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text:
Paul Van Doren, co-founder of Vans shoes, dies at 90-Art-and-culture News , Technomiz
The shoes, with their canvas tops and tough, diamond-patterned rubber soles, caught the fancy of skateboarders.
Los Angeles: Paul Van Doren, co-founder of the Vans company whose iconic Southern California sneakers were beloved by skateboarders and became an international success, has died. He was 90.
The company, based southeast of Los Angeles in Costa Mesa, announced Van Doren's death on social media Friday but didn't provide any details.
"Paul was not just an entrepreneur; he was an innovator," the company said. "Paul's bold experiments in product design, distribution and marketing, along with his knack for numbers and efficiency turned a family shoe business into a globally recognised brand."
Van Doren was a high school dropout who moved to Southern California from the Boston area. Van Doren, his brother James (who died in 2011) and business partners Gordon Lee and Serge Delia opened the Van Doren Rubber Co in Orange County in 1966, making and selling their own shoes. At first, they struggled to produce enough of the product to fill the shoeboxes on store shelves.
Van Doren had two decades of experience in shoe manufacturing but none in retail, he recalled.
"The first person gave me a $5 bill; a pair of shoes was $2.49," he told Los Angeles Magazine last month after releasing his memoir, Authentic.
"But I didn't have any money in the cash register, so I gave her the shoes," Van Doren said. "We ended up selling 16 or 18 pair of shoes that day. You know what? I said, 'Come back later to pay.' Every one of those people came back and paid."
Van Doren's son, Steve Van Doren, said his father's acumen helped make the business a success.
"My dad was a systems guy," Steve Van Doren told the Los Angeles Times in 2009. "He did things like colour-coding the boxes, blue for men, green for women and orange for boys, so you could see what inventory you had right away. He would only open stores that had a free right-hand exterior wall because he thought that was the best place to catch someone's eye if they were driving by."
Van Doren also allowed people to order customised shoes. He expanded the customer base by allowing various designs to be sold everywhere from surf shops to department stores.
In Authentic, Van Doren said the key to success was to give customers what they wanted.
"If it's a checkerboard, if it's bright pinks and yellows, or if it happens to be dinosaurs or a skull and crossbones, listen to their two cents' worth about colours and designs," he said.
The shoes, with their canvas tops and tough, diamond-patterned rubber soles, caught the fancy of skateboarders. The company, which kept a sharp eye on trends, was quick to catch on.
"Everybody else was kicking these kids out of the park, kicking them out of pools. And here's a company listening to them, backing them, and making shoes for them," Van Doren told Los Angeles Magazine.
The company paid professional skateboard Stacy Peralta to wear its shoes. Vans also sold shoes individually, which benefited skateboarders who tended to wear out one at a time.
The brand's popularity soared after Sean Penn wore his own pair of Checkerboard Slip-Ons in the 1982 movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
However, knockoffs and competition ate into Vans' profits, along with misguided efforts to expand the range of its offerings with specialised shoes for football, basketball, skydiving and even breakdancing. The company was forced into bankruptcy protection in 1984 and was sold to a banking firm in 1988.
Over the years, the brand's popularity waxed and waned, losing ground to newer, high-techier kicks and regaining it when retro came back into fashion.
The firm, renamed Vans Inc, went public in 1991 and in 2004 was sold to VF Corp of Denver, which owns a large number of footwear and apparel brands including Dickies, JanSport, Timberland and The North Face.
Today, Vans produces its shoes overseas. It continues to sell its traditional designs while also keeping an eye on trendsetters by collaborating with designers, skateboarding, BMX and surfing pros and other celebrities.
Vans racks up around $2 billion a year in sales and its shoes have been seen on the feet of Justin Bieber, Kanye West and the Kardashians.
The company also has built skateparks and sponsored various events, including the Warped Tour, an annual international travelling rock festival, and the US Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, California.
#Paul #Van #Doren #cofounder #Vans #shoes #dies #90Artandculture #News #Technomiz

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
This is not a violation of city code; therefore, the City generally would not get involved. It is recommended that you work with your neighbor to get permission to trim or maintain any overgrowth and ensure that trimming will not damage the health of the plant. Falling tree cleanup is the responsibility of the property owner. If debris crosses over between properties, you will clean everything within your boundaries. Your homeowner's insurance would be a great resource for clarification.
Show All Answers
The City of Walker does not have a rental certification Program, maintenance concerns should first be reported to the property owner. If systems are not functioning and the owner refuses to repair within a reasonable amount of time, the Property Maintenance Code may be able to help get the systems in proper working order which requires action from the owner.
No, mold occurs due to a source of moisture in a living environment.
According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the term "toxic mold" is not correct. While certain molds are toxigenic, meaning they can produce poisons (called mycotoxins), the molds themselves are not toxic or poisonous.
You do not need to test your mold to find out if it is "toxic mold"- just clean it up like you would any other kind of mold. Ways to prevent mold from growing:
For more cleaning and prevention information visit: www.michigan.gov/mold
Legally speaking, if you place or cause anything into your neighbor's yard (ie. leaves, branches, snow), it is considered trespassing. Theoretically, your neighbor could sue you, or vice versa, if they're blowing it into your yard. You could sue for punitive damages and the City would not be involved.


text:
McMaster and Sydney team up to reveal the cause of the plague
Modern science has solved a historical cold case by revealing that two of the world's most devastating plagues, the Black Death and Plague of Justinian—each responsible for killing as many as half the people then in Europe—were caused by distinct versions of the same pathogen, Yersinia pestis.
The research, by an international collaboration of scientists including the University of Sydney, used miniscule DNA fragments from the 1500-year-old teeth of two victims of the Justinian plague, and produced the oldest pathogen genomes ever obtained.
The findings suggest new plagues could emerge in humans in the future.
"We discovered that the bacterium responsible for the Plague of Justinian, which jumped from rats to humans and killed many millions of people in the sixth century, faded out on its own," said Professor Edward Holmes, from the University of Sydney's School of Biological Sciences and co-lead author of the study published recently in Lancet Infectious Disease. The findings not only give a new historical perspective, but could also lead to a better understanding of the dynamics of modern infectious disease.
The findings are dramatic because little has been known about the origins or cause of the enigmatic Justinian Plague, which helped bring an end to the Roman Empire, killing virtually half the world's population as it spread across Asia, North Africa, Arabia and Europe.
The samples came from ancient plague victims buried in a small cemetery in the German town of Aschheim, who are believed to have died in the final stages of the epidemic when it reached southern Bavaria sometime between 541 and 543.
For this study, scientists reconstructed the oldest pathogen genome ever obtained and compared it to a database of Yersinia pestis genomes of more than a hundred contemporary strains.
They found that the Justinian outbreak was an evolutionary "dead end" and distinct from strains involved in the Black Death and other plague pandemics. A third pandemic, likely to be a descendant of the Black Death strain, started in Yunnan in China in 1855 and spread globally, killing more than 12 million people in China and India alone.
Dave Wagner, an associate professor in the Center for Microbial Genetics and Genomics at Northern Arizona University said, "We know the bacterium Y. pestis has jumped from rodents into humans throughout history, and rodent reservoirs of plague still exist today in many parts of the world. Fortunately we now have antibiotics that could be used to effectively treat plague, which lessens the chances of another large-scale human pandemic."
Two unanswered questions remain: why was the Justinian Plague so remarkably virulent and what caused it to die out?
"This study raises intriguing questions about why a pathogen that was both so successful and so deadly died out. One testable possibility is that human populations evolved to become less susceptible," said Professor Holmes.
Hendrik Poinar, associate professor and director of the McMaster Ancient DNA Centre and an investigator with the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, is co-lead author of the research.
The research was funded by in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Canada Research Chairs Program, US Department of Homeland Security, US National Institutes of Health, and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council.


text:
- Table of contents
- OsmoTRX
- OsmoTRX user manuals and documentation
- OsmoTRX in the Osmocom GSM architecture (old OsmoNITB case)
- OsmoTRX in the Osmocom GSM architecture (new OsmoBSC+OsmoMSC case)
- RF Hardware support
- Embedded Platform Support
- Features
- Mailing List / Forum
- GPRS support
- Source code
- Dependencies
- Configuration and Build
- Running
- OsmoTRX with OpenBTS
- Authors
- Commercial Support
- TS 05.01 "Physical layer on the radio path"
- TS 05.02 "Multiplexing and Multiple Access on the Radio Path"
- TS 05.04 "Modulation"
- TS 05.10 "Radio subsystem synchronization"
OsmoTRX is based on the transceiver code from the OpenBTS project, but setup to operate independently with the purpose of using with non-OpenBTS software and projects, while still maintaining backwards compatibility with OpenBTS. Currently there are numerous features contained in OsmoTRX that extend the functionality of the OpenBTS transceiver. These features include enhanced support for various embedded platforms - notably ARM - and dual channel diversity support for the Fairwaves umtrx.
OsmoTRX user manuals and documentation¶
User Manual can be found here.
VTY Reference can be found here for osmo-trx-ipc, osmo-trx-lms, osmo-trx-uhd and osmo-trx-usrp1
OsmoTRX in the Osmocom GSM architecture (old OsmoNITB case)¶
OsmoTRX in the Osmocom GSM architecture (new OsmoBSC+OsmoMSC case)¶
RF Hardware support¶
Multiple RF devices are currently supported. These include USRP family products from Ettus Research, and the UmTRX from Fairwaves, as well as LimeSDR devices from Lime Microsystems using LimeSuite.
more details (e.g. signal levels) are provided in the hardware specific pages:
Embedded Platform Support¶
OsmoTRX has been tested on the multiple embedded platforms representing a wide range of device types. Low cost ARM devices are generally limited by memory and I/O as much CPU utilization.
Running a full or near full ARFCN configuration (7 simultaneous TCH channels with Combination V) may require running the GSM stack remotely, which can be configured at runtime on the command line. This limitation appears to be scheduling related more so than lack of CPU resources, and may be resolved at a later time.
Platform | SoC* | Processor | SIMD/FPU | Testing Notes |
ArndaleBoard | Samsung Exynos 5250 | ARM Cortex-A15 | NEON-VFPv4 | 7 TCH |
BeagleBoard-xM | Texas Instruments OMAP3 | ARM Cortex-A8 | NEON | 7 TCH, remote osmobts stack |
Ettus E100 | Texas Instruments OMAP3 | ARM Cortex-A8 | NEON | 7 TCH, remote osmobts stack |
Raspberry Pi | Broadcom BCM2835 | ARM11 | VFP | 2 TCH, remote osmobts stack |
Shuttle PC | NA | Intel Atom D2550 | SSE3 | Dual channel, 15 TCH |
All embedded plaforms were tested with low-phase error modulator disabled. Use of the more accurate modulator on embedded platforms has not been extensively tested.
Intel SSE Support- SSE3
On Intel processors, OsmoTRX makes heavy use of the Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) instruction set. Accelerated operations include pulse shape filtering, resampling, sequence correlation, and many other signal processing operations. SSE3 is the minimum requirement for accelerated use.
SSE3 is present in the majority of Intel processors since later versions of the Pentium 4 architecture and is also present on low power Atom processors. Support is automatically detected at build time. For additional performance information, please see the performance and benchmarks section.
ARM Support- NEON
- NEON-VFPv4
OsmoTRX runs on a variety of ARM processors with and without NEON coprocessors. Like SSE on Intel processors, NEON provides acceleration with SIMD vectorized instructions.
Tested popular architectures include ARM11 (Raspberry Pi), Cortex-A8 (!BeagleBoard), and Cortex-A15 (!ArndaleBoard). Loosely speaking, these platforms are representative of low cost embedded devices, mid-level handsets, and high-end smartphones respectively. Similarly, in order, these platforms include no NEON coprocessor, standard NEON, and NEON-VFPv4. The latter NEON variation, VFPv4, provides additional fused-multiply-accumulate (FMA) instructions useful for many DSP operations.
NEON support must be enabled by the user at build time. For additional information, please see the configuration and performance and benchmarks sections.
Dual Channel (UmTRX and B210)
Two dual channel modes are available: standard dual channel mode and diversity. In standard dual channel mode, each RF
path of the dual channel device supports a different ARFCN. Each path operates independently a
nd operates similarly to two separate devices. GSM channel capacity in this mode is doubled. This option can be configured at run time from the command line.
Dual Channel Diversity (UmTRX, experimental)
Diversity mode is similar to the standard dual channel mode except each antenna supports both ARFCN channels. In this case, the receiver sample bandwidth is widened to handle both ARFCN's and subsequently converted and demultiplexed into separate sample streams. Each GSM receive path is fed dual signals, where antenna selection diversity is performed by taking the stronger signal on a burst-by-burst basis. This diversity setup improves uplink reception performance in multipath fading environments.
Limitations are increased CPU utilization and that ARFCN spacing is restricted (currently at 400 kHz) by the receiver sampling bandwidth. Setting the ARFCN spacing beyond the sampling limit will disable the diversity path and operate in standard dual channel mode. This options can be configured at run time from the command line.
Uplink Burst Detection
OsmoTRX utilizes an updated receive burst detection algorithm that provides greater sensitivity and reliability than the original OpenBTS approach, which relied on energy detection for the initial stage of burst acquisition.
The limitation of the previous approach was that it was slow to adapt to highly transient power levels and false burst detection in challenging situations such as receiver saturation, which may occur in close range lab testing. The other issue was that a high degree of level tuning was often necessary to operate reliably.
The current receiver code addressed those limitations for improved performance in a wider variety of environments.
Low Phase Error Modulator
The default GSM downlink signal is configured for low distortion using a linearized GMSK modulator. The implementation is based on a two pulse Laurent approximation of continuous phase modulated (CPM) signals. The baseband output signal measures with very low phase error and is capable of passing industry spectrum mask requirements. Please note that actual performance will depend strongly on the particular device in use.
Theoretical details can be found in the report on GMSK. Octave / Matlab code for pulse generation is also available.
This option can be enabled or disabled at run time from the command line.
Very Low Phase Error (Ettus Research N200)
Spectrum Mask (Ettus Research N200)
Mailing List / Forum¶
For development purposes, OsmoTRX is discussed on the OpenBSC mailing list at email@example.com.
Subscription information is available at http://lists.osmocom.org/mailman/listinfo/openbsc/. Please make sure to read our MailingListRules before posting.
We now also have a 2G RAN category on our discourse forum
GPRS support¶
- OsmoTRX supports the GPRS (and EGPRS/EDGE) features of osmoPCU and osmoBTS as well as the remaining Osmocom stack, such as OsmoSGSN and OsmoGGSN
- OsmoTRX does not support GPRS in combination with OpenBTS. For that, please use the transceiver supplied with OpenBTS.
Source code¶
The source code is available from gitea.osmocom.org (module osmo-trx).
Public read-only access is available via
$ git clone https://gitea.osmocom.org/cellular-infrastructure/osmo-trx.git
You can browse it via gitea: https://gitea.osmocom.org/cellular-infrastructure/osmo-trx
Install libusb-1.0 and libbost dev packages. On debian 8.4:
sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends libusb-1.0-0-dev libboost-dev
Unless using USRP1, you will need the Universal Hardware Driver (UHD),
which is available from Ettus Research or Fairwaves; the UHD implementation
must match your hardware:
- Ettus Research UHD for USRP devices
- Fairwaves UHD with UmTRX
- USRP1 does not use the UHD driver, it is supported through the legacy libusrp driver provided in GNU Radio 3.4.2.
UHD for Debian¶
When you are reading this, Debian packages for UHD may be sufficient for running osmo-trx and osmo-bts-trx.
here are some of the packages that need to be installed:
sudo apt-get install libuhd-dev uhd-host
At the time of writing this (2016-12), for Debian 8 aka jessie you need to use the jessie-backports packages:
sudo -s echo "deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian jessie-backports main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/uhd.list apt-get update apt-get -t jessie-backports install libuhd-dev uhd-host
It may also be possible to use the pothos PPA instead:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:guruofquality/pothos sudo apt-get update sudo apt install libboost-dev uhd
You also need to download the firmware using a script provided by the UHD package.
Instructions suggest running the script as root, but this way is less dangerous:
sudo mkdir /usr/share/uhd sudo chown $USER: /usr/share/uhd /usr/lib/uhd/utils/uhd_images_downloader.py
You can flash the FPGA data you just downloaded with the following command, setting type and other parameters accordingly to your hw. For instance for an Ettus B200:
uhd_image_loader --args="type=b200"
The uhd_image_loader claims it can update the firmware too, but at least on some versions it does nothing when asked to update firmware. If you see no output of firwmare being flashed, you can use this other command line to flash the firmware, adapting it to the firmware file of your HW:
/usr/lib/uhd/utils/b2xx_fx3_utils --load-fw /usr/share/uhd/images/usrp_b200_fw.hex
You may need to add yourself to the usrp group:
sudo gpasswd -a $USER usrp # and re-login to acquire the group
run uhd_find_devices to make sure b200 is available:
$ uhd_find_devices linux; GNU C++ version 4.9.1; Boost_105500; UHD_003.007.003-0-unknown -------------------------------------------------- -- UHD Device 0 -------------------------------------------------- Device Address: type: b200 name: MyB210 serial: 1C0FFEE product: B210
Configuration and Build¶
First, run autoreconf to remake the build system files.
$ autoreconf -i ...
Intel Platforms (All)
Intel SSE support is automatically detected on Intel x86 platforms. No user intervention is necessary. The general configuration defaults to the low phase error modulator. Atom users may wish to use the low-CPU utilization modulator, which can be later enabled from the command line at runtime.
$ ./configure ... checking whether mmx is supported... yes checking whether sse is supported... yes checking whether sse2 is supported... yes checking whether sse3 is supported... yes checking whether ssse3 is supported... yes checking whether sse4.1 is supported... yes checking whether sse4.2 is supported... yes ...
ARM Platforms with NEON
Many popular ARM development boards fall under this category including BeagleBoard, PandaBoard, and Ettus E100 USRP. This option will disable the low phase error modulator, which can be re-enabled at runtime. NEON support must be manually enabled.
$ ./configure --with-neon
ARM Platforms with NEON-VFPv4
Currently very few development platforms support this instruction set, which is seen mainly in high end smartphones and tablets. Available development boards are ArndaleBoard and ODROID-XU. This option will disable the low phase error modulator, which can be re-enabled at runtime. NEON-VFPv4 support must be manually enabled.
$ ./configure --with-neon-vfpv4
ARM Platforms without NEON
This configuration mainly targets the Raspberry Pi. ARM platforms without NEON vector units are almost always very slow processors, and generally not very suitable for running OsmoTRX. Running OsmoTRX on a Raspberry Pi, however, is possible along with limited TCH (voice) channel support. Currently this configuration requires minor code changes.
Coming soon...
Choosing your target device
Different SDR boards are managed using different software or libraries, usually provided by the vendor. As a result, different osmo-trx
binaries can be built based on which device one targets. For instance, if support for LimeSDR is required, one must use the osmo-trx-lms
binary, whereas if a UHD device is targeted, osmo-trx-uhd must be used, and so on. Build of different @osmo-trx
binaries is controlled at configure time:
--with-uhd enable UHD based transceiver --with-usrp1 enable USRP1 gnuradio based transceiver --with-lms enable LimeSuite based transceiver
Build and Install
After configuration, installation is simple.
$ make $ sudo make install
Normally simply start osmo-trx-uhd
or similar, based on your target device. You only need to remember to pass a suitable config file.
OsmoTRX can be configured with a variety of options. You can find examples for several different devices under doc/examples
of osmo-trx.git
See section "OsmoTRX user manuals and documentation" where you can find links to the VTY reference.
$ osmo-trx-uhd -C default.cfg linux; GNU C++ version 5.3.1 20151219; Boost_105800; UHD_003.009.002-0-unknown opening configuration table from path :memory: Config Settings Log Level............... NOTICE Device args............. TRX Base Port........... 5700 TRX Address............. 127.0.0.1 Channels................ 1 Tx Samples-per-Symbol... 4 Rx Samples-per-Symbol... 1 EDGE support............ Disabled Reference............... Internal C0 Filler Table......... Disabled Multi-Carrier........... Disabled Diversity............... Disabled Tuning offset........... 0 RSSI to dBm offset...... 0 Swap channels........... 0 -- Detected Device: B200 -- Loading FPGA image: /usr/share/uhd/images/usrp_b200_fpga.bin... done -- Operating over USB 2. -- Detecting internal GPSDO.... No GPSDO found -- Initialize CODEC control... -- Initialize Radio control... -- Performing register loopback test... pass -- Performing CODEC loopback test... pass -- Asking for clock rate 16.000000 MHz... -- Actually got clock rate 16.000000 MHz. -- Performing timer loopback test... pass -- Setting master clock rate selection to 'automatic'. -- Asking for clock rate 26.000000 MHz... -- Actually got clock rate 26.000000 MHz. -- Performing timer loopback test... pass -- Setting B200 4/1 Tx/Rx SPS -- Transceiver active with 1 channel(s)
Remember OsmoTRX binaries provide a VTY interface like other osmocom programs, where you can for instance set up logging as desired. VTY is available by default under localhost
port 4237
OsmoTRX with OpenBTS¶
OsmoTRX is fully compatible with OpenBTS for voice and SMS services. Due to differences in handing of GPRS, OsmoTRX does not support GPRS when used with OpenBTS, however, GPRS with the Osmocom stack is supported.
For use with OpenBTS, enable the filler table option "Enable C0 filler table", which enables OpenBTS style idle bursts and retransmissions.
$ osmo-trx-uhd -C default.cfg -f
The OsmoTRX transceiver should be started before running OpenBTS. No symbolic link to './transceiver' should exist in the OpenBTS directory. This prevents OpenBTS from starting its own transceiver instance.
The code is derived from the OpenBTS project, which was originally developed by David Burgess and Harvind Samra at Range Networks.
It was subsequently maintained by Tom Tsou and Alexander Chemeris, while more recently sysmocom has taken over the role of maintainer.
Commercial Support¶
Commercial support as well as development, system integration and training services for this project are available from sysmocom
Updated by laforge 7 months ago · 83 revisions


text:
US Marshals to auction seized bitcoin
The U.S. Marshals Service said Thursday it will auction roughly $18 million in bitcoins seized last fall from Silk Road, a website that was effectively the eBay of illegal drugs.
The marshals said Thursday that they will auction the virtual "coins," consisting of sets of numbers entered in an online public ledger, via the Web on June 27.
Authorities say Silk Road generated more than $1 billion in illicit business from January 2011 to October 2013, when alleged operator Ross William Ulbricht was arrested in a public library in San Francisco. Ulbricht has pleaded not guilty. The website took commissions in bitcoins, which are hard to track.
The marshals are auctioning off 29,657 bitcoins in 10 blocks, which means buyers will need to pony up nearly $1.8 million each.
The Marshals Service is keeping another 144,342 bitcoins, worth about $87 million at current rates, that were found on Ulbricht's computer. He's contesting their forfeiture.
More information: U.S. Marshals Service's auction details: www.usmarshals.gov/assets/2014/bitcoins/
© 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.


text:
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LEGO® Star Wars™: The Force Awakens™ marks the triumphant return of the No. 1 LEGO videogame franchise and immerses fans in the new Star Wars adventure like never before. Players can relive the epic action from the blockbuster film in a way that only LEGO can offer, featuring all of the storylines from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, retold through the clever and witty LEGO lens. The game will also feature exclusive playable content that takes players on adventures between Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, providing additional insight about the new movie and its characters.
LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens takes players deeper into the new film than any other game with all of the heroic characters from the movie, including Rey, Finn, Poe Dameron, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and BB-8, as well as Kylo Ren, General Hux and Captain Phasma, while also exploring iconic Star Wars locales, such as Jakku and Starkiller Base.
This action-packed adventure introduces new gameplay features, including the enhanced "Multi-Builds" system, where players can choose from multiple building options to advance the game. Gamers will be able to engage in intense new Blaster Battles for the first time, utilizing surrounding environments to drive back the First Order. Fans can also experience the thrill of high-speed flight gameplay through arena-based battles and dogfights in space, while utilizing a multitude of vehicles along the way, including the legendary Millennium Falcon.
If for any reason you are not 100% happy with your purchase, we can provide you with a full refund or exchange if you return it to us within 7 days after you receive the goods. Conditions apply, please see our terms and conditions.


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How to Save $264 a Year on Beauty TreatmentsLearn how to extend the life of your haircut, facial, manicure and more |
Facials are important for maintaining healthy skin as they can "stimulate cell renewal, remove dry skin, break down stubborn discoloration (brown spots), and fade post-breakout red/brown marks," says Rouleau. Unfortunately at $65 to $600 a pop, they don't come cheap. Rouleau recommends getting one every four to six weeks, but with her tips, you can cut back to four times a year, once a season.
Tip 1: Avoid harsh cleansers. "What you wash with is the most important part of your skin care routine. Why? If you wash with a foaming cleanser or soap that is too drying, it pulls all the water out of the skin and creates dead, dry skin cell buildup," says Rouleau. When it comes to choosing a face wash, "always remember, more lather, more drying. Less lather, less drying," she says. She also advises to avoid any cleansers formulated with an ingredient called Sodium Lauryl Sulfate or Ammonium Laureth Sulfate, which will cut the natural oil from your skin.
Tip 2: Use a toner and make sure it�s alcohol-free. Toners give your skin a drink of moisture and remove drying chlorines and minerals found in tap water. They also balance the PH levels in your skin, enhancing the results of your skin care program, says Rouleau. "Supplying the skin with essential hydration and nutrients will repair the skin�s protective barrier making it less sensitive and resistant to environmental damage," she says, therefore you'll be able to see your facialist a little less often.
Next: At-home facial tips
SEE NEXT PAGE: Do your own at-home facial
Older comments
I saw some great information here! Thanks!
by EricaC123 Monday, January 21, 2013 at 03:37AM Report as inappropriate
Good ideas! I need to learn how to do some of these.
by Sari Sunday, January 20, 2013 at 11:18PM Report as inappropriate
great article. Totally agree with the previous reviewer, thoug. You definitely can save MUCH more if you do some of those things yourself. It is easy to do perfect (even better than salon) mani-pedi, eyebrow shaping yourself.
by venenumletalis Sunday, January 20, 2013 at 06:48PM Report as inappropriate
If you learn to do a lot of that stuff, you are gonna save. (And have some girlfriends who know how to do too.)
by nicky22 Wednesday, December 19, 2012 at 10:22AM Report as inappropriate
I do everything except for my nails. I do my brows, my friend's brows and I even ombre'd my own hair.
by MizzPink Wednesday, December 19, 2012 at 07:15AM Report as inappropriate
I like doing my own nails. manis are too risky, who knows if they actually clean the tools???
by eatinglipstick Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 01:32PM Report as inappropriate
I cut and color my own hair, paint my own fingers and toes, make my own face and body scrubs, and bribe my boyfriend for massages. I save a lot more than $264 a year!
by xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Tuesday, March 6, 2012 at 09:59PM Report as inappropriate


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8 Franchise Relocations That Fell Through
By Ethan Trex
On Tuesday night, ESPN aired Barry Levinson's The Band that Wouldn't Die, the second installment of its 30 for 30 documentary series. Levinson's film tells the story of the Baltimore Colts' marching band, a group that continued marching in Baltimore even after the team relocated to Indianapolis in 1984. While we were watching the grim tale of sports franchise relocation, we wondered what other moves almost happened, but fell through. Here are a few moves that nearly changed the landscape of sports:
1 & 2. The Seattle White Sox (or Florida White Sox)
That deal quickly fell through, but the team came even closer to leaving Chicago in 1988. After failing to secure funding for a taxpayer-supported new stadium, the team's ownership group eyed St. Petersburg as a potential new landing spot. Fans in Florida even started printing Florida White Sox shirts as it became increasingly clear the Sox would be moving to the Sunshine State. Indignant Chicago fans inundated St. Petersburg Mayor Robert Ulrich's mailbox with dirty pairs of white socks to let him know those were the only pieces of pale hosiery he'd be getting. Eventually, though, the state legislature relented in an eleventh-hour deal that saved the team $60 million in new construction costs and kept the White Sox in Chicago.
3. The Saskatoon Blues
Obviously, Ralston Purina was hot to sell the team, and they found a buyer in Edmonton Oilers founder Bill Hunter. Hunter and his investment group planned to buy the team and move it to hockey-crazed Saskatoon. The NHL wasn't too keen to lose a big market like St. Louis, though, and nixed the deal. Eventually businessman Harry Ornest bought the team and kept it in St. Louis.
4. The St. Louis Patriots
Not everyone was trying to get out of St. Louis, though. In 1992, St. Louis native James Orthwein bought the New England Patriots with the hope of moving the franchise to his hometown. Orthwein, who was the great-grandson of Anheuser-Busch founder Adolphus Busch, never got his relocation act together, though, and in 1994 he sold the team to current owner Robert Kraft.
5. The Louisville Rockets
At the beginning of this decade, the Houston Rockets briefly flirted with a move to Louisville, KY. Although the move never got all that close to happening, it was memorable thanks to a rumor about the team's potential Louisville arena, a Kentucky Fried Chicken-sponsored home called "" what else? "" "The Bucket."
6 & 7. The Toronto Oilers and Edmonton Maple Leafs
Teams swap players all the time, but swapping cities? It almost happened in the NHL in 1980. At the time the Toronto Maple Leafs were hemorrhaging money with a lousy roster, and the Edmonton Oilers had a stacked squad that would end up winning five Stanley Cups over the course of the next decade.
According to Oilers owner Peter Pocklington, Leafs owner Harold Ballard called him up with a novel proposition: the teams would simply swap markets. The Oilers would move to Toronto and pay Ballard $50 million in cash for slipping into the bigger market, while the Leafs would take the Oilers' old spot in Edmonton. Pocklington wrote in his autobiography that he was all for the move, but Ballard got cold feet and backed out at the last minute.
8. The Memphis Hornets
The Memphis Grizzlies are right up there with the Los Angeles Clippers in the race for the dubious title of the NBA's biggest laughingstock, but they won at least one major battle this decade. On March 26, 2001, both the then-Vancouver Grizzlies and the moribund Charlotte Hornets applied to relocate to Memphis. When the NBA granted the Grizzlies the right to move to Elvis' old city, the Hornets had to scramble to find another landing place. After eyeing Norfolk, Louisville and St. Louis, the Hornets settled for New Orleans and moved to the Big Easy for the start of the 2002-2003 season.
And the Time the Colts & Rams Swapped Deeds
Who needs to swap cities when you can just swap deeds? It happened with the Colts and the Rams in 1972. Colts owner Carroll Rosenbloom was tiring of owning an NFL team in Baltimore thanks to his squabbles with the local media and the Orioles' ownership. He did like owning a team, however. Rather than move the team, Rosenbloom would just have to get creative.
Enter Robert Irsay, who was considering becoming a minority owner in any deal to buy the Colts. Irsay and Rosenbloom came up with a clever way to make everyone happy: Irsay would buy the L.A. Rams. Irsay then traded the deed to the Rams for the deed to the Colts and $3 million in cash. Just like that, the teams changed hands without moving an inch. Irsay, of course, would become Baltimore's number one public enemy in 1984 when he moved the Colts to Indianapolis.
[Mayflower/Baltimore Colts image credit: Lloyd Pearson, Baltimore Sun]


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The Technical Papers chair manages the world's premier forum for the most definitive research in computer graphics and interactive techniques. The chair recruits and supervises a committee of expert reviewers representing a diverse disciplinary field, interacts with contributors on presentation, timing, and other requirements, and coordinates the on-site presentation sessions. The Technical Papers Chair works closely with the Conference Chair, the Conference Event Director, volunteers, and contractors to produce a premier program. Note: appointment to this position requires SIGGRAPH Executive Committee Approval
Recommended Qualifications
- team player who works well with others
- experience with project / fiscal management
- able to delegate responsibility and mentor team members as well as next year Papers Chair counterpart
- deadline-driven; able to organize and respond quickly
- able to devote the necessary time
- past member of the SIGGRAPH Papers Committee
- active in the research community
- respect of the SIGGRAPH technical community
- have presented a paper at SIGGRAPH
- ability to lead top researchers in review process
Specific Responsibilities
The following list is a "high-level" view of the specific responsibilities associated with serving as a Technical Papers Chair. The list is organized under general categories of responsibility.
- Participate in strategic planning for the SIGGRAPH Conference
- Create a strategic direction for the papers program including technical focus, emphasis areas, and new initiatives
- Recruit and manage a subcommittee to assist in administering the technical papers program
- Organize and implement a thorough papers review process
- Recruit and supervise junior and senior reviewers
- Provide information to accepted authors regarding formatting, timing, and requirements
- Work with the subcommittee to create a presentation schedule for accepted papers
- Work with contractors to ensure on-site presentation facilities are appropriate
- Manage the on-site presentation of papers
- Work with the Conference Chair and Event Director to prepare preliminary and final conference budgets for the Papers program
- Manage the Papers budget
- Develop the papers section of the Call for Participation
- Review copies of promotional materials and publications to ensure accurate Papers information
- Assist the Publications Chair in the collection of accepted papers for both Conference Proceedings and DVD
- Work with SIGGRAPH Video Review (SVR) group and The Computer Animation Festival Chair, as appropriate, to produce a Papers video (if one is created)
- Report regularly to the Conference Chair and Event Director on the status of the Papers program
- Facilitate and participate in timely communication with the subcommittee, reviewers, jury, and contributors to provide direction and solve problems
- Produce a final report by the wrapup meeting (October) describing the papers process, changes from previous years, and lessons learned
- Attend and participate in all conference committees meetings
- Attend the Papers sort
- Organize and implement an effective jury meeting to select technical papers


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A graduate student may take courses at the 100/200/300/400 levels under the Credit/No Credit grading policy; however, no course in which a grade of "CR" has been assigned may be used to fulfill the requirements for a master's degree, except that the grade of "CR" may be permitted for master's theses or projects to a maximum of six units when the individual department has specifically designated Credit/No Credit grading for the thesis/project course in the department and for field work, practicum, and/or internship courses.
For graduate students, courses at the 300/400/500/600/700 levels require "B" level proficiency to merit award of the "CR" grade; at the 100/200 levels "C" level proficiency or better is required for award of the "CR" grade.
The option of Credit/No Credit grading for graduate students on 100/200/300/400-level courses is subject to specific regulations of the individual departments regarding their graduate students and regarding the authorization for this option intrinsic to the approved course. Otherwise, no limitation exists as to the number of courses taken under this policy.
No waiver of course requirements or credit by examination may be used to satisfy master's degree requirements. However, the following rules govern course waivers or credit by examination in satisfying prerequisites for admission to candidacy in any master's degree program.
Any candidate for a master's degree who believes that previous training has provided adequate preparation in a certain area may request a waiver from the department concerned.
A candidate may also apply for course credit by examination, but only for prerequisite courses and not to satisfy any of the requirements for the master's degree. Requests for such examinations must be made to the department concerned and approved by the department chair. Credit by examination is restricted to courses published in the current CSULB Catalog. Please see Credit by Examination in the General Regulations section of this catalog.
All course credit by examination will be recorded as CR (Credit) and will not be included in calculation of grade-point averages; such credit may not be used to remove a grade of "D" or "F" in a course already attempted, nor may course credit by examination be granted for any course which is a prerequisite to one for which credit has already been received.


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Raised in Sydney and Perth, Fiona Stanley completed a medical degree at the University of Western Australia in 1970. Her early clinical experience convinced her of the need for better outcomes in child and maternal health. After studying epidemiology in Britain and the United States, she returned to Perth and forged a highly successful research career. She was the founding director of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, which helped show that folic acid before and during pregnancy can prevent spina bifida in babies. The multi-disciplinary institute also became a leader in Aboriginal health research. In 2002 Fiona Stanley was a driving force behind the formation of the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, which had signed up over 340 member organisations by 2009.
As Australian of the Year, Professor Stanley toured the country stressing the great value of scientific research in improving the lives of children and Aboriginal people.


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BioWare's Montreal studio was developing a competitive first-person shooter called Mass Effect Team Assault in 2010 before transforming that effort into the third-person multiplayer mode in Mass Effect 3, according to a new behind-the-scenes iPad app created by gaming journalist Geoff Keighley.
"The goal was simple," Keighley reports in The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3, "to create a standalone multiplayer experience in the Mass Effect universe that would mix the play styles of Unreal Tournament and Battlefield 1943 — and likely be released as a downloadable game."
The game was in development for four months and was presented, in March 2010, as the prototype seen in the images in this story. (Those images are captured from Keighley's app, which features video of the prototype.)
The powers-that-be at BioWare liked the idea of a multiplayer shooter, because it presented an added view of the wide-ranging war occurring during Mass Effect 3. The idea morphed into the development of a co-op mode for Mass Effect 3 itself. The main game's engine wouldn't allow gamers to play co-op in the main campaign of Mass Effect 3, but it would allow them to team up in a separate skirmish mode, which is what BioWare delivered in the sequel that finally came out earlier this month. As the BioWare developers shifted to that, Mass Effect Team Assault "was put on the back burner."
The Final Hours of Mass Effect is packed with stories like these (though maybe no others quite so juicy!). If you want to read a ton more about the making of Mass Effect 3, watch video interviews with the developers, check out deleted scenes from the game and even swipe through some panoramic photos shot inside BioWare HQ, grap the app from iTunes. It's iPad-only for now but will be released for PC in the next couple of days as well. (Look for an announcement on the app's official site.)
The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3 [iTunes, $2.99]


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The Tempest at the Met
November 01, 2012
* Notes *
The Metropolitan Opera, dark for two nights because of Hurricane Sandy, reopened on Halloween with a third performance of The Tempest by Thomas Adès. The production, from Robert Lepage, is enchanting. The piece is set in a version of La Scala, which starts almost as a paper theater, but ends up being rather detailed and substantial. Act I is from the stage, Act II from the audience, and Act III has a scene from backstage, followed by one in cross section (pictured left, photograph by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera). Projections are used to conjure the tempest and the sea. Entrances and exits are made using the prompter's box, curtains, and even the chandelier. The acrobatics involved make for fine spectacle.
The orchestra was lead by an enthusiastic Adès, the playing was clear and the music rather eerie. Adès eschews sentimentality, but can be somewhat harsh, and some of the singers did sound pushed to their limits. The chorus sounded sturdy and together.
Kevin Burdette (Stefano) and Iestyn Davies (Trinculo) excelled as the comic relief of the evening, moving gracefully. Audrey Luna is an otherworldly Ariel, her notes so high she seemed to be squeaking in a cetacean language. Isabel Leonard was a little acidic, but she is a pretty Miranda, and was plaintive in Act III. Alek Shrader sang Ferdinand with sweetness, and with a characteristic metallic sheen in the high notes.
Caliban is a rather sympathetic creature in this opera, and Alan Oke sang with a certain gentleness when necessary. William Burden gave a nuanced performance as the King of Naples, his voice sounded bright and strong. Toby Spence was a believable Antonio, and his sound is distinct from the aforementioned tenors. Though Simon Keenlyside's voice is not particularly robust, his Prospero has much fire and beauty.
* Tattling *
There were a number of talkative audience members in Family Circle, both in seats and in standing room. Given the lack of public transportation, it was not surprising that the hall was not entirely full. There was also noticeable attrition at the intermission. The ovation was, however, ebullient.


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While perusing the ASUS booth for notebooks and graphics cards and motherboards, we also spotted some new overclocking software that looked kind of interesting.
ASUS GPUTweak will ship with ASUS graphics cards starting later this year but they did indicate that it will be available as free download for users of ANY brand of graphics card; which is a nice way to gain some street cred. The software combines a monitoring application, overclocking application and custom version of GPU-Z in a single interface to allow users to really push their GPUs beyond stock settings.
Besides the semi-standard options of frequency (both GPU and memory), voltages and fan speeds, ASUS GPUTweak software will allow users of ASUS Matrix / ROG graphics cards to modify the timings on their GPU memory as well, something that is unique to its offerings.
The software will also allow you "burn" settings into your Matrix cards BIOS so that they will boot at the overclocked settings regardless of the any installed software or operating system. There is a Safety button on all Matrix cards to revert back to the original settings in case of an emergency…
It is nice to see ASUS jumping into the ring here with some competent software and I am curious to see how it will be welcomed after we have seen MSI's Afterburner application become such a hit with gamers.
Computex 2011 Coverage brought to you by MSI Computer and Antec


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Let $R[f](p,t)$ denote the Radon transform of smooth function $f(x) \colon \mathbb{R}^n \to \mathbb{R}$ with compact support in $\mathbb{R}^n_+$: $$ R[f](p,t) = \int\limits_{x \cdot p = t} f(x) dx. $$ In field of mathematical economics $p$ and $t$ may have meaning of prices and then be positive. Hence there arises a problem of recovery of function $f(x)$ via it's Radon transforms $R[f](p,t)$ with $p \in \mathbb{R}^n_+$ and $t > 0$. I would like to know if there are some results on this topic.
I was asked about economical interpretation of the Radon transform. A part of economical models consists of models of production. The simplest model of production is so called Leontieff model. Say, in some sector one produce some product and use $n$ other resourses. To produce $1$ unit of our product we have to use $x_1$ units of first resourse, $x_2$ units of second e.t.c., in other words, if we have $(u_1,\ldots,u_n)$ resourses we can produce $\min \left( \frac{u_1}{x_{1}},\ldots,\frac{u_n}{x_n}\right)$ units of our production. This function is called Leontieff production function. In real models there exists an effect of substitution of production factors at the microlevel and we have to modify the Leontieff production function by the appropriate neoclassic production function. But we will still talk about Leontieff model. Let $p_0$ be a price of a unit of our production and $p=(p_1,\ldots,p_n)$ be a vector of prices of resourses, $\mu$ be a measure, that describes a distribution of available production powers over production technologies (any technology is given by a vector of resourses to produce a unit vector of our production, but we can use many technologies in production, see Hauthekker-Johaneson model) Then our profit function is a function $$ \Pi(p,p_0) = \int (p_0 - p \cdot x)_{+} \mu(dx) $$ and it gives us a maximal profit possible (it is a result of maximisation over distributions $\mu$ allowed by existing production powers). It's second derivative is exactly the Radon transform of measure $\mu$.


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Source Information
UK Naval Officer and Rating Service Records. Admiralty: Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Coastguard and related services: Officers' and Ratings' Service Records (Series II). ADM 29/1–32, 34–96, 105–130. The National Archives, Kew, England.
About UK, Naval Officer and Rating Service Records, 1802-1919
British officers and ratings (non-commissioned seamen) in the Royal Navy were awarded pensions after 20 years' service. This collection includes records that documented that service, including musters and pay registers, which were compiled by the Navy Pay Office.
Besides pension applications, you may find applications and supporting service records relating to the admittance of orphaned children into Greenwich Hospital School, applications to remove erroneous mentions of desertion, and applications for discharge by foreigners or apprentices who were impressed into service in the British Navy.
While the records vary in format, details you may find include the name of the sailor, dates and ships he served on, rank or rating, nature of work on the ship, and remarks.
While no service dates are listed on the documents past the year 1912, many of the sailors in this collection may have served during World War I.


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The two previous articles have focused on the various geopolitical theories, their translations into modern concepts, and practical actions that the United States has taken in recent decades to aspire to global dominance. This segment will describe how Iran, China and Russia have over the years adopted a variety of economic and military actions to repel the continual assault on their sovereignty by the West; in particular, how the American drive for global hegemony has actually accelerated the end of the 'unipolar moment' thanks to the emergence of a multipolar world.
From the moment the Berlin Wall fell, the United States saw a unique opportunity to pursue the goal of being the sole global hegemon. With the end of the Soviet Union, Washington could undoubtedly aspire to planetary domination paying little heed to the threat of competition and especially of any consequences.
America found herself the one and only global superpower, faced with the prospect of extending cultural and economic model around the planet, where necessary by military means.
Over the past 25 years there have been numerous examples demonstrating how Washington has had little hesitation in bombing nations reluctant to kowtow to Western wishes. In other examples, an economic battering ram, based on predatory capitalism and financial speculation, has literally destroyed sovereign nations, further enriching the US and European financial elite in the process.
Alliances to Resist
In the course of the last two decades, the relationship between the three major powers of the Heartland, the heart of the Earth, changed radically.
Iran, Russia and China have fully understood that union and cooperation are the only means for mutual reinforcement. The need to fight a common problem, represented by a growing American influence in domestic affairs, has forced Tehran, Beijing and Moscow to resolve their differences and embrace a unified strategy in the common interest of defending their sovereignty.
Events such as the war in Syria, the bombing of Libya, the overthrowing of the democratic order in Ukraine, sanctions against Iran, and the direct pressure applied to Beijing in the South China Sea, have accelerated integration among nations that in the early 1990s had very little in common.
Economic Integration
Analyzing US economic power it is clear that supranational organizations like the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank guarantee Washington's role as the economic leader. The pillars that support the centrality of the United States in the world economy can be attributed to the monetary policy of the Fed and the function of the dollar as a global reserve currency.
The Fed has unlimited ability to print money to finance further economic power of the private and public sector as well as to pay the bill due for very costly wars. The US dollar plays a central role as the global reserve currency as well as being used as currency for trade. This virtually obliges each central bank to own reserves in US currency, continuing to perpetuate the importance of Washington in the global economic system.
The introduction of the yuan into the international basket of the IMF, global agreements for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and Beijing's protests against its treatment by the World Trade Organization (WTO) are all alarm bells for American strategists who see the role of the American currency eroding.
In Russia, the central bank decided not to accumulate dollar reserves, favoring instead foreign currency like the Indian rupee and the Chinese yuan. The rating agencies – western financial-oligarchy tools -have diminishing credibility, having become means to manipulate markets to favor specific US interests. Chinese and Russian independent rating agencies are further confirmation of Beijing and Moscow's strategy to undermine America's role in western economics.
De-dollarization is occurring and proceeding rapidly, especially in areas of mutual business interest. In what is becoming increasingly routine, nations are dealing in commodities by negotiating in currencies other than the dollar. The benefit is twofold: a reduction in the role of the dollar in their sovereign affairs, and an increase in synergies between allied nations. Iran and India exchanged oil in rupees, and China and Russia trade in yuan.
Another advantage enjoyed by the United States, intrinsically linked to the banking private sector, is the political pressure that Americans can apply through financial and banking institutions.
The most striking example is seen in the exclusion of Iran from the SWIFT international system of payments, as well as the extension of sanctions, including the freezing of Tehran's assets (about 150 billion US dollars) in foreign bank deposits. While the US is trying to crack down on independent economic initiatives, nations like Iran, Russia and China are increasing their synergies.
During the period of sanctions against Iran, the Russian Federation has traded with the Islamic Republic in primary commodities. China has supported Iran with the export of oil purchased in yuan. More generally, Moscow has proposed the creation of an alternative banking system to the SWIFT system.
Private Banks, central banks, ratings agencies and supranational organizations depend in large part on the role played by the dollar and the Fed. The first goal of Iran, Russia and China is of course to make these international bodies less influential. Economic multipolarity is the first as well as the most incisive way to expand the free choice before each nation to pursue its own interests, thereby retaining its national sovereignty.
This fictitious and corrupt financial system led to the financial crisis of 2008. Tools to accumulate wealth by the elite, artificially maintaining a zombie system (turbo capitalism) have served to cause havoc in the private and public sectors, such as with the collapse of Lehman Brothers or the crisis in the Asian markets in the late 1990s.
The need for Russia, China and Iran to find an alternative economic system is also necessary to secure vital aspects of the domestic economy. The stock-market crash in China, the depreciation of the ruble in Russia, and the illegal sanctions imposed on Iran have played a profound role in concentrating the minds of Moscow, Tehran and Beijing. Ignoring the problem borne of the centrality of the dollar would have only increased the influence and role of Washington. Finding points of convergence instead of being divided was an absolute must and not an option.
A perfect example, explaining the failed American economic approach, can be seen in recent years with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), two commercial agreements that were supposed to seal the economic trade supremacy of the US.
The growing economic alternatives proposed by the union of intent between Russia, China and Iran has enabled smaller nations to reject the US proposals to seek better trade deals elsewhere.
In this sense, the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) proposed by Beijing is increasingly appreciated in Asia as an alternative to the TPP.
In the same way, the Eurasian Union (EAEU) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) have always been key components for Moscow. The function these institutions play was noticeably accelerated following the coup in Ukraine and the resulting need for Russia to turn east in search of new business partners.
Finally, Iran, chosen by Beijing as the crossroad of land and sea transit, is a prime example of integration between powers geographically distant but with great intentions to integrate vital structures of commerce.
The Chinese model of development, called Silk Road 2.0, poses a serious threat to American global hegemonic processes. The goal for Beijing is to reach full integration between the countries of the Heartland and Rimland, utilizing the concept of sea power and land power.
With an investment of 1,000 billion US dollars over ten years, China itself becomes a link between the west, represented by Europe; the east, represented by China itself; the north, with the Eurasian economic space; the south, with India; Southeast Asia; the Persian Gulf and Middle East. The hope is that economic cooperation will lead to the resolution of discrepancies and strategic differences between countries thanks to trade agreements that are beneficiary to all sides.
The role of Washington continues to be that of destruction rather than construction. Instead of playing the role of a global superpower that is interested in business and trade with other nations, the United States continues to consider any foreign decision in matters of integration, finance, economy and development to lie within its exclusive domain.
The primary purpose of the United States is simply to exploit every economic and cultural instrument available to prevent cohesion and coexistence between nations. The military component is usually the trump card, historically used to impose this vision on the rest of the world. In recent years, thanks to de-dollarization and military integration, nations like Iran, Russia and China are less subject to Washington's unilateral decisions.
Military deterrence
Accompanying the important economic integration is strong military-strategic cooperation, which is much less publicized. Events such as the Middle East wars, the coup in Ukraine, and the pressure exerted in the South China Sea have forced Tehran, Moscow and Beijing to conclude that the United States represents an existential threat.
In each of the above scenarios, China, Russia and Iran have had to make decisions by weighing the pros and cons of an opposition to the American model. The Ukraine coup d'état brought NATO to the borders of the Russian Federation, representing an existential threat to the Russia, threatening as it does its nuclear deterrent.
In the Middle East, the destruction of Iraq, Libya and Syria has obliged Tehran to react against the alliance formed between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States.
In China, the constant pressure on South China Sea poses a serious problem in case of a trade blockade during a conflict. In all these scenarios, American imperialism has created existential threats. It is for this reason natural that cooperation and technological development, even in the military area, have received a major boost in recent years.
In the event of an American attack on Russia, China and Iran, it is important to focus on what weapon systems would be used and how the attacked nations could respond.
Maritime Strategy and Deterrence
Certainly, US naval force place a serious question mark over the defense capabilities of nations like Russia, China and Iran, which strongly depend on transit via sea routes. Let us take, for example, Russia and the Arctic transit route, of great interest not only for defense purposes but also being a quick passage for transit goods. The Black Sea for these reasons has received special attention from the United States due to its strategic location. In any case, the responses have been proportional to the threat.
Iran has significantly developed maritime capabilities in the Persian Gulf, often closely marking ships of the US Navy located in the area for the purposes of deterrence. China's strategy has been even more refined, with the use of dozens, if not hundreds, of fishing boats and ships of the Coast Guard to ensure safety and strengthen the naval presence in the South and East China Sea.
This is all without forgetting the maritime strategy outlined by the PLA Navy to become a regional naval power over the next few years. Similar strategic decisions have been taken by the navy of the Russian Federation. In addition to having taken over ship production as in Soviet times, it has opted for the development of ships that cost less but nevertheless boast equivalent weapons systems to the Americans carrier groups.
Iran, China and Russia make efficiency and cost containment a tactic to balance the growing aggressiveness of the Americans and the attendant cost of such a military strategy.
The fundamental difference between the naval approach of these countries in contrast to that of the US is paramount. Washington needs to use its naval power for offensive purposes, whereas Tehran, Moscow and Beijing need naval power exclusively for defensive purposes.
In this sense, among the greatest weapons these three recalcitrant countries possess are anti-ship, anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic systems.
To put things simply, it is enough to note that Russian weapons systems such as the S-300 and S-400 air-defense systems (the S-500 will be operational in 2017) are now being adopted by China and Iran with variations developed locally. Increasingly we are witnessing an open transfer of technology to continue the work of denying (A2/AD) physical and cyberspace freedom to the United States.
Stealth aircraft, carrier strike groups, ICBMs and cruise missiles are experiencing a difficult time in such an environment, finding themselves opposed by the formidable defense systems the Russians, Iranians and Chinese are presenting. The cost of an anti-ship missile fired from the Chinese coast is considerably lower than the tens of billions of dollars needed to build an aircraft carrier.
This paradigm of cost and efficiency is what has shaped the military spending of China, Russia and Iran. Going toe to toe with the United States without being forced to close a huge military gap is the only viable way to achieve immediate tangible benefits of deterrence and thereby block American expansionist ambitions.
A clear example of where the Americans have encountered military opposition at an advanced level has been in Syria. The systems deployed by Iran and Russia to protect the Syrian government presented the Americans with the prospect of facing heavy losses in the event of an attack on Damascus. The same also holds for the anti-Iranian rhetoric of certain American politicians and Israeli leaders.
The only reason why Syria and Iran remain sovereign nations is because of the military cost that an invasion or bombing would have brought to their invaders. This is the essence of deterrence. Of course, this argument only takes into partial account the nuclear aspect that this author has extensively discussed in a previous article.
The Union of the nations of the Heartland and Rimland will make the United States irrelevant
The future for the most important area of the planet is already sealed. The overall integration of Beijing, Moscow and Tehran provides the necessary antibodies to foreign aggression in military and economic form. De-dollarization, coupled with an infrastructure roadmap such as the Chinese Silk Road 2.0 and the maritime trade route, offer important opportunities for developing nations that occupy the geographical space between Portugal and China. Dozens of nations have all it takes to integrate for mutually beneficial gains without having to worry too much about American threats.
The economic alternative offered from Beijing provides a fairly wide safety net for resisting American assaults in the same way that the military umbrella offered by these three military powers, such as with the the SCO for example, serves to guarantee the necessary independence and strategic autonomy. More and more nations are clearly rejecting American interference, favoring instead a dialogue with Beijing, Moscow and Tehran. Duterte in the Philippines is just the latest example of this trend.
The multipolar future has gradually reduced the role of the United States in the world, primarily in reaction to her aggression seeking to achieve global domination. The constant quest for planetary hegemony has pushed nations who were initially western partners to reassess their role in the international order, passing slowly but progressively into the opposite camp to that of Washington.
The consequences of this process have sealed the destiny of the United States, not only as a response to her quest for supremacy but also because of her efforts to maintain her role as the sole global superpower.
As noted in previous articles, during the Cold War the aim for Washington was to prevent the formation of a union between the nations of the Heartland, who could then exclude the US from the most important area of the globe.
With the fall of the Iron Curtain, sights were set on an improbable quest to conquer the Heartland nations with the intent of dominating the whole world. The consequences of this miscalculation have led the United States to being relegated to the role of mere observer, watching the unions and integrations occurring that will revolutionize the Eurasian zone and the planet over the next 50 years.
The desperate search to extend Washington's unipolar moment has paradoxically accelerated the rise of a multipolar world.
In the next and final article, I will throw a light on what is likely to be a change in the American approach to foreign policy. Keeping in mind the first two articles that examined the approach by land theorized by MacKinder as opposed to the Maritime Mahan, we will try and outline how Trump intends to adopt a containment approach to the Rimland, limiting the damage to the US caused by a complete integration between nations such as Russia, China, Iran and India.


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As time passes, more information comes forth regarding the background of Norway's Workers Youth League and Anders Breivik.
Cross-post from FrontPage:
Something Rotten in Norway
Written By Daniel Greenfield On August 1, 2011 @ 12:22 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage
Anders Breivik's attack on the youth camp of the Norwegian Labour Party has its most obvious precedent in the Maalot Massacre when Palestinian Muslim gunmen attacked an Israeli elementary school, taking over a hundred children hostage, and then using automatic weapons to kill as many of them as they could. But the link between Maalot and Utoya is more than casual. The Workers Youth League which ran the camp had a long history of supporting the same kind of terrorists who had perpetrated the Maalot Massacre.
Lars Gule, is the Secretary General of the Norwegian Humanist Association, and a defender of Muslims having the right to discriminate against women and gays. (The two are not a contradiction in Norway.) He was the leader of the Workers Youth League at the University of Bergen– and a DFLP terrorist.
The DFLP were the perpetrators of the Maalot Massacre. And two years after that attack, Lars Gule was trained by the DFLP and dispatched to Israel via Norway with explosives hidden in the covers of his books.
"The Suspect had made it known to his employers that he wanted to take human life… to strengthen Palestinian fighting spirit and morale," Norwegian police records noted.
None of this impeded Gule's career in any way. He went on to the University of Bergen and served as the head of the Workers Youth League, the organization that was targeted in the Utoya attack. Today he is a prominent figure on the left.
How can we make sense of this? Glenn Beck compared the Workers Youth League camp to a Hitler Youth camp. He was close, but not entirely right. The roots of the Workers Youth League are actually Communist.
Norway's Labour Party was a member of the Communist International. The Workers Youth League was formed by the merger of the Left Communist Youth League and the Socialist Youth League of Norway. We often use "Communist" as a pejorative– but in this case the Utoya camp, literally was a Communist youth camp.
The day before the massacre, Norwegian Foreign Minister Gahre-Store visited the camp and was greeted with banners calling for a boycott of Israel, and Gahre-Store responded with an Anti-Israel speech to cheers from the campers. There is something ominous about such indoctrination of hate. It is not quite on the level of the Hitler Youth, but neither is it a world apart.
In the 1930′s, Germans were encouraged to blame their problems on the Jews. In this decade, Norwegians are encouraged to blame their problems on the Jews. There are few children of workers at the Workers Youth League camp. They are for the most part the children of the party, the sons and daughters of bureaucrats and party leaders, training the next generation to perpetrate the Labour Party state.
Breivik came from that same background. The son of the left wing elite. And if his parents' marriage had not collapsed, with the young boy allotting a share of the blame to the Labour Party, he would likely have a comfortable spot in the socialist state. Breivik may have turned against his roots, but the idea that terroristic violence is a legitimate solution is one that he could have easily picked up on the left.
Gahre-Store may have been greeted with a banner calling for the boycott of Israel, but he would never have been greeted with one calling for a boycott of terrorists. And indeed if there is an Islamist terrorist group that Gahre-Store doesn't support, it's hard to find. Gahre-Store had called for negotiating with Al-Shahaab in Somalia, an Al-Qaeda offshoot, he spoke with Hamas leader Khaled Mashal and called for a reconciliation with the Taliban.
Nor is the Workers Youth League call for the destruction of Israel a recent one. In the 70′s, the movement was already pushing for a One State Solution. The man who led the organization then went on to become the country's Foreign Minister playing a key role in the Oslo Accords that turned Israel into a free fire zone for the terrorist allies of the League and the Labour Party.
Media commentators have made a great deal of Breivik's radicalization, but despite his death toll, his radicalization seems to be an isolated event in comparison to the magnitude of radicalization at Utoya. If Breivik's violence and bigotry is to be condemned– shouldn't the species of violence and bigotry at Utoya be condemned as well?
The left can hold up Utoya as an example, but there are a legion of counterexamples. Nor the least of which is Lars Gule, traveling with explosives in his backpack, on a journey that took him from DFLP terrorist to Workers Youth League leader.
And behind that is the larger string of DFLP and Fatah atrocities. And that of other terrorist groups around the world. The Utoya attack cannot be viewed as an isolated event. It must be seen within the context of support for terrorism as a valid tactic. An idea that goes back to the Marxist roots of the Labour Party and which is embodied in its political support for terrorism. And its manifest hostility to the victims of terrorism.
Breivik and Lars Gule had their common origins in a country dominated by a political left which sees violence as a legitimate tool of political change, while dehumanizing its victims. Norway's ambassador to Israel carefully distinguished between the Utoya attack and the terrorist attacks on Israelis. The latter would go away if Israel just followed Gahre-Store's example and negotiated with Hamas.
But what Norway's political elite failed to grasp is that the genie of terrorism cannot be kept in a lamp, to emerge only at your command. Once you legitimize terrorism as a tool of political change, you lose the ability to determine who will make use of it. Breivik followed the example of Lars Gule, that of the Marxist terrorists, whose intellectual legacy is the black tar that seeps through the painted walls of Norwegian foreign policy.
The hatred and terrorist collaboration on display at Utoya was the symptom of a larger disease. "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," Marcellus proclaims in Hamlet. It's equally rotten in Norway.
Breivik was one expression of that rottenness. But there are many others. Like Lars Gule, and his vision of a secular atheism living side by side with bigoted Islamism. Or Gahre-Store following in the footsteps of countless left wing foreign ministers by opening Norway's doors to every Islamist terrorist group out there. Or the children being groomed to become the future leaders of Norway taught to hate as fervently as their Fatah associates.
Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/08/01/something-rotten-in-norway/


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Mild weather hurts local businesses
MIDDLEBURY — Mother Nature has delivered Vermont an unseasonably tepid winter so far, leading business owners who depend on snow-related sales looking to the skies for signs of the white stuff.
"It's been crushing for us," said Mike Hussey, director of the Carroll and Jane Rikert Nordic Ski Center in Ripton. "Everybody is hungry to ski and just waiting for the snow."
This winter's bare mountains are a far cry from last year, when snowbirds enjoyed the third-snowiest winter in the state's history, according to the National Weather Service. As of Friday, the Burlington area has only seen 10.1 inches of snow this winter, compared with 25.5 by this time last year.
On Thursday, all 50 kilometers of Rikert's cross-country ski trails remained closed due to the warm weather and lack of snow. Even at its peak this year, only 25 percent of the trails were open. Hussey said that at this time last year, 100 percent of the trails were open.
Without the ability to produce man-made snow, Hussey said the Nordic Center's revenues are down 40 percent so far this winter.
"When the snow's been here, it's been great. It has just been few and far between," he said.
The dearth of snow has had a trickle down effect on local tourism.
"We could have a four star chef and no snow and people would be disgruntled, but we could have fabulous snow and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and people would love it," said Tony Clark, owner of the Blueberry Hill Inn in Goshen, which also is home to a Nordic ski center.
Clark, who has been in the inn business 41 years, said he can remember winters this warm in the past, but said the lack of snow this year is unusual.
"It used to be that people would make a reservation and then hope for snow, but nowadays, they look at the snow reports online and if they're not good, they don't make reservations," he said. "There's no snow, so there's no visitors."
With just one more solid month of winter ahead, Clark said the possibility of making up for lost business this winter is "doubtful."
But Andy Mayer, president of the Addison County Chamber of Commerce, is more optimistic. He said a big turnaround this winter is "absolutely" possible.
"Usually we get some big storms in the mid to late winter," he said.
Mayer said the key to turning the around the mindset on Vermont's warm winter is changing the perception in major metropolitan areas such as New York and Boston.
"The thing is that there is good skiing right now, but people down in Boston and New York aren't aware of it," he said. "It isn't so much the reality but the perception."
Mayer said there are efforts to change the perception at both the state and local tourism level.
"Vermont's commissioner of tourism and marketing is doing a huge email blast to get the message out that the skiing is good in Vermont right now," he said. "We are also about to push a package we've created that pairs local lodging with tickets to the Snow Bowl."
Local winter sports stores have been forced to emphasize different products for the mild temperatures, with fleeces flying off the shelves and down jackets going untouched.
"It's been the winter that never got started," said Jesse Haller, manager and guide at Middlebury Mountaineer.
The key to staying successful during this enigmatic winter, according to Haller, is diversifying.
"While we've seen a slowdown in all-around winter sales like skis and snowshoes, people are taking advantage of other aspects of our shop," he said. "There's definitely some silver lining there for us."
Haller said that hiking has taken the place of snowshoeing and where people used to skate, they are now fishing.
"We have a very active community and people are finding ways to get outside," he said.
On Merchants Row in downtown Middlebury, Skihaus has stayed afloat from preseason sales and loyal customers.
"Ski sales have been good because people came in anticipating that we'd have a winter like we had last year," said co-owner Barbara Nelson.
Nelson's business partner, Anna Boisvert, said that since the store orders its products a year in advance — next winter's jackets have already been ordered — it's impossible to hedge against a warm winter.
"You can't go with what you see outside," she said. "If you based your buying on what was happening at that exact moment you'd end up shooting yourself in the foot. You have to just have faith that we live in Vermont and eventually it will get cold here."
One person who isn't praying for a blizzard anytime soon is Dan Werner, director of operations for the town of Middlebury. The temperate weather has brought a welcomed respite for the town's operations in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene.
Werner, who has been in charge of the town's highway, water and sewer functions since 1999, said his road crews have used additional free time to get a jump on spring projects.
"We've been spending a fair amount of time tree trimming, which we wouldn't have time to do otherwise," he said. "The benefit to us is that we get to go outside and do some things we wouldn't otherwise have had the chance to do."
But it's not like the town is saving a lot of money because there has been less snow to clear, he said. His crews have been out on the roads laying down salt and sand after the numerous instances of rain followed by freezing temperatures, Werner said, which has added up.
And, on Friday with some snow forecast over the weekend, Werner cautioned that winter is still far from over.
"It's not over until it's over," he said. "Usually the heavier snow storms are in the later part of the winter."
Chuck Hobbs hopes Werner's predictions come to fruition. He owns Hobbs Property Services, an all-around property and construction management company in Bristol, and he depends on income he earns from snowplowing.
"I've only been out plowing three times this year," he said. "We do other property management but it's been really tough to adjust."
By the end of last January, Hobbs said he was thousands of dollars in the black. But this year, he hasn't made a dollar plowing and doubts he will be able to get out of the red by the end of the winter.
"It would have to snow every day in February to make up for the lost business," he said.
Haller, the Middlebury Mountaineer manager, summed up the popular sentiment of many in Addison County as he looked toward February.
"We're eternal optimists and believe that at some point we're going to get snow and people are going to want to click back into winter mode."
Intern Kyle Finck is at [email protected].
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Advanced Search
Winner: @stake LC4

 Honorable Mention: Microsoft Corp. MSDN Universal Subscription
Why would a security evangelist tap a password-cracking program as her favorite security tool? Think about it: How can I get the attention of users and techies? How can I best attack the most problematic issue in information system security? I can convince them that using strong passwords and changing them frequently are actions they can take to improve security (and that not doing so is the No. 1 reason much of their other security efforts are futile). With this tool, I can do just that—and so can you.
But before you hyperlink over to www.atstake.com, shell out the cash and proudly present the CEO with his password, download a little common sense and get permission to crack the passwords on your network domains, servers and desktops. Get it in writing. Sure, listing passwords for executives will get their attention; but, without appropriate authority, it may get you fired. Instead, learn what LC4 can do, make it part of a rational password-auditing policy for your organization and use it to strengthen security. You'll probably never get to show the CEO this, but at least he or she won't be showing you the door.
You use LC4 to extract the password hashes from a SAM database or Active Directory. Alternatively, you can capture LM and NTLM challenge/response data from a network authentication session, use a SAM file from a backup tape, or use one extracted from AD with pwdump3 (a shareware tool).
Next, set session options, then start the crack. By default, passwords are checked for usage of the user ID as well. The cracked password, which type of crack actually got the password, and the time it took to crack each password are displayed on the screen. Alternatively you can turn off the "display the password" part of the program. Cracked passwords aren't displayed, but the time it took to crack them is. This is an excellent feature if you don't want to expose everyone's password but want to show the results of your audit to the widest audience.
So why bother writing strong passwords? As an LC4 audit teaches: The stronger take longer, and bigger is better. Maybe the attacker will go elsewhere or maybe you'll have changed the password by the time they crack it. It's a definite "must" tool in your arsenal of audit tools, and it makes a darn good teaching tool, as well.
Sometimes, the leader is so far out ahead of the pack that coming in second doesn't matter. This time, however, it does. My runner-up security tool is my MSDN Universal subscription. What? "That's not a security tool," you say! I beg to differ. This little tool provides me with a copy of Visual Studio .NET and copies, for educational and testing purposes, of Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows .NET, SQL Server, Exchange Server, ISA Server, BizTalk Server, Commerce Server, Application Center Server, SharePoint Portal Server, Visio and more. This—along with the SDK, MSDN Library, access to special newsgroups and other special offers—is something no serious Windows security researcher can afford to do without. As an added benefit, my production machines remain production machines. I can set up the test network of my dreams for one small software cost.
About the Author
Roberta Bragg, MCSE: Security, CISSP, Security+, and Microsoft MVP is a Redmond contributing editor and the owner of Have Computer Will Travel Inc., an independent firm specializing in information security and operating systems. She's series editor for Osborne/McGraw-Hill's Hardening series, books that instruct you on how to secure your networks before you are hacked, and author of the first book in the series, Hardening Windows Systems.
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Shown for the first time at IAA in Frankfurt last week, the Fisker Surf is a luxury/sports "shooting brake" or station wagon, built on the same base as the Fisker Karma (electric drive with gas-engined range extender), though the Ferrari FF look makes it a lot easier on the eye.
The Surf can be expected in showrooms in the first half of 2013 with a price tag in the low six figures.
With an identical drive train to the Karma, the biggest thing the Fisker Surf offers over the Karma is its luggage space and aesthetics.
The car comes with two drive modes - Sport and Stealth.
In Sport mode, the massive 981 lb-ft (1,330 Nm) torque of the vehicle is on tap with 0-60 mph time of 5.9 seconds, and a top speed of 125 mph (201 km/h).
In Stealth mode the generator stays turned off, so the Surf has a limited range of 50 miles (80 km) dictated by the 20 kWh lithium-iron-phosphate battery pack carried inside the car's central tunnel. In this mode, it accelerates from 0-60 mph in 7.9 seconds with a top speed of 95 mph (153 km/h).
The drive train is a series-hybrid, with only the rear wheels driven by electrical energy, which can be topped up by the 260 bhp turbocharged and direct-fuel-injected gasoline engine generator.
Under normal driving conditions, battery power alone will drive the Surf about. After that the gasoline engine/generator and 9.5-gal (36 l) fuel tank provide another 250 miles of range for a total of 300 miles (483 km).
Using a standard 110-volt household supply, the Surf's battery will fully recharge in about 14 hours. The Fisker Surf can also utilize standard European 220-volt outlets, allowing this time to fall to about six hours.


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Baby Maia had a bath this morning–she gets dried milk on her face and poop on her butt, so she needs washed up and there's no mama to lick it. I stop short at licking farm babies. Barely. Sometimes I want to. I'M JUST KIDDING! Then we had clumping time. Goats are clumpers. They love to sit next to and practically on top of each other. Maia doesn't have any goats to clump with, so I clump with her. We sit in the rocking recliner and rock and…..clump.
Not a bad way to pass some time, I gotta say! Goats are smart!


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James Blake and his Thomas Reynolds collaboration with Fila are keeping on, whether we like it or not. After debuting at the 2009 US Open with the Coolmax Crew in baby blue ("Campanula"), Blake has moved on to white and navy colorways of the TR Jersey Crew. (Buy: $37.99, TW)
That being said, we found the Fall Hoodie totally comfortable, and there's some good detail in the contrast, unfinished seams.
On the court: James is still sputtering after his trip to the finals of the AEGON championships back in June. Since then, he's lost in the first round twice (Wimbledon, Cincinnati Masters), second round (Beijing), and the third (US Open). Here's hoping that he'll make some sort of a mark at this week's Shanghai Masters tournament.
(image via Getty Images)


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Strega Nona Entertaining: Conjuring Creative Fun
From recipes to rituals, I will kindly divine the perfect celebration for you!
Your Very Own Pagan Pride Parade
The more traditional American holidays can leave some of we Wiccans and Pagans feeling a little left out and blue. Here are some ideas for taking pride in ourselves and where we live– as the old Francis Scott Key ditty goes: "the land of the free, and the home of the brave." Get your magical-minded buddies together for an outdoor picnic. For this, I would suggest your friendly, less populated county or state parks. If you are concerned about the forest ranger making the rounds, hold the festivities in your own (or co-host with one of your guests') big back yards instead.
Cook special dishes of significance to you. Cakes and Ale or Cakes and Wine are always an easy crowd-pleaser. Per Patti Wigington, at the about.com website: "The Wiccan ritual known as Cakes and Ale is often celebrated as a way of thanking the gods for their blessings. Cakes are usually just cookies prepared in the shape of crescent moons, and the ale can be alcoholic or it can be apple cider, juice, or even water." Here is her recipe:
3/4 cups soft butter
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
2 cups flour
1 cups finely chopped walnuts (optional)
Cream the butter in a large mixing bowl. Gradually add the brown sugar and mix well. Add eggs, lemon juice and rind. Mix until well-blended.
Stir in flour and walnuts. Cover and refrigerate overnight. When chilled, shape dough into one-inch balls and place 3 inches apart on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 F for 8 minutes. Allow to cool before serving.
One note– personally I would only use ale, wine, cider or juice for this particular ritual. It makes it more of a special offering than just water.
Invite others to use blessings and magical intentions to their fare to bring and share. Build a fire together in a safe pit and after your meal, join hands in a circle and sing some rounds of these Pagan favorites:
"May the Circle be Open"
May the circle be open
But unbroken
May the peace of the goddess
Be ever in your heart
Merry meet and merry part!
And merry meet again!
"We All Come From The Goddess/Hoof And Horn"
We all come from the Goddess: And to her we shall return
Like a drop of rain: Flowing to the ocean
We all come from the Horned One: And to him we shall return
Like a flash of light: Shining from a fiery storm
Hoof and horn, hoof and horn: All that dies shall be reborn
Corn and grain, corn and grain: All that falls shall rise again
"We All Come From the Goddess," by Z. Buddapest
"Hoof and Horn," by Ian Corrigan (lyrics adapted)
"Earth My Body"
Earth is my body (bending at the knees with palms facing the earth)
Water is my blood (making a motion with hands at womb level)
Air my breath (hands reaching up)
And fire my spirit! (clap hands above head)
Repeat these pleasant chants, breaking into harmony and rounds. Move in a circle, lead off into a spiral dance around the yard or site. Clap, make some noise. Be loud and proud. Today, celebrate your independence and your natural pride.
Photo, "Campfire," by frankly242 at http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/
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Location: South Bend, IN, United States
Center: SouthBend(IN)
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