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As the season of bare skin and scorching sun draws near, you — like so many other people — may find yourself scratching your head over sunscreen.
Yes, skin protection is essential, especially with skin cancer rates on the rise in many populations around the world. But sunscreens come with often confusing labels and long, unpronounceable lists of chemical and other ingredients. How do you know which are safe to slather on you or your kids?
The first thing to keep in mind is that not all sunscreens are created equal, says Mary Sheu, an assistant professor of dermatology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
"There are physical sunscreens that reflect light — they're like little mirrors that sit on your skin," she says. Such products, made with zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, sit on your skin and block the sun's UVA and UVB rays. (These are the ones that can cause sunburns, cell damage and skin cancer.)
The minerals are opaque, giving beachgoers that classic white-nose look, though new versions are often tinted or "micronized" (ground into tinier-than-usual particles) so they'll blend into the skin.
Physical sunscreens are the least likely to produce rashes or other allergic reactions, so they're often recommended for people with sensitive skin, Sheu says.
The other kind of protection is chemical sunscreen. Instead of blocking or reflecting the sun's rays, these products absorb UVA and UVB light to keep it from damaging skin, Sheu says. Unlike physical sunscreens, they can be absorbed into the skin — and that's where the question of safety comes in.
"Even though the data are soft, we do know that a certain amount of the chemical sunscreens are absorbed into the body, and we don't know exactly what their effects are," says Robert Friedman, a clinical professor of dermatology at the New York University School of Medicine and the chief executive of MDSolarSciences, a company based in Norwalk, Conn., that develops sunscreen and skin-care products.
The data Friedman refers to come from a 2008 survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that examined urine samples from more than 2,500 people selected as a representative sample of the U.S. population. Researchers detected oxybenzone (sometimes called benzophenone-3) — a key ingredient in many chemical sunscreens — in 97 percent of the samples. The findings suggest that almost all Americans have absorbed oxybenzone into their bodies, but it doesn't clarify where the compound came from (oxybenzone is also used in cosmetics) or how it may affect health.
Scientists have seen hints of what oxybenzone — and two other common sunscreen ingredients, octocrylene and octyl methoxycinnamate — can do in other studies, and the results have raised some concern. In a small 2006 study that tested these UV filters on a skin model made from human cells, chemist Kerry Hanson of the University of California at Riverside found that the filters break down in UV light, losing their ability to protect the skin and ultimately generating more free radicals — molecules that can "steal" electrons from cells, damaging them in the process — in the skin than if there were no sunscreen applied at all. Free radical formation is one of the ways that a sunburn damages the skin, and Hanson found that degraded UV filters can amplify the effect.
"Your skin naturally makes free radicals, but it also has natural antioxidants [molecules that protect the body from free radicals] that balance out the free radical load," says Hanson, who has consulted with sunscreen companies interested in improving their products. "But the three UV filters we tested show more free radical generation than would naturally occur."
A Swiss study published in 2001 found that oxybenzone and octyl methoxycinnamate could also behave like estrogens, causing changes in uterine weight in rats that were fed very high doses — much higher than a person would absorb using sunscreen every day. But a 2004 study failed to find detectable hormone changes in people using sunscreen, so its hormone-disrupting potential remains unclear.
Still, these studies have led some people to choose physical sunscreens over chemical ones.
"I have a tendency to opt for the natural stuff, the physical sunscreens," Friedman says, "but overall, the positives outweigh the negatives for all sunscreens" by reducing skin cancer and aging risks.
In addition, the negatives aren't limited to chemical sunscreens. The titanium dioxide in many physical sunscreens also degrades in light and can generate free radicals in the skin.
What's the best way to avoid the negatives? According to Hanson, the key is to use sunscreen properly, so it doesn't degrade in the sunlight.
"It all comes back to the need to reapply," she says. Most sunbathers don't reapply their sunscreen, or they apply it too infrequently. Hanson urges anyone venturing into the sunshine to follow the Skin Cancer Foundation's guidelines, which call for one ounce (about two tablespoons) of sunscreen for an adult's entire body, reapplied every two to three hours. The reapplications replace light-degraded sunscreen, preventing some of the free radical formation and more consistently protecting the skin, Hanson says.
Both the Skin Cancer Foundation and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that babies younger than 6 months of age be kept out of the sun and receive only very small amounts of sunscreen when sun exposure can't be avoided. They say that infants' skin is more likely to absorb or react to the ingredients in sunscreens.
When shopping for sunscreen, Hanson suggests seeking out brands that contain antioxidants such as Vitamin E (often listed as Vitamin E acetate) or Vitamin C (often listed as sodium ascorbyl phosphate), which are added to many physical and chemical sunscreen formulations to counteract free radical formation.
"Look for sunscreens that have antioxidants highest up on the list of ingredients," she says, "as that means they have a higher antioxidant content."
What about SPF? SPF, or sun protection factor, is a number that denotes how effectively a sunscreen will protect your skin from UVB rays. (It doesn't measure UVA protection.) The higher the number, the longer lasting the protection, no matter what type of sunscreen it is. An SPF of 15, for example, roughly means it will take you 15 times as long to develop a sunburn as it would without wearing sunscreen.
Sheu, Friedman and Hanson agree that an SPF of around 30 is the magic number. Sunscreens with higher SPFs can create a false sense of security and lead users to stay in the sun too long.
Do higher SPFs mean more potentially worrisome chemicals in the sunblock? Higher SPF means a sunscreen has a higher concentration of a given UV-filtering ingredient, or more UV filters mixed together; those are the two ways you get the high SPF.
Whatever you choose and however you use it, any sunscreen is better than none at all, Friedman says. "The bottom line is there's an unequivocal, worldwide rise in the incidence of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer," he says. "So the most important thing we can do is protect ourselves from the sun."


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When is the last time you heard Mitt Romney talk about Wall Street? Probably never. The former Massachusetts governor and now GOP presidential challenger is reluctant to raise the subject with voters. That's a pity, because Wall Street and Big Finance—more so than any other industry—needs the "creative destruction" for which Romney's former business, private equity, is famous. Moreover, by ignoring Wall Street, Romney gives President Barack Obama a break on what should be a vulnerable issue for the incumbent.
The political calculus is that Romney has a good chance in November because the economy is bad, and Obama is the guy who was supposed to make it better. Not so fast. What worked in 1992 may not work today. Twenty years ago, when "it's the economy, stupid" was Bill Clinton's election mantra, people could easily blame then-President George H.W. Bush for job losses. The recession seemed to come out of nowhere, and Bush didn't seem to understand that it was a problem.
Today, though, voters don't exactly feel that everything was terrific for a decade or two until President Obama came along and ruined it. Our now half-decade-old slump—we've now had a longer real-estate bust than we had post-9/11 housing boom—is different from previous recessions. In a poll conducted by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal in May, 48% of potential voters said we were in a "longer-term decline," while only 45% said we were "experiencing a tough time" (the pollsters didn't ask the question during the last election cycle).
In that vein, older voters are looking backward even beyond Bush with a revisionist eye, understanding that much of the supposed prosperity of recent decades was fueled by household debt (this isn't complicated for people to grasp; they still haven't paid the debt back). As for first-time voters: They may not remember much about what came before Obama other than a terrifying financial collapse that happened when they were in high school.
Plus, voters don't have a vague problem with the economy. They have a specific problem with Wall Street. Nine months ago, the last time the Journal pollsters asked the question, 36% of voters, when asked "who is most to blame for current economic problems, blamed "Wall Street bankers." Only 21% blamed Obama (34% blamed Bush). This May, 52% of potential voters said they had little or no confidence in the financial industry—not much different from the 55% in the weeks after Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008. (By contrast, only 17% felt that way in December 2000, as the tech bubble was deflating.)
It doesn't take a long conversation with a normal person—read, non-financier—to realize that many Americans remain white-hot enraged about the bailouts that began in 2008. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, one of Romney's primary challengers, did so well in the South this spring not only because of social issues, but also because he was quite clear—as was the ever-popular Ron Paul—on his "no bailouts" stance.
There's no way around it: Americans think that Wall Street got a free pass on the taxpayer dime, while other industries, small businesses, and families had to go through painful restructurings. And since then, the news from the banks has only gotten worse. Americans may not know the details about JPMorgan's whale or the Libor scandal, but they know that Wall Street bankers remain insulated from the suffering everyone else has experienced. That's not because of capitalism; that's because of cronyism and corruption.
It's a great opportunity, then, for Romney. After all, Obama has been president for nearly four years. If something is still wrong with Wall Street, it's Obama's fault. And yet the president is out of ideas on how to fix Wall Street. He's running not on future proposals, but on the two-year-old Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, saying that "it set ground rules for the riskiest financial speculation." Yet the fact that JPMorgan could lose $5 billion betting with taxpayer-guaranteed deposits earlier this year makes that claim demonstrably false.
Just as saliently, Romney comes from an industry that specializes in corporate accountability. Romney could make a speech saying that he'll allow free markets to do for Wall Street what they have done with the rest of corporate America. To wit: Romney could make a speech acknowledging that Americans aren't angry with capitalism but at the lack of free-market capitalism: that is, one set of rules for Wall Street, another for everyone else. He could say, too, that it was wrong for the government to bail out sophisticated investors financial firms starting in 2008—and he could promise that voters could be sure it would never happen on his watch.
Romney could say he's sure of this because he knows exactly what the country needs when a company fails: not for that company to get a bailout, but for it to go out of business. He should know—because he's fired bad top executives. He could say, too, that Obama has utterly failed here: Dodd-Frank financial-regulation law enshrines bailouts rather than prevents them.
Instead, Romney hides his fix-Wall-Street spiel smack in the middle of his 160-page "Believe in America" proposal for jobs and economic growth. Yes, he says he'd "seek to repeal Dodd-Frank" as president and "replace it with a streamlined regulatory framework" that offers "greater transparency for inter-bank relationships, enhanced capital requirements, and provisions to address new forms of complex financial transactions."
But Romney never says why this set of rules is important. Instead, he seems confident that people will enthuse about inter-bank transparency for the sake of inter-bank transparency. Good regulations matter, Romney should say, because they are the only thing that will prevent financial meltdowns and inevitable bailouts. In fact, rules such as clear limits on borrowing did so up until the 1980s, when a succession of presidents began to dismantle the Depression-era rules that had worked just fine for half a century.
Without a strong line on making Wall Street subject to free-market discipline, Romney risks looking irrelevant on the rest of his jobs and growth proposal (Obama hasn't announced any such proposals yet). On "day one," for example, Romney says he'd send Congress five bills: one to reduce the corporate tax rate, one to negotiate free trade agreements, one to "undertake a comprehensive survey of American energy reserves," one to "consolidate the sprawl of federal [unemployed-worker] retraining programs" and one to cut federal spending, aside from defense, by 5%.
This stuff is hardly rousing. To be sure: It's not that any of these ideas are bad. It's that they miss the point. Voters are not going to get behind a corporate-tax cut and more free trade when they think—quite correctly—that powerful corporations, led by Wall Street banks, already enjoy plenty of advantages. As for drilling: Obama can hit right back at Romney in the fall debates that under his watch, America is doing more energy exploration than ever before. As for the final two proposals, it's odd that Romney thinks that voters care about worker-retraining programs but have completely forgotten about Wall Street bailouts. And Americans are tired of each party promising to cut spending and then not doing it—and unless Romney soon says what, exactly, he would cut, he's no more credible on this point than anyone else.
Romney should realize, too: A robust no-bailout policy isn't just good policy for the country. It's vital politics for him. Unless Romney goes on the offensive with the financial industry, he'll remain on the defensive. Romney seems to think that people will forget his association with the now politically toxic financial industry just because he doesn't bring it up. He leaves his nearly two-decade-long career as the founder and chief of Bain Capital until the last paragraph of his 10-paragraph official biography, for example ("salvaging" the Salt Lake City Olympics "from certain disaster" rates a fourth-paragraph plug).
But hiding may backfire. A June NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that while a majority (53%) had not heard of Bain Capital, those who had included 20% of respondents who saw the firm in a negative light, while only 8% held a positive view.
If Romney doesn't present his biography to his advantage, more people will learn of Romney's financial-world history negatively, not positively. No matter how many academics wax theoretically about the wonders of private equity, the fact is that many working-class voters—perhaps unfairly—will see Romney as the corporate suit who swept in and cut jobs, becoming immensely rich even as the nation suffered. Romney can counter—as he does—that he helped start Staples, the Bright Horizons daycare chain, and The Sports Authority. And working-class voters will think in response: He got rich as the country's industrial jobs withered, and he wants us to work for minimum wage at an office-goods or sports outlet?
Romney's Rust Belt trouble isn't just a risk; it's happened already. In 2002, running for governor of Massachusetts against a weak candidate, he lost the state's western industrial sector—decimated by decades' worth of factory closures—by wide margins. As Commonwealth magazine said at the time, "though the promise of new jobs would seem to play well in a region that has lagged behind the rest of the state economically, Romney's promise to lure major employers to the state didn't prevent the GOP percentage here from plunging eight points." Indeed. And that's at a time when the overall economy was much healthier than it is today.
Romney's best bet is to embrace his past before it embraces him—and to promise that he'll use his unique skills to ensure that markets subject Wall Street to the same medicine that the rest of America has taken in the past four decades. Otherwise, too many Americans may suspect that he's not on their side—and stay home come November.

subset: commoncrawl


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WE SCAR review
|Go to Product Page >> WE SCAR L GBB (Tan)
|Go to Product Page >> WE 30 rds M4 / SCAR Magazine (Tan) for CLOSED BOLT Version
|Go to Product Page >> WE SCAR L GBB (Black)
|Go to Product Page >> Bomber Lightweight CNC Bolt Carrier for WE SCAR
Sturdy build even with plastic body
Ambidextrous design
First gas blow back scar
Nice recoil and recoil control
Ease of maintenance
Realistic weight distribution
Dark earth upper receiver available as a stock feature
Gas magazines are expensive
Not consistent fps due to gas laws
Limited upgrade parts
Adjusting power may be difficult for some users not familiar with gas weapons
Being the only GBB SCAR available, this has already been popular amongst the SCAR fans. As for performance as well as gas efficiency along with the experience of the recoil, this hits the right spot at all the places you wish for a GBB weapon. It's reliable, it's solidly built, it's got good efficiency, it can take propane as well as reaching pretty high fps. Although GBBRs are expensive, but they are worth the money and if you wish to experience something no other airsoft replicas are capable of providing, GBBRs are the way to go!
Back in 2003, the US SOCOM urged the importance to obtain SOF Combat Assault Rifles (SCAR) which in essence, this solicitation requested a new rifle catering for the current and future needs of the US Special Forces . Being different from the requirements of generic US Army standards, this meant something totally different had to be chosen for this application. The SCAR can be used in a variety of calibers, not only are they available in 5.56 and 7.62 NATO rounds, the SCAR has also been proposed to also chamber the 7.62x39 M43 ammunition of the Soviet / Russian origins as well as the 6.8x43 Remington SPC cartridge, especially developed for US Special Forces.
As it turned out, FN SCAR rifles are not based on any previous weapons but designed from the scratch. In all variants FN SCAR rifles feature gas operated, short stroke piston action with rotating bolt locking. Bolt system appears to be somewhat similar to that of FN Minimi / M249 SAW machine gun. This system apparently is less sensitive to fine sand, dust and any other fouling inside the receiver, than any system with M16-type multi-lug bolt and plunger-type ejector.
Due to its innovative layout, lightweight polymer housing, full length uninterrupted RIS rails, compatibility with STANAG magazines, backup iron sights as well as its adaptability to chamber various rounds as well as other modular parts. Thus giving the SCAR the versatility that would benefit the soldier on the battlefields today and in the future from a compact CQB version with a shorter barrel for close encounters, the SV (LB) version for the designated marksman as well as a heavy variant plus various others that suit the various roles of an infantry. Its design also enables left and right handed users to use the rifle since the charging handle, fire selector as well as the magazine release latch are fully ambidextrous. Although some require partial disassembly in order to convert the working mechanism on the opposite side, this conversion does not require a trip to your gunsmith to resolve.
It's no surprise that this rifle was chosen by the US SOCOM to be used for their specialist units due to its ease of use, functionality as well as reliability in adverse conditions. This weapon will require little to no training at all considering most of the familiar Armalite features are still present on the SCAR.
Initial impressions.
The WE scar comes in a plain brown box with 'WE SCAR gas blow back type' on the top and the front edge of the box. This may be a little let down on the initial impression with such plain packaging and presentation of the box, we all know however, the actual contents are what you're waiting for. As you lift open the box, you will see another layer of cardboard to act as a retention layer to reduce damage to the aesthetics of the gun as well as cable ties securing the gun and the magazine to minimize any abrasion during the shipping processes. This can be seen as an advantage considering how other GBB rifles can come with just folded cardboard securing a few places inside the box.
The color, style and the general look of the gun is very pleasing if you happen to be a die-hard fan of the US military since it's available in tan as well as black, it's also an additional bonus if you chose the tan version as the upper receiver is actually in a dark earth color scheme giving you that superior look at the same price! Talk about value here.
There are no creaks or wobbles on any part of the gun due to its sturdy two piece receiver design, it also offers a sturdy platform and definitely feels sturdy to hold, even on the stock where the hinges may creak or wobble as some older generation AEGs have shown. The joints between the upper, lower receiver as well as the stock have a very snug fit, not showing any gaps or imperfections in the workmanship during the manufacturing of this gun. Furthermore, the mould lines on the WE SCAR is very fine and you will not be able to see
The features of this gun that makes this GBBR truly special is the bolt carrier and its assembly. Where you will notice the bolt is realistic and even though it runs on a metallic track along the inside of the receiver, it's exceedingly smooth! With only a modest amount of grease on the bolt carrier and the rails, it is capable of sliding along the rails as if it was on bearings. So if you wish to have more efficient cycling of your weapon, make sure you use proper grease in the contact areas of the rail and the bolt carrier. On that note, the blowback mechanism also deserves a mention. Although it uses the same blowback mechanism as the WE M4, the parts are easily accessible and can be extracted without the use of tools. Upon further inspection, the internal mechanisms just get better. The hop adjustment dial is actually all around the cylinder/blowback chamber accessed not only via the mag well so that you can adjust the hop with the magazine inserted into the gun, making the process of setting your hop easy and time efficient.
The WE SCAR chronos at 430fps at first, then after 10shots in quick succession, the power dropped down to 385fps. This was expected from the cool-down factors from the gas expanding. Having only 30rounds capacity in the magazine, it is expected to house a decent amount of gas per charge. Charging the magazine with a full can of guarder green gas, the gun was capable of firing just over 3 magazines on semi auto only. If you do decide to fire this weapon on fully automatic mode, the gas efficiency will be lower in the gun so only expect 2 magazine's worth of shots per charge of gas. Obviously various conditions will factor into how efficient gas weapons are so the gas efficiency may be different when tested again. Even though the ambient temperature was 34⁰c, the powerful recoil felt in the butt stock every shot, it is astonishing how the WE SCAR can have such a high level of performance on fps, recoil as well as gas efficiency.
A grouping test has also been done on the WE SCAR using green gas and KSC perfect .20g ammo at 20metres. With such high power, it's almost impossible to have a stable flight path since it's not heavy enough to stabilize itself. Occasionally there are shots that go straight but more shots are straying off at random directions due to the power. With the target printed on an A4 sheet of paper, only 2 actually hit the target but the rest steered away and missed completely. However, at 10metres, it was able to produce a 6inch grouping as shown in the picture below. Recognizing the cause of the inaccuracy we used 0.25g ammo to stabilize the flight path of the BBs in this test and it has dramatically reduced the instability of the BB's flight path, producing a grouping of just over 3 inches.
The WE SCAR, is a very user friendly and combat effective rifle featuring all the features on a common assault rifle that would benefit a soldier of today, in Airsoft terms, you get to look the part and definitely will not need extra training to become familiar with the weapon. The gun performs extremely well straight out of the box since the moving mechanisms inside the receiver are already lubricated but could do with a little more to ensure it will stay smooth. With its ambidextrous design, not only can the operator can easily switch from right handed shooting to left handed shooting, with the insanely high amount of sling points available on the gun, you can configure it on you however you wish to, matching your needs.
It has to be said that at a price for this GBBR, although the output power may need to be downgraded to comply with some site regulations but it performs tremendously well giving you decent gas efficiency. This is the first GBB SCAR available on the market with so many features in one package as well as being able to be used in a skirmish field with so many RIS rails you can customize it into a personalized weapon that stands out different to the others. It's already outweighed the bad elements of this package, which are the price of the gas magazines and the gas consumption costs. Even if it was not to be used as a skirmish weapon, but a plinking weapon or for reenactment or even as a collector's piece or wall hanger, the realism, working bolt and bolt lock and quality does not let you down as the construction as well as its performance is absolutely top notch on this rifle. If you're looking to buy a SCAR, this is it.
Stay tuned for our next Bite The Bullet report about the poor man's NPAS bolt mod for the WE GBB series.


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Summaries of financial disclosure reports, for the past 16 months, filed with the Federal Election Commission and the Senate. Candidates are not required to list their primary residence as an asset or a mortgage on that home as a liability.
The deadline for filing was Tuesday, though several candidates received 45-day extensions, including Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republicans Mitt Romney, John McCain and Tommy Thompson. Republican Jim Gilmore asked for and received a 30-day grace period.
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.
Earned income: $193,900.
Honoraria (all donated to charity): $800.
Major assets: Bank accounts and life insurance policies, $22,008-$155,000.
Major sources of unearned income: Life insurance dividends, $1,001-$2,500.
Major liabilities: Loan against life insurance policies, $15,001-$50,000; lines of credit, $114,002-$300,000; credit union note, $10,001-$15,000.
Narrative: Biden's income includes his $165,200 Senate salary and a $28,700 teaching stipend from Widener University.
His wife, Jill, teaches at Delaware Technical and Community College, but Biden is not required to report her salary. Jill Biden's assets, which include money market funds, real estate trusts and a pension fund, are worth $40,012-$250,000.
Biden's honoraria was for an appearance with comedian Bill Maher. He has a contract to write a book and received $112,000, half of his advance, from publisher Random House in 2005.
Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.
Earned income: $165,200
Honoraria (all donated to charity): None
Major assets: Credit union, bank account and money market fund worth $31,003-$115,000; cottage in County Galway, Ireland, worth $100,001-$250,000.
Major sources of unearned income: Rental income on Ireland cottage, $5,001-$15,000.
Major liabilities: Mortgage on Ireland cottage, $100,001-$250,000.
Narrative: According to their tax returns, Dodd and his wife, Jackie, had a combined income of $719,064.
Besides Dodd's salary, the amount includes director fees his wife earned for sitting on the boards of Blockbuster Inc., Cardiome Pharma Corp., the Chicago Board of Trade, Javelin Pharmaceuticals, Broodale Senior Living and Legacy Partners Group LCC.
It also includes a $30,000 advance Dodd received for a book, "Letters from Nuremberg." His father was a prosecutor in the Nuremberg Trials.
His wife has money market funds, IRAs, stocks in companies including Blockbuster Inc. and stock options in Cardiome Pharma Corp. and Javelin Pharmaceutical Corp. worth $1.37 million-$3 million; she has land in Wasatch, Utah, worth $15,001-$50,000.
Former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.
Earned income (includes hedge fund salary, speaking fees and book royalties): $1.25 million.
Honoraria: None
Major assets: Edwards and his wife reported $29.5 million in stocks, bonds, nonresidential property and other investments. That includes millions invested through Fortress Investment Group, a hedge fund that employed Edwards. Edwards' largest holding was $5 million to $25 million in a money market fund, Columbia Cash Reserves.
Major sources of unearned income: Dividends and interest from investments of $5.9 million, including Fortress managed funds.
Major liabilities: Edwards listed a variable line of credit from Bank of America of $500,001 to $1 million and a mortgage on one of his Raleigh buildings worth between $15,001 and $50,000.
Narrative: The single biggest source of Edwards' income was $479,512 paid to him by Fortress Investment Group for part-time consulting. He also received $395,000 in speaking fees and $40,000 as director of the University of North Carolina Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity. He also received $333,334 in proceeds form his book "Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives." He donated the royalties to charities, including the International Rescue Committee and Habitat for Humanity.
He also was active in charitable foundations in the name of his son, Wade, who was killed at age 16 in an auto accident.
Former Sen. Mike Gravel, D-Alaska
Earned income: None reported.
Honoraria: None.
Major assets: Checking and money market accounts and mutual fund worth $32,004-$130,000.
Major sources of unearned income: None.
Major liabilities: None.
Narrative: Gravel's wife, Whitney, has bank accounts, bonds, and stocks worth $85,015-$400,000 and received $22,280 from a fixed annuity. She is employed by a commercial real estate firm in Washington, the Bernstein Companies, but Gravel is not required to report her salary.
Gravel reported that he is owed $183,600 by Direct Democracy for services from 2002 to the first quarter of 2006.
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
Earned income (includes 2006 Senate salary and income from books): $737,690.
Honoraria: None. (senators must donate to charity.)
Major assets: Morgan Chase Asset Management Checking Account, $100,001-$250,000; Vanguard Wellington Fund, $100,001-$250,000. State of Illinois pension, $50,001-$100,000.
Major sources of unearned income: Vanguard Wellington Fund, $5,001-$15,000.
Major liabilities: None.
Narrative: Besides Obama's $165,200 Senate salary, he received royalties for one book and an advance for a second totaling $572,490. His memoir, "Dreams of My Father," published in 1995 and later reissued, earned $147,490. He received a $425,000 advance against royalties for his latest book, "The Audacity of Hope," published in October.
Obama is committed to publisher Random House to write one more book of nonfiction and a children's book.
His wife, Michelle, is a hospital administrator at University of Chicago Hospitals. She also has assets in her name with Vanguard Wellington Fund and Vanguard Wellesley Income Fund. In their 2006 tax return, made public this year, the couple reported $991,296 in total income.
Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M.
Honoraria: None.
Earned income (2006 and partial 2007 salary): $146,667.
Major assets: Residential real estate and undeveloped land in Santa Fe, N.M., worth $1.75 million-$6.5 million; bank accounts, IRAs, money market funds and stock in Diamond Offshore Drilling and Valero Energy Co., $1.75 million-$3.68 million.
Major sources of unearned income: Dividends, interest and capital gains, $112,710-$296,000; rental real estate income, $100,002-$200,000; book royalties, $15,001-$50,000.
Major liabilities: Mortgages on rental and undeveloped property, $150,002-$350,000.
Narrative: Richardson reported an agreement giving him stock options for serving on the board of directors of San Antonio-based Valero in 2001 and 2002; he would divest his interest in the stock if elected president.
Richardson's book royalties are from his autobiography, "Between Worlds: The Making of an American Life."
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.
Earned income (2006 salary): $165,200
Honoraria: None (senators must donate to charity).
Major assets: Blind trust, $1 million-$5 million; IRAs, checking account, money market fund and stock in companies including Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T Inc. and Coca-Cola Co., worth $539,024-$6.01 million; 335-acre grain farm in Kansas, $100,000-$250,000; condominium in Washington, D.C., $250,000-$500,000.
Major sources of unearned income: Blind trust dividends, interest and capital gains, $80,003-$200,000.
Major liabilities: Mortgage on the condominium, $100,000-$250,000.
Narrative: Brownback's wife, Mary, owns a limited liability partnership worth more than $1 million.
Brownback reported a $15,000 advance last year for a book, "From Power to Purpose: A Remarkable Journey of Faith and Compassion," about his upbringing and his softer-edged conservative worldview.
In all, the deal is worth $75,000 plus royalties; the money will be donated to a fund, started by the Brownbacks, that helps people pay for adoptions. Their daughter Jenna is from China and son Mark is from Guatemala; both were adopted in 1998.
The couple sold off investments in companies that do business with Sudan, saying that to the best of their knowledge, their portfolio no longer has such investments.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, R-N.Y.
Earned income (includes salaries from partnerships and speaking fees): $16.1 million
Honoraria: None
Major assets: One third share in Giuliani & Co., a consulting firm, $5 million to $25 million; investments held jointly or only by his wife, Judith, in various IRAs, mutual funds and money markets, $13.1 million to $45.4 million.
Major sources of unearned income: Dividends and interest from investments, bank accounts, and money market accounts, $400,000 to $3.4 million.
Major liabilities: None
Narrative: Giuliani's earned income included $11.4 million for speeches. He reported that his net speaking fees totaled $9.2 million after paying agents' fees. He also was paid $4.1 million by Giuliani & Co. and $1.2 million by his law partnership, Bracewell & Giuliani. He received $146,092 in royalties for his book "Leadership," an account of his role as mayor during and after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
He is chairman of the advisory board of Leeds Equity Fund IV and is chairman of the advisory board of America's Camp Foundation, a nonprofit camp for children who lost a parent or sibling during the Sept. 11 attack or for the children of firefighters or law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty.
Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark.
Honoraria: $138,500.
Earned income (2006 and partial 2007 salary): $316,035.
Major assets: Bank and credit union accounts, stock, shares, money market fund and retirement account worth 297,008-$780,000; shares in 12 Stops Inc., set up to handle book royalties, worth $50,001-$100,000.
Major sources of unearned income: State of Arkansas pension, $14,101. Bank accounts and other investments earned $9,906-$27,000. Business income from shares in Troufion Radio Network, $9,657.
Major liabilities: None.
Narrative: Huckabee's income includes his $74,146 salary last year as governor and his $40,000 salary as an officer of 12 Stops Inc., $161,889 in book sales and royalties and $40,000 in consulting fees from the National Association of Music Manufacturers.
His honoraria, received through 12 Stops Inc., were for 15 speeches to groups, including the late Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty University and Thomas Road Baptist Church; Prestonwood Baptist Church, whose pastor is former Southern Baptist Convention President Jack Graham, and health groups and companies, including The Cooper Institute and Novo Nordisk.
His book is called "From Hope to Higher Ground: 12 STOPS to Restoring America's Greatness."
Huckabee also serves on the boards of The Cooper Institute of Dallas and medical networking company Flagship Global Health in New York.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.
Earned income (2006 salary): $165,200.
Honoraria (all donated to charity): None.
Major assets: Cabin and land with a cabin in Warren County, Va., $200,000-$500,000; North Island Financial Credit Union account, $215,000-$550,000.
Major sources of unearned income: Credit union account interest, $6,000-$17,500.
Major liabilities: Two car loans from the Congressional Federal Credit Union totaling $30,000-$100,000; debt on three credit cards of $15,000-$50,000 each; and $15,000-$50,000 owed on a Southwest Airline credit card.
Narrative: Hunter's home east of San Diego burned down in 2003 during Southern California wildfires. He reports it is being rebuilt and values it at $500,000-$1 million.
Hunter's partner in his Blue Ridge Mountains cabin in Virginia is former Democratic Rep. Pete Geren of Texas. Hunter is on the board of the American Conservative Union.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Col.
Earned income (2006 House salary): $165,200
Honoraria (all donated to charity): None
Major assets: Investments in various funds, including Agile Safety Fund, $530,000-$1.1 million.
Major Sources of unearned income: Agile Safety Fund, $15,000-$50,000.
Major liabilities: None.
Narrative: Tancredo, an outspoken advocate of stronger anti-immigration laws, reported royalties of $15,000-$50,000 for his 2006 book "In Mortal Danger -- The Battle for America's Border Security."
Source: The Associated Press


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E-Hawks Fall To Western Christian
HULL – The rematch between Emmetsburg and Western Christian on Tuesday night was a little closer than the first meeting of the season, but the E-Hawks would fall by a 69-41 margin. The loss drops Coach Mike Brennan's squad to 3-14 overall on the season and 0-12 in the Lakes.
The first quarter started out in nearly a dead heat as both clubs were able to hit some early shots and they felt each other out, but it was Western Christian taking a 16-14 lead at the end of the opening quarter.
In the second quarter, Emmetsburg would struggle to get its shots to drop. Western Christian would hit almost everything they put up, taking 40-25 lead at the half-time break.
Emmetsburg would struggle to get any offense going in the third quarter, but continued to battle defensively, as they added just five points to their tally, while Western Christian added 14 points for a 54-30 advantage to start the final quarter of play.
Emmetsburg would start hitting its shots in the final quarter, but it would be a matter of too little too late as the Wolfpack would go on to record the 69-41 win over Emmetsburg.
In their first meeting against Western Christian, Emmetsburg had been without the services of senior Jake Jackson due to an injury. Jackson was in game form on Tuesday night, as he paced the E-Hawks with 21 points in the effort.
Erik Drost would come away with 11 points, while Austin Krause chipped in six points and Greg Wesley came off the bench in the final minute of the game to tally three points.
Emmetsburg connected on 17 of 48 shots on the night for 35 percent shooting in the loss.
The season continues Friday as the E-Hawks travel to Spirit Lake for a rematch with the Indians and then travel to Cherokee next Tuesday night.


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I've been recently looking into the creation (and theory) of hash functions, however I just can't figure out how to turn a message into something of a fixed length.
At the moment, my theory of a hash function is like so:
Take in the message (e.g. "secret")
Split it into different 'blocks' (e.g. "sec" + "ret")
Mix them up, and interact different blocks depending on what block type they are (perhaps block type would be determined by mathematical calculations on the character values, and then certain blocks would interact with other blocks to merge in a weird way to create another block).
This creates a message which cannot be undone (since at the end, you don't know what the block types are - and even if you do, you don't know how they interacted to get to those blocks) - however it is not of a fixed length.
What would I do to create a fixed length digest?


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Unleaded & 'bio' petrol
First the good news.
A) All 2cv4, 2cv6 (Dolly, Charleston etc.), Dyane4, Dyane6, Méhari, AK, AZU, Ami8
and Acadianes produced since 1970 have M28, M28/1 or A79/1 engines. All will run
correctly on unleaded fuel, with just a few provisos.
2cv engine in a kit car or lightweight special.
B) If the 2cv engine has been fitted into a kit car or special body then different
parameters apply, specifically that the car is usually lighter and more aerodynamic
than most original 2cvs, therefore the engine is virtually never laboured so it runs
cooler! It may only run a little hotter in stationary traffic, in general no extra
problems exist.
Most importantly you should be guided by the advice of the kit manufacturer.
Now some reservations.
The main reservation is that the addition of bio-ethanol to 'petrol' is not good for your 2cv in any way, it is corrosive to metals used in older cars and to rubber used in fuel pumps, seals and fuel pipes.
read on......
C) Old 2cvs with 375cc or 425cc (A53 or A79/0) engines, or Ami6, AK350, AZAM6
with an M4 engine may not run forever on unleaded or modern leaded fuels. Exhaust
valves may eventually burn on these vehicles as they were made for use with the
older, lower octane (70 to 90) fuels, their problem is the valve timing (camshaft
profile) which was designed for lower compression rating. However, provided these
vehicles are not driven persistently at top speed, problems should not arise.
1) All vehicles in A) above with healthy engines may be run on Premium (95 RON)
unleaded fuel although ideally with a protectant against the effects of ethanol and valve seat recession.
2) All 2cv type engines have hardened valve seats although even harder seats were introduced only in late 1986.
3) The engine must be properly and regularly maintained.
4) Maximum total ignition advance (dynamic not static) must not exceed 34°.
5) If engine pinks (pings) under load, retard the ignition timing to cure it!
6) Tappet (valve rocker) clearance to be set between 0.20mm and 0.25mm cold. This
is wider than manuals state but with good technical reason.
7) The carburettor must be complete, have no air leaks and be correctly fitted.
8) The exhaust (collector) crossbox under the gearbox must be fitted. Sports type
two into one systems are not recommended. (See also Para. B).
9) An original air filter and box should be fitted. (See also Para. B).
10) Do not drive with grille blind (muff) fitted in summer!
11) Due to higher volatility of modern fuels, change oil each 3000 miles (5000km).
12) A last reminder that this advice is specifically aimed at 2cv engines fitted into
2cvs, See paragraph B if fitted to something different!
13) We thoroughly recommend the use of Miller's VSPe fuel treatment, this provides manganese as a protectant against valve seat erosion and just as importantly combats the adverse effects of ethanol (found at up to 5% by volume in UK fuel and up to 10% in French fuel).
The intentional scaremongering by media that your 'old' car won't run on E10 ethanol blend 'petrol' is just that. The 602cc 2cv6 Dolly etc. with its carburettor will need only a couple of jets changing and an awareness of how to store the car whilst it is laid up for winter etc. Properly set up, E10 fuel will actually make your 2cv perform better (if E10 ever arrives here). Vivergo, the lobbyist backed producer of E10 in UK has announced its closure (07/09/2018), very sad news for those who work there and the agri businesses which supply it, looks like we'll be importing E10 if it is to be introduced here.


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Fighter Pilot Face-Lift
Muscle Car Dashes
Like most, the dashes on our project cars are either cracked or in need of a complete overhaul. However, Route 66 Motorsports has come up with an easy solution. Using this billet dash bezel insert, you can now easily install aftermarket gauges into your '69 Camaro or '70-72 Chevelle SS, El Camino SS, or Monte Carlo SS. A little trimming to the factory dash and a set of gauges is all that's needed to go from factory bland to modified muscle. The inserts are made in the United States from 6061 billet aluminum and come in a variety of finishes, including raw machine and black powdercoat. Custom colors are also available at an additional cost. The bezels include LEDs, all the necessary hardware, instructions, and even a template for a simple and clean install.
Price: $390 & Up
Route 66 Motorsports
Shifting Power
GM 4L80E Overdrive Transmission
With today's latest innovative technology, you can now get a complete GM 4L80E overdrive transmission that's capable of street/strip use and can easily handle up to 800 hp. A 34-element intermediate sprag, high-energy intermediate band, all-new solenoids and wiring harness, re-calibrated valvebody, and performance pump assembly are all included to make this 4L80E bulletproof. B&M's transmission is a complete ready-to-run unit (less converter) with the standard shifting pattern and can even be used with the HGM "Compushift" controller in transplanted applications.
Price: $1,874 & Up
B&M Racing
Clamp Down
13-inch front brake system
Stepping up the front brake system for your muscle car can bring the vehicle to all new levels of performance. The ready to bolt-in TRACK4 package from Baer employs the ultra-stiff, DOT-compliant, radial mount, all billet T4 caliper with stainless staggered-bore pistons. The T4s use `98-02 Camaro brake pads for reliability, which makes finding replacement parts that much easier. The T4s feature a red, silver, or black high-temp powder finishes (optional polished, nickel plated, or custom colors also offered). Packages are available for all `67-97 Camaros, and `64-88 A-, G-, or X-body.
Price: $1,095 & Up
Baer Brakes
Slide Tactics
Adjustable, Solid Motor Mounts
Have you ever tried to get your GEN III or IV LS powerplant into your Chevelle only to find it too far forward, or into your Nova and discover it's too close to the firewall? If you have, an adjustable, solid motor mount will allow the positioning of your engine where you want it. Dirty Dingo's motor mounts allow you to move your engine 11/2 inches forward and up to 21/2 inches rearward. All motor mounts are water jet cut out of 1018 0.250-inch plate steel that are welded and cooled in the jig to retain precision alignment. These mounts are available for most GM cars from '58-92 and come with Grade 8 bolts and all the mounting hardware.
Price: $80
Dirty Dingo Motorsports
A Real Deal
Piston Skirt Coating
Are you in the market for a new set of slugs for your build? Every SRP Professional piston kit already includes several key features, such as lightweight forged side relief (FSR) forgings, high-quality wristpins, and precision CNC-machined ring grooves. Every SRP Professional piston kit also includes a high-performance JE Pro Seal Ring set. The included ring set utilizes a 1.2mm steel LS7-style top ring, a 1.5mm Napier (hooked face) second ring, and 3.0mm oil ring. As an added bonus, JE Pistons includes piston skirt coating at no extra charge on their popular line of SRP Professional piston kits.
Price: $643 & Up
JE Pistons


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Helicopter Tours
from €399 for 3 Persons
Trial Lesson from €399
Helicopter Tours Dresden
Take off from this airfield for the experience of a lifetime: Your helicopter tour through the region. The actual flight route can be determined together with the pilot on the actual day of the tour. If you prefer more adrenalin you should consider a helicopter trial lesson. In this lesson YOU will fly the helicopter after an introduction and with the help of an experienced flight instructor. Get your ticket now.
How does it work?
Puchase the ticket issued without fixed day or time. Validity is up to 4 years. Scroll down for details regarding tours, helicopter availability and airport info. If you are visiting and need to fly on specific days, please inquire here.
The ticket holder uses the online appointment form. The pilot confirms the request right away. The planned departure time will be sent 2-3 days ahead of the tour day via email.
The passengers find the airfield timely and meet the pilot. Please bring the ticket along. Any questions? Many have been answered here. Enjoy your tour!
Appointments and Location Info
Individuals: max 100kg
Groups of 3: 120kg per Person oder total 260kg for 3
Trial Lesson: max. 120kg (R44)
Please contact uns if your weight is higher.
Questions? Please take a look at the faq. Your question was not answered? Please send us a message.
The ticket itself has no fixed tour date. Please use our online registration after purchase. If you are a visitor and have limited availability, please inquire whether an individual tour is possible.
Helicopter Tours for individuals Dresden Kamenz
Heide (Moorland) Helicopter Tour Dresden
Helicopter Tour for a group of max. 3 persons to the moorlands near Dresden.
Dresden City Helicopter Tour
Helicopter Tour for a group of max. 3 persons to Dresden.
VIP Helicopter Tours Dresden Kamenz
Elbe and Sandstone Helicopter Tour
Helicopter Tour for a group of max. 3 persons to Stolpen, Bastei, Bad Schandau and Elbe river valley.
Group Helicopter Tour Dresden
Individual Helicopter tour for your own group with up to 3 persons.
Helicopter trial lesson Dresden Kamenz
Helicopter Robinson R44 Trial Lesson
After an introduction to the aircraft YOU will fly the helicopter with the help of an experienced flight instructor.
Helicopter Tour Keychain "Turn key before flight"
The Heliflieger Keychain - for real Fans
Our popular keychain, the ideal add-on to the ticket for your helicopter key at home. It will remind every day of this great event. Works of course also for the apartment-, car- or bike-keys in case a helicopter is not available right now. 😎
Helicopter Tour Value Voucher
Value / Gift Voucher
Gift Voucher – can be redeemed for any tour. Ideal if you do not know what the recipient likes most.


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26 Monarch And Lady Monarch Games Broadcast On Television For 2008-09
By ODU Athletics
Oct. 22, 2008
Norfolk, Va. - A record twenty-six Old Dominion University basketball games will be televised this season to national, regional and local audiences.
The Monarchs will be featured will be featured nationally on ESPNU twice, including a Jan. 13, 9 p.m. game at the Constant Convocation Center against Georgia State, and a Feb. 10 contest at Hofstra. The Monarchs Bracketbuster contest on Saturday, Feb. 21, will also be carried by one of the ESPN networks, based on opponent and team records.
Comcast Sportsnet will air 12 of the Monarchs and Lady Monarchs contests, including the Monarchs home opener against UAB on Nov. 22, and the Lady Monarchs showdowns against national champion Tennessee on Dec. 18 and former NCAA champ Maryland on Dec. 21. CSN airs locally in Hampton Roads on Channel 35 on the Cox Communications cable system, with CSN plus games on Channel 11.
WSKY, Channel 4 in Hampton Roads will produce and air nine contests this year, including games with conference rivals William and Mary, James Madison , Delaware, Towson and UNC Wilmington. Many of the WSKY games will be taped delayed on MASN regional cable, which is carried locally on Channel 11 and 39 on Cox Communications.
The Lady Monarchs contest at Michigan State on Nov. 26 will be aired by the Big Ten Network, which is carried locally by Verizon FIOS.
All of the men's and women's home games will be video streamed live on www.odusports.com throughout the season, beginning with the exhibition games. Fans can purchase the All Access package per month, or yearly. In addition to live broadcasts, the All Access package includes live and archived coverage of men's and women's soccer, field hockey, baseball, women's lacrosse and select wrestling events, the spring 2009 football game, post-game press conferences, and call -in coaches shows.
The following is the schedule of televised basketball games for 2008/09:
2008-09 Old Dominion University basketball televised games
Date Game Time Carrier
11/22/08 UAB @ ODU 4 p.m. CSN +
11/26/08 ODU women @ Michigan St. 6:30 p.m. Big Ten Network
12/3/08 RICHMOND @ ODU 7 p.m. CSN +
12/18/08 Tennessee women @ ODU 7 p.m. CSS/CSN +
12/21/08 Maryland women @ ODU 1 p.m. CSN
1/7/09 JMU @ ODU 7 p.m. WSKY
1/10/09 ODU @ George Mason 2 p.m. CSN
1/13/09 Ga. State @ ODU 9 p.m. ESPNU
1/17/09 ODU @ VCU 4 p.m. CSN
1/18/09 Ga. State women @ ODU noon CSN
1/21/09 UNCW @ ODU 7 p.m. WSKY
1/22/09 ODU women @ W&Mary 7 p.m. WSKY
1/24/09 Northeastern @ODU 4 or 7 p.m. ESPN or CSN
1/25/09 JMU women @ODU 3 p.m . CSN
1/28/09 ODU @ JMU 7 p.m. WSKY
1/31/09 George Mason @ ODU 7p.m. CSN
2/3/09 Towson @ ODU 7 p.m. WSKY
2/7/09 ODU @ Drexel 7 p.m. CN8/WSKY
2/10/09 ODU @ Hofstra 7 p.m. ESPNU
2/14/09 VCU @ ODU 2 p.m. CSN
2/15/09 Delaware women @ ODU 2 p.m. CSN
2/18/09 ODU @ UNCW 7 p.m. WSKY
2/21/09 Bracketbusters TBA TBA
2/25/09 W&Mary @ ODU 7 p.m. WSKY
2/28/09 ODU @ Northeastern 6 p.m. CSN
3/4/09 W&Mary women @ ODU 7 p.m. WSKY
CSN - Comcast sportsnet (Channel 35 - Cox)
CSN + - Comcast sportsnet (Channel 11 - Cox)
WSKY - (Channel 4 - Hampton Roads)
MASN - Mid Atlantic Sports Network (Channel 11 and 39-COX)
Big Ten Network - available in Hampton Roads to Verizon FIOS customers
ESPNU - (channel 232 - COX)
CN8 - (check cable listings)


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Monthly Archives: January 2011
Power Pack Porridge
Lately, we have been enjoying a very hearty breakfast with many of the superfoods that we use in our raw smoothies.
We call it Power Pack Porridge
Here is the recipe:
Pocono Cream of Buckwheat Hot Cereal
(raw version – sprouted buckwheat groats)
1/4 cup of walnuts, pecans or soaked almonds
1 Tbs hemp seeds
1 Tbs flax seeds
3 Tbs goji berries
1 tsp grade B maple syrup
1/2-1 sliced apple
1/4 tsp sea salt
almond milk
Add superfoods and almond milk to the cereal and enjoy. Your day will be power packed!


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Trip Report: Mojo Bicycle Café
Posted by TheShot on 12 Jun 2008 | Tagged as: Café Society, Local Brew, Roasting
This combination food/espresso café and bike shop sits across the street of The Independent (née The Kennel Club, for those around long enough to remember). They have some nice, open air seating along the dingier Divisadero St. sidewalk, and there are several indoor café tables. The menu includes beer, wine, and sandwiches, but they take their coffee the most seriously out of their non-bike consumables. They even offer private label biker roasts from Ecco Caffè.
And yes, there's a whole bike shop in the back. We never understood what bicycles had to do with espresso. Yet there are various biking-and-coffee-themed cafés, cafés with bicycle racing teams, coffee accessories designed just for bikers, charitable organizations linking coffee and biking, etc. Some bikers even believe that they have a special affinity for coffee that many non-bikers do not. But generally none of these people I know have ever met any school bus drivers. Talk about a special affinity: just think what 5 a.m. wake-up calls followed by dozens of screaming kids in a backseat that stretches for miles will do to you every day without the aid of good espresso every morning.
Furthermore, when I get on a bicycle, I don't feel a sudden, unusual craving for coffee. In fact, if I'm about to go on a big weekend bike ride, I often find myself consuming big plates of rigatoni as if I was just rescued from a shipwreck (i.e., carbo-loading). So why is it that we have so many bicycle cafés but no bicycle trattorias?
No matter, this is a coffee site…right? They have a two-group La Marzocco Linea behind the pastry case — although they're about to move things around to showcase all things coffee in one corner.
Using the Linea, they pull a shot with a mottled medium and dark brown crema of decent thickness. The barista smelled the cup before serving it, which is a good sign, and the unique smell of Ecco roasts is a treat in SF. It's a modest-sized shot with a lighter body — not thick or syrupy in the least bit, but not thin or watery either. It has an interesting and robust flavor reflecting their use of fresh Ecco Caffè beans. Served in classic brown, thick-walled Nuova Point cups.
Read the review of Mojo Bicycle Café.
2 Comments »
2 Responses to "Trip Report: Mojo Bicycle Café"
One connection – cyclists on group rides will often schedule a refreshment stop on their route. Coffee shops can be perfect.
In a regular group, rest stop locations get discussed and they can get winnowed down to one or two favorites pretty quickly.
Good bike parking can be an important factor.
It's a very common connection, biking and espresso. My own bosses (who opened the Atomic Cafe in Beverly, MA) were professional cyclists before they opened a cafe, which they intended to be a bike shop/cafe before its identity got slimmed down to just cafe. Plenty of bikers use coffee as an energy boost to get a little edge in a race over their usual, non-caffeinated performance level.


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Jean-Claude Juncker, EuroGroup chief, has signalled that Europe is no longer willing to be the last economic player holding the toxic parcel of an over-valued exchange rate, describing the euro as "dangerously high" after its three-month surge against the dollar, yuan and yen.
The comments follow warnings by two French ministers this month that the strong euro is holding back efforts to pull the France out of deep industrial slump.
Alexei Ulyukayev, deputy head of Russia's central bank, said the tilt in EMU policy marks a new escalation as every major bloc of the global economy tries to drive down its exchange rate at the same time. "We are now on the threshold of very serious currency wars," he said.
Korea has asked the G20 take a stand against beggar-thy-neighbour policies in Moscow next month, accusing Japan and the West of covert debasement through loose money.
Japan's premier Shinzo Abe kicked off the latest skirmishes by threatening to change the Bank of Japan's statute unless it agrees to launch a monetary blitz and weaken the yen. The euro has rocketed by 20pc against the yen since July. "This will soon start to hurt core Euroland and Germany. The Japanese compete in the same export niche of cars, machine tools and electronics," said Hans Redeker from Morgan Stanley.
He warned that European banks are still repatriating funds as they cut foreign assets to meet tougher capital rules, pushing the euro higher. Global central banks - especially in Asia - are also stepping back into the EMU debt market after a buyers strike last year.
This is a double-edged effect. While they help cap bond yields, they are also capping their own currencies against the euro. Mr Redeker expects the euro to punch yet higher early this year before buckling and crashing to $1.08 by 2014.
Julian Callow from Barclays said the trade-weighted euro has risen 6pc since the third quarter of 2012. If sustained, this will lop around 0.4pc off eurozone GDP this year at a time when the economy is already contracting. The jobless rate has reached a record 11.8pc, rising to 26.6pc in Spain.
The ECB has so far refused to take action to curb euro strength, standing aloof as Japan, the US, Britain, Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand and Korea itself, among others, try to steer their currencies lower.
Austria's ECB governor Ewald Nowotny said on Wednesday that euro strength is "not a matter of major concern". The ECB's president Mario Draghi brushed aside concerns last week, insisting that "both the real and the effective exchange rate of the euro are at their long-term average".
The historical rate may mean little after years of intra-EMU divergence. A study by Morgan Stanley found that the "fair" rate for the euro is $1.53 for Germany, $1.23 for Holland, $1.19 for Italy and $1.06 for Greece.
The Lisbon Treaty gives EU finance ministers the crucial say over the exchange rate. The "Ecofin" council can fix the euro against other currencies by unanimous vote, and can shape a "dirty float" by a qualified majority vote. Any such ruling by the council would compel the ECB to shift policy.
Pressure for action is mounting as the slump deepens. A string of countries have downgraded their forecasts over recent days. Portugal's central bank expects contraction of 1.9pc this year. The Netherlands said Dutch GDP will fall 0.5pc. Germany slashed its forecast from 1pc to 0.4pc.
As often in EU affairs, France is the pivotal state, with the heft to build a coalition. The country has been been losing global export share at an alarming since EMU began, shedding 100,000 industrial jobs a year. This has finally set off a protectionist backlash. Industry minister Arnaud Montebourg said last week that multilateral trade deals are "dead" and slammed predatory practices by China.
Adam Posen, a former UK rate-setter and now at Washinton's Peterson Insititute, said there could be a chain-reaction this year as the dam breaks and each country resorts to "sauve qui peut" policies.
The underlying problem is a global saving glut as the world saving rate hits a record 24pc of GDP, chiefly driven by Asia and aging effects. Trade experts say the international system cannot return to healthy balance until excess capacity in global industry is whittled away.


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Remote Backup is the process of maintaining back-up copies of data and applications at a different geographic location than where the primary instances reside.
Who uses remote backup, and why?
Remote backup is an essential practice for any organization that could suffer potentially severe costs if production IT systems went down for a significant length of time. For a wide variety of organizations, prolonged IT service interruption could entail immediate costs such as missed sales opportunities, as well as longer term costs including damage to reputation, erosion of customer confidence, and weakened competitive standing. For such organizations, housing key data stores and applications in only one data center poses an unacceptable risk of service being knocked out completely by a data center scale disaster such as power outage, sabotage, earthquake, hurricane, and so on.
In addition to facilitating disaster recovery for any type of IT-dependent organization, remote backup is also employed by geographically dispersed organizations as a means of consolidating backup and recovery operations, with remote or branch offices backing up their data and systems to a central location.
How remote backup works
Effective remote backup requires that production data be regularly backed up to a location far enough away from the primary location so that both locations would not be affected by the same disruptive event. This means that the offsite backup location should not be in the same metropolitan area, flood plain, hurricane zone, or along the same earthquake fault line as the primary facility. Depending on a particular organization's recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO), the remote backup may need to be frequent and broad (spanning a range of data types, applications, and systems).
Traditionally, remote backup has been accomplished by backing up to portable tape media at the primary site, and then transporting tapes to the remote backup location by truck or other means.
In recent years, however, a new generation of remote backup software and disk-based backup systems have emerged that enables highly efficient replication or backup of data from primary systems to disk-based backup systems at a remote site, via corporate WANs or the internet. Two key technological enablers have paved the way for this next-generation remote backup:
Sharp growth in network bandwidth capacities.
Advanced data deduplication methodologies that dramatically reduce the amount of data that must be copied, transferred, and stored in order to maintain complete, ready-to-use backups at a remote location.
Benefits of remote backup
Remote backup enables IT systems-reliant organizations to ensure data protection and business continuity, while avoiding the potential lost revenue and reputational damage that could result from major loss of data and service interruptions. For geographically dispersed enterprises, remote backup via backup over WAN to a central facility also enables more efficient and policy-compliant backup operations.
Beyond the general benefits of enabling remote backup, the new generation of disk-based deduplication systems and software solutions – such as EMC Data Domain and EMC Avamar – deliver benefits including faster backup times, faster recovery times, greater security and reliability, simpler management, and the ability to extend remote backup coverage to more types of systems and applications including virtualized applications.


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Long term test: Sealed cable systems for cyclocross
A long-term test of sealed cable systems
When I wrote the piece on Cables for 'cross in the fall, I have to admit that, while touting the virtues of sealed cable systems, I was skeptical that anything could survive a whole season of 'cross. I knew they'd be good, I knew they'd last longer, but I didn't really think they could go the distance.
Boy was I wrong.
The second part of the story was a longevity test on two different setups and the results were better than expected. I chose the Nokon and Gore RideOn professional systems for my season-long case study in ill-treatment and both were up to the task. My pair of trusty Moots steeds went to hell and back this season. I lined up for no fewer than 29 races from early September until Master's worlds in Belgium in late January. From the mud, sand and snows of Colorado and Oregon to the (even more) mud, sand and rain of Belgium, if my cables were going to fail they would have done so in spectacular fashion.
The Nokon system on my "A" bike performed admirably and, aside from a mid-season, barely necessary cable replacement and general clean up, they survived the season handily. I don't intend to change them any time soon either. The one modification I did make was to sleeve the entire length of the outers with clear heat shrink. This eliminated grit from getting in between the pearls, protected the frame and stiffened up the outers a little, which helped the smoothness of the action. The cosmetic downside was that it took some of the pretty Nokon shine away. As per the mostly indecipherable Nokon instructions, I did lube the cables on the second install, but think overall that is a bad idea. Lube attracts dirt. Keep the setups as dry as possible. Graphite powder would be the only lube I'd put inside cable housing.
The Gore RideOn professional setup on my "B" bike copped the most abuse by far. Even though I took every precaution on install to reduce failure points, I still thought there would be no way they could withstand the abuses of 'cross. Despite my doubts, the cables performed flawlessly, and even after countless training rides, power washings and races, the action is as good as the day I installed them. There was just one small issue: Right before Christmas, I noticed some of the coating shredding inside the ferrule right behind the headset. It wasn't affecting performance at all, but I installed a replacement cable and repaired the liner where it emerged from the ferrule. Done. The other part of the puzzle was compatibility with top-routed 'cross bikes. I have two answers. 1: Lois Mabon from Gore RideOn confirmed that the new professional kits will come with enough hardware to wire up a top-routed crosser and a SRAM rear derailleur-compatible grub seal will be included in the kits in the near future. Lois also hinted on a 'new component' that they will be unveiling, but that's all I could pry out of her for now. 2: The other obvious RideOn option would be the Sealed Low Friction System. The liner runs continuously through the cable housing, eliminating the need for heat shrinking ferrules and offering a nice, clean look. Things to look out for on this are: the ferrules are all 5mm (not 4.2mm) and the system weighs about 20grams more than the professional kit.
The upshot of all of this is that I spent a lot less time freezing my fingers (among other things) off in the garage this winter. If you spend one hour per bike carefully installing a sealed system at the beginning of the season, you will eliminate most or possibly all of your cable maintenance for the year and dramatically reduce the expense involved with replacing and maintaining your cables. As with everything, taking the time to install properly is the key to the most reliable setup. Whatever your brand of choice, here are a few tips to get the best out of your cables.
- First, pay attention to curve radius when cutting housing to length. If your curves are too tight it significantly decreases performance. I even route my front brake cable over the stem so it has a nice graceful entry into the top cable hanger.
- Cut the housing sections clean and square and/or clean them up with a grinder or file.
Blow any debris out of the cut housing sections with a compressor, canned air or good old lung power.
- Open up the housing liner at the cut ends with an awl.
- Heat shrink any ferrules that could let in contamination.
- With coated cables take care not to damage the coating when pushing the cable through the shifter. As you pull the cable, guide it into the shifter body through your fingers.
- For RideOn cables remove the last 3 or 4 inches of coating from the cable at the rear derailleur to prevent shredding and binding.
Editor's note: Australian native Michael Robson grew up racing dirt bikes and flat-track and in his teens progressed to BMX. He first came to race in the U.S. in the early nineties and ended up in Europe as a workaday roadie. Now a professional photographer and rabid cyclocrosser, Robson is reliving his youth ripping it up in master's 'cross, making great photos for a living and testing gear for VeloNews.


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Stunning Solar Building Will Generate More Power Than It Needs
The Masdar Headquarters building will produce more power than it needs (an energy positive building). In fact, the solar roof (one of the largest in the world) will be constructed first, and it will power the construction of the rest of the building. The video link on this page has a great view of the sun-infused interior.


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Moderator: Cartographers
AndyDufresne wrote:The map looks wonderful in visual appeal. Great job on that. I'm sure later you will rough out more of the visuals, legends, etc. So I won't particularly comment on those right now other than I suggest:
---You might change the water shading. Perhaps an inverse might be more visually appealing: Darker on the rims and lighter toward the center. The map just feels a little dim in the center.
---I'd have to agree with perhaps a split of Asia Minor, is possible (while still holding true to a RISK number (I.E. easilly divisible). Perhaps if need be other countries.
Once I see more of a closer 'final' map, I'll try to post more on the over all balance.
Users browsing this forum: No registered users


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- 1 teaspoon caraway seeds
- 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
- 1 tablespoon Wondra flour
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 4 cups sauerkraut (preferably fresh), rinsed, drained, squeezed dry (from one 32-ounce jar)
- 1 large onion (about 1 pound), halved lengthwise, thinly sliced crosswise
- 3 large Golden Delicious apples (about 1 1/2 pounds total), peeled, cored, thinly sliced
- 6 whole smoked bratwurst (about 1 pound), pierced all over with skewer
- 4 bay leaves
- 1 cup beef broth
- 2 tablespoons dry vermouth
- 2 tablespoons ketchup
- 1 1/2 tablespoons butter, melted
- Pumpernickel bread or whole grain
Recipe Preparation
Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 400°F. Place caraway seeds and fennel seeds in small resealable plastic bag. Crush seeds with mallet. Add flour and pepper to bag; shake to blend. Spread sauerkraut over bottom of 13x9x2-inch glass or ceramic baking dish. Sprinkle 1/3 of flour mixture over. Arrange onion slices over; sprinkle with half of remaining flour mixture, then lightly with salt. Spread half of apple slices over, then sprinkle with remaining flour mixture. Place bratwurst over apples, then arrange remaining apple slices around bratwurst. Tuck in bay leaves. Mix broth, vermouth, and ketchup in measuring cup. Pour broth mixture evenly over. Cover tightly with foil.
Roast bratwurst 45 minutes. Uncover; brush with melted butter. Roast uncovered until edges of apples and sausages begin to brown, about 25 minutes longer. Serve with bread.


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Panama Canal
Panama Canal, waterway across the Isthmus of Panama, connecting the Atlantic (by way of the Caribbean Sea) and Pacific oceans, built by the United States (1904–14, on territory leased from the republic of Panama) and expanded by Pamana (2007–16). The canal, running S and SE from Limón Bay at Colón on the Atlantic to the Bay of Panama at Balboa on the Pacific, is 40 mi (64 km) long from shore to shore and 51 mi (82 km) long between channel entrances. The Pacific terminus is 27 mi (43 km) east of the Caribbean terminus. The minimum depth is 41 ft (12.5 m).
From Limón Bay a ship is raised by Gatún Locks (a set of three) to an elevation 85 ft (25.9 m) above sea level, traverses Gatún Lake, then crosses the Continental Divide through Gaillard (formerly Culebra) Cut and is lowered by Pedro Miguel Lock to Miraflores Lake and then by the Miraflores Locks (a set of two) to sea level. The average tidal range on the Atlantic side is less than a foot (.3 m); that on the Pacific side is 12.6 ft (3.8 m).
Sections in this article:
- Introduction
- Panamanian Control
- Insurrection against Colombia
- Construction and Improvements
- U.S. Interest in a Canal
- French Attempts
- Bibliography
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Panama Political Geography


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Professor Messer's Security+ Study Group – November 2017
Professor Messer's Security+ Course Notes:
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Category: SY0-501 Study Groups


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The folks at Record Store Day have just released their list of titles that will be either exclusive for Black Friday (Nov. 29, the day after Thanksgiving) or will be an early release on that day. Below I picked some highlights to look for; check out the whole list of Black Friday releases that will be available at Amoeba here (.pdf). Better line up early for these!
Bob Dylan – Side Tracks (Black Friday Exclusive)
A compilation of Bob Dylan tracks that have never been released formally on an album, now released on a triple-LP set. Enough said.
Track list:
Baby, I'm in the Mood for You
Mixed-Up Confusion (Single Version)
Tomorrow Is a Long Time
Lay Down Your Weary Tune
Percy's Song
I'll Keep It with Mine
Can You Please Crawl out Your Window? (Single Version)
Positively 4th Street
Jet Pilot
I Wanna Be Your Lover
I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met) (Live)
Visions of Johanna (Live)
Quinn the Eskimo (Mighty Quinn)
Watching the River Flow
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Down in the Flood (Live)
I Shall Be Released
You Ain't Goin' Nowhere
George Jackson (Acoustic Version)
Forever Young
You're a Big Girl Now
Up to Me
Abandoned Love
Isis (Live)
Romance in Durango (Live)
Caribbean Wind
Heart of Mine (Live)
Series of Dreams
Dignity (Alternate Version)
Things Have Changed


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"The Family Resort, Your beach holidays in Hua Hin, Thailand"45km away from Hua Hin, directly on the beach of Dolphin Bay, the resort is surrounded by Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park and some of Thailand's most magnificent natural scenery. Far from crowded beaches, bright neon lights, and noisy tourist hangouts typical of Thailand's other vacation destinations, Dolphin Bay Resort lies on a spectacular, unspoiled 5km beach with panoramic views of the bay, nestled between mountain peaks and dotted with lush tropical islands. Enjoy our comfortable accommodations, friendly, laid-back but efficient service and great recreational facilities at affordable prices in a family-friendly, child-friendly, and child-safe atmosphere of relaxed Thai beach hotel hospitality.
|The resort has 24 bungalow rooms, 22 balcony rooms (some connecting for families), 1, 2, and 3 bedroom suite with private pool and jacuzzi at affordable prices. Check-In Time: 2:00 pm, Check-Out Time: 11:30 am.
Superior Bungalow
(24 sq.m.)Each of our bungalow rooms is equipped with either one double bed or 2 twin beds, a writing desk, refrigerator, cable TV with international channel, and individual bathroom with shower. Room size is 24 m² including room and bathroom. Both connecting rooms and non-connecting rooms are available. Bungalow rooms are either located directly adjacent to the pool area or face the expansive garden/lawn area. There is a veranda with chairs and a table at the entrance of each room for you to enjoy sitting outside.
Upper Floor, Balcony
(24 sq.m.)Balcony rooms are located one floor above ground level and overlook either the pool or garden areas. Room size, furnishings, and amenities are the same as the bungalow rooms. Every room has a private balcony offering panoramic views of the beach or mountains. Both connecting rooms and non-connecting rooms are available.
1 Bedroom Junior Suite
(42 sq.m.)We have one 1 bedroom suite, which is also located one floor above ground level and overlooks the garden. It includes a bedroom with double bed, bathroom with shower, and a separate sitting room with small kitchenette. Room amenities includes a refrigerator and cable TV in Living room and bedroom. Panoramic views of the beach and mountains can be enjoyed from the private balcony.
2 Bedroom Deluxe Suite
(70 sq.m.)The 2 bedroom suite are located at the far end of the garden/lawn area. One bedroom has a double bed and the other bedroom has 2 twin beds. Each room has its own bathroom with shower. The apartments have a large living room with sitting area and cable TV. There is also a kitchenette equipped with sink, hot plate, microwave, refrigerator, as well as cooking utensils and dishware. The spacious balconies with picnic tables have a great view of the entire resort. The garden level apartments look out over the garden while the upper floor apartments have a view of beach and sea off in the distance.
3 Bedroom Family Suite, Balcony / 3 Bedroom Family Suite, Private Pool
(110 sq.m.)Our villas are located at the rear of the resort adjacent to the parking area. Each villa is made up of two 3 bedroom apartments and has a nice, private garden with swimming pool and jacuzzi, which is only for the use of the ground apartment. One bedroom has a double bed and the other two bedrooms have 2 twin beds each. Each room has its own bathroom with shower. The apartments have a large living room with dining area/kitchenette, sitting area and cable TV. The kitchenette is equipped with sink, hot plate, microwave, refrigerator, as well as cooking utensils and dishware. Ground floor units have a large table and sun bed. Outside cooking and BBQ are forbidden. Upper floor units have a spacious balcony.
Cafe LomaEnjoying a meal at Café Loma is a must during any visit to Sam Roi Yot. We take pride in the exceptional cuisine created by our Chef, Jared Kaulukukui. Located right on the beach, our guests can enjoy a continental style breakfast at our on site restaurant. All our food is made with the finest ingredients and we use organic free-range eggs from Golden Lay Asia Farm from Sam Roi Yot, organic salad and homemade Jam.
Service Hours: Kitchen: 7.30 to 21.30 / Breakfast Buffet: 7.30 to 10.00 / Bar: 7.30 to 23.00
Our resort is a great place for families with kids, with two large swimming pools in an expansive tropical garden setting of sprawling lawns,
shaded by palm trees gives the central area of the resort its generous, wide-open feeling.
The fun slide keeps the kids occupied for hours! Plenty of sun beds are on hand for relaxing,
reading or sunbathing on the lawns or on the beach, while the children play safely within sight nearby.
We have plenty of facilities to keep the kids occupied leaving time for the adults to relax.
With large indoor and outdoor adventure playgrounds, water slides and a movie room yours kids will never get bored.
|Swimming Pool
|Pool Slider
|Outdoor Playground
|Kids Room
|Tuk Tuk
|Bike for rent
|Driving from Bangkok
Get on the expressway in the direction of Dao Khanong and cross Rama IX bridge. After crossing the bridge, follow the signs to Samut Sakhon. You will drive approx. 100 km in a straight line south, passing Samut Sakhon and Samut Songkhram, and finally will reach a fork in the road – right to Ratchaburi, left to Phetchaburi. Go left and continue on to Phetchaburi.When you reach Phetchaburi, there will be another fork – left into Phetchaburi town, and right to Prachuap Khiri Khan.
Take the right-hand road. After approx. another 30-40km, just before entering Cha-am, you'll come to yet another fork. If you want to avoid the traffic and red lights in Cha-am and Hua Hin, continue on the right-hand side (the sign says Prachuap Khiri Khan). This is where the Cha-am-Pranburi bypass road begins. Note: Both routes are almost exactly equal in distance but the bypass is faster. Here's how to get to the resort from this point on, depending on which option you decide to choose
Via Cha-am – Pranburi Bypass Road
Once you turn onto the bypass road, you will drive straight ahead for approx. 50km. The bypass road then merges back to the main Phetchakasem Road and continues on into Pranburi (You'll see a Makro Cash and Carry on the right just before the road merges). After you merge back onto the main Phetchakasem Road, continue on straight ahead. Drive through the first traffic light in front of Thanarat Military Camp, continue on past the Esso, Shell and Caltex petrol stations on the left, and then turn left at the second traffic light (a Tesco Lotus Superstore is on the corner).
After turning left at the light, follow that road to the end for approx. 3.7km – you will go over a railroad crossing, pass Pranburi Hospital and after going over a small bridge will end up at a T-junction. Turn right at the junction, and then immediately left at the little police station. From the police station, drive 16.5 km straight ahead towards the entrance to the park. After 16.5 km you'll see a Thai temple, Wat phu noi, on the right. Turn left down the little road opposite the temple and drive straight about 2 km until you come to the beach. Turn left on the beach road. Dolphin Bay Resort lies 60 meters ahead – it's easy to recognize by the two large swimming pools and big water slide! Parking is at the rear of the resort. Turn left onto the access road which runs along the far wall of the property.


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A new dwarf-centric poster for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has been released. We recently saw a new poster for the film that featured Martin Freeman's Bilbo in a familiar pose, and this one-sheet gives us a look at all of Bilbo's dwarven companions that accompany him on the titular trek. It's a fun look at all the characters, and I think it gives onlookers a sense of the varied characteristics of the dwarves.
Hit the jump to take a closer look. Directed by Peter Jackson, the film also stars Ian McKellen, James Nesbitt, Stephen Hunter, Mark Hadlow, Graham McTavish, Dean Ogorman, Peter Hambleton, Aidan Turner, Jed Brophy, John Callen, Adam Brown, Ken Stott, William Kircher, Andy Serkis, and Richard Armitage. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens in 3D on December 14th.
Via Facebook.
Here's the synopsis for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey:
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" follows title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was long ago conquered by the dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior Thorin Oakenshield. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers. Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain, first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever… Gollum. Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum's "precious" ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities… A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.


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Welcome to poliTwitter.ca the Canadian political twitter & social media site! From one location keep track of what your politicians are saying on social media and what Canadians have to say about current politics.
Politwitter does the searching for you by indexing Canadian federal and provincial political twitter, facebook, blogs, youtube, flickr and more into one location. The site maintains a list of politicians and political tweeters as well as popular hash tags. You can view tweets narrowed down by MPs, partisan affiliation, province and more.
If you are an MP or candidate and new to Twitter check out our Political Guide to Social Media.
To learn more about the sites features and how to use them, view the help page.close | more about us »
To receive occasional updates about the site, follow @cka_politwit
This action requires you to be logged into Politwitter. No regisrtation is required, just authenticate using your Twitter account.


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Create an Account - Increase your productivity, customize your experience, and engage in information you care about.
The number one reason we are host to dozens and dozens of children's birthday parties each year is.... its not in your house!
Birthday parties at the City Recreation Center are a great way to keep the excitement without having it take over your own home. Private options available depending on availability.


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Open for orders and delivering safely at distance.
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Buy a Case of 12 Bottega Vino dei Poeti Prosecco DOC 75cl, and get them all packed into a protective outer box and delivered together.
We are fully secured By Go Daddy.
Order before 4:00pm to get next day delivery in the UK.
All gifts come with a free gift card that you can add a message, at checkout.
Free Standard delivery
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Excellent customer service.


text: Your bmw z4 Search Results Sorry, we have no vehicles in stock that currently match your search. Why not search again? Can't find what you are looking for? If you cannot find the specific model you are looking for call us today on 01458 201 030 or contact us via our online form. We have access to a national database of used Citroens that we can search to find your ideal car.


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Curtis Turner, one of the best stock car racers ever....
By Mike Mulhern
FORT WORTH, Texas
Just the names, and the memories, are enough to bring tears to your eyes, if you've been around the sport long enough.
Les Richter.
Bobby Isaac.
T. Wayne Robertson.
Wendell Scott.
And there are more.
NASCAR executives just announced the newest 25-man list of stock car racing legends they will have a select group of voters pick five from, for induction in the sometimes controversial new Charlotte Hall of Fame.
And each name is evocative of so much history in this sport, so much history that too frequently seems to be fading into obscurity.
But then the point of a Hall of Fame, a real, genuine, honest Hall of Fame, is to keep those memories alive.
Sometimes the new Charlotte operation, as spiffy and high tech as it is, seems superfluous to the real heart of this sport. It's got all the bells and whistles, but something seems to be lacking.
Perhaps this whole Hall of Fame thing needs to be rethought. Yes, legendary people helped build this sport, but this sport wasn't built by stars alone, but by the many others who did grunt work. And so far there is no place in this Hall for the workers.
Curtis Turner (L). Just ask Glen Wood about ol' Curtis
NASCAR's motorsports journalists have been voting men and women into the Darlington-home Hall of Fame since 1965. And there are more than 80 legends enshrined.
But NASCAR executives decided a few years ago to redo the Hall of Fame concept, by building a new Hall, in the heart of Charlotte, and to essentially wipe clean the slate and start anew.
So far the new Charlotte operation has put 20 men on its walls....and all but ignoring the work that this sport's journalists did for so many years.
The newest list of 'nominees,' as selected by NASCAR people is, though, a very classy list. In fact every one of them should be inducted immediately in the Hall:
-- Les Richter, the National Football League star who ran Riverside Raceway for so many years, and who then became Bill France Jr.'s right-hand 'go-to' man for tough projects. Richter, who died in 2010, was key in getting California's Auto Club Speedway up and running.
-- Curtis Turner, one of the best pure racers the sport has ever seen, a wild man who once landed his plane in the middle of town, to pick up a bottle of hooch....a man who tried to unionize this sport, and was thus banned by Big Bill France.
-- Red Byron, the first NASCAR champion, in 1949, and Raymond Parks, his car owner.
-- Clay Earles, Martinsville's famous track owner, who would go nose-to-nose with France in a heartbeat.
-- Bobby Isaac, the taciturn racer from Hickory who died much too young.
-- Jack 'Ironman' Ingram, who was classic old-school short-track racer.
-- Fred 'Golden Boy' Lorenzen, whose classic good looks and hard-charging style made him an American icon in the 1960s, until he burned out much too soon.
-- Fireball Roberts, with the hotshot name, but whose real claim to fame was 'putting this sport in a briefcase.'
-- Joe Weatherly, the comedic 1960s racer, two-time champion, who died during one of the sport's hard runs of death.
-- Rex White, the patient racer who parlayed that style into the 1960s championship, when this sport was 'go or blow.'
-- Wendell Scott, the 1940s and 1950s Danville, Va., moonshiner whose on-road exploits prompted Earles to put him in a Martinsville race...
-- Maurice Petty, the man who build all those engines for the sport's winningest driver.
-- Tim Flock, the coolest of the three Flock brothers, a two-time champion.
-- Ray Fox, the famous engine builder who helped put Junior Johnson and Buck Baker in the headlines.
-- And Anne B. France, 'Annie B,' who kept the books and made things work, while her husband, Big Bill, handled the tough-guy stuff.
Fred Lorenzen (L), interviewed by Chris Economaki. BTW, when will Economaki get a vote into this Hall of Fame?
When it comes to NASCAR history, the corporate world has done a heck of a lot to make this sport what it is. And now NASCAR has nominated two of the best:
-- T. Wayne Robertson and Ralph Seagraves, two men who helped save NASCAR during those dark hours of the early 1970s and who pumped this sport up with splashy in-your-face marketing and promotion, as key officials with R.J. Reynolds.
It is somewhat surprising that the NASCAR men who put Robertson and Seagraves on this ballot did not include the man who really made it all work, RJR's Jerry Long. It was Long who packaged this sports for ESPN....making it a TV sport in the early 1980s.
And some of the 'newer' sportsmen on the ballot:
-- Richard Childress, who took Dale Earnhardt and made things happen.
-- Jerry Cook, the six-time Modified champ.
-- Rick Hendrick, the sport's top car owner, who is still making big things happen.
-- Dale Jarrett, one of the nice guys in this sport, now a TV star, and 1999 champion.
-- Benny Parson, the 1973 champion, in that epic last race, and a long-time media star.
-- Larry Phillips, a star short-track champion.
-- And Bruton Smith. The man who created Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1960, with Curtis Turner, who lost that track and who then made a comeback, and who took this sport to Wall Street, and who engaged in an epic track building spree in the 1990s.
All of these are Hall of Famers, beyond question.
The only question now is when will NASCAR executives get this Hall of Fame in high gear.
One of the best NASCAR executives ever. Mr. Can-Do. Les Richter
Thanks for the memories Mike Seen a lot myself in the last 50 years All said and done, not too bad.
© 2010-2011 www.mikemulhern.net All rights reserved.
Web site by www.webdesigncarolinas.com


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Borland Defensive Player of the Year
Chris Borland is the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year. Borland is the fifth Badger to receive the award, following Troy Vincent, Tom Burke, Jamar Fletcher, and Erasmus James.
Borland, a senior, leads the Badgers with 102 tackles–forty more than UW's second leading tackler. He is just the fifth player in UW history to record three years with 100 tackles or more. He is tied for the Big Ten Record with 14 career forced fumbles, and a Badgers record with nine recoveries.
Perhaps even more impressive than his statistics? Borland leads all UW student-athletes in community service hours.