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So You Want to Fix the Tor Network
- or -
How to Run and Troubleshoot a Bandwidth-Measuring Directory Authority
How Do Bandwidth Authorities Work?
Bandwidth authorities measure relay capacity. Then they send their results to a directory authority, and the directory authority puts the results in its vote. The directory authority votes change the consensus weights of relays.
If your bandwidth authority isn't used for voting or testing, it's just wasting bandwidth.
These instructions are as of commit e268151aaa1436a8ce2d4959d1a48e69368dbf3d but probably apply anyway.
Check out the readme for setup instructions. On an Ubuntu 16.04 machine, setup.sh worked quite well. (Minor hiccups were encountered due to missing packages, and the recovery from those was only moderately confusing - it amounted to rm-ing directories and just starting the script over again.)
On *BSD or macOS, setup.sh probably won't work at all.
Configuring and Running
Are you using your own data file server, or the default? It would be better to run your own. To do this you'll have to set up a server and then edit this line in bwauthority_child.py:
urls = ["https://18.104.22.168/bwauth.torproject.org/"]
As the README says, ./run_scan.sh to start everything up. You'll want to add that in to run at boot also.
@reboot /home/tom/bwauth/torflow/NetworkScanners/BwAuthority/run_scan.sh
Copy cron.sh to cron-mine.sh and run that in a cron every hour.
45 0-23 * * * /home/tom/bwauth/torflow/NetworkScanners/BwAuthority/cron-mine.sh
I also make all of the historical files available in my Apache directory with a crontab:
10 * * * * ln -s /home/tom/bwauth/torflow/NetworkScanners/BwAuthority/data/bwscan.* /var/www/html/bwauth > /root/cron-ln-command.log
This list of files gets very big. I manually tar and compress them once a month, I don't have a script to do that yet.
Sanity Checking
Watch the output of 'data/aggregate-debug.log' - you should see the percentages creep upwards over time, and when you hit 60% you'll start producing a file.
So you've got bandwidth values, but how do you know if they're accurate?
You can check your top 25 relays and see if they come close to what Atlas has.
tail -n +2 bwscan.V3BandwidthsFile | cut -d " " -f 2,1,3 | awk -F" " '{ print $2 " " $1 " " $3; }' | sed 's/bw=//g' | sort -n | tail -n 25
A long time ago, I downloaded votes and analyzed the difference between each bwauth, but this requires the bwauth to be included in the vote.
for i in "moria1" "gabelmoo" "longclaw" "maatuska" "faravahar"; do grep "Measured" -B 4 $i | grep -v "^s" | grep -v "^v " | grep -v "^pr" | grep -v -- "--" | awk '!(NR%2){print p$0}{p=$0}' | cut -d " " -f 3 -f 11 | sed 's/Measured=//' > $i.data; done analyze_bwauth_thing() { echo $1 $2 `join $1 $2 | cut -d " " -f 2- | sort -n -r | head -n 200 | python -c 'import sys; d=lambda l : (abs(l[0]-l[1]) / ((l[0]+l[1])/2))*100; lines = [l.split(" ") for l in sys.stdin.readlines()]; lines = [(float(l[0]), float(l[1])) for l in lines]; print "\n".join([str(d(l)) for l in lines]);' | awk '{a+=$1} END{print a/NR}'`} \ls *.data | python -c 'import sys; import itertools; fi = [f.strip() for f in sys.stdin.readlines()]; c= [l for l in itertools.combinations(fi, 2)]; print "\n".join(["analyze_bwauth_thing " + i[0] + " " + i[1] for i in c]) '
And you can look at the Consensus Health graphs, and see if your bwauth seems sane based on that. (Again, required your bwauth to be voting.)
After the bwauth has been running for a few days, you might wish to set up some sanity checks for it. Tom Ritter uses checker for his, specifically with this script. The script checks five things:
- Is the bwauth machine still running (checks Apache)
- Does the bwauth bandwidths file have a sufficiently recent timestamp?
- Does the bwauth bandwidths file have a sufficient number of relays?
- Is the percentage of the network measured sufficiently high?
- Have all scanners looped recently?
More details:
Timestamp and Number of Relays
Symlink ~/bwauth/torflow/NetworkScanners/BwAuthority/bwscan.V3BandwidthsFile out to your Apache directory. The top line is a timestamp. I make sure it has a timestamp in the last four hours. I choose a number of relays that is a bit below the current number of measured relays by other bwauths (currently 7600). This number ebs and flows. I might edit it 5-6 times a year.
Percentage of the network measured
I have a crontab entry:
10 * * * * grep "of all tor nodes" /home/tom/bwauth/torflow/NetworkScanners/BwAuthority/data/aggregate-debug.log > /var/www/html/bwauth/AA_percent-measured.txt
That outputs the percent measured to https://bwauth.ritter.vg/bwauth/AA_percent-measured.txt and I check the last line to make sure it is reasonably high (> 96).
Scanner Loop Time
This one is less intuitive. There are 9 scanners. Sometimes a scanner gets stuck. It's very hard to detect when this happens based on the data output, by the time any of the above checks would fire, the data is excessively stale. So this check is pretty important.
The crontab entry to generate this info is:
10 * * * * for i in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9; do echo "Scanner $i"; egrep "Starting slice for percentiles [0-9]+.0-" /home/tom/bwauth/torflow/NetworkScanners/BwAuthority/data/scanner.$i/bw.log; done
It outputs it to https://bwauth.ritter.vg/bwauth/AA_scanner_loop_times.txt. I check that the last line of each scanner is within a reasonable time frame (6 days).
Bandwidth Authority Tor Fails to Start
- Make the Log, DataDirectory, and PidFile paths absolute paths (#20456)
Bandwidth Authority Scripts Fail on BSD / OS X
- Install a readlink that supports -f
- Manually install dependencies from the BwAuthority instructions
- Manually set SCANNER_DIR in cron.sh and run_scan.sh
Bandwidth Authority Fails on Small (Test) Networks
- Small networks might be missing Guards, Guards+Exits, Middles, or Exits (#20467)
- Small networks might have bandwidths below the minimum of 1MByte/second (#20505)
On small networks, the following features can lead to no measured bandwidths:
- bandwidth authorities measure the bandwidth of directory authorities, but don't aggregate them in the results,
- the consensus does not include any measured bandwidths until there are at least 3 bandwidth authorities.
Bandwidth Authorities use an Old Tor Version
- Update the bwauth to use tor 0.2.9, because it's LTS (#20453)
If using tor 0.3.0 or later, add "UseMicrodescriptors 0" to the torrc (#20621)(fixed in tor)
- You might get some errors using Tor 0.3.0 or later (#24110)
Scanner Fails to Import Required Python Libraries
- Change the PYTHONPATH in the scripts (#20466)
Excessive Log Entries
- Remove the download URL that doesn't work (#20580)
- Turn pathbias off (#20457)
- Fix the NEWCONSENSUS event code (#20619)
stretch setup
1: Create a new user to run the bwscanner (I call mine bwscanner)
(root) adduser --system bwscanner
2: Check out torflow from https://git.torproject.org/torflow
(root) apt-get install git ca-certificates (root) su - bwscanner -s /bin/bash git clone https://git.torproject.org/torflow cd torflow git rev-parse HEAD
The last command shows you what you actually got. There are no signed tags for torflow, so try to verify as best as you can.
git submodule init git submodule update
3: Install a system tor
(root) apt-get install tor
4: Provide virtualenv (the sql dependencies are too new on stretch)
(root) apt-get install virtualenv python-virtualenv gcc libpython2.7-dev libsqlite3-dev cd NetworkScanners/BwAuthority virtualenv -p python2.7 bwauthenv source bwauthenv/bin/activate
Replace the requirements file. This file instructs pip to download the exact versions of dependencies and includes sha256 hashes. The provided one is outdated and sets a deprecated option (--no-use-wheel) which gets automatically set by non-ancient pip versions and one that means it won't work (--no-index) because the package isn't available locally. This is the content of the file for me:
pysqlite==2.6.3 --hash=sha256:fe9c35216bf56c858b34c4b4c8be7e34566ddef29670e5a5b43f9cb8ecfbb28d SQLAlchemy==0.7.10 --hash=sha256:77aa39d65c9d043eba6ba329b359ff867424fd6c403b7c0cb112b65e507e1d66 Elixir==0.7.1 --hash=sha256:a7ef437f25b544e4f74fb3236fc43cd25f5d6feb6037dd7c66931046d75439e9
Install the dependencies:
pip install -r requirements.txt
5: Update config
In bwauthority_child.py, find the line urls. Replaced by my own bw server.
In run_scan.sh, find the line TOR_EXE. Make it look like so:
6: Update crontab
Two entries for the crontab (run crontab -e):
@reboot cd /home/bwscanner/torflow/NetworkScanners/BwAuthority && /home/bwscanner/torflow/NetworkScanners/BwAuthority/run_scan.sh 45 * * * * cd /home/bwscanner/torflow/NetworkScanners/BwAuthority/ && /home/bwscanner/torflow/NetworkScanners/BwAuthority/cron.sh


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I've posted before about how breastfeeding, and in particular a natural weaning process (years, not months), is a strong building block for a healthy vegan child.
Basically, if you continue to breastfeed your child along with the solids they eat, you are providing perfectly-designed nutrition. There's no need to add other milks, particularly milks from other animals, with their associated health risks and institutional cruelty.
But very few families choose natural weaning. Unlike traditional cultures worldwide, our culture has primarily sexualised breasts, mainly for commercial use. So to most, breastfeeding past infancy is icky, weird, and probably perverted. Of course, a child with a bottle of cows' milk would pass unnoticed.
The recent uproar about the breastfeeding Time cover mother is living proof of how squirmy people get when seeing a big kid attached to his mother's human nipple.
Well, I've been there, done that, and had my motivations examined with a very dirty microscope. It's time we talked about these judgements openly. I hope you'll read my frank discussion on breastfeeding mothers and sex and find it valuable in the big picture of cultural bias vs raising the next vegan generation.

subset: commoncrawl


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Microsoft dual factor Authentication
Protecting data in this digital era is of prime importance. Recent years have seen multiple case studies around hackers, frauds and threats. Organizations today have reached the "password breaking point" and are forced to strengthen the user authentication with alternative security methods.
Microsoft recently rolled out two-factor authentication across all its product lines ranging from Windows PCs, Phones, SkyDrive, Office, Skype, and Outlook thru its "Microsoft Account id".
Microsoft & Phone Factor
Microsoft acquired PhoneFactor, a leading authentication solution, around October'12. With PhoneFactor, Microsoft is bringing about effective secure solutions for its application and cloud services. Prior to the acquisition, PhoneFactor was already hugely compatible with Multifactor authentication for Microsoft's OWA, AD and IIS.
So what is this two step process all about? In addition to your existing user account and password details, you would be required to provide a second form of identification in the form of mail/sms from your preferred option (you can select it to be any device- PC/smart phone/Tablet, and it continues to be the common source to which successive codes will be sent ).What this also means is that it isn't just enough for an attacker to know your passwords alone but also being equipped with your device, which is difficult. This very strongly means that an intruder needs to have your device too in addition to your password to hack. This authentication will reduces the window of opportunity for fraudsters and can mitigate online attacks.
Browser compatibility: You also have of minimizing the prompts you face across all browsers (not just IE).
Validity: The verification will get reset if you don't access the device for 60 days.
App: Microsoft has also come up with an app which is very handy when you are on the move. The app is called as "Authenticator App" for Windows phone. The app generates security code (based on industry standard best practices for code generation with all service providers). You can add your account to the app thru entering serial code key or by scanning the bar code.
Additionally if your source (any device) isn't supporting the two-step authentication, Microsoft is helping you do to create a specific app password for your device.
Protecting yourself from being compromised by malicious attacks is the key to neutralizing active attacks. Arming yourself with a technology like two-step verification can keep you and your data secure from any attack/breach. It certainly isn't a mandate to enable this feature, totally at your discretion! But yes, it does enhance and ensure your safe engagement for your accounts and Microsoft has brought this about in a very user-savvy fashion. An added layer of security can indeed make a huge difference and make our lives easier.
Technology Evangelist
Team @MSExchangeGuru


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Our RE Curriculum Statement
At Nicol Mere School, the teaching and learning of Religious Education has a significant role in the development of our children's spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. We believe it is vital that all our children develop a good understanding of a variety of religious traditions and cultures to equip them with the knowledge and skills needed to engage with religious issues and worldwide views in Modern Britain.
1. To have very high expectations in RE across the whole school so that children are ready for an ever changing world with many different religions and cultures.
2. To provide a broad and balanced curriculum which is progressive in knowledge, skills and vocabulary.
3. To develop our children's tolerance and respect to others views.
4. To support and encourage our children to reflect on their own beliefs and appreciate the awe and wonder of the world.
5. To offer children new and exciting opportunities and experiences.
6. To promote our school and British Values.
7. To prepare our children for the next steps in their learning journey.
Nicol Mere RE Curriculum


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Agriculture on the Highveld in South Africa's Mpumalanga Province25.8S 29.2E
Mpumalanga is a province in eastern South Africa, north of KwaZulu-Natal and bordering Swaziland and Mozambique. It constitutes 6.5% of South Africa's land area. The Drakensberg Escarpment divides Mpumalanga into a westerly half consisting mainly of high-altitude grassland called the Highveld and an eastern half situated in low altitude subtropical Lowveld/Bushveld, mostly savanna habitat.
The Highveld is a high plateau region of inland South Africa which is largely home to the largest metropolitan area in the country. This ASAR image focuses on a part of the Highveld near the cities of Witbank (top center) and Middelburg (top right). In total, the Highveld covers an area of almost 400,000 km², or roughly thirty percent of South Africa's land area.
Like so many areas of traditional grassland all over the world the Highveld is excellent agricultural land and most of the area has been converted for farming; agricultural fields are visible throughout the image. The grassland now remains in its original state only in areas of nature reserve. These reserves, although they account for just a small portion of the Highveld, are still the largest areas of remaining grassland in South Africa.


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- 4 large beets
- 1 Asian pear, diced
- ½ cup crumbled feta cheese
- 2 pickles, finely diced
- 1 pomegranate
- ½ purple onion, finely diced
- 4 tbsp. light olive oil
- 2–3 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
- 1 tsp. sugar
- 2 small cloves garlic, crushed
- ¼ tsp. kosher salt
- Wash and dry the beets. Prick each one with a fork several times, then wrap in two layers of foil and bake at 400° F until cooked through. Let the beets cool, then unwrap the foil, peel the beets and dice them. (Beets can be cooked in advance and refrigerated for up to a week.) Add the pomegranate seeds, Asian pear, purple onion, and feta cheese.
- Whisk the oil, balsamic vinegar, sugar, garlic, and salt together. Pour over salad, mix, and serve.


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Property Location
With a stay at Hampton Inn Birch Run/Frankenmuth in Birch Run, you'll be minutes from Birch Run Premium Outlets and close to Birch Run Expo Center. This hotel is within close proximity of Birch Run Township Park and Wilderness Trails Zoo.
Make yourself at home in one of the 89 air-conditioned rooms featuring LCD televisions. Complimentary wireless Internet access keeps you connected, and cable programming is available for your entertainment. Private bathrooms have complimentary toiletries and hair dryers. Conveniences include desks and complimentary newspapers, as well as phones with free local calls.
Take advantage of recreational opportunities offered, including an indoor pool, a spa tub, and a fitness center.
A complimentary hot/cold buffet breakfast is included.
Business, Other Amenities
Featured amenities include a business center, express check-in, and a 24-hour front desk. Free self parking is available onsite.


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Follow us
Without knowing exactly what is required to undertake such a task, we are all full of admiration when we see stunning images taken from the top of a mountain. Fran Halsall explains the ins and outs of mountain photography
For some there is an irresistible urge to explore high and often extreme terrain, and, for as long as cameras have existed, there have been mountaineers wielding them in the unlikeliest of places. When struggling up the last few metres to a summit, my thoughts drift frequently to the genre's pioneers and I count myself lucky that today's equipment is so much more manageable and lightweight. Although this does not mean that mountains have become any easier to climb, it is the extra effort spent getting there that makes a successful photograph from such an ascent all the more satisfying.
Mountain photography can be a particularly lonely business, as most right-minded people avoid clambering over rocks and other obstacles in the dark to catch the sunrise or wait around for sunset on top of a peak, and few are willing to remain in one spot for hours on end hoping for the 'right light' while the blood freezes slowly in one's veins. Because of this, it can be hard to find...
Read this article, and many more, in High Definition, inside Issue 32 of Landscape Photography Magazine.


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This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases dealing with gay marriage: the challenges to California's Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act. On the Political Scene podcast, Jeffery Toobin and Margaret Talbot talk with Dorothy Wickenden about how the Court might rule in each case and what the decisions could mean for marriage equality.
While plaintiffs in both cases seek to extend the right to marry to same-sex couples, one potential interaction between the two cases could work against that goal. "Justice Kennedy was so clearly captivated by the federalism argument—the sates'-rights argument, the idea that marriage is something that we leave for the states to regulate," Toobin tells us. "That's good news if you want DOMA overturned. That's not such good news if you want Prop 8 overturned."
But there is also a chance that the Court will avoid causing such an interaction by deciding not to rule on Prop 8 at all. Because the state of California decided not to defend its own law in court and left the task to its original proponents, the Supreme Court could determine that the people who appealed the previous ruling on the lawsuit, which struck down Prop 8, did not have the legal standing to do so, and thus avoid ruling on the substantive issues at hand. The issue of standing, which Richard Socarides has more on, is, as Toobin says, "something the Court seemed very troubled by." Even assuming the Court does opt to consider the merits of the case, it still may not issue the sweeping ruling some people are hoping for. Supporters of same-sex marriage, Toobin says, "are trying to get the Supreme Court to recognize a new set of rights, which they are generally reluctant to do."
California notwithstanding, marriage equality has made progress in the states—legislatively and electorally—with a speed rarely witnessed on such controversial social issues. "Almost regardless of what the Court does," Talbot says, "this is kind of a done deal." Already some Republicans, concerned about their popularity among young voters, have begun "defecting to the side of same-sex marriage," she notes; more can be expected to do so in the near future. As Toobin puts it, "the country… moved so fast that the stakes in [the two cases] went down."
You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or XML, and become a fan of the Political Scene on Facebook.


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The ANNIKA Foundation – golf Hall-of-Famer Annika Sorenstam's charitable organization – has partnered with The R&A to establish the ANNIKA Invitational Latin America junior golf tournament.
Sixty of the world's leading girls (ages 12 to 16) will compete October 19-22 at Hurlingham Club outside Buenos Aires, Argentina. The winner will receive an exemption into the 2017 South American Amateur Open in Lima, Peru, while the top-three finishers will receive invites to the 2017 ANNIKA Invitational USA in Orlando, Fla.
The ANNIKA Invitational Latin America joins the ANNIKA Invitational USA, ANNIKA Invitational Mission Hills (China) and ANNIKA Invitational Europe on the global roster of ANNIKA Foundation junior tournaments. The ANNIKA Invitational USA just held its eighth-annual edition, while the China and Europe tournaments are in their sixth and fifth years, respectively.
Martin Slumbers, Chief Executive of The R&A, said, "We are delighted to be working with Annika to establish the ANNIKA Invitational Latin America and this is another important development in our efforts to support the growth of golf in the region.
"This new event will provide an outstanding showcase for girls to compete with their peers from different countries and potentially earn a place in the South American Amateur Championships. It is entirely fitting that the inaugural event should be played in Argentina, with its rich golfing heritage of producing great champions such as Roberto de Vicenzo, who won The Open in 1967, and Angel Cabrera. We can look forward to a tremendous championship."
As with all of her business and charitable endeavors, Annika will be intimately involved and onsite at the Hurlingham Club for the championship. Some scheduled activities are a clinic for competitors during which she'll share her "Winning Approach" philosophy, a gala dinner and an awards presentation.
Annika partners supporting the event include Rolex, Callaway, Cutter & Buck and AHEAD.
Adds Annika: "With golf making its return to the Olympics at the Rio Games in 2016, the timing is right for us to establish the ANNIKA Invitational Latin America. The R&A is a great supporter of junior golf and, like us, feels strongly about the game's benefits to young players both on and off the course."
ANNIKA Foundation www.annikafoundation.org.
The R&A www.RandA.org.


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When I realized my fondest desire was to create a clothing brand that aligned with my core values as a Global Citizen, I landed in Hempville and decided to have an extended stay with my first collection. While I (like many folks, probably) assumed hemp was that scratchy, stiff canvas or twine necklace hippie wear, I was surprised, after researching, to witness the sophisticated fabric blends using hemp today. For instance, hemp and silk both have long, even threads that lend themselves to a strong super weave with a fantastic, smooth, luxurious sheen.
Just in case you take my headline seriously, you should know there is very little THC in hemp. You could wrap up an entire field of hemp into a truck sized joint and you would get very uncomfortable with the smoke inhalation of that much burning stalk fiber long before you felt the effects of a "high". My high comes from the natural good feelings I have when I touch fabric containing the planet's living energy!
Cancer causing "Round-Up" is unwanted energy, but hemp fabrics blended with organic cotton have none of that in them. In fact, hemp grows so densely that it prevents bugs and weeds from thriving in its fields and never needs pesticides.
Think about that on a grand scale. We use so much cotton on this planet (most of which is NOT organic and therefore, uses pesticides) that we are spraying chemicals all over our own globe. Did you know that 50% of all the world's pesticides are sprayed on cotton? Hemp is an easy solution. It is stronger, grows faster, uses less water and leaves fields weed free. Why it's illegal to grow in the USA (which any logical mind will ask when presented with the facts) is a huge question that leads to a rabbit hole of answers.
My focus is on this: What can I do today to make this planet better? How can I use my talents, energy, and voice to thrive with solutions and winning for all? My own answer is to produce quality, luxurious products with hemp and other sustainable fabrics. Here are the facts about hemp, but I also want to add that it smells good. It smells like the Earth. It smells non toxic. When I smell it, I get an energy activation of Earthy goodness. I didn't know this until I made my clothes with it. Order from my Hemp Collection and take a whiff of life force Earth energy. xxooYabette
Here are the hemp facts from NAIHC (North American Industrial Hemp Council, Inc.)
*Hemp has been grown for at least the last 12,000 years for fiber (textiles and paper) and food. It has been effectively prohibited in the United States since the 1950s.
*George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both grew hemp. Ben Franklin owned a mill that made hemp paper. Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper.
*When US sources of "Manila hemp" (not true hemp) was cut off by the Japanese in WWII, the US Army and US Department of Agriculture promoted the "Hemp for Victory" campaign to grow hemp in the US.
*Because of its importance for sails (the word "canvass" is rooted in "cannabis") and rope for ships, hemp was a required crop in the American colonies.
*Henry Ford experimented with hemp to build car bodies. He wanted to build and fuel cars from farm products.
*BMW is experimenting with hemp materials in automobiles as part of an effort to make cars more recyclable.
*Much of the bird seed sold in the US has hemp seed (it's sterilized before importation), the hulls of which contain about 25% protein.
*Hemp oil once greased machines. Most paints, resins, shellacs, and varnishes used to be made out of linseed (from flax) and hemp oils.
*Rudolph Diesel designed his engine to run on hemp oil.
*Kimberly Clark (on the Fortune 500) has a mill in France which produces hemp paper preferred for bibles because it lasts a very long time and doesn't yellow.
*Construction products such as medium density fiber board, oriented strand board, and even beams, studs and posts could be made out of hemp. Because of hemp's long fibers, the products will be stronger and/or lighter than those made from wood.
*The products that can be made from hemp number over 25,000.
*Industrial hemp and marijuana are both classified by taxonomists as Cannabis sativa, a species with hundreds of varieties. C. sativa is a member of the mulberry family. Industrial hemp is bred to maximize fiber, seed and/or oil, while marijuana varieties seek to maximize THC (delta 9 tetrahydrocannabinol, the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana).
*While industrial hemp and marijuana may look somewhat alike to an untrained eye, an easily trained eye can easily distinguish the difference.
*Industrial hemp has a THC content of between 0.05 and 1%. Marijuana has a THC content of 3% to 20%. To receive a standard psychoactive dose would require a person to power-smoke 10-12 hemp cigarettes over an extremely short period of time. The large volume and high temperature of vapor, gas and smoke would be almost impossible for a person to withstand.
*If hemp does pollinate any nearby marijuana, genetically, the result will always be lower-THC marijuana, not higher-THC hemp. If hemp is grown outdoors, marijuana will not be grown close by to avoid producing lower-grade marijuana.
*Hemp fibers are longer, stronger, more absorbent and more mildew-resistant than cotton.
*Fabrics made of at least one-half hemp block the sun's UV rays more effectively than other fabrics.
*Many of the varieties of hemp that were grown in North America have been lost. Seed banks weren't maintained. New genetic breeding will be necessary using both foreign and domestic "ditchweed," strains of hemp that went feral after cultivation ended. Various state national guard units often spend their weekends trying to eradicate this hemp, in the mistaken belief they are helping stop drug use.
*A 1938 Popular Mechanics described hemp as a "New Billion Dollar Crop." That's back when a billion was real money.
*Hemp can be made in to a variety of fabrics, including linen quality.
*The US Drug Enforcement Agency classifies all C. sativa varieties as "marijuana." While it is theoretically possible to get permission from the government to grow hemp, DEA would require that the field be secured by fence, razor wire, dogs, guards, and lights, making it cost-prohibitive.
*The US State Department must certify each year that a foreign nation is cooperating in the war on drugs. The European Union subsidizes its farmers to grow industrial hemp. Those nations are not on this list, because the State Department can tell the difference between hemp and marijuana.
*Hemp was grown commercially (with increasing governmental interference) in the United States until the 1950s. It was doomed by the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which placed an extremely high tax on marijuana and made it effectively impossible to grow industrial hemp. While Congress expressly expected the continued production of industrial hemp, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics lumped industrial hemp with marijuana, as it's successor the US Drug Enforcement Administration, does to this day.
*Over 30 industrialized democracies do distinguish hemp from marijuana. International treaties regarding marijuana make an exception for industrial hemp.
*Canada now again allows the growing of hemp.
* Hemp growers can not hide marijuana plants in their fields. Marijuana is grown widely spaced to maximize leaves. Hemp is grown in tightly-spaced rows to maximize stalk and is usually harvested before it goes to seed.
*Hemp can be made into fine quality paper. The long fibers in hemp allow such paper to be recycled several times more than wood-based paper.
*Because of its low lignin content, hemp can be pulped using less chemicals than with wood. Its natural brightness can obviate the need to use chlorine bleach, which means no extremely toxic dioxin being dumped into streams. A kinder and gentler chemistry using hydrogen peroxide rather than chlorine dixoide is possible with hemp fibers.
*Hemp grows well in a variety of climates and soil types. It is naturally resistant to most pests, precluding the need for pesticides. It grows tightly spaced, out-competing any weeds, so herbicides are not necessary. It also leaves a weed-free field for a following crop.
*Hemp can displace cotton which is usually grown with massive amounts of chemicals harmful to people and the environment. 50% of all the world's pesticides are sprayed on cotton.
*Hemp can displace wood fiber and save forests for watershed, wildlife habitat, recreation and oxygen production, carbon sequestration (reduces global warming), and other values.
*Hemp can yield 3-8 dry tons of fiber per acre. This is four times what an average forest can yield.
*If one tried to ingest enough industrial hemp to get 'a buzz', it would be the equivalent of taking 2-3 doses of a high-fiber laxative.
*At a volume level of 81%, hemp oil is the richest known source of polyunsaturated essential fatty acids (the "good" fats). It's quite high in some essential amino acids, including gamma linoleic acid (GLA), a very rare nutrient also found in mother's milk.
*While the original "gruel" was made of hemp seed meal, hemp oil and seed can be made into tasty and nutritional products.
Prepared by the North American Industrial Hemp Council, October 1997


text:
9H – The End & Epilogue
Rupert stepped into the hold and whispered their names. Undine cracked open the lid and replied. Diogenes hid in the crate with her, to keep each other warm at the top of the stack. Rupert instructed them to stay put while he ordered several guards to carry their crate to his room, which Grabmaler had left unoccupied, certain of Rupert's return. The guards balanced the crate on their shoulders, passing through barbed wire and into the compound, and finally into the "ground" or top floor, the penthouse of the inverted skyscraper.
Rupert tipped the guards with party passes, waiting for the elevator door to slide shut, then dragged the crate into his room, bolting the door. Before opening the lid, however, he checked the two-way telephone and movie screens, which doubled as surveillance monitors, then he combed the vents, doors, speakers, vases, bookshelves and appliances for visible listening devices — though he knew the floors themselves, the carpet, even the plaster, could be bugged. They would have to deliberately monitor him for those bugs to be activated, so he pried open the crate. Diogenes and Undine unfolded their legs and Rupert helped them gradually decamp and relax.
Diogenes surveyed Rupert's former lodging. The leopard-striped carpet, the Modiglianis and Rousseaus on the wall, the huge screens and video library, exercise bicycle, personal computer and leather-bound adventure classics reminded him that Rupert had spent the majority of his adolescence under Grabmaler's roof. Undine walked into the kitchen and found it elegantly stocked, chose a pitcher of lemonade and a carafe of vodka, and poured three drinks. They looked at each other, wondering whether Rupert was capable of denying his safety or apt to surrender to his home and Grabmaler's support. Diogenes took a straight swig of vodka, then asked:
"Well, we made it. Now what?"
"If we act up we'll be shot." Undine observed.
"Rupert, how long can we hide in here before we're discovered?" Diogenes asked, swishing his ice.
"It's hard to say. Even the plaster is bugged. It's just a matter of when they monitor us."
Diogenes fished out the bullets he lifted from Hindenburg's drawer in Heidelberg, and spread them out on the coffee table and asked: "Do you still have the pistol I gave you?"
Rupert sighed and slid it next to the bullets. Diogenes checked the cartridge. It was still loaded.
"What are going to do with that?" Undine fretted.
"The point is not to use the gun but to carry it." Diogenes dissembled. "Rupert, what would you do if you inherited Grabmaler's wealth?"
"It's a question I've asked myself …" Rupert walked over to the wall with his drink, running his fingers over a globe. "It's been offered me …"
"How can anything stolen be inherited?" Undine asked nervously.
"What should I do?"
"I'd want to know what it is I've inherited." Diogenes answered, smiling.
"What does it matter?" Rupert's asked distantly, smoothing his fingers over the globe.
"It could be turned over to the poor. You could give it all away." Undine replied, remembering the looted Louvre and Berlin's ring camps.
"But if wealth has been extorted, if it's 'the booty' of murder … ?" Rupert trailed off.
"Do you also inherit the crime?" Diogenes finished his thought.
Rupert stared at Diogenes. Undine fell silent. The notion of succession made his Parisian escape, his sexual betrayal of Undine, his rapprochement then betrayal of Grabmaler and his return, self-defeating. That he would benefit by killing Grabmaler made a decision to pull a trigger and discharge a weapon into his body a crime of passion, or greed.
"How much have you inherited Ruppie?" Diogenes chided him, raising his eyebrows.
"The whole operation would have to be exposed, if there was anyone outside who could understand it." Undine thought outloud.
Rupert shuddered. It was evident they were getting nowhere. Diogenes, then, changed his tactic: "My goal is … to find out." He assumed a breezy tone, deliberately joking: "We should see the pinnacle — get to the bottom of it. Get to the asshole of this operation. When they buried me in the printing room, I remember rumors … as to Benedict's rites, his laboratory, or whatever a High Priest does. It must be quite elaborate!"
"I thought it over stuffed in the crate. They were, by the way," he said with a wink to Undine, " … the best moments of my life!" He could see Rupert knew that Diogenes was goading him to whitewash his real intent: "Well, at least I'm resolved."
"You'll never get down there." Rupert said, "No one has a key to those rooms, except Grabmaler and Benedict. And they revolve guards. Further, Grabmaler and Benedict alone escort and choose guards without announcements or schedules. They alone hold keys. Do you want to risk our lives to satisfy a whim?"
"What's your reasoning Diogenes?" Undine pressed.
"I've given it" Diogenes sniffed. "It's time to act. We need the key now! Grabmaler's key."
Rupert pondered for a moment: "I'll ask him."
"For his key?" Undine froze, incredulously.
"Why not?" Rupert blurted out, picking up the gun from the coffee table.
"What should I do?" Undine asked.
"Come with me." Rupert replied, checking for Diogenes' approval.
"Just get the key." Diogenes spoke up, "Or wait with me here."
"I'll bring it to you." Undine countered as she followed Rupert into the hallway. Diogenes poured another vodka and orange.
Rupert, shadowed by Undine, wound his way to another elevator then decided to key his way up through the emergency stairwell, between floors. He slipped up the damp cement passage which opened into Grabmaler's wing. Undine drew close as he swung open the door and they tiptoed onto a rich red carpet and edged their way under barely lit crystal chandeliers, by marble statues and paintings ornamenting Grabmaler's wing. Cooks and waiters worked in the kitchen, behind leather-padded swinging doors, as they stealthily ducked a camera which monitored the kitchen door.
They could hear the muffled squawk of a parrot as they slipped into Grabmaler's receiving room. Rupert had often seen Grabmaler's bedroom in his early teens and knew Grabmaler kept a parrot to amuse him, returning with it from Thailand. Rupert signaled to Undine to hide herself behind a Greek statue of Aphrodite which flanked Grabmaler's private hologram-studio.
Rupert stepped gently, hand stuffed in his black velvet jacket, and with studied patience, squeezed the ivory handle which opened into Grabmaler's bedroom. The parrot squawked more audibly. He could hear a rustling in the bed and could smell Grabmaler's cigar, which he had once confided, he only smoked after good sex. Rupert cracked the door wider. He heard a strange sound, perhaps it was kissing, then a sigh. It was Grabmaler who sighed. Then he heard, it sounded like Imke, a voice ask: "You like it that way?" Rupert continued to listen. He thought he had heard the sound which followed the voice before. The parrot squawked: "Anarchist!" The door made a noise but no one seemed to stir inside. Finally, Rupert tapped the door halfway open. He knew there were huge mirrors in Grabmaler's bedroom but couldn't remember in what direction they faced. He saw the wall covered by an erotic Indian tapestry and a tray set with sliced pineapple and caviar. A bottle of unopened champagne sat chilling in ice. He breathed in the aroma of the fine cigar. Then, impulsively, he swung the door fully open.
Grabmaler lay there, with his eyes still closed, a burning cigar in his fingers. He was naked from the waist down. Imke was lying on top of his legs slowly riding her mouth up and over Grabmaler's penis. A tray of cocaine-extract and a small, gilded water-pipe stood opposite the bed. The parrot beaded its eyes at Rupert. Rupert saw himself in the mirror, holding up the gun, his face contorted with rage, blood draining from his eyes and, as in a dream, he tried forcing himself to say something but his lips and tongue could not move. He was shocked by his appearance in the mirror — so much so, and so frozen for a moment that he stood there as Imke carried on sucking Grabmaler while Rupert stared at himself.
The parrot squawked again: "Send him home!" It was Grabmaler's favorite threat, "Face down!" The parrot added, completing the phrase which Grabmaler would shout then apologize for ever so often when consumed with rage. He opened his eyes and immediately saw Rupert. Grabmaler's pupils contracted. Rupert could see the lines of his mouth convulse tensely, as Grabmaler understood the danger. Without saying a word, he eased back Imke's head from his crotch. Rupert held up the pistol, his hands sweating and felt as if he might faint. Grabmaler then pulled out a small pistol from his smoking jacket, and as Rupert tensed to fire, Grabmaler shot Imke in the temple.
Rupert struggled to recover his balance, feeling faint. Grabmaler, meanwhile, convulsed his legs and Imke's body fell over the side of the bed with a thud, her eyes still closed and her mouth still open, now filling with blood.
"There! You see! Our problem has been solved." Grabmaler said, voice ripe with irony and self-control.
"Nothing has been resolved. Only another body on which to toss dirt and contrive an epitaph." Rupert said, fighting to speak, his throat dry as driftwood.
"Nothing has ever come between us." Grabmaler said, with an effort to recover some paternal warmth.
"Nothing but a few thousand corpses, a mirror, a void." Rupert answered back.
"This is no time for poetry, my boy!" Grabmaler said, having dropped his cigar and offering his hand to Rupert.
The parrot squawked, "Anarchist!" and Rupert squeezed the trigger and struck the bird in the breast, slamming it into the wall.
"Rupert! Stop these theatrics!" Grabmaler commanded. They both were frankly amazed that Rupert had hit the bird, a rather small object for all its feathers and huge beak. Grabmaler realized that they had both shared that sensation, and tried another tack:
"Rupert. Do you remember the time we went hunting together?"
"Yes, you killed a doe and claimed she was a young buck."
"Oh, c'mon now!" Grabmaler roared, losing patience.
Rupert looked at him. He was uncannily aware that he was flanked on all sides by mirrors and that a corpse lay to his right and all of this stood endlessly reflected. Grabmaler put his gun down on the silk sheets which were now stained with Imke's blood.
"Could you really kill me? Undefended? After all I have done for you?" I've made you my son!"
"It's time to stop lying, Grabmaler."
"No! It's time to end this argument before you kill a man who has acted as your father. They say, for parricide, you go straight to Hell!"
"You're not my father."
"If I'm not — then who is?"
"I have no father."
"You won't if you kill me."
Rupert lowered his gun. He couldn't do it. Grabmaler looked at Rupert, scarcely able to suppress his sensation of victory. Rupert began to turn towards the door and stuttered: "You're right. Y…You are the murderer. Not me."
Undine suddenly appeared at the door and screamed: "Rupert!"
Grabmaler squeezed the trigger and fired, grazing Undine's ribs as Rupert wheeled around.
Rupert fired directly at Grabmaler's brow but missed and struck him in the neck, blasting a small hole in the soft of his esophagus. Rupert walked to his bedside and fired again into his heart to finish him off as he was gasping at the sheets and drowning in his own blood.
Undine walked painfully up to Grabmaler, holding her rib, searched through Grabmaler's soaked smoking jacket and found his key. Rupert stooped and pulled the sheets over Grabmaler's head. Then he examined the bloody parrot. He stood up, holding the parrot in his left palm when Undine waved the key in front of his face, saying:
"I am taking his key to Diogenes." She looked into Rupert's eyes. He was completely lost.
"I'm taking this key to Diogenes."
"Oh." Rupert was stroking the parrot.
"We will give Diogenes the gun."
"No." Rupert replied, swaying, lost in a trance.
"Yes! He might have to defend himself!"
"Don't make him go through this." Rupert said, still staring at the parrot, just discovering, then jolting back into consciousness by her injury. "You're hurt, Undine!"
"It's nothing." Undine whispered, loosening Rupert's fingers from around the pistol butt.
"No. I've killed Grabmaler. I may need this. And Diogenes only …. no. I just don't want Diogenes to feel obliged to kill." Rupert ended.
"Here, here." Undine said, softly as Rupert surrendered the gun. "Now, please, get out of here soon. Promise me!" She stated slowly, shaking Rupert's shoulder.
"I promise."
"I'll come back up after I give this … " She showed him the key again, " … to Diogenes."
Undine closed the door to Grabmaler's quarters, slinked, holding her ribs, beneath the kitchen-surveillance camera, then ran for the emergency stairwell door. She edged down the stairs after keying open the door and her way through the glass partition.
Diogenes stood up, impatiently: "What happened?"
"Rupert killed Grabmaler!" Undine breathed.
"Good news!" Diogenes muttered, though shaken by how quickly it had happened.
"Listen. Diogenes!" Undine pulled him to her left to hide her wound and so that he would face her closely. "Here is Grabmaler's key. If you can … " She ran over to Rupert's desk, painfully slipped on a sweater to hide her wound then pulled out a small manila sack, "Send this up after you get to the bottom. Have the guard place it through the executive mail slot." She hurriedly grabbed a magic marker from Rupert's desk and wrote "Rush Mail: Apartment 2X" on it and stuffed the sack in Diogenes' back pocket. "You will not be able to ride up but we will be able to help you, in case you need us."
Diogenes stopped to consider, then accepted her plan.
"Go! You don't have much time. But remember to send the key as soon as you open … "
"What's wrong with you?" Diogenes asked, still not having seen her wound, remarking her very pale complexion.
"What? Nothing."
"Benedict's headquarters … "
"That's the goal. I'll see you in a half hour."
"Sure you will." Undine smiled crookedly.
Diogenes walked into the hall and Undine rushed behind him up the emergency stairs with Rupert's key in hand. Diogenes found the executive elevator and keyed himself in, listening to the stairwell door close as the elevator's sliding door rushed open. The floor suddenly seemed to give way when he pushed the red colored panel indicating the very bottom of the inverted skyscraper. The little light on the diagram of the complex made its way through the first fourth of the floors slowly but it whined as the elevator's velocity increased until, nearly half-way down, there was a sensation of a free fall. His feet seemed light, his head dizzy. He blasted by the floor where he, Grant, Ms. Duykinck and Bernard once shared their cells, as he dropped ever down to the pinnacle of the skyscraper. He tried to imagine the slavery, the inmates of an underground economy cramped in ever tighter circles. He felt the cold shiver and light-headed anticipation of what he'd find in the last ring of the downward spiral — where his pharaoh of death justified it all with supercilious nonsense.
As he approached the bottom, he heard the whoosh of the air-breaks kick in and his legs buckled as the floor fatefully rose. The diagram eventually edged close to the pinnacle. And a different light accompanied his approach — a deep blue — which alarmed him that his presence might be monitored.
As the door slid open, he expected a group of guards to greet him with automatic rifles. But it was absolutely clear. The floor appeared to be a cross between a hospital and a corporate headquarters with plastic flowers, high tile ceilings, and florescent lights. The placks on the walls of the corridor he walked down were in an exotic hieroglyph. The structure itself, the wall supports, exposed girders, the steel stairwells seemed to be unusually thick, as if it were a bunker. Yet it smelt like a crypt — even though the ventilation seemed to include fabricated aromas and cork partitions designed to absorb moisture or sound. The damp aroma clung in the heavy air accompanied by a claustrophobic ventilator whine. Diogenes finally saw a guard. He was standing in front of what looked like an entrance to a tomb. Yet it was, again, corporate. The paneling which surrounded the mouth of a huge archway over a sarcophagic vault was composed of imitation wood. Inside the mouth of the vault, through glass partitions, an elaborate edifice had been set up to accommodate a wall of computers — decorated by paintings of desert abstracts. There were file cabinets also, lining the entrance, but no secretary.
Diogenes immediately approached the guard. He put his fingers to his lips and handed Grabmaler's card-key to the man, who warily accepted it, surprised to find anyone on this floor but Grabmaler or Benedict. Curious to see if the card was valid, he passed it through a computer and found that it granted total clearance. He picked up a red phone on the wall and pressed a button. The phone lit up as it "rang", then someone apparently picked it up. Diogenes watched the man while reaching into his jacket pocket to caress the gun. The guard asked for Grabmaler, then, seemed to believe he had reached him. It must be Rupert imitating his voice, Diogenes thought, granting permission to allow Diogenes into Benedict's sanctum. The guard nodded, inspecting Diogenes gravely, then gradually replaced the phone. The guard then handed the card-key back to Diogenes and pointed toward the glass partition. Diogenes keyed his way in through the open vault then placed it back in the envelope and returned it to the guard. The guard read the inscription and nodded, placing it on a conveyor belt behind him where the package would be sent up. Diogenes then walked through the doorway and stealthily rounded a corner walking straight into a laboratory.
He heard someone inside an adjoining room, after walking through a reception area which doubled as a study lined with medical dictionaries and reference books. Diogenes crouched on his hands and knees and crawled to a stone pillar between a book shelf then into the computer room itself. He stood temporarily up to check behind him. The guard who let him in was standing with another guard but they were staring at and preoccupied with a tabloid which allowed Diogenes to sneak upright into the laboratory itself.
He peeped in after crawling meticulously around the corner, out of sight of the hallway and its guards, then slid behind a filing cabinet peeking over to see who stood only a few yards to his right. It was Benedict, dressed in a white coat leaning over an operating table. Diogenes chanced to slip around the cabinet and under a bench as he watched Benedict's feet shuffle from the table to a glass case filled with test tubes and samples. He seemed absorbed in his work, peering into the lens of an electron microscope. He carried a pile of computer print-outs on which he scribbled notes sitting on the very bench under which Diogenes crouched. After a few minutes writing, he walked over slowly, reading the computer printout, taking a break from the operating table and the microscope. He watched him step in his white, rubber-soled hospital slippers from the microscope to the bench where he again sat jotting on a white slip. Minutes passed until Benedict walked into the laboratory and began wheeling out a table on which Diogenes could barely espy a corpse or some lump of white flesh. He didn't dare to emerge yet, fearing that the guards might surprise him or that Benedict might stumble onto him.
Benedict stepped back, peered into the microscope, then walked right past him through the door to the transparent divider and spoke briefly to the guards. Just before the door slid shut Diogenes could hear them walk down the corridor. Benedict returned and the door shut behind him. Diogenes made a semi-circle around the filing cabinet. Benedict went into yet another room and rolled a mahogany cabinet into his now rather crowded laboratory. He opened the door and drew a deep breath and asked aloud: "How are you Lazarus?"
Diogenes started when he heard the name pronounced. He waited for a reply but the laboratory fell silent. He couldn't discern whether what or who was in the cabinet or on the operating table was addressed by the name of his old boss:
"Well, I know you can hear me, even under sedation. But you know, my experiment here is of protracted moral integrity. I want to assure you. You are about to contribute to a genetic splicing between seemingly opposed DNA, a pre-spliced hybrid which I have raised under control for a decade. It's my theory that the moral difference between man and animal is bridgeable and that consciousness in animals is possible with the programming of an artificial language and a genetic code. You can't be expected to understand me fully. But as you are my patient-witness — and given your contribution to my studies — you deserve to know." Benedict looked almost affectionately at the semi-conscious body lying on the table:
"What, afterall, is the grammar of human consciousness in contrast to the signs and gestures by which animals approach knowing who or what they are? Good question! And not merely an academic one. Look …. oh, I'm sorry, that's metaphoric, you can't yet move your head. Ha Ha. Consider what genetic engineering means — among those of us who can still access old research — consider computer engineering in accounting for artificial intelligence — and its relation to linguistic systems. Isn't it possible that the old bogey of transferring human intelligence into dead matter was a kind of Gothic catechism or a mythic, precursing intuition into the relation between building human consciousness into nonhuman species? And so, of spreading moral and conscious sensibility, ultimately, into objects, into the universe? I mean, look, ha, consider this: Is human consciousness a "ghost" or a byproduct of a sign-system which enables meaning, and reacts or codes sensations from the exterior world? The latter. Right? And is the engineering of such a language possible at the interface or the origin of gentic species-building? Can they be integrated? My research, my science, will prove it so. The ultimate expression of human culture is not procreation, but its potential omniscience. Man can participate in God's work. God is, finally, the most comprehensive experience which anyone can have. Why is it that God can only be known and mirrored in human consciousness? Why can't the knowledge of Him be spread into animals, intoinstruments and organs of knowledge? Omniscience! That's my mission — the spiritual content which the entire history of Science, unknowingly, has gathered unto itself. To spread toward the entire universe, not only the knowledge among a few scientists, or invent a few new, useful technologies — but to the rocks and stones! To the planets and stars! God devised language so that we could mirror Him. So that we could, finally, spread His Word beyond our chosen species into the entire universe. That's what we are doing together, here, Lazarus. That's our solo flight in a world gone to Hell."
"Here." Benedict bent down and inoculated Lazarus. Diogenes saw him with a hypodermic, leaning over the table with it upheld. "This will revive you. Speak!"
An uncanny, tense moment passed as Benedict waited for the effect of the drug to take hold. "That's it! Speak!"
Diogenes, then, heard a rather dry, feeble version of his old employer's voice reach for expression.
"Speak." Benedict repeated.
"….. D …D ….. Don, Don't let me … see it again!" The tenor of his fear crashed through Diogenes' mind, how he pronounced "it", with a kind of paralysis in simply referring to whatever "it" was, even with a neutral pronoun.
"But, what are we afraid of? Of spreading human consciousness? Of participating in the Genesis of linguistic self-reflection? What are you saying?"
"Please … "
Diogenes wanted to kill Benedict just for extracting this plea from any man. He bit his wrist, however, in order to wait and to act.
"We spread the rumor you died of the Plague. Just the kind of superstition for the new Middle Ages. And people believed it. Your employees believed it. Your family understood it as soon as they heard the word."
"No!" Lazarus said, his dry tongue sounding as if it stuck to the parched roof of his mouth.
"You mean, you don't want to see our new friend? Why do say that?" He went to the cabinet and unlocked the door. Diogenes could hear Lazarus feebly struggling.
"There! That's the future!" Benedict laughed.
"Ahhhhhhhh!" Lazarus let out a hoarse scream of revolt and, then, apparently, lapsed into unconsciousness. Diogenes could hear Benedict shut the door then walk toward Lazarus, leaning over him, hypodermic in hand, with the intent either to revive or to begin operating on him. Diogenes suddenly found himself standing up and facing Benedict while he bent over Lazarus' unconscious frame.
Benedict froze. Diogenes watched his pupils focus fearfully at the unexplained intruder, filing through his memory for the visual tag and the name.
"Remember me?" Diogenes smiled.
"Not yet … " Benedict stood stiffly, still jolted by apprehension.
"You're the ass who confused morality with cruelty." Diogenes understated dryly, glancing down at Lazarus.
"Yes … I remember you … but I can't say … oh, yes the counterfeiter!."
"No. The cynic … "
"And still crudely misinformed. What are you doing here?" Benedict feigned a sense of self-possession and reached over Lazarus' body for a bottle of ether.
"Hold it." Diogenes grabbed Benedict's wrist, in a vise grip of revenge. "Grabmaler sent me."
"You're lying."
"We need to fashion a new Tombstone. To bury self-interested fucks like you … to finish the Holywork!"
"What do you know?" Benedict examined Diogenes' eyes for evidence that Grabmaler had betrayed him.
"Do you think, that man-to-man, without cops, money, rumors, belief, without a Higher Law, idols or phony morality, and without Grabmaler, guards, without a family, hope, or home — without many more years to live and without anything better to do — I'd not choose to kill you? You're crazier than I thought" Diogenes looked at Lazarus' unconsciuos face, still slightly contorted by agony, and twitching. He was coming-to.
"I don't know what you mean!" Benedict jerked his wrist and Diogenes let him go, "I like Lazarus." He attempted a conciliatory tone. "We've been friends for two years."
"I heard your mad catechism."
"Where are the guards?"
"Dead. It's just you and me."
"No … " Benedict smiled. "We're in good company." At this he withdrew from the table, and was beginning to open the cabinet when Diogenes reached in his pocket for the pistol.
"Stop him!" Lazarus awoke, crying out hoarsely.
Benedict flung the door open and there, a beast, a concoction of grafted mouths, and horns, and a dozen rolling eyes, in a rough sheep's skin sans arms or legs, slowly, unevenly breathed. The respiration was jerky, as if prodded by some electronic devise. The eyes seemed utterly disconnected and unfocused, in rows down its pinkish hide. The horns could have been grafted from several bulls but they looked brittle as if they were unfed by any circulatory system — and dying, stitched to a loose-fitting, rotting pelt. Diogenes caught his own breath, stunned by its wild perversity. The thing seemed to be lost in a trance of contradictory messages, in the firings of makeshift synapses. It moved, locked in a mute, hopeless struggle with existence, with hints of pained self-consciousness: A cone of flesh with fat, inexpressive tongues lolling from dry mouths which were really lipless, jawless slits. Diogenes watched as its clumsy eyelids slid senselessly over filmed retinas responding belatedly to light. He was staring at an obscenity — a lumped abortion of flesh swimming in a netherworld between life and death — when Benedict swung a bundle of test tubes against a desk shattering them into Diogenes' face.
Benedict reached over Lazarus' body, grabbed a fistful of etherized cotton and knocked Diogenes, who was holding his face in his hands, to the floor, now covered with broken glass. Benedict shoved the cotton into his mouth. Diogenes fought to remain conscious, holding his breath, fumbling with his bloody hand for the gun in his coat, folded under his back. Benedict kneeled on his chest, inches from the cabinet. Lazarus had loosed himself but was unable to rise without protracted effort. Diogenes reeled, fighting Benedict, damning the pain of scraping along the floor with his hand through glass behind his back, in order to grasp the gun. Diogenes then pretended to faint, still holding his breath, sticking to the thread of consciousness despite the ether and his bursting lungs. Benedict withdrew his hold somewhat when he saw Lazarus beginning to rise from the table in an effort to close the cabinet door. The sight was so ghastly to Lazarus, that he closed his eyes, as he stumbled on his feeble legs to stay upright and nudge the door. As Benedict looked over to Lazarus, Diogenes fought the gun free with his arm and was able to clip Benedict's ear. As he covered it with his hand, apparently fearing the bullet grazed his skull, Diogenes fired again, pointblank, this time striking Benedict through the neck, just below his Adam's apple.
After Benedict collapsed on top of Diogenes, Lazarus shut the cabinet door, cursing hoarsely, then painfully rolled him off Diogenes and bent to inspect Diogenes' now unconscious body. He lay there with the gun still in his hand, the cotton beside him soaked in blood. Lazarus, cursing his weak legs, stood dizzily up only to see Undine and Rupert waving to him as the glass partition slid open. Lazarus, having only met Rupert years ago with Grabmaler, studied Rupert warily, his pant thighs and jacket also stained with blood. But he stood aside when Rupert and Undine ran over to Diogenes and Undine threw herself, weeping, on Diogenes' barely conscious body. He was bleeding profusely, especially through his back and arm, which had been pinned to the floor. Undine pulled the glass from his coat and the back of his head.
"Is he dead?" Rupert asked, staring at Diogenes.
"I don't think so. Though he's had a shock and lost much blood." Lazarus breathed.
"Hang on!" Undine cried, holding up Diogenes' head.
"What's in there?" Rupert asked as he stepped over Benedict's corpse, and noticed the mahogany cabinet.
"Man's vanity." Lazarus replied.
Aloysius let Rupert describe as his murder of Grabmaler. Aloysius had been wearing his witches' hat, monk's cloak, and smoking from his pipe. Rupert needed to confess to Aloysius, appearing unannounced outside Aloysius' Maytag box, poking his head around the Tibetan rug. Aloysius, then, had insisted on hearing out the whole European trip, the intrigue, especially in Paris, and listened through Rupert's grating betrayal of Undine, and their recent reconciliation. Aloysius stroked a beard he had grown since Rupert saw him last. He had redecorated his box slightly with cheap religious icons and rusted hammer and sickles, and had devoted a kind of shrine to outmoded ideologies, heaping up the crudest flags and emblems and read up non-Pure Land strains of Buddhism. He frowned reflectively. Rupert waited. Virgil slowly wagged his tail, calm on his haunches, perking up his ears a little when Rupert then described how Diogenes lay unconscious still, and what they found at the bottom of the inverted skyscraper. Rupert again urged the taciturn Aloysius to say something.
"Who am I … to judge?" Aloysius finally replied. "How can anyone account for why, after entropy, there's still someone lucid enough to ask permission to commit a crime? And how can taking a life be expiated by sorry human guilt? Perhaps there's a key to reason why we do and suffer horrible things. But it's lost to me. I could carry a cross for twenty one centuries or tread the ocean's floors, peek into its caves and caverns, or sift the moon's dust and come closer to an answer "
Rupert, aware that he had beleaguered Aloysius by his insatiable need to be judged, studied his costume and realized that his getup was all about not knowing, about accepting a fate which hurls us into ane enigma while we spout grand philosophies and look like complete fools. And, yet, who is the fool? The man who lives in a penthouse, enjoying fine painting, lovely women, exotic drugs, commanding power over elemental economic processes — the man Rupert killed — or the killer, Rupert? Or, the unambitious box-dweller, who lets the world chase its tail while he stands aside and amuses himself with cut-up rubber whales and witch's hats?
Rupert picked up the glass jar of rubber whales and considered what might happen to Grabmaler's empire — whether it could be redirected, or plundered for a worthy cause. Whether it was so corrupt that the inverted skyscraper should be blown up, or flooded or buried and consigned an ignominious grave. Or turned to some good, as Undine suggested. A thorough cataloging would have to be done. Or maybe not. And what of Diogenes? Undine? Would Grabmaler's or Benedict's guards find and kill them all, were they running over the parking lot now to machine gun him? Sould there be a celebration? Would all the inmates of Grabmaler's inverted skyscraper ride up and breathe surface air again and dance?
"Well, where do we go from here?" Rupert finally asked.
"I don't know." Replied Aloysius, glancing over to Virgil.
"Should we ask Virgil?" Rupert laughed.
Aloysius walked over to Virgil, where the dog sat with a benign torpor passing across his black brow, and asked, "Whither which way?"


text:
Five Love Poems About Family
As it is with all of us, my life has had its share of loss and loneliness. The better part, however, has been filled with joy; nurtured, grown and given to me by those with whom I share relationship. Planted like a seed, the meaning of life grows there, and brings forth its blessings to me and to my family.
In recent weeks, like the stretching of the heart across the miles of our persistent separation from one another, I have felt called to speak out to those I love most dearly. The following series of five poems is my ode to their love for me. I pray that this might touch their hearts, and—in sharing it—that it might whisper to your heart as well.
Thank you, reader, for taking a walk with us…
A poem begins with letting go
and listening for the silences.
For silence is the source of the deep music
that life allows us to sing.
Sacred Silence...
Elegy for the Future
How well I remember the years
I spent dancing with you,
With fragile hands
and fragile dreams,
you shaped my world
like the flight of a bird
soaring across the waters
of a virgin land,
filling my days
with the whispers of wonders
just beyond the horizon.
You flirted with me,
always laughing,
and your lips tasted,
of sweet and exotic spice.
I asked you to take my hand—
to sit and talk with me.
You laughed at me,
invited me to dance,
and whispered
in my ear
until I forgot.
At last I left you there
It felt like stealing—
like betrayal—
but you see,
someone came.
She sat and talked
and held my hand.
She did not shape my world,
she entered it
and spoke to me.
And it was I
who flirted with her
till she held my hand…
so simple and warm.
I chose.
How I remember the nights
I spent weeping as you lay
How your fragile hands
and fragile dreams
crumbled to dust.
How the bright
shining bird
like a stone,
or a mountain
into the Earth.
I touch the world
with simple hands:
a cup,
a home,
a robin sitting on the fence
the hand of a child,
his face turned up
to me.
It is warm
living here
out of your deep shadow.
Farewell, my Future, and fear not.
I will not forget to dance
on the soft green grass
that covers your grave.
My Son
It began with a simple request:
Can I help?
So I lifted you up and sat you there
ready to begin:
Move the eggs from the carton
to the tray.
Such a simple task, yet
I saw the delicate eggs dropping
like yolk-filled grenades,
exploding in a cascade of vivid yellow,
sticking everywhere—
over you,
over floors and counters.
The visions were clear in my mind,
but I knew it was time.
I sat you
on the counter, turning away.
Turning back,
I saw more clearly:
the careful curve of
your concentration,
moving an egg with precious care
from carton to tray.
Seeing it pulled
at a thread
in my heart.
A line
of something more than life
woven through me
and through my father
back to your grandfather,
whom you have never known.
It pulled at something hidden
and unfathomable—
made it visceral
and vivid.
There it was shining out
from the careful turn of your eyes
and the soft curve of your hands
suspended in this precise moment.
My Daughter
As I sit there alone in restful silence,
you leap to my lap with sudden
and rambunctious laughter,
opening the world with a smile.
Your eyes look up
as they shine for me
and the universe collapses
into one small face...
The earth becomes
the curve of your cheeks,
and warm.
Smooth and soft
and woven together
with delicate freckled designs,
humming with restless energy.
In the open sky, light shines
down from two identical spheres:
passionate flowers, spiced with shades
of cinnamon, green and deepest indigo.
The sight sings without speaking,
harkening back to the very source
of color and shape and shadow.
Across the silence it echoes
with the music found in the beat
of every human heart,
each movement of breath,
each small exchange and gesture.
Thus suspended
in this moment,
it becomes the measure
of all other things;
the very source
of shape and form
and meaning.
I cling to it,
knowing it will pass…
your sitting here upon my lap
at the very center.
Soon your cheeks, your eyes,
and your own dear freckles
will hop down
and away.
Off you will go
to the pressing
of a child's life.
Birds will sing again.
The light of the sun
will return to take
its proper place.
But I will remember.
I will remember.
My Wife
It is floating across the wide sea
alone, contemplating your favorite joke.
It is a brilliant performance
played to an empty hall.
It is the finest of meals
eaten alone.
It is the most marvelous thoughts
recorded in an unopened book.
All are beautiful—
strong and peaceful,
to be discovered.
They are like a decadent
sitting upon the table,
We see it,
we seek it,
we smell it,
and we crave it.
But somehow we cannot taste it.
Not really.
This is my life
without you.
So come to the table;
let us feast together!
(And yes—of course—it's chocolate.)
I am the pen
placed on the paper,
but how shall I write myself?
I see only the blackness
of what I draw
and a listless expanse white.
I forget
that this is not my poem—
that I am not the poet.
For the pen, Lord,
is Yours
as is the paper,
and the unfathomable dreams of God
are realized
in putting His beloved pen to paper.
This is love.
those who value the relations, value the poems too!...they are really beautiful!!
your poems living each of the relations beautifully, gracefully as they ought to be!......Wayseeker, you are simply Marvellous!
beautiful!!, u have a great heart and mind, love em all:)
I love your son and daughter poems took me straight back to my children's childhoods.
Beautiful poem and I read carefully from one by one. Good job, my brother. Thank you very much. Rated up and awesome!
Your poetry touched my heart. Each poem told a story with love and eloquence. As I read I was moved to tears, contemplation and then smiles.
Your love runs deep and you have penned that love beautifully. Voted up and awesome!


text:
Mohamed ElBaradei -- who heads the team of U-N nuclear inspectors in Iraq -- says no nuclear weapons have been found in the four days since the inspections began. But, in an interview Sunday, Mr. ElBaradei said it's too early to determine the extent of Iraq's involvement with weapons of mass destruction. He said the extent of Iraqi cooperation will determine the outcome of the inspections.
His comments came as U-N weapons inspectors visited an agricultural facility and military complex near Baghdad Sunday.
Since the U-N teams began their work on Wednesday, most inspections have taken place near Baghdad. The scope of the international mission was expanded Sunday when the first U-N helicopters arrive to carry the specialists to more distant inspection sites.
The United States is threatening military action if Iraq does not accept and comply with terms of a U-N Security Council resolution ordering the weapons inspections.
Meanwhile, residents in southern Iraq say at least four people died Sunday during a raid by Western warplanes in Basra, in the southern no-fly zone where Iraqi military operations are restricted. U-S officials say precision-guided weapons were used to hit air-defense facilities near Basra in response to Iraqi anti-aircraft fire directed at coalition aircraft elsewhere in the country.
U-S news reports today say American forces are continuing work on a new command center at an airbase in the Gulf state of Qatar that could serve as headquarters for any military operation against Iraq. The base is preparing for a major American military exercise this month.
The New York Times quotes officials as saying the exercise at Qatar's As-Sayliyah airbase will be the first of its type held outside the United States. Troops will practice procedures that would be used in any war with Iraq.
U-S officials have estimated the cost of a war against Iraq could reach 200-billion dollars -- far more than the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The Washington Post reports some officials are concerned the cost will not be shared by other countries, as was the case in 1991, and will be a burden on American taxpayers.


text:
Confirmed Speakers
|Prof. Avital Shurki (www)
|Design - insights from VB
|Prof. Michelle Coote (www)
|Directionality and the Role of Polarization in Electrostatic Catalysis
|Prof. Jan Evert Baerends (www)
|Why are metal surfaces good catalysts? On the role of (relief of) Pauli repulsion for the height of transition barriers
|Prof. Helmut Schwarz (www)
|Single-atom Catalyzed Redox Reactions in the N2O/CO Couple: A Combined Experimental-Computational Approach
|Prof. Yirong Mo (www)
|The Activation of CO by B2(NHC^R)_2: HOMO-LUMO Swap Without Photoinduction
|Prof. Peter Chen (www)
|Bond strengths in the gas phase, in solution, and in silico: computational chemistry and experiment diverge
|Prof. Célia Fonseca Guerra (www)
|Molecular Recognition from a Kohn-Sham Molecular Orbital Perspective:Insights from Theory into Structure and Stability of Guanine Quadruplexes
|Prof. Martin Head-Gordon (www)
|Some recent advances in variational energy decomposition analysis
|Prof. Klaus Ruedenberg (www)
|Identifying atoms and bonding interactions that are intrinsic to ab initio electronic molecular wave functions
|Prof. Manuel Yanez (www)
|Changing the intrinsic reactivity of neutral molecules through the formation of alkaline-earth bonds
|Prof. Jeremy Harvey (www)
|Empirical Valence Bond Models: Insight from Chemical Bonding Analyses
|Prof. H. Nakatsuji (www)
|Free Complement (FC) Theory as a General Electronic Structure Theory
|Dr P. Su (www)
|Development of energy decomposition analysis scheme for various molecular interactions
|Dr G. Gryn'ova
|Conceptual Framework of Molecular Electronics
|Prof. O. Mo
|Alkaline-earth (Be, Mg, Ca) bonds at the origin of huge acidity enhancements
|S. van der Lubbe
|Understanding Hydrogen Bonds from a Kohn-Sham Molecular Orbital Perspective: Pauli Matters
|Prof. F. Duarte
|Unraveling the Role of Non–Covalent Interactions in Recognition and Catalysis
|Prof. S. Shaik
|Oriented-External Electric Fields: New Effectors of Chemistry
|H.M. Aitken
|Towards pH-switchable selectivity in organic synthesis
|Dr E. Derat
|Understanding organometallic reactivities inside cyclodextrins
|Dr Z. Chen
|Explicit construction of diabatic state and its application to the direct evaluation of electronic coupling
|Dr V. Labet
|Asynchronous character of concerted mechanisms: decomposition into primitive processes
|Dr B. Braida
|Ionic excited states: the Valence Bond alternative


text: Newsletter – November 2015 NOVEMBER NEWSLETTER Texas Chili and a Texas Mystery—chili tasters and peacock feathers! What better reasons could there be to celebrate? Please join the party! Tuesday, November 17th Old Neighborhood Grill, 1633 Park Place Avenue Fort Worth 5:00—8:00 p.m. Judy Alter will sign copies of Murder at Peacock Mansion and Texas is Chili Country Texas is Chili CountryTexans love to eat, and one dish they can't get enough of is chili—so much so that chili con carne is Texas' state meal. This seemingly simple staple of Texan identity proves to be anything but, however. Beans or no beans? Beef, pork, or turkey? From a can or from scratch?Texas Is Chili Country is a brief look at the favored fare—its colorful history, its many incarnations, and the ways it has spread both across the country and the world. The history includes chuckwagon chili, the chili queens of San Antonio, the first attempts at canned chili, the development of chili societies and the subsequent rivalries between them, and the rise of chili cook-offs.And what would a book about chili be without recipes? There are no-fat recipes, vegan recipes, and recipes from Mexican-American cooks who have adapted this purely American food. Some have been tried, but many are taken on faith. Recipes are included from state celebrities such as Ladybird Johnson, Governor Ma Ferguson, and chili king Frank Tolbert. Available online, at your favorite bookstore of from Texas Tech University Press, 1-800-832-4042. Murder at Peacock Mansion, third in the Blue Plate Café Mysteries Arson, a bad beating, and a recluse who claims someone is trying to kill her all collide in this third Blue Plate Café Mystery with Kate Chambers. Torn between trying to save David Clinkscales, her old boss and new lover, and curiosity about Edith Aldridge's story of an attempt on her life, Kate has to remind herself she has a café to run. She nurses a morose David, whose spirit has been hurt as badly as his body, and tries to placate Mrs. Aldridge, who was once accused of murdering her husband but acquitted. One by one, Mrs. Aldridge's stepchildren enter the picture. Is it coincidence that David is Edith Aldridge's lawyer? Or that she seems to rely heavily on the private investigator David hires? First the peacocks die…and then the people. Everyone is in danger, and no one knows who to suspect. Available on Amazon.com in print and Kindle editions. Coming soon on Smashwords. Watch for Desperate for Death. The sixth Kelly O'Connell novel appeared last May as an e-book but never made it into print. If you've been waiting for it, I'm working on a print edition and hope to have it up and running soon. Thanks for your patience. About Judy: Judy Alter majored in English in college because she loved to read and besides, some man was going to marry and take care of her. No career needed. Things didn't quite work out that way—after earning a Ph.D. and surviving a failed marriage, she wrote fiction. To her surprise, her first novel was marketed to a young-adult audience and she found herself pigeon-holed as a young-adult author. Graduate school had sparked an interest in the history of the nineteenth-century American West. With a strong career and several awards as a western writer with fiction and nonfiction, for both adults and young readers, she longed to write mysteries, didn't think she could do it. Today, retired as director of a small academic, she has made mystery writing her new career. She is the author the Kelly O'Connell Mysteries, the Blue Plate Café Mysteries, and the stand-alone The Perfect Coed. She blogs daily, writing Judy's Stew. A member of Sisters in Crime and the Guppy chapter, she is the proud single parent of four and the grandmother of seven. Her new chili book demonstrates that her love of all things western lives on. Some of her earlier western fiction is available at various online bookselling sites. Find her at www.JudyAlter.com. "Writing," she says, "has been the anchor in a good life. I am a mom. Grandmom, and a writer, in that order. I love it." A message from Judy: Much to my dismay, the publisher who gave my mysteries life, Turquoise Morning Press, has gone out of business. I am forever grateful for the opportunities that Kim Jacob and her staff gave me. But now I'm going out on my own, indie-publishing my books. I much appreciate loyal readers who stay with me and support me in this effort. All books have been taken down from all platforms, but I am slowly going to return them, mostly as digital books. Questions? Email me at *protected email*. Want to help? Spread the word, tell your friends about my books. And with the holidays approaching, I wish you all the best as you give thanks and celebrate with families and friends. It's a blessed time of the year. —Judy Alter Follow me at: Website — Blog — Facebook — Twitter — Goodreads If you want to be off this mailing list, please let me know at *protected email*. No hard feelings. If you have friends who might enjoy my newsletter, please forward and share. I welcome new folks on my mailing list via my email address.


text:
The western grey kangaroo typically has light grey-brown to dark chocolate-brown fur and large ears fringed with white hairs.
There are two subspecies of western grey kangaroo native to Australia, which can be distinguished by color and location. One subspecies is from Kangaroo island individuals are typically a dark brown to black with shorter limbs, ears and tails. The subspecies on the mainland tend to have darker brown on the head and back, and bluish-grey fur underneath.
The western grey kangaroo is most active from late afternoon to early morning and can typically be found resting under trees and shrubs during the heat of the day. When moving slowly they show an unusual 'five-footed' gait where they balance on the tail and forearms while swinging the hind legs forward.
Western grey kangaroos usually lives in mobs of 40 to 50 individuals, and older males can be solitary.
Our Animals
Potter Park Zoo is currently home to two male western grey kangaroo. The older male, "Grey", was born in 1994 at the National Zoo in Washington DC. Our young male, "Oscar", was born in 2015 at the Los Angeles Zoo. They live with 4 red kangaroo.


text:
This Is Why Dictators Love Big Data
Big data is all the rage right now. It's a trendy buzzword, but more than that, it's providing incredible opportunities to the companies and organisations that are putting forth the time and energy to make it work to solve complex problems.
Big data has the potential to do a lot of good in the world. For example, India is undertaking a project to create accurate, detailed, and verifiable national records on every one of its 1.25 billion citizens, that will help the nation to improve services and systems for health, water, food, and other needs.
But that same data collection that could benefit and improve billions of lives could also be used for more nefarious purposes.
Unfortunately, big data is exactly the sort of tool that dictators and repressive governments have always wanted: the ability to know exactly what their citizens are doing, and even predict what they will do in the future.
Scary ways unscrupulous governments could use big data
Every rose has its thorns, as they say, and so for every beneficial use of big data that exists, there is the reverse, a frightening opportunity for an unscrupulous person, group, or government to use that data against us.
Take, for example, predictive policing. In February 2014, the Chicago Police Department sent uniformed officers to make "custom notification" visits to individuals whom they had identified, using a computer generated list, as likely to commit a crime in the future. The police department wasn't arresting people; rather, it was attempting to provide things like job training and placement services, drug rehab programs, counselling, and other services in order to prevent future crimes.
But it would be simple for another organization or government to use the same algorithms, the same techniques to simply round-up the most likely suspects of future crimes — or dissidents, or anti-government activists — and arrest or detain them.
Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2016/02/02/this-is-why-dictators-love-big-data/2/#40680b015844


text:
No live blog…but let's throw this up in front of the "Pepper" post which is too long for comments.
61 Comments
I think Perez would have caught that home runLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
is it wrong that I look and see Scott Kazmir with 19 pitches in the first and I think out loud "Not bad"?Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
2-0 In 1st Inning
Game OverLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
Can somebody please explain to this idiot that Kazmir's name is not "Cashmere"Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
Phillies catch first break of series with Victorino called safe at second on pickoff attemptLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
Upton with the lazy throw!Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
wonder if he was showing off his arm needlessly on that throw?Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
will somebody please explain to me the difference between a utility player and a "super utility" player?Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
"super utility" player has God on his sideLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
55 pitches through 3Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
Bossman looks locked in tonight - from the minute they introduced him.Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
hit it hard...if you want the positive spin. just a matter of time for UptonLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
71 pitches through 4...finally get a little pitch management from Kaz and he is losingLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
SuperUtility Player: One who only has one (1) start in his assigned position prior to the World FRICKIN Series who is also known to hit random, but timely home runs.Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
is it me or are the bounces/calls going phillies way tonight? a couple check swing basehits for them...while bj drills a ball with bases loaded...straight to the 3rd baseman. not only that, but victorini picked off at 2nd, utley coulda been called out in the 1st on strike 3...and no runners interference?Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
and yet the Rays are still only down 2Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
We just need two hits at the top/middle of the order and we're good. Then Navi won't swing for the fences like he used to and we'll have a big inning.
And Bartlett just won us all a free Taco. We'll be OKLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
There's one. From PTownJr's hero, Aki Dawg. 3 for 3.Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
#9 and #1 hitters have been on base all 5 plate appearances so far. Gotta like that.Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
and lefties are 4-7 tonight (Crawford, Aki, Pena) with a home run and both RBILikes(0)Dislikes(0)
awful job by the fans on that foul ball. you absolutely cannot let Howard catch that ball in the stands!Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
Is it crazy that I just cannot wait til Lidge has to face Upton, Pena, Longoria?
POOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOLESLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
110 pitches for Kid K...that should be his last batterLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
not a bad game by kid k. he wasn't in shut down mode...but he did hold the Phillies to 3 runs. im sure he wants 1 pitch back...Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
so much for that "great" philly defense tonight. at this rate, I can't wait to get to their "great" bullpenLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
Hamels looks tough - the key is to get to the bullpen (how the hell is it considered better than the Rays?) - regardless about the error, the Rays need to take pitches...Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
please refer to my first comment regarding this ball/strike calls and the missed balk...ughLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
Missed it Prof - from where are you watching the game? (P.S. Rays need runs, so I'm eating...)Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
at home for 1 and 2Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
Cougar - are you saying that since the umps where unable to help the Red Sox from winning the ALCS, that they are angry and are going to make sure the Phillies win? 😎Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
no im not saying that cause well....the rays are already here. won't make a difference.
but the umps are missing some calls badly....really badly. at this point of the season, you can't let a pitcher break towards home and throw to first. thats a big call at that stage of the game
i was also talking about the bounces and the breaks...not just the calls. the phillies are getting all these bs singles on check swings...its killing meLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
Probability update - 70% chance of Phillies win.Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
Prof - this is killing me. Are you planning to conduct a live blog tomorrow night? I have to give a midterm, so I'll be in my office an no where near a TV. Does it require a great deal of your attention? Seen any Phillies trolls?Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
grant strike3's offseason goal: learn a changeupLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
has the on screen radar readings been doing that red-fire thing all night? or is that just when it goes over 95?Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
i might set up a live blog lite, but it wouldnt be much more than this. just random musings as opposed to a play-by-play. I feel like I have ADHD in these playoff games.Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
if balfour developed a change it would be game over. that wouldnt be fair.Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
Balfour actually once started a game for the Twins. could you imagine that intensity as a starting pitcher? his head would explodeLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
balfour started a game? i really would love to see the video of that game and see what he actually looked like on the mound.
and yes prof...the red thing only comes up with 95+ pitches. im still waiting for scooter to explain that to meLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
I feel no confidence when 6-8 comes up. Why isn' Baldelli in?Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
Here is the Boxscore from Balfours one career start in 2003.Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
Based on the past data, if someone came to you at the beginning of the year and said Grant Balfour - the guy with the Tommy John surgery - would produce one of the greatest seasons for a reliever in the history of the MLB, you would tell them to stop smoking crack. Its nice to see him smash bats with his pitches given his performance in the ALCS. Hopefully, the Mad Aussie is back. We only need one run.Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
lol at 5 walks and 68 pitches through 2.2
btw...anyone else noticing that chevy chase is getting more tv time than he has seen since the phillies last won the world series?Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
I'm feeling something big from Aki here.Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
Announcers can't see there own pitch track - strike two to AKI clearly a ball -- All of Phillies pitches called strikes - does not look like that JP/Scott or Grant got any close strikesLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
SOrry. Still I'd be happy with that AB if it were the first half of the game.
COME ON BOSSMAN JUNIOR!!!Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
Ouch... that was a key inning. At least Aki did a nice job attempting to reach base... being patient. Pena / Longoria will need to try to go deep. Interesting that Balfour is still out there.Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
Don't like that walk. Why not let Miller take his chances with the two lefties?Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
Anyone see the Mad Aussie yell "F**K" after walking Utley (a move I generally don't agree with).Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
Utley hits lefties pretty well. his numbers are pretty close versus righties and lefties. 930 OPS v RHP and about 890 versus LHPLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
Howard is only 745 OPS v LHPLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
To reiterate, I am psyched for Lidge to come in. Guy strikes me as mentally fidgety as they come.Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
3-4-5 here, let's do this thing.Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
I agree Prof, after Utley, the Phillies line up falls off fast.Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
i'd say he is due to blow oneLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
Crawford just stepped back a bit from the plate. He is expecting inside. Good call for the Phillies - go outside.Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
their best pitcher. rays third pitcher. and they got every break tonight and still only won by 1 run. i'm not worriedLikes(0)Dislikes(0)
OK, this loss, while it hurts, is not the end of the world. It's Hamels, their best SP by a long shot. I have no doubt about the Rays's ability to get after Myers, Moyer, or Blanton.
See y'all tomorrow.Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
seruies over
somuch for 4-11Likes(0)Dislikes(0)
Im sorry, but that was one of the worst umpired games I have ever seen- the "balk" and subsiquent strikeout (in a pitch 6 inches inside) of Longoria lost us the game... I kind of thought we'd lose this one- but I thought the breaks were pretty bad, Victorino was out on th pick and everything- just frustrating all aroundLikes(0)Dislikes(0)


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|Belethe Delgannen
You see an ornate gold-framed portrait of Belethe Delgannen, a Human.
The detailed portrait shows a young female with pale skin and a curvaceous figure. She has an oval face with elegant arched eyebrows, thick-lashed violet eyes and a small nose. Her black hair is long and thick, and is worn coiled in an upswept twist.
She is wearing a diminutive silken top hat accented with an elaborate feathered brooch, a pair of pallid golden earrings bearing lustrous moon pearls, a demure pear silk gown with an intricate clasp on the high collar, some prim tea-length gloves, an intricately carved signet ring, a tiny octopus and some ankle boots with flaring linden heels.
She is standing beside a wide cherrywood window, gazing pensively at some yellow, fuzzy ducks swimming around in a sparkling blue pond. You feel that if you leaned in closer, you might hear quacking.
Her Story
Belethe tends to tell conflicting stories about her past. She has been known to mention that she had been an abandoned child and was raised by street urchins. However, she has also revealed that she comes from a respectable trading family with interest in art and other antiquities. She likes to talk about her Papa who is currently "overseas" on various financial pursuits.
Her Personality
She tends to speak her mind. She has an abrupt way of communicating her opinions which can sometimes come off as being rude.
She displays acts of genuine kindness but has been known to calmly watch people murdered in cold blood.
She has an odd sense of humour and can get distracted by shiny things.
Random Facts
She currently lives in a villa on the smart side of Crossing.
She likes to cook and is currently learning how to bake.
She is currently a member of the Zoluren Ladies' Tea Society and Crossbow Club. She holds the post of Society Treasurer.


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Wednesday, January 9, 2013
First Time with a Fan Brush!!
I think the title says it all. I've got this nifty new brush set I got over the holiday, and I now have a fan brush! I decided to give it a try, and I love the wispy effect it gives! I used Julep Amy, a teal creme, and then I used the fan brush to create wisps with KleanColors Espresso and China Glaze Romance. I really love it, and I can't wait to try out different techniques with it!
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Well, more like bounds out, with the uncoordinated abandon of a puppy. And he's followed by 20 of his baby elephant friends. I dare you to find a single word in that moment. "Cute," "sweet," and"adorable" all fall short when a three foot elephant calf starts walking towards you. You become an inarticulate mess of pure joy.
There's nothing in the world quite like it.
While I can't send you to Africa, I can help you bring a small piece of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust wherever you are.
The PROTECT Organic Jute Bag is the only reusable bag you'll ever need. This is the bag for environmentalists, for conservationists, for lovers of elephants, and for everyone else. Take a look:
This lovely reusable bag is highly durable. It's made from Jute, a natural fiber from a plant that's used to make rope, canvas, cloth and even food. Burlap is made from the same plant. It's an incredibly affordable and environmentally friendly product. And it will stand up to anything, so take it for a bike ride or a picnic with the kids.
This bag is about $9 and all proceeds go to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. It's worth every penny.
This post is part of the April #AtoZChallenge! Check out yesterday's post, Clutches: A Short History, or see all posts from the Challenge here.
Photo credit: Photos of the PROTECT Organic Jute Bag courtesy of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.