pm and 2.20pm.
A Rogue faerie host will meet you at the box office at the edge of the woods between 2.20pm and 2.30pm and will show you to the start of your path
Follow your path as it twists and turns through the wonderful Wild, let the wilderness sharpen your senses as your imagination begins to stray, pass through doors and arches, over roots and under branches as you meet wolves, princesses, witches and fairy tale creatures along the way
The path delivers you to a clearing, a cavern of mighty trees, with roots that reach the otherworld, these pillars of the forest theatre wait excitedly. Here there is a bar and refreshment tent, here there is fire and a cauldron bubbling with vegetable stew, here there is music and a warm welcome, with hay bales for seating and even a lovely compost loo!
When we have all arrived, the show starts at the woodland heart. Magic bristles in the branches as the tale weaves through the fairy tale forest and onto the stage
The show mixes spellbinding tales told by faerie tellers with enrapturing live music, spectacular dance and physical performance, fire, highly visual theatre and an exciting immersive atmosphere.
The show ends between 4.00pm and 4.15pm when the Wild Party begins.
The bar is open, the stew is served, there is free face painting, woodland wand and craft making, and of course dancing, did we mention the dancing?
Dance on the stage with the Rogues and the Wild creatures.
When the dancing is done or your own world starts to call you home, wander back the way you came or shortcut down the woodland lane.
Check your reflection when you reach your car, for the chances are, you're not quite the same.
Reasonably priced hot refreshments, cold drinks, beer, wine and cider (and Rogue's epic Woodland Vegetable Stew) will be available to buy.
Toilets are situated near the performance area.
For your woodland adventure we recommend you bring a blanket, a warm and waterproof coat, shoes for adventure (wellies if it has been raining).
There will be hay bales to sit on (and a few chairs for those who need them), though feel free to bring cushions or fold out chairs (if you don't mind carrying them).
The event lasts about 2 ½ hours and takes place in the woodland so come prepared whatever the weather. (We will use our fabulous canopy to cover the audience if it should rain)!
The path twists and turns and is bumpy under foot but should be fine for a rugged buggy!
Disabled Access can be arranged :
Leave a message on 07837561483 or Click here to Email
Wild is the sunlight offering of Rogue Theatre's spellbinding Summer Double-Bill and takes place each afternoon at 2.30pm.
( Firebird is the twilight offering and emerges as the embers of the day fade beyond the North Cliffs giving way to the tide of magic shadows. Firebird starts each day at 7.30pm)
Shows take place on the following days.
August – 17th 18th, 19th and 20th
(No Show on 21st)
22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th and 27th
(No Show on the 28th)
29th, 30th and 31st
September – 1st and 2nd
"Immersive Theatre at its Best"
(West Briton on King Arthur 2015)
WOCA (What's On Cornwall) Award Winners
"Best Theatrical Event" 2015
"Best Theatre Company" 2016
"Best Theatre Show" 2016
"Best Theatre Show" 2017
All Ticket /Box Office Enquiries, please call CRBO on 01726 879 500
Tickets –
Standard Ticket (All ages, 4yrs upwards ) : £8.50
Rogue is committed to keeping our prices affordable, there is an option to pay a bit more if wish (which we'll put to very good use)
3andUnders : Free, but please book a Free Ticket
Invest in Rogue : £10
Every ticket contributes £1.50 towards future Rogue events.
Double Bill Tickets - see 'Wild' & 'Firebird' both shows for £15.00
Standard : £15
(Add Standard tickets to your basket for both shows and one show will automatically be discounted to £6.50. ( The tickets can be for shows on different days))
Affordability Discount Tickets are available on request. £7.50
Click here to email us at CRBO, we'll arrange a one-time discount code for you as soon as we can.
Wildcard Tickets : £7.50
Buy a Wildcard Ticket for an Unknown Friend (and we'll allocate them on request)
If you'd like to request a Wildcard ticket, please click here to email Rogue Theatre
Contact CRBO to enquire about prices for Groups of 10+, Tickets for an Essential Carer or any other box office query. Phone 01726 879500 Click to Email
Tickets include everything...face painting, parking, woodland craft making...
Getting There : ( VIP Sat. Nav Users : There is NO Postcode for the Woods - Read the Directions, please )
Tehidy Woods North Cliffs Entrance (Nr Portreath) is on the North Cliffs Road between Gwithian and Portreath. Click the Venue at the top of this event description to see the location on Google Maps.
FROM the East & Truro on A30 - Leave at the Porthtowan and Redruth Exit. Follow signs to Portreath. Drive through the village and up the hill following signs for Gwithian and Hayle. After a mile or so you will pass the Tehidy North Cliffs entrance. Follow signs for "Rogue Theatre".
FROM West of Hayle, turn left off A30 at roundabout by 'Marks&Spencer'. Turn right at next roundabout towards Gwithian. Drive through Gwithian and towards Portreath. Pass 'Hell's Mouth Cafe' on your right. Look for the Rogue Theatre signs on the right about a mile or so further on.
(NB. Most "Tehidy" road signs lead to the Country Park South Drive Entrance. This is a 15-minute drive from North Cliffs. If you end up here, drive towards "Portreath" until you see "Rogue Theatre" signs or a left turn for Hayle & Gwithian )
Click Here to Book Online Now
Phone 01726 879500
Call in to a CRBO Local Box Office
St Ives, Penzance, Heartlands, Truro, St Mawes, St Austell, Bodmin, Looe, Liskeard & Launceston
Click the Link above to Book Online Now
Or Phone CRBO on 01726 879500
Buy over-the-counter at Tourist Offices in St Ives, Penzance, St Mawes, Truro, St Austell, Bodmin, Liskeard & Launceston plus 'Heartlands'Pool Redruth
Rogue Theatre Company
Click here for Details and Book Your Tickets Online
Rogue Theatre's
'Wild Spring Hare'
Sorry! Wild Spring Hare has been Postponed due to the Corona virus situation.
It's possible that the Spring Hare may hop out again for the May Half-Term holidays - so watch this space !
Wild Spring Hare is designed for Families, Adults & Children and involves an adventure on woodland paths.
The adventure takes place 3 times a day (1.00pm, 3.30pm and 6.00pm) on the following dates :
To Be Confirmed
(Each show lasts about 2 hours).
Where? Click for Google Map :
Tehidy Woods, North Cliffs near Portreath
New : Click : What3Words Map & Directions - ( Goto website and Click the What3Words Location for Directions)
If you have any queries about Orders etc please call
CRBO on 01726 879500
(not Rogue Theatre)
A bit rainy? Don't worry !
Rogue have got you covered !
"Immersive Theatre at its Best"
(West Briton on King Arthur 2015)
WOCA (What's On Cornwall) Award Winners
"Best Theatrical Event" 2015
"Best Theatre Company" 2016
"Best Theatre Show" 2016
"Best Theatre Show" 2017
Any Box Office queries, please call us at CRBO on 01726 879500.


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A weedy invader is overrunning the Southwest, threatening to wipe out iconic wildflower displays, erode tourism and harm the region's overall ecology.
The Sahara mustard is scattered from Oceanside to Del Mar to Imperial Beach, from California to Texas to Utah. But perhaps its best-known site of encroachment is the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, where the plant is crowding out more and more stands of native wildflowers that splash the hillsides with an artist's palette of color.
Mustard has crept across the desert for decades, but the weed came to a head several years ago when it overwhelmed prominent flower fields in the Anza-Borrego park.
"Sahara Mustard quickly multiplies to overshadow, poison and rob water from the wildflower fields that bring so many visitors from around the world to this region," David Garmon, president of the San Diego-based Tubb Canyon Desert Conservancy, wrote on the group's website. He warned that the plant could turn the area "into a mustard wasteland devoid of the biodiversity needed to sustain desert wildlife."
On a private parcel flush against the steep slopes of Tubb Canyon, UC Cooperative Extension is testing methods of removing Sahara mustard — hand weeding, hoes and herbicide. Researchers caution that these are only stopgap measures meant to keep the plant at bay in select spots.
"I don't think we're ever going to spray the herbicide across the entire Southwest," said Chris McDonald, desert natural resources advisor for the extension. "But the idea is preserving areas of value, such as the wildflower fields of Borrego Springs."
Native to North Africa and the Mediterranean, Sahara mustard arrived in the United States as a stowaway on a shipment of date palm to Palm Springs in 1927 and then lingered in patches across the desert for half a century, researchers said.
The weed put down roots in earnest after Hurricane Kathleen doused California in 1976 and jumpstarted the plant's germination, said Rich Minnich, a geography professor at
"There was this gigantic explosion of mustard, and it's never been the same since," Minnich said.
While researchers have noted the Sahara mustard's expansion since the late 1970s, the plant's presence became ubiquitous even to casual observers during the past few years in Anza-Borrego.
The mustard has displaced wildflowers entirely in some of the park's famed fields and canyons. Expanses of land that were dappled with purple and gold have become tangled with the weed.
"You can see how dramatically it changes the desert habitat, how it changes the flora," Garmon said. "That means it affects all the animals and insects that are dependent on the native flora being there."
Over centuries, desert wildflowers have evolved to bloom briefly and then quickly go to seed in an accelerated life cycle that diminishes their water needs.
Sahara mustard sprouts earlier and faster, hording precious desert space and water. It's so rapacious that it can choke even hearty cacti and creosote, let alone delicate blossoms.
On the test plots in Tubb Canyon last Friday, McDonald pointed out clusters of mustard sprouts. They crowded around a native chuparosa shrub, sheltering under its branches. They also encircled the few, fragile wildflowers that had sprouted in the dry, cool spring.
Borrego Springs has received only about half of its normal rainfall in recent months, McDonald said, so the mustard hasn't had a banner year. The native wildflowers haven't, either.
"This year isn't as awful, but if you walk around, there's a lot more mustard than wildflowers," McDonald said.
Going back years, Sahara mustard isn't the only interloper to have messed with the state's ecosystems. About 600 "naturalized" invasives have taken root in California soil, said Jon Rebman, curator of botany for the San Diego Natural History Museum.
The mustard also isn't the worst invasive species, said Minnich at UC Riverside.
For example, he said, Spanish explorers extolled the vast prairies of wildflowers they spotted in their travels and then promptly introduced wild oats and black mustard, which decimated coastal flower blooms before the Gold Rush. Subsequent pioneers brought in bromes, spiky grasses that displace native flora in inland valleys and vex hikers — who find them stuck to their socks.
"We've seen waves of invasive plants ... threatening biodiversity," said Travis Huxman, a biology professor at
Non-natives such as Sahara mustard run roughshod over their new environments because they are able to flourish outside the constraints of their original ecosystems.
"They all come from a different continent, and they are liberated from their natural pathogens and predators," Minnich said. "They have free reign here to reproduce in massive numbers."
Scientists are unsure whether the mustard will eventually reach a state of equilibrium with native plants or continue to march across the landscape.
"The big question is, is it driving extinction of some species?" Huxman said. "It's certainly driving loss of local species from big plots of land. Whether that means we'll lose some of those species altogether is uncertain."
Researchers are seeking biological agents that could keep Sahara mustard in check. But they're foiled by the plant's relationship to valuable food crops such as broccoli, cauliflower and kale, which might also be targets of the mustard's natural predators.
Insects brought in to counter a non-native invader sometimes work "spectacularly well," McDonald said, and in other cases "don't do a darned thing."
Scientists are also testing herbicides that can cripple Sahara mustard without harming native plants.
"We keep hoping to find the silver bullet," said Michael Rodriques, coordinator of volunteers for the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.
In the meantime, Borrego Springs is relying on sweat equity to keep the mustard under control. Volunteers and park officials organize brigades to fight the weed, joining forces with university researchers to seek long-term solutions.
Residents take on plots individually in their spare time, logging their efforts on a smartphone app that maps mustard distribution. Service groups lend a hand, and a local school has formed an anti-mustard club, Garmon said.
"If there's mustard there and people see it, they're going to pull it," said Sam Webb, chairman of an eradication task force.
Scientists and community members hope to exploit relatively dry years like this one to battle the mustard, knowing that the future of the desert is at stake.
"When they're in full bloom, there is no Monet painting more beautiful than hundreds of acres of desert primrose, desert verbena and desert sunflower," Garmon said. "To see those lost forever is really heartbreaking."


text: IBD JUST GEL UV/LED CURABLE Home / NAILS / GEL POLISHES / IBD JUST GEL UV/LED CURABLE / IBD Just Gel Polish 14ml - Con-Fuchsion IBD Just Gel Polish 14ml - Con-Fuchsion IBD Just Gel Polish 14ml - Con-Fuchsion £8.40 £7.00 (ex. VAT) Stock Status: In Stock You Will Earn 8 points with this purchase Information Specifications Reviews IBD Just Gel Polish Con-Fuchsion 14ml IBDs Just Gel Polish is a 100% pure gel formula that lasts chip-free for weeks. Applying smoothly like regular polish IBD cures quickly under LED or UV light with a rich, high gloss and superb finish. This long lasting gel polish even protects natural nails and can be removed easily in just 10 minutes, perfect for clients in a rush or always on the move. Brand: IBD GTIN: 039013565251 Condition: New Weight: 0.05kg Not yet reviewed Write an online review and share your thoughts with other shoppers! Be the first to review this product