text:
Cultural Notes 058, Vox Populi, Vox D.E.I.: Division, Derision, and the Death of Free Speech (2012), by Prunella Jordaine
Vox Populi, Vox D.E.I.: Division, Derision, and the Death of Free Speech
Prunella Jordaine
Cultural Notes No. 58
ISSN 0267-677X (print)
ISSN 2042-2539 (online)
An occasional publication of the Libertarian Alliance, Suite 35, 2 Lansdowne Row, Mayfair, London, W1J 6HL.
© 2012: Libertarian Alliance; Prunella Jordaine.
Prunella Jordaine works in the private sector in the London area
What We Have Lost
"Happy is he," said the Roman poet Virgil, "who knows the causes of things."1 Let's put him to the test. Here's a thing: the steady and accelerating loss of free speech in Britain. Speak your mind on certain topics and at best you'll face social opprobrium and questioning by the police. At worst, you'll lose your job and end up in jail. Our supposed liberal democracy more and more resembles a communist dictatorship in which citizens self-censor for fear of the state – and of other citizens, who will eagerly report speech-criminals on sites like Twitter. Why has this happened? Well, what are the certain topics that send people to jail? Race is one. Homosexuality is another. Religion is a third. In every case, the justification for a repressive law is simple: the benevolent paternal state says it wants to protect a minority. And the minority in question is happy to be protected. Muslims have marched to demand the banning of a book called The Satanic Verses; they have never marched to demand the repeal of the Racial and Religious Hatred Act of 2006. And they never will.
The same is true of other minorities and other laws. And modern Britain certainly has lots of minorities. The more enriched and vibrant our society has become, the more free speech has declined. Is this a coincidence? I don't think it is. I think mass immigration has been the single biggest driver of the authoritarian state. Open borders have meant closed mouths. And I don't think the process has been inadvertent. Look at New Labour, under the experimental ethicist Tony Blair. The most authoritarian government in modern British history was also the most enthusiastic – and underhanded – promoter of mass immigration.2 It was following a policy of what the Romans called Divide Et Impera – "Divide and Rule". The increasing presence of ethnic minorities gives the excuse for repressive laws; and the repressive laws silence opposition to the increasing presence of ethnic minorities. Once the race-hate laws are in place, they justify the creation of further laws to protect further minorities. Britain was once governed by the principle Vox Populi, Vox Dei – "the Voice of the People is the Voice of God". Now the Vox Populi, the voice of the majority, is subordinated to the Vox D.E.I., the voice of "Divide Et Impera", the voice of the authoritarian, minority-importing, minority-promoting state.
Blasphemy and Blood-Money
Englandstill has an official state religion, the Church of England, which was protected by a blasphemy law until 2008. It's instructive to examine what writers were able to say about Christianity in pre-vibrant-enrichment days. In 1782, Edward Gibbon published The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which subtly and cleverly mocked Christianity and its founding figures. Despite its heterodoxy, the book swiftly became part of the literary canon. In 1866, the poet Swinburne was declaring that:
"Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean;
The world has grown grey with thy breath;
We have drunken of things Lethean,
And fed on the fullness of death..."3
The first line is a reference to the alleged dying words of the Emperor Julian (331-363), a.k.a. Julian the Apostate, who tried to restore paganism to Rome and, according to Christian historians, died in despair at his failure. In a Christian nation, Swinburne could decry the effects of Christianity and champion a pagan emperor without fear of prosecution or physical assault. He was, it is true, threatened with castration by an anonymous correspondent angered by the sensuality of his verse, but that was never official Anglican policy.4 A few decades later, Lytton Strachey was mocking Christianity in Eminent Victorians (1918):
For some time it had been obvious to every impartial onlooker that Newman was slipping down an inclined plane at the bottom of which lay one thing, and one thing only –the Roman Catholic Church. What was surprising was the length of time which he was taking to reach the inevitable destination. Years passed before he came to realise that his grandiose edifice of a Church Universal would crumble to pieces if one of its foundation stones was to be an amatory intrigue of Henry VIII. But, at last he began to see that terrible monarch glowering at him wherever he turned his eyes. First he tried to exorcise the spectre with the rolling periods of the Caroline divines; but it only strutted the more truculently. Then in despair he plunged into the writings of the early Fathers, and sought to discover some way out of his difficulties in the complicated labyrinth of ecclesiastical history. After months spent in the study of the Monophysite heresy, the alarming conclusion began to force itself upon him that the Church of England was perhaps in schism. Eventually he read an article by a Roman Catholic on St. Augustine and the Donatists, which seemed to put the matter beyond doubt. St. Augustine, in the fifth century, had pointed out that the Donatists were heretics because the Bishop of Rome had said so. The argument was crushing; it rang in Newman's ears for days and nights; and, though he continued to linger on in agony for six years more, he never could discover any reply to it.5
Strachey was not threatened with prosecution for that or many other passages of mockery: on the contrary, the book was a best-seller and made his literary reputation. Newman himself, when he ended his spiritual agony by converting to Roman Catholicism, had been free for the rest of his life to criticize the Church of England and urge others to abandon it too. He received warm tributes from his many Anglican friends and admirers when he died in 1890. Evelyn Waugh, another Anglican convert to Catholicism, derided the Church of England in his novel A Handful of Dust (1934). In the depths of winter an elderly vicar, who once served in India as an army chaplain, addresses his rural flock:
"How difficult it is for us," he began, blandly surveying his congregation, who coughed into their mufflers and chafed their chilblains under their woollen gloves, "to realize that it is indeed Christmas. Instead of the glowing log fire and windows tight-shuttered against the drifting snow, we have only the harsh glare of an alien sun. Instead of the placid ox and ass of Bethlehem, we have for companions the ravening tiger and the exotic camel, the furtive jackal and the ponderous elephant..."6
The Church of England was not taken seriously and did not take itself seriously. The blasphemy law was firmly in place, but the Church increasingly neglected its power to suppress or harass writers who attacked or offended it.
Come to Christ: the Kirkup Affair
When a magazine called Gay News was found guilty of blasphemy in 1977, the prosecution was private, brought by the morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse (1910-2001) of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association. She had been offended by James Kirkup's poem "The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name", which describes a centurion having sex with Jesus' corpse after the crucifixion. In 2012, I am offended by the poem too. It is a very bad poem, like something written by a gay necrophiliac MacGonagall:
"I was alone with him.
For the last time
I kissed his mouth. My tongue
found his, bitter with death.
I licked his wound –
the blood was harsh
For the last time
I laid my lips around the tip
of that great cock, the instrument
of our salvation, our eternal joy.
The shaft, still throbbed, anointed
with death's final ejaculation.
I knew he'd had it off with other men –
with Herod's guards, with Pontius Pilate,
With John the Baptist, with Paul of Tarsus
with foxy Judas, a great kisser, with
the rest of the Twelve, together and apart.
He loved all men, body, soul and spirit – even me.
So now I took off my uniform, and, naked,
lay together with him in his desolation,
caressing every shadow of his cooling flesh,
hugging him and trying to warm him back to life.
Slowly the fire in his thighs went out,
while I grew hotter with unearthly love.
It was the only way I knew to speak our love's proud name,
to tell him of my long devotion, my desire, my dread –
something we had never talked about. My spear, wet with blood,
his dear, broken body all open wounds,
and in each wound his side, his back,
his mouth – I came and came and came..."
Kirkup himself was not prosecuted, but the editor of Gay News, Denis Lemon, received a £500 fine and a suspended nine-month sentence.7 I can find no report of deaths or injuries inflicted by Christians (or aestheticians) enraged by the poem. Compare, now, another offensive writer and another offended religion:
When the news got around Jahilia that the whores of The Curtain had each assumed the identity of one of Mahound's wives, the clandestine excitement of the city's males was intense... So, in the Prophet's absence, the men of Jahilia flocked to The Curtain, which experienced a three hundred per cent increase in business. For obvious reasons it was not politic to form a queue in the street, and so on many days a line of men curled around the innermost courtyard of the brothel, rotating about its centrally positioned Fountain of Love much as pilgrims rotated for other reasons around the ancient Black Stone... The fifteen-year-old whore "Ayesha" was the most popular with the paying public, just as her namesake was with Mahound... And there was a "Zainab bint Jahsh", and a "Juwairiyah", named after the bride captured on a military expedition, and a "Rehana the Jew", a "Safia" and a "Maimunah", and, most erotic of all the whores, who knew tricks she refused to teach to competitive "Ayesha": the glamorous Egyptian, "Mary the Copt". Strangest of all was the whore who had taken the name of "Zainab bint Khuzaimah", knowing that this wife of Mahound had recently died. The necrophilia of her lovers, who forbade her to make any movements, was one of the more unsavoury aspects of the new regime at The Curtain. But business was business, and this, too, was a need that the courtesans fulfilled.
That is an extract from chapter six of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses (1988). I think that Rushdie, like Kirkup, is a bad and pretentious writer, but I can't fault his attention to detail. His derision of Islam is scrupulously minute, right down to the second syllable of "Mahound" – dogs are regarded as unclean animals by Muslims.8 Anyone ignorant of what followed the publication of The Satanic Verses will find many sources online.9 There is still a substantial bounty on Rushdie's head; his editors and translators have been murdered or badly wounded; and no publisher in the Western world would now dare issue a similar book. No newspaper in Britain, for example, dared reproduce the satirical cartoons of Muhammad published in Denmark in 2005. Non-Muslim nations censor themselves out of fear of their Muslim minorities. I don't disagree with this fear, but I do disagree with the mass immigration that created it. That mass immigration continues from Muslim nations like Pakistan, where lawyers shower murderers in rose-petals and challenge the release of mentally handicapped children from prison:
A lawyer representing the man who accused a Pakistani Christian girl of blasphemy has said that if she is not convicted, Muslims could "take the law into their own hands". Rao Abdur Raheem cited the example of Mumtaz Qadri, the man who last year shot dead a [Christian] politician who had called for reform of the much-abused blasphemy law... The girl, Rimsha Masih, from Mehrabadi, Islamabad, whose family says she is 11, was arrested this month and charged with desecrating the Qur'an after a neighbour, Malik Hammad, claimed that he saw her with burnt pages of the holy text in a bag she was carrying. Her family had hoped that she would be granted bail on Thursday after a medical report this week found that she was a minor –thus eligible for bail –and had learning difficulties. But those hopes were dashed when Raheem challenged the report and the hearing was postponed... Later, sitting in his office beneath a large poster of Qadri, Raheem told the Guardian: "If the court is not allowed to do its work, because the state is helping the accused, then the public has no other option except to take the law into their own hands."
Last year, many lawyers rallied around Qadri, who killed Punjab governor Salman Taseer, showering him with rose petals when he appeared in court. Raheem said he had taken on the case for free because he was convinced that Masih should be punished. "This girl is guilty. If the state overrides the court, then God will get a person to do the job," he said. However, it seems unclear why the accuser suspected Masih and how he saw inside the bag that she was apparently carrying. It is also unclear whether any burnt pages were actually from the Qur'an... Blasphemy allegations are often made on the flimsiest of evidence but enraged mobs pressure the police into registering cases. In court, the alleged act of blasphemy cannot even be repeated, as that would be an act of blasphemy in itself, so verdicts are reached in the absence of the main piece of evidence. Earlier this year, a mentally disturbed Muslim man in Bahawalpur, a city in the middle of the country, was accused of blasphemy and arrested. After a crowd of up to 2,000 stormed the police station and dragged him out, he was beaten and burned alive.
In 2009, a mob attacked an area where Christians lived in Gojra, a town in Punjab province, burning at least eight people to death. The fate of the Christians at Gojra hangs heavily over Masih's own community. They fled en masseafter Rimsha Masih was taken away by police from her home. Now, two weeks on, many of the Christians have trickled back, but they remain terrified.10
To repeat: "Verdicts are reached in the absence of the main piece of evidence." But anyone who thinks "Kafkaesque" should reflect that, in the U.K., it could conceivably be illegal to say that Islam is bad for free speech. Truth, after all, is no defence under the array of repressive laws deployed by the state in the never-ending battle against hate.
Mill's Liberty and Liberal Modernity
The state broadcaster, the British Broadcasting Corporation, has been central to this authoritarian project. Like its in-house paper, The Guardian, the BBC is "liberal" in an Orwellian sense that inverts the classic liberalism of John Stuart Mill:
We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still. First: the opinion which it is attempted to suppress by authority may possibly be true. Those who desire to suppress it, of course deny its truth; but they are not infallible. They have no authority to decide the question for all mankind, and exclude every other person from the means of judging. To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. Its condemnation may be allowed to rest on this common argument, not the worse for being common...11
The BBC does not agree with Mill. It was behind the two trials in 2006 of Nick Griffin, leader of the anti-immigration British National Party, for incitement to racial hatred. Griffin had been secretly recorded in a private meeting making derogatory comments about Islam and its followers.12 There were no resignations or protests by BBC employees over this politically motivated espionage, which might seem better suited to a police state. If any employees did have doubts, they decided that silence was safer than speech. During the first trial, The Guardian disapprovingly noted that 'Mr Griffin, of Llanerfyl, Powys, also forecast Islamist terrorist bombings by "asylum seekers or second generation Pakistanis".'13 The forecast proved uncannily accurate. When Griffin was acquitted in that trial, he was put on trial again and again acquitted. If he had been successfully convicted and jailed, it seems certain that the BBC would have gone into loud and prolonged orgasm, as it did after the jailing of two white men in 2012 for the racist murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993. Mill's principles on free speech are entirely rejected by the liberal BBC. Instead, it follows the principles helpfully set out by its chief political reporter, Andrew Marr, in 1999:
And the final answer, frankly, is the vigorous use of state power to coerce and repress. It may be my Presbyterian background, but I firmly believe that repression can be a great, civilising instrument for good. Stamp hard on certain 'natural' beliefs for long enough and you can almost kill them off. The police are first in line to be burdened further, but a new Race Relations Act will impose the will of the state on millions of other lives too.14
That is one of the most sinister things I have ever read in a British newspaper, but it perfectly expresses the principles of modern liberals and the BBC: "Obey the will of the state!" And the will of the state continues to triumph on mass immigration and hate-speech laws. The BBC, funded by a compulsory tax on working-class whites, has consistently dismissed, derided, and demonized their entirely legitimate concerns about immigration. It has also demonized working-class whites themselves. Although the BBC attempted to have Nick Griffin jailed for incitement to racial hatred, it continually incites racial hatred of its own. Or so I would suggest. What effect does it have on ethnic minorities to be continually reminded of the murder of the black Stephen Lawrence by a gang of working-class whites in 1993? It was a very rare and unusual event: whites do not often murder non-whites. The BBC and Guardian would have to wait twelve years before a similar case came their way in Liverpool, where a young black male was murdered by racist whites in 2005.15 But certain other murders, similarly racist, sometimes involving worse and more sadistic violence, have not been turned into martyr-cults. Anyone who understands the semiotics of the liberal media will not need to be told what features render these other murders uninteresting to the BBC and Guardian.16
Saints and Sinners
Martyr-cult is, by the way, a good description of the iconography and ideology surrounding Stephen Lawrence's murder. Anyone familiar with European history should be able to see clear parallels with one or another of the child-martyrs supposedly murdered by Satanic, anti-Christian Jews in the Middle Ages. The death of a holy innocent was used to demonize and scapegoat an out-group and buttress the power of a religion. One huge difference, of course, is that the death of Stephen Lawrence was not fabricated or blamed on entirely innocent individuals. The sociology and psychology at work are otherwise suggestively similar. The Catholic church benefited from the martyr-cults then, demonizing the out-group of Jews; anti-racists and the "race relations industry" benefit from the martyr-cult now, demonizing the out-group of working-class whites.
At the centre of the cult is Stephen Lawrence's mother Doreen, who was honoured with the elephant-dung-incorporating No Woman No Cry (1998) by the award-winning Anglo-Nigerian artist Chris Ofili. She was one of those carrying the Olympic flag in the 2012 London Olympics; earlier in the year she appeared on the BBC's Desert Island Discs to discuss her musical tastes and reflect on her status as Britain's leading victim of racism. She has suffered a painful loss, but she is not a particularly intelligent or insightful woman and other British mothers have lost children to racist murder. There was never any popular demand for her to take this prominent and continuing role in public life, but I suggest that the state finds her useful as a symbol of white evil and black victimhood. She is, I suggest, an examplar of the "Numinous Negro", a black who sets an example of higher morality and spirituality to whites.17 Doreen Lawrence, who was born in Jamaica, is a kind of ethno-ethical evangelist to the white British, come to show us the error of our violent and bigoted ways and to oversee reform of the "institutionally racist" Metropolitan Police.
This ethical evangelism is never set in its full context by state propagandists like the BBC Doreen Lawrence's homeland Jamaica is far more bigoted, violent and corrupt than the United Kingdom. There are more murders not merely in Jamaica as a whole, with a population of about three million, but in the capital Kingston alone. The murder rate in Jamaica is approximately forty-three times higher than in the U.K. and many murders in this country are committed by Jamaican immigrants or their descendants.18 According to The Guardian:
[Jamaica] has the distinction of being regarded as one of the most violently homophobic countries in the world. In a recent survey 82% of Jamaican people said they were prejudiced against gay people. Vigilante attacks against gay men are common – at least 35 people have been murdered because of their sexuality since 1997. Last year [2011], two men were hacked to death because they were gay. The latest victim was a 16-year-old youth chopped to death in his home by early morning invaders because of his "questionable relations" with another man.
Former prime minister Bruce Golding set a tone of impunity for those prepared to use violence against gay people in Jamaica: during a BBC Hardtalkinterview in 2008 he said that he would not allow gay people to be a part of his cabinet. According to the law, consensual sex between two men in Jamaica will get you 10 years of imprisonment and hard labour. Any "act of gross indecency" –kissing for instance –will get you two years.19
Will Jamaica spend huge sums of money pursuing the hate-criminals who hack gays to death? Will it endlessly flagellate its politicians and police for their "institutional homophobia"? I suggest it won't. The Jamaican police do not merely ignore hate-crime: they commit it for themselves:
Police raided the only gay bar on the touristy Hip Strip in Montego Bay, Jamaica, last month, according to queer organisation J-FLAG. Around 20 officers kicked in doors, shouted anti-gay slurs, beat and pistol-whipped patrons and made everyone leave, J-FLAG said. As the customers fled, patrons of nearby straight clubs pelted them with bottles and rocks, J-FLAG said. Ten of the raid's victims sought medical treatment for injuries sustained in the attack, according to J-FLAG. There was a similar raid in early February at a gay club in Kingston, the capital. Officials have provided no explanation for either incident.
On 25 February, Jamaican gay rights activist Maurice Tomlinson received an e-mailed death threat after his letter to the editor about the raids was published in a local newspaper. The signed e-mail said: "listen battyman we in jamaica wont endorse r accept you faggots no matter what the fuck u guys try 2 say r do.....get that through ur thick skulls!!!!!!!!!!!! we have different culture n upbringing fr north americans or whomever else.....you should consider moving sumwhere there......in the meantime shut the fuck up r you will fucking die!!!!!!!!" Tomlinson reported the e-mail to police and an official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He requested that the threat be publicized "just in case anything happens to me."20
Across the Atlantic from this state-sanctioned homophobia and violence, official figures in the U.K. reveal that more recorded hate-crime is committed against whites by minorities than vice versa.21 If all groups were committing hate-crime at equal rates, this would not be the case. Jamaica's hate-police and the greater hate-propensity of minorities in Britain are ignored by the state in its promotion of the martyr-cult of Stephen Lawrence. Nearly two decades of news-reports about, enquiries into, and trials arising from the Lawrence murder have had clear and not necessarily positive effects. They have created resentment and paranoia among ethnic minorities, and guilt and indignation among whites. The indignation is felt by those who, like Andrew Marr, do not identify with the white working-class. No wonder, then, that the hate-speech laws are so heartily supported both by ethnic minorities and by many whites, sometimes as members of allegedly oppressed and persecuted minorities themselves. For decades, the British state and the BBC have used their huge prestige and authority to send a clear message about "hate" and its consequences. The result is that we see not merely acceptance of repressive laws but positive enthusiasm for them.
Brought to Brooker: Bashing the Bashers
The only regret felt by many liberals about the loss of free speech is that it hasn't gone far enough. I found it another sinister experience to read the response of readers to a column by Charlie Brooker in The Guardian in 2009. Brooker was not pleased by comments made by the journalist Jan Moir about the premature death of Stephen Gately, a gay member of the Irish band Boyzone:
The funeral of Stephen Gately has not yet taken place. The man hasn't been buried yet. Nevertheless, Jan Moir of the Daily Mailhas already managed to dance on his grave. For money. It has been 20 minutes since I've read her now-notorious column, and I'm still struggling to absorb the sheer scope of its hateful idiocy. It's like gazing through a horrid little window into an awesome universe of pure blockheaded spite. Spiralling galaxies of ignorance roll majestically against a backdrop of what looks like dark prejudice, dotted hither and thither with winking stars of snide innuendo.22
Brooker ended his self-righteous, self-congratulatory column with a virtual call-to-arms:
Jan's paper, the Daily Mail, absolutely adores it when people flock to Ofcom to complain about something offensive, especially when it's something they've only learned about second-hand via an inflammatory article in a newspaper. So it would undoubtedly be delighted if, having read this, you paid a visit to the Press Complaints Commission website (www.pcc.org.uk) to lodge a complaint about Moir's article on the basis that it breaches sections 1, 5 and 12 of its code of practice.
Brooker's readers weren't happy with Moir exercising her freedom of speech either. They wanted her to lose her job and her newspaper to lose lots of money. They also wanted to congratulate Brooker on his role as self-appointed chief of thought-police:
RichardLittleJohnson, 16 October 2009 5:01PM: Well said Charlie. The best way to hurt the Daily Heil is to complain to their advertisers - I would dearly love to see a loss of ad revenue for that spiteful fascist rag.
BellaM, 16 October 2009 5:03PM: She should resign, and whoever decided her piece of trash article was fit to run should've been fired.
MediaMouse, 16 October 2009 5:05PM: Brilliant. Totally brilliant. That's all.
LeeHerring, 16 October 2009 5:08PM: I like the fact that the PCC have set up a special link for people coming to the site to complain about this vile piece. I dislike the fact the PCC is a powerless in-house talking shop and that this storm will do little more than raise the profile of this horrid newspaper and this pathetic journalist.
Libbyrapple, 16 October 2009 5:11PM: Bravo Brooker!
But here and there among the wanna-be censors were the actually censored:
Rerab, 16 October 2009 5:12PM: This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.
Like the liberal BBC, the liberal Guardian does not believe in free speech. And like the BBC's target Nick Griffin, who accurately forecast the 7/7 bombings in London, Brooker's target Jan Moir accurately forecast the death of Amy Winehouse. I don't know what the censored comments to Brooker's article said, but I can produce an example of what theGuardian shields its readers from. In 2007, there was a controversy about comments by the American geneticist James D. Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of D.N.A. He expressed doubts about the intellectual capacities of black Africans. The British geneticist Steven Rose used a Guardian article to attack Watson and his 'long-exploded racist claim that "Africans" are inherently less intelligent than "us"'. Someone commented on the article like this:
"Long-exploded" in your Marxoid-Boasian dreams, Rose. You are a dinosaur from Stephen Jay Gould's corner of Jurassic Park. The existence of average differences in IQ between mankind's major races which are substantial and predictable; the fact that IQ measures something real and important; the robustness of the methods used to assay these scores; their persistence, their incorrigibility by human post-natal interventions and social engineering; and their tremendous impact on the collective outcomes for these groups ... all are so well established that it is hardly a matter of serious dispute among consenting psychometricians in private any more.
Now it's just a matter of breaking gently to ordinary people the news that the real deal is what their common sense told them all along. The bromides the PC experts kept stuffing down their throats from c. 1950 were nothing more. Race is back, and it's bigger than ever. Just rejoice at that news! Most will shrug their shoulders and say "we knew all along –like dog breeds, isn't it?" A few gormless liberals will have nerve storms: the Nazis are coming, we must go on lying!
But it's too late. Now medical genetics are further confirming racial variation in the genotypes of sub-species, including their brains, and enormous policy implications are opening up –which researchers not hag-ridden by Rose's egalitarian mysticism will certainly not ignore, even if his kind keep the lid on honest debate for a few years longer in the West, censoring and sacking. We will merely lag behind China, Japan, Russia and India: where science is unshackled by soppiness, and where the very idea of race as "only skin deep" or a "social construct," of IQ as "culturally biased" and all the other squid ink squirted by Steven, Jacqueline and their dwindling tribe of lefty Luddites is laughed to scorn every day. Darwin wouldn't be surprised at the change in the wind that at last has arrived. He might, however, be horrified at how those who profess to teach in his name have suppressed the most important aspect of his theory, in the service of a Platonic falsehood.23
The comment was soon deleted, but had been reproduced elsewhere on the internet. The Guardian does not want its readers to see intelligent, informed arguments against liberal dogma on the non-existence of race. It doesn't want to win the debate: it wants to prevent the debate ever happening. The Watson affair is an example of how those who oppose free speech use more than just the law to suppress ideas they dislike. Free speech hasn't been lost simply because people are scared of going to jail. They are also scared to express opinions that are not illegal, because of the reaction that will follow. When James Watson made his comments about the relative intelligence of blacks and non-blacks, there was no suggestion that he should be arrested and put on trial for them when he visited the U.K. to promote his autobiography. But it was successfully suggested that his appearances here be cancelled. And in America, home of the First Amendment, it was successfully suggested that he lose his job as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, an important research institute on Long Island. If an elderly Nobel Laureate is treated like that, it's no surprise that less important people decide to keep quiet for self-protection – or that the totalitarians are emboldened in their demands for even less free speech and even more laws. Censorship seems to make hungry where most it satisfies.24
Mass Immigration and Ideo-Machismo
Many libertarians, of course, deny any necessary connection between mass immigration and the loss of free speech. They argue that the state's policies on multi-culturalism and hate-speech are bad, but mass immigration itself is doubleplusgood. Change the policies and all will be well. Or so they say. Meanwhile, the policies remain unchanged and the mass immigration continues with their full support. In fact, pro-immigration libertarians suffer from the same ideological disease as the anti-free-speech state. The disease was described by the American libertarian Murray Rothbard like this:
The egalitarian revolt against biological reality, as significant as it is, is only a subset of a deeper revolt: against the ontological structure of reality itself, against the "very organization of nature"; against the universe as such. At the heart of the egalitarian left is the pathological belief that there is no structure of reality; that all the world is a tabula rasathat can be changed at any moment in any desired direction by the mere exercise of human will –in short, that reality can be instantly transformed by the mere wish or whim of human beings.25
In other words, many libertarians believe that the problem is not the reality of mass immigration, not the reality of large and growing minorities with alien traditions and cultures. No, it's our wishes and whims that have been wrong: we haven't followed the right policies. If we do, racial and cultural reality will miraculously alter in the right direction. But after decades of "mistaken" state policies that have supported by minorities, what do pro-immigration libertarians suppose will happen if those policies are reversed? Where do they suppose the will to reverse the policies is going to come from? And how quickly, if at all, do they suppose a reversal will achieve the desired effects? Libertarian support for mass immigration is so clearly self-defeating that one wonders what is really at work. It is very easy to see that immigration has harmed free speech, impossible to see how immigration could ever have strengthened free speech. How can immigration from a country like Pakistan or Jamaica be good for free speech or any other libertarian cause? But perhaps support for open borders helps libertarians assert their ideological virility: the madder the idea, the greater the machismo of its proponents. In America, the First Amendment has masked the pernicious effects of immigration, but is itself coming under attack on behalf of immigrants and other minorities.26
In Britain, which has no First Amendment guaranteeing legal protection for free speech, mass immigration has destroyed our historic freedoms fairly easily and fairly quickly. It provided the excuse for hate-speech laws and the hate-speech laws helped silence opposition to further mass immigration. Other hate-speech laws protecting other minorities have inevitably followed. Vox D.E.I. trumps Vox Populi. The state and its minority clients win; the majority and their historic freedoms lose. And will continue to lose, because our slide into the totalitarian abyss is by no means complete. There is a joke about Europe that runs like this:
European Heaven is where the English are the police, the French are the cooks, the Swiss are the bankers, the Italians are the lovers, and the Germans are the engineers.
European Hell is where the English are the cooks, the French are the engineers, the Swiss are the lovers, the Italians are the bankers, and the Germans are the police.
If Britain had experienced mass immigration by the French since the 1960s, our cuisine would now be better and our engineering possibly worse.27 Mass immigration by other European groups would have had other positive and negative effects. Instead, Britain has had decades of immigration from the Third World. Free speech does not flourish in the Third World and no longer flourishes in Britain. This is cause and state-assisted effect. Anyone who doubts that immigration has been bad for free speech should consider this. Unlike free speech, certain things do flourish in the Third World. They are now flourishing in Britain too. If I listed and analysed them, I might open myself and the Libertarian Alliance to a prosecution for incitement to racial hatred. Accordingly, my lips are sealed.
(1) "Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas..." Georgics (29 BC), 490. The literal translation is "Happy the one who was able to know the causes of things".
(2) For Labour's secret policy of massively increasing immigration, see for example 'That NuLabour "mistake" over mass immigration wasn't a mistake non-shock', Robert Henderson, 30th October, 2011, retrieved 22nd September 2012, http://tinyurl.com/8wfstc9;
' Labour wanted mass immigration to make UK more multicultural, says former adviser', Tom Whitehead, Daily Telegraph, 23rd October, 2009, retrieved 22nd September 2012, http://tinyurl.com/2uzb8gj.
(3) Lines from "Hymn to Proserpina", in Poems and Ballads (1866).
(4) In a letter to Sir Richard Burton in January 1867, Swinburne said: 'One anonymous letter, from Dublin threatened me, if I did not suppress my book within six weeks from that date, with castration. The writer, "when I least expected, would waylay me, slip my head in a bag, and remove the obnoxious organs; he had seen his gamekeeper do it with cats."' See 'The letters of Algernon Charles Swinburne', n/k, retrieved 22nd September 2012, http://tinyurl.com/99rbryh.
(5) Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey', n/k, retrieved 22nd September 2012, http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2447.
(6) 'English Gothic', ch. IV.
(7) 'Whitehouse v Lemon', Wikipedia, 4th July 2012, retrieved 22nd September 2012, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehouse_v_Lemon.
(8) "Mahound" is a medieval Christian name for Muhammad, but was undoubtedly chosen by Rushdie in part because of its canine resonance.
(9) See, for example, 'The Satanic Verses Controversy', Wikipedia, 19th September 2012, retrieved 22nd September 2012, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses_controversy.
(10) Saeed Shah, 'Pakistan blasphemy case: 'Muslims could take law into their own hands'', Guardian, 30th August 2012, retrieved 22th September 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/30/pakistan-blasphemy-case-musl....
(11) John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 'Chapter II: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion',1869, retrieved 22nd September 2012, http://www.bartleby.com/130/.
(12) BBC News, 'Going undercover in the BNP', 15th July 2004, retrieved 22nd September 2012, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3896213.stm.
(13) Martin Wainwright , 'BNP leader's slurs on Lawrence', The Guardian, Thursday 19 January 2006, retrieved 22nd September 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/jan/19/uk.race/.
(14) Andrew Marr, 'Poor? Stupid? Racist? Then don't listen to a pampered white liberal like me', Guardian, 28th February 1999, retrieved 22nd September 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/1999/feb/28/lawrence.ukcrime4.
(15) 'Murder of Anthony Walker', Wikipedia, 12th September 2012, retrieved 22nd September 2012, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Anthony_Walker.
(16) Sean Gabb, 'Britain Must Weep for Stephen Lawrence – or Else! But Not For Richard Everitt (Who?)', VDare, 9th January 2012, retrieved 26th January 2012, http://www.vdare.com/articles/britain-must-weep-for-stephen-lawrence-or-....
(17) Richard Brookhiser, 'The Numinous Negro', National Review, 20th August 2001, retrieved 22nd September 2012, http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/220766/numinous-negro/flashback.
(18) 'List of countries by intentional homicide rate', Wikipedia, 18th September 2012, retrieved 22nd September 2012, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate.
(19) Maurice Tomlinson, 'Violent prejudice against Jamaica's gay people must stop', Guardian, 2012, retrieved 22th September 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/27/violent-prejudice-ja....
(20) Rex Wockner, 'Jamaican gay bar raided by police', Pink Paper, 1st March 2011, retrieved 22nd September 2012, http://news.pinkpaper.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=4921.
(21) See the BBC Home Affairs editor Mark Easton attempt to spin away this unwelcome news in 'Racism and race crime redefined', BBC News, 8th November 2006, retrieved 22nd September 2012, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6128466.stm.
(22) Charlie Brooker, 'Why there was nothing 'human' about Jan Moir's column on the death of Stephen Gately', 16th October 2009, Guardian, retrieved 22nd September 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/16/stephen-gately-jan-moir.
(23) Steven Rose, 'The wrong diagnosis: The scientist James Watson ought to get his targets more clearly in his sights before firing off more of his characteristic bile', Guardian, 17th October, 2007, retrieved 22nd September 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/oct/17/thewrongdiagnosis/.
(24) An adaptation of these lines from Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra (1623), act II, scene 2:
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies...
(25) Murray N. Rothbard, 'Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature', 1973, retrieved 22nd September 2012, http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard31.html.
(26) For more on the First Amendment and those who would like it reformed, see Paul Gottfried, 'A Jewish Conservative Wonders: Is Free Speech Really A Jewish Tradition?', VDare, 21st July 2012, retrieved 26th September 2012, http://www.vdare.com/articles/a-jewish-conservative-wonders-is-free-spee....
(27) A comparison between the French and British rail-networks suggests that the possibility is not great.


text:
ApHogee Keratin 2 Minute Reconstructor helps repair damage caused by chlorine and hard water. Apply on clean hair in shower and rinse to treat brittle hair with cuticle damage and moderate breakage. It soothes irritated scalp and may be applied following each shampooing until the healthy condition of the hair is restored.
0.7 oz, 8 oz, 16 oz.
Made in the USA

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Copy: Win a VIP Camp Bestival experience with
SingStar. Get 4 free tickets, a limo, stylish double
decker bus to sleep in, and a picnic hamper.
"I'd stand for election to save Ireland from
the Freemasons" - Jim Corr
_ __ ___ _ __ | |__ (_) |_ ___| |__
| '_ \ / _ \| '_ \| '_ \| | __/ __| '_ \
| |_) | (_) | |_) | |_) | | || (__| | | |
| .__/ \___/| .__/|_.__/|_|\__\___|_| |_|
Free every week: to subscribe/unsubscribe
go to http://www.popbitch.com
* A new "star" for OK!
* Say sorry to a Sally
* Charts: Ne-yo v Coldplay for number one spot
>> Jacob the prisonbitch <<
Jeweller to find new client base
Hip-hop's most famous purveyor of bling,
Jacob the Jeweller, is off to prison for his
part in a rather cool sounding "interstate
drug ring". The man responsible for the
heinous crimes against accessories and
politically suspect obsession with wearing
diamonds by the rap and wannabe-black
(Justin Timberlake ect) pop community -
and the man behind Lil Kim's range of watches
is also the subject of rumours that he'd
started selling average pieces at outrageous
mark-ups. One famous rapper discovered his
fiancee's ring was worth less than 10% what
he paid for it and now others are getting their
pieces looked at to see if the sales were above
The Hawaiian creation myth suggests that the octopus
is the only survivor from a former alien universe.
>> BB's best friend <<
Another ludicrous nobody for OK!
Richard Desmond still seems to be Big Brother's
number one fan. He still gives work to ex-
wannabes Chanelle and Nikki, to everyone else's
incomprehension. And this year OK! shelled out 80k
to buy up week one reject Stephanie. Even
though there doesn't seem to have been another bid.
More: BB Dale with his top off:
Britney Spears' sister Jamie Lynn has called her
baby Maddie. Which is just brilliant.
>> Big Questions <<
What people are asking this week
Her reality show should ensure that she
never works again in her day job. So which
US actress's previous career was as a
high-class Hollywood hooker? And one of the
things that made her hate her ex-husband
was that he was happy to tell friends
about it.
Prince Caspian star Ben Barnes used to be in
a Eurovisionp-wannabe boy band called Hi-Rise.
>> Oops! <<
When sorry just isn't enough
JT writes:
"One of my mates was on a corporate golf day,
playing with three people he didn't know. On the
first tee he hit a long low scuttling shot and cried
"Oops, that's a Sally then!" One of the other
golfers said, What do you mean, a Sally? My mate
replied, "Well, you know, like that Sally
Gunnell. A good runner, but bloody ugly.
Cue Silence.........
"That'll be Sally Gunnell, my wife", said
one of the others.
The Discoo sale has 60% off EVERYTHING! It is your
final chance to grab some amazing fashion bargains!
>> Snack attack<<
What the food critics really eat
AA Gill, at Woodall Services on the M1 near
Sheffield bought three packets of crisps
including Walkers Sensations, Thai Sweet Chili
and a grab bag of Ready Salted.
Like Dr Who, the octopus has three hearts.
>> World's best job <<
Wanted: gate for gatekeeper
Decades ago Mutrah, Muscat's main city, was
separated from the port by a huge wall with a
large gate. Every sundown the gate would be closed
and sealed till the next morning. When the authorities
connected the roads and had to drive cars to the
port and back the gate wasn't large enough. So they
knocked two giant gaps either side of the gate and
built the road through.
Of course you don't point out to anyone your job
is useless, so for years the officer whose job
it was to be in charge of the gate still arrived
at sundown, making sure the gate was sealed, before
driving back out through the huge gap.
Gareth Gates was on a Virgin flight from Las Vegas
to Gatwick this week. He sat in Economy (near the
back) and chatted to anyone who approached.
>> Things that make you go hmm <<
David Gest, octopus, disco sheds!
Porn in Arab countries:
Disco sheds! Needs sound on, and loud:
Octopus eats shark:
David Gest - pop star:
Rape quiz - how would you score?
>> Chart Predictions <<
New entries/High climbers Sun 29th June
++ Number One
NE-YO Closer
++ Top Twenty
GLAS VEGAS Geraldine
COURTEENERS No You Didn't No You Don't
>> End Bit <<
Stuff about Popbitch
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Thanks to: AM, SW, LB, JC, systemaddict 1, PS
missbhavin, JT, LW
Old Jokes Home:
Q: What's the difference between a rock guitarist
and a jazz guitarist?
A: A rock guitarist gets to play three chords in
front of thousands of people.
Still Bored:
White tiger cubs:
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Posted by Sledge at 16:59
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text:
Kuwait Projects Company has earned a reputation for
quality and excellence as a premier investment holding company in the Middle
East and North Africa (MENA) region. The company's talented and committed
workforce of over 12,000 employees worldwide helps it create ideas, connect
people, foster an entrepreneurial culture and uphold standards of professional
excellence, and most importantly, its commitment to clients. KIPCO was
incorporated in 1975. Since then, the company has grown substantially and made
significant investments in a diversified portfolio of companies operating
throughout the MENA region and in other countries of the world. KIPCO
principally operates in two major business sectors - Financial Services and
Media & Technology. Its Group companies utilise the synergies that exist
within each sector, as well as across sectors within the KIPCO Group, to offer
the best to its customers. KIPCO continually seeks to improve the performance of
its portfolio companies by encouraging the adoption of global best practices in
managing their businesses.


text:
> Why would somebody feel misled if they suddenly find out that the
> software is freely redistributable?
"Why did I just pay money for something I could have downloaded for
free?!? Either I'm an idiot...or...I can't defend a socialist
position with a straight face, everybody will laugh at me and never
trust me with money again...or I got cheated."
I've asked some of my own CUSTOMER PROSPECTS, people that CONTACTED ME
about my software, what they would think if I released Host Factory
libre. 18 out of 20 respondants told me point blank (and I love each
and every one of them for their candor) that they could never justify
a purchase to their organization for something they could download.
Some were semi-sympathetic and explained this to me. Others used
shorthand and laughed. I think the remaining two just wanted to use
it for free. And really, I have to agree with my customers. Why
should they pay for it if some other schmuck is going to foot the bill
out of some misguided sense of socialism?
Another member of the League for Programming Freedom (LPF) www.lpf.org
Brian Bartholomew - firstname.lastname@example.com - www.wv.com - Working Version, Cambridge, MA


text:
This story has been updated.
Power has been restored late Saturday evening after a large outage was reported in sections of the City of Poughkeepsie Central Business District, Waterfront District and the Southside Saturday evening, according to Central Hudson.
Approximately 2,600 customers were affected by the outage, said Central Hudson, adding that crews worked throughout the city to restore power as soon as possible.
If you see a downed power line or other potentially hazardous condition involving electrical equipment, stay at least 30 feet away from the wires and anything they are in contact with, Central Hudson said. The ground around downed or low hanging power lines, as well as surrounding objects such as fences, could be energized.
If the event of an emergency, please dial 9-1-1. For all non-emergency situations, please call the CPPD Front Desk at (845) 451-4000.
Click here to sign up for Daily Voice's free daily emails and news alerts.


text:
MIKADO Japanese Restaurant
148 South Illinois Street
Indianapolis, IN, 46225
MIKADO Japanese Restaurant
148 South Illinois Street
Indianapolis, IN, 46225
Magda / te wszystkie leki,plastry ,herbatki czy inne gów** do ściema ! jestem na diecie od 15 stycznia ( na diecie od dietetyka!) mam za sobą 16 kg mniej bez ćwiczeń ! tyle dało mi samo zdrowe jedzenie ! A teraz waga stoi czyli organizm daje znać,że teraz sport ( bieganie, spacery, sparingi bokserskie ) dadzą efekty !! bierzcie się za siebie i swoją wagą dajcie pokierować specjalistom !!
Hi just thought i would tell you something.. This is twice now i have landed on your website in the last 3 days hunting for completely unrelated things. Spooky or what?
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hi, i'm from colombia and i have a big problemi need some advice: I have a relationship of 5 years with my girlfriend and we live 2gether. but i think her cousin is in love with me. when we r 2gether she keep looking at me and she loves 2 touch me. i always get expensive gifts from her. is this normal?
as it's well done. To learn lots of free information about making trailers, I'd turn to Darcy Pattison's site. As far as making the trailers go, there are plenty of free video making programs, like Windows
how to grow taller naturally…The heart of your writing while appearing agreeable initially, did not really settle very well with me after some time. Someplace within the paragraphs you were able to make me a believer but just for a short while. I nevertheless have a problem with y…
While the data is inarguable what is your plan? 3 pts for your viiosn to create opportunities in the QC area specifically in your metro and rural counties would be greatly appreciated. Show your resolve and viiosn for the 17th.


text:
On Women Empowerment
y = f(y) notes for the design of a circular cultural organization Version: 1.01
Review: ART AND REVOLUTION - Transversal activism in the long twentieth century by Gerald Raunig (semiotexte, 2007)
In And Out Of Place
break: loop >> The Emergence of New Media Concepts
out of the window, onto the mesh
binary kruno
On Institutional critique
Merry Christmas, KIASMA!
Political Art in the Zeroes and Through Zeroes and Ones
All Problems of Notation Will Be Solved by the Masses: Free Open Form Performance, Free/Libre Open Source Software, and Distributive Practice
Art And Bureaucracy - A Possible Relationship Drama
Summer 2006, a few months after I met Mr. Vasu Srinivasan at theLuminous Green Symposium organised by foAM, I decided to develop aproject on the Women Engineers of the Barefoot College and the Women ofTilonia... more
y = f(y)
notes for the design of a circular cultural organization
Version: 1.01 | Aymeric Mansoux more print
the architecture of mobility
Since the end of the 20th century we have been increasingly defining
our location in terms of connectivity, network latency, and
bandwidth... more
ART AND REVOLUTION - Transversal activism in the long twentieth century by Gerald Raunig
(semiotexte, 2007) | Barbara Huber more print
In the long and hot winter of 2007 i found this book under my Christmas tree. The title promises quite a lot but stays quite unseizable on the other hand... more
Today there is no longer an outside.
Now, when we need it most, it is dead.
A victim of its success or failure, swallowed up by the institution it stood against... more
When people come in contact with new media art (your coinage may vary), they are often puzzled by a seeming lack of conceptual content.
Compared to other contemporary forms of art, the way to comprehend and engage a work seems less obvious... more
Being an organisation for media arts, OKNO has always concentrated on network arts.
As do many organisations, we stream our events over the internet, hold connected performances, have an open server and collaborate through various web tools... more
very quickly as im not on the internet at home
this is link to the text
http://www... more
I have been fascinated by the discourse of institutional critique defined from the "inside" and "outside", since over my long working practice, I was mostly positioned in- between the sanctioned boundaries... more
artist: In this respect, to what extent, do you think, the budget plays a role?
restlessincorporated: No role at all - it's not about the money, honey!
But not having any at all can be quite problematic... more
**There is no armchair criticism -- every critique as such is confined
to the wheelchair!**
The Frankfurt school spearheaded by Habermas developed the position of
the "critical intellectual" into a confortable and accepted niche for
cognitive workers who wanted to confine themselves to their safe areas
of specialisation and at the same time maintain a political profile... more
All Problems of Notation Will Be Solved by the Masses: Free Open Form Performance, Free/Libre Open Source Software, and Distributive Practice | Simon Yuill more print
This contribution is an abridged version of the article on MetaMute, avaiilable at: www.metamute.org/en/All-Problems-of-Notation-Will-be-Solved-by-the-Masses
The return to improvisation in ?livecoding? draws parallels with experimental practices developed by maverick musicians, programmers and educators from Sun Ra, The Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Scratch Orchestra to Seymour Papert... more
The contribution is in a pdf file that can be downloaded from:
Egger was born in 1973 and lives in Munich... more
okno --- koolmijnenkaai 30/34 --- 1080 brussels --- belgium --- steklo♥okno.be --- tel +32 2 410 9940


text:
Carbon Foam: The Key Ingredient of a Better Battery?
A lighter, greener, cheaper, longer-lasting battery
Read full story.
Alumnus Teams with Tech on a Project to Reclaim Stamp Sand and Grow an Industry
Despite the economic downturn, the roofing industry in America will experience long-term, fruitful prospects, and Michigan Tech will play a role in this nearly $9-billion annual market.
Students Build CO2 Scrubber
An 11-foot bench-model smokestack packed with glass beads is percolating away in a
lab. Near the top, a proprietary liquid dribbles down. From below, carbon dioxide
bubbles up. By the time the gas reaches the top, fully half of the CO2 has been gobbled
up by the liquid.
Read full story.
Nano-Bio Hybrids: Bringing Nano to Life at Michigan Tech
Michigan Tech researchers are making nano-things that virtually build themselves:
solar cells from proteins "assembled" by bacteria and titanium dioxide nanotubes created
though a simple chemical reaction.
Read full story.
Safer Helmet, Safer Head--Michigan Tech Team Takes Its Award-winning Invention to San Francisco Inventors Expo
A team of inventive engineering students from Michigan Tech has designed a new and
promising protective layer for sports and motorcycle helmets.
Read full story.
Roadway asset management system designed to address the specific needs of counties, cities and villages.
Developed over the past 15 years by the staff of the Technology Development Group
of the Michigan Tech Transportation Institute, RoadSoft is now available worldwide
under a nonprofit license.
Read full story.
SafeLane Returns to its Roots: Three Campus Walkways Get a Makeover
SafeLane, which is being marketed by Cargill, is a mix of epoxy and aggregate rock
applied to pavement. When liquid anti-icing chemicals are applied to the overlay before
ice or snowstorms hit, the material acts like a rigid sponge, storing the chemicals
inside and automatically releasing them as wintery conditions develop. The result
is safer surfaces with better traction and less maintenance.
Read full story.
Somero-MTU Agreement Pays Off
Somero Enterprises, with a manufacturing facility near the university, develops high-tech
methods for laying concrete with an exceptionally flat surface. A 3-D profiler, created
by Michigan Tech in collaboration with Somero, allows the company's laser screed machines
to make one pass on complex contoured paving projects.
Read full story.
Tech Start-up Wins BioScience Showcase in Detroit
Kalamazoo-based Aursos Inc. is a company established to commercialize a treatment
for osteoporosis and other bone disorders based on research by Associate Professor
Seth Donahue (Biomedical Engineering) on black bear parathyroid hormone.
Read full story.
Alum Honored for Commercializing MTU Research
Michigan Technological University alumnus Glen Barna, received an award from the state
of Michigan to celebrate the successful commercialization of technology developed
at Michigan's public universities. Barna, president of IR Telemetrics, received a
$25,000 prize.
Read full story.
Getting Coal Ash out of the Landfill and Into Building Materials
Fly ash, a byproduct of operating coal-fired power plants, has gone into landfills for decades. But a process developed by Michigan Technological University's Institute of Materials Processing converts the ash into a valuable mineral filler product.


text:
Pillars of Excellence
Life Sciences: Request for Concept Papers
Register your team by: April 6, 2015
Proposals Due: May 12, 2015
The goal of the "Pillars of Excellence in the Life Sciences" investment is to strengthen the reputation of Purdue Life Sciences, by improving our national/international rankings. Rankings of particular interest are those "core" to fundamental biology: biochemistry/biophysics/structural biology; cell biology; ecology/evolutionary biology; genetics/genomics/bioinformatics; immunology/infectious diseases; microbiology; molecular biology; and neuroscience/neurobiology. The investment is expected to coalesce faculty with synergistic research interests into one or more identifiable and cohesive groups and provide significant resources to enable a high national impact. Coupled with Purdue's ongoing NIH-targeted Initiative, the effort is expected to significantly strengthen Purdue's national/international recognition in the Life Sciences.
Successful Pillars are envisioned to substantively represent multiple colleges on the West Lafayette campus. Teams forming Pillars must "register" and provide contact information for the launching leader to Perry Kirkham by April 6. This information will be shared with the Associate Deans for Research to facilitate multi-expertise group organization. Available support for new Pillars of Excellence will depend on the strength and breadth of the proposed Pillars, but it is expected to be at least equivalent to a major NIH-funded Center. The template proposed below should be followed:
- Proposed Pillar of Excellence (Title)
Launching Group Leader (one)
- (This could be a temporary position if a new hire into this position is anticipated.) Name, professorial rank, department and college, NIH Biosketch (including current, pending, and completed project information; use new form)
Launching Group Co-leader(s)
- (These could be temporary positions if new hires into these positions are anticipated.) Name, professorial rank, department and college, NIH Biosketch (including current, pending, and completed project information; use new form)
Participating Faculty
- Name, professorial rank, department and college, NIH Biosketch (including current, pending, and completed project information; use new form)
- Represented Colleges (list)
Vision Statement for the Pillar of Excellence (limit 0.5 page)
- (Briefly describe the overall vision for the Pillar of Excellence incorporating a summary of its goals.)
Description of the Scientific Discipline/Area (limit 1 page)
- (Discuss the state of the scientific discipline/area represented by the proposed Pillar of Excellence and Purdue's current and potential future national/international position in that discipline/area. Address the Pillar's potential for external funding.)
Goals for the Pillar of Excellence (limit 2.5 pages)
- (Discuss the goals for obtaining high national/international recognition for the proposed Pillar of Excellence and detail the group organization, activities and any national or international partnerships that will support achieving the goals. Describe plans and timeline for increasing external funding.)
Resources for the Pillar of Excellence (limit 1 page)
- (Discuss what resources are currently available and how they will be leveraged, and what new resources will be needed to achieve high national/international recognition for the Pillar of Excellence. Resources could include, but are not limited to: faculty lines, core facilities, instrumentation, graduate student support, support for seed grants and workshops. New buildings are not envisioned as part of this effort.)
- Cited Literature (limit 2 pages)
Review Process:
Each proposed Pillar will make a 5 minute "pitch" to a panel of distinguished faculty leaders followed by a 5 minute Q&A in an open session for life sciences faculty, students and staff. The panel will make recommendations to the EVPRP and Provost regarding which teams should move forward. A second and final round will allow 10 minute presentations and 10 minutes for Q&A in the open session format. The panel will include distinguished faculty external to Purdue. The panel will make recommendations to the EVPRP and Provost for the final selection of the Pillar(s) to be supported. This model has been successfully used in the College of Engineering's "Preeminent Team" competition.
Selection Criteria:
Final decisions will be based on: 1) the clarity and vigor of the vision; 2) the depth, breadth and proposed integration of the scientific expertise in the proposed Pillar; and 3) the potential to reach national prominence.
Contact Marietta Harrison with questions. Concept papers should be submitted to Perry Kirkham by 5 pm, May 12.


text:
Become an Appliance Expert. Subscribe to our Knowledge Base!
Table of Contents
To learn more about heaters, download our FREE ebook by clicking below.
How You Can Benefit from a Portable Micathermic Panel Heater This Winter
Micathermic heaters are gaining immense popularity due to the convenience they offer and the reliable heat they provide.
The best part about these heaters is they are compact and consume less energy. If you want a reliable heater which keeps the ambiance comfortable, consider a Micathermic heater.
Let's look at how you can benefit from a portable Micathermic panel heater this winter:
1. Easy To Carry
If you want a portable heater, Micathermic heaters are your best bet.
Most heaters are too large and heavy to carry around. The compact frame allows you to carry the heater almost anywhere. All you need is a power socket and you are good to go.
If you want to carry a Micathermic heater safely, retain the original packaging. This will also help you if you need to store your heater during the summer. The original packaging is designed to keep it safe from damage while being carried or in storage.
Micathermic heaters are a good choice for the elderly and anyone else who is least likely to want to, or to be able to do heavy lifting.
2. Energy Efficient
Almost all heaters nowadays are quite energy efficient, but Micathermic heaters are better. There are many reasons for this.
Before looking into the reasons why Micathermic heaters are more energy efficient than other heaters, you will need to understand how other heaters work.
- Other types of heaters have elements which heat up and then a blower transmits energy to the room.
- Some types of heaters transmit heat directly from the element to the room but heat up other items in the room.
- Even though these heaters are quite popular, they are not efficient. This is because they take a long time to warm up the room.
- If a heater is working longer, it will consume more electricity.
- Moreover, these heaters have to work hard to maintain a steady temperature inside the room.
Micathermic heaters, on the other hand, provide quick cooling since they use electromagnetic rays.
Since the heater has to work for a shorter time, it consumes less energy. Micathermic heaters do not have to work hard to maintain a steady temperature within the room. This is another aspect which makes them energy efficient.
The best part about Micathermic heaters is that the heating element inside is not large. The only purpose of the heating element is to provide heat to the mica stone.
3. Quiet Heating
Convection heaters are quite easy to use and provide good heating in insulated rooms. But the one potential downside is the fan blower. The heat in standard convection heaters needs to be transmitted by a blower. If you use this heater at night, you will hear some noise coming from it.
If you consider Micathermic heaters, you will realize they are by far the most silent heaters on the market. The only "working components" in these heaters are the element and the mica stone.
Even these components remain still while the heater is operational. Since there are not many moving components in Micathermic heaters, they provide heating in an exceptionally quiet manner. This makes these heaters ideal for homes with children.
4. Compact Frame
The typical heaters people commonly use in their homes are bulky. Not only are these heaters large, they are heavy as well. This makes them rather inconvenient.
These heaters take up a lot of space and you usually have to move a lot of things just to accommodate a single heater. Even then you have to worry about relocating it once winter ends. This is because the heaters are so large you cannot just let them take up valuable space in a room.
Another issue is moving them from one place to another if you need heating in another room. This is where Micathermic heaters are the best thing you can get for your home.
- Micathermic heaters do not have a complex infrastructure.
- The only working components of a mica heater are the mica stone and a small heating element.
- The element heats the stone and the stone uses electromagnetic rays to heat the room.
- Since there are not many components in this heater, it can be built into a compact frame.
- Not only is the frame smaller, it is lighter as well.
- Models like the NewAir AH-470 Flat Panel Micathermic Space Heater are ultra slim and can be placed virtually anywhere.
The best part about Micathermic heaters is that they come in wall-mounted models as well. If you want to move it from one room to another you can order a couple of mounting brackets and attach one to each room. You will then be able to move it from one room to another easily.
Plus, the fact that they do not get too hot makes them safe to mount to walls.
Of course, if you do not like putting heaters away during the warm months, this type of heater is perfect for you. It can be mounted on the wall or simply tucked behind the couch for use next year. They are so small you will hardly notice their presence in the room.
5. Air Remains Comfortable To Breathe
When using convection heaters, the biggest problem you face is that dust in the room gets stirred up.
However, this is not the only issue.
- In addition to the dust being stirred up, you will also have to deal with dry air.
- Convection heaters drive the moisture out of the air in the room.
- This makes the air uncomfortable to breathe.
- Micathermic heaters are the solution to both these issues.
Since Micathermic heaters do not have a blower, there is no way they can stir up the dust particles.
In addition, you will not have to worry about the moisture in the air. Micathermic heaters provide heat to the room but in a manner that the air retains some moisture. This is where the benefits of the radiative heating aspects of the heater come into play. Due to the unique heating method Micathermic heaters use, the air in the room remains breathable.
6. Innovative Designs
One aspect of Micathermic heaters most people do not realize is that they are available in a variety of designs.
The compact, non-moving working components of this heater allow it to be constructed in various designs.
If you want a uniquely designed heater for your home, you can definitely find a Micathermic heater design which complements the decor.
Micathermic heaters are available in designs that do not even look like heaters. If you want a heater which blends in with the current setting of your home, you will definitely find some of the like.
7. Powerful Heating
The main issue with radiant and convective heaters is that they are not able to heat large areas.
- If you want a radiant heater to provide heat for a large area, that would be next to impossible. Not only will you need topnotch insulation to make it possible, but the room will have to be crammed with items for the heater to warm up because radiative heaters only heat up the objects and people in a room.
- Convective heaters can heat larger areas, but as the heating capacity increases, the unit becomes larger. This is because for a unit to be able to provide more heating, you need a larger element and a larger blower.
- Of course, there are times when you may not have space for a large heater, but need a higher heating capacity. This is where Micathermic heaters come in. They use a combination of convective and radiant heat to become an efficient unit that uses the best qualities of both types of heaters.
Most Micathermic heaters are able to heat an area as large as 200 sq. meters.
Considering the size of these heaters, the heating capacity is substantial. You will not have to worry about getting a large unit for a large area. The best part is this heater provides uniform heating across the furthest corner of the room.
This is one of the problems you may face with regular heaters. They provide excellent heating around the area where the heater is placed. But you will find it hard to relay the heat to other corners of the room.
Since Micathermic heaters use electromagnetic rays to provide heat, the entire room will be heated evenly. In fact, the rays heat up the furthest corner of the room first. The warm air then pushes the cool air towards the end where the heater is placed.
8. Safer Than Other Heaters
With convection and radiant heaters, there is always a risk of some kind of heating hazard.
These heaters are quite popular, but they can cause a fire if used without the necessary precautions.
For instance, if a convection heater is not placed a safe distance away from drapery and furniture, there would be something to worry about.
The element of radiant heaters in particular heats up to extremely high temperatures and most heaters do not even offer a cover or protection. Regardless of the type of heater you choose, you will need to keep it away from upholstered furniture and drapes.
- Micathermic heaters have a great safety rating.
- The thing that appeals to most is you do not have to keep it away from kids and pets.
- Micathermic heaters are also safe for use around upholstered furniture and drapes.
- The best part is that this heater has innovative safety features which turn the unit off in the event there is an overheating issue or if it accidentally tips over.
- A lot of units also come with a safety tip-over switch and automatic shut-off if it gets too hot.
9. Little to No Installation Required
Most portable heaters nowadays do not require any installation at all. However, they can be quite large. Micathermic heaters also do not require any installation. All you need to do is place the heater at a convenient location in your home or workplace and turn it on. The only installation that may be required is wall mounting, which is only needed for wall mounting units. This installation is so easy you can perform it with basic tools. In addition to this, you can be done with the installation within minutes.
Now that you know about the benefits that a Micathermic heater can offer, you should consider getting one for your home this winter.


text: I'm looking into starting a web page/online store. I'm good with Mac stuff but I have never done HTML before and I want to buy a GOOD book/any software needed that is easy to read/mac friendly. Please help me with any suggestions or if someone has done this before and would like to comunicate with me for other questions, PLEASE let me know. You help is greatly appreciated! Thanks


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SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook's status used to be measured in the meteoric number of users who flocked to the world's most popular online hangout.
Now Wall Street is wielding a very different yardstick. It's focused on how many ads Facebook can sell.
The market value of the social networking giant could top $100 billion in the biggest ever initial public offering for an Internet company. To earn that valuation, Facebook, which made nearly all of its $3.7 billion in revenue last year from advertising, is going to have to turn big brands into paying customers.
Brands are buying more ads on Facebook to reach the site's 845 million users, who average seven hours a month there. But spending still makes up a tiny fraction of their total ad budgets.
Marketers, who build fan pages and get users to "like" them for free, say that Facebook hasn't delivered a slam-dunk advertising medium and still lags behind Google, which makes billions from targeted ads that run alongside search results.


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No "Bless You" Needed For a Cough
There's something about saying 'God bless you' when someone sneezes that gets on my nerves. I don't know if it's the use of God in a superstitious belief or just the fact that it is a tradition started almost a thousand years ago that refuses to die. That common human need to say the words is bad enough, but what's far worse is when someone says, or is expected to say 'God bless you' for a cough and not a sneeze! There is a difference! They are not the same thing!
It is believed that the 'God bless you' originated during the Black Death in Medieval Europe, when a sneeze was the first sign that you were infected with the Bubonic plague. The plague was a terrible infectious disease that ultimately decimated 30-60% of 14th century Europe. The 'God bless you' was supposed to be a quick blessing to protect your soul against the impending doom. At a time when disease was thought to be of supernatural origin it made sense for them to summon God to help save them. Today though we know better and yet the saying continues, almost instinctively.
"A sneeze (or sternutation) is a semi-autonomous, convulsive expulsion of air from the lungs through the nose and mouth, usually caused by foreign particles irritating the nasal mucosa." - Wikipedia
"A cough, is a sudden and often repetitively occurring reflex which helps to clear the large breathing passages from secretions, irritants, foreign particles and microbes." - Wikipedia
So now that we have established that there is a difference between a cough and a sneeze please people don't say, or expect me to say 'God bless you' for a cough.
Do you say 'God Bless You'?
That's odd. I've never known anyone to think ill of another merely because he doesn't say "Bless you." Maybe you need a different circle of acquaintances.
I have actually never had anyone say anything when I cough other then "want a cough drop"? While living overseas I was asked why I was excusing myself for sneezing which is something beyond my control... Good Point!
Blessing someone who sneezes predates Christianity. It was a pagan custom. The idea was that you were trying to expel a demon, and the blessing was merely a kind expression of good wishes and good luck. Why anyone would find such a touching, generous and caring tradition to be offensive is beyond my understanding.


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Sunderland have completed their second signing of the summer with the arrival of Tyias Browning on a season-long loan deal from Everton.
The 23-year-old defender links up with boss Simon Grayson for the second time in his career having spent time on loan at Preston North End last season.
Browning will also team up with Toffees teammate Brendan Galloway, who arrived on a similar season-long loan deal earlier in the week.
Browning made his Everton debut in a Merseyside derby in September 2014 and has made a further nine appearances for the Toffees.
The versatile defender is comfortable at right back, where he played eight games for Preston last season and in central defence.
He has also represented England at Under-17, Under-19 and Under-21 levels.
Browning's deal has taken longer than anticipated to get over the line but Sunderland's summer transfer business is stepping up a notch with Grayson also hopeful of quickly concluding a deal for winger Aiden McGeady.
A fee and personal terms have already been agreed with McGeady, but the deal cannot be completed until a contractual issue is resolved between the winger and Everton.
The deal is still expected to go through and Grayson is hoping for a swift conclusion as he looks to bolster a squad in desperate need of new faces.
Speaking after last night's 3-2 friendly win over Bury, Grayson said: "McGeady is talking to Everton about a few bits and bobs.
"It might be very quickly that those two can get done, hopefully anyway."
Sunderland also want to land Bournemouth forward Max Gradel on a season-long loan deal.
Grayson is keen to be reunited with the 29-year-old winger having worked with him at Leeds United.
The Echo understands that the Black Cats are pushing hard for a loan with an option for a permanent deal, but the Premeir League Cherries would prefer a permanent deal for the Ivory Coast international.
That would cost in the region of £3million, with the Black Cats – in desperate need of attacking players – weighing up their options, as revealed in today's Echo.


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Whew. What a weekend. More work than play, but i'm very happy.
Saturday morning I get a wake up phone call at 7:45am from the granite people from All Granite And Marble. A man with a polish accent informs me they will be at my condo in 30 minutes.
I get up, and wait.
Four guys show up. They are all needed to lift the granite slabs, and take the elevator to my home. At one or two times, it was very close to being dropped, but they came through. The granite was put into place, and they were very efficient. They also installed a new undermount sink, and drilled holes for the faucet. They left and I was woozy from the glue smell that filled my apartment. But I had a real countertop, and finally could unpack my kitchen boxes, which were sealed for the last month.
Thirty minutes after they leave I get the next phone call. It's the delivery guys with my leather couch and leather chair with ottoman. They come in, and quickly drop off my items and leave. I'm unpacking these when I get another phone call from Fresh Direct. Fresh Direct drops off my groceries, and I finally have my refrigerator stocked with something other than beer and seltzer.
The rest of the day is uneventful, and I bartend that night to a dead bar. It was nice to get back a few regulars of the bar who also read my blog.
Sunday morning my sister, mother, brother in law and two nephews (and two dogs!), show up. This was my mom's second visit, and she came bearing housewarming gifts, which was very nice of her. My brother-in-law is very handy, almost as handy as my contractor, Sammy. I had a few projects that I wanted him to help me with, but the foremost project was my air conditioning.
When I bought my condo, my home inspector found that of the three wall mounted PTAC (basically an air conditioner and heat-pump unit) one was working, one had A/C but no heat and a third was dead). The owner credited me $1,800 towards fixing the air conditioners, based on an estimate from a HVAC repair man. I called the repair man after the close, and he told me the following:
1. Yes, one could "possibily" be repaired for $1,800 by getting a special circuit board and having him swap it out.
2. One was dead and to get that existing model and replace it would cost $2,200.
3. My total cost would be $4,000.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I called at least five other HVAC people, asking for a second opinion. Most wanted to come to my condo, look the units over and give me a quote. I simply didn't have the time to do this, and with summer looming didn't want to be without A/C.
I then started to do my own research. I looked up the serial numbers of the unit, which were made by Carrier. The units were about 10 years old and the Carrier website gave me model numbers of compatible replacement units. Then, I searched for those replacement units and found that brand new PTAC cost about $700.
Hmm. I could just replace one unit for $700 and pay someone a few hundred to swap out my existing wall unit out. How much could that cost.
Again, I call multiple HVAC offices. Even with me purchasing the unit myself - they are all quoting me numbers that ranged from $800-2000 to replace my A/C. I was flabbergasted. Honestly it was like they were crooks and trying to steal from me. They were all claiming how hard it was to do and I am on the phone like, "Dude, you are taking an old unit out and slapping in a new unit. This will take you, at most, 20 minutes. No, no, no - you don't understand HVAC, sir. Blah, blah, blah.
I'm angry. Back when Dad was alive, i'd call him, he would know someone, and it gets figured out. Now with his passing it turns out that Mom is my new go-to person. Dad knew everyone in every field in Philly - from lawyers & doctors to HVAC guys & plumbers. My mother's contact list is basically the same, but smaller. She knew who to call right away - my brother in law, Dan.
Now Dan(*name changed) probably doesn't want me writing too much on here about him, but just to give you an idea about him - he's sort of like if McGuyver's and Bob Vila combined. Naval Academy graduate, Wharton MBA, and if you give him an instruction manual, tools, chewing gum, a felt tip pen, miscellaneous wires and time, he can basically construct most home projects.
Which was cool because as described above, I needed some A/C help and Mom knew who to call.
Just like that, he was on the phone assuring me it wouldn't be a problem to have him swap out the dead unit with a brand new unit. I went online, purchased a PTAC unit and it was shipped to me 7 days later.
Dan shows up, reads the manual, and before he does, I get an idea.
I may not know much about HVAC, but my 9-5 job does border on troubleshooting. I am good at directing techs on the phone, and eliminating failures, and isolating where "troubles" occur in technology. With Dan there, we start to work together, and we eventually figure out the following:
1. The PTAC that was "dead" is, in fact, working fine. We took a working thermostat, swapped it out with the other one, and found that out. So, I just needed a $50 thermostat to fix that problem.
2. The second PTAC, with the faulty heat, we swapped out with the third working unit. We took my new PTAC and put it where the old third working unit was located.
Problems solved...sort of. Turns out that the thermostat control for the new PTAC was for A/C, electric heat units and not PTAC heat-pump units. I have to get a new one, but its a $90 investment. That sort of put a damper on my joy, but considering that I spent about $840 ($700 PTAC, $90 thermostat connector, $50 thermostat) out of $1,800 I was credited by the seller, i'm still about $1,160 ahead.
Dan and I looked over the apartment, and he made me write a list of items we should get from Home Depot. We bought a garbage disposal, new hallway & kitchen lights, and some other odds and ends. He connects up everything, with me assisting as best I can. I finally have running water in my kitchen, and replaced my old fluorescent lights for incandescent ones in the hallway.
I actually learned a bit, too, about electric and wiring that I didn't know before. It wasn't too hard when you actually have someone there to show you how it's done. For example, I swapped out one of the hall lights myself, while Dan worked on the sink.
My family left Sunday and I thanked them for all their help. It was great to see them and especially great that Dan was so incredibly handy.
I cooked my first meal on Sunday night. I had prosciutto and melon appetizer, with chianti, 5 cheese tortellini, ragù alla bolognese and topped with fresh grated parmesan cheese. I can't take credit for making the dish, it was from Fresh Direct, but delicious nonetheless. After that, I went to Moran's, met some friends and had a few drinks.
Monday was a relaxed day of me catching the last four episodes of "24", eating food, making a few red bulls and vodka, and napping on my new couch. I didn't step outside except to do my laundry, which were two washers and dryers down the hall and cost $1 per machine.
There are only a few remaining items for Sammy to fix at my apartment and the work will be complete. Chris the painter should be finishing up his work this week, too.
Next up - House Party!


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Plymouth Young Contemporary Open is a bi-annual event, showcasing the incredible talent of local children and young people. Young People aged 4 – 30 are invited to submit work across all contemporary art genres including photography, installation, sculpture, performance, film and more.
Plymouth Young Contemporary Open (PYCO) is a partnership between Peninsula Arts at Plymouth University and
Effervescent, with associated partners: Plymouth Culture, Radiant Gallery,
Plymouth History Centre, Karst, Ocean Studios, Plymouth Arts Centre and
Plymouth College of Art.


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Among SEO Companies San Diego Uses, One Web Stands Out
SEO Companies in San Diego are literally a dime a dozen! In fact, San Diego is such a lucrative market for SEO that companies from other cities are itching to break into the market here. We are a different breed of SEO companies San Diego calls because of our focus. We don't "break into markets" so much as simply focus on delivering results. We believe that by doing outstanding work, the business will come to us in the way of referrals.
We believe that with so many SEO companies San Diego has to choose from, those that perform SEO services with skill, attention to detail and a "little extra special something" we like to call the "magic touch", that this will solidify our reputation as being the best in our field. And guess what? This approach is working for us! Among SEO companies San Diego researches, One Web bubbles to the top because of one thing: RESULTS. It's that simple. Well, simple to understand, but not so simple to achieve! It takes years of experience, hours of work, a unique mindset, and then that special thing we mentioned called the magic touch which we define as nothing more than hard work, a creative approach to the science of SEO — SEO with an emphasis on the details.
Our SEO experts are a seasoned breed of technologists who understand the nuances of search as it pertains to each specific industry, and more importantly, to each specific clients' needs and goals. While we toss round the notion of "magic", it really boils down to experience plus the effort put forth to know the needs of our clients' prospects insofar as how it translates to search in general. In other words, we do the research to learn about your products/services so as to become experts in knowing how, why and when your prospects will take to the web — Google in particular, to seek out the wares you provide. We get into the heads of our clients' prospects to know the phrases they will search on to find the products and/or services our clients provide and make sure their site is there among the top pages of the search results. Then we add the creative touch to be sure the listing jumps out among the competition so as to generate interest in the form of the all-important click-through. That's how one of the best SEO companies San Diego uses does it, and that's why you need to contact One Web Company to do it for your company.
So what are you waiting for? With people out there searching every day/all day for the products and services you offer, there's no time to waste! Among SEO companies San Diego uses, One Web comes out on top. Call on One Web today: 619-500-6252.


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Tales from Freniya
Main Page
Locations of Interest
The Council Bluffs – Famous Meeting place of the northern barbarian tribe. Smirvelin is held here once a year.
Zirbat – One of the northern settlements of the four barbarian tribes. Home to the Darkblood tribe.
Curnach – The northern most tribe of barbarians, the Frosteater clan.
Events around the world
If you don't want to use the page's name as the link text, you can specify your own text by placing a vertical bar | and the link text in the link like so: The Text To Display
Linking to characters and items
To link to a character or item, use the same double square brackets, but also use a colon. The text to put in the brackets is the slug for the character. Here is an example: Content Not Found: retread
If your character has no slug, you can use the ID number, like so: Content Not Found: 2.
For PCs and NPCs in your campaign, you can just use the PC/NPC Link Lookup in the sidebar to the right. It's quite handy!
Linking to characters and items with different text
Just like wiki links, it's possible to link to a character or item using alternate text. Here's an example: Content Not Found: retread
HTML and Textile
To style things how you want, you can use either HTML (with some restrictions) or a simple formatting language called Textile. It's up to you, but Textile is pretty easy, while simultaneously allowing for lots of customization.


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Categories provide the ability to add functionality to an object without subclassing or changing the actual object. A handy tool, they are often used to add methods to existing classes, such as
NSString or your own custom objects.
Step 1: Set Up Your Project
Launch Xcode and click File > New > Project. Choose an iOS Single View Application from the window and click "Next." Name your product "Categories" and enter a name for your Company Identifier, such as "com.companyName.categories." Choose the iPhone device family and click "Next." Choose a location to store your project and click "Create."
Step 2: Create the Category
Now that your project is set up, let's create a category that adds additional functionality to the
NSString class. Click File > New > File and choose a Cocoa Touch Objective-C category from the window. Click "Next." Name your category "RemoveNums" and select
NSString from the "Category on" drop down menu (you may need to type this in manually). Click "Next" followed by "Create."
Declare the Category Method
Back in your Xcode project, click "NSString+RemoveNums.h" to view the new category's header file. Add the following code to the interface to declare the method.
@interface NSString (RemoveNums) - (NSString *)removeNumbersFromString:(NSString *)string; @end
Implement the Category Method
Click "NSString+RemoveNums.m" to view the category's implementation file. Add the following code to create a method that will remove all the numbers from an
NSString. First we define an
NSCharacterSet of the numbers zero through nine which we'll use as a reference to compare against the original input string. In this case, the original string "ABC 123" will have the numbers "123" removed from the string because the category method uses the
NSString method
- (NSString *)removeNumbersFromString:(NSString *)string { NSString *trimmedString = nil; NSCharacterSet *numbersSet = [NSCharacterSet characterSetWithCharactersInString:@"0123456789"]; trimmedString = [string stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet:numbersSet]; return trimmedString; }
Step 3: Import the Category
Click "ViewController.h" and import the category by adding the following code.
#import "NSString+RemoveNums.h"
Step 4: Test the Category
Click "ViewController.m" and add the following code to the
viewDidLoad method. The local variable
stringWithNums contains a combination of letters and numbers. The next line takes the string variable and runs it through the category method
removeNumbersFromString. Finally,
NSLog outputs the returned value of the newly trimmed string without any numbers.
NSString *stringWithNums = @"ABC 123"; NSLog(@"stringWithNums --> %@",stringWithNums); stringWithNums = [stringWithNums removeNumbersFromString:stringWithNums]; NSLog(@"trimmed stringWithNums --> %@",stringWithNums);
Step 5: Use the Category Method
Click Product > Run, or click the "Run" arrow in the top left corner, to test the code. Notice the console shows the original input string, "ABC 123," as well as the string after it has been altered by the category method and the numbers have been removed.
Subclassing is one way to add functionality to an object, but avoiding unnecessary subclassing by using a category will help reduce the amount of code and keep your projects more organized. There are a number of scenarios where using a category is beneficial. Share your category scenarios in the comments below.
Envato Tuts+ tutorials are translated into other languages by our community members—you can be involved too!Translate this post


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Then I take a few minutes for some "maintenance." I call it my morning tweeze & squeeze. Blackheads need popped, grey hairs need plucked and I have to wonder how long that mole has been on my face and if it's getting darker.
Don't be squeamish; you know you do it, too.
This morning, I was in my squeezey groove when I noticed it. Them. I have no idea how long they've been there. I don't know if other people have noticed them.
Nose hairs.
I thought maybe they were an April Fools' joke.
Seriously, aren't those just for men?
Apparently not.
I've fought more than my share of facial-hair battles. I've had to bleach or wax my mustache since high school. While pregnant, I had some lovely long black hairs growing along my jawline. I have random moles that sprout hair overnight.
Hence, the daily tweeze & squeeze.
I can handle wrinkles, grey hairs and sun spots. I view my laugh lines as proof that I enjoy life and love to laugh. Even my trace of smoker's curtain lip doesn't freak me out because I rarely smoke anymore.
I can handle the occasional grey pube.
I get that I have to use anti-aging skin care products now instead of the same Neutrogena I used in as a preteen.
But nose hairs are different. Nose hairs are scary. They are irrefutable proof that I've crossed over from just being Italian to just being old.
If you tweeze them, you sneeze uncontrollably. Plus, you're using your good Tweezerman tweezers in your booger-zone.
I have yet to notice a single errant nose hair on Dr T. Even his ears are normal and he was a wrestler.
I'm too embarrassed to buy a nose hair trimmer. I might make him purchase one instead.
I don't even know where to get one! Is that the Beyond part of Bed Bath and Beyond?
Do they make them for ladies?
|Will any of these work?
© Kryu | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images
What's your embarrassing beauty secret? Let's make it fun; tell me a real one and a fake one in the comments.