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– – – Tearline – – – June 15, 2017
By Michael Fuchs and Stefanie Merchant
Posted on June 19, 2017, 1:27 pm
Tearline noun | \’ter ï lin\
The portions of an intelligence report that provide the substance of a more highly classified or controlled report without identifying sensitive sources, methods, or other operational information.
What was that?!
It’s emoluments week! What’s an emolument, you ask? It refers to a section of the U.S. Constitution that prohibits U.S. government officials from being corrupted by bribes, financial rewards, etc. from foreign countries. Many believe that President Donald Trump has been violating this constitutional prohibition since day one—something we point out each week. While nongovernmental entities had already filed a suit against the president over emoluments, this week, there are two big events on this front: The attorneys general of Washington, D.C., and Maryland filed suits claiming that Trump is in violation of the emoluments clause, and almost 200 members of Congress filed their own suit alleging the same. More on this issue below.
In other very important news, it appears that President Trump has delegated authority to Defense Secretary James Mattis to determine troop levels in Afghanistan. This is a deeply troubling development. Sending America’s men and women in uniform to combat is the most difficult and important decision any commander in chief has to make, and Trump is abdicating that responsibility here. It’s also a possible further sign of Trump’s willingness to use the military abroad more and more without thinking through holistic strategies, as we’re seeing with the increasing risk of U.S. involvement in the Syrian war.
What’s missing?
For a candidate who frequently talked about winning, President Trump has not had much legal success. On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled against Trump’s revised travel ban. Pointing out that immigration is not a “one-person show,” the argument states that Trump has “exceeded the scope of the authority delegated to him by Congress.” And it cites Trump’s own tweets as evidence against him. Oops.
What’s on deck in the world for next week
June 20 is World Refugee Day. This is a good time to remind ourselves of the global humanitarian disaster occurring right now with record numbers of forcibly displaced people and far too few resources to help people in need. The Trump administration is exacerbating the problem by trying to limit refugees entering the United States and by threatening massive cuts in foreign assistance funds that go to helping some of the world’s most vulnerable people.
Better ideas
President Trump’s trip to the Middle East made clear that he prefers autocratic friends to democratic ones. When it comes to Egypt and its current strongman President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi—whom Trump welcomed to the White House earlier this year—a more nuanced, principled approach is necessary. Our CAP colleagues Daniel Benaim and Brian Katulis have some suggestions as to how to get the U.S.-Egypt relationship on a better path.
Quote of the week
The conflicts of interest between the Trump administration and countries around the world run deep. CAP colleagues Carolyn Kenney and John Norris have investigated these conflicts country by country in a new in-depth report. Trump’s sprawling international business empire and the endless possibilities for foreign governments to try to influence him by doing business with his family’s organization is a recipe for endless conflicts of interest and possible corruption.
Read of the week
The conflicts of interest between the Trump administration and countries around the world run deep. CAP colleagues Carolyn Kenney and John Norris have investigated these conflicts country by country in a new in-depth report. Trump’s sprawling international business empire and the endless possibilities for foreign governments to try to influence him by doing business with his family’s organization is a recipe for endless conflicts of interest and possible corruption.
Weekly Trump-Russia reminder
While Russia deals with its own protests in 100 cities around the country, the media, experts, and the Trump administration are still trying to unpack the congressional testimonies on Russia by former FBI Director James Comey and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions seemed unable to recall the answers to many of the questions he was asked. Meanwhile, the story took a new twist when a number of Trump allies suggested that Trump might consider firing special counsel Robert Mueller, followed by reports reinforcing the possibility that Mueller is investigating Trump for obstruction of justice.
147 days still violating the Constitution
President Trump has been violating the Constitution’s prohibition against corruption by foreign governments for 147 days, because his companies are receiving payments from foreign governments. | {
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Tuesday, September 29, 2015
On April 23, Petraeus pled guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or materials under 18 USC §1924. Many in the intelligence community were outraged at the perceived “slap on the wrist” he received, at a time when the Justice Department was seeking very strong penalties against lesser officials for leaks to the media.
According to the law, there are five elements that must be met for a violation of the statute, and they can all be found in section (a) of the statute: “(1) Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, (2) by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, (3) knowingly removes such documents or materials (4) without authority and (5) with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location [shall be guilty of this offense].”
The Petraeus case meets those conditions. Does Clinton’s?
Clinton originally denied that any of her emails contained classified information, but soon abandoned that claim. So far, 150 emails containing classified information have been identified on her server, including two that included information determined to be Top Secret.
She then fell back on the claim that none of the emails in question was “marked classified” at the time she was dealing with them. The marking is not what makes the material classified; it’s the nature of the information itself. As secretary of state, Clinton knew this, and in fact she would have been re-briefed annually on this point as a condition of maintaining her clearance to access classified information.
Then there’s location. Clinton knowingly set up her email system to route 100 percent of her emails to and through her unsecured server (including keeping copies stored on the server). She knowingly removed such documents and materials from authorized locations (her authorized devices and secure government networks) to an unauthorized location (her server). | {
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In brief:
Unlikely
I don't see how that is possible, as heart arrhythmias are usually caused by problems in the conductive cardiac system, whereas dreams are a normal brain phenomenon.
In brief:
Unlikely
I don't see how that is possible, as heart arrhythmias are usually caused by problems in the conductive cardiac system, whereas dreams are a normal brain phenomenon.
Would you like to video or text chat with me? | {
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Event promotiing business opportunities with local authorities was well received
stephen parnaby
More than 70 representatives from the East Riding’s business community attended a successful event at The Spa Bridlington last night to learn more about opportunities to work with East Riding of Yorkshire Council.
As well as providing a valuable networking opportunity, the event also outlined the authority’s financial position, explained procurement law and future changes and highlighted how the authority supports the local economy through investment, spending £254 million per annum with business.
There were presentations from council leader Councillor Stephen Parnaby OBE, Nigel Leighton, director of environment and neighbourhood services, and Dave Waudby, head of infrastructure and facilities.
Councillor Parnaby outlined how the authority is meeting savings’ targets, through planned under spends, business transformation programmes and a sustainable plan for going forward, maintaining services identified as priorities by residents, and investing to save, such as projects that bring a number of service under one roof and managing workforce reductions.
Councillor Parnaby said: “The event was well-received by representatives from across the East Riding business community and provided a useful forum to dispel myths, exchange views and provide practical advice and guidance that will benefit local businesses.
“The economic picture, nationally, is one of improvement and, with growth returning to all sectors, the council is keen to continue to play its role in the recovery, locally.
“The main aim of the event was to inform businesses and promote the opportunities that are available for joint working with the council.
“The majority of the council’s spend, 66 per cent, is with organisations and businesses within Yorkshire, a great achievement in comparison to other local authorities where average local spend is just 30 per cent, and for every £1 spent locally £2.50 is generated for local business.
“Successful funding bids to the Government and Europe, as well as a comprehensive £84 million capital investment programme are helping to safeguard jobs, create new employment opportunities and generate growth. Provision of training to help people develop new skills in emerging sectors, such as the renewable energy industry, are also a priority.”
Delegates who attended the event welcomed the opportunity to speak to the council direct and found the presentations useful and informative.
Lynne Hope of Lynne Hope Communications said: “Once again, East Riding of Yorkshire Council has offered clarity, transparency and support to and with local businesses.”
Paul Sewell OBE, managing director of the Sewell Group, said: “I think it is critical that our local authority speaks to the business community.
“Local authorities are big buyers and it is important that we work together to grow the local economy for the benefit of our residents.”
Kishor Tailor, chief executive of the Humber Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), was also in attendance and was pleased that the council’s presentations echoed the aspirations of the LEP.
He said: “It was a good event, promoting the opportunities for local companies to work with the council, and I was pleased that so many representatives from the business community turned out.
“The messages from the council were really please as they are consistent with the aims of the Humber LEP for people to buy local.”
Thomas Martin, joint managing director at Arco Ltd, appreciated the council hosting the event, saying: “I thanked the council for their transparency, for talking, listening and engaging with the business community.
“The region looks, feels and acts differently in 2014 and we at Arco and at other businesses have noticed and I would urge them to continue to keep going.
“Every person in attendance at The Spa Bridlington last night was open for business whether they represented the council or a company.”
PHOTOS
Councillor Stephen Parnaby OBE speaks to representatives of the local business community at last night’s event at The Spa Bridlington.
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Dirty John may tell the tale of TV's latest totally creepy relationship, but it's not the first.
John Meehan's onscreen debut comes in a long line of total creeps, and while most of them are not based on real-life creeps, they're all still totally disturbing. Some were one-off relationships, like when Joey Tribbiani dated his stalker, Brooke Shields, and others lasted many episodes or even seasons to the point where we've begun to wonder what was wrong with us for watching it for so long. Serena was literally dating the Gossip Girl! We even through in a few reality shows, just to show that bad relationships are not reserved for fiction.
Anyway, we must apologize in advance for how little dating you're going to want to do after making it through this list. We've now sworn off romantic relationships forever, personally.
So join us, won't you, on a journey through some of the more disturbing romances of TV past and present...
Bravo
John and Debra, Dirty John
She's a hot, successful interior designer with a lot of money. He's a guy who shows up for a fancy date in cargo shorts. His creepiness goes far beyond that into literally wanting to murder her children kind of territory, but those cargo shorts should have been the first clue, girl!
HBO
Jon and Daenerys, Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones loves its incest! Not only have twins Cersei and Jaime been hooking up for years, but now we've got aunt Daenerys and nephew Jon Snow having sex on boats without knowing they're so closely related. It's so easy to root for the main hot people to hook up on shows, so hard to root for this particular pair of hot people…
Ms. Grundy and Archie, Riverdale
All student-teacher relationships are creepy on one level, but while Archie just believed his music teacher loved him the same way he loved her, it was later revealed that she had stolen her identity and was a woman who preyed on teen boys. Like honestly we're not all that mad at the Black Hood for getting rid of her.
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All the Blossoms and Coopers, Riverdale (The CW)
While we're here in Riverdale, we might as well mention Polly and Jason, who are secretly Blossom cousins and who have twins together. Plus there's Hal Cooper/Blossom, who was a serial killer from a family of serial killers while his wife Alice had no frickin' clue. Plus now we've got Alice and FP dating while their kids are also dating. Riverdale is a screwed up place!
Paul and Karine, 90 Day Fiance
Paul's got a past as an arsonist, and Karine's got an obsession with stuffed animals, but what really had us bugging was the reveal that he keeps small clumps of hair from both his mother and his fiancée in his backpack. They also don't speak the same language. A match made in heaven!
TBH most of the couples from this show could be on this list, but we don't have the time, and neither do you.
Belle and Rumplestiltskin, Once Upon a Time
No matter how many ways you try to spin it or how many times you try to say that love changes people or whatever, Rumplestiltskin was not a good dude, and the number of times he had to re-prove to Belle that he wasn't a bad dude should kind of give you a clue. Belle deserved so much better than a guy who used her the way that he did, and the Stockholm syndrome that goes along with any retelling of Beauty and the Beast cannot be ignored!
Article continues below
Deb and Dexter, Dexter
They weren't actually related, but they were raised as siblings and behaved as siblings and honestly, Jennifer Carpenter and Michael C. Hall dating in real life was enough. Debra falling in love with her adopted brother Dexter and remaining in love with him despite knowing he was a serial killer was way too much for us.
Actually, every single relationship Dexter was in was super creepy, because either they had no idea he was a serial killer, or they totally did and still hooked up with him. Either way, creepy!
Tate and Violet, American Horror Story
There have been many creepy dalliances in this franchise, but none quite as lasting as Tate and Violet. He was a school shooter who became a ghost who raped her mother, and she was a teen with dark thoughts. Allegedly, all the evil is gone from him now and they can be together forever, but that's a lot of stuff to erase from his past before we can even be slightly supportive of this pair living happily ever afterlife.
Sheree Whitfield and Tyrone "Prison Bae" Gilliams, RHOA
For their entire relationship, Prison Bae has been in prison, awaiting an early release that hasn't come while Sheree is back home refuting claims he's a con man. But at least they've got their love letters and "deep" phone calls? Prison is just a really weird place for your loving boyfriend to be.
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Damon and Caroline, The Vampire Diaries
Don't even get us started on all the problematic relationships in the TVD universe, but this one was truly bad. Vampire Damon spent most of season one using and somewhat abusing human Caroline to do his bidding, then compelling her to forget it all. Damon was a hard guy to love and we're still not sure we ever got there.
Dan and Serena, Gossip Girl
HE WAS GOSSIP GIRL THE WHOLE TIME! Their relationship seemed pretty good for the most part, but not when you go back and consider the fact that he was secretly working to destroy all of their lives at the same time, which Serena did when she found out and she wasn't happy, remember? Then she married him anyway five years later. Congrats to poor Penn Badgley for being on this list twice.
Erica and Joey, Friends
There are a lot of relationships from Friends we'd like to talk about (and in fact, we will), but Brooke Shields' cameo as an obsessive Dr. Drake Ramoray fan (who Joey dated despite knowing she was a stalker and that she believed he was actually Drake Ramoray) caused some bonus real-life drama. In her 2014 memoir, Shields wrote that real-life boyfriend Andre Agassi was so jealous after she licked Matt LeBlanc's hand on the show that he went home and smashed all of his tennis trophies.
Malcolm and Phoebe
Remember when Phoebe started dating the guy who was stalking her identical twin sister (who was also Courtney Cox's then boyfriend, David Arquette)? She thought that if he started dating her, he might stop stalking Ursula, and surprise, he did not.
Monica and Young Ethan
Sorry, sorry, one more Friends one, just because we can't forget that time Monica accidentally dated and SLEPT WITH a 17 year-old in season one. She told him she was 22, he told her he was a "senior," and the whole thing was, as Monica correctly said, icky!
Ross and Rachel
He basically stalked her for years, he terrorized her potential new dates, he acted as if he possessed her, and he made her give up a dream job in Paris just for him. We cannot support this!
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E!
Brooks Ayers and Vicki Gunvalson, RHOC
There's a reason Andy Cohen asked Vicki if Dirty John reminded her of anyone in a recent promo for the RHOC reunion. He came into her life with an unknown past, an unknown job, unknown family members, and unknown pretty much everything. He then came down with a mysterious illness that turned out to be fake, and Vicki eventually dumped him…but not before she bought him an entire new mouth of teeth.
Freeform
Ezra and Aria, Pretty Little Liars
They got cute, eventually, but it's really, really hard to forget their sketchy beginnings. He was her high school English teacher, and he was secretly stalking her and writing a book about her and her friends the whole time. He had a lair! How were we all so OK with this?
Let's also not forget the many other doomed relationships on this show, like Allison and her husband, Dr. Rollins, who turned out to be the former doctor and lover of her dead evil sister, but we were never rooting for them.
Byron Cohen/NBCU Photo Bank
Jim and Pam, The Office
We just want to remind you of the time that Jim admitted he bought the engagement ring a week after they started dating. A week! Jim's stalker-esque behavior around Pam was romantic in some lights and extremely worrying in others. Funny how romantic and creepy go hand in hand sometimes, isn't it?
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Lifetime
Joe and Beck, You
Like Dirty John, Joe's creepiness is kind of the point of the show, but unlike Dirty John, You is told from Joe's perspective, making his insane decisions seem almost occasionally a little sane in a very disturbing way. Like you almost want to root for him, and that's the scariest thing of all.
CBS
Barney Stinson and Everyone, HIMYM
Remember Barney's playbook? He purposely deceived pretty much every woman he ever dated, conning countless women into sex over the show's nine seasons. And we all just laughed?!?! It was—wait for it—terrifying.
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Excerpt
He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. Frustrated to have missed his chance. He slipped back into the black depths of the cavern.
How had she been so quiet for so long? He'd even had his friend climb the rope and pull it up to trap her.
"I shouldn't have played with her, toyed with her." He listened to his voice echo off the walls. As if he were down here with a dozen people, all agreeing with him. "Scaring her was fun."
The others agreed.
"I loved it when she ran."
In the pitch-darkness he'd been able to hear her terror. And he'd known that soon, soon he'd have her and she was the key to the treasure he wanted. Then suddenly he'd lost her. He'd searched for hours, but she never gave herself away. Her silence had been total.
But then he'd heard her screaming and had come fast, but the man had gotten to her first.
"Who was that who rescued her?"
The hoofbeats faded as he fumed.
"But she loves it down here. She'll be back." He shouted that and listened to it echo. "Then I'll have what I want!" His laughter echoed back from the world of friends who surrounded him. | {
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Jesus: Unity in World Diversity
What image do you have of Jesus? Almost all the images we see of him make him look European, but in our service to mark the Week of Christian Unity, David reminded us that Jesus came to earth for all peoples of the world.
During his reflection on the third Sunday of Epiphany, David handed round a number of printouts of sculptures, murals and paintings depicting Jesus. It was a vivid reminder both of the world’s diversity and of the unity that Jesus brings.
We’ve brought together here a handful of images of Jesus drawn from all corners of the world – from Mongolia to Mozambique and Philadelphia to the Philippines. | {
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Subaru says the buyer of its all-new XV Crosstrek will be relatively young, maybe have a few small children, enjoy hiking, biking, racing triathlons and partake in a multitude of outdoor adventures. A buyer fitting this demographic will be looking for a practical car that presents a cool, hip appearance and is a hoot to drive, they continued.
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Well, I am relatively young with a small family. I enjoy hiking, biking and I race a ton of triathlons. I love adventures in the wilderness. I want a cool, hip car that maintains practicality and makes me smile. So I am effectively the guy Subaru believes should be buying this car. So there is but one question: would I actually buy it?
Full Disclosure: Subaru wanted us to drive the XV Crosstrek so bad they sent me all the way to Hawaii, put me up in the hotel where they shot the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall, took me to the location where they filmed Lost and Jurassic Park and fed me dinner on a secluded beach. They even gave me a paddleboard to try out. I fell, a lot. And I cut my toe on coral. I also wore a particularly precious pink flower necklace, and may, or may not, have consumed too many Mai Tais.
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Looking at the all-wheel-drive XV Crosstrek you'd be forgiven for mistaking it for an Impreza. By all accounts it is very similar. Subaru expects to sell 12,000-15,000 Crosstreks per year and questions arise as to whether the sales of models like the Forester, Impreza and even the Outback will end up becoming diluted with the introduction of the XV to US markets. This question had been of concern to Subaru too, but extensive consumer testing apparently showed people were able to distinguish between the Impreza, and that this younger, hip demographic would open up a whole new line of customers.
Being the demographic that they are attempting to attract myself, I can say I like the cooler vibe it presents. It is functional too, which is great, but the big key, I believe, is whether it is fun to drive. If it is boring, then the younger demographic might be too busy on their own Hawaiian adventures to be bothered to checking the XV out. In short, it can't just look cooler. It has to drive cooler, too.
The XV Crosstrek delivers its goals of being a stylish compact crossover. The black fender cladding and new bumpers give the car a more rugged appeal, complemented by special 17-inch wheels. A fetching bright orange paint is available and while that might sound putrid, it actually looks great. The car enjoys 8.7 inches of ground clearance, which is a sizeable chunk higher than the Impreza at 5.7". The grille is unique to the Crosstrek and dark-tint privacy glass is standard, so you can change your wet swim shorts in the car, with total confidence that the old lady walking her dog outside can't see your buttocks plastered to the window. Its look portrays the adventurous nature intended and it begs to hit some off-road trails in search of Sasquatch or wild pigs chasing baby chickens (which I actually did find in the Crosstrek -– not Sasquatch, but the chicken chasing pig).
INTERIOR (6/10)
Well, it's an Impreza inside, basically. If you opt for the limited edition you will be granted heated leather seats, which are decently comfortable. The cabin is not luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, but nor would you expect it to be. It is functional and cost-effective, with options –- such as the moonroof and nav –- which line it up nicely with other cars in the compact crossover division. The steering wheel feels a little thin and flimsy and that was my only major complaint. On the bright side, it is telescopic, so finding a comfortable driving position shouldn't be an issue. Cargo space is roomy at 22.3 cu. ft, enough to fulfill most activities a young, hip so-and-so could dream up.
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ACCELERATION (3/10)
Here the XV Crosstrek falls flat.
The car bears the same flat-four 2.0-liter Boxer engine as found on the Impreza. It produces a less-than-earth-shattering 148 horsepower and 145 lb-ft of torque. And you certainly feel less than excited when standing on the throttle. The car really is rather slow. When you attack the throttle the little engine feels like a woman reading 50 Shades of Grey; she ignores you while she finishes reading the page. But even when the engine does respond, it doesn't deliver much. It isn't that the car needs to be a ton faster, or anything like that, but I wanted more response. It needs to be nippy and zippy but instead it is slow and tedious.
BRAKING (5/10)
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Front brake rotors are larger on the Crosstrek than on the Impreza but I'd be lying if I told you I could tell any difference. Honestly, our drive never allowed me to get a good sense of the brakes under heavy load. They felt, well, like brakes, really. Not too grabby, pedal wasn't spongy. They never provided a hint of trouble, even on some steep descents, so all in all they worked as intended.
RIDE (8/10)
When you want a car that can handle off-road driving, but doesn't feel like being drunk on a cruise ship when tackling normal roads, then you may need a compromise. The XV Crosstrek delivers that compromise in spades. It feels reasonably firm on standard road driving, and doesn't rock a boatload of body roll. Take it to a rough off-road section and it rides the bumps and dips with poise and comfort. It felt like the perfect balance had been achieved to satisfy every condition. After all, it's a Subaru. And this is what Subaru does best.
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But still, as an enthusiast, I'm looking for a car that is a bit more communicative with a firmer ride. I'd gladly give up the cushioned feeling over bumps to know even more about what the road surface is doing below me.
Engine: 2.0-liter Boxer four
Power: 148 HP / 145 LB-FT
Transmission: Five-speed manual / "6-speed" CVT with manual mode
0-60 Time: N/A
Top Speed: N/A
Drivetrain: All-Wheel Drive
Curb Weight: 3087 lbs-3197 lbs
Seating: 5
MPG: manual/CVT City / 23/25 HWY/30/33 Combined
MSRP: Starts at $21,995
HANDLING (5/10)
The Impreza chassis has been stiffened in multiple points. It has a double wishbone rear suspension and a wider track that enables the car to handle not dissimilar to the Impreza, despite its extra height. I couldn't say it left an impression on me from behind the wheel, however. It is a machine that competently gets its job done on the road, but was it fun to drive? No. Although I am sure most of this is due to the powerless engine. Perhaps a bit of extra torque would have allowed the handling to present itself a little more prominently.
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I did a lot of tough off-road in the Crosstrek and here (as mentioned in the Ride section) it performed extremely well. The additional ground clearance was welcome over some of the tougher, rockier sections, making the Crosstrek more than capable of handling some wild adventures. But capable isn't everything. I enjoyed the drive immensely, but that was because of the magnificent Hawaiian scenery. Not because of the car I was driving.
GEARBOX (5/10)
Two transmissions are offered - a five-speed manual and Subaru's Lineartonic Continuously Variable Transmission, or CVT for short. Because of the lack of manuals on site, I didn't get to drive one (although I hear it was decent). I therefore spent my day with the CVT gearbox and its six-speed flimsy paddle shifters. The CVT features the Active Torque Split version of the Symmetrical AWD, whereas the manual uses a viscous-coupling locking center differential providing a 50/50 front rear power distribution. The CVT is ok. It is nothing to write home about and achieves its job in the way one would expect. Shifts occur in a somewhat timely manner. The paddle shift, while feeling very cheap, worked efficiently and came in handy when on some treacherous off-road sections, allowing you to pick your own gear. But honestly, just leaving it in auto worked well too.
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AUDIO (6/10)
Let's face it, the weedy little engine does not provide many auditory qualities, so we must rely on a good sound system to drown out the engine's mouse-like whimper. It comes with a 6-speaker system that does sound jolly good. Quality was crisp and it did indeed mask out the engine noise. Our Subaru rep cranked up some reggae on our way back from dinner and, although I admittedly had consumed multiple Hawaiian cocktails, I bopped my head like the Rasta that I am.
TOYS (6/10)
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The XV Crosstrek comes with a solid selection of available toys, such as Bluetooth connectivity and audio streaming, iPod compatibility, USB port, back-up camera, navigation system - displayed on a 6.1-inch touch screen LCD with voice control, iTunes tagging, XM Satellite Radio and XM NavTraffic, making it nicely equipped.
VALUE (5/10)
Pricing starts at $21.995 but exact cost for the two trim levels (Premium and Limited) has not yet been released. The cost for the base Impreza hatch is $18,745 and a Forester 2.5 Premium is $23,295.
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Is it worth the extra over the Impreza? Based on its more stylish appearance, I say yes it is.
Compared to its competitors the price seems fair. A Nissan Juke is slightly less, whereas the Honda CRV is slightly more, and it is right about on par with the AWD Hyundai Tucson. This puts it right about average, therefore deserving of an equally average 5/10.
As discussed, I appear to be their target demographic and I posed the question of whether I would buy one. I mentioned it needed to have that fun factor and although the styling and functionality of the car ticks all the boxes, the car did not deliver the soul and heartbeat I was looking for.
It's a good car. A solid car but it doesn't leave you wanting more. It's like having an attractive girlfriend (or boyfriend) who looks after you and cooks a delicious meal every night. But in the bedroom she lies on her back, expressionless and doesn't make a sound. You are content every now and then for a quick ride, but eventually you're going to get bored. | {
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tronc
The Tribune Publishing Company is now called tronc. Once again George Orwell is fully vindicated. Corporate speak has now dropped to such low levels of intelligence that company names bear strong similarity to minor Disney villains.
There is suspicion in some quarters that the name was changed to make a corporate buyout more difficult and I see the reasoning. Who wants to go their shareholders and say, “I just offered 425 million dollars for tronc?” It sounds like you tried to corner the market on a rare Malaysian spice.
This is the same kind of thinking that produces Hollywood sequels and short term profit seeking like stock buybacks.
Some people are amused – Tronc: The 30 best jokes about Tribune Publishing’s new name
What are the business ethics here? I can’t help but feel that taking a historical reputation that took a lot of work to make and turning it into a lame joke may be a dis-service and an insult to everyone involved. That probably constitutes a serious ethical violation. I also can’t help but think that when you can only talk in meaningless corporate jargon that the mental equivalent of five year olds have way too much influence in this economy and the larger nation around it.
James Pilant
From Around the Web –
On #Tronc, Journalism, and Its Value | First Draft on WordPress.com – 3rd solution
(I am starting to think one should always vet one’s corporate strategies through Twitter. Just throw ideas out there. See which ones immediately combust in a conflagration made of 4chan and Anonymous and Gamergate.)
I laughed along with the rest of them, but: I know good people at Tribune Publishing. Friends, and ex-friends, people I know to be decent whatever assholes they happen to presently work near. I know lots and lots of good journos, and they deserve better than to watch the place they put their hands and their minds and their blood and their days turn into a national fucking joke.
What’s in a brand? A tronc (Tronc) by any other name … | The Buttry Diary
When we announced TBD’s name, the Washington Post mocked it as “totally brain dead.” As though you should want a brand name the competition would like. Others liked it.
I may blog someday about the branding of TBD, but I’ll tease a bit now with some of the names we didn’t choose (that people actually recommended): WashDay, MonumentaList, IMBY. I’m serious. Branding isn’t easy (unless you already have a long-established brand such as Tribune Publishing …).
But here’s something I said when we were trying to choose a name for TBD (and blogged here when the St. Petersburg Times rebranded itself in 2011): The name doesn’t make the brand, the company’s performance in the marketplace makes | {
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Our nation’s Founding Fathers were well studied men. When called upon to forge a new nation, they looked upon the lessons of the Classical Age for their source. But it wasn’t merely a litany of Greek and Roman heroes they sought. They dug deeper. They wanted to learn not only what succeeded, but what failed. They learned this about great nations, great government, and great men. Greek literature teaches us that every heroic character contains both good traits and bad traits. We learn the good traits to know what to mimic. We learn the bad traits to know what to avoid. So it is with the leadership lessons we learn from our presidents. Not all those lessons teach us what to do. Some teach us what not to do.
William Henry Harrison was born on February 9, 1773 on his family’s plantation in Charles City County, Virginia. The ninth president of the United States, he was the last one born as a British subject (his father signed the Declaration of Independence), but the first one to have his picture taken while in office. He’s also the only president whose grandson would later become president (Benjamin Harrison served as the 23rd president from 1889 to 1893). He’s perhaps best known as the president who gave the longest inaugural address (taking almost 2 hours to read its 8,445 words) and served the shortest time in office (31 days). At 68 years of age, Harrison was the oldest president to be inaugurated until Ronald Reagan topped him by a year in 1980 (who was then surpassed by Donald Trump who was age 70 when he was sworn in).Continue Reading “Leadership Lessons of William Henry Harrison”
And let me the canakin clink, clink,
And let me the canakin clink.
A soldier’s a man;
A life’s but a span;
Why, then, let a soldier drink.
– Othello
The reason James Fenimore Cooper strode into Hustler’s Tavern has disappeared into the hazy mists of history. By 1821, his life had been less than pristine. Kicked out of
Yale after three years as a trouble-maker (he blew up a classmate’s door), the son of a (probably embarrassed) Congressman who founded the City of Cooperstown did what any other lost teenager trying to find himself did in the early eighteenth century – he joined the Merchant Marine.1
Perhaps he remembered his earlier, albeit brief, stay in the Niagara Frontier just before the War of 1812.2 Serving mostly overseas, he saw some of his best crewmates taken from their ships and forced to serve aboard British warships against Napoleonic France. Like the rest of America, he detested Continue Reading “I’ll Have One for the Road and Two for the Sea”
In crafting a list of hidden gems of Greater Western New York, it’s apparent one must define what one means by the word “hidden.” Of course, if one of these not-so-hidden gems turns out to have inspired something truly outstanding, well, that would be worth writing about. Before I get to that, though, let me share with you my methodology for compiling this list, but allow me to do this by showing you, not telling you (assuming that’s even possible in the format of the written word).
For example, we have plenty of gems that have received broad national attention. Indeed, several people, events and activities from, in and around the Greater Western New York region have found themselves honored with places in our history books.
John Candy died of a heart attack in his sleep on March 4, 1994 while on location shooting scenes for what was to be his final film Wagons East!. Carolco Pictures released the 107 minute movie later that year. It flopped. Oddly enough, it wasn’t the last John Candy picture released. More than a year later, Canadian Bacon, featuring a cavalcade of Canadian-born actors, hit the screens. It quickly left those same screens, the farce of a Canadian invasion of Western New York too outlandish for cinema goers to believe. | {
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Posts tagged “dental check-up”
On average, you will get to see your dentist about twice a year and normally this is for a dental check-up and it is a necessary ingredient in keeping you, your mouth and your body healthy, and before you start moaning about what an unnecessary chore this is, you should maybe consider the implications of skipping an appointment first. Your dentist has one agenda and that is to maintain your oral health. At a basic check-up, you will start with an x-ray in order to help check for signs of trouble. Your dentist will then go around your teeth for a visual inspection and if all is okay, you will get a quick clean to get rid of any tartar build-up, a polish and then you are sent home again. If something does show up, then your dentist will fix it. The do this to stop you from falling foul of tooth decay and gum disease. Decay will destroy your teeth very quickly and if left unattended, you will loose them. Gum disease however is more sinister: whilst also aiding the destruction of your teeth, it will infect your gums and whilst doing so, start poisoning your blood. These toxins, further down the line, can also cause problems with your heart and other organs in your body. So suddenly, this should be enough incentive for you to get along for a check-up. If you are having problems with your teeth, this is the time you should sit down with your dentist- discuss the future and see how you can improve your oral hygiene to stop things going wrong….that’s what your dentist is for. For more information about dental check-ups inSurreyarea, then contact Walton’s Mulberry Dental Care.
The shock at being diagnosed with oral cancer in Molesey can be devastating and very terminal for some people, but if you find yourself in this horrific position, you need to enlist as much support and help as you can if you are going to give yourself any chance of beating it and Mulberry dental care can help set you on your way. The thing to be aware of is anything that tends to be unusual in your mouth, especially if it is persistent and repetitive- like sores, sore throats and jaw ache; you know when something isn’t right so get to the doctors and dentists for a check-up because the quicker you get diagnosed, the more chance you have of beating it. Then once you have had the therapy and treatment, that’s when you need your support for your recovery. This is never going to be easy and you have to change the way you have lived your life in the past so that you have a chance in the future. Look at all aspects like diet, oral hygiene, smoking and drinking and see where you can change. This is not an impossible disease to beat, just look at the statistics, but it will take commitment and dedication.
So life’s good in Sunbury and you are working hard, which probably only leaves time to party hard as well…great, but during this youthful exuberance, there may be a chance that you may over-look the more important elements of your health until something goes wrong and this also goes for your teeth as well, as they often last on the list of important things to get done. Now if you are one of these people that consider you can skip a dental appointment because the products you use are fantastic, then we should paint a little tale of caution here: within a day of missing your routine, bacteria will start to eat away at the enamel on your teeth- from this tiny indiscretion, tooth decay and gum disease will develop and teeth will fall out in time. But by going for a dental check-up, the things you may have missed in your daily oral hygiene program can be rectified by your dentist in a single sitting. The main agenda that your dentist has is to prevent the onset of plaque, deep clean your teeth and gums, carry out any fillings to prevent further tooth decay and then pat you on the bottom and send you on your way all healthy! But aside from this, time with your dentist is the chance you have to talk about issues you have and discuss all things oral, from hygiene to cosmetics- use a check-up wisely, don’t abuse it and more over, don’t miss it because at the end of the day, it’s your health at stake. If you have any doubts at all about the way you go about things with your teeth, you should talk to Mulberry dental care.
We strive to keep our teeth healthy in our Molesey homes with all of the amazing products around. But in doing so, we shouldn’t get complacent about how well we are doing either: we don’t have all of the equipment to check deep within at home so it is vitally important that we ensure we visit the dentist at least a couple of times each year to get a thorough MOT. Dentists have an objective to look after you and ensure you don’t fall foul of evils such as plaque, tooth decay and gum disease- and unlike you, they do have the tools to get right inside your mouth. A digital X-ray can tell immediately if something is going wrong in your mouth and if something like a bit of tooth decay has shown up, it can be sorted out quickly with a filling. They will check the health of your gums and again, if you are having problems, give you a good clean and advise you how to care for them. They will remove any build up of tartar around the teeth and then send you on your way refreshed and dandy. But they will also be there for you if something serious goes wrong. All the more reason you should make your dentist your new best friend if you want to keep the teeth in your mouth. | {
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InfrastructureUSA.org is a non-profit, online community whose mission is to bring together infrastructure experts, industry leaders, government officials and most especially interested citizens, to participate in vigorous conversation and generate action to address the U.S. infrastructure crisis.
Seattle, WA: Local Waterfront Transit
Posted by Content Coordinator on Monday, July 8th, 2013
WATERFRONT SEATTLE
1.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A key part of the Waterfront Seattle project access and mobility objective is the addition of a waterfront transit service. The purpose of this service is to connect a variety of community destinations along the nearly 2-mile long waterfront that could not be reached on foot alone. Riders of this service would be primarily recreational visitors and local waterfront employees and residents. The transit service would be frequent, easy to use and would extend from the Olympic Sculpture Park to Pioneer Square to allow for efficient movement along the waterfront.
The waterfront transit service would interact with improved east-west pedestrian connections to the waterfront. Other transit improvements serving the waterfront include the Madison Street rapid trolley bus route connecting Colman Dock to First Hill and beyond, the new First Hill streetcar line which will terminate near 1st Avenue and Jackson Street, and a possible City Center Streetcar line on 1st Avenue.
Colman Dock is also an important connection along the waterfront. Washington State Ferries plans to replace much of the dock structure and the passenger terminal building between 2015 and 2020. Both the larger vehicle ferries and passenger-only ferries will continue to arrive and depart from Colman Dock. Safe, pleasant and convenient pedestrian access from Colman Dock to nearby transit service on Alaskan Way, 1st Avenue and Madison, Marion and Columbia Streets will be provided through new sidewalks, crosswalks and a wider Marion Street pedestrian bridge.
This study evaluates and compares historic streetcars, modern streetcars, and rubber tire transit for operating characteristics, effects on the environment, and cost. These transit options will focus on moving people along the waterfront; characteristics include high frequency operations, ease of passenger boarding, and connections to other major transit modes.
Historic Streetcar
The historic streetcar alternative would reinstate the George Benson trolleys, which previously operated along the Seattle waterfront. There are two options being considered for this alternative:
Option A is a lower level of investment including minor modifications such as doors on both sides of the vehicle and a modern PA system. There would be no change to the high-floor stations and passenger loading. The waterfront streetcar would not be integrated with the rest of the streetcar system. A streetcar maintenance facility would be located on the waterfront in this option
Option B includes the elements in option A and adds elective upgrades such as automated door operation, conversion to operate on similar power service as the modern streetcar, and wheelchair lifts so station platforms can be at street level (instead of the high platforms with option A). The step up entry would be reinstated for this option. The streetcar maintenance facility could be located on the waterfront or in other locations where access is provided by the streetcar system.
Modern Streetcar
The modern streetcar alternative examines constructing a streetcar alignment along the waterfront that is similar to the existing South Lake Union Streetcar and proposed First Hill Streetcar services. Only one option was considered for this alternative.
Rubber Tire Transit
The rubber tire transit alternative evaluates implementing a mini-bus style service (option A) similar to Quebec City’s Ecolobus service and a larger bus coach similar to King County Metro’s 40-foot buses (option B). The rubber tire vehicles analyzed in this report serve as examples of possible vehicle types and would potentially not be the exact vehicles selected for rubber tire transit.
The option A vehicle would be a smaller mini-bus style vehicle with large side windows and exterior row seating. It would provide low floor boarding similar to the Tecnobus Gulliver bus operating in Quebec City. This vehicle would be powered by a battery electric system with zero emissions.
Option B would be a coach style bus with front and back door loading and unloading, similar to coaches operated by King County Metro. This vehicle could use diesel-hybrid or electric propulsion. The Proterra bus assumed for the evaluation is a battery-powered electric bus with a rapid charge system at a terminus station.
About Waterfront Seattlewaterfrontseattle.org “Waterfront Seattle is a partnership between the City of Seattle and the entire community to create an inviting new public waterfront that is a place for everyone – a Waterfront for All that the entire region can enjoy for generations.”
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Tag: New Listings
Are you looking for a feed of new listings in the Martin County, Florida area? Bookmark this page! The link below will take you to a list of single family homes that have hit the market within the past 7… | {
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CryptoAssault is a massively multiplayer online war game (MMO). Users enter a huge 3D world with thousands of players. Moving in real-time to capture territory, mine resources, and battle other units.
How to play CryptoAssault
Use Ethereum to buy units. Every unit is a unique, tradeable ERC-721 token. Units can be combined together to form more powerful units. They will not be destroyed if they die in battle! They go back to your inventory to be repaired.
Units will be moving in real-time to capture territory, mine resources, and battle other units. A unit must refuel for 3 hours after every move and has a max distance that it can travel at a time.
Ground units will need to avoid water, trees, mountains, and other ground units. Aerial units will be able to fly over most obstacles.
Every unit owns the land in a radius around them. The more territory a player owns, the more they are rewarded. A player will be rewarded daily with Ethereum based on the amount of land they owned throughout that day.
A satellite will drop from the sky once a day containing a huge reward. If that satellite lands within a player’s territory, they will receive a ton of Ethereum.
Not all land is created equal. The world is divided into rings. As you travel towards the center each ring contains more valuable land. The satellite also has an increased chance of landing there.
You’ll need to increase your units’ star-rating to access the inner rings. Fusing 3 units of the same type will increase its star-rating. Older units will collect more land rewards.
Resources are used to unlock amazing upgrades and eventually crafting. They will appear randomly on the map and you must use units to mine them. Defend your resources from others to get ahead. Joining a strong alliance will be key to coordinating attacks, defenses, and bases. | {
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FREE Cupcake at Walmart on 03/12 (1-4 pm)!
Walmart shoppers, head out between 1 – 4 pm on Sunday, 03/12, for a FREE cupcake at your local store! Limit 1 per person, no purchase necessary. You’ll get to choose between a chocolate or vanilla cupcake with buttercream or whipped topping. See details here. | {
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Malaysian 'WWW1' license plate sells for $165K
Published: May 28, 2012 4:47 AM
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- The World Wide Web has inspired a bidding war in Malaysia -- on license plates.
When the prefix "WWW" became available on this Southeast Asian country's plates, more than 18,000 people submitted bids. The Road Transport Department said Monday that the most coveted plate, "WWW1," sold for a record 520,000 ringgit ($165,600) to Malaysian royal state leader Sultan Ibrahim Ismail.
The constitutional leader of Malaysia's southern Johor state is reputedly a car enthusiast. | {
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True Crime: Hong Kong
Sleeping Dogs Info When it started out this game was called True Crime: Hong Kong and was being published by Activision. However after a certain point in development Activision decided to scrap the whole project based on the fact that the game would not be as profitable in comparison to the amount of cash required for its production. Luckily Square... | {
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Shakhtar in the Netherlands: look who's arrived
Friday, July 1, 2016
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FCSD
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Following Olexandr Kucher and Vyacheslav Shevchuk, another group of internationals have joined the Pitmen
This evening, the following players have arrived at the Bloemenbeek hotel: Andriy Pyatov, Taras Stepanenko, Yevhen Seleznyov, Mykyta Shevchenko, Viktor Kovalenko and Bohdan Butko. The footballers have met with the new coaching staff, spoke with Paulo Fonseca, and went to their rooms. In the morning, they will have their first session at the training camp in the Netherlands. | {
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Monday, 10 April 2017
Professional Streamers Unite for 24-hour Charity Gaming Marathon
On Saturday 20th May, more than 15 Twitch streamers will come together for a 24-hour gaming marathon for Macmillan Cancer Support. As part of the ‘Macmillan Game Heroes’ campaign, streamers including Ltzonda, Stodeh and AOAAGold will take part in an array of gaming activities to raise vital money for people affected by cancer.
All the action will be live broadcast on video streaming platform Twitch, the world’s leading social video platform and community for gamers.
Taking place at Twitch HQ in London, the event is designed around the theme ‘taking it for the team’. Starting at 12pm on 20th May and finishing at 12pm the following day, the streamers will be divided into teams and will compete against each other in games, challenges and forfeits. Points will be awarded for wins, bravery and donations. Anyone can tune in to Macmillan’s Twitch channel (www.twitch.tv/macmillancancer) to watch the event
Pro streamers taking part in Macmillan Game Heroes challenge include:
Ltzonda
Stodeh
Members of AOAAGold
TwoAngryGamersTV
MissEllaCronin
PhantomSFX
Jay1fifaking
angrysausagetv
Macmillan is also asking gamers at home to be a Game Hero and get involved in the action, either alongside the event or at a time of their choice, by taking on their own gaming marathon. Gamers can choose whether they want to go at it alone or as part of a team, as well as the timings, the games and whether it is streamed or not – anything goes. By getting sponsored for their marathon all gamers will be doing something heroic for people affected by cancer.
Heather Pearl, Head of National Events at Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “Our fundraising gaming challenge is back for 2017 and we’re encouraging as many people to get involved as possible, to help make this year bigger than ever before. With a brand new look and feel, the new name “Macmillan Game Heroes” reflects how we feel about each and every person getting involved.
“We’re encouraging gamers at home to hold their own gaming marathon and get sponsored to do so, as well as asking people to tune in to Twitch on Saturday 20th May to watch their favourite professional streamers go head-to-head for 24-hours. All money raised will help Macmillan continue to provide emotional, financial, medical and practical support to people affected by cancer.” | {
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Understanding the 2019 Formula 1 season
Lewis Hamilton at pre-season testing in Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, on March 1, 2019.(REUTERS/Albert Gea)
Rafael Indyarta
Formula 1 is a sport like no other, the perfect combination of engineering, athleticism and tactics.
It’s considered one of the most global sports in the world, but it has yet to make waves in Canada despite hosting a Grand-Prix, having a Canadian driver on the grid, and now a Canadian F1 team, Sport Pesa Racing Point.
Efforts are being made to expand the fan base with World Champion Lewis Hamilton releasing a clothing collection with Tommy Hilfiger, and a new Netflix docu-series showcasing the work behind an F1 team.
Tim Hauraney, TSN F1 analyst and former racecar driver, said the 2017 purchase of F1 by Liberty Media, an American Media conglomerate, was the catalyst to the expansion of the sport to western markets.
“Having the aggressive approach that [Liberty Media] have had is pretty amazing,” Hauraney said, “Back in the day… there wasn’t a lot of promotion being done,”
As Formula 1 tries to appeal to a new market, now would be the best time to learn about the sport. There are many young drivers set to be the future of the sport, and two of the best drivers in history are battling it out for the championship.
Sebastian Vettel finished with the fastest times at pre-season testing in Barcelona, Catalunya, on March 1, 2019. (REUTERS/Albert Gea)
How it works
Formula 1 is a traveling sport that holds 21 races on five continents over nine months. Beginning March 16 in Melbourne Australia until Dec. 1 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Only 10 teams are allowed to compete, with each team allowed two drivers on the grid.
The race week starts with three free practice sessions, followed by qualifications. The qualification session is where the drivers put together the fastest lap time possible in a set period of time to set up where they will be placed in the starting lineup on race day.
From the race, points are awarded to the top 10 finishers.
There are two championships to be won: the Driver’s Championship, to be awarded to the driver with the most points, and the Constructor’s Championship, to be awarded to the team with the most points from their two drivers.
Daniel Ricciardo driving for his new team Renault at pre-season testing in Barcelona, Catalunya, on March 1, 2019. (REUTERS/Albert Gea)
Season predictions
Hamilton, from Mercedes, has won four of the last five championships, and he is still primed to win again. Oddshark.com out Hamilton as their favourite, followed closely by Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari, another four-time champion.
“Ferrari’s come a long way in the past two years, probably could’ve won the driver’s and constructors championship … it’s really close right now,” Hauraney said.
It could be because of Ferrari’s new driver, Charles Leclerc, who is the third favourite behind Vettel and Hamilton. The 18-year-old had a marvelous rookie season last year, which earned him a seat at the most recognizable team in F1, Scuderia Ferrari.
“Overall I think we are getting closer, the team is still growing… I hope we are going to have a lot of fun and win a lot of races and fight for the championship,” Vettel said, at the Ferrari car reveal.
Hayley Ferguson, also a TSN F1 analyst, said that there is a chance Ferrari collapse due to the driver battle between the rookie and the veteran.
“There is a chance that Ferrari beat themselves more than anything if the battle between Vettel and Leclerc gets ugly,” Ferguson said.
Red Bull, who were once dominate, is still poised to be third in the Constructor’s Championship. They have a young driver lineup and are switching their engine provider so much is still unknown. Their number one driver is now Max Verstappen, a 21-year-old Dutch driver, who finished fourth in the driver championship.
Renault is poised to make the biggest jump this season.
If Red Bull’s new engine doesn’t live up to expectation, the French automaker is most likely to move ahead of them. Renault made headlines last year by signing away Daniel Ricciardo, who was Red Bull’s former number one driver. Their veteran driver lineup and engine improvements suggest Renault is likely to be ahead of the midfield.
Most teams are undergoing some sort of rebuild this season, to try and compete with the top two, so it is unlikely that there will be any major upsets. However, the midfield battle is looking to be unpredictable.
SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team driver Lance Stroll poses after unveiling the team’s new car livery at a pre-season launch event at the Canadian International AutoShow in Toronto, Ont., on Feb. 13, 2019. (REUTERS/Mark Blinch)
Who to watch
Obviously, there is defending champion Hamilton with Vettel vying to retake the championship.
There is Daniel Ricciardo, who left the team that brought him up from the academy and gave him his first seat in F1. He took a gamble in leaving a Red Bull team that is going through major changes, to join last year’s fourth-place team, Renault.
The Netflix docu-series highlighted a rivalry between Renault and Redbull. Renault has been supplying Redbull’s engines since the beginning, but have been growingly unhappy with the results. Redbull is now switching to Honda engines, and, in retaliation, Renault signed away Redbull’s former number-one driver, Ricciardo.
Canadian Lance Stroll might be the most controversial driver this season.
His father bought the former Force India F1 team and gave him the seat. Stroll is considered a “paid driver,” who bought himself a seat, even though he finished 18th last season.
“Since he made his F1 debut he has had a target on his back because of his fathers money-which is fair,” Ferguson said.
He showed signs of greatness in 2017, finishing third in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, so perhaps in a better car, Stroll can better perform on the track.
“He’s won a championship in almost everything he’s been involved in… it’s extremely hard to do. No amount of money can win you those championships,” Hauraney said.
“It’s indescribable,” Stroll said, about representing Canada with a Canadian team, at the car reveal in February at the Canadian International Auto Show.
There are four rookie drivers this season, all of whom are poised to be the future of the sport.
George Russell who won the Formula 2 championship, the junior division, but he will be racing for Williams, the team that finished last in the Constructor’s Championship.
The next promising rookie to watch isLando Norris. He was Russell’s rival in F2, but he is in a better position to do better in F1, since he is racing for storied team McLaren.
Hauraney said he thinks Lando Norris is most likely to win rookie driver of the year. | {
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Judge approves $50M settlement in NFL retiree case - NBC Sports
Judge approves $50M settlement in NFL retiree case
APWF
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell listens to audience questions during a safety clinic hosted by the NFL and the Chicago Bears for the mothers of youth football players on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013, at Halas Hall in Lake Forest, Ill. (AP Photo/Andrew A. Nelles)
November 1, 2013, 6:31 pm
Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) A federal judge in Minnesota gave final approval Friday to a $50 million settlement in the complicated court fight over publicity rights for retired NFL players, calling it a "one-of-a-kind, and a remarkable victory for the class as a whole."
The NFL and the retired players reached the agreement in March, and U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson gave preliminary approval in April. But 19 players had filed objections, with some saying direct payments won't be made to the former players and that varying benefits will be unfairly distributed.
In his order Friday, Magnuson said those who objected because they were lured by the prospect of a lucrative personal payout have strayed from the initial goal of the lawsuit - to help those players with dire physical, mental and financial needs. He said the majority of the class - more than 25,000 players - recognized the settlement would help thousands of former players because a large financial payout would go to a fund organized for their benefit.
"Nearly all of the objections boil down to what is, in the court's view, the objectors' very mistaken belief that they could reap significant financial benefits from continuing this case," Magnuson said. He said those who believe a settlement that doesn't directly benefit players is impermissible "are wrong."
More than 2,000 players opted out of the settlement, and will have the opportunity to pursue their own claims against the NFL. Those cases will be allowed to immediately go forward.
Bob Stein, an attorney for some of the plaintiffs who opposed the settlement, said he will appeal. He said there was no discovery that revealed the value of NFL Films, so there's no way to know if the settlement is fair. He also said the settlement doesn't provide direct payments to those who have given up publicity rights.
Dan Gustafson, an attorney representing those who agreed to the settlement, said he's pleased with the judge's ruling and hopes those opposed will "put this behind them now and join us in trying to implement the settlement for the benefit of the players."
Under the agreement, some $42 million will be distributed to a "common good" trust over eight years to help retired players with issues like medical expenses, housing and career transition. The settlement will also establish a licensing agency for retirees to ensure compensation for the use of their identities. The league will pay another $8 million in associated costs, including startup money for the licensing agency.
The trust will be administered by a group of retired players approved by the court. The licensing agency will for the first time market retiree publicity rights in conjunction with the NFL, thereby making it easier for retired players to work with potential sponsors and advertisers.
The settlement only covers those players who are currently retired, but players who retire in the future will have the chance to utilize the newly formed licensing agency.
Magnuson wrote that while the objections were "especially vociferous," only one-tenth of 1 percent of the class objected and less than 10 percent requested to opt out. He said the objections were without merit.
"This fund will provide substantial benefits to the class as a whole," the judge wrote.
The lawsuit was filed in 2009, with NFL Hall of Famer Elvin Bethea, Fred Dryer, Dan Pastorini, Joe Senser, Ed White and Jim Marshall accusing the NFL of exploiting retired players' identities in films, highlight reels and memorabilia to market the league's "glory days" without compensating the players. That same year, a group of more than 2,000 retirees won a $26.25 million settlement with the NFL Players Association over the use of their likenesses in video games, trading cards and other sports products.
Pastorini, Marshall, and Senser ended up objecting to the settlement and will be part of an appeal. The other three original plaintiffs opted out and will be included in other litigation, Stein said.
Gordon Rudd, another attorney for the plaintiffs in favor of the settlement, said the settlement gives retired players a chance to monetize the value of their images through the licensing agency.
"It is a historic settlement," he said. "It's very creative and it's very exciting to see this opportunity being provided to retired players for the first time."
The lawsuit against the league was similar to a still-pending lawsuit filed against the NCAA by Ed O'Bannon and other former college athletes seeking damages for the use of former players' likenesses in video games and other material. | {
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Tag Archives: chitosan
Proactol Plus, now also called Proactol XS, is an over the counter weight loss supplement. It has marketed itself extensively throughout the internet and it does have its own official website. This has allowed it to include itself among the ranks of some of the top diet pills within the fat blocker category of the nonprescription diet supplement market. Though this does not necessarily mean that it has been proven to work, it does suggest that there is something about this product that is working in its favor, and that it may be worth looking into before making a purchase.
This type of product is also known as a fat binder. These pills have been made to contain ingredients that will adhere to the fat molecules found in food that has been consumed by the dieter. By bonding to them in that way, it makes the molecules too large for the body to be able to absorb them. Therefore, they remain undigested and leave the body with the rest of the waste.
The official website for Proactol Plus claims that this diet pill goes above and beyond fat binding and acts as an appetite suppressant, as well. At the time that this review was written, the claim was that these pills worked by reducing fats absorbed by the body in a method that has been “backed by over 40 studies”. That said, not one of those studies was actually identified on the website through a title, a name of the organization that conducted them, the journal in which they were published, how many participants there were, or even if placebos techniques were used. This renders the claim all but useless to someone considering this product, as those studies could have been conducted by the manufacturer, itself on tiny, non-representative groups of people.
The Proactol Plus appears to have undergone a change, over the last while. Though the original marketing for this product had discussed the merits of opuntia ficus indica as one of its ingredients, that substance doesn’t appear to be listed among the ingredients in the product, anymore. It seems that the formula is made up of chitosan (biopolymer N-acetyl-D-glucosamine and D-glucosamine) that has been extracted from aspergillus niger mycelium.
Unfortunately, according to the Mayo Clinic, that ingredient – while unlikely to be dangerous – has not been adequately studied to be able to make solid claims about its potential benefits in the form of a diet pill. This calls into question, once again, the value of the forty studies that this product mentions on its website.
Proshape RX is among the dozens, if not hundreds of nonprescription weight loss pills that are based on the greatly hyped ingredient, hoodia gordonii. This is among the ingredients that has grown in popularity the most quickly among all diet pill substances, which is surprising, in itself due to the great competition in this industry, but it is also shocking because this ingredient does not have any clinical evidence to support claims that it helps with weight loss or that it is even safe for human use.
The primary basis for the claims that Proshape RX and other over the counter diet supplements make regarding this ingredient is from its traditional use by bushmen in South Africa who used it to keep hunger down when they were headed out on long hunting trips and into the desert.
Other ingredients in Proshape RX include chitosan, white kidney bean, beet root, white willow bark, L-methionine, fenugreek, and green tea leaf. This list does not generate any greater confidence in an experienced shopper for diet pills. The reason is that there are a number of extremely common ingredients in this product and the majority of them are not proven to provide any weight loss benefit.
White kidney bean, for example, is often found in products that claim to suppress the body’s ability to absorb carbohydrates. However, this ingredient has never been shown to have this effect in any reputable medical studies. The only thing that this substance could provide is some fiber, which – in large quantities – help to shrink the appetite, but there is no indication that there is enough fiber in this product to make a difference.
White willow bark should be used with great care as it has several properties that are similar to aspirin and could therefore be unsafe for people with a number of different types of medical conditions. Moreover, it is known to conflict with many medications as well as other supplements and over the counter pills.
The official Proshape RX website claims that the use of this product will help to achieve safe and rapid weight loss and that the pounds will start to come away within two to three weeks from having started the use of the product. It is meant to be taken three times per day, with one pill being swallowed before every meal. According to the official website, it can be ordered directly from the site, or through a telephone number provided on the website.
The Vitabase Fat Blocker provides clear claims about what it says that it will provide to dieters. It states that it will assist in blocking the absorption and storage of fat, making it easier for a dieter to be able to lose weight. Moreover, it also claims that certain food sugars can also be blocked through the use of this product.
Though it claims that it is “Dr Passero Approved”, at the time of this review, it had not mentioned any specific clinical studies to support the claims of the entire formula or to indicate that any of the individual ingredients can provide the type of outcomes that it claims. That said, upon researching the main ingredients in the formula, it does look as though two of them might have some impact on weight loss. The problem is that the official website does not reveal how much of each ingredient is contained within the formula, so it is not possible to verify whether enough has been used in order to produce the potential benefits.
The main ingredients in the Vitabase Fat Blocker are: Vitamin C, Vitamin B2, Gymnema Sylvestre, Garcinia Cambogia and Chitosan. The vitamins in this formula are contained in low doses (for example, only 25 milligrams of Vitamin C), but they are not the main contributors to the formula. Vitamin C, for example, is a healthy antioxidant but it is not associated with any form of weight loss benefit. B vitamins are known to help to help with food metabolism and frequently passed through the body quite quickly so this may provide some benefit, in theory.
Gymnema sylvestre, assuming that it is used in an adequate quantity, could help to regulate blood glucose levels. This doesn’t directly lead to weight loss, but it can help to avoid blood glucose spikes and drops that often result in shaky motivation and food cravings. Chitosan is an ingredient that has some potential in this formula, if used properly, as it has been shown to have some appetite suppressing benefits in certain small, short-term studies. It is a type of fiber, and when taken with enough water, it can help to provide the body with a fuller feeling. Garcinia cambogia was once considered to be a very powerful fat burner. It acts as a stimulant which can help to shrink the appetite. The problem is that it needs to be taken in massive quantities to be effective, as it is weaker than regular caffeine.
The Accuslim Fat Blocker is marketed as a diet supplement that gives you the ability to eat what you want without having to feel guilty. The official website for the product explains that fiber is the central element that should be considered for stopping the body from absorbing excess fat. It stated that fat becomes trapped before it can be taken in by the body to either be used as energy, or stored as body fat.
If this pill actually does as its manufacturers claim, it could mean that it could considerably reduce the number of calories that a dieter will take in from having consumed his or her foods in a day. As fats are typically very high in calories, by blocking a certain percentage of the total that is eaten from being used as energy (immediate or stored) it can help to keep caloric intake under control without having to sacrifice favorite foods.
However, the Accuslim Fat Blocker official website did not, at the time of this review, include the percentage of fat that will actually be blocked from being absorbed.
The website indicated that Liposan Ultra: Chitosan and vitamin C were the ingredients in the formula. Those two ingredients are all that makes up the product. Chitosan is a substance that is obtained from the shells of seafood such as crab and shrimp. According to the manufacturer, this substance is able to surround the fat that is consumed in the form of food, stopping it from being absorbed by the body, allowing the fat to progress right through the digestive system without being absorbed.
There are a number of studies that suggest that this claim may be true, though not to the point that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the substance for this purpose. The FDA feels strongly enough about this fact that it contacted eVitamins.com in 2004 with regards to two products that contained chitosan. The claims associated with those products were that they would bind to fat and therefore make it easier for users to lose weight. According to the FDA, there was inadequate scientific data to support these claims.
The manufacturers of Accuslim Fat Blocker claim that its product is easier to absorb than other supplements containing chitosan, so that it can be taken at mealtime without having to wait 30 minutes to an hour in advance. No link or reference to clinical or scientific research trials are made to indicate that this claim is true. | {
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One thing, music aside, that we were somewhat surprised by was her not appearing in a sketch during the first half of the show - given her level of fame, you have to think that something was pitched to her in there. That puts Swift on track to sell more than 1 million records in the record's first week - and potentially become the year's best-selling album in just one week. She strummed through her appreciation for a love that offers a respite from "all the drama queens taking swings", and the ballad made for a heartfelt foil to the sassiness of "Ready For It" while showing off Reputation's stylistic range.
Pixel 2 microphone problems have a classic NES-style workaroundThis particular problem has caused discoloration and even a blue tint on the Pixel 2's display and consumers are not happy for it. Till this problem is fixed, you can count on the word of other users who have claimed that this solution will make the mic work!
'Fifty Shades Freed' trailer has been released!The trailer implicates that there will be more scenes depicting the BDSM lifestyle Christian has introduced Ana to. Fifty Shades Freed is directed by James Foley , who also helmed the second installment, Fifty Shades Darker .
Qatar Airways Acquires Stake in Cathay PacificHowever, Cathay discontinued its Doha service less than two years later, saying at the time it was for "commercial reasons". Qatar Airways chief executive Akbar Al Baker said the airline was pleased to have bought a stake in Cathay Pacific.
For her second song, Taylor got back to her roots by singing "Call It What You Want", seated with an acoustic guitar.
Many of Swift's fans and friends took to social media to rave about her performance on SNL and their reaction to the new Swift. Can we please make her the president of the entire network?
A few minutes later, Alex Goldschmidttweeted, "A LIVE ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCE OF "CALL IT WHAT YOU WANT" IS EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED FOR CHRISTMAS". It is followed by "End Game", her collaboration with fellow musician Ed Sheeran and rapper Future, and the unflinching "I Did Something Bad".
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Since then, other allegations have surfaced and the Oscar-winning star said he is seeking " evaluation and treatment ". A few weeks later, she said : "The dominoes are falling". "She saw that my son was shaken", Unruh said of the woman.
At least eight people were killed and 15 injured yesterday after a truck veered into a cycling lane in Lower Manhattan. Saipov allegedly left a note in the truck that translated to "ISIS endures forever", though authorities and Gov.
Allegedly, amusing man Louis C.K. is being accused by five different individuals of lewd acts dating back over the last 15 years. He also abruptly canceled an appearance to promote the film on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert .
We'll be paying close attention in the next few days for a potential announcement, so stay tuned for additional updates. Qualcomm and Apple have been embroiled in a dispute over royalties that has landed the two corporations in court.
Leo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Donatello will be suiting up (shelling up?) to fight the likes of Superman, Batman and more. Interactive Entertainment and DC Entertainment today officially announced the details for Fighter Pack 3 for Injustice 2 .
On Wednesday, Bennett was suddenly cut from the Packers with the designation of failing to disclose an injury to the team. Last month, Bennett posted on Instagram that he was "pretty sure" he would retire at the end of the 2017 season.
Sam Nunberg , who works under Stone and briefly worked for Trump's campaign, then criticized Kushner on the record. During the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, Kushner helped develop and run Trump's digital media strategy.
Lewis Hamilton crashed heavily into the barriers on his first flying lap in Saturday's qualifying for the Brazilian Grand Prix. Bottas is confident he can overhaul Vettel in the championship in the final two races of the campaign.
The test was carried out on an 11-mile stretch of road between Las Vegas and Pahrhump, that had been closed to the public. Previously the world record was held by the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport which clocked 269.86mph in 2010.
In South Korea, it includes devices on SKT, KT, LGU+, while in the United Kingdom it's open to those with unlocked models. There are a bunch of Nougat features that are still present in addition to the new Oreo features.
Top Stories
Republican Senate Fundraising Arm Bails on Roy Moore
Should state law be changed to keep Moore from the Senate? They did not have sexual intercourse, according to the report. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that the claims were "deeply troubling" and that Mr.
Vikings activate Bridgewater, put Bradford on IR
When he returns to the roster, it will be initially as a backup to Case Keenum , who is 4-2 as a starter in relief of Bradford. Bradford, who has missed six of the past seven games, would be done for the regular season if placed on injured reserve.
How Trump's Tweets, Outspoken Comments Affect Legal System
Trump also said in a tweet late Wednesday that the alleged terrorist who killed eight people in NY should get the death penalty. The FBI and New York Police Department are jointly investigating the terrorist attack, the deadliest in New York post 9/11.
OnePlus 5T Name, 3.5mm Jack Presence All But Confirmed
OnePlus has been posting a number of promotions on its social media channels all hinting at the launch of the upcoming device. The picture the headphone jacks appear on all the device including the first gen OnePlus to the latest flagship OnePlus 5T . | {
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Food Truck Financing Can Help You Break Into The Industry
Written on November 9, 2016
Do you want to join the food truck industry but don’t have the out-of-pocket money to buy a food truck? If so, then you are not alone, and there is a solution.
If you are trying to break into this industry but don’t have the funds to make that dream come true, then you might want to think about financing a food truck. Yes, you can finance your food truck, whether it is $50,000 or $200,000. Of course, there are going to be many factors that come into play when it comes to getting food truck financing.
To get a better idea of that concept, we will break down three situations/examples for you. By doing so, you will hopefully have a better idea of how food truck financing works, and if it is the right option for you.
Situation 1: Strong Financials
Let’s say Fred and Tara are starting a new food truck business. Fred’s credit score is 780 and Tara’s is 800. On top of that, both have experience in the restaurant business, which is, of course, beneficial when it comes to owning and operating a mobile kitchen. Fred and Tara also have $50,000 in the bank and own a house.
To put the cherry on top, they have a strong business plan for their food truck business.
Side note: If you plan on getting financing for a mobile kitchen, and also want to be 100 percent prepared for what the mobile catering industry throws at you, then you have to have an all-star business plan. That is the case for any business, in fact.
Even with their impressive credit scores, experience in the restaurant business, $50,000 in the bank and ownership of a house, Fred and Tara are still likely going to have to make a downpayment of 10 to 30 percent of the total cost that is being financed. They are also likely looking at an interest rate of six to 15 percent.
Remember, you don’t have to be rich to buy a food truck, but having some money saved up and a great financial background are invaluable weapons when it comes to getting food truck financing.
Situation 2: Average Financials (A Challenge To Finance)
Here’s one of the biggest problems: Most people with an average financial background expect an easy approval, a low interest rate and a small downpayment. Lenders look for safe investments with collateral. Whether a person has collateral in cash or assets, the loan is easier to get approved.
Let’s look at Will’s finances as an example. Will has an 800 credit score but only owns a car. He has $10,000 in the bank. Will also needs to get a working capital loan to help start his business.
In this example, Will gets a $35,000 loan and uses $30,000 as the downpayment, and he still has extra money for starting capital.
Now, in Will’s case, he might not have enough money to buy a food truck business, but this is a real-life situation we are providing, so this is the type of thing you should expect to see if you are trying to get food truck financing. Everyone’s situation is different, though.
The only way to get approved with a poor financial background is by having a large amount of money for a downpayment. A person in this scenario could also get a cosigner. However, you have to be up front with your cosigner, and they have to know that you can pay off your loan. The last thing your cosigner wants is getting stuck with the bill (in this case, the loan) if you are not capable of making the payments.
Let’s look at Jeff’s situation: Jeff has a 560 credit score with no assets. This is a huge problem, but all is not lost as long as Jeff can find someone to help him raise the funds for a downpayment, or he can find a qualified/worthy cosigner.
While all three of these situations might be different from one another, here is one thing they all have in common: In all three situations, financing a food truck is possible. Every single example is different, but getting food truck financing is still possible, which means your dream of entering the mobile kitchen industry is still alive even if you don’t have the cash to buy a food truck. Of course, it pays to have good credit, assets and a good amount of money in the bank. After all, if you don’t have any of those things, then you are going to have to find an all-star cosigner, and you are also going to have to find the funds for a downpayment.
People think they can just get financing with no strings attached, but banks aren’t just going to give you money because you ask for it. You not only have to look good on paper (good credit score, money in the bank, assets, etc.), but you also have to show the bank (or whoever you are getting a loan from) that you are going to be able to pay them their money back. That’s where experience and a killer business plan comes into play.
Nonetheless, financing is a great option when it comes to getting your food truck business started. Heck, in some cases, it might be your only shot at purchasing a mobile kitchen. The three examples above should give you a great idea on how the process works. | {
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Welcome To My Casa Bella
My Casa Bella- means-my beautiful home- but it can mean so many other things. How you make your home a home. The sounds of children or pets playing. The aroma of scones in the oven or a lilac candle burning. The flowers blooming in your garden. The home grown vegetables ready to be picked. Grandma's quilt at the foot of the bed. A fire to curl up to with a good book. Or just a family spending time together with love, laughter and a good time.
Friday, April 11, 2014
I drive past this garden center for work once a week and I've had to control myself from stopping in because the weather was still chilly, nights were still in the low 30's
BUT finally weather has been steady low 60's nights are in the upper 30's to low 40's and I could plant Spring flowers.
I LOVE LOVE Ranunculus flowers, they look like roses and the colors they come in are amazing.
They just put them out and I had to control how many to buy.
I have two wall hanging planters so I bought the same flowers for both but in different colors.
Here's the Pink planter:
A Ranunculus in the center, Prim Roses on either side
and Pansies front and center.
This one is at the side of our home, at the side deck.
Here's the Orange planter:
Same flowers in this planter, this one is at the front of our home.
And a box of pansies as well on our deck:
We have issues with lots and lots of squirrels here and they love to deconstruct my flower pots, last summer they dug them up and I'd find them on the ground,
needless to say I started to hate squirrels.
So this year I'm trying this
I added shards of broken ceramic planter, so far it's worked, it sounds cruel though, hubby says to me "I can't believe you'd do that to those poor little furry cute animals what if it slices itself and gets hurt"
I said "well he shouldn't be in there digging in the first place"
So far it's worked, we'll see for how long though.
I've also planted some perennials we'll see how they do. Still have a lot of work to do and more space for more plants.
But it was nice to finally get out after a long, snowy winter and dig into the soil and do some yard clean up.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
It's been awhile since I've posted recipes on here, but today I thought I should share this easy and delicious
comfort food.
It came out of a small magazine called "Hometown Cooking" not sure if they still publish that.
Anyway, they had this recipe in it and it is so good!!
Here it is:
(I tweaked it a bit for my taste, I'll put those in parenthesis)
Southwest Spaghetti Pie
8 oz of dried Spaghetti (I used GF Brown Rice Spaghetti)
1/2 cup milk (you can use non dairy if you need to)
1 egg
1 lb ground pork (I used beef it's what I had)
1 large onion, chopped (1 cup)
1 medium red or green pepper chopped (3/4 cup)
1 clove garlic (I used 4 cloves, love garlic)
1 Tbsp chili powder (if you can't handle heat just use half)
1/2 tsp ground cumin (I added more to taste)
1/2 tsp dried oregano (I used 1 tsp)
1/2 tsp salt ( I added to taste)
1/4 tsp ground pepper
1 (15 oz) can tomato sauce
1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
(I had Italian mix on hand)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Directions:
Cook spaghetti, (now some people who've cooked Gluten Free spaghetti have gotten quite frustrated, if you'd like to try it here is the way to cook it, water HAS TO BE BOILING, add salt to the water and a little bit of olive oil or whatever oil on hand, it helps prevent sticking. The trick with GF pasta is the water needs to always be boiling while it's cooking and you HAVE to stir every two minutes, to make sure the noodles don't stick. They won't stick if you follow these rules. Make sure there is enough room in the pot for the noodles to move around, do not cook any pasta in a small pot, it doesn't work well.
For this recipe I cooked the noodles for 10 minutes, they need to be al dente, which means when you bite into it, soft on the outside with a little firmness inside. This will cook through in the oven. It's simple, and so good, I do not miss regular pasta since I started eating GF pasta)
For all those who I may offend right now, sorry, but I broke the pasta in half, I know that's against the rules but for a casserole it's easier if you break them in half, in my opinion.
OK, after the pasta has cooked, drain well. Return pasta to the pot, add milk and egg and stir quickly into the hot pasta.
Transfer pasta to a lightly greased 3 quart baking dish.
In a large Skillet cook meat, onion, pepper and garlic until meat is cooked through.
Drain any fat. Add spices and cook for 2 minutes. Stir in tomato sauce next, (I added a teaspoon of sugar, helps with the acidity) cook 2 more minutes.
Spoon meat over top of pasta,
In a bowl combine the shredded cheeses and top meat with the cheese.
Bake uncovered for 10 minutes, or until bubbly. Let it stand for 5 minutes before cutting into.
ENJOY!!
It has a spicy kick to it and very flavorful. Leave me a comment and tell me if you liked it.
Please Ask
About Me
I am orginally a NYC girl, born and raised then I met my honey, and we got married and moved to southern PA where he is from. Now we live in Maryland, in a city/country, a little bit of both worlds. We have a humble home with our three kitties. I love to sew which you will see pictures of my latest projects. I make handbags,aprons, home decor and love playing with paper and rubber stamps. I enjoy gardening,baking and cooking. My family and friends are extremely important to me. I hope you enjoy my blog and I can make you smile. Please sign in and leave me a comment, that also makes me smile. Thank you for visiting me.
Encouraging Words
Isaiah 41:10,13 "Do not be afraid, for I am with you. Do not gaze about, for I am your God. I will fortify you. I will really help you. I will really keep fast hold of you with my right hand of righteousness....For I, Jehovah your God, am grasping your right hand, the One saying to you 'Do not be afraid. I myself will help you.' | {
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Meet the Nominee: Herobust
Hayden Kramer, better known as Herobust, is a Bass Music Producer from Atlanta, GA. His latest release “Vertebreaker” caught the community by surprise with it’s innovative and fresh take on modern electronic music. Herobust recently wrapped the “Vertebreaker World Tour” where the response was incredible for the new tunes and many new fans have been made in countries like China, India, Australia and Canada. He will also be performing at EDC Las Vegas, Bonnaroo, Shambhala and many more festivals this summer! Herobust seems not to be constrained by genre, and has proven that he is pushing forward into uncharted musical territory with the support of Diplo, Skrillex, Datsik, Flosstradamus, and Marshmello. He has also been commissioned by the likes of Third Eye Blind, D.R.A.M, and Knife Party for official remixes. And after much success, Herobust will be releasing his first music video for “Move Mint” in the coming months. YOUREDM includes Herobust in their “Top 5 Best Trap Artists 2016” and Insomniac credits him as “one of the hottest voices in the trap-dance movement”. Herobust is represented by 24 – 8 MGMT and CAA. | {
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Double-Circle Earrings
Unique earrings dangle a double-circle embellishment with a tiny rhinestone at the center. Complete with a textured finish. Features French wires for pierced ears. Customized in size and scale for the plus size woman. For your comfort, all Catherines jewelry is free of lead and nickel. | {
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} |
First off let me make one thing clear – Mitchell Marner is amazing! Marner Magic is real folks and he will be a superstar in the NHL. Let us take that to the bank today and profit from the dividends for the next 15 years.
People say “Oh he’s way too fancy he’ll get killed in the NHL.” To those people I say please watch the games. Watch the OHL final and the Memorial Cup with this in mind: Marner has ELITE hockey sense. He plays with his head up. He knows where his teammates and opponents are on the ice and he knows where they are going. He doesn’t make fancy plays to look cool – he makes fancy plays when the time is right; to open up ice, to burn a D, to open up passing lanes, etc. He will certainly have fewer opportunities for fancy plays in the NHL because he will be facing much quicker, stronger and smarter opposition. He might have a lower % of success on the fancy plays he does attempt as he becomes more selective in his attempts. And of course he will get knocked down many times but he won’t get killed.
All praise aside I think Marner has a huge hill to climb to make the NHL next season and here’s why:
(these points are arranged in an order that flows from one to the next but they are all connected)
Safe Environment For Players/Positive Culture
Leafs brass has consistently said they want to create a safe environment for their players to play in. They want to ensure that the expectations of players and their spots in the line-up match their CURRENT talent levels and not their future potential.(EDM Oilers anybody?)
The Leafs were successful last season creating this safety and a positive culture. Both of our top RFA’s, Rielly and Kadri, signed long-term deals immediately after the season ended and both deals feature significant home-town discounts of at least $0.5mil/yr. In Rielly’s case the discount could be huge. He could’ve easily asked for a 2-3 year deal and by then he would’ve been a $7-$9 million dollar defender.
Leafs Don’t Want to Suck
Part of building a positive culture is not sucking at hockey.(EDM Oilers anybody?) The Leafs don’t want to be a terrible hockey team. I believe next year’s results are tough to predict. They could be like Calgary two seasons ago. If everything goes right for a young team they could squeak into the playoffs and maybe even win a round. They could also be like Calgary this year and finish near the bottom of the league. Either way, they intend to be competitive in each and every game.
The Leafs were successful last season in being competitive – given their roster’s lack of high end talent and legitimate sniper-ability. Yes the team finished 30th but this was not the same type of 30th we’ve seen from other teams.
1) The Leafs finished 13th in Corsi with 51.3%. Corsi is not the holy grail of statistics as some would have you believe but it is still a valuable shooting metric and indicator of team performance.
Battling for a Spot(1 of 2 to make it)
LW - Josh Leivo: 2nd to 3rd line winger
LW - Brendan Leipsic: 2nd to 3rd line winger
MoFo’s Act Like They Forgot About
RW - Andreas Johnson doing it up in Sweden. I don’t know much about him.
2016 Draft Pick(1 of 4 players drafted, Zero or 1 in the NHL)
C - Auston Matthews: 2nd line center(if we get him out goes Bozak who is one of my favs)
LW - Patrik Laine: 2nd to 3rd line winger OR Finland OR Marlies
RW – Jesse Puljujarvi: 1st, 2nd to 3rd line winger OR Finland OR Marlies
LW – Matthew Tkachuk: Almost definitely back to the OHL
Too Many Forwards Under Contract
All these rookie forwards have to slot into a lineup that MUST include quality veterans and will also likely include some of the over-priced veterans we have under contract who are unlikely to be moved.(buyouts and injuries are not impossible) Here’s a potential line-up of forwards. I think lines 1 and 2 will be a safe mix of vets and rookies while line 3 could be an all-rookie scoring line. Babcock has so many options and I think he’s smarter at the hockey than any of us so we’ll see.
We can bury a vet or two in the minors to open roster spots but each player only save $925k of cap space. A buy-out could occur to Michalek or Groening(1 yr left so buyout would affect the next 2 seasons). Lupul will probably get injured throughout the season opening up a spot.
Quite simply, there isn’t a whole lot of room up front unless the Leafs package a number of young players for an early to mid 20’s high calibre D or G. | {
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About St. Joseph Health
SJH provides a full range of care facilities including 16 acute care hospitals,
home health agencies, hospice care, outpatient services, skilled nursing
facilities, community clinics and physician groups. All of our hospital
and home health entities are accredited by the Joint Commission. In our
award-winning facilities, SJH maintains a "continuum of care," matched
to the diverse needs of the urban centers, smaller cities and rural communities
who depend on us every day.
Giving back to the community.
St. Joseph Health System Office
HealthCalling
Stay in touch with our experts for
the latest wellness topics and news.
The 63-year-old owner of Northwood Chevrolet/Hyundai in Eureka had two
main concerns: hiring a new sales manager and growing his business after
several tough years of recession.
“I had a lot going on, and I was stressed out,” Dias said.
Needless to say, his health was not on the top of his mind.
One afternoon, he was edging the lawn when suddenly his back started hurting.
“I thought I had pulled a muscle in my back.”
After a visit to his primary doctor, who prescribed pain relievers and
rest, Dias let his employees know he’d be out for a few days. “I
figured it’d go away eventually,” but the pain wouldn’t
let up; in fact, it was getting worse. He was having trouble getting in
the car, and he couldn’t find a comfortable position to sleep.
By the time he decided to go to the emergency department, a week and a
half later, things had gone from bad to worse.
“I was in so much pain that I couldn’t even write a check,”
Dias said. “My neck was locked down. My lower back was killing me.
I didn’t know what was going on.”
At the time, his wife, Gail, was in Reno, Nev., helping out with the couple’s
three grandsons. So he asked a neighbor to drive him.
One of the first things the emergency staff noticed, Dias said, was that
his white blood cell count was way off. Various tests followed over several
days, including CT scans, MRIs and a spinal tap. He was even quarantined
for a time when meningitis was suspected.
Ultimately, Dias was diagnosed with a bacterial infection (streptococcus)
that had spread from his bloodstream to his spine.
It was indeed serious, and surgery would be needed to drain the abscesses.
Gail Dias, who had driven seven hours through the night as soon as she
learned her husband was in the hospital, was by his side throughout the ordeal.
She recalled Dr. Aryanpur being communicative and available throughout
the process. “He cleared his schedule for the next day to perform
the surgery,” Gail Dias said.
Dias underwent a multiple laminectomy, an extensive surgery to drain the
abscesses along his spine and remove the lamina, or back part of the spinal
canal, said Dr. Aryanpur.
Dias made it through, and now he credits Dr. Aryanpur with saving his life.
“We are so fortunate to have a doctor like him in Eureka,”
he said. However, Dr. Aryanpur highlighted Mark’s own positive attitude
as having had a major impact: “He was very, very sick, but his grit,
determination, and inherent mental fitness pulled him through.”
In total, Dias was a patient at St. Joseph Hospital, Eureka for five weeks,
including nine days in the intensive care unit. He was also in physical
therapy for 18 weeks. “I thank the doctors, and I thank all the
nurses,” he said. “I did everything that they wanted me to
do, and that’s why I’m here today.”
Now, as Dias walks between the various departments of his dealership, he
has a different perspective on the business. “While I was gone,
I grew to learn that it will run without me,” he said. “I
don’t have to bear everything.”
(Mark Dias, his wife Gail and dog Taz)
To keep stress to a minimum, he aims to work just four to six hours each
day. After the surgery, he took a month off to spend time with family.
He’s also making lifestyle changes, including trying to walk more.
Prior to this experience, Dias wasn’t a stranger to St. Joseph Hospital,
Eureka. (He had been treated there for a heart attack in 2010, and his
mother is a volunteer.) But now he considers himself an advocate.
“It's a story that needs to be told. If you walk away from my
dealership upset, you're going to tell 10 to 15 people,” he
explained. “Good experiences are shared far less. This is my way
of showing my gratitude to Dr. Aryanpur and to St. Joseph for saving my
life.”
For more information about St. Joseph Hospital, Eureka, please click
here. For more information about Dr. Aryanpur, please click
here.
The general information presented by HealthCalling is not intended to serve
as medical advice or as a diagnosis. Please get in touch with your primary
care physician for any medical concerns. For suggested topics and comments
on our stories, please connect with us via our
contact us form. | {
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} |
I valued the relationship I built with my mentor
In this short video, students Ellie and Haaris explain why they would recommend taking part in PRIME based on their experience with Shepherd and Wedderburn. They are joined by partner Neil Maclean and solicitor Rebecca Nicholson, who talk about how relationships forged through PRIME help both students and lawyers alike. Click here for more on…
Making Links Scholars – Hope’s Story
Making Links Scholars is designed to help talented university students from low-income backgrounds succeed in their early careers. Making Links Scholars will receive valuable coaching, mentoring, direct work experience and £6,000 in financial support. This isn’t just an opportunity to gain an insight into commercial law – it’s a chance to make a difference in…
My PRIME Week by future lawyer Bashirat Oladele
The four days were so interactive and there were endless opportunities for networking with trainees which gave me the opportunity to learn more about life in commercial law. Whilst there, I learned more about practice areas such as corporate and finance. I would like to thank Jackie Trench for facilitating an amazing four days and…
Muhammad’s Route to Law at BCLP
Muhammad Gangat, a PRIME and Aspiring Solicitors alum shared what he learned from both programmes to secure a training contract at law firm BCLP. As an added bonus learn his top tip for making conversation in corporate networking events; here’s a clue it involves a well known football club and cufflinks. If you’re interested in…
Becoming a Legal Apprentice at Weightmans LLP
PRIME alumnus and ‘Higher Degree Apprentice of the Year‘ Jordan Coulton shares insight into his role including: His route to becoming an apprentice His experience so far and projects he’s been involved with Plans for the future Advice for anyone who would like to become a legal apprentice Click here to find PRIME work experience…
Breaking Down Barriers: PRIME Alumni Stories from Clifford Chance
Watch our PRIME alumni that have gone on to secure training contracts with Clifford Chance. They share their fears, aspirations, and experiences to bring to life the importance of the firm’s widening access programme. If you are in year 12 or 13 and think you have the drive and motivation needed for a career in…
Watch Josh’s PRIME Story
Josh Redman, Hogan Lovells trainee, completed the PRIME Pathways to Law Programme with Hogan Lovells and the Sutton Trust. Here he talks about how being yourself is important to succeed in a career in law.
Listen to Megan Stewart
Listen to Megan Stewart, future trainee solicitor at Hogan Lovells, talk at the PRIME Commitment conference in February 2018. Megan explains how attending the Sutton Trust and PRIME Commitment Pathways to Law scheme at age 16 played a key part in securing a career in law.
Watch Emma’s PRIME Story
“The PRIME Programme has made me realise it doesn’t matter what background you come from, what school you come from – it’s about you as a person and what abilities you bring” – Emma De Costa, PRIME work experience student at Brodies. Watch the video below to learn more about Emma’s experiences on the PRIME… | {
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Halloumi, Cranberry and Seaweed Fries by Seaspoon
The festivities are near, so bring on the winter warming snacks! We love these Halloumi, cranberry and seaweed fries by Seaspoon, one of our Bursary Award winners for this years winter Show. This recipe is quick, delicious and rather festive... give it a go this winter!
Ingredients
225 g Halloumi (1 packet)
Cornflour
1 teaspoon Seaspoon Seaweed Boost
1 tablespoon of cranberry sauce
1 tablespoon runny honey
Black and white sesame seeds, toasted for 10 mins in oven (allergen)
Method
Slice halloumi into thick chips shapes and dust all over in cornflour. Heat frying pan with some olive oil and shallow fry the halloumi until crispy and brown on all sides. Meanwhile heat the cranberry sauce, runny honey and Seaspoon in microwave for 30 to 60 seconds until hot. Serve fries with the cranberry and honey mix drizzled over and finish with the sesame seeds scattered on top.
Serve as a festive nibble.
See Seaspoon at the winter Show, stand A52.
Sign up to our Newsletter
Click below to go to our newsletter sign up form. Once subscribed you will receive the latest Show news, exclusive offers and little extras from your favourite chefs. | {
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Watch This Movie
In this 50th year of the James Bond series, with the dismal "Quantum of Solace" (2008) still in our minds, "Skyfall" triumphantly reinvents 007 in one of the best Bonds ever. This is a full-blooded, joyous, intelligent celebration of a beloved cultural icon, with Daniel Craig taking full possession of a role he earlier played well in "Casino Royale," not so well in "Quantum" -- although it may not have been entirely his fault. Or is it just that he's growing on me? I don't know what I expected. I don't know what I expected in Bond No. 23, but certainly not an experience this invigorating.
The movie's innovations begin in its first shots, which abandon the familiar stalking silhouettes in the iris lens, and hit the ground running. Bond and another agent are in Istanbul, chasing a man who has stolen a crucial hard drive, and after a chase through city streets (involving no less than three Fruit Cart Scenes), 007 is running on top of a train. We know from earlier films that Bond can operate almost anything, but "Skyfall" incredibly has him commandeer of a giant Caterpillar and continue the chase by crushing a flatcar filled with VW Beetles.
It's the kind of absurd stunt we expect in a Bond movie, but this one relies on something unexpected: a dead-serious M (Judi Dench), following the action from MI6 in London and making a fateful decision. After an enemy agent grabs Bond as a human shield, M's other agent, Eve (Naomie Harris), has both men in her gun sights. The stakes are very high. "Take the shot!" M commands. Bond seems to die, although since this happens around the 20-minute mark, we're not very surprised that he doesn't.
M begins to compose the obituary of Commander James Bond, and she might as well also be writing her own. Time has passed her by, she's older, and her new boss, Mallory (Ralph Fiennes), convenes a public (!) hearing requiring her to defend her tenure. It's time for a generation to be put out to pasture. Even Q and, as it turns out, Miss Moneypenny are practically kids.
M is not quite ready to retire, and "Skyfall" at last provides a role worthy of Judi Dench, one of the best actors of her generation. She is all but the co-star of the film, with a lot of screen time, poignant dialogue, and a character who is far more complex and sympathetic than we expect in this series. The film is guided by a considerable director (Sam Mendes), written by the heavyweights Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan, and delivers not only a terrific Bond but a terrific movie, period. If you haven't seen a 007 for years, this is the time to jump back in.
There's a theory that you can grade the Bonds on the quality of their villains. In "Skyfall," this is a cerebral megalomaniac named Silva, played by Javier Bardem, whose unpronounceable Anton Chigurh in "No Country for Old Men" approached the high-water mark of Hannibal Lecter. Here he plays a bleached blond computer whiz who stole the drive containing the guarded identities of every MI6 agent. Are we supposed to think of Julian Assange?
This is a brand-new Bond with love and respect for the old Bond. This is dramatized during Bond's visit to the weathered Scottish mansion inhabited by Kincade (Albert Finney), which has secrets to divulge and continues the movie's rewriting of the character's back story. During the early Bonds, did we ever even ask ourselves about 007's origins in life? "Skyfall" even produces a moment designed to inspire love in Bond fans: a reappearance of the Aston Martin DB5 from "Goldfinger," which remains in good operating condition.
Just as Christopher Nolan gave rebirth to the Batman movies in "The Dark Knight," here is James Bond lifted up, dusted off, set back on his feet and ready for another 50 years. And am I completely misguided when I expect to see Miss Moneypenny become a Bond girl in the next film?
I'm double-posting my review of "Skyfall" to encourage comments, which my main site can't accept.
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ROSEN: A goodbye to L-Dub
Several columnists have written their final goodbyes to the News this week. This is not one of those columns; I have another three years of Yale left to explore. But there is one thing to which I will be saying my final goodbye at the end of this semester: Lanman-Wright Hall.
I hated L-Dub immediately, when filthy upon my return from FOOT, I took my first shower in four days. The water became scalding hot whenever a toilet flushed, and by the time the dirt was scrubbed out from under my fingernails, it had gone cold. Welcome to Yale.
The next weeks were filled with L-Dub surprises. Small centipedes crawled out of our sinks, and we heard disgusting stories about the yellow stains on the walls of the entryways. Several toilets began perpetually flushing.
I avoided my building at all costs. Trying to fall asleep to the sounds of belligerent drunk screaming in the courtyard and people hooking up on the other side of your paper-thin wall was near impossible. I would visit my friends and stare with envy at their unbunked beds and functional pipes.
“Get ready for L-Dub winter!” my froco laughed in early October as the freezing temperatures approached. We desperately lined our windows with sweaters in an attempt to keep up a semblance of warmth in our bedrooms.
Then Sandy came.
My Facebook filled with pictures of L-Dub residents double-fisting handles of Dubra and their Yale Dining-provided bags of rationed food as the storm approached. I knew that spending the next couple of days in such close quarters would inevitably lead to us all developing serious cases of claustrophobia and going insane.
But something strange happened during those three days of constant L-Dub — it became my favorite place on campus. I returned to the building to discover that close to half of my class was cramped into a fifth floor bedroom drinking way too much, screaming Ke$ha lyrics and laughing at the sound of howling wind outside. The party moved from suite to suite as our frocos frantically emailed us that it was a particularly bad night to get transported to DUH.
Unable to sit in our own tiny rooms for too long, we wandered through the open doors of others. The fifth floor began a game that consisted of racing around the hallway in rolling chairs at dangerously high speeds. We learned that we could hold entire conversations from floor-to-floor through the vents in our bathrooms, a strategy that would prove useful later.
After the hurricane, we began spending more and more time in L-Dub. We learned that you could slide silly notes under the fire doors to other suites. We figured out that we could disable the fire alarms that separated our suites with just a few pieces of Scotch tape. I realized that I could check if my friend was in her room by listening for the sound of her phone vibrating through the ceiling. L-Dub finally became a place that we loved.
Recently, an upperclassman warned me of the dangers of moving out of L-Dub. You get lonely once you’re no longer totally on top of one another, she said. As structurally flawed as L-Dub is, the sense of community it creates can’t be found anywhere else.
Living in L-Dub has been like going to year-round summer camp. While friends in other colleges struggle to name more than half of their class, most of us know almost everyone. We’ve taken on every plumbing problem as a team game. We’ve held our heads high as our privileged friends in Farnam joked that we lived in “the projects” and that they planned on organizing a canned food drive for us. Now, with the warm weather returning, we’ve sprawled ourselves across the courtyard, pretending to study while reminiscing about our favorite L-Dub memories.
Next year’s freshmen might not believe me on move-in day, but I’m going to miss L-Dub. Sure, it’ll be nice to have good plumbing and space to breathe. But I’ll miss the consoling happy voices drifting up from the courtyard after Woad’s and the boy singing next door without a clue that we can hear him perfectly. I’ll miss the doors that can’t close without being slammed shut and the nights when we cuddled on our futon under blankets trying to stay warm. When I say goodbye to L-Dub two weeks from today, I’ll be saying goodbye to, without a doubt, the best freshman home.
Diana Rosen is a freshman in Pierson College. She is a staff blogger for the News. Contact her at [email protected] . | {
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Movies
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James Dean (2001)The phrase "made-for-television movie" never inspires confidence, but Franco deservedly nabbed several awards including a Golden Globe for his turn as the doomed Dean.
2 of 21 | {
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Health Encyclopedia
Antioxidant Supplements Not Associated with Lower Death Rates
Antioxidants are thought to protect cells in the body from oxygen damage. This damage is thought to play an important role in health problems like heart disease or cancer. Antioxidants include vitamins and substances such as beta-carotene, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, and selenium. Antioxidants can be easily found in a variety of foods, but they are also sold as supplements and marketed for their health benefits. However, not all research has indicated that these supplements independently, or combined, have health benefits. In fact, some studies have indicated that certain antioxidant supplements may do more harm than good.
Researchers from Cochrane Database completed a review of previous trials examining the benefits of antioxidants. The review, published in Cochrane Database, found that antioxidants were not associated with health benefits and a few were associated with increased risk of dying.
About the Study
The systematic review included 78 randomized trials with 296,707 adults. The trials evaluated the impact of antioxidants on death rates in adults. The average age of the participants was 63, but they ranged from 18 years old to 103 years old. The participants were healthy in 26 trials and had a stable disease in 52 trials. The supplements were given by mouth for an average of two years. The specific antioxidants involved included beta-carotene, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, and selenium.
In an overall analysis that included trials of all qualities, antioxidant supplements were not associated with reduced risk of death.
In an analysis of the 56 trials that were considered high quality:
Antioxidants were associated with an increased risk of dying
Beta-carotene and vitamin E were individually associated with an increased risk of dying
How Does This Affect You?
Systematic reviews are considered reliable forms of research because they pool large volumes of information from several trials. The number of high quality trials that were used in this review makes the results more reliable. Similar results have also been found in a previous systematic review.
Despite these findings showing no benefits with antioxidants and potential harm from some, health supplements are still a big business with claims of illness prevention. You may have chosen antioxidant supplements to booster a poor diet or simply because you want to be more healthy. If you are generally healthy, antioxidant supplements may not be as helpful as claimed. You may be better off getting them through a healthy balanced diet with a variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, and lean proteins. Getting your antioxidants through diet may also decrease your chance of getting more of these substances than is needed. You may also save money by simply adding a few colorful fruits and vegetables to your diet rather than buying pills. However, certain medical conditions may require the use of supplements. In these cases, follow your doctor's recommendations.
This content is reviewed regularly and is updated when new and relevant evidence is made available. This information is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with questions regarding a medical condition. | {
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The next big MSM storyline
Mark your calendars. The next big MSM storyline on the Democratic candidates surfaced this week and awaits embellishment in the days leading up to the Iowa Caucasus. Barak Obama, the Dragon Slayer, is the front-runner in Iowa.
According to the Washington Post, Obama has overtaken Hillary in Iowa. Couple that with positive comments President Bush made about Hillary in an interviewwith Charles Gibson -- that Hillary understands the WH pressure of the “klieg lights” -- and the challenger to Hillary has climbed into the ring. Here’s how the new MSM storyline will play out.
Obama may not be deep in the traditional experiences that qualify one as a potential POTUS, but he has, well… rich life experiences. He survived the pressures of a challenging life. He spent growth years in a Muslim country, Indonesia; so he understands international relations from the ground up—not from the academy down. His Kenyan grandmother links him to a continent with emerging importance in the 21st Century. He is, in short, a man of the world.
Obama was a troubled teen once, but he focused his life and found success against all the odds. Today he’s honest about his past, as trustworthiness emerges as his leading qualification for POTUS. Unlike another Presidential candidate from a past era, Obama admits it—he did inhale. On the campaign trail in New Hampshire, he even offered life-altering wisdom to youth in statements where he admitted liking basketball and girls! He’s a regular guy.
And he’s one of us, too. Obama is someone you could feel comfortable bowling with, according to one media outlet.
So what if his primary legislative experience is in the Illinois Legislature? Once upon a time, another self-made, tall man from the Land of Lincoln had that same background, and look what he did!
Get ready. Here comes the Dragon Slayer storyline. Now watch for these photos to appear soon:
o Obama playing basketball, with youth or reporters, on the campaign trail
o His old neighborhood in Indonesia, perhaps with youth shooting hoopso Rerun of TIME Magazine’s photo of him with his Kenyan grandmother
o Group photo of the Harvard Law Review staff where he was president
Mark your calendars. The next big MSM storyline on the Democratic candidates surfaced this week and awaits embellishment in the days leading up to the Iowa Caucasus. Barak Obama, the Dragon Slayer, is the front-runner in Iowa.
According to the Washington Post, Obama has overtaken Hillary in Iowa. Couple that with positive comments President Bush made about Hillary in an interviewwith Charles Gibson -- that Hillary understands the WH pressure of the “klieg lights” -- and the challenger to Hillary has climbed into the ring. Here’s how the new MSM storyline will play out.
Obama may not be deep in the traditional experiences that qualify one as a potential POTUS, but he has, well… rich life experiences. He survived the pressures of a challenging life. He spent growth years in a Muslim country, Indonesia; so he understands international relations from the ground up—not from the academy down. His Kenyan grandmother links him to a continent with emerging importance in the 21st Century. He is, in short, a man of the world.
Obama was a troubled teen once, but he focused his life and found success against all the odds. Today he’s honest about his past, as trustworthiness emerges as his leading qualification for POTUS. Unlike another Presidential candidate from a past era, Obama admits it—he did inhale. On the campaign trail in New Hampshire, he even offered life-altering wisdom to youth in statements where he admitted liking basketball and girls! He’s a regular guy.
And he’s one of us, too. Obama is someone you could feel comfortable bowling with, according to one media outlet.
So what if his primary legislative experience is in the Illinois Legislature? Once upon a time, another self-made, tall man from the Land of Lincoln had that same background, and look what he did!
Get ready. Here comes the Dragon Slayer storyline. Now watch for these photos to appear soon:
o Obama playing basketball, with youth or reporters, on the campaign trail
o His old neighborhood in Indonesia, perhaps with youth shooting hoopso Rerun of TIME Magazine’s photo of him with his Kenyan grandmother | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
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Acoustico-lateralis
System
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In sharks, hearing and vibration detection (The Acoustico-Lateralis
System) are fundamentally linked. For sharks the inner ears are
nestled inside the posterior part of the braincase on top of the
head.
The only external manifestation of a shark's ears are two small
openings on top of the head, just behind
the eyes, known as endolymphatic pores.
A shark's main vibration
sensing mechanism is the lateral line, which is visible externally
by a row of tiny pores along each flank. Anteriorly, this system of
pores branches out over the shark's head in complex patterns nested
between and around the electrosensory pores. Despite their apparent
differences, the shark inner ear and lateral line system are based
on the same basic mechanism.
Structure of the Lateral Line and
the Inner Ear
The functional unit of both the shark inner ear and lateral line is
the hair cell. Each hair cell consists of
a more-or-less globular basal body from one end of which project a
series of cilia (hair-like structures). One of these cilia, called a
klinocilium, is much longer than the
others. The klinocilium extends into a gelatinous dome called a
cupola, which is partially exposed to the external environment. On
the opposite pole of the basal body is a bundle of five or so
sensory nerves. Since water conducts vibrations quite efficiently,
any oscillation in the surrounding liquid medium causes the cupola
to move correspondingly. This movement causes the klinocilium to
bend, which, in turn, provokes the lesser cilia surrounding it to
bend in response (reminiscent of cascading dominos). Bending of a
hair cell's cilia induces an electrical change in the basal body,
which is transmitted - via chemical messengers called
neurotransmitters - to the sensory nerve and on to the brain, where
the stimulus is interpreted as sensation. All these complex
movements and chemical choreography is highly sensitive to even the
tiniest vibration in the surrounding water.
The shark inner ear is a fluid-filled structure consisting of a
cartilaginous sac to which is attached three semicircular
cartilaginous tubes. These fluid-filled tubes are set at right
angles to one another and are lined with hair cells. Each
semicircular tube responds only to accelerations within the plane
parallel to its orientation. Thus, collectively, the three
semicircular tubes are sensitive to accelerations in all three
geometric planes and grant the shark a simultaneous sense of its
movements in all three-dimensions of its liquid environment.However, these tubes are not considered to be involved in
sound perception (Carrier et al., 2004).
The saccule, lagena, and utricle are three sensory areas that are
thought to be involved in both balance and sound perception.They consist of a path of sensory hair cells on an epithelium
overlain by an otconial mass.The otoconia (Otolith), made of calcium carbonate granules
embedded in a mucopolysaccharide matrix, act as an inertial mass
(Tester et al., 1972).
As in other fishes, the otolith organ is thought to be responsive to
accelerations produced by a sound field, which accelerate the shark
and the sensory macula relative to the otoconial mass (Carrier et
al., 2004).These
otoliths therefore respond to gravity, providing the shark with
information about its orientation in the water, be it head up, head
down, on its side, right-side-up or upside-down.
In a fascinating 1981 paper, otolaryngyologist Jeffrey Corwin
reported that in some sharks one of these otolith-equipped parts of
the inner ear, known as the macula neglecta
(because it had long been ignored by sensory physiologists),
responds particularly strongly to vibrations through the top of the
skull. Based on his functional morphology studies of many shark
species, he proposed that the macula neglecta may provide
actively predatory sharks with an enhanced ability to hear sounds
originating from above and in front.If true, this would grant sharks directional hearing, despite
the close-set arrangement of their inner ear mechanisms. The whole
inner ear structure is connected to the outside of the shark's body
by yet another fluid filled cartilaginous tube. Thus the shark inner
ear is unique among vertebrates in that the fluid inside this organ
is in direct contact with the watery medium outside the animal's
body.
As in other vertebrates, the ear of the shark is innervated by the
VIIIth cranial (octaval) nerve.Studies of afferent connections and the physiology of the
octaval nerve form individual end organs (saccule, lagena, utricle
and the macula neglecta) show projections ipsilaterally to five
primary octaval nuclei: magnocellular, descending, posterior,
anterior, and periventricular (Corwin and Northcutt, 1982; Barry,
1987).Much works
remains to be done regarding both the anatomy and neurophysiology of
the CNS.
Sound
is a multi-stage event that requires four components to occur: a
source of vibration, a transmitting medium, a receiving detector,
and an interpreting nervous system. Sound energy is carried by the
oscillation of particles composing a transmitting medium. In the
case of sharks, the transmitting medium is the water through which
they swim. Thus, distinguishing what a shark hears with its inner
ears from what it senses as vibrations via the lateral line is a
kind of Gordian knot comparable to separating singer and song. As a
result, many shark sensory biologists refer to the combination of
inner ears and lateral lines as the acoustico-lateralis
system. Experiments with various species by Arthur Myrberg,
Donald Nelson, and their co-workers have revealed that sharks are
most attracted to irregular, pulsed sounds of relatively low
frequencies. Field and laboratory experiments have demonstrated that
sharks can hear sounds with frequencies ranging from about 10 Hertz
(cycles per second) to about 800 Hertz, but are most responsive to
sounds less than 375 Hertz.In contrast, most adult humans can hear sounds ranging from
about 25 Hertz to roughly 16,000 Hertz (young children can hear
sounds up to 25,000 Hertz, but much high-frequency sensitivity is
lost by late adolescence.) Although sharks and humans detect some
low frequency sounds in common, sharks can hear sounds that are
inaudible to us. A shark's hearing is adapted to detecting very
low-frequency vibrations such as those made by a struggling fish.
Recently de-classified U.S. Navy studies have revealed that the
ocean is criss-crossed by meandering ribbons of very cold, dense
water surrounded by warmer, less dense water. Since sound travels
more efficiently in dense materials, these liquid ribbons act as
'sound tunnels'. Sound inside these tunnels bounces along like light
in a fiberoptic cable, with very little loss of energy to outside
water masses. During the height of the Cold War, the Navy used a $16
billion system of underwater microphones placed within these
networks of sound tunnels to keep tabs on the positions and
activities of enemy submarines (the system is known by the acronym
SOSUS, for SOund SUrvaillance System).
Some cetologists believe that whales may use these sound tunnels to
communicate across entire ocean basins. Due to its physiological
heat-retaining mechanisms, the White Shark may be able to penetrate
these sound tunnels, listening for the low-frequency sounds of
potential prey inside the cold, dense ribbons of seawater.
The ability to detect movement at multiple scales is essential in
the lives of fishes.
The detection of large tidal currents provides information important
for orientation and navigation, and small-scale flows can reveal the
location of prey, predators, and conspecifics during social
behaviours.The
mechanosensory lateral line system is stimulated by differential
movement between the body and surrounding water, and is used by
fishes to detect both dipole sources (eg: prey) and uniform fields (eg:
currents).This sensory
system functions to mediate behaviours such as rheotaxis
(orientation to water currents), predator avoidance, hydrodynamic
imaging to localise objects, prey detection, and social
communication including schooling and mating (Combs and Montgomery,
1999).In contrast to
the amount of information available on lateral line morphology and
function in bony fishes, relatively little is known about
mechanosensory systems in elasmobranchs.
Fig 2: Morphology of the lateral line canal system and superficial
neuromasts in elasmobranchs. (A) Diagramatic longitudinal section of
a pored canal from a juvenile grey reef shark, Carcharhinus
amblyrhynchos. Innervated canal neuromasts are arranged in a
nearly continuous sensory epithelium and covered by gelatinous
cupulae. Pored canals are connected to the environement via
tubules that terminate in openings on the skin surface. Scale bar
150µm. (B) Schematic transverse section of a single
superficial neuromast (pit organ). The sensory neuromast arrow
is positioned between modified scales (S). Scale bar 50 µm. Cupulae
is not shown. (Carrier et al., 2004).
The shark lateral line consists of a
fluid-filled, hair cell-lined tube extending along each flank, just
beneath the skin. This tube connects to the external environment via
secondary fluid-filled tubules that branch off from the main tube
and penetrate the skin at regular intervals.The lateral line system is visible on the surface of the skin
by the presence of small pores known as mechanosensory neuromasts.
Vibrations in the ocean are transmitted by successive fluid
compressions and rarefactions from the secondary tubules to the main
tube. These vibrations then move the gelatinous domes of hair cells
lining the main tube and alert the shark. As the lateral line system
extends along most of a shark's body, it grants the animal a highly
directional sense of movements of potential predators and prey in
its immediate vicinity. The variety in morphological structure and
spatial distribution of the lateral line pores determine functional
parameters such as response properties, distance range of the
system, receptive field area and which component of water motion
(velocity or acceleration) is encoded (Denton and Grey, 1983, 1988).Sharks that have been temporarily blinded in experiments have
been able to avoid colliding with the wall of the tank which
contained them, apparently by sensing water waves reflected from the
tank wall. Thus, even in highly turbid water, where vision is
all-but useless, a shark can tell exactly where obstacles and other
creatures are, even if it cannot see them.
The best known behavioural use of the lateral line in sharks is in
prey detection.Other
uses of the lateral line, particularly in bony fish, include
schooling behaviour, social communication, hydrodynamic imaging,
predator avoidance and rheotaxis.The concentration of mechanorecpetors on the cephalic region
of sharks and ventral surface of batoids, as well as the low
frequency, close range of the system, indicates an important role in
the detection, localisation and capture of prey.Swimming and feeding movements of invertebrates and vortex
trails behind swimming fish can produce water movements within the
frequency and sensitivity range of the lateral line system
(Montgomery et al., 1995). | {
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The offensive began last week and military officials said it was expected to take weeks, if not months.
Hillary Clinton, at a New Hampshire rally, said Trump “is basically declaring defeat before the battle has even started” and “proving to the world what it means to have an unqualified commander in chief.” See Laura Figueroa’s story for Newsday.
Trump has said Mosul should have been retaken in a “sneak attack” and it was “stupid” for officials to talk about the offensive ahead of time. Military planning experts said that stealth was unrealistic in an operation this big and the warnings gave civilians in Iraq’s second-largest city a chance to try to escape.
The take-away: True concessions
Trump’s warnings that he may not accept the election results if he’s on the losing side may not have much practical effect, writes Newsday’s Dan Janison. If and where a state’s votes are close, legal challenges aren’t beyond the pale. A concession isn’t constitutionally required.
Those dots don’t connect
Trump complained “phony” polls are aimed at undermining him and drew a spurious connection between those done for news media and a WikiLeaks-unearthed memo from Clinton’s 2008 campaign about internal polling.
No. The term refers to quizzing extra members of particular groups within the electorate to get a larger sample and more accurate results about those groups. It doesn’t mean overweighting those results to skew a picture of the electorate at large. See this explainer from Fox News.
Trump’s Obamacare opening
Trump looks to have new ammo for his attacks on the Affordable Care Act now that the Obama administration has confirmed a sharp boost in premiums next year.
Clinton, he said Monday, “wants to double down and make it more expensive and it’s not gonna work. ... Our country can’t afford it, you can’t afford it.” He promised his own plan would deliver “great health care at a fraction of the cost.”
Trump has promised to repeal Obamacare, but it’s not entirely clear that his alternative ideas would bring significant cost cuts, and critics say millions would lose coverage. Clinton argues the system can be fixed and coverage expanded.
Sunshine state
Early voting began Monday in Florida, the biggest prize of the battleground states, where Trump held rallies with thousands of supporters promising to “drain the swamp” of Washington corruption. See Michael Gormley’s story for Newsday.
RealClearPolitics’ tracking of recent polls shows Clinton leading by an average 3.8 points in the fight for Florida’s 29 electoral votes.And Politico reports that Trump's best hope may lie with low turnout there.
What else is happening
Trump will take a brief break from swing-state campaigning Wednesday to attend the official grand opening and ribbon-cutting at his new Washington hotel.
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch was the target in hacked strategy emails to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta -- specifically, pushing to convince him of the political potency and scientific reality of climate change.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren expanded on the "nasty woman" meme in New Hampshire, warning Trump at a Clinton rally: "Nasty women are tough, nasty women are smart, and nasty women vote.”
Trump’s campaign has launched a nightly news show on Facebook, feeding speculation he might want to start a Trump TV venture after the election.
Sen. Bernie Sanders' role as a lefty leader on Capitol Hill becomes a point of suspense if Clinton wins, the Washington Post reports.
Skullduggery, as reported by Politco: "A liberal activist and organizer coordinated with reporters from the conservative news site Breitbart during the primaries to cover his disruptions of events for candidates such as Sen. Marco Rubio." Full story here.
A 32-year-old co-founder of Facebook, Dustin Moskovitz, has donated $35 million to pro-Clinton and Democratic-aligned super PACs in the past six weeks. Previously,, his recorded political donations totaled $5,200, Politico says.
Clinton is doing better with younger voters, who had previously supported candidates such as Bernie Sanders and John Kasich, as Election Day nears, according to a new GenForward poll of Americans 18 to 30 for The Associated Press.
Sanders told The Washington Post that he plans to push liberal legislation with like-minded senators with or without Clinton’s support if she is elected, and to aggressively oppose appointments that do not pass muster with progressives.
Trump mocked the latest sex abuse accuser to come forward, former porn star Jessica Drake. “Oh, I’m sure she’s never been grabbed before,” Trump said on a New Hampshire radio station. He denied her story.
Clinton’s chances of losing are 8%, as probable as an NFL kicker missing a 30-yard field goal, according to The New York Times’ Upshot blog. On Sunday, kickers for the Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks missed overtime tries of 24 and 27 yards, respectively. So it’s not over yet.
Kellyanne Conway doesn't seem to be required as campaign manager to maintain consistency with her candidate Donald Trump, judging by recent events.
Obama taunted Trump again on the Jimmy Kimmel show by first reading a Trump tweet calling him the "worst president" in US history. Obama's response: "At least I will go down as a president."
An inside look at Trump Tower by Bloomberg News describes a building "that gangsters, gamblers, celebrities and billionaires have called home." | {
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CEO Webinar Series: Intelligent Growth: Decisions, Intent, Outcomes
6 December 2019
Online
ACORD CEO Bill Pieroni will review the comprehensive analysis of the growth patterns of approximately 11,000 insurance carriers worldwide will focus on the intersection between growth and value in order to identify the key drivers, strategies & tactics, and levers behind profitable, sustainable growth. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Dorito:
I really liked this team and was sad that they got eliminated. I thought that it was funny how on TES whoever it was giving them the interview called Monica JILL! I mean there were alot of comparisons pre-season from this team to JVJ and K/J but come on after they got eliminated it was obdvious that they we're nothing like JVJ. How could she make such a mistake?
Bathfizzy:
I was so happy that MOJO got eliminated. They were getting on my nerves. What puzzled me during the show was why did the taxi driver told MOJO that they should not go to the other bus counter to inquire about the bus?? The taxi driver stated he knows how things are or something like that. Then when MOJO purchased tickets for the 5:20 a.m. bus -- they asked the lady behind the counter if it was the first bus when in fact there was an earlier one at 4 a.m. when BJ and Tyler got on. Did MOJO piss off their taxi driver and he told everyone not to help out? :snicker:
puddin:
RNO's MoJo interview ."We Get Mad at Each Other But Always Have Respect for Each Other” - An Interview with The Amazing Race 9’s Monica and Joseph by Jenn Brasler -- 05/12/2006
All of the final four Amazing Race teams were worthy competitors, but one team had to go. Joseph and Monica, AKA Mojo, were that unlucky team. Read on to find out how things are now, what they would have done differently, and why Joseph really didn’t like the hippies
puddin:
Amazing Race Loses Its MoJoby Rochell D. Thomas
Joseph and Monica, The Amazing Race
They tried and tried, but last week Team Mojo lost its, um, mojo in Thailand when Monica collapsed under the pressure of racing for 28 days and dropped a few too many clay pots. Now, in tonight's season finale of The Amazing Race 9, three teams run for the border and the $1 million prize. Who'll crack next? "Frat Boys" Eric and Jeremy get the Arkansans' vote. "They're the best, most consistent team — so fit and smart," Monica says. "They deserve to win." TVGuide.com: Did you think you'd make it to the final four?Monica: We thought we had a pretty good chance to make it to the final three!
TVGuide.com: And what happened?Joseph: S----y cabdrivers happened!
TVGuide.com: True, a lot of The Race is out of your control, with cabdrivers and people who don't speak English. Where did you have the best cabbie?Monica: In Italy, after Palermo — which I know how to pronounce now, thank you — we said to our cabdriver, "Would you stay with us and let us follow you to the Castle?" He led us there and when we got there, he spoke to all the locals. Joseph: That guy was amazing. He not only drove really fast and knew right where we were going, but he was a huge help. We made up all that time on the Hippies and Eric and Jeremy. We arrived three hours behind them and were right behind them coming in [to the pit stop].
TVGuide.com: You also made up a lot of time after the Hippies yielded to you in Lake Bennet, Australia.Joseph: The didgeridoo part was key — you have to really read into those clues. It said, "Play one note." You could get that note in one minute... or in 10. Monica: Right. We knew that wasn't going to be very hard. And being in a river [for a mile would have taken] longer.
TVGuide.com: What do you consider to be the biggest mistake you made?Joseph: Probably when we didn't ask our cabdriver to stay when we did the pots [in Koh Kret, Thailand]. I wish we would have said, "Hey, man, will you stick around? We'll pay you!"Monica: When we were done with the pots, we were pretty even with Ray and Yolanda. The [camera crew] was saying, "Don't give up." But finding a cab took 20 minutes. There's no question in my mind that we would have been in the top three if we'd had a cab.
TVGuide.com: Monica, have you ever cried so much in your life?Monica: [Laughs] It's really tough. Sleep deprivation and being where you can't eat anything... it gets to you. In the fish market, my arms were bleeding and having allergic reactions, so I cried. But [on screen] it doesn't look like that's what happened. It just looks like I didn't like the fish.
TVGuide.com: Which was worse: carrying the swordfish or the clay pots?Monica: Oh, carrying the clay pots!Joseph: That was a longer walk — around half a mile — and it was more tedious in the sense that you were carrying a 10-foot board, zigzagging in and out of these sidewalks in the Thai market. You could barely nick the end of your board and pots would fall off. It was a lot harder than it looked.
TVGuide.com: Monica, now that the race is over, do you still wish the Frat Boys hadn't given B.J. shoes? The dude was barefoot!Monica: Yes, because you can't get on the plane if you don't have shoes. If he really needed shoes, he could have gone back for them, because he lost them.
TVGuide.com: Wow, no remorse!Joseph: No remorse. You're on a race. Why would you help someone out? We couldn't understand that strategy with the other teams.
TVGuide.com: But didn't other teams help you out?Joseph: Sure. But when someone comes in last place and gets noneliminated, twice... we're not going to give them any help.
TVGuide.com: Refresh our memory: When exactly did you and the Hippies become enemies?Joseph: They started the war, actually, in Oman when they told Eric and Jeremy they wanted to yield us. That came out of left field. We didn't know what we had done to them to make them want to do that.Monica: They also stooped to a new level by making up rumors about me and Eric, which we didn't appreciate.
TVGuide.com: Speaking of flirting and things going on, there are a lot of couples. Is there time for sex on the race? Joseph: [Long pause] I don't know. You're very tired at the end of each leg. I don't know about the other teams.Monica: According to Fran and Barry, it ruined their sex life.
TVGuide.com: Last question: If you had gone for the fast-forward in Thailand, do you think you would have been able to eat the crickets?Joseph: I definitely think we would have given B.J. and Tyler a run for their money.Monica: I've never eaten a cricket. But I'm not one of those people who are like, "Ew, a bug! I'm not eating that." I would make myself eat it.Joseph: This isn't Fear Factor where you can't throw up. I definitely think we could have shoved in a handful and then thrown up and ate some more.
TVGuide.com: Joseph, in your final episode, you mentioned that Monica was the woman you wanted to marry. Have you officially asked her yet?Joseph: I have not officially asked Monica yet. I'm a very surprising kind of guy.
TVGuide.com: So what's next for you two? Joseph: Monica's graduating college this weekend.Monica: I'm going to do real estate for a little bit. Joseph's a developer, so I'm going to sell his houses. Then hopefully I'll get into PR, maybe for a nonprofit. It's what I've always wanted to do. | {
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Cincinnati Reds - Great American Ball Park Seat Reviews
Great American Ball Park has been home to the Cincinnati Reds since 2003. It was constructed at an estimated cost of $290 Million dollars and has a capacity of 42,271. The stadium hosted the 2015 MLB All-Star Game. | {
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Three Patriotic Manis for the 4th of July
Your BBQ plans are set and you’ve got your red, white, and blue outfit on standby. Now your nails just need to get into the patriotic spirit. This Fourth of July, try out one of these easier-than-they-look manis to add some fireworks to your fingertips.
Stars and Stripes Forever
It wouldn’t be Independence Day without a little flag-inspired nail art. Start by painting four nails on each hand with red polish—we love Ruffian’s classic shade. After it dries, use a nail art pen in white like this one from Color Club to paint horizontal stripes across your nails. Dip a fine brush in nail polish remover to clean up around the edges. Next, paint the remaining finger with Ruffian’s Blue Lagoon. Use a toothpick or a paperclip to drop dots of white polish onto your nail, then drag the white polish from the center outwards until you’ve created several points on each star. Once your nails have dried completely, add a glossy top coat for extra shine and protection.
Seeing Patriotic Spots
Embrace the classic American colors in a more abstract way with this gradient dotted design that you can wear throughout the summer. Start by painting your nails with a pearlescent white polish like Color Club Heirloom Pearls. Next, use a toothpick, a paperclip, or even the end of the brush to apply small dots of polish to your nails, concentrating them at the tips. Apply one color at a time, starting with Ruffian red, then the a deep blue like OPI’s Eurso Euro, and then a lighter blue like Color Club’s Aquamarine Azulino, also part of the Gala’s Gems collection. Let your nails dry completely so the dots don’t smear, then finish the look with a shiny top coat.
Fingertip Pyrotechnics
To recreate that sparkly firework effect, start by painting your nails a satiny black like Ruffian Cire Noir. Then, using the glitteriest shades you can find (we love Ruffian Relic and Deborah Lippmann’s Fake it Til You Make it), paint thin lines shooting out from a single point. Start the design from a different place on each nail (the bottom right corner of your thumb, the top center of your pointer finger, and so on). Clean up any stray polish with a Q-tip dipped in polish remover, then seal with a high-gloss top coat. | {
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We are experts in commercial, industrial metal fabrication and large scale machining.We are fully equipped to process a wide variety of requirements.We will take any project from concept, through fabrication and installation.We are proud to have earned an industry reputation for being on time and on budget while maintaining the highest quality finished product. | {
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Considering its age, a report claims that the British automaker has signed off on development of the next generation of Jaguar XJ luxury sedan. The decision to introduce the next generation of Jaguar XJ sedan was influenced by the success of its rival, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class. Read Full News
British luxury car manufacturer Jaguar, has launched the updated version of its flagship sedan the XJ at INR 98.03 lacs (Ex-showroom, Mumbai). The changes include minor nips and tucks on the front and rear, however, (all new) new all LED exteriors lighting have been introduced along with the latest DRL setup for the headlamps. This epitome of luxury will compete against the likes of BMW 7-series, Audi A8 and the Mercedes-Benz S-Class. Read Full News | {
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} |
Detailed UX customization using custom CSS and Javascript-
You can create a custom.css file overriding existing CSS and elements and similarly create custom.js and give it to us. We will upload it against your account.
You can also just share the UX design screenshots with us and we can design the user portal/dashboard UX for you. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Become a part of your state association
You can easily become part of the structure that decides the goals and direction of NEARI. There are many opportunities to use your skills and talents by joining the Association committees listed here.
President Larry Purtill appoints members to these committees biannually. Email Cheryl Hawes for more information.
2015-17 NEARI Committees
Budget: Chaired by the NEARI treasurer, the Budget Committee presents a yearly budget recommendation to the Executive Committee and Delegate Assembly for adoption.
Legislative Commission: Chaired by the vice president, the Commission develops NEARI’s legislative program for the upcoming legislative session and takes positions on approximately 400-500 bills each year. It meets five-six times to complete its work.
NEARI-PACE (20 appointments available): NEARI-PACE is the political action arm of the organization. This committee interviews and makes recommendations in political races on the state and federal level. Each local is required to have representation, beyond the president’s 20 appointments.
Member Rights: Chaired by the vice president, the Member Rights Committee hears appeals of members who wish to challenge their local associations’ decisions regarding their rights on such issues as legal representation and discrimination.
Personnel: Comprised of statewide officers, this committee’s responsibility is to handle personnel issues such as staffing and contract negotiations, and to make related recommendations to the Executive Committee.
Public Awareness: This committee works with the communications director to plan and implement programs such as Read Across America.
Member Benefits: This committee researches and recommends programs to benefit our members in such areas as financial planning, credit cards, and insurance.
Resolutions: The purpose of the committee is to develop resolutions that guide the organization, and present those Resolutions to the May Delegate Assembly for adoption.
Constitution and By-Laws (limited to five members by the By-Laws): This committee reviews the Constitution and By-Laws, making recommendations for change to the NEARI Executive Committee and Delegate Assembly.
Member Volunteer Program (MVP) Team: Members interested in taking a leadership role through community volunteerism are encouraged to join the MVP Team. Those wishing to meet with the core team to organize activities should email Communications Director Stephanie Mandeville.
Racial & Social Justice Committee: Currently information (September 2017)! If you would like to attend the organizational meeting on September 27, RSVP here or contact Sarah Markey. | {
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Small cells are currently the big buzz word in the wireless industry. Many of the major wireless operators in the US including AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint have committed to use small cells throughout their networks. In fact AT&T has committed to deploy 40,000 small cells by the end of 2015, which reveals that wireless operators are serious about this technology. This begs the question what are small cells and why are they needed?
Macro vs Small Cell in New York City
Small cells as its name suggests are smaller cellular base stations. By smaller this includes physical size, RF coverage area, and cost. Another term which is used in the same context as small cells is distrusted antenna systems or DAS. A DAS is made up of a number of small antennas nodes which then connect back via fiber to a cellular base station. With a small cell all the intelligence is housed within the device, while a DAS node is just a dumb transmitter and receiver and the intelligence is housed at remote location. DAS technology has been in the marketplace for a couple of years and has been successfully deployed in both outdoor and indoor environments. Small cells are brand new to the market, and they are gaining popularly as they should be cheaper and simpler to deploy than a DAS.
DAS Node
The need for small cells is being driven by the surge in mobile data consumption. The popularity of smartphones and tablets means that people are consuming large amounts of data on their mobile devices. People are not just using their mobiles devices to surf the web, but they are streaming videos and uploading pictures using applications such as Netflix, YouTube, and Instagram. While LTE was designed to support these mobile applications, the usage is growing quicker than improvements in wireless efficiency which is making networks congested.
Source: broadband.gov
To better understand the situation it is important to look at the capacity of an LTE base station which is called an eNB. LTE is similar in technology to the 802.11N Wi-Fi standard. Both use similar modulation schemes and data transmissions technologies. Many LTE networks in the US use 10MHz LTE carriers using a technology called frequency division duplex, or FDD. This means that 10MHz of spectrum is used in separate downlink and uplink channels. This allows for full duplex communication and means the total amount of spectrum that is used is 20MHz. Wi-Fi along with some forms of LTE use a technology called time division duplex or TDD. With this technology the downlink and uplink data is interleaved in the time domain using the same channel.
Source: blog.3g4g.co.uk
The standard Wi-Fi channel is 20MHz wide which uses the same amount of spectrum as a 10MHz FDD LTE carrier. While a normal Wi-Fi access point might only serve a few people, an LTE base station has to support hundreds of users in the same bandwidth. An LTE base station is really a high tech Wi-Fi router with advanced resource and user scheduling technology. If a hundred people tried streaming videos from the same Wi-Fi router the performance would be mediocre, and the same holds true with LTE. To improve performance a simple solution is to decrease the number of people using the connection. While this might seem obvious this is one way cellular operations ensure that their networks do not become overloaded and congested.
For the last twenty years the number of cell sites has been growing while the coverage area of each cell has been shrinking. The concept is relatively simple and is known as cell splitting. Instead of having one large cell site which serves an area, if two smaller cell sites are used which serve the same geographical area there will be close to double the capacity. This concept has been successfully used for a long time, but today there is so much usage in major cities that a cell site is need on every block. It is impractical due to cost and space requirements to put conventional cellular base stations on every block. This is why small cells are being utilized. They allow for a denser deployment as they can be mounted on light poles and sides of buildings instead on towers or rooftops. Instead of having one conventional cell site every four blocks, now it is possible to have a small cell on every block greatly increasing capacity.
Source: http://www.research.att.com
Give that small cells are a new technology there are still many questions that still need to be answered. Will small cells be economic viable? Will small cells be reliable? The big question remains whether small cells are the solution to the explosive mobile data growth that is occurring. Regardless of the success of small cells, the increase in mobile data consumption will force wireless operators to come up with innovative ways to meet mobile data demands.
A little over six months ago, Sprint-Nextel laid out its strategy for revamping its wireless network and called the plan “Network Vision.” If you have read any of my previous articles about Sprint, you would know that Sprint has not had any real network strategy since purchasing Nextel back in 2005. Today Sprint still has numerous sites where they have yet to combine their iDEN, CDMA/EVDO, and Clearwire’s WiMax network which has resulted in poor coverage and high maintenance and real estate costs. Well this is all about to change with Network Vision. After seven years without any true network plan, Sprint-Nextel has something that actually makes sense.
Sprint Network Vision Tower (Alcatel-Lucent Equipment)
Here is a brief overview of what “Network Vision” entails. The website, http://s4gru.com, has some excellent detailed information on what “Network Vision” really means from a technical perspective.
- Consolidate its cell sites, by removing sites that are not needed. Sprint currently has 68,000 sites and will reduce this by 44% to eventually remain with 38,000 sites.
* AT&T claims they have 55,000 cell sites so once Network Vision is completed its nationwide coverage will still lag behind that of AT&T.
- Shutting down iDEN and reusing the spectrum to support at least one 800MHz CDMA 1X Advanced carrier.
* Deploying a 1X carrier in the 800MHz spectrum will greatly improve the voice performance along with coverage for Sprint, especially inside buildings.
Frequency plan for new 1X advanced carriers. Source: s4gru.com
- Deploying a LTE carrier in a 5x5MHz channel configuration in their 1900MHz (PCS) spectrum.
* LTE is the future and this will give Sprint the opportunity to have a nationwide LTE network.
* 5MHz channels will offer only half the data speeds of the 10MHz channel that Verizon Wireless uses. Still it will be vastly faster than EVDO with 50ms latency.
* Deploying on the 1900MHz spectrum will mean that Sprint will not have as good coverage or indoor penetration as either Verizon Wireless or AT&T which are using 700MHz.
PCS Band Plan. Source: howardforums.com
- Using Remote Radio Heads (RRH) for their existing CDMA/EVDO network and upcoming LTE network
* RRH moves the base station amplifier from the bottom of the tower to the top of the tower. This eliminates the attenuation of long runs of coax cable up the tower. According to this spec sheet from Andrews, 100FT of 1 ¼ coax has a loss of 1.6dB at 1900MHz, or a power loss of 31% at the top of the tower. Thus going with the RRH solution should yield 30%+ more power output along with a 30% increase in receive power over today’s coax solution.
* This should improve coverage and performance of Sprint’s existing CDMA/EVDO network. The combination of the 800MHz spectrum and RRH should really help Sprint’s voice coverage.
Sprint is using three RRH per face (1 for 800MHz CDMA, 1 for PCS EVDO, 1 for PCS LTE)
At the end of the day Sprint will have a CDMA/EVDO/LTE network, just like Verizon Wireless. By consolidating its cell sites and turning off iDEN, Sprint will save a ton of money on operating expenses. It is interesting that Sprint is investing a lot of time and money upgrading CDMA/EVDO instead of just focusing on deploying LTE. Additionally, with MetroPCS, AT&T, and Verizon Wireless all committing to VOLTE it is interesting that Sprint is planning on deploying CDMA 1X Advanced for voice calls. Sprint must have believed that its CDMA/EVDO networks could be greatly improved with Network Vision and that both these technologies will be around for some time. Sprint has been successful at finding ways to monetize its old networks, such as offering Boost Mobile prepaid service over its iDEN network. As postpaid customers move to LTE, Sprint could offer competitively priced but slower data services overs its CDMA/EVDO network to maximize its investment.
The one element that was left out of Network Vision is Clearwire which Sprint owns 54% of the company. If Clearwire partnered with Sprint, like Lightsquared attempted before all their GPS interference issues, Clearwire’s network consolidation could save a great deal of money for the small carrier. Clearwire will be upgrading its network to LTE, but it will be based on TD-LTE technology instead of FDD-LTE that all the other US carriers are using. Clearwire’s 2.5GHz spectrum limits its usefulness to urban areas and the high cell density needed for good coverage makes network expansion expensive. Clearwire is hoping to sell extra LTE capacity to the major wireless carriers, but using a different LTE technology and a separate frequency band than everyone else will make this difficult. While Sprint’s issues with Clearwire remain, Network Vision is a huge step in the right direction for Sprint. One complete it will offer much greater voice coverage, improved EVDO performance, and most importantly bring Sprint into the LTE game.
Mobile security has become a growing concern with the rise of smartphones and tablets. Vulnerabilities in mobile operating systems and malicious applications are an ever increasing threat to personal information and security. Almost all of the focus for mobile security has been centered around protecting personal information stored on mobile devices. Very little research has been done in protecting cellular networks from distributed denial of service attacks, or DDoS attacks. DDoS attacks have been long used on the internet to disrupt web sites and web services. A DDoS attack is simple in theory, thousands or even millions of computers simultaneously request information from a website which overloads the servers causing the website to stop functioning.
There is a new type of DDoS attack that is possible with mobile devices called a mobile distributed attack, or mDDoS. An mDDoS attack is different from a traditional DDoS attack in that an mDDoS attack targets a cellular network, with the purpose of disrupting or even brining it down, instead of a website or web application. mDDoSattacks are possible as cellular networks can only support a very limited number of active users at a time. The number of active users at a given time varies depending on the network technology such as UMTS, EVDO, or LTE, but eventually it all comes down to the number of orthogonal codes or OFDM symbols that the different technologies utilize. Usually the small number of active users isn’t an issue as the probability that everyone on a particular cell site is updating Facebook, surfing the net, or calling Grandma at a given instant is unlikely.
When a mobile device sends a request through the airwaves to the cell site it expects to receive a response. A cell site at capacity either rejects or ignores the service request. This causes the mobile devices to retry the service request, but this time the request is sent at a higher power. When numerous mobile devices increase their transmission power it eventually creates enough interference that the base station’s capacity to serve users is severely reduced. When this happens mobile devices have a difficult time accessing the network and their data connections start to fail. Usually this is not an issue as cellular networks are designed to handle a normal traffic distribution through a process known as traffic engineering.
An mDDoS attack uses the technique of overloading the RF air interface to effectively bring down a cellular network. To execute an mDDoS attack, multiple mobile devices need to start sending data or initiate a phone call at the same instant in time. To accomplish this, a malicious app can be used to coordinate and execute the attack. The idea about how to install and spread a malicious app across millions of mobile devices is an entirely different topic, but if this can be achieved the results could be devastating. Unlike a DDoS attack where the attacking traffic can be routed by ISP’s and network operators to minimize the impact, an mDDoS attack is much harder to stop. An mDDoS attack focuses on layer 1, the RF link signaling link. Since mobile devices must follow the protocols laid out in the 3GPP and 3GPP2 standards it is difficult to engineer countermeasures.
The good news is that it is challenging to launch a successfully mDDoS attack. Most cellular networks are designed with extra capacity in mind to prevent unexpected events from causing network outages. This means that if a small number of mobiles connected to a cell site are vulnerable and an mDDoS attack is launched, it is unlikely this attack will have an impact. While mDDoS attacks are improbable, it reveals how vulnerable cellular networks are to organized attacks. To conclude, the adoption of highly advanced mobile devices such as smartphones not only increases the security threat to consumers, but also cellular network operators.
Today AT&T launched its 4G LTE network in five cities. While this is a big step for AT&T, its main competitor, Verizon Wireless, already launched its 4G LTE network almost ten months ago. Verizon’s 4G LTE network now has service in 143 markets and covers over half the US population. Wireless carriers that utilize EVDO technology for 3G services such as Sprint-Nextel and Verizon Wireless have been the first to move to 4G technologies as EVDO offers slower theoretical speeds than the competing HSDPA+ technology. A single EVDO rev. A channel’s theoretical speed is 3.1Mbps in the downlink and 1.8Mbps in the uplink while a single HSDPA+ (not utilizing channel bonding or MIMO) channel can offer 21Mbps in the downlink and 5.8Mbps in the uplink. In real word applications the speed advantage for HSDPA+ is much less because HSDPA+ carries voice calls over the same channel which reduces the data speeds. Verizon Wireless and AT&T have always used different network technologies with Verizon choosing the CDMA (3GPP2) path while AT&T electing the GSM (3GPP) route. While both technologies offer their share of advantages and disadvantages, going forward both companies will use the same network technology – Long Term Evolution or LTE.
LTE is not a one size fit all technology, but instead a technology that allows for a variety of different configurations which greatly impact how it is deployed and its performance. Both AT&T and Verizon Wireless utilize frequency division duplex (FDD) mode which means that the upload and download channels are on two separate frequencies. LTE also offers the capability to use time division duplex (TDD) which allows for both the download and upload channels to use one frequency with the download and upload being allocated different time slots.
Source: 3g4g.blogspot.com
Another similarity between AT&T and Verizon Wireless is that they are both utilizing 2×2 MIMO antenna technology. While LTE supports MIMO is an extremely complicated topic, but basically it allows double the amount of data to be transferred in a single channel by utilizing two transmit and receive antennas instead of one.
Source: mpirical.com
LTE release 8 supports the options for one, two, or four antenna configurations where the highest performance is achieved utilizing a 4×4 MIMO solution. Almost all wireless carriers are choosing the 2×2 MIMO route as it offers the best performance/price ratio. To go with a 4×4 MIMO solution over that of 2×2 MIMO means that double the number of antennas and amplifiers are needed along with more powerful processors in mobile handsets and base stations to decode the additional data streams. Additionally according research by Ericsson Communication, MIMO only provides performance improvements when a receiver has a signal to noise ratio (SNR) of approximately 10dB or better. This means that MIMO is most beneficial when a user is close to the cell site, which for most cell sites is only a small percent of the users.
Source: Ericsson
The main difference between AT&T’s and Verizon Wireless’ 4G LTE network is the bandwidth that each channel uses, and this is based on the spectrum allocation that both companies own. AT&T is using a mixture of 10MHz and 5MHz channels while Verizon Wireless is solely using 10MHz channels. In areas where AT&T uses 5MHz channels, Verizon Wireless’ network will theoretically offer double the performance of that of AT&T’s. Theoretically a 10MHz channel utilizing 2×2 MIMO supports peak downlink data rates of 73Mbps while a 5MHz channel will only support 37Mbps. As with any wireless technology reaching anywhere near these theoretically numbers is extremely unlikely. AT&T knows that its 5MHz channels will put it at a large capacity and speed disadvantage compared to Verizon Wireless, so in markets where it has both 700MHz and AWS spectrum it will try to utilize two 5MHz channels instead of just one. The two channels become beneficial when a large number of users are on the network and the load is distributed across two 5MHz channels instead of crowding everyone into one 5MHz channel. Currently, these two channels can’t be bonded for higher throughput, but this technology will come available in LTE Advanced and is known as carrier aggregation.
Source: anandtech.com
The final difference between the two 4G LTE networks is the base station radios used. A growing trend in the wireless industry is to mount the base station’s radio and amplifier at the top of the tower. This is known as remote radio heads (RRH) and this technology minimizes the cable attenuation experienced by an antenna system. In traditional base station deployments, the radios and amplifiers are mounted on the ground, where they can be easily upgraded and repaired, and thick coax runs up the tower to the antennas. The issue with this is that long runs of coax cable experience attenuation. According to this spec sheet, 100FT of 1 ¼ coax cable has a loss of 1.6dB or roughly 31% less power at the top of the tower compared to when the signal left the amplifier. Clearly reducing the antenna’s output power by 31% not only reduces coverage and degrades downlink throughput, but it also affects the uplink. The antenna at the top of the power sees 31% more power from the mobile handset that what actually makes it to the base station. This result in decreases coverage, reduced uplink throughput, and diminished battery life for handsets. By mounting the radio and amplifier at the top of the top the 1.6dB cable loss is practically eliminated, greatly improving performance over traditional base station deployments. Instead of running thick coax up the tower, a much thinner combined fiber optic cable and power cable are run to each remote radio head.
AT&T 700MHz LTE RRH
Clearwire’s 4G WiMAX network was the first wireless operator to solely use RRH and they can be easily spotted by the large boxes connecting to the antenna. AT&T is following in Clearwire’s footsteps by primarily using RRH for its LTE deployment. Currently RRH can only support one technology and frequency band, so with AT&T dual frequency (700MHz and AWS) LTE deployment this means two RRH are needed for each face of the tower (most towers have three faces). Most of the Verizon Wireless tower I have observed do not have any RRH mounted, so it is probable they are going with the conventional base station deployment model with the radios and amplifiers mounted at the bottom of the tower. The benefit of this solution is that equipment can be quickly and easily repaired and upgraded while staying protected from the outdoor elements. When a RRH goes bad or needs to be upgraded it requires someone to climb the tower which is time consuming and can become very costly. Given that RRH technology is still very new, it will take time to see whether the performance gains of RRH make up for the limitations in repair and upgradability.
Overall, the technology is similar for both Verizon Wireless’ and AT&T’s LTE networks. While the technology might be similar, Verizon Wireless is the clear leader already having half the US population covered compared to just five cities for ATt&T. In the end regardless of whether one chooses Verizon Wireless or AT&T, US consumers are the true winners having access to multiple advanced 4G LTE networks. | {
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Pages
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Wow, knock me over with a feather! Dear Hubby came in bearing candy heart gifts for Dear Daughter and I and then handed me a lovely red bag filled with red tissue. Inside I found this THIS lovely ring, so….what else could it be on Valentine’s Day but 13 things I like about my new ring:
1. I’ve gone completely silly over it, and couldn’t stand not making a record of receiving it.
2. The yellow stone is a citrine surrounded by diamonds. You can find out more about citrines here
3. It was a complete surprise. I love to be surprised!
4. You notice it. It can be seen across the room. Ok, I know that sounds stuck up, but I like large pieces. I don’t have too many real honest-to-goodness items, but the one or two I have are hefty.
Prada....now that's a label. I watched The Devil Wears Prada last night. There are some great clothes and great lines in that movie. I loved it, but need to sit through it again since I was online through most of it.
My hubby is in Japan so I am hoping for a nice surprise when he gets home. Although he hasn't done to shabby so for I got a phone call, which while it doesn't sound like much considering the time difference took a major effort on his part and I have been enjoying reading about his adventures. I love to travel even if it is second hand.
Nice to see romance alive and well. If I were you, I'd wear my ring everywhere . . . and for the next little while (not just today) manage to slip it into each and every conversation I had. Thanks for sharing!
ok, WOW! What an amazing gift. I often get jealous when I see these great gifts. My hubby doesn't believe in having this one day to show your love, yes, I got a very nice card, but it was just like another day. We celebrate our love at different times, I guess. Take a nice trip, etc. He never grew up with family who celebrated and in the past seven years, I have not gotten him to change. But.....thats ok! He loves me and that is what is important.
I, too, was surprised with a ring. Mine is a blue topaz, with two little diamonds on each side. But, yours is larger and quite worthy of the praise you gave it. I am very happy for you! Best of all is being remembered, isn't it? I mean, with something other than a vacuum cleaner of course. | {
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I decided to create this blog to share my experiences, thoughts, and lessons through my cancer journey. As I have discovered veganism, good books, and inspiring arts along the way, this is a delicious, thought provoking, and creative healing journey.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Farm Sanctuary
Look at this pig's cute little face?
Remember when you were a child and you sang songs like "Old MacDonald" and "Baa Baa Black Sheep", imagining some idyllic pastoral scene? The cows nibbled hay, the pigs rolled around in their mudbath, and the chickens pecked at seeds in the dirt. Sigh! What a beautiful scene? But that ideal picture of Canadiana is reserved for history books. Sigh! Most farm animals are not raised in such natural settings. Instead, they are raised in an industrial complex where pigs lose their "pigmanship" (origin in Farm Sanctuary) and become products of protein and consumption. Chances are Old MacDonald does not own his farm any more and is on contract with a mega-billion dollar agricultural giant to grow thousands of products (read: animals) to industry specifications. He does not own his means of production and had to take hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to transform his farm into a high-tech operation, loans that he cannot repay, and now he may also be depressed and contemplating suicide. "Old MacDonald's Farm", a family-owned business, simply does not exist any more (or at least becoming extremely rare).
Sometimes I must admit that I feel discouraged being a vegan. Walking from restaurant to restaurant, searching for vegan options, asking a million and one questions about food preparation, bringing my own vegan cheese to an Italian restaurant, going to specialty stores to buy vegan basic essentials, spending extra money on going plant-based ($7 for a microwave dinner, c'mon)... it can feel downright like a hostile environment. So when I read a book like Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food by Gene Baur, my commitment to veganism was renewed. Farm Sanctuary tells about more than thirty years of activism for animal rights, fighting against factory farming and slaughterhouses, rescues, and legislation reforms at all levels of government. Baur begins describing his roots growing up in California of German immigrant parents and his agrarian ancestry. He felt moved to animal activism as he began to examine compassion at all levels and pursued studies in animal sciences. In 1986, Gene, and his wife at the time, founded the Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, NY to "to combat the abuses of factory farming and to encourage a new awareness and understanding about 'farm animals.' At Farm Sanctuary, these animals are our friends, not our food" (source Farm Sanctuary website). Backed with the support of its sponsors and a number of Hollywood celebrities to boot, Baur's efforts have resulted in two farms (a 175-acre shelter in upstate New York and a 300-acre shelter in Orland, California), rescue and adoption programs, and educational resources. What is also really awesome is that you can visit this place in real life which I plan to do (Funky Sexy Manifesto #38).
Unlike my parents who grew up in rural Jamaica, I was not brought up with animals around me (aside from a few pet fish). Until about four years ago, my fiance and I adopted two cats. According to me, "cats are people too". Until I lived with Marcus and Makeda, I was totally unaware of the diverse emotions, vocalizations, uniquenesses, longings, and personalities of cats. Animals are sentient (feeling) beings and somewhere along the line, I think many people, myself included, got disconnected from that fact.
Farm Sanctuary had a lot of details about animal rights laws, legislations, and court cases-- a little too much for my taste. I do not find this information interesting but I think without them the book would not be complete. The legal battles and activism have been a part of Farm Sanctuary from the very beginning.
What I appreciated the most were the animal stories in this book. I felt that Gene Baur creates the picture of an animal's soul. Like us humans, animals have an innate desire to live, avoid pain, and attain its basic needs with as little effort as possible. Through personal stories at the end of each chapter, Baur tells about the various animals rescued and brought to the Farm Sanctuary locations. Each animal has a unique journey back to health (reminds me of someone I know, ahem) and a special name. There is even a sheep named Persia, after one of my favourite vegan animal rights activists, film producer/actress/musician and former star of "Girlfriends", Persia White.
I think one of the reasons that these animal stories speak so much to me is because I am a Black person and I know that not too long ago, there were numerous corrupt institutional systems of power which deemed me and other people of colour as "products" for consumption and unfeeling in nature. When I read about slaughterhouses, factory farms, transportation of animals, forced breeding and confinement, crowding, mutilation, separations of offspring from families, lack of sanitation, drugging, denial of basic care, and other abuses to billions of animals each year, I think of the wrongful capture, enslavement, splitting of families, trans-Atlantic crossing of ships packed with kidnapped people, slavery, rapes, forced breeding and feeding, amputations, executions, unethical experimentations, unhealthy living conditions, unsafe practices, and countless other horrors that have happened to my ancestors and people of African origin. Blacks and other people of colour were also called animals, undeserving of basic dignities and treated in cruel and inhumane ways. Now, the wrongful treatment of people in society has come a long way and laws and regulations have been reformed to reflect this evolved consciousness and compassion for humankind. I think there needs to be a change in the way animals are thought about not as just mere products for human consumption but as sentient conscious beings. I have found that a number of other writers and researchers have found parallels between forms of oppression (e.g., racism, sexism) and the modern factory farming industry as well and I have begun reading one such work which I hope to review shortly.
In August 2011, I had the pleasure of meeting Gene Baur. Here is a link about that encounter. In the meantime, read Farm Sanctuary and be prepared to feel a compassion for animals that you may have never felt before. It will enhance your understanding of the unsustainable and negative impacts that the current practices are having on our environment and health and may cause you to want to do something about it. | {
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Hot New Eats
Only in town for a few days and don’t want to miss out? LUXE rounds up the latest Manila restaurant hot spots to help you make the most of every meal…
Promising private nook The Test Kitchen serves as a creative outlet for Mich-trained chef Josh Boutwood, and somewhat surprisingly, is in partnership with casual resto chain The Bistro Group. Hidden away in the test kitchen of the Bistro Academy, this lovely, exclusive little gem can be enjoyed by reservation only – but it’s worth the forward-planning.
Michy-spangled Akrame Benallal’s hit-success Parisian steakhouse Atelier Vivanda, which already boasts several Asian outposts, is your go-to for a hearty foie gras and ribeye followed by crème brulée. Enjoy a quick lunch, or linger for a dinner of shared dishes, with sociable seating inside and out. | {
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Tindan 86
Playful all-rounder for alpine touring
At last, those dream skis: the ones you can use both for long hikes in the pristine spring snow and exhilarating arcs on the groomed powder.
The Tindan 86 is a slimmer, lighter and more easy-going version of the Fjøro 92. This is a ski with a classically tensioned wood core and an 18.7 meter turning radius. Lightweight and easy to control, these are a superb choice if you’re after skis equally at home on the tour or putting down turns on the groomers. And although spectacular fun on freshly-prepared snow, these are built with a tip with enough give to handle most conditions on long hikes.
These skis are equipped with Skinlock for the instant attachment of the X-Skin Access skin – a short and lightweight climbing skin, perfect for long approaches and moderate terrain, that fits in the jacket pocket. The Access skin is so light that there’s no reason not to take it with you: now you can access that lovely touring terrain you can’t get to from the lift. Cunning! | {
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Monday, 19 November 2012
Brinkley Road flats refused again
A few weeks back I posted that Mr Hull had re-applied, from the safety of his million-pound mansion in Tadworth, to knock down number 34 and 36 and build a block of flats there. The decision is now out and the application has been refused, again, from the decision details shown on the planning website.
(1) The proposal, by reason of its design, siting, excessive bulk of the roof form and excessive parking area to the rear which does not allow sufficient space for landscaping and amenity areas, would represent an overdevelopment of the site which would be to the detriment of the character of the area and the streetscene and would thereby be contrary to policies BP12 and PMP2 of the Core Planning Strategy and Supplementary Planning Document 14 - Creating Locally Distinctive Places.
(2) The proposed development, by reason of its scale and close proximity to neighbouring property at 38 Brinkley Road would result in a loss of outlook through an increased sense of enclosure. The application is therefore contrary to policy BP12 of Suttons Core Planning Strategy, policy DM2 of the Site Development Policies and Supplementary Planning Document 14 - Creating Locally Distinctive Places.
My personal thanks to Sutton Council for defining Worcester Park as being a "Locally Distinctive Place" and hopefully that will be the end of it, though Mr Hull has been remarkably persistent so far.... | {
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President Trump's former golf caddy — a man with zero political experience — has, against all odds, risen to a top position in the West Wing.
Dan Scavino, who is an assistant to the president and director of social media, is the longest-tenured Trump employee in the White House, noted a sprawling profile of the man published by The New York Times Magazine on Monday. He is the architect behind many of the president's tweets, often tapping out 280 characters while Trump dictates, and previously served as an unofficial photographer during the campaign. Now that Hope Hicks, the former White House communications director, has left the administration, Scavino is one of the last "original" Trump team members and is closer with the president than ever, the Times Magazine reports. Scavino even took over Hicks' office after she departed at the end of March, just down the hall from the Oval Office.
Scavino was instrumental in framing Trump's campaign as "a movement," former chief strategist Stephen Bannon told the magazine. "He has his hands on the Pepes," Bannon said of Scavino, referring to the alt-right mascot "Pepe the Frog." Scavino has remained close with Trump due to his understanding of how to play to the president's base, officials told the Times Magazine, and often acts as a yes-man to placate Trump's ego.
Scavino is also the only aide allowed access to Trump's treasured Twitter account, and one source said that Trump and Scavino craft his tweets together, splitting the work 50-50. Because of how much Trump values his Twitter presence, sources say, Scavino's importance is unlikely to diminish, especially given his undying faithfulness to the president.
Scavino declined to be interviewed for the story. As a friend of Scavino's told the magazine: "Golf is a sport of the least mistakes. … That's how someone like Dan might float to the top — by not doing anything wrong." Read more at The New York Times Magazine. Summer Meza
Sen. Ted Cruz may be left with no one to debate but himself at Monday's Fox News debate. Shortly after Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he would not be attending the upcoming Republican presidential debate because he'd instead be giving a speech before the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC, Ohio Gov. John Kasich's camp announced that if Trump wouldn't be attending, neither would Kasich.
Kasich consultant John Weaver tweeted Wednesday that only if "Trump changes his mind" would Kasich show up: | {
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Successful Green Capital Planning for Multifamily Housing
About this Training
Multifamily developer and operator clients tell Blackstone Consulting LLC (Blackstone) that the most uncertain costs they encounter when trying to forecast expenses are real estate taxes and utilities. Blackstone can’t advise clients with taxes, but the good news is there are an assortment of tools and programs available to owners and operators which can assist with forecasting and managing energy and water utility expenses.
Energy efficiency is always a wise investment, however energy capital expenditures (CAPEX) need to be put into context of the hold period for the multifamily asset, the cost of financing/re-financing, and the potential positive impact on the project’s exit cap rate. If you want to learn more about how to put your asset in the best possible position with regard to energy efficiency either at the point of acquisition, asset management, or disposition, this 60-minute training is for you.
Join host Vinnie Viola and presenter Nicole Voudren for an interactive, complimentary webcast that examines the benefits of going green for your multifamily property or portfolio. The webcast will discuss terminology such as what benchmarking is and how it can assist you in identifying candidate properties for green upgrades, as well as low-cost and no-cost upgrades—low hanging fruit– that can improve the bottom line today. With thousands of energy and water assessments conducted and extensive industry knowledge, Nicole will offer effective advice about tools available to make the process easier as well as resources that can be leveraged such as financing programs and utility incentives.
Training Agenda
1.Green Capital Planning – Why do I need to do this?
2.Tools – What software or applications are there to help me determine my energy use relative to others?
3.Portfolio Energy Benchmarking and Improvements – Who are the candidates?
4.Single Site Energy and Water Efficiency Measures (EWEMs) – What is worth doing during the hold period?
5.Federal, State and Local Incentives
6.Green Financing Products
7.Timing for Green Improvements – pre financing/acquisition or post?
8.Summary/Closing/Q&A | {
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Joe Jonas Shuts Down 'Game of Thrones' Cameo Rumors
The former boy bander attended the Fendi Mania party at the Fendi boutique in Beverly Hills, California on Tuesday where he squashed the rumors that he might be appearing on the last season of his fiancee, Sophie Turner’s, mega-hit show Game of Thrones.
“I would have done it in a heartbeat, but unfortunately, it’s not going to happen,” Jonas told Variety. “That would have been amazing. I would have loved it.”
He also revealed that, despite his close relationship with the 22-year-old actress, she hasn’t told him anything about the show’s final six episodes.
“I can’t wait for it to come back and I don’t want to know any spoilers,” Jonas shared. “Sophie won’t tell me and she knows if she told me I would be so heartbroken because I’m such a big fan of the show. I’d be pissed.”
Throughout the HBO juggernaut’s run, a number of well-known musicians have appeared on the show in minor ways. Will Champion, the drummer of Coldplay, appeared as a musician in season 3 during the infamous "Red Wedding." The Icelandic rockers Sigur Ros were Joffrey Baratheon’s wedding band in season 4 but ended up being quickly sent away by the boy king. Three members from the metal band Mastodon stood in as Wildings who meet a grisly end at the hands of White Walkers in season five.
And who could forget Ed Sheeran’s cameo in season 7? He played a soldier with an impressive voice who crossed paths with Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) as she was riding through the wilderness.
When season 7 left off, the Night King, riding the undead dragon Viserion, led the Army of the Dead south past the wall. Meanwhile Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) and Jon Stark (Kit Harington) consummated their blossoming relationship just as others discover that he is the true heir to the Iron Throne.
Season 8 of GoT wrapped in July. An air date has not been released yet but it’s expect to premiere sometime midway through 2019. | {
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It's more for me to just see the android apps work! Will Skype never be on playbook then? Is this one of the apps that you can sideload on to make work? Is it worth doing this?
It's just she is the only one with a playbook, whereas Skype works on Apple, android and other shop is universal. Why won't it come to playbook? Because it's now owned by Microsoft?Posted via BlackBerryForums.com Mobile | {
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FlatRate Moving Moves Supplies Into Sandy-Affected Areas
The moving service has been busy after the storm, dispatching trucks and hauling supplies to Staten Island, Coney Island, Howard Beach, and the Rockaways. Next week, the company will return to the Rockaways, and separately, will deliver 3,500 Thanksgiving dinners to shelters throughout the city. In addition to their regular work with the Food Bank for New York City, FlatRate Movers is willing to donate trucks and staff to go to places that have supplies for hurricane relief, but no means of moving them into areas affected by Sandy. Interested parties should contact the company here. | {
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BTO migration blog
Spring and autumn are exciting times for anyone who watches birds. Here on this blog we will make predictions about when to expect migrant arrivals and departures, so that you know when and where to see these well-travelled birds.
Friday, 27 April 2012
North and west, east and south divide.
It has very much been a week in which migration has been a
game of two halves, with south and east coast watchpoints having had a fairly
quiet time as far as visible migration and grounded migrants are
concerned. In contrast, during the early
part of the week, Fair Isle, Shetland, and Bardsey, Gwynedd, had their busiest
days of the spring so far.
Some birds have been getting through the heavy rainstorms
south of the UK. In the south, more Nightingales
arrived back on territory, birds could be heard throughout southern Britain. Cuckoos continued to trickle in, along
with a small number of Whitethroats and Grasshopper
Warblers. Hirundines continued to arrive too but the numbers for the time
of the year are low. Seawatchers in the south did experience a good passage of Great and Arctic Skuas, along with a small number of Pomarine Skuas. Arctic Terns were also still much in evidence and were joined at many sites by Little Gulls and the odd Black Tern.
Pomarine Skua by Joe Pender
Migration in the north and the west has been much more in
evidence. At the beginning of the week a large number of Robins, Dunnocks, Song Thrushes and Ring Ouzels arrived on Fair Isle, along with three Tree Pipits, a Blue Headed Wagtail, ninety-one Wheatears, four Swallows,
Two Wrynecks and singles of Hoopoe and Common Crane. At the same time Bardsey was teeming with migrants,
which included over two-hundred Willow Warblers,
over one-hundred Swallows, around
eighty Blackcaps and eleven Grasshopper Warblers.
Wryneck by Jill Pakenham
Wales also held the lion’s share of southern European
migrants. A Little Bittern was found
in Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion hosted a Kentish
Plover and six White Storks were
seen over Colwyn Bay.
It is interesting to look at the distribution of migrants
this week and relate them to the weather we have been experiencing. The birds
that arrived on Fair Isle did so when the wind turned east/south-easterly, and
those on Bardsey when the wind was from the north.
It could be that
these migrants drifted east in the westerly airflow that southern Europe have
been experiencing as weather fronts arrived from the Atlantic. Having drifted
east it is likely that they then made their way north on the wrong side of the
North Sea, the weather here has been more settled at times.
As they made their
way north the anti-cyclonic weather fronts would find them in a more easterly
airflow and by utilising this they would make their way back across the North
Sea to the UK, arriving much further north than they might have been aiming for.
This might help to explain a busy north and a quiet south migration-wise this
week.
Looking at the weather forecast for this weekend, Saturday
morning looks like the time to be out and about in search of migrants, as the
winds south of the UK will be lighter than they have been for a week or so. By
Saturday afternoon a low pressure system is due to cross central France,
bringing heavy rain and fairly strong winds with it. It could be that Sunday
will see a repeat performance of earlier in the week with the north and west
again being the place to be.
Friday, 20 April 2012
Even though the weather has been challenging for northward bound migrants, particularly in southern Europe, small numbers have still trickled in in during the week, with the exception of Ring Ouzel and Arctic Tern, which arrived in force.
Arctic Tern by Andy Mason
The early part of the week saw the continued Ring Ouzel arrival but as it tailed off towards the middle of the week, Arctic Terns took over. Flocks of this marine tern were seen migrating through the Midlands, with one flock of eighty birds lingering on Wednesday afternoon at Attenborough Nature Reserve, Nottinghamshire. Accompanying these were a small number of Little Gulls and the first Black Terns of the spring.
Arctic and Common Tern can be difficult to separate. See the BTO identification video for some useful tips.
As expected, most of the migrant action has been in the south, however Fair Isle, Shetland, saw its first Swallow and Tree Pipit of the spring.
Two Turtle Doves were found in Cambridgeshire, a few Whitethroats arrived and Reed Warblers can be heard in most southern reedbeds, albeit still in small numbers.
Despite the north and westerly airflow and very stormmy weather around the Mediterranean, southern overshoots have been well represented this week. With a Kentish Plover, Little Bittern and Black Kite, Wales was the place to be. Five new Hoopoes were found in southern Britain, along with two more Black kites, in Devon and Hertfordshire, and the two Black-winged Stilts from last week still putting in appearances.
Black-winged Stilt by Neil Calbrade
Common Sandpipers also put in an appearance with small groups seen at a few south coast sites. In general though it has been a fairly quiet week for the time of the year. However, it looks like there might be a small window in the weather in Europe on Saturday afternoon/Sunday morning, which could open the floodgates for those birds that are held-up further south, before stormy Atlantic weather returns on Monday to perhaps close them again.
Tuesday, 17 April 2012
This weekend’s cold north-easterly airflow wasn’t ideal for summer migrants heading back to the UK. However, birds did arrive, with Ring Ouzel being the most notable. Most of these were seen in the south but birds reached as far north as Glen Strathfarrar, Highland. In several counties flocks of Ring Ouzels reached into double figures, with fourteen being seen together at Pegsdon, Beds. This arrival is reflected nicely in the BirdTrack reporting rate.
Ring Ouzel by Tommy Holden
At this time of the year, Ring Ouzels can turn up on migration almost anywhere. Check-out the latest BTO identification video to listen to the differences between Ring Ouzel and Blackbird song, and other tips on identifying this enigmatic thrush.
South coast visible migration watchers were also rewarded with a steady arrival of Swallows and Willow Warblers, whilst smaller numbers of Redstarts, Yellow Wagtails and Grasshopper Warblers also made landfall. Some migrants are being held-up though, as illustrated in an email we received from Rod Leslie in the Pyrenees
"I was at Aiguamolls de l'Emporda just south of the Pyrenees yesterday (16 April) in a howling westerly gale & temperatures down to 5 degrees C. Migrants completely pinned down with large flocks of Hirundines looking very tired. In several hides where leeward windows had been left open large numbers of Swallows were sheltering - see the attached photo. They were so tired it was possible to quietly share the hide with them."
Hide full of sheltering Swallows
Aiguamolls de l'Emporda
The first multiple arrival of Nightingale was also obvious, with five singing males together in one Hampshire woodland. This spring the BTO is conducting a Nightingale survey to map all singing males.
With northerly winds dominating it is hardly surprising that Mediterranean overshoots were thin on the ground. However, at least two Hoopoes were reported, in Norfolk and Worcestershire, and two Black-winged Stilts braved the unseasonable spring chill in Dorset and Lincolnshire.
Wind, rain and cool weather had put a dampener on migration at Falsterbo over the previous week or so. The last 5 days have seen a change in the weather — southeasterly winds and warmer temperatures — and with the change in weather has come a wave of migrating birds. Robins are still the most obvious (we ringed 250 on Saturday) but we've also trapped our first trans-Saharan migrants; our first Willow Warbler on Thursday and our first Lesser Whitethroat on Sunday. Moreover, we finally got our first (and so far only) Blackcap of the spring.
Lesser Whitethroat by Stephen Menzie
Swallows, Wheatears, Ring Ouzels, Tree Pipits and Ospreys have all been seen with increasing frequency over the last few days. Falsterbo has already hosted a male Redstart — an early bird by Swedish standards. Sandwich Terns have become a constant background presence as they pass along the shore close to the lighthouse. Sunday saw a Pallid Harrier passing over the peninsular — one of the birds seen here last autumn on its way back north?
Scarce short-distance migrants ringed in the lighthouse garden have included a Hawfinch and several Firecrests (it's been an exceptionally good spring for Firecrests here in southern Sweden). 3,000 Eiders passing Sweden's most southerly point was a spectacle worth seeing — migration in action!
Friday, 13 April 2012
Having spent the last week or so on the south coast of Kent, full of anticipation for the wonderful spectacle of visible spring migration that I was going to enjoy, the final result was rather disappointing.
Clear blue skies and very light winds for ten consecutive days meant that any migrants that were arriving were too high to see, and the absence of moderate wind, cloud cover and drizzle (I must have been one of the few parents over the Easter break praying for these conditions, at least for a couple of days) meant there was also very few grounded migrants. On the plus side, those migrants that did arrive were presumably able to continue on their journeys directly to their breeding grounds.
Willow Warbler by Neil Calbrade
So what did happen? Further west along the south coast the weather conditions were much more mixed. Under thick cloud cover and moderate north-westerly wind, Portland Bird Observatory experienced its biggest falls this spring so far. On the last day of March there was a fall of around 3,000 Phylloscs (Willow Warblers and Chiffchaffs), 500 Blackcaps, 75 Wheatears, 12 Redstarts, 6 Ring Ouzels and 4 Pied Flycatchers, along with a steady arrival of small numbers of hirundines (Swallows, House Martins and Sand Martins).
One hundred and fifty miles to the east the picture was very different. On the same day under clear blue skies and no wind, I counted 5 Willow Warblers, 15 Chiffchaffs, 12 Wheatears, two Ring Ouzels and no Redstarts or hirundines.
So, migrants have been arriving, some such as Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff and Blackcap, in large numbers, However, for other species the arrival has been very light. For the time of year many of our summer visitors are worryingly absent. There are very few Swallows and Sand Martins around. Whitethroats and Sedge Warblers are also conspicuous by their absence too. This is probably down to southern Europe experiencing poor weather during the last week. Southern Spain and Portugal have had hailstorms, heavy rain and cool northerly winds. These conditions would be more than enough to bring migration to a halt.
With unsettled weather and a northerly airflow forecast for the next few days, migration will be slow. Birds will still arrive in small numbers and coastal watchpoints could see moderate falls as tired bird make landfall. The winds are due to be lighter on Sunday, so this could be the day to be out and about. | {
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Kristin teaching & learning in Korea
Hello New School Year!
Life has been rather busy here. School started two weeks ago which is also when I happened to receive the textbook I have to base lesson plans on. Sweet right?
So, I’m teaching 3rd and 2nd graders this semester on a bizarre staggered schedule with, I think, three new Korean teachers who seem pretty open to my method of teaching (tricking the kids into talking, basically) and generally want to help me out.
A week into the new year and I got visited by my former 3rd graders who are now in high school and were quick to tell me that high school is hard and that they miss me. It was cute. The days were wearing me out but at least I got to hear my students tell me how much they missed me over break.
My icebreaker exercise involved the students writing questions that they had for me anonymously on slips of paper and me reading the answers. Oh what an embarassing joy that was for me. Questions ranged from “do you like me” to “can you kill the dog?” to “how do you make your hair” even to “what are you doing here?” Someone said that they would die for me…interesting but not a question. Someone remarked on my afro saying that they liked it in one sentence and that I have “poodle hair” in the next.
Oh, you crazy kids.
Well, thank goodness I love em because otherwise the 8 hours extra of afterschool programs a week would seem daunting and awful. But…I get to teach whatever I want. I think I’m excited for the programs now and not just the extra money….the extra money is nice, though. | {
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Ada Mullins
Main aliases:
Species:
Place of origin:
Appearance:
Main actor:
Ada Mullins, aka "the Unicorn" was a Cockney master thief who was responsible for jewel thefts at country houses. She assumed the identity of Robina Redmond, "the absolute hit of the social scene," for her stay at Clemency Eddison's house in December1926. However, the death of Professor Peach disrupted her plans. She was questioned by the Tenth Doctor and Agatha Christie along with the other guests. Believing that Donna Noble might find the kit containing the tools of her trade, the Unicorn tossed them into the garden, where they were found by Donna and Agatha.
She made an error in word choice during her interrogation; she referred to the loo as the "toilet". After the murders of Miss Chandrakala and Roger Curbishley, she swiped the Firestone. However, during the Doctor and Agatha's solution of the case, the Unicorn had her identity revealed and she returned the Firestone to Lady Eddison; when Donna asked if she was also the murderer, she proudly admitted that while she may be a thief, she was no killer, a statement Agatha agreed with. After Reverend Arnold Golightly was revealed as the long-lost hybrid child of Lady Eddison and a Vespiform called Christopher, she escaped in the confusion, heading back to London. (TV: The Unicorn and the Wasp) | {
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Inside
Garden is a home & garden design business
servicing the Bangkok metropolitan area, Pattaya,
Huahin, Cha-Arm, etc.. We have been in
business since 2003.
We specialize in
designing and installing beautiful gardens with
water features, such as classy or cozy koi ponds, fountains and
waterfalls. We use top quality plants (perfect
form) that come directly from our farms. We supply
the Jatujak Sunday Market (Bangkok) and Bangyai
(Nonthaburi) with our plants each week.
We
pride ourselves on hiring experienced team,
offering quality works and services, in which we
work closely with each customer. We hope to service your
home and garden needs soon.
Call us today!
We are friendly to promptly answer your
call. Or email us at
[email protected].
We also speak Chinese Mandarin. | {
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Overview of Query2
Query2 provides easy mechanism to query emf metadata with minimal loading of resources. Query2 has an in-built indexing mechanism which indexes types, resources and references. This data is used during query execution and hence avoiding loading of resources wherever needed. Hence, if you want to use query2, you are mandatorily required to setup indexing. After that you can use it execute queries. We will see how to set it up in later sections. Query2 also provides you different ways to specify queries. We will see them in coming sections.
Similarly you can IndexQueryFactory .createResourceQuery() to create queries on Resources on the common index.
Step 3 Using QueryIndexBuilder: In eclipse IDE, we work on eclipse resources. Query2 indexing component provides an utility to index all the resources in your project using a custom builder. To enable it, you have to execute following steps:
1. Add the project nature: “org.eclipse.emf.query2.index.ui.queryIndexNature” Open the .project file for your project and add this nature.
2. Add Builder: “org.eclipse.emf.query2.index.ui.queryIndexBuilder” Open the .project file and add this builder.
3. The Builder will index all the files with extensions registered in EMF extensionToFactoryMap. You can add your file extension to factory using plugin.xml e.g as in following snippet:
Samples Queries
Note: The model used in the queries is mentioned in Appendix: Sample data 1. Select all books borrowed by an author:
from Book as b
select b
where b.borrowedBy in (
from Manuscript as m, Person as p select p where m.author = p
)
2. Select pages with title “Linux made easy”
from Manuscript as m select m.pages where m.title = 'Linux Made Easy'
3. Select all Manuscripts only In Berlin.xml or Hamburg.xmi
from Library as lib
in resources {"platform:/resource/org.eclipse.emf.query2.librarytest/data/library/Hamburg.xmi","platform:/resource/org.eclipse.emf.query2.librarytest/data/library/Berlin.xmi"},
Book as b,
Manuscript as m
select m
where lib.books = b
and b.instanceOf = m
For accessing sample data, refer to Appendix: Sample data
Writing Queries in Object format
The main class to create Query object is: org.eclipse.emf.query2.Query. You can use the constructors in Query class to create instance of Query. A Query requires mandatorily define following:
For specifying select clause: One or more SelectAttrs or SelectAlias
For specifying From clause: One or more FromType\FromFixedSet
You can also specify where clauses to specify conditions by specifying following:
For normal conditions: Use following:
LocalWhereEntry: A local where-entry allows the definition of a boolean expression, which compares the primitive typed attributes of one alias.
For Join conditions: Use any of following:
a. WhereComparisonAliases: A where-comparison aliases compares two aliases to each other for equality, where both aliases have to be of the same type.
b. WhereComparisonAttrs: A where-comparison attributes compares two attributes of two aliases to each other for equality, where both attributes have to be of the same primitive type.
c. WhereNestedReference: A nested where-entry defines a where-entry which constrains an alias by connecting it via an association to the results of a nested query. Nested where-entries can be negated.
d. WhereRelationReference: A where-relation defines a where-entry which constrains two aliases to be involved in an association relation
Sample Queries:
Note: The model used in the queries is mentioned in Appendix: Sample data
Sample Data
The samples data exists in eclipse CVS at following location: “/cvsroot/modeling/org.eclipse.emf/org.eclipse.emf.query/org.eclipse.emf.query2/tests/org.eclipse.emf.query2.librarytest” For accessing eclipse CVS you can refer to following page: CVS_HowTo.
Use “:pserver:[email protected]:/cvsroot/modeling” to access projects related to Modeling. The model used in the samples data is following:
Date and Big Integer Support
Query 2 supports datatype like Big Integer and Date.
Now if any attribute in the model is expressed as a type of BigInteger.The query core now understands the BigInteger data type
and evaluate the queries on the basis of that.
Resource Index basically lists all the indexed resources. The indexed resources are represented by the Resource URIs in the Index View. Each Resource URI node consists of three child nodes:- EObject Tables, Incoming Link Tables and Outgoing Links Table. EObject Tables consists of a list of EObject URIs which represent the EObjects inside that particular resource. The Incoming and and Outgoing Link Tables are group of Reference URIs which represent incoming links to the resource and outgoing links from the resource respectively.
In the Sample Data given, there are two resources, resERefQuery_1.xmi and resERefQuery_2.xmi.
Resource resERefQuery_2.xmi contains two local EObjects EClass2_2 and EClass2. Whereas resERefQuery_1.xmi has two local EObjects EClass1 which inherits from EClass2 in resERefQuery_2.xmi and EClass1_2.
Each resource is represented by their resource uri, for Eg. platform:/resource/TestData/data/resourcesample/resERefQuery_1.xmi for resERefQuery_1.xmi.
The EObject tables represent all the EObjects present inside the resource, hence, in the given sample data, resERefQuery_2.xmi will contain EClass2_2 and EClass2 whereas, resERefQuery_1.xmi will contain EClass1, EClass1_2 as well as another entry which represents a pointer to the super type.
In the Incoming Link Table, we can see the links coming to the given resource. For Eg in the case of resERefQuery_2.xmi there are incoming references towards the resource, as it is the container resource of EClass2 which is the superclass of EClass1. Since it has no references from the resource, Outgoing links table is empty.
Type Index lists the indexed resources in a grouped format based on the type of the resources. For Eg. EPackage, EClass etc. The type is represented by the URI of the type.
Other than just displaying the Indices in the Index View, you can also rebuild the Indices using Re-Create Indices toolbar item.
You can also open the editor for the indexed resource using Open in Editor Context menu item. If a resource URI is selected, editor for that resource is opened. But if an EObject URI is selected, editor for the resource containing the EObject is opened whereas for Reference URIs, source and target resources are opened in the editor. Index View also enables the user to copy the qualified name of any physical node using the Copy Qualified Name context menu item.
Index View is also facilitated with Filters, so that the users can filter out Local tables(EObject table, Incoming Links Table, Outgoing Links Table) if not required.
Index View also has Legends for the users to understand the representation of each icon in the Index View. | {
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A well designed, for SEO, Drupal website needs some sort of Analytics. The webmaster needs to know how people get to their websites and the subsequent behavior. This is even more important when an eCommerce is involved. I usually use 2 forms of analytics.
Everybody will tell you to use Google Analytics and I agree with them. This free service from Google is extremely valuable especially if you want to measure the bounce rate (how many visitors leave your website looking only at the landing page) and the average time spent on your website (this is self-explanatory). I add to the mix Statcounter. The latter lets you track, page by page, of all visits to your website. To be totally honest I like Statcounter more.
For both these instruments there are plugins; just go on Drupal Modules Repository and search for them. I assume that you know how to add a module on Drupal; If I get enough requests I will post directions on how to adjust settings. Comments are welcome. | {
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Prime Minister Habib Essid sacked the heads of police for Tunis and the area around the National Bardo Museum, site of the assault claimed by the Islamic State group, after finding “several deficiencies” in security. The dismissals came as the museum prepared to reopen in what organisers said was “a message” to the gunmen who killed 20 tourists and a police officer last Wednesday. “It’s a challenge but also a message... we want to show that they haven’t achieved their goal,” museum curator Moncef Ben Moussa said.
Tunisia fears that last week’s carnage - the deadliest assault on foreigners in the North African country since 2002 - will hit its vital tourism sector.
In a move aimed at restoring confidence, Essid “decided to fire a number of officials including the Tunis police chief and the police chief for the Bardo,” his communications director Mofdi Mssedi told AFP.
But in a reminder of the fragile security situation in the country credited as the birthplace of the Arab Spring uprisings, a soldier was killed and two wounded late Sunday near the border with Algeria.
“Definitely there were three,” he told France media iTele television and Europe 1 radio. “Two were killed, but there is one who is now on the run,” Essebsi said. “In any case, he will not get very far.”
Officials had previously named two gunmen shot dead by security forces after the attack and said they had received training at militant camps in neighbouring Libya.
Authorities say as many as 3,000 Tunisians have gone to Iraq, Syria and Libya to join militant ranks, raising fears of returning battle-hardened militants plotting attacks.
Writing in Monday’s edition of the French Le Figaro newspaper, Essid admitted there were security “failures” around the museum and vowed to “take the necessary steps... to defend” Tunisia.
On Saturday, authorities released CCTV footage showing two black-clad gunmen with automatic weapons walking unimpeded though a large lobby in the Bardo, just after noon.
The grainy footage then shows the gunmen passing an unidentified male. They point an automatic weapon at him briefly before letting him leave as they make their way up a staircase.
Secretary of State for Security Rafik Chelly said Sunday that the video showed “one of the two Vespa drivers that brought the killers”.
Activists called for demonstrations outside the museum and a protest arranged by the organisers of the Global Social Forum, a mass anti-globalisation event held in Tunis this week, is expected to draw thousands on Tuesday. | {
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Carpet Cleaning Ambarvale
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Cleaning Mate Services is composed of professionals who have a proven track record when it comes to performing all cleaning assignments. We all are driven by a pressing need to attain 100% satisfaction guarantee to all our clients. You only need to come to us at any given time and truly experience our effective same day affordable expert service. | {
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Pages
Saturday, 25 May 2013
A BLAST FROM THE PAST by Eleanor Updale
No matter how easy it gets to access digital images online, there's nothing
quite like getting your hands on the real thing.Of course it's wonderful to touch a rare and
valuable object, but sometimes it's the ephemera of the past that make your heart sing.
I've been having fun reading an 80-year-old edition of Melody Maker,
which I bought as a present for a dear friend born in 1933.
One of the first things that strikes you is the similarity between the
preoccupations of creative people then and now.The front-page story is about the threat of new technology, the horrors
of piracy, and the difficulty of getting paid for your work.Sounds familiar?
Inside, it's the little things that bring home the atmosphere of the time:
the very name of 'Spike Hughes and his Negro Orchestra'raises questions - and suggests some answers
- about attitudes to race in Britain in the year Hitler came to power in
Germany.Preconceptions about the
glamour of transatlantic liners are dispelled by Spike's diary about his US
tour:
"I have spent six days on the ocean, in that vacuum called a
transatlantic crossing, when nothing except meal times has any interest for one
whatever."
His reflections on the shortcomings of design and acoustics of Radio City Music Hall and
the Concert Hall in Broadcasting house (both now much admired) are fun, too:
"I wonder why architects persistently forget that music stands and instruments
take up a little room, and that a platform which will accommodate fifteen
upright waiters without trays will not, somehow, be large enough for one grand
piano and a five-piece band."
If you watched 'Dancing on the Edge' on the BBC earlier this year, you will
recognise the atmosphere of the jazz scene and in particular, I think, one new venue mentioned here: a hotel near Windsor, which still exists.The copy has more than a whiff of
'advertorial' about it.
But, best of all, it's the real adverts that tell us most about 1933:
If you've read my book Johnny Swanson, which is set in 1929, you
will know that I'm a little unhinged on the subject of ancient advertisements.
I do find all aspects of them - from their design, through the information
about prices and values, to the unintentional messages they give about
aspirations and status - priceless tools for the historian or historical
novelist.They are a crucial means of
getting the 'feel' of an era.
Obviously, you can't take them
entirely at face value.After all, we
wouldn't want future generations to think that we went round supermarkets
beaming with excitement and tapping our bums with joy at the thought of saving a few pence.Will they believe that
we gave headspace to the latest innovations in disposable nappies, or that we
lived inimmaculate clutter-free
kitchens, cleaned to a sparkling shine?Let's hope not.But all the
same, there are messages about us in advertisements - even if some are not very
flattering.
The classified ads convey the mixture of hope, despair, and trickery that
are still with us today. There's inspiration for a story in every one. Why is that
saxophone being sold? Which deluded wannabe will buy help with their lyric
writing?Which failed lyric writer is
offering it?.
I hope my friend likes his present. I've certainly had a lot of pleasure from it
before wrapping it up.
4 comments:
I totally agree with you when you say old,vintage ads are a great way to know how our previous gen lived. It's almost self explanatory. and also so lovely is the 'old world charm'. It makes us feel that our current 'one-touch-one-click' lives really need to slow down. :)
I'm lucky enough to work at Mary Evans Picture Library where we have hundreds & hundreds of bound periodicals from the mid-Victorian era up to the 1960s and at present I'm working on a book about the home front during the First World War which draws from The Tatler, The Bystander, The Sketch & The Queen etc with a particular focus on the upper classes. Magazines capture the essence of a particular era probably better than anything else, particularly in wartime. They reflect the preoccupations of their readership and due to their regularity offer a detailed minutiae of everyday life that is almost impossible to get from any other source. Memoirs and diaries can transport us back, but the eclectic mix of photographs, gossip, news reporting, advertisements and illustrations paints a picture of a particular place and time better than anything. Love this Melody Maker - thanks for sharing it!
Don't think I have ever moved away from the ideals that I grew up with in a loving household but now find myself alone.
And due to Government policies/health issues and getting older I could worry what the future holds.
But mentioning the war...thankfully I have the skills and commonsense to make and mend, cook reasonably healthy,tasty meals from basic ingredients and can stretch many over a few different meals. Often what could be called comfort food and many are from Wartime.
Yes many are better off today and the media gives such impressions but there many who are still living a very simple and frugal life not much different to ages ago.
Search the History Girls
The History Girls
The History Girls are a group of best-selling, award-winning writers of historical fiction and non-fiction. Some of us write for young adults, some for fully fledged adults, some for younger readers.
Among us, we cover every period from the Stone Age to World War II. Geographically, our novels will take you from Trondheim to Troy, and the Caribbean to the Wild West, via Venice, Victorian England and Ancient Rome.
Individual, entertaining, sometimes provocative: on this daily blog we'll share our thoughts on writing, research, reviews, and all aspects of our work. We love what we do and we want to talk about it. We hope you'll want to join in!
If you want a History Girl to appear at an event or write an article or review, please contact her via her website (links are all goven on the About Us page)
Owing to an overwhelming amount of Spam, we have had to disable Anonymous Comments. Please do comment but you'll have to Follow us first.
Just scroll down in this right-hand column to under Followers and click Join this Site. Thanks. | {
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White Picket Fences - Week 3, Parenting in a World of No Absolutes
Sometimes it can feel like parenting is all about having Pinterest-perfect dinners planned. Or making sure the kids get to every game and lesson on time. Or keeping your toddler from melting down in the grocery store. The reality is that parenting is messy. And it’s hard. Because we’re raising real kids to live in a real world where many of the things they face are out of our control. Be encouraged. White picket fences may be a façade, but real support for parents (and a healthy family) is within reach. | {
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08.2.
Additional information. [Optional]
Folksam's asset management is outsourced to Swedbank Robur, although we have our own department of Corporate Governance and Responsible Investments. The ESG work (screening, engagement, voting et c) is managed by Folksam and according to the criteria that our boards have set up.
The assets in pooled funds is very limited. These investments follow the same ESG criteria as all our assets classes. | {
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} |
The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine
Leadership in organizations people believe in
2012 September 11
by Ian Welsh
The assassination strategy the US pursues is interesting, not in what it says about the US’s foes, but what it says about the US’s leaders. Al-Qaeda’s “#2” man has been “killed” so often that it’s a running joke, and Taliban leadership is regularly killed by assassination. Bush did this, Obama really, really does this. Probably a lot of them are BS, but it’s probably safe to assume that a lot of leadership is killed.
The Taliban is still kicking the coalition’s ass.
Leadership isn’t as big a deal as people make it out to be, IF you have a vibrant organization people believe in. New people step up, and they’re competent enough. Genius leadership is very rare, and a good organization doesn’t need it, though it’s welcome when it exists. As long as the organization knows what it’s supposed to do (kick Americans out of Afghanistan) and everyone’s motivated to do that, leadership doesn’t need to be especially great, but it will be generally competent, because the people in the organization will make it so.
American leaders are obsessed with leadership because they lead organizations where no one believes in the organization’s goals. Or rather, they lead organizations where everyone knows the leadership doesn’t believe in its ostensible goals. Schools are lead by people who hate teachers and want to privatize schools to make profit. The US is lead by men who don’t believe in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. Police are lead by men who think their job is to protect the few and beat down the many, not to protect and serve. Corporations make fancy mission statements and talk about valuing employees and customers, but they just want to make a buck and will fuck anyone, employee or customer, below the c-suite. They don’t have a “mission” (making money is not a mission, it’s a hunger if it’s all you want to do), they are parasites and they know it.
Making organizations work if they’re filled with people who don’t believe in the organization, who believe that the “leadership” is only out for themselves and has no mission beyond helping themselves, not even enriching the employees or shareholders, is actually hard. People don’t get inspired by making the c-suite rich. Bureaucrats, knowing they are despised and distrusted by their political matters, and knowing that they aren’t allowed to do their ostensible job, as with the EPA generally not being allowed to protect the environment, the DOJ not being allowed to prosecute powerful monied crooks and the FDA being the slave of drug companies and the whims of politically connected appointees, are hard to move, hard to motivate, hard to get to do anything but the minimum.
So American leaders, and indeed the leaders of most developed nations think they’re something special. Getting people to do anything, and convincing people to do the wrong thing, when they joined to actually teach, protect the environment, make citizens healthier or actually prosecute crooks is difficult. Being a leader in the West, even though it comes with virtually complete immunity for committing crimes against humanity, violating civil rights, or stealing billions from ordinary citizens, is in many respects a drag. A very very well paying drag, but a drag. Very few people have the necessary flexible morals and ability to motivate employees through coercion required.
So American leaders in specific and Westerners in general think that organizations will fall apart if the very small number of people who can actually lead, stop. But that’s because they think that leading the Taliban, say, is like leading an American company or the American government. They think it requires a soulless prevaricator who takes advantage of and abuses virtually everyone and is still able to get them to, reluctantly, do their jobs.
Functioning organizations aren’t like that. They suck leadership upwards. Virtually everyone is being groomed for leadership and is ready for leadership. They believe in the cause, they know what to do, they’re involved. And they aren’t scared of dying, if they really believe. Oh sure, they’d rather not, but it won’t stop them from stepping up.
So Obama kills and kills and kills and somehow the Taliban is still kicking his ass. Al-Qaeda in whatever country you care to name has its #2 killed every few weeks, and somehow there’s always another one. Because these people believe. There’s always another believer, if it’s a functioning organization, and on it goes.
The declaration of the Haqqani network as terrorists made me laugh. You read about them, and this is what you discover–the founder was a minister in the Taliban government. So, let’s get this straight. His country, which he is a minister in, is invaded, and 10 years later he’s still fighting. And he refuses to negotiate with the US, because hey, he figures he’s winning.
Imagine if the US was invaded, occupied and a puppet government was set up. A cabinet minister escaped, went underground, and set up a resistance network. What would you call him? A terrorist? Sure, if you’re the occupying power. If you’re a citizen? Well, maybe not, eh? Sure he fights nasty, but the nation which kills so many civilians with drones can’t really cast the first stone, can it?
“Bureaucrats, knowing they are despised and distrusted by their political ma[s]ters, and knowing that they aren’t allowed to do their ostensible job, as with the EPA generally not being allowed to protect the environment, the DOJ not being allowed to prosecute powerful monied crooks and the FDA being the slave of drug companies and the whims of politically connected appointees, are hard to move, hard to motivate, hard to get to do anything but the minimum.”
That last part is all wrong. People will do more than the minimum, but what you get in the federal government is quotas you are measured on. They constantly want you to do more with less, while at the same time setting you up for failure, making you jump thru more and more hoops before taking effective actions so that it becomes almost impossible to accomplish in the timeframes given. So if you are in some kind of enforcement, you may end up essentially doing catch and release work, where you and/or your organization are measured on the catching part, but your overall effectiveness isn’t measured, so no one really notices or minds that your efforts are just a little slap on the wrist at worst. You work more and more cases, thus “touching” more of the target industry or group, and supposedly that makes them feel like they better watch their steps. But the reality is that once they see what ineffective pushovers the government agencies are, it really just emboldens them to flout the laws and regulations even more.
Of course the antigovernment types in both parties know very well that they are making government less effective and thus helping to ensure a vicious cycle of weakening government.
Fair enough. By more, I mean more stuff that should be done, as opposed to more makework. We all know they aren’t doing the jobs they should do. And that is a result of bad leadership, because the leadership doesn’t want them to actually do good.
Ian,
Your description of the corporation being a parasite gave me vivid images of the ant parasite Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. This parasite infection alters the behavior of the ant, such that the final act of the infected ant is to climb over it’s colony, attach itself, and be the host of the sporulating body promoting further infection by raining spores on it’s colony mates.
Regarding your main point, Al-Queda is fulfilling a need for these people, and as long as we apply pressure it will probably stay true to that need, and be functional. If we just got out, over time I would expect them to succumb to the same problems as our successful organizations suffer from. Loss of the one clear goal, leading to general apathy, letting the less virtuous exploit the former good intentions for their own personal gain, not that of the whole. Why is it that success seems to be the worst thing for any cause?
“Schools are lead by people who hate teachers and want to privatize schools to make profit. The US is lead by men who don’t believe in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. Police are lead by men who think their job is to protect the few and beat down the many, not to protect and serve. Corporations make fancy mission statements and talk about valuing employees and customers, but they just want to make a buck and will fuck anyone, employee or customer, below the c-suite. They don’t have a “mission” (making money is not a mission, it’s a hunger if it’s all you want to do), they are parasites and they know it.”
Nicely put. David Graeber would talk about the three ways of organizing; communism, hierarchy and the market or direct exchange. Most people live on an everyday basis communally. You are building something and you ask for the hammer. You don’t expect to pay rent for it or give the person with the hammer a hot dog in exchange. Anarchists say that organizations should be self-organized, voluntary and temporary in order to get the task done. He says that anarchism is not a theory but a way of living. It’s an attitude, a set of practices and a vision. An anarchist moves back and forth between the three. All, of course, based on a non-hierarchy and egalitarian concept of organizing.
“[Western leaders] think [effective leadership] requires a soulless prevaricator who takes advantage of and abuses virtually everyone and is still able to get them to, reluctantly, do their jobs.”
I have two reservations about a statement like this: first, Western leaders depend on the ideology of the very rare, genius leader to justify the enormous rewards they grant themselves. It’s why they’re determined to put financial incentives into every job, despite evidence that financial incentives are counterproductive in complex tasks. Second, Western leaders don’t give a rat’s ass about getting people to do their jobs, unless you define their jobs as deference to their supervisors. The leaders are happier if they aren’t inconvenienced by their workers or any obvious failures on their part (like Brownie’s FEMA and Hurricane Katrina), but as you say, they don’t believe in the organization’s goals and don’t care what their employees do.
That being said, I think it’s an exaggeration to say Western institutions aren’t functional. It’s just that their primary function is facilitating and protecting the ever greater concentration of wealth by a increasingly tinier proportion of people.
American leaders are obsessed with leadership because they lead organizations where no one believes in the organization’s goals.
I think a simpler answer is: they believe in John Galt.
They believe that the few elite create and are the movers and shakers, and the 99 % just turn food into crap. That idea if so transparently wrong–any review of the history of just about anything reviews that all “great ideas” and inventions are the result of many small hands and minds, not the isolated acts of one or a few geniuses. But the elites believe it, because they want to; believing it justifies their wealth and power.
As for schools and demotivating people–gawd, who worth their salt would want the soul-destroying job of being a public school teacher today? All you do is to teach the standardized test. You don’t control the curricula at all, and hence you don’t inspire anyone and get the feedback rewards from that.
Schooling has become way too vocational; we’ve let employers dictate way too much what goes into it. The idea that the idea of education is to produce a better-informed and -rounded human being who has basic familiarity with key topics has been lost in the drive to make the perfect employee hire (and let me tell you, as someone who has sat in hiring committees, our current system doesn’t produce that either. More like resume-padders).
People may or may not agree with your politics, but I want to assure everyone you are dead right on about leadership principles. The biggest proof: I heard General Stanley McChrystal a few months ago talking about leadership, and his point was exactly yours.
Al Qaeda and the Taliban have learned to substitute values for command and control. As McChrystal told it, that was somewhat new to the US military, and they found they were being outmaneuvered. Good soldier that he is, he wouldn’t let politics get in the way of recognizing a powerful tactic that worked, and quickly recognized how much more efficient and effective it is to have a cadre of shared beliefs. As he noted, you can complete far more missions with far more certainty operating that way.
Speaking of Nazis, Charles H. Green’s comment reminds me of one of the prime innovations of the German Army in the WW2 era: They empowered subordinates to complete the mission with or without direction from above (very ironic for the army of a fascist state). They have a term for it “Auftragstaktik.” The leader states the broad intent, and generally leaves subordinate leaders as much latitude as possible to determine how the mission will be accomplished.
I suspect guerrilla groups and terrorist cells almost automatically operate under this sort of decentralized philosophy – top down micromanagement just isn’t possible in this kind of organization where the need for protection from air strike makes it very risky to transmit orders to subordinates. So when your cell’s next up leader is killed, you just keep doing what you were already doing. Eventually some new leader will provide new instructions but until then, you know the mission and can keep working to it.
Ian’s insights into how subordinates behave in organizations where the true goals and missions are never communicated are valuable. Never mind the multiple ways that initiative is intentionally squashed in the US government (you can be fired by text message just on the rumour that the right wing press is about to write about you, as Shirley Sherrod found out), even if you wanted to display initiative, how can you when you don’t actually know what your leadership actually wants to do?
Al-Qaeda’s “#2″ man has been “killed” so often that it’s a running joke, and Taliban leadership is regularly killed by assassination. Bush did this, Obama really, really does this.
Actually, I seem to remember that the Bush Administration made a habit of killing the Number Three Al Qaeda guy. I believe that was because, back then, we knew that Osama was No. 1 and his buddy the priest (can’t remember the guy’s name) was Number Two. Once the known Number Two died, it was possible to kill the number two guy on a weekly basis.
History shows not only that genius leadership is rare but that its success is fleeting. What remains, if anything does, is due to more broadly based skills and talents. Take the history of the Greeks. The Spartans had some staying power due to the success of their training system but the success was limited because the cadre of Spartans was so small. We remember what Leonidas and 300 Spartans could do but it was Athens that won the battle of Marathon. Later, Spartan “genius” under Lysander triumphed but was unable to hold falling to a Theban genius and then the Athenians and finally the Macedonians. The core of Alexander’s empire lasted for 200 years just as the core of Genghis Khan’s empire lasted but the huge domains won by genius were fleeting.
Marlborough, Nelson, and Wellington had genius but it was the depth of British sea power, manufacturing and trade that maintained the empire and when the depth faded so did England’s colonial star.
Look at the native American peoples and their resistance. Top down leadership failed (see the Aztecs or Incas). Brilliant leaders shone like the sun but set quickly often due to treachery (Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola, Crazy Horse). Broader based, less spectacular resistance held out and struggled giving ground grudgingly.
When leaders and followers believe in the same mission, leaders are far more willing to risk their own lives. When only the leaders believe they are setting themselves up for a fragging if they do indeed follow the same behavior. Some truly great leaders are able to craft a mission and a unity that goes beyond themselves (Lincoln transformed “union” into “freedom”).
This is a great insight extending, as you say, Ian, beyond the military to the society as a whole. It is little wonder that the unified U.S. and its economy performed far better in World War II than it does in the war on terror both economically and militarily.
As he noted, you can complete far more missions with far more certainty operating that way.
I think the Army has recognized this for some time. They study how staffs and commanders work, and that’s a principle that quite few former officers I’ve met have said, that this is the way things work best – when people don’t always have to be told what to do, because they understand the goals, the plan, and the basic parameters already.
The answer is obvious. We need to make Horror and Moral Terror our friends, otherwise, they will be our enemies…enemies to be feared. You want to retain Top Executives. Train them to embrace Horror and Moral Terror. Oh, wait…..
OT, but I know this will be of interest to some of the denizens of this fine blog. Chris Hedges is to be debating violence with CrimethInc. at CUNY today, livestreamed at 6:30 pm. Link (scroll down for livestream link):
A nice insight which also explains the converse, namely the futility the “more and better democrats” meme. For just like a good and effective organization does not need geniuses to work, “more and better democrats” won’t matter that much if the organization is corrupt.
Mr. Welsh’s analysis of leadership in the United States is spot on. In the private sector, it does not take long to learn your real role as cordwood for someone else’s profit furnace. This realization undercuts the natural enthusiasm that arises when participating in a mission as an organization. My experience in the Marine Corps was different. Although severely hierarchical, they believed in building leadership from the bottom ranks up. They stressed initiative as means to do that. The Marine Corps is by no means perfect, or a vibrant organization in the sense that I think Mr. Welsh means, but it’s pretty good. History offers another example, perhaps even better than Mr. Welsh’s, of a vibrant organization: The Viet Cong.
Ian, aren’t you describing almost every government which has ever existed, and almost every rebel/insurgent movement which has ever existed? If the rebels win, they float into power on clouds of hope, and in a generation it’s back to square one. Naked apes with too much power don’t tend to behave well. Someone said something about that once.
No, I’m not. It has not always been so, there have been periods and places where government definitely worked. Certainly there are cycles, but we are in the extreme phase of one. Same with corporations, it’s trivial to see that corporations in the 50s and 60s, whatever their problems, were not as dysfunctional as those today (start with CEO and C-suite pay.)
I am a Muslim I am Iraki maybe you believe that God told you that must turn aside when you have been struck.
That is not what God tells me.
What God tells me is what he tells every other Muslim when you are attacked you defend yourself and you keep on figthing until your attacker is in such pain that they offer truce or surrender. You attack back and you continue attacking relentlessly, never ever giving any respite, until the invader flees worn out with grief and horror and pain. Any sacrifice is warranted to expel the American I feel no grief when I see an American soldier die. I feel only relief that this one less barbarian to kill innocent Iraki children.
This is the lesson of the Iraki Resistance’s war on the American invaders. The goal was not just to inflict death and physical wounds they goal was to drive American troops into mental and moral breakdown.
The tactic was to attack American troops relentlessly — to force the American invaders to live in a situation where they never ever had any respite.
The American invader was never to be able to relax they must be denied any respite, they were denied meaningful rest.
The resistance consciously set out to inflict constant tension,constant sleeplessness, constant mental pain, and constant uncertainty, and fear upon the American invaders. The idea was to do this until a large proportion of the invaders were worn out with fatigue, grief, horror and pain.
The Resistance’s intent was to not just inflict pain and horror on the invading troops for the sake of doing, the object was to shatter their minds so that while they were still in Irak they turned on their comrades. And then after they returned to America that they turned on the American civilian population at large.
This tactic was, one resistance commander told me, far more successful than they had dared hope.
The American high command, and American civilians are only now beginning to appreciate what the resitance did to them. They are only now starting to realise that they are not the only ones who can inflict “collateral damage” and that there is more than one form of it.
It is not just Americans who can say “Mission Accomplished”.
As you no doubt worked out a long time ago the murder of first his grandfather, followed by the murder of his parents, and the murder of his younger brother all by American forces decided Mohammed to join the resistance. He was a very successful commander who ensured that in his sector no Americans ever set foot outside their FOB’s other than in heavily armed convoys. He made sure that PRT leaders went home dead or wounded he made sure that civilian PRT members never ever got to leave their compounds. The Iraki resistance won their war – America ran away from Irak leaving its “enduring bases” and an awful lot of TOE behind them. All of which is a long-winded way of saying you’re right. Napoleon used to talk about “moral force” as a force multiplier which is what you’re discussing above.
Hope you’re well. I very very very rarely comment here (I think this is my third) but I read you regularly.
I haven’t written about it, but I have discussed with friends, the collateral damage. I’m especially noticing it in police departments. The vets come back, join police departments and the results are ugly. They have no fire discipline, act as if they’re in a war zone, blowing away civilians indiscriminantly if they feel in the least danger (the guy who killed his boss in NY comes to mind) and often when they clearly aren’t (a man running away from them). They also have a taste for brutality, and the only people they have fellow-feeling for are their mates, certainly not anyone who isn’t in their “unit”.
Then, of course, there are the homeless veterans, the suicides, the wife and child beaters, and the rapists.
A lot of these people are VERY badly damaged. Occupation is always brutalizing, for everyone involved, but this bunch has been particularly brutalized. One of my friends is an ex-US military officer, out before Iraq, and to say that he is livid is a vast understatement.
The same thing happened to the Israeli army, over time. And Americans went and copied failed Israeli tactics.
We saw it happening at the time. Not just immoral, and unethical, but a mistake.
But the resistance did not win much of a victory. Brutalizing your brutalizers is all very nice and I have no moral qualms against it. If Canada was invaded, I would fight, and I would join the resistance, and if the invaders were American (and who else could it be) I would rejoice at every dead American soldier.
But at the end of the day, Iraq is in shambles, appears to be essentially a protectorate of Iran, has a huge Kurdish problem (or the Kurds have an Iraqi problem, depending on where you sit), violence is ongoing, and so on.
Iraq was never a war anyone was going to “win”, that’s why people like me were against it from before the beginning. All anyone can claim, at best, is a Pyrrhic victory.
As for America, as I’ve said in the past, the first great man of the 21st century (great is not a synonym for good) was bin Laden. He wanted to draw America onto the ground, and bleed them like the USSR was bled, costing them so much treasure that their economy could no longer bear the costs of empire. He, essentially, succeeded, thanks to the sublime stupidity of his enemies. He must have gotten down on his knees every day and thanked God for George Bush and American high command and the NeoCons. And now the Muslim brotherhood is in charge in Egypt and that is a direct result of food inflation, which is a direct result of the costs and opportunity costs of Bush’s idiot eternal wars, and the mandate that 9/11 game him to be an evil moron.
The far enemy (US) is blowing up its goddamn satraps with its insane financial and economic policies. That strain is exactly what bin Laden wanted, he says so in his writing.
He’s dead, but he’s winning. And I think that’s a deal he would have happily taken if offered to him September 10th, 2001. | {
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Las aventuras de Cucuruchito y Pinocho (Carlos Véjar Jr., 1942).
As in the case of Pro Patria (Guillermo Calles, 1932), this movie is anything but lost. Sadly, original negatives for both films are in the vaults of the same private archive in California, unattainable for researchers and film lovers.
Hopefully, those valuable old nitrate negatives will be made available before they are lost completely to nitrate decomposition.
Las aventuras de Cucuruchito y Pinocho was the second color feature film and the first fantasy film for children made in Mexico. A few sources catalog this movie as an animated color film, and that is wrong; though characters and settings belong to the fairy tale world, players are actual people.
This movie is a good example of how Mexican film industry was a melting pot, where talents from several countries and fields of activity contributed to production. In this particular case, several famous Spanish exiles[1] and other Spaniards, as well as an ex-Hollywood cinematographer, joined Mexican artists and technicians to make the film.
CIMESA produced the film. Its partners were Gonzalo Elvira y Rumayor, Mexican, and Miguel Mezquíriz, Spanish.
Carlos Véjar Jr. wrote the script, based on a play written by exiles Salvador Bartolozzi and his partner Magda Donato[2], heads of INBA’s[3] child theater program. Bartolozzí’s original illustrations and designs for the stage inspired the movie’s sets, costumes, and make-up.
Salvador Bartolozzi was a versatile artist. He outstood as illustrator, cartoonist, publisher; theater art director, and costume designer in his native Spain; moreover, he had a reputation as an innovator of children literature and theater. He wrote for children under the motto “mejorar divirtiendo”
Magda Donato collaborated with Bartolozzi in many of his projects. She was an accomplished intellectual, journalist, literary translator, and actress. At 14 years old, she would already write short stories for newspapers and magazines. A pair of Texas periodicals published a few of her stories when she was still a teenager, and then in the 1940s[4]. She was part of the “Generación del 27”.
Mexican Carlos Toussaint and Spanish exile Vicente Petit shared the production design responsibilities. Petit, famous as artist and decorator in Spain, made his debut in Mexico with this film.
Composer Juan García Esquivel took charge of musical direction. Years later, he became famous in the United States as “the King of Spage Age Pop.”
The legendary Francisco Gabilondo Soler Cri-Cri created and performed some of the songs, and also dubbed animal characters.
Ross Fisher, formerly of Hollywood, was the director of photography. In 1936, he had his first experience with color film (Los siete cabritos y el lobo, animated film produced and directed by Roberto A. Morales in 1936).
Producers opted for a color system invented by a Mexican for Las aventuras de Cucuruchito y Pinocho. The negative later went to the Cinecolor lab in Burbank, California, for developing. Producer Elvira personally supervised the processing of the film.
Alicia Rodríguez and Martha Ofelia Galindo were child actresses, both involved in INBA’s theater programs. The two followed brilliant careers on stage, film, and television, and were active until recently. Taking part in this film brought good opportunities to Alicia and Martha Ofelia. The latter was even called for auditions at the MGM studios in New York in 1944[5], while Alicia won a Mexican Academy award in 1945, for El secreto de la solterona.
Carlos Véjar Jr., the director, is worth a mention too. He outstood as illustrator and cartoonist; he even worked at Walt Disney studios for some time. In the film industry, he explored screenplay writing, production, direction, title designing, and acting. He was the first Mexican filmmaker in making a 3D movie, El corazón y la espada (in 1953, with codirector Edward Dein).
With the collaboration of such array of talents, it is not surprising that Las aventuras de Cucuruchito y Pinocho got praises by several film reporters and critics. That is the case of Hortensia Elizondo[6]. Her review of the movie[7] is reproduced verbatim as follows. It reveals some unknown details about the film:
Some sources affirm that the producers and distributors had problems with Walt Disney because he claimed “Pinocchio” –the character and the name- was his intellectual property. We have not found documents that prove the conflict, but the sources are most probably right. At any rate, Salvador Bartolozzi created the “el Pinocho español” (the Spanish Pinocchio) in the middle 1910s, long before Disney became involved in the film industry.
In spite of any problem, Las aventuras de Cucuruchito y Pinocho was distributed and exhibited in Texas in 1944, 1945 and 1946. It ran successfully in Cuba, where it premiered at the Teatro Payret, in la Habana, on October 1-10, 1943. The movie arrived in Spain in 1945, and countless theaters exhibited it. Spanish audiences had not forgotten Bartolozzi and Donato.
Color fantasy film production was abandoned in Mexico after the making of Las aventuras de Cucuruchito y Pinocho. Fifteen years later, CLASA and director René Cardona revived the trend with Pulgarcito.
We believe rescuing every extant film is worth the effort, since any film footage is a witness of history, both of motion picture and of culture. In the case of Las aventuras de Cucuruchito y Pinocho, that is particulary true, as it stands as:
a good example of the multinational character of Mexican film industry; | {
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Readme File:
============================================================
Cet file change les sons radios originals SOF2 en ajoutant aussi des binds en français.
Change tous tes sons de voix en francais...
This file changes your original radio sounds in french.
It changes all your voice sounds and voice menu in french...
============================================================
Title : Squall Radio FFC
Description : Changes your radio sounds into french at the place of english.
Release Date : August 29, 2004
Version : 1.0
Filename : SquallRadioFFC.pk3
Author : |FFC|*Geber* & |FFC|*TyrAN*
Email : [email protected] and [email protected]
Website: www.clan-ffc.fr.vu Now recruting french people!
============================================================
* Construction *
Buildtime : ?
Compile Time : None
Editor : packscape
Map Known Bugs : None
Gametype Known Bugs : None
Features : This file changes your original radio sounds in french.
Changes every voices in french and voice menu...
Secret : None
New Textures? : Yes
New Sounds? : Yes
Custom Soundtrack? : Yes
Compile Machine : Athlon 2400 728 mb GeForce Fx
============================================================
* Play Information *
Game : SOF2
Type : Sound
Supported Modes : All
Requires : SOF2
Players : ?
============================================================
* Installation *
INSTALL THIS FILE DIRECTLY IN BASE DIRECTORY!!
UNZIP IT IN SOF2 BASE/MP DIRECTORY
(example: C:\Program Files\Soldier of Fortune II - Double Helix\ Base/MP)
----------------------------------------------------------------
* Credits *
Raven Team for SOF2:Double Helix Game and the original qvm files
*Special Thanks*
Thanx to Sir_paul for hosting
www.sof2files.com For the great work they do for the community
ReadMe template created by [email protected]
============================================================
* Permissions*
All original and composed textures or assets in this level remain property of
the sources respective owners.
You MAY distribute this ZIP,PK3 in any not-for-profit electronic format (BBS, Internet,
CD, etc) as long as you contact me first, and include all files, including this readme, intact in
the original archive.
============================================================
* Warning - Must Read and Understand Before Use*
The author of this file accepts no responsibility for damage to data, or physical damage
to hardware, caused by the appropriate or inappropriate use of this file. It is deemed
that users who run this file, automatically are considered as having read and understood
this liability clause before using the said file.
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The best serving of video game culture, since 1998. Whether you're looking for the biggest collection of PC gaming files on the planet, tools, tips or advice, GameFront has you covered. Browse through over 145,000 mods, maps, tools and more. Game on! | {
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The Rev. Martino Nguyen Ba-Thong offers a high-five to a student coming into St. Frances Cabrini school.
Carl Elmore
Children from St. Frances Cabrini Catholic School hug the Rev. Martino Nguyen Ba-Thong as they return from a field trip.
Carl Elmore
The Rev. Martino Nguyen Ba-Thong welcomes a St. Frances Cabrini Catholic School student back from a field trip.
The slight woman and her 7-year-old son again were tackling the overnight trek through jungle wilderness to attend Sunday Mass at a Catholic mission.
It was 1983 in South Vietnam.
Every weekend, they walked from the refugee camp where they lived near the Cambodian border - the only home the boy had ever known - through dense jungle, crossing streams and a small river to attend services.
At last, early on this particular Sunday, mother and son approached the mission church. There in front, scrawled on a tattered piece of paper, was an unexpected message: Priest Arrested, No Mass Today.
"Very much so," said Nelson, 67, who guides the church and founded the parochial grade school there in 2000. "People enjoy hearing his homilies. And he is a great help to me. He visits the school regularly. He visits the sick and the hospitals. He is making a great difference."
Nelson said he calls Martino "the young rebel," a reference to his extroverted style and non-traditional eulogies.
Martino - belying his small stature - is 50 decibels louder than most who grace a pulpit.
"I am loud because I try to keep myself awake," he laughed.
How he got here is a story of overcoming challenges, personal triumphs and, Martino will tell you, the grace of God.
Perilous start
His mother and father, employed by the U.S. government during the war in Vietnam, became instant enemies of the state when Saigon fell to communist dictator Ho Chi Minh's North Vietnamese Army in 1975. His mother was an administrator. His father had been Saigon commander of the Quan Cahn, commonly called the QC - the South Vietnamese military police.
They were sent to separate prisons: Martino's mother was jailed in Saigon, his father in North Vietnam.
Martino's mother, starving and on the verge of death in her seventh month of pregnancy, was later released to her brother to survive in the streets of Saigon. After Martino was born, mother and son were sent to a refugee camp in Long An Province west of Saigon near the Cambodian border.
Ten years later, in the summer of 1986, Martino's father was released from prison. The family of three was reunited in Xuan Loc, a town north of Saigon.
While the communists tolerated the Catholic church, practicing was not without its perils.
At 14, Martino began teaching catechism classes. Before he turned 17, he had been arrested four times.
Each time, he was thrown into a windowless prison cell no bigger than a shower stall. He would get a bowl of rice and a cup of water a day.
Detained for days at a time, Martino said when he was interrogated, he was beaten, slapped, kicked and struck repeatedly with the butt of an AK-47 assault rifle.
"The last time," he said, "the fourth time, it was pretty bad."
He was told that if he could prove the existence of God, his interrogators would let him go.
"I don't know how to do this," Martino said he was thinking at the time. "God, you gotta gimme da answer."
Before his next interrogation began, Martino said he asked that his hands be untied. As soon as his hands were free, he hit one of the guards in the arm as hard as he could.
"Did that hurt?" he asked the guard before the favor could be returned.
"Yes," the guard hissed.
Martino: "How do I know that?"
Guard: "Because I feel it."
Martino: "Yes, but I cannot feel it. So, how do I know?"
Guard: "Because there's a red mark where you hit me."
"Oh, that," Martino said. "That could be from the sun."
"OK," the guard said, "there's no way I can prove it if you can't feel it."
"And that's how I know there is a God," Martino said to his interrogators. "But I cannot prove it if you cannot feel Him."
Then, he said, "they beat me up and sent me home."
Under an agreement between the United States and Vietnam, Martino, then 17, and his parents qualified for a repatriation program and on Feb. 5, 1993, the Nguyens landed at Chicago's O'Hare Field.
They had $49 among them. And they did not speak much English.
"In fact," Martino recalled with a chuckle, "a man walked up and asked me something in Spanish. I had to tell him: I no speak-a English."
Martino graduated from high school in 1995, then from college four years later. During college, he landed a job with Blue Cross Blue Shield, quickly rising to be an investment broker.
On to Calcutta
In the summer of 1999, at age 23 and with his bachelor's degree secured, Martino took a one-month "vacation" to India to be a volunteer for Mother Teresa.
When he arrived, he was put to work at the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity of Calcutta.
"They sent me to the house of death and dying," Martino said.
His first assignment was to shave a man sharing a large room with others - India's version of a hospice. With deep skepticism, Martino eyed his nun-supervisor.
"What?" he asked her, as she thrust a razor, a small bar of soap and a towel into his hands. "I cannot do this. I am an accountant, not a barber."
But she sent him packing.
Martino said he found the man, unconscious and unwashed, sweating in the 115-degree heat of the day.
"His hair was like this," Martino said, reaching down and stroking the carpet under the chair in which he was sitting for the interview. "And you know how I could tell he was still alive? You know how I could tell? When I touched him, he was still warm."
When he had finished the shave, Martino slowly peeled back the sheet covering the man.
Up and down his legs were open sores, untreated and alive with maggots.
Martino said he removed the maggots and, with a towel and a bowl of warm water, he bathed the man and carried him back to his cubicle. Martino then dressed the man in a pair of his own pajamas. Sitting down on the floor, Martino used one of his thighs as a pillow for the man's head.
Minutes passed before the frail man opened his eyes, nodding at Martino in a gesture of thanks.
And then, the man died.
At that moment, Martino said, he knew what God had called him to do with the rest of his life.
Before the end of Martino's month-long stay with Mother Teresa, at least 40 people would die in his arms.
Religious commitment
Martino enrolled at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md., when he returned. At age 28, he was ordained at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Savannah.
Presiding over the ceremony was the Most Rev. Kevin Boland, 71, bishop of the Savannah Diocese.
"He is very vibrant ... very articulate," the bishop said. "He has so many of the qualities you want to see in a priest. ... And his spirituality is contagious."
Boland initially assigned Martino to St. Mary's on the Hill in Augusta, where he served for about two years.
At Cabrini, Martino said, he has no daily routine.
"My typical day," he said, "is to be with the people and to help them get what they need."
He is devoted to youngsters and works with them naturally. And they reciprocate.
"I'm happy here," Martino said. "I'm laughing and I'm jumping. And I love the children - they're the future of the church."
On that day in 2004 when Martino took his vows of ordination to become a priest, he said he knew he'd made the right decision. During the ceremony, he and the four other candidates for the priesthood lay prostrate, face down on the carpeted granite floor of the cathedral's sanctuary.
In front of him was the crucifix above the altar, a larger-than-life image of Jesus Christ nailed to a cross. At his feet behind him were scores of believers in the pews, including his parents.
An image flashed through Martino's mind: At that moment, between the crucifix and the pews, there was a bridge.
"The priest lays down his life for the people," Martino said. "I am the bridge. The people walk over me to get to God." | {
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September 29, 2005
The Brooklyn Borough President, Marty Markowitz, has prevailed upon the state's Department of Transportation to put a sign on the Williamsburg Bridge in the direction in which traffic leaves Brooklyn for Manhattan. (Hat tip: Bob G.)
Actually, this is pretty accurate for me. My choices are Miguel Estrada, Edith Jones, and Mike Luttig, in that order.
I fiddled with the answers to the questions on the quiz and got different and somewhat peculiar results. Gideon's Blog thinks the poll sucks major eggs, and it's hard to disagree, though I can't imagine anyone takes this whole thing terribly seriously.
According to La Vanguardia newspaper, he will have to study articles 10, 14 and 15 of the constitution. The first two address "the dignity of a person and inviolable rights" and states "all Spaniards are equal before the law."
The third one states "the moral and physical integrity of a person in no case can be submitted to torture nor inhuman or degrading punishments or treatment."
September 27, 2005
Who but the Washington Post could have a lengthy report in the health section about vasectomies, including three jokes, and make it boring? Except for the fact that I felt sorry for the reporter, who had to talk about it in public.
The one thing I learned from the article is this:
"You can train a monkey to do a vasectomy," said [Arnold] Belker [a urologist]. "It's pretty straightforward. It's minor surgery -- except from the patient's view."
Back in May, prompted by a Drudge promo for a new TV drama about Geena Davis, the first woman president, and by a photo of the actress displaying what is commonly known as cleavage, I posed what I think is an important constitutional question: Is a female president constitutionally permitted to show cleavage? I noted that had checked Article II of the Constitution and that it was silent on the issue.
The program, "Commander in Chief," which starts tonight, is based on the premise that the President dies, leaving Geena Davis, the Vice President to take over. She, being an independent, and not an evil Republican like the deceased President, is encouraged by the President's advisors to step aside in favor of the next-in-line Speaker of the House, also an evil Republican. The Speaker, though, is more than evil; he is terminally stupid and offends Geena by acting like the male troglodyte pig that he is. Geena, our heroine, is so incensed at this treatment that, damn it, she decides to do what the 25th Amendment already provides: succeed to the presidency and kick the living crap out of the Republicans.
Interestingly enough, given its neutral political outlook, the show has attracted the attention of even the Gray Lady herself, which illustrates its article on the show with a photo of the actress displaying what is commonly known as a sour puss but otherwise nothing in the cleavage category, at least so far as the eye can tell.
But since you never can trust the New York Times, I took the legal question to the White House Counsel's office. I was quickly referred to Attorney General Gonzales's office, which referred me like a hot potato to the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. There, I received the following constitutional opinion, to wit: "Huh?" After asserting my rights as a citizen, I received the following amended opinion: "It's permissible under Article II, so long as it does not constitute torture under international law." But how will I know? "It's a case-by-case analysis." Geena Davis? "Judge for yourself." I get it, I'll know it when I see it.
Now we're talking.
But before I could hang up the phone, my contact said, "You do know, don't you, that this matter could be directly affected by a case to be decided by the Supreme Court?" I said, "You don't mean . . . " My source: "Yes."
Today's ABC News reports: "US top court to hear Anna Nicole Smith's appeal." According to the petition for a writ of certiorari, Anna Nicole Smith claims that she is in line to succeed to the presidency if the 280 million or so Americans ahead of her in the line of succession should suddenly croak, and she wants the Supreme Court to reverse a decision of the Fourth Circuit that, if she became president, she could not constitutionally show cleavage like this:
There's still time to ask John Roberts to opine. In fact, there's still time to nominate Anna Nicole Smith herself. I'm sure she'd kick the living crap out of those evil Republicans on the court, just the way she did to her deceased husband.
September 26, 2005
Don Adams, best known as Maxwell Smart, Control's Secret Agent 86, who played opposite Barbara Feldon as Agent 99, died yesterday of a lung infection at the age of 82. I really can't believe he was 82. (Would you believe 81-3/4?)
Kaos killer: Look, I'm a sportsman. I'll let you choose the way you want to die.Max: All right, how about old age?
Get Smart was always my favorite TV show. During a 1991 Nick at Nite marathon, I managed to record all 138 episodes. Even now, my 14-year-old son watches them and argues with me about which ones are good and which are only fair. We also argue with the ratings in Joey Green's Official Get Smart Handbook.
Max: We've go less than two hours before that missile center is going to blow up, and not only do we not know how it's going to be done, we don't even know who's going to do it.99: We know when.Max: Yes, well, knowing when isn't going to tell us who or how. I'd gladly trade my when for a who and a how.99: Why?Max: Why? Good question, 99. Well, you see, if we know who then we can watch how who did it and then that wil give us our who, our how, and our when.99: That makes sense.Max: I know it, 99. That's what worries me.
Don Adams wasn't even going to be cast as Max. The original plan was to use Tom Poston. In retrospect, it's impossible to imagine anyone else as Max. It's also impossible to imagine Don Adams as anyone but Max, and the AP obit quotes Don Adams as saying that the show made him a lot of money but basically ruined his career, because he was typecast.
Chief: Just don't get caught, Max. Capture means certain death.Max: Suicide mission, eh, Chief? Well, you picked the right man.Chief: I hope so.Max: You hope what? That you picked the right man? Or that it's a suicide mission.
I had a friend in high school who was of Armenian descent, and he used to make me act out the scene in one episode, with a dying Inspector Sahokian of the Armenian Branch of International Control. The only place you can find the dialogue on the internet is on Pillage Idiot (scroll down).
Soccer Dad notes that two things are now being smuggled into Gaza from Egypt: weapons (you mean they still have to be smuggled?) -- and brides.
In that part of the world, of course, carrying a concealed bride is very common. You've heard the dialogue before: "Drop that bride-in-a-burqa, Mahmoud, and no one will get hurt." (Except perhaps the bride.)
I suppose this also proves the ancient dictum that if smuggling brides is outlawed, only outlaws will have brides.
Apparently, the State Department has asked Abbas to get tough by demanding that Hamas turn over all its brides. Or at least stop displaying them publicly. But don't count on it. He has too much at stake in the bride trafficking.
September 25, 2005
I just heard this chick in a 45-second snippet on our local news radio station. She was talking about how her visit to the Middle East showed her that we can have peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians if we just "empower" the younger generation to seek peace.
The younger generation? Yeah, that's it!
Thanks to LGF, some photos of how the younger generation of Palestinians are being empowered are here, here, here, and here.
By the way, you just knew this woman had to be Jewish. My father always said when I was growing up that you had to be smart to be stupid. When it comes to the Middle East, you may have to be Jewish.
Here is the Jeopardy answer that leads to the correct question "Who cares?"
Under an informal agreement between Mr. Abbas and the militants, a ban on displaying weapons was to take effect later yesterday. It was not clear whether Hamas would honor the deal after the Israeli strikes.
That was from an AP article in the Washington Times. With Hamas showing what a Palestinian state will look like by engaging in rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza, it's hard to get worked up over whether Hamas will honor the deal with Abbas not to display weapons. That's like telling the Crips and the Bloods that they can shoot all they want if they simply conceal their firearms.
Meanwhile the BBC moans about the "cycle of violence." (At least the Washington Times article was headlined "Israelis hit back at Hamas in Gaza.") The BBC has a helpful chronology of the cycle of violence, which -- this will surprise you from the BBC -- starts with an Israeli attack: "Israeli troops shoot dead three Islamic Jihad militants in Tulkarm, West Bank, in raids on those suspected of involvement in suicide attacks earlier this year." As a friend of mine says, "It all started when he hit me back."
We have a yellow labrador retriever who weighs about 95-100 pounds. She isn't fat, just huge. She's a member of the Women's Yellow Lab Olympic Basketball Team. (We can't let her get fat, because she has congenital knee problems.)
A few days ago, she had a cyst removed from her right front paw. That evening, she managed to get upstairs, but she couldn't get down, because her paw hurt. For those of you who are not dog owners, "house-trained" doesn't mean that the dog knows how to use the plumbing in the house. So being stuck on the second floor was potentially a large problem. I rushed upstairs to help her down by lifting her front end and reducing the weight she had to put on her foot. The operation was a success, but the patient died. At least, I did. I got a charley horse in my back, which has improved but isn't yet 100%.
Last night, the dog chewed off her bandage, so my wife had to take her to the emergency vet clinic. They fixed the bandage and fitted her (the dog, not my wife) with a "bonnet" that keeps her (again, the dog, not my wife) from chewing the bandage.
The bonnet has one drawback: it greatly limits peripheral vision. So the dog couldn't figure out how to jump back into our car. She kept bumping her bonnet into the bumper of the car. (I guess that's why it's called a bumper.)
And going up and coming down the stairs is also a problem.
The bandage and the bonnet, we hope, are coming off on Wednesday.
UPDATE: Eating meals turns out to be a little tricky. But if you get the seals working around the bonnet, you can really have some suction going.
September 24, 2005
You would think with Ken Mehlman, a Jewish guy, running the Republican National Committee, it might occur to them to schedule a fundraiser sometime other than on Rosh Hashanah. But you would be wrong.
I made a respectable contribution to the President's re-election campaign a year ago (my first contribution to a presidential campaign since I gave a dollar to Humphrey in 1968). Of course, I've been snowed under with appeals for money ever since. I don't have any plans to give more money, not because I'm unusually disgusted with the Republicans (just usually disgusted) but because last year was a unique situation for the good of the country. Still, this invitation really irritates me.
OK, sure, dinner's at 6:00 p.m., when a lot of folks have already forgotten they went to shul in the morning, and the reception's at 7:30, a few seconds after the yom tov is over. But that wouldn't even have been an issue had they chosen a different date.
I wasn't going to post the invitation at all, because I didn't want to involve the poor shnook who's hosting it at his house, but I did a quick Google search and discovered that Shelly Kamins is a member of the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition. I was going to ask where the RJC was during the planning of this event, but now I know.
September 22, 2005
If you think that Arab culture has invented nothing since the Dark Ages, when Arabs invented zero (the numeral) -- some say it actually was the Hindus -- then this will probably confirm you in your views: There is now a Muslim equivalent of Barbie, a doll named Fulla, which apparently is all the rage in the Mideast, at least all the rage that isn't being directed at the United States and Israel.
Here's one troubling feature of the doll: "Fulla roughly shares Barbie's size and proportions, but steps out of her shiny pink box wearing a black abaya and matching head scarf." If she shares Barbie's proportions, better keep her out of the hands of the Islamists, or she might be beheaded.
This is more than an immature joke. The article reports:
Not everyone sees Fulla as such a positive influence. Maan Abdul Salam, a Syrian women's rights advocate, said Fulla was emblematic of a trend toward Islamic conservatism sweeping the Middle East. Though statistics are hard to come by, he said, the percentage of young Arab women who wear the hijab is far higher now than it was a decade ago, and though many girls are wearing it by choice, others are being pressured to do so.
"If this doll had come out 10 years ago, I don't think it would have been very popular," he said. "Fulla is part of this great cultural shift."
"Syria used to be a very secular country," he added, "but when people don't have anything to believe in anymore, they turn toward religion."
But don't worry. Maybe Fulla can't really replace Barbie after all.
But Jyza Sybai, a lanky, tomboyish Saudi 10-year-old, visiting Syria with her family for a short vacation, disagreed. "All my friends have Fulla now, but I still like Barbie the best," Jyza said. "She has blond hair and cool clothes. Every single girl in Saudi looks like Fulla, with the dark hair and the black scarf.
You might think it's totally bizarre for a small-time blogger like me to offer blogroll reciprocity, but it's not. Given my relatively limited traffic, I'm very much aware of my visitors, and I appreciate all of them, even if I don't always recognize some of them as bloggers.
So here's the offer: If you're a regular reader (as you define it yourself) and a blogger, and you have me on your blogroll but you're not on mine, please email me your URL with a request to add you to my blogroll. Assuming your blog is generally SFW, I will be happy to add it.
Paul Mirengoff and Scott Johnson, two-thirds of the Power Line team, have written a fascinating article in the Weekly Standard trying to make the case that the concept of a "living Constitution" that liberals rely on derives from Hegel, through Woodrow Wilson. It's a fascinating, well written piece.
Still, while I've never read Hegel, and I'm familiar with little more than the fact that "David Hume/Could outconsume/Schopenhauer and Hegel," I think Mirengoff and Johnson's theory suffers from the usual problems of grand theories: the facts simply can't keep up with the theory. I have two reservations, which I'll summarize here.
First, there was a time when conservatives on the Supreme Court were also invoking the living Constitution, even if they didn't call it that and even if they undoubtedly detested Hegel. The whole Lochner line of cases, in which "substantive due process" was used to invalidate liberal state legislation, principally in the area of labor relations and contract, is based on the notion of a living Constitution. When you invoke a concept that is basically a contradiction in terms, you are not applying the Constitution as written. (I know I'm offending a whole bunch of libertarians with this paragraph. Just say to yourself, "That fool doesn't know what he's talking about." It'll make you feel better, and it's probably true.)
Second, I would invoke Occam's Razor. You don't have to come up with a complicated theory. You can explain the whole problem by observing that the federal judiciary is drawn largely from the legal elites. (Just take a look at the states in which there's "merit" selection. The candidates are judged by people just like themselves, all in the legal establishment.) Congressmen come from all walks of life. God knows the President can be some dumb yokel from Texas, right? But the legal elite in the judiciary know better than all of them. They know better than you. And, most important, they know better than some dead white guys who wrote the Constitution more than 200 years ago.
So I'm not really rejecting the Hegel-to-Wilson-to-Breyer double play. I'm just not sure it's complete, and I'm not sure it's not just too complicated.
UPDATE (9/23): Ruth Bader Ginsburg proves my point, taking the opportunity to advise the President to appoint a woman, but noting that "any woman will not do."
There are "some women who might be appointed who would not advance human rights or women's rights," Ginsburg told those gathered at the New York City Bar Association.
And: "I have a list of highly qualified women, but the president has not consulted me," she added during a brief interview Wednesday night.
Beyond the inappropriateness of Ginsburg’s comments is — not to put too fine a point on it — their arrogant stupidity. Ginsburg obviously thinks that a justice has a roving authority to “advance human rights or women’s rights,” irrespective what the Constitution and other federal laws actually mean. It is equally obvious that she sees her own ideological agenda — which apparently includes same-sex marriage, taxpayer-funded abortion on demand, prostitution, bigamy, and co-ed prisons — as the proper way to advance those rights.
Yesterday, President Bush spoke to the Republican Jewish Coalition at its celebration of its 20th anniversary. The speech is here. I don't believe in trying to discern major policy pronouncements from throw-away lines, but I was still pleased with this: "As we saw in the recent desecration of the synagogues in Gaza, the ancient hatred of anti-Semitism still burns in the hearts of men."
"As if you needed a reason, never shake hands with [a] Braves fan…" is how Metsblog.com notes this article on ESPN.com. The article, by the Associated Press, recounts a survey in which testers surreptitiously counted the numbers of men and women in public restrooms who washed up after using the loo.
• The worst hygiene was at Atlanta's Turner Field baseball stadium, where 37 percent of men left the bathroom without washing, and 16 percent of the women did.
So, now that we've had our laugh at the expense of the dregs of Turner Field (LAR-RY! LAR-RY! LAR-RY!), let's turn our attention to the dregs who performed this study.
Back in 1996, the society first studied how often people follow mom's advice to always wash up after using the toilet. Researchers lingered in public restrooms, putting on makeup or combing their hair, while surreptitiously counting. They concluded about one-third of people did not wash.
Hanging out in public restrooms? That is flat-out degenerate. I don't even want to think about it.
September 21, 2005
Church was concerned because his former girlfriend was Jewish. He turned to Moeller, "I said, like, Jewish people, they don't believe in Jesus. Does that mean they're doomed? Jon nodded, like, that's what it meant. My ex-girlfriend! I was like, man, if they only knew. Other religions don't know any better. It's up to us to spread the word."
I'm beginning to think that in fact Jews are, like, doomed. But not for the reason Ryan Church, outfielder for the Washington Nationals, believes.
Church was in church (let's get the stupid wordplay out of the way early) or, really, in baseball chapel, and he was simply asking the volunteer chaplain a doctrinal question. According to the Post article, baseball teams are now providing chaplains for their players. But not everyone attends.
Nationals manager Frank Robinson would not comment. "Frank doesn't do religion," said team spokesman John Dever. When team members gathered to pray, Robinson stayed in his office, watching ESPN, with hitting coach Tom McCraw. McCraw cracked the door and said: "I don't go to chapel. I'm a sinner."
Some of the other players, such as third baseman Vinnie Castilla, said they prefer to pray at home or in church. Assistant General Manager Tony Siegle doesn't attend chapel either: "I'm Jewish."
Those who do attend seem to find spiritual sustenance. ("It's about guys needing Christ," [Jon] Moeller [the chaplain] said. "It could be the security guard, or it could be Nick Johnson. RFK becomes a church on Sundays.") And the players and chaplains do have to deal with the obvious theological issues. ("I get a ton of people saying, 'Hey, Wayne, you gotta pray harder for the Brewers,'" said Wayne Beilgard, chapel leader for the Milwaukee Brewers. "I tell them, 'God doesn't choose sides in baseball. God is not a Yankees fan.'")
So what could be wrong, right? What could be wrong, according to Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld of Ohev Sholom Talmud Torah, an Orthodox congregation in Washington that calls itself the National Synagogue, is that it appeared to him that "the locker room of the Nationals is being used to preach hatred." Hatred, he said. The Nationals (the team, not the shul) have now suspended the volunteer chaplain, and Ryan Church has issued an abject apology, as the Washington Post reports today.
Many Christians believe as part of their religious doctrine that acceptance of Jesus is necessary for salvation. Pardon me if I disagree with them. I'm a very committed Jew; I don't believe that Jesus is the Messiah; and I have no expection of ending up in Hell, if such a place should exist. Yet, and this is very important, it's totally out of line to tell these Christians that their views are based on hatred. They are not. They are based on faith and love.
Jews in America need not be so fearful of believing Christians. We are not in medieval or pre-modern Europe, where "the Jews killed Jesus" was incitement to murder. We are in the United States, where most Christians who believe we are "doomed" will figure it's just our dumb choice, and the absolute worst that will happen is that some of them will try to convert us. So what? The correct answer of an American Jew to a proposal to convert is a polite but firm "No, thank you."
It is our own obligation as Jews to provide spiritual sustenance for others of us, and any Jew's conversion from Judaism represents our own failure, not some kind of evil behavior on the part of the Christians. We are blessed with freedom in this country, and every Jew has a choice to remain a Jew or not. Our strategy for preventing conversion, loss of affiliation, and intermarriage should be to support Jewish education and outreach, organizations like the National Jewish Outreach Program, and others groups that offer sustenance to Jews and help them choose to remain Jewish.
What makes the charge of "hatred" levied by Rabbi Herzfeld even worse is that the Christian view that acceptance of Jesus is necessary for salvation is not based on hatred of Jews at all. It's based on a desire to show Jews and other non-believers in Jesus what Christians see as the truth. It's based on faith -- and love -- even if, in our opinion, it is profoundly mistaken. When Ryan Church said, "I was like, man, if they only knew. Other religions don't know any better. It's up to us to spread the word," he was trying to say that he wanted to help others. And he's not coming after us with a sword, or even a baseball bat. (Nor, might I add, is his rhetoric even remotely similar to the rhetoric of another large religion, of which a non-trivial number of adherents actually is trying to kill us.)
It's embarrassing to me, and I think it should be embarrassing to Jews generally, that Ryan Church was forced to apologize. So let me say this to him:
I apologize to you for the fact that a prominent Jew castigated you for believing in your faith. I don't agree with your religious doctrine, but I'm happy you believe in it. I think Jews are better off in this country when Christians believe in their religion than when everyone is secular; secularism is a greater threat to Jewish continuity than religious pluralism. Irving Kristol once wrote that the danger facing American Jews today is not that Christians want to persecute them, but that Christians want to marry their children. So I'm glad your Jewish girlfriend is no longer your girlfriend, because I hope that she, like all Jews, can find a Jewish soulmate to marry. Nothing against you; I hope you find a wonderful Christian woman to take as a wife. Anyway, I think you're painfully aware by now that we Jews are very sensitive about being told we are doomed, even though that's what you believe. But if we are doomed, it's not for the reason you say; it's because we're not doing enough to keep Jews Jewish. Please keep believing what you believe in. We'll just have to agree to disagree on our faith. Oh, and by the way, the answer is "No, thank you."
September 20, 2005
Via the Volokh Conspiracy: The Danes are branching out in new ways, with a government program providing "sex workers" to disabled people, according to the National Post.
Danish activists for the disabled are staunchly defending a government campaign that pays sex workers to provide sex once a month for disabled people.
Opposition parties call the program, officially known as "Sex, irrespective of disability," immoral.
"We spend a large proportion of our taxes rescuing women from prostitution. But at the same time we officially encourage carers to help contact with prostitutes," said Social-Democrat spokesperson Kristen Brosboel.
Responded Stig Langvad of the country's Disabled Association: "The disabled must have the same possibilities as other people. Politicians can debate whether prostitution should be allowed in general, instead of preventing only the disabled from having access to it."
Sure, go ahead and laugh. Go ahead and make cheap jokes about whether baldness or astigmatism or anything else you "suffer" from is a disability. I'm worried about the legal ramifications. Who's liable if the disabled person contracts an STD? Are disabled women entitled to the same "help" as men? How about gay disabled people? And who's liable if the "sex worker" injures herself (or himself) in the line of duty? And which dimwit senator forgot to ask John Roberts about this stuff?
But, more seriously, if that's possible, is John Hinckley, Jr., a guy who's spent more than 20 years in a mental institution, disabled, because he's lookin' for a chick.
Clinton the condom? Bill and Monica will lend their names to a new brand of condoms produced in China. "The Guangzhou Haokian Bio-science company has registered their names as trademarks for the contraceptives. They will be given the Chinese spellings of their names - Kelitun and Laiwensiji." (via The Corner)
Thirty-two years ago today, as a freshman at a college roughly 60 miles from my home town in the New York suburbs, I strained to listen to a weak radio signal broadcasting the Mets' game against the Pirates. The Mets, in last place in the NL East at the end of August 1973, had taken advantage of poor division competition and moved steadily ahead, eventually winning the division title (with an embarrassing record of 82-79), the playoffs with Cincinnati, and 3 of the first 5 games of the World Series against Oakland, only to lose the final two games to a much better team.
Give 'em credit where credit is due. Much as I complain about the Washington Post (and rarely even read its editorials), yesterday's editorial on Yahoo's role in the criminal conviction of a Chinese journalist is a strong one. Good job!
September 18, 2005
Donn Clendenon, the Mets' first baseman in their miracle season in 1969, has died of leukemia at the age of 70. The New York Times obit is here.
The obit mentions his most memorable game, Game 5 of the 1969 World Series, against the Orioles:
One of the strangest moments came at Shea Stadium in the sixth inning of Game 5 in the World Series, with the Orioles ahead by 3-0.
Cleon Jones, leading off, was allowed to take first base when Mets Manager Gil Hodges proved to the home-plate umpire, Lou DiMuro, that Jones had been hit by a low curveball. Hodges did it by showing how the pitch delivered by Dave McNally was smudged with polish from Jones's shoe.
Clendenon, the Mets' first baseman and the next hitter, hit a home run off the auxiliary scoreboard of the left-field loge seats to make it 3-2. The Mets tied it in the seventh inning on a homer by Al Weis, a little-noticed infielder, and scored two in the ninth [actually, the eighth] for a 5-3 victory and the World Series championship.
I remember. Because I was there. My mother managed to snag two upper deck seats, right behind home plate, last row, and I skipped ninth grade with a friend to attend. Definitely the highlight of my life as a Mets fan.
I had a birthday over the summer, and my wife gave me a present this weekend. One part of it was a book called "Why Do Men Have Nipples?" This book has "Pillage Idiot" written all over it. At least it did after I started marking it up.
If you're a regular reader of this blog -- and not just because you feel sorry for me -- I think you'll enjoy the book. Here's an excerpt from the preface, explaining how the two authors met up. One (Billy Goldberg, M.D.) is an emergency room doctor, the other (Mark Leyner) a novelist and screenwriter. Leyner came to visit Goldberg on his rounds.
[T]he first new patient to arrive was an "EDP." This is the term that we use for an emotionally disturbed patient. He was wildly agitated and a dozen burly New York City EMS personnel and cops were barely able to keep him restrained on a stretcher. Mark and I hurried over to see him wide-eyed and ranting psychotically. He was screaming in Spanish and English, "I am Superman, motherf[-----]. Get me Jimmy Olsen. I am faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive." I stepped up to the bed with the goal of getting an IV in and calming Superman down. He screamed again, "I am Superman, goddammit, your medications won't work on me." Leyner, who had been coolly observing the scene with clinical detachment, popped some Skittles in his mouth and made a stunningly unorthodox suggestion. "Give him kryptonite." I know that as you tell as story many times it begins to get embellished, but I remember that these words and these words alone calmed the patient enough so that we could get the drip going and get him under control.
The main part of the book answers questions like these:
Does coffee stunt your growth? (Short answer is no. Your parents were wrong. "It also helps if the child falls asleep and leaves Mommy and Daddy alone to find out if there really is a G-spot (see chapter 3, page 94).")
Do cucumbers relieve puffy eyes? (It's not the cucumber but the cooling effect of the water it contains. "Hemorrhoid cream also helps, but I'd prefer puffy eyes.")
Will yogurt cure a yeast infection if you put it "inside"? (It should help if you "put it in the correct orifice -- your mouth.")
Why does poo float?
OK, you get the idea. This book is at least a Code Orange on the Pillage Idiot Advisory System.
We spent this shabbat and Sunday morning with two of our kids and several other couples in cabins at Cacapon State Park in West Virginia. This is an annual, sometimes semi-annual, event with many of the same families each year. Each family provides one meal for everyone; we do erev shabbat and shacharit the next morning; and usually we take a hike in the afternoon or a nature walk. Saturday evening after havdalah is game night.
Many years, I'm the most observant person in the group. (It's an odd feeling. On a normal shabbat, at our orthodox shul, I'm closer to being one of the least.) As a result, when we do our Cacapon weekends, I'm usually asked to pick a topic for Torah discussion. The past two visits, I've actually written something out to present. Last spring, I spoke about math and economics -- about how the laws of remission couldn't possibly work, unless people believed that God had ordained those rules, and in fact, the rabbis later made them all but irrelevant through a legal device called prosbul. This weekend, I discussed a single verse in the Torah reading, Deuteronomy 23:8, which directs the Israelites not to abhor the Edomite, because he is their brother, and not to abhor the Egyptian, because they were strangers (sojourners) in his land. Here's the d'var torah:
The parasha we read today – ki teitzei – is full of laws. In fact, according to the O.U., it contains 74 of the 613 mitzvot, 27 positive mitzvot and 47 negative mitzvot, for a total of 12% of all mitzvot.
I want to focus on one verse – Deuteronomy 23:8 – which contains Mitzvot 164 and 165, if you use the Rambam's list. Like a lot of biblical poetry, this verse sets up a parallelism. (I don't mean to say this is poetry, but it follows biblical poetic style.)
First, we are prohibited from abhoring an Edomite. Why? Because he is our kinsman. Edom is associated with Esau, who is Jacob's brother. (Later on, by the way, Edom was associated with Rome and Christianity.) So no matter what Edom has done to us, we must remember he is our brother.
Second, we are prohibited from abhoring an Egyptian. Why? Because you were a stranger – a ger – in his land. But what does that mean, really? The Ramban (Nachmanides) says that Egypt offered us sanctuary when there was famine in the land of Israel. This is consistent with the idea that ger means a sojourner, as Robert Alter translates the word.
So that's it, right? End of d'var torah? Not really. What struck me about this verse is that the parallelism seems off. Normally, when the Torah says "You were a stranger in the land of Egypt," it's recalling a time that was bad for us, not good, and exhorting us to be good. For example, Exodus 23:9 says, "You shall not oppress a stranger; you know the soul of a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Similarly, Exodus 22:20 says, "You shall not wrong or oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." And again, Leviticus 19:34 says, "The stranger living with you shall be like the home-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God."
If the Torah is telling us we should not abhor an Egyptian because we suffered in Egypt, we lose the parallelism of the verse. We should not abhor the Edomite because there is something good about him, and we should not abhor the Egyptian because there is something bad about him. But the word "ki" can be understood to mean not only "because" but also "although." At the beginning of "b'shalach" (Exodus 13:17) we're told that God did not lead the Israelites by the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. Ki karov hu. "Ki" almost certainly means "although" rather than "because." None of this solves the problem of parallelism, but it at least deals with the meaning of the verse.
What I want to suggest here is that we can learn something from both readings of this verse. What we learn from my reading of "ki" as "although" is that we are being instructed to treat the Egyptians fairly, even though they mistreated us. The lesson can be put this way: Don't hold a grudge. Don't stoop to the level of people who have acted out of their worst instincts. Show magnanimity.
But what of the other reading? What if "ki" really means "because"? Don't abhor the Egyptian because he treated you well. Why would anyone mistreat someone who had treated him well? Because the good deed was forgotten? Sure, but how about the possibility that it's because the good deed was remembered? The Israelites were sojourners in Egypt because there was famine in the land of Canaan. When they arrived, Pharaoh offered them the land of Goshen, which we're to understand was the prime location in all of Egypt. So why would that good deed cause the Israelites to abhor the Egyptians?
Here's my thought: When people are in dire need of help, they will often feel a sense of shame about their condition, especially if they've had a good life until that time. So when they receive charity – or, nowadays, handouts from the government – they have mixed feelings. On the one hand, they feel relief; on the other, they feel shame and embarrassment. And more important than that, they feel a little resentment toward the people who helped them.
This problem was one of the reasons for the Rambam's Eight Degrees of Charity, which ranks in order of desirability the different ways in which people can help the needy. In the bottom four levels, the giver and receiver know each other. The problem this creates is that, to quote Chabad's analysis, "even when the giving is done with utmost sensitivity and happiness to help, theirs is a relationship of superiority: the giver's ego is gratified, and the recipient feels shame and inferiority because of his dependency."
This is not an absolute rule, of course. I'm thinking of the gentile families who saved Jews during the Holocaust. I suspect it was extremely rare for the saved families to resent those who risked their lives to help them. But neither is this rule purely hypothetical. The Jews were disproportionately involved in fighting for civil rights for blacks in the decades leading to the big victories of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But it wasn't long after that that black anti-semitism became a major force within the black community. There were several reasons for this, but one of them was a resentment at the Jews for having helped. Some blacks thought that the Jews were taking too much credit for the victories. Some thought the Jews had an ulterior motive for helping. And there was similarly a resentment that I think grew out of the fact that the help from outsiders, especially the Jews, confronted blacks with the reality that they had not done it alone.
So, to sum up, I think there are two completely conflicting readings of the verse, and I'm really not sure which is correct. But in a way, it really doesn't matter. We can learn something from each of them.
September 15, 2005
Serious bikers know that with carbon fiber you get durability and, because of the light weight, greater speed. (Not that I would know personally. Kicking butt on a hybrid just means you can whip the casual crowd.)
Anyway, it turns out that the same carbon fiber technology can be used on other, even more important equipment, toilet seats. Motto: "You know how fast a little fiber can make you go." (Finally, a high performance, race ready composite toilet seat.)
I kid you not. And the best part is it's only $229 for the complete lid and seat.
All of us have had this thought: John Roberts, former Deputy Solicitor General of the United States, who's argued, what, 39 cases before the Supreme Court, would find questions from senators on the judiciary committee to be fairly easy. Sort of obvious, right?
Here's a man long accustomed to answering really hard questions from extremely smart people, suddenly faced with the almost-harder task of answering obvious questions from less-smart people. He finds himself standing in a batting cage with the pitching machine set way too slow.
Trouble is, she's too respectful of these senators, who are very definitely last in the American League. They are not just "less-smart people"; they are blithering idiots. Roberts wins in a laugher.
You know how, when you get to your room in a hotel, you check where the fire exit is . . . or you do, anyway, if you're careful? I've found that hotels have really piled on the safety warnings these days. I was in Denver yesterday on business, and my hotel had not only the usual safety warnings but even this special announcement, placed near the TV for some reason.
I never realized that cell phones could activate an alarm system. Seems like a little problem in a hotel.
And I was imagining what's implicit in the final "warning" -- "We've received complaints . . . from management; it affects productivity in their offices."
September 13, 2005
"Public relations entrapment" is the phrase Mahmoud Abbas used to defend the Palestinians' torching of the synagogues left behind after the Israeli pullout from Gaza.
Do you see the beauty of it? The Israelis evacuated Gaza but left the synagogues standing, because they knew the Palestinians would burn them down and would look bad as a result. The Palestinians were entrapped into bad public relations.
It's even better than the rhetoric hawked on the front page of the New York Times this morning about Hurricane Katrina:
With a crowbar and a flat-bottom boat, the two have been helping people break into their own homes and steal back from the city's most audacious looters - the falling water and rising mold - some reminders of what was: an inherited painting, a homemade quilt, a colorful print made by a child's hand that has since grown much bigger.
We learn from this that people who looted in New Orleans -- and I'm talking about people who stole liquor or high-end electronics, not those who took water and necessities -- are no more morally culpable than water and mold, which have no volition and no ability to determine right from wrong.
September 12, 2005
According to this long article in Bethesda Magazine, based on interviews of 13 Montgomery County high school kids, 9 from public schools and 4 from private schools, you don't really want to know.
Your kids (and I don't mean yours; I just mean generally yours) are into alcohol big time, marijuana moderately, and sex indiscriminately. (Unless you accept Bill Clinton's definition of oral sex as not really sex.)
I suspect that there's a lot of this actually going on, but that at the same time, reports like these generally don't include kids who are serious students or religious or heavily involved in community service. There's almost certainly a lower incidence among those groups.
This is old but still amusing. "One of the primary reasons cat flaps are called cat flaps is that they're flaps specifically designed for cats, as opposed to dogs, or giraffes, or humans." (Hat tip: Mrs. Attila)
Iraqi soldiers donate to Katrina relief: "I am Colonel Abbas Fadhil; Tadji Military Base Commander,” Abbas wrote. “On behalf of myself and all the People of Tadji Military Base; I would like to console the American People and Government for getting this horrible disaster. So we would like to donate 1.000.000 Iraqi Dinars to help the government and the People also I would like to console all the ASTs who helped us rebuilding our country and our Army. We appreciate the American's help and support. Thank you." (Hat tip: fee simple)
Read this: A Surgeon Caught Up in the Flooding Tells of a Week of Chaos, Peril and Heroism (N.Y. Times): "The 68-year-old surgeon's last nights at his post would be spent sleeping in a red garbage bag, of the kind normally used to hold infectious waste, on the roof of Tulane University Hospital's parking garage, his head cradled on a pile of diapers, hiding with his staff from marauders below as security guards and a lone Marine sniper stood sentry." Also read the story of the caterer who took food matters into his own hands, Moved to Help Evacuees, Caterer Grabbed a Spoon (N.Y. Times): "Before the storm, Mr. Ford, a tall, panther-slim man, was known here as a golf-course owner, caterer and role model for young African-American entrepreneurs. That résumé began to take on a new dimension the day the hurricane arrived, when the Fords returned to the coliseum with their two teenagers and Joe Fulton, superintendent of the golf course, loaded down with food from their company's freezer. They cooked all day for the swelling crowd, even as winds knocked out power throughout the city. When provisions ran short, Mr. Ford appeared on local television to plead for donations." (Hat tips: Mrs. A)
The newest Jewish immigrants, Russians, tend to become Republicans, and the liberal Jewish establishment can't deal with it. From Friday's Wall Street Journal.
My first post ever on this blog, "Jew in America," began this way: "The United States has been the most hospitable country for Jews in the entire two-thousand-year history of the Jewish diaspora. Any suggestion to the contrary is sheer lunacy." So what does the historical advisor to an exhibit on 350 years of Jewish history in America think? "She wanted her exhibit to be more 'edgy,' less 'ethnocentric.' Rather than appreciating what Jews did for America, she notes, we should see how Jews 'benefited from being white' and how the exhibit would have benefited from more funding." Also from Friday's Wall Street Journal.
Michael Barone wonders whether the different tracks taken by New York after 9/11 and New Orleans after Katrina reflect the different cultures of the two cities -- Dutch (New York) vs. French (New Orleans). Hmmmmmmm.
September 11, 2005
This photo says it all, but I want to add a personal note. In the summer of 1980, I worked on the 100th floor of WTC2. I had an interior office, but you can see the office across the hall from mine, just barely visible on the north (right) face over the top of the fireball. Now, 21 years is a long time, and I'm not like the guy who survived because he showed up late that morning after taking his daughter to school. But I do think about it often. More people on the north and west sides of WTC2 evacuated than on the south and east sides, simply because they could see the damage to WTC1 and the people falling or jumping from that building. But I wonder what I would have done. When I'm confused, I tend to be very trusting of the authorities, and in this case, the authorities messed up big time by telling people in WTC2 to return to their offices. The smart ones didn't listen.
UPDATE: As a Mets fan, I have an exquisite sense of anticipation, of knowing when it's time to throw in the towel, because something horrible is about to happen to the team. I don't know how I missed the controversy about the Flight 93 memorial, but if this is built, we Americans can kiss it goodbye. The fight against Islamic terrorism is over. If no one else has used this line yet, you can quote me: "Let's roll over." (UPDATE 9/18: I beat the incomparable Mark Steyn to this line by one day.)
UPDATE: Via Michelle Malkin, here's a link to photos of people falling or jumping from the burning towers. (Click on "stop" if you don't want to hear the voice and music overlay.) Over the past four years, we've been spared these horrible images, but at the very least once a year, on the anniversary of the attacks, we have to remind ourselves what happened. I've linked to Jonah Goldberg's column "Bring Back the Horror" once before, but it's appropriate again here.
September 09, 2005
Power Line reminds us that September 9 is the anniversary of the blogosphere's deconstruction and destruction of the attempted exposé of Sixty Minutes on Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard.
Here is the original Power Line post (with updates). You might remember the flurry of activity that day, when a bunch of bloggers and about a million readers with too much time on their hands proved that the CBS documents were forgeries.
Power Line is a great example of how things have changed as a result. Before then, Power Line was a pretty popular and very interesting blog, which I enjoyed a lot. The three bloggers were amazingly accessible. For instance, I once had an email exchange with Scott Johnson (using my real name) about one of his posts. He later updated his post with a quotation from my email. In the course of our exchange, he mentioned that he remembered hearing my father speak in St. Paul circa 1972.
Today, Power Line is still a fine blog, but to me it's lost some of its intimacy. The national attention it received as a result of Rathergate has thrust it into the top echelon, with greatly increased readership, and various pundit gigs for the three bloggers. It's no longer possible for them to respond to everyone who writes in, let alone to me (and I've tried blog name, real name, and various email addresses). This is good for them -- their success is, I mean -- even though, sad to say, they've felt the need to drop their nicknames in deference to their stature. But, while I still read the blog, I really do miss the old version.
When you get older, you start trying to make lists. Then you forget where you put them. So I'm putting my list of things I've learned right here.
10. Your wife is right.9. Some people swear by scotch, but beer's pretty good, too.8. You should never talk about "mid-life crisis" in the singular.7. Always seek wisdom from your mistakes, but don't plan on getting an advanced degree.6. Some people are late bloomers, but when you're pushing 50, there's a good chance you'll always remain a bud.5. Men get older, but women stay the same age, and pretty soon they're the same age as your daughter.4. Hair is proof that God has a sense of humor.3. If you attend a reunion, for every classmate who invented the latest breakthrough in laser technology, there are four ex-con alcoholics, who are delinquent on their child support. (That's good news, by the way.)2. When people accost you on the street, don't assume they're looking for a handout; they might be offering you shelter.And the Number One thing I've learned is: If all I really need to know I learned in kindergarten, someone owes me a damn refund.
September 08, 2005
September 07, 2005
Through my sources, I've obtained a copy of a brochure just sent out by the Harvard Alumni Association -- you know, one of those obnoxious Ivy League travel brochures playing to the wealth and snobbery of the schools' alumni.
This one is called "Cruising the Mighty Mississippi: The Civil War and the American South," to be held in April, and -- you guessed it -- a big part of the trip is a three-day stay in New Orleans. "On a specially designed tour of this vibrant city...." "See one of New Orleans' oldest aboveground cemeteries...." "Enjoy a walking tour of the Vieux Carré (French Quarter)." Notice, by the way, that Harvard must use the French name.
I've discovered that Stanford alumni will also be on the trip. Here's the brochure put out by Stanford, with slightly different text.
No, it's not what you think. Not a story about American soldiers teaching Iraqi kids to play baseball. That's happened, but that's not this story.
It's a story about Ismael Khalil Ismael, who took up baseball during Saddam's reign, kept it underground for fear of getting on Saddam's bad side, and now is trying to run a league. Of course, nothing is simple.
Chief Justice Rehnquist died yesterday of thyroid cancer at age 80. You can get a broad but annoyingly biased overview of his life here, in the Washington Post's page one story. (For example, the Post article states that "[a]lone among the justices, Rehnquist said in 1983 that Bob Jones University had a legal right to exclude black students from its campus." The issue was not whether BJU had a right to exclude black students; it was whether the IRS had the legal authority to deny a tax exemption to the school, which otherwise qualified for the exemption, based on the school's racial bias.)
Rehnquist served 18 years as Chief Justice of the United States, and a lot of people's views of him are based on extraneous matters, like his showing up at the Clinton impeachment trial in a robe modeled on that of the Lord Chancellor in Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe. He accomplished a great deal as Chief Justice, in many ways improving the administration of justice from the rather chaotic approach of his predecessor.
But those of us who were in law school when Rehnquist was only an Associate Justice have a more vivid memory of him as a principled and lonely defender of an approach to law that had been all but turned on its head during the Warren Court. Rehnquist got the nickname "Lone Ranger" by filing solo dissents and refusing to go along with much of the legal doctrine then prevailing. (It goes almost without saying that Rehnquist was the target of a disproportionate number of barbs in the law school show, a comedy written by students. Students today have a larger number of targets.)
Rehnquist was one of four justices appointed by Richard Nixon and the only one who even came close to accomplishing Nixon's goal of reversing the Warren Court's creations, particularly in the area of criminal law. Of the other nominees -- Burger, Powell, and Blackmun -- only Burger showed any interest in that, and all three were mediocre at best. This is a history that George Bush should immerse himself in as he chooses a successor to the worthy William Rehnquist.
September 02, 2005
On the lighter side, the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings on the nomination of John Roberts to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court begin on Tuesday the 6th.
I thought we should "review the bidding" -- to see how we got to this point. So I'm going to post a two-part series of annotated photos to give you what I think is the correct perspective. Part I will be posted Monday night or Tuesday morning. Part II will be posted on Tuesday night. In case you simply can't wait, I'm making the first "frame" of Part I available here. I hope you'll remember to come back to see them.
Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to do a Part III covering the hearings themselves, which no doubt will supply us with endless mirth, but, sad to say, I'm very busy with real work (work?!), including travel, during the next two weeks and most likely won't have the time.
UPDATE:I've decided to post the two parts together in a single post, which I plan to put up on Monday. It's a little long -- 18 frames -- but it didn't make much sense to split it.
And if you're like my older son, who wants to drop everything and go to New Orleans to help, consider this: Don't do that unless you're very well trained, and do it only through established organizations. FEMA has announced that you should not "self-dispatch," which appears to be bureaucratese for going out alone.
In case I get the urge to write some more stupidity outside of Pillage Idiot, and you want to receive it in email form, send me an email (correct the address first), and I'll add you to the Pillage Idiot Retirement Mailing List. | {
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Q8 Oils: Are you ready for a HSE inspection?
The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) has identified that exposure to metalworking fluids can be hazardous to the skin, eyes and more critically to the airways and lungs, potentially resulting in serious respiratory diseases.
Employers have a duty of care to take adequate measures to protect operators from this exposure. This is enforced by law under The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH) 2002. Find out more in this leaflet from Q8 Oils. | {
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Uploaded clips featuring matty_C
Just A jam i made in cubase, nothing spcial, just got a few bits of software and wanted to test them out. Its about 30 seconds of riffage. Used Line 6 Gearbox and a zaak wylde eppi. Drums are programmed by Toontrack Ezdrummer. | {
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Quick Overview
So we asked our customers what they were looking for in the perfect vibrator. Many said they wanted power; they wanted more power than they needed! Others said realism; they wanted a realistic sensation just like the real thing, only better! Others said they wanted to be really pummelled, have a good old rogering! So we listened and we bring you the Super Powerful Thrusting Vibrating Dildo Machine. This baby is something of a game changer in self pleasure and brings the intensity of your session to a WHOLE NEW LEVEL. Simply fix the suction cup to any flat surface such as a wall, the floor, the edge of the bath, a table etc. It’s really important to add lube at this stage to both the toy and to yourself; this will ensure the thrusting motion works the way you want it to. Once you’re well lubed up, turn on the thrust function and it will kick into life gently at first. Ride it missionary or reverse cowgirl style while fixed to the floor; then enjoy some doggy style action with it fixed to the wall. The choice really is yours. We recommend using plenty of waterbased lubricant when using to make sure that this thrusting machine delivers immense pleasure during your session. So we have searched for and found what we hope you will agree is pretty much the perfect vibrator. All that is left to say now is: ENJOY!
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KHAZ Country Music News: Kacey Musgraves Going into This Sunday’s ACM Awards a Three-Time Nominee
Kacey Musgraves just topped Billboard‘s Country Albums chart with her debut album, Same Trailer Different Park, but she had multiple ACM Awards nominations before that project was ever released. Kacey is up for Female Vocalist of the Year and Video of the Year for performing and producing her clip for “Merry Go Round.”
She says, “Just a nomination even is the ultimate compliment from people that you work with in the business. It just makes me feel like I’m doing something right, and I’m just, I’m thankful.”
Kacey is a long shot to win the Female Vocalist trophy since she’s up against Carrie Underwood, Martina McBride, Miranda Lambert and Taylor Swift.
“These girls that have been doing this longer than I have in the public eye,” Kacey says of her fellow Female Vocalist nominees. “I don’t consider myself a vocalist. I mean I like to convey my message with my voice, but just to even be included in such a category is just unreal.”
As for her Video of the Year nomination, Kacey chalks it up to the magic of the do-it-yourself trend happening these days. She made the video using stock footage from the internet spliced in with footage she shot on her iPhone.
Kacey says, “It was just kind of different, kind of real, and that’s, I feel like, what the song needed.” | {
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About Gwendrez
This Plouhinec beach became famous after pics of bodyboarders charging heavy 10ft barrels appeared in the press, despite it being a close-out most of the time. The low to mid tide outer sandbars can hold some fine shapely peaks, with fast walled up sections and tube potential, plus there's a rare but feisty left off the rocks at the southern end. Currents and rips get mean with size so it's no place for average surfers when it is overhead. | {
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FindingsIn this study, data were available from 2 twin cohorts, one born between 1982 and 2008 (n = 22 678 pairs) and the other between 1992 and 2008 (n = 15 279 pairs). Genetic factors were associated with ASD and autistic traits and the relative importance of these factors was consistent over time, whereas environmental factors played a smaller role.
MeaningEnvironmental factors associated with ASD have not increased in importance over time and are unlikely to explain the apparent increase in the prevalence of ASD.
Abstract
ImportanceThe frequency with which autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are diagnosed has shown a marked increase in recent years. One suggestion is that this is partly because of secular changes in the environment, yet to our knowledge this hypothesis lacks evidence.
ObjectiveTo assess whether the relative importance of genetic and environmental associations with ASD and autistic traits has changed over a 16-year and 26-year period.
Design, Setting, and ParticipantsA twin design was used to assess whether the heritability of ASD and autistic traits has changed over time. Data from 2 nationwide Swedish twin cohorts was used: the Swedish Twin Registry (STR; participants born between January 1982 and December 2008) and the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden (CATSS; participants born between January 1992 and December 2008). Autism spectrum disorder diagnoses were identified for twins in the STR, with follow-up to 2013. Questionnaires assigned screening diagnoses of ASD to CATSS participants and assessed autistic traits. Analyses were performed from September 1, 2018, to March 31, 2019.
Conclusions and RelevanceWeak evidence was found for changes in the genetic and environmental factors underlying ASD and autistic traits over time. Genetic factors played a consistently larger role than environmental factors. Environmental factors are thus unlikely to explain the increase in the prevalence of ASD. | {
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What is the Tomatometer®?
The Tomatometer rating – based on the published opinions of hundreds of film and
television critics – is a trusted measurement of movie and TV programming quality
for millions of moviegoers. It represents the percentage of professional critic reviews
that are positive for a given film or television show.
From the Critics
From RT Users Like You!
Fresh
The Tomatometer is 60% or higher.
Rotten
The Tomatometer is 59% or lower.
Certified Fresh
Movies and TV shows are Certified Fresh with a steady Tomatometer of 75% or
higher after a set amount of reviews (80 for wide-release movies, 40 for
limited-release movies, 20 for TV shows), including 5 reviews from Top Critics.
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead Photos
Movie Info
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, and Marisa Tomei star in director Sidney Lumet's thriller concerning two brothers who hatch a plan to rob their parent's jewelry store. When the job goes awry, the entire family is set on a collision course with tragedy. Andy (Hoffman) is an overextended broker in desperate need of some cash. His brother, Hank (Hawke), isn't much better off, so when Andy hatches a plan to rob their parent's modest jewelry store, it seems like a foolproof way to make a quick buck. But Andy's trophy wife, Gina (Tomei), is secretly sleeping with libidinous younger brother Hank, and when the robbery proves a complete disaster it isn't long before loyalties start to shift. Now Andy and Hank's father, Charles (Finney), is determined to make the unidentified robbers pay for their crime. What's a father to do when he discovers that the ones he loves have become his worst enemies? ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
At a time when family movies are usurped by fantasies of sentimental feelgood, Lumet's latest -- the mangled-heist melodrama Before the Devil Knows You're Dead -- delivers a swift kick straight to the jewels.
Audience Reviews for Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
½
Sidney Lumet's final film is purely an actor's movie. Every performance is first rate and while the drama at times becomes overly melodramatic, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is heart wrenching drama told from multiple perspectives about one horrific action and the consequences that follow.
Edward Boxler
Super Reviewer
Domineering Philip Seymour Hoffman talks his weak willed younger brother into helping him rob their parents' jewelry store to solve both their financial difficulties, but when the heist goes wrong their lives start to unravel. Sidney Lumet has been making quality thrillers for 50 years, but in his latest effort he takes a few cues from his younger pretenders. The plot themes have a lot in common with Fargo and A Simple Plan and the execution is reminiscent of Jackie Brown and its familiar disjointed timeline. In fact there is little here that hasn't been done before so don't expect much in the way of originality or surprises, but the quality cast all put in solid performances and Lumet certainly still knows how to pace a story and crank up the suspense. No gimmickry, no pointless frills; just an extremely well crafted and intelligent thriller.
xGary Xx
Super Reviewer
½
Very dark, realistic and with outstanding acting this dramatic thriller tells the story of a jewelry robbery gone wrong and the catastrophic consequences it has for the family involved. The non-linear way to tell the story through the eyes of the protagonists adds an additional level of suspense. While some parts could have used some trimming, the result is still gut-wrenching as the noose tightens around the character's throats and you can't help but wonder how this mess is gonna end. Well done.
Jens S.
Super Reviewer
½
Sidney Lumet is a director that's no stranger to crafting intense pieces of work. In fact, he's a master at it. Just look at a few from his highly impressive filmography like "12 Angry Men", "Fail-Safe", "Network" or "Serpico". He's also no stranger to a heist movie, having made one of the sub-genre's best in "Dog Day Afternoon". In "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead" - his last film before his death - Lumet returns to that sub-genre and, once again, delivers with aplomb.
Hank (Ethan Hawke) and Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) are two brothers whose financial woes are having a direct effect on their lives. In order to solve their problems, Andy hatches a plan to rob a jewellery store. He calls it a "mom and pop" operation and it's quite literally that: the store is owned by the brothers' parents. If all goes down as it supposed to, then nobody will get hurt. Like so many crimes of this nature though, things can and do go wrong, dragging everyone down with a devastating turn of events.
Lumet builds his film slowly and assuredly, revealing the characters' motivations bit by bit before peeling away the layers of their downfall. To do this, he cleverly plays with timeframes; changing back, forward and during the robbery itself. The focus is on the two brothers, as well as their emotionally stilted father (Albert Finney). Of course, this type of narrative device is nothing new. We have seen it used many times before but Lumet's skill is in keeping it fresh and gripping. In support of his deft handling of the material, the actors deliver outstanding performances across the board; Tomei nails the ditzy wife routine; Hawke is marvellously high strung and weasel-like; Finney lends his usual reliability and there's a small but welcome role for a threatening Michael Shannon. Unsurprisingly though, it's Hoffman's movie. He has a real presence here shifting from secretive to calculated then deadly with absolute ease. It may be unfair to single out one particular actor but this is another example of Hoffman's incredible ability to completely inhabit a character. His downfall in particular, is of powerful and tragic Shakespearean proportions and he completely captures the intensity of a deeply immoral man.
Sidney Lumet was in his 80's when he directed this, yet it shows a vibrancy that could easily be associated with a much younger director. With a canon of top-quality films behind him, this is as good and as riveting as anything he has done. Sadly it was his last but what a film to go out on. | {
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There seems to be an autumn and spring owl conspiracy – our last post in the autumn was about the owl knocked out in a hailstorm – this sound file was recorded just outside the farmhouse – with owl and pussycat determined to have a conversation…
Post Script – if you can hear the sound of waves lapping on the shore as they go out to sea then it must be in your imagination!!
It has been an extraordinarily wet summer and so it continues. Today was thunder and very heavy, thankfully short lived, hail showers. We are feeding the youngstock in the field (lots of poor quality grass is being supplemented by the arable silage we made earlier). To get to the point…
In the middle of the heaviest shower Ad put out a new bale of silage for the youngsters and came back rather wet. Then for whatever reason Melanie also went to check on them. To find, flat on its back, wings outstretched, the owl you see in the photograph – now recovering with veterinary help…
I love that part of our job that is to look after and encourage the rarer and therefore more interesting plants that are natural to the different soils over the farm. This is particularly so on the thin Cotswold Brash soil on the edge of the escarpments. Each year we do a few things with the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust and I was really delighted when Clare offered to survey some of the fields – what follows are her words and pictures – thank you Clare.
“I walked along the slope beneath Abbey woods which was fairly typical improved grassland, but towards the far end of the slope above a patch of blackthorn there’s an area that is really quite rich with limestone indicator species such as Mouse-ear Hawkweed (Pilosella officinarum), Upright Brome (Bromopsis erecta) and Salad Burnett (Poterium sanquisorba) and Cowslip (Primula veris). There were also some spotted orchid leaves (see picture) – currently identified as Orchis mascula (Early purple orchid) but to be sure one might have to check when it’s in flower! It could be Common spotted-orchid (Dactylorrhiza fuchsii).It does seem as if that end of the field is benefitting from it’s proximity to Swift’s Hill…
I also made a species list of everything I could see growing close to the banks of the Slad Brook, just downstream of the little stone bridge. There were some interesting finds, notably lots of Moschatel or Townhall Clock (Adoxa moschatellina), that I’ve attached a picture of (sorry its not in better focus)- it’s the only species of it’s family we find in the UK. Where the livestock have poached the ground near the stream I found Common Bladder-moss (Physcomitrium pyriforme) that likes the damp, disturbed habitat (picture attached). There were also lots more nice flowering species including Valerian, Marsh Marigold and Brooklime.
I had a great time doing it, very friendly lambs! Loved the video you sent a link to, thanks.”
We really appreciated this video when we found it from our seed supplier – Ian shows very graphically why mixed species swards of grass, clover and herbs are so important to us and the wildlife here on the farm – and we have planted just such a ley this spring (2012) | {
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UPDATE: Kanye West – Cruel Winter (Short Film Trailer)
Well, Cruel Winter is indeed coming — in film form, anyway. Kanye West and the DONDA crew recently let loose this coinciding trailer for the G.O.O.D. Music maven's forthcoming short flick. The less-than-a-minute clip features a short glimpse at desolate nature, appropriately matching the title of the work. Press play above to check it out and be sure to hit us back for more on the upcoming aesthetic.
UPDATE: According to Def Jam, this is not an official trailer to the Cruel Winter short film. Stay tuned. | {
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Tag: Slideshark »
Ever since its launch, iPad users have had the chance to create and display slideshow presentations thanks to the Apple's own Pages app. However, while presentations made in that app can be easily brought over into Microsoft's popular PowerPoint program, doing the opposite is far more troublesome. Brainshark's new SlideShark app hopes to fix that.
Bringing PowerPoint presentations to an iPad through SlideShark is a three step process. First, users create an account and get access to their own private server. Presentations are then loaded onto that server and converted. Finally, the app downloads the presentation in a form the iPad can display. Unlike other similar apps, SlideShark promises that no fonts, colors or animations will be lost.
Using the iPad's native mirroring capabilities, users can play their presentations through a computer or projector. Best of all, the service and the app are completely free. The SlideShark app is currently available on the app store and accounts are created at www.SlideShark.com. | {
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Prosper Personal Loans Review
Prosper is a good option for those who can’t get a loan from a traditional bank and don’t want the high interest rates offered by credit cards and payday loans.
Prosper is a peer-to-peer lender, which means regular people invest small amounts of money to cover your loan. As you repay it, the investors get their money back with interest. Prosper will accept high-risk borrowers that a traditional bank or credit union would turn down for a loan; although, high-risk borrowers pay much higher interest rates. Applying is easy. You can see if you qualify and get an estimate on what your rate will be in just a matter of minutes after completing a short online application. Then, all you do is create a loan listing describing what you need the money for and why, post it, and wait for the funds to come in.
If you’re hoping for a same-day deposit, however, Prosper isn’t the lender for you. Because your loan is paid for by many investors instead of just one, you won’t get your money immediately. Prosper also charges an origination fee equal to two to five percent of the amount of your loan. Another potential pitfall is that Prosper only offers three- and five-year terms. If you’re interested in a shorter loan repayment term, you can always choose to pay off a little extra each month, but if you need more time, you may have to go with another company.
The Specs
Interest Rates
5.99-35.99%
Loan Amounts
$2,000 to $35,000
Loan Terms
Three or five years
Requirements
FICO score of 640 or above
Debt-to-income ratio below 50%
Income greater than $0
No bankruptcies in the last year
Fewer than seven credit bureau inquiries in the last six months
Minimum of three open trades on your credit report
The Claim
Prosper is a pioneer in peer-to-peer lending, cutting out the middleman and connecting borrowers and lenders directly. Borrowers — even those with bad credit — can get their loan funded by other members of the Prosper community, and investors can help out their peers and earn great returns at the same time. Everyone wins.
Is it True?
Yes. Prosper provides an alternative to a traditional loan from a bank without the high risk of a payday loan. It’s a great choice if you have trouble getting financing through a traditional lender, because Prosper looks at more than just your income and credit score to determine your ability to repay a loan. It also gives you the opportunity to create a profile, explaining what you need the money for and why your credit is so poor, allowing your “peers” to determine your creditworthiness on their own.
Investors contribute small amounts, sometimes as low as $25, to your loan. This small investment decreases the risk of loaning money to you, which means that even high-risk borrowers shouldn’t have too much trouble getting the money they need. But because many investors contribute to your loan, you may not get the money you need all at once, so if you need funds immediately, Prosper may not be the right choice for you.
As with any lender, Prosper offers lower interest rates to those with better credit, and higher rates to borrowers perceived as higher risk. Before you go through the trouble of making a profile and a loan listing, you can check your rate by filling out a simple form on Prosper. This won’t affect your credit score. Keep in mind, though, that the rate it gives you is an estimate. You won’t know your actual interest rate until your loan is funded.
Our Deep Dive
Available to those with less than established credit: Prosper is a good choice for those who have been turned away from banks and those who can’t get a reasonable interest rate. Prosper offers loans to people with FICO scores as low as 640, and while high-risk borrowers will be charged higher interest rates, these are certainly more affordable than what you could get through a payday lender.
Fixed-rate loans: All of Prosper’s loans come with a fixed interest rate, so you don’t have to worry about it going up over time.
Borrow up to $35,000: Prosper lets you borrow anywhere between $2,000 and $35,000. Most personal loan lenders don’t allow you to borrow more than $25,000, so Prosper is a good choice if you need to borrow a larger sum of money.
Quick online application: By answering a few basic questions about yourself and your finances, you are presented with an estimate of your interest rate, which should give you an idea of whether Prosper is the right choice for you.
Origination fee: Prosper charges an origination fee equal to two to five percent of the amount of your loan. The exact percentage varies depending on your credit score.
Limited loan terms: Prosper requires you to choose either a three- or five-year term. While this should accommodate most people, the majority of lenders give their borrowers more flexibility in terms of how they want to pay back the loan.
No prepayment fees: If you decide to pay your loan off before the end of the term, you won’t be charged an extra fee to make up for the lost interest.
Make money through investing: If you have cash to spare, you can make money by paying for portions of other people’s loans. When they pay back the loan, you will receive the money you put in, plus interest. The amount of interest you earn will depend on the interest rates of the loans you contributed to.
Mobile apps for managing money: Prosper’s mobile apps for iOS and Android devices help you track your spending and credit over time. Record all purchases so you can see how you’re spending your money and look for opportunities to save. You can also view your credit score and track its progress over time. For an additional fee, you can add identity theft protection services.
Cost Rundown
You won’t know how much a Prosper loan is going to cost you until you apply. You can get an estimate by filling out a simple application on Prosper’s website, but the actual rate may vary slightly once you actually put your loan up on the marketplace.
Prosper looks at your income, credit history, and other factors, then assigns you a rating (AA, A, B, C, D, E or HR). This plays a big role in determining where your rates are going to fall. Those with an excellent credit score may be eligible for rates as low as 3%. High-risk borrowers may face rates as high as 36%, though compared to what some banks and payday lenders charge high-risk borrowers, this may still be a good deal.
On the investment side of the equation, the costs are much more straightforward. You decide how much you want to contribute, starting off at just $25. As the borrower repays the loan, you will get your money back, plus interest. The greater the interest rate on the loan, the bigger your returns. You have to be careful when selecting borrowers, though, because if they default on the loan, you lose your money.
Cheaper (or Free!) Alternatives
You may be able to get a better rate on your personal loan somewhere else, but you won’t know without shopping around. Compare rates from your local bank, Prosper, and other online lenders to see which one can give you the cash you need at the lowest possible rate. Look out for hidden or prepayment fees, as this could lead to unexpected expenses down the road. You also want to make sure you choose a fixed-rate loan, if you can help it. If you go with a variable interest rate, your affordable monthly payments could become more costly over time as interest rates rise.
Shopping around is time-consuming, but it’s well worth the investment. Say you go with a $5,000 loan and a five-year term at 15% interest. Over the lifetime of your loan, that’ll cost you $7,136.98. At a 16% interest rate, that same loan is going to cost $7,295.42. That 1% difference equates to an extra $158.44 over the lifetime of your loan – and that’s just on a $5,000 loan. On a $10,000 loan, the difference would be twice as much. If you have the time to shop around for the best available rate on your personal loan, it’s worth it.
The Competition
OneMain Financial: Offering personal loans up to $30,000, OneMain is not a peer-to-peer lender like Prosper, but it’s still a good choice for those who have bad credit because there’s no minimum credit score to apply. OneMain also gives you more flexibility in choosing your loan term. Interest rates are comparable to Prosper for those with bad credit, but those with a good credit score may be able to find a better deal elsewhere.
LendingClub: Another peer-to-peer lender that pairs borrowers and lenders, LendingClub offers loans up to $40,000 with interest rates as low as 6.95% for those with excellent credit. If your credit isn’t great, you may pay up to 35.89%. There’s no hidden or prepayment fees and the interest rates are fixed. Lending Club requires a minimum credit score of 600, though, which may put it out of reach for some borrowers.
Disclaimer: All loans made by WebBank, Member FDIC. Your actual rate depends upon credit score, loan amount, loan term, and credit usage and history. The APR ranges from 6.95% to 35.89%. For example, you could receive a loan of $6,000 with an interest rate of 7.99% and a 5.00% origination fee of $300 for an APR of 11.51%. In this example, you will receive $5,700 and will make 36 monthly payments of $187.99. The total amount repayable will be $6,767.64. Your APR will be determined based on your credit at time of application. *The origination fee ranges from 1% to 6%; the average origination fee is 5.2% (as of 12/5/18 YTD).* There is no down payment and there is never a prepayment penalty. Closing of your loan is contingent upon your agreement of all the required agreements and disclosures on the www.lendingclub.com website. All loans via LendingClub have a minimum repayment term of 36 months or longer.
Wells Fargo: A good choice if you’re looking for a bigger loan, Wells Fargo offers fixed personal loans from $3,000 up to $100,000. You won’t be charged any origination or prepayment fees, and if you have a Wells Fargo checking account, you could be eligible for discounts. You can apply online and get approved in as little as 15 minutes and have the funds transferred to your account the same day.
The Bottom Line
Prosper is a good choice if you need a loan, but don’t qualify for traditional financing. Interest rates are fixed and reasonable compared to most credit cards and payday loans, and there are no prepayment fees. However, you may not get your money right away, so be prepared to be patient.
Company
Our Brands
Advertising Disclosure: TheSimpleDollar.com has an advertising relationship with some of the offers included on this page. However, the rankings and listings of our reviews, tools and all other content are based on objective analysis. The Simple Dollar does not include all card/financial services companies or all card/financial services offers available in the marketplace. For more information and a complete list of our advertising partners, please check out our full Advertising Disclosure. TheSimpleDollar.com strives to keep its information accurate and up to date. The information in our reviews could be different from what you find when visiting a financial institution, service provider or a specific product's website. All products are presented without warranty. | {
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The Reverend John LaFarge, S.J.
FATHER LaFARGE, WHO CELEBRATED
HIS EIGHTIETH birthday on February 13, 1960, refers to himself
not as a professional author, but as a working priest-journalist.
In that capacity, his life business has been to study and relate
the significant events of the day with the deeper moral and theological
issues that lie behind them. Many of his ideas, in consequence,
have been expressed not in a formal fashion, but in current comment
upon the changing scene. His published books have been incidental
to his current journalistic writing; all his writing, he insists,
is specifically that of a priest, characterized by a priestly
perspective as he conceived it.
He was born on February 13,
1880, in Newport, Rhode Island, son of the well-known artist,
muralist, and author, John LaFarge (1835-1910),a descendant
of early French refugees in this country. His mother, Margaret
Mason Perry, a native Rhode Islander, was a granddaughter of
Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, of Lake Erie fame, and a lineal
descendant of Benjamin Franklin.
After his early education,
first in Newport and later in New York, he entered Harvard College
in 1897, and graduated in the class of 1901. At Harvard he specialized
throughout in the Latin and Greek classics, but also did freshman
English under Professor Copeland ("Copey"), and wrote
for the Harvard Monthly. In the autumn of 1901 he carried
out a long-entertained plan, and began his studies for the priesthood
at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, where the Jesuits of
the Austrian Province held the professorship in the Faculty of
Theology. Ordained to the priesthood in Innsbruck on July 26,
1905, the following November he entered the novitiate of the
New York-Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus at St. Andrew-on-Hudson,
Poughkeepsie, New York. After two years at St. Andrew, and a
year's teaching at Canisius College, Buffalo, and later at Loyola
College, Baltimore, he took a two-year course and M.A. in philosophy
at Woodstock College, Maryland. Ill health, however, obliged
him to give up his further plan to spend a full four years reviewing
his theology at Woodstock, and instead to devote himself to active
pastoral work, one year of which was spent in the penal and hospital
institutions of New York City. This was followed by fifteen years
of pastoral labor in the Jesuit rural missions of St. Mary's
County, in southern Maryland-the oldest English-speaking parish
in the New World. The only interruption of this period was the
year of prescribed Tertianship, at St. Andrew, 1916-17.
The long years of country missions
brought him into intimate, grass-roots contact with many of the
problems that confront the Church in this country: the problems
of rural life and rural economy; of catechetics and homiletic
methods; of community life in a racially mixed (white and Negro)
community and the kindred problems of racial prejudice; of the
Catholic Church in relation to our nation's historical and cultural
heritage; of religious and secular education for people in a
backward community; and of the relation of such a community to
the nation at large. Most of all, the experience made the young
priest ponder long and deeply upon the spiritual ideals which
a Catholic should foster in meeting the great moral and religious
issues of the time. During these years, too, encouraged by a
couple of older Jesuit Fathers, he undertook to set up a complete
school system, elementary and secondary, for the white youth
and the Negro youth of the local community. His difficult and
drastic experiences in carrying out this project brought him
into close contact with the larger public, Catholic and non-Catholic
alike, and particularly with persons and agencies interested
in the education and welfare of the Negro people.
In August 1926, he was appointed
an associate editor of America, at the instance of its
editor-in-chief, Father Wilf rid Parsons, S.J. This position
he has held up till now, except for two years as executive editor,
under Father Francis X. Talbot, S.J., and four years as editorin-chief,
1944-48.
His fund-raising work in connection
with the educational projects he had begun during the years in
Maryland-a work continued after his coming to New Yorkled to
his association with leading persons of various racial backgrounds
who would be interested in studying the deeper issues involved.
His past experiences inspired him to make a special effort to
form spiritual lay leaders and to the establishment in June 1934,
of the Catholic Interracial Council of New York. This was the
parent of similar Councils around the country-numbering 42 in
May 1960-and their association, in 1959, in the form of the National
Catholic Conference on Interracial Justice. Considerable of his
writing has been for the pages of the organ of the Catholic Interracial
movement, The Interracial Review.
Since their foundation, he
has been chaplain of the Liturgical Arts Society (1933) and the
New York Catholic Interracial Council (1934). He has also been
chaplain of the Catholic Laymen's Union and of St. Ansgar's Scandinavian
Catholic League, both of New York. At various times he has been
an officer of the Catholic Association for International Peace
and of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference.
Besides his signed and unsigned
contributions to America since 1926, he has contributed
to Etudes (Paris), Civilta Catolica (Rome), Criterio
(Argentina), Stimmender Zeit (Munich), Streven
(Brussels), De Linie (Amsterdam), The Month (England),
as well as American reviews: Commonweal, Liturgical Arts,
Sign, Catholic World, Saturday Review, etc. He has also contributed
many papers on cultural and socio-philosophic topics in the volumes
of the Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion, of which
he is a Fellow, and by the Institute on Ethics, as well as to
other symposia, such as Realities (Bruce, 1957), and Wisdom
(2nd ser., 1959). His books are as follows:
Jesuits in Modern Times
(America Press, 1927),
was written chiefly to refute certain distortions of the Jesuit
life that had been published in this country and to sum up the
main features of Jesuit spirituality.
Interracial Justice (America Press, 1937), was the first
book, as far as the author knows, to attempt to present the Christian
philosophy of justice and charity between racial groups in the
community in a systematically organized fashion, along with a
practical plan of action. It was praised to the author personally
by Pope Pius XI, at an audience in 1938, as "the best"
he had read upon the subject.
The Race Question and the
Negro (Longmans, 1953,
and later in paperback), was a completely revised form of Interracial
Justice, with four new chapters added.
No Postponement (Longmans, 1950), discussed many of
the practical problems of interracial action from the general
standpoint of President Truman's Point Four proposal and the
relation of American activities to the world situation. It also
recalled some of the interesting features of this type of work
in earlier years in this country, which were within the author's
own experience.
A John LaFarge Reader (America Press, 1955), presented an
anthology drawn from his addresses and articles.
The Manner Is Ordinary (Harcourt, 1954), is an autobiography,
written in response to the urging of his friends and insistence
of Superiors. The title was taken from the Jesuit Rules, which
describe the manner of life in the Society as being "ordinary,"
in the sense that it differs very little outwardly from that
of any other Catholic clergyman-parish priest or professor-and
is not obliged to the recitation of Divine Office in choir, or
to special prescribed fasts or other austerities as is the case
in the older religious communities. In writing this book, he
was greatly aided by the "house diaries" he had kept
during his fifteen years in southern Maryland, as well as by
a wealth of family letters and the assistance of his sister,
the late Miss Margaret LaFarge, of Newport, Rhode Island, and
by his niece, Dr. Frances S. Childs, of Brooklyn College. The
work was re-issued in paperback as one of Doubleday's Image Books.
The expert French version, Un Américain comme les autres
(Alsatia, Colmar, 1959; also distributed by America Press),
by Jean Minêry, S.J., includes additions and adaptations
by the author. In America, February 13, 1960, Fr. LaFarge
described some of the philosophy of his autobiography.
Report on the American Jesuits
(Farrar, 1956), was
made in collaboration with the brilliant photographer, Margaret
Bourke-White. The aim of the text and the pictures was to present
the scope and drama of the life and the educational formation
of the American Jesuits, at home and abroad.
The Catholic Viewpoint on
Race Relations (Doubleday,
1956), was the first of the Catholic Viewpoint series projected
by Mr. John Delaney of Doubleday. The volume paid special attention
to practical action methods, illustrating them from experience.
A new edition, greatly revised and brought up to date, was issued
by Doubleday in 1960.
An American Amen (Farrar, 1958), is, in a sense, a sequel
to The Manner Is Ordinary. The central thought of the
book is the problem of personal liberty, of free individual moral
choice, and the conditions that affect it and determine it, especially
the transcendent dialectic of the Incarnation. Considerable attention
is also given to the question of relating scientific method to
religious belief, and the author relates some of his personal
experiences in discussing this subject with persons not of the
Catholic faith. The book, so to speak, is contemplative, and
the author, on second thought, would be more easily followed
if the ideas were presented in a somewhat different order, and
were elaborated in less concise and a more illustrated form.
If it were ever his opportunity to add still another volume to
those he has already produced, it would probably be something
along that line.
He has contributed annually
for many years to the Brittanica Yearbook (Chicago), on
Catholic matters, as well as to the Encyclopedia Americana
Yearbook (New York). He is a Fellow of the National Academy
of Arts and Sciences (Boston), a former member of Panel VII (Rockefeller
Brothers Report on Foreign Policy, 1947), is one of 147 Electors
of the National Hall of Fame (New York University) for 1960;
etc. He has been the recipient of such awards as the Religion
and Labor Foundation World Brotherhood Award, the Catholic Association
for International Peace, the National Catholic Rural Life Association,
and the Catholic Press Awards, the American Liberties Medallion
of the American Jewish Committee.
He has appeared frequently
on radio and television. In 1947, he delivered the Dudleian Lecture
in Harvard University Divinity School, and the Phi Beta Kappa
Oration at the Harvard College Commencement of 1954. He lectured
in Paris several times (in French) on United States democracy,
in 1938, and in 1947 and 1951 before German student groups (In
German). In 1958, he lectured in French at the Cours International
of the Benedictine Monastery of Toumiline, Morocco, and has written
prefaces for books dealing with matters of the spiritual life,
French and English. In his autobiography he describes particularly
his visits to Europe in the summers of 1938, 1947, and 1951 (the
last mentioned as a traveling consultant of the United States
Department in Germany). He has also written of his experiences
at intellectual discussions in Cuba, 1946, and Puerto Rico, 1959.
As a constant book reviewer,
some two or three a month for about 35 years, most of his reviews
have been for America; but also for Thought, Interracial
Review, New York Times, Saturday Review, Herald-Tribune, etc.
He has also written several pamphlets for America Press.
He has always considered his
writing not so much as a literary production for its own sake,
but rather as one of several mediums for expressing his ideas.
These ideas his own mind has developed and more or less coordinated
through constant discussion with a great variety of persons;
not only of the Catholic faith, but many persons outside of it.
It is his specific satisfaction to see them taken up and carried
on by younger, much better informed minds.
EDITOR'S NOTE: To preclude
any misunderstanding in the matter: this chapter was written
by Father LaFarge, and expressly for The Book of Catholic
Authors.
Originally
published in The Book of Catholic Authors, Walter Romig,
Sixth Series, 1960. | {
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} |
Bowers to Rehire Its Director
Trustees of the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana have voted to rehire Peter C. Keller as executive director for another five years, despite Keller's apparent violation of codes of ethics governing museums.
"We have not uncovered anything that I would characterize as anything other than innocent technical violations of these rules," board chairman Lowell C. Martindale said Tuesday.
Ethical codes established by the American Assn. of Museums, a national accreditation organization, forbid museum staff members or trustees to personally benefit from their association with the institutions they serve.
*
A recent investigation by Santa Ana city officials found that Keller had bought "a few things" for himself while on museum acquisition trips in Africa and elsewhere and had saved himself money by shipping the objects back to the U.S. along with the museum goods, Martindale said.
"But there was no indication that he was buying anything of value [over a few hundred dollars] or that he was doing it on a regular basis," Martindale said. Keller was not buying any items under the nonprofit museum's tax-exempt status, he said.
Of greater concern was the practice--now ended--by Keller and other trustees of selling items from their own collections on consignment through the museum store and keeping half the proceeds, Martindale said. He added that an ongoing internal investigation of the ethical issues has been "slightly hindered" because Keller is on vacation in New Guinea.
Keller's contract renewal comes in the wake of money troubles at the museum. Last month, the Santa Ana City Council voted to continue funding the Bowers at the current level of $1.2 million annually for five years. A previous agreement would have reduced the city funding.
Martindale expressed confidence in Keller's financial management, adding that Vickie C. Byrd, hired last month in the newly created position of chief administrative officer, will oversee day-to-day operations so that Keller can spend more time cultivating donors and organizing exhibits.
Keller's rehiring did not require a full board vote, Martindale said, but members of the museum board's executive and personnel committees voted unanimously to renew his contract. | {
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Contact
Our Reference Desk Hours
2013/2014 Academic Year
Reference Librarians Available
Monday - Thursday
8:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Friday
8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
All other times by appointment
For research questions after hours please submit an email to [email protected]. Your question will be given prompt attention, ranging from fifteen minutes to eight hours, depending on the time that you send your question. | {
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} |
As the owner of steel rollers, I know how happy the poly rollers (or whatever) are making you. I went for low profile steel and it has left some pretty ugly marks on my driveway. Fortunately, the lift kit has solved this problem. It takes a hefty angle, but I don't touch at all any more. This picture is right after they were installed (forgive the primer on the trailer). I'll have to upload a post-lift picture soon, too.
Doug and others,
I have noticed your prop guards setup for awhile now and wondered if it was legal. When the prop guard is added it becomes the rearmost portion of the trailer. There are specific requirements for trailers over 80" to have center identification lights as oulined in the following link.
I didn't actually add this prop guard. I already had a prop guard. But it was so banged up from driveway dragging, that I replaced it.
From a quick read of section 547 of the Texas Transportation Code (specifically sec. 547.352), it doesn't look as if I need one of those light bars on the trailer at all, but I could have missed something. | {
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} |
In the News
Texas Bill Would End Ban on Affiliates of Abortion Providers in Women's Health Program
Texas Bill Would End Ban on Affiliates of Abortion Providers in Women's Health Program
November 20, 2012 — Texas Rep. Lon Burnam (D) last week filed a bill (HB 58) that would remove language from a 2011 law that bars abortion providers or their affiliates from participating in the state's Women's Health Program, the American Independent reports. The program provides contraception, cancer screenings and other preventive care for low-income women in the state (Tuma, American Independent, 11/16).
Earlier this year, Texas decided to enforce the law, launching a dispute with the federal government and an ongoing legal battle with Planned Parenthood. The federal government, which covers most of the program's cost, is ending the funding because of the state's move to exclude certain providers. The state previously announced it plans to launch its own program without federal money (Women's Health Policy Report, 11/9).
Burnam said the state is targeting Planned Parenthood for ideological reasons. The enforcement of the WHP rule followed the state's move to cut family planning funding by two-thirds, which led dozens of clinics to close or reduce hours, according to a recent New England Journal of Medicinearticle.
"We have a crisis on our hands," Burnam said, adding, "Funding cuts made last legislative session, compounded with the governor's ideological commitment not to take federal tax dollars, are leading women into desperate circumstances and severely limiting their access to health care. We've really made a bad situation worse."
Burnam said that many lawmakers "acted inappropriately and without reflection last session," adding, "It's a learning process for my colleagues who don't understand what they did to women and women's health care" (American Independent, 11/16).
Video Round Up
N.C. Gov. To Break Campaign Promise on Abortion Bills
AP/ABC News 11's Ed Crump discusses how North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) will break his campaign pledge to not sign any abortion restrictions if he signs a 72-hour mandatory delay bill into law. Watch the video
Datapoints
See where states rank on reproductive rights across the U.S. Plus, find out how states are imposing more restrictions on and limiting women's access to abortion. Read more
At A Glance
"Not since before Roe v. Wade has a law or court decision had the potential to devastate access to reproductive health care on such a sweeping scale."
— Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, on a ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld major portions of a Texas antiabortion-rights law. Read more | {
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When there is sorrow in your life, remember that within you there is a mine of joy. If you think you are poor, there is a goldmine of joy within you. All you need to do is dig. You can dig as much as you want. There will never be a shortage. These are not just words. I stand behind every word. I can take you from the ocean of questions and put you in the ocean of answers. If you want, you can experience that in your life. | {
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} |
The Buzz: Eddie Bauer comes back
Eddie Bauer left Grand Chute's Fox River Mall in January 2013 when its central corridor spot was gobbled up in the massive Forever 21 expansion.
At the time, mall executives said they were keeping an eye out for another suitable space for the outdoor clothing retailer to come back.
It appears that's now on the front burner, though Eddie Bauer's exact location in the mall hasn't been revealed.
"I can confirm that Eddie Bauer will be opening a store in the Fox River Mall in late 2014," said Molly McWhinnie, public relations manager for the company. "I will be sure to share additional information about the store as we get closer to the grand opening." | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
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"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Royal Caribbean International takes delivery of much anticipated Oasis Of The Seas
28 October 2009
After nearly six years in the making, Royal Caribbean International proudly took delivery today of its newest and most revolutionary cruise ship, Oasis of the Seas, from STX Europe in Turku, Finland. Kicking off the 12-day countdown until her U.S. debut into Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009, Oasis of the Seas will be departing Turku on Friday, Oct. 30 with Captain William S. Wright at the helm. Her transatlantic crossing will be chronicled on OasisoftheSeas.com as new webisodes are posted daily and via Twitter by following @OasisandAllure. A new feature to OasisoftheSeas.com will allow visitors to view a Google Maps application and follow Oasis of the Seas journey. Richard Fain’s “Chairman’s Blog” on OasisoftheSeas.com and “Adam’s Blog” by President and CEO Adam Goldstein on NationofWhyNot.com also will provide personal updates.
The cruise line that revolutionized the industry with the FlowRider surf simulator, ice-skating rinks, cantilevered whirlpools, rock climbing walls and the Royal Promenade, an entertainment boulevard stretching nearly the length of the ship, is poised to unveil a range of new attractions and engineering marvels onboard Oasis of the Seas. The ultimate expression of Royal Caribbean’s legacy of imagination and innovation, Oasis of the Seas introduces unique industry “firsts” including a neighborhood concept - seven themed areas providing guests with the opportunity to seek out relevant experiences based on their personal style, preference or mood. Within these seven neighborhoods - Central Park, Boardwalk, the Royal Promenade, Pool and Sports Zone, Vitality at Sea Spa and Fitness Center, Entertainment Place and Youth Zone - are extraordinary elements such as the first park at sea, a thrilling zip line that races diagonally nine-decks above an open-air atrium, an original handcrafted carousel, 28 multilevel urban-style loft suites boasting floor-to-ceiling windows, an aquatic amphitheater - called the AquaTheater that serves as a pool by day and a dazzling ocean front theater by night; and an array of epicurean innovations that allow for new culinary experiences each day of a guest’s cruise vacation.
This November, just in time for the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, Oasis of the Seas will be unveiled on ABC’s “Good Morning America” who will be there to welcome her into her home port in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. as well as give viewers an exclusive first glimpse of the ship during a special live broadcast on Friday, Nov. 20.
The official naming ceremony for Oasis of the Seas will take place on November 30 during a one night inaugural celebration-fundraiser to benefit the non-profit Make-A-Wish Foundation, which grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions. Tickets for the once-in-a-lifetime event begin at $750 per person and guests who wish to continue their adventure onboard will receive an exclusive discount price, beginning at $650 per person, on a four-night cruise package sailing to the cruise line’s private beach destination, Labadee, departing the morning following the event on Dec. 1 (rates based on double-occupancy and stateroom package). For reservations to this exclusive event combined with the four-night sailing, contact Cynthia Paez, Royal Caribbean International, at (877) 202-1520, ext. 12751, or [email protected]ccl.com.
Bookings are also available for Oasis of the Seas’ inaugural sailing departing on December 5. The inaugural sailing will include exclusive entertainment and gifts for guests to commemorate the special occasion.
ADVERTISEMENT
Oasis of the Seas is the largest and most revolutionary cruise ship in the world. An architectural marvel at sea, she spans 16 decks, encompasses 225,282 gross registered tons, carries 5,400 guests at double occupancy, and features 2,700 staterooms. Oasis of the Seas is the first ship to tout the cruise line’s new neighborhood concept of seven distinct themed areas, which includes Central Park, Boardwalk, the Royal Promenade, the Pool and Sports Zone, Vitality at Sea Spa and Fitness Center, Entertainment Place and Youth Zone. The ship will sail from her home port of Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Additional information is available at www.OasisoftheSeas.com. | {
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At The Woods provides a relaxing and comfortable base from which to explore the Tsitsikamma. Our desire is that guests will feel at home enough to slip off their shoes, whilst enjoying the attention to detail.
The 8 bedrooms (with extra-length king-size or twin beds), have en-suite bathrooms with large walk-in showers and private verandas offering views of the Tsitsikamma Mountains, village and garden. Rooms have tea/coffee trays, TV’s, fridges, safes, heaters and fans.
Breakfast is served on the deck facing Storms River Peak. Guests are welcome to make use of the guest lounges, enjoy the peace of the garden or take a dip in the swimming pool. Internet. Children welcome. Laundry Service.
Room / Unit Features
Bar Fridge In Room
En Suite Bathroom
Fan In Room
Hair Dryer In Room
Heater In Room
International Plug Point
Internet Connection
No Smoking In Rooms
Safe In Room
Tea And Coffee In Room
TV - DSTV
Wifi Hotspot
On Site Features
Bar (honesty Bar)
Breakfast : Full English
Child Friendly (all Ages)
Credit Cards Accepted
Garden
Gay Friendly
Guest Lounge
Housekeeping (daily)
Ice In Summer
Laundry Service Available
Parking (off Street)
Pets Not Allowed
Smoking (non Indoors)
Swimming Pool
Map and Directions to At the Woods Guest House
GPS : 33° 58' 19.45" S / 23° 53' 10.67" E
From Plettenberg Bay
Travel east on the N2 for 65 km and then take the turn–off to your right signposted Storms River Village
We are 600m further on the right hand side, on the corner of Formosa Street.
From Port Elizabeth
Travel west on the N2, cross over the Storms River Bridge (Paul Sauer Bridge) and, after about 4km, take the turn–off to your left signposted Storms River Village
We are 600m further on the right hand side, on the corner of Formosa Street. | {
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} |
BossyMamas Pack (2010)
The site is dedicated to mature ladies who know a lot about sex and show their younger partners that they still know how to add pepper to their sex life.
The content presented on the site is 100% exclusive with a slight touch of femdom.Release: 2017 | {
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} |
Special Forces, Special Weapons, Special Vehicles, Special Missions...Become an elite soldier or insurgent in this Battlefield 2 expansion in the secret war for control of the modern world's most strategic locations. Fight intense online battles using the latest weaponry on land, in the air, and at sea. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Description
PDF to Flipbook
You can create a book directly from the PDF file. Pdf file is automatically converted to jpg files. See here video tutorial.
JPG to Flipbook
You can upload all your pages at once – no need to add each page separately. See here video tutorial.
Manually adding pages
You can also add pages separately ( you can make also text in wysiwyg editor ). See here video tutorial.
Three techniques show flipbook
- shortcode – you can put flipbook anywhere in content ( page, post, custom post etc)
- template – you can add flipbook as an independent template in the whole browser window, the advantage is that it is 100% working with all theme ( no conflict with css styles etc…. )
- lightbox – You can put the link text or image link anywhere in content on your site. When you click on the link loads a book as a lightbox. So you can have an unlimited number of book on one page. Lightbox works also with deeplinking.
RTL
Right to left flipbook for eastern countries.
All Features:
flipbook is based on the library turn.js 3rd release. Library “turn.js 3rd release” is not included. You need to download it separately here.This library is free to personal use. If you need for commercial use – here you can buy license “3rd release”.Cost of License “turn.js 3rd release” is 45$ for five domains ( 9$ per domain).
pdf support ( you can create a book directly from the PDF file , Pdf file is automatically converted to jpg files )
support multiple file upload ( you can upload all your pages at once – no need to add each page separately )
works on the iPad,iPhone etc. ( no Flash Player needed )
support for tags in WYSIWYG editor:
– heading – h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6
– paragraph – p
– link – a
– list – ul,li
– img and float right and left for image
Pages in Flipbook does not have support for all the html characters.
New characters html will be added with new updates.
reverse flip book for the eastern countries (right to left)
three techniques show flipbook:
- shortcode – you can put flipbook anywhere in content ( page, post, custom post etc)
- template – you can add flipbook as an independent template in the whole browser window, the advantage is that it is 100% working with all theme ( no conflict with css styles etc…. )
- lightbox – you can put text link, image link anywhere in content on your site, when you click on the link loads a book as a lightbox.
insert scripts in section head – only subpages where is the shortcode flipbook
you can disable / enable individual icons in the admin panel
icon fullScreen ( only works under FF and Chrome )
you can change the zoom to double click the mouse
you can change the zoom step for zoomIn and for zoomOut
you can enable / disable deeplinking (string at the end of the browser’s address)
youtube videos are shown on a layer above book
responsive design
unlimited number of pages in flipbook
lazy loading ( if you have a lot of pages – book will load faster, Example 1: If the current page is 8-9 – then are loaded only pages 8-9, 10-11 and 6-7 ; Example 2: If the current page is 1 – then are loaded only pages 1,2,3,4,5,6 )
+ New feature: Lightbox Now you can put the link text or image link anywhere in content on your site. When you click on the link loads a book as a lightbox. So you can have an unlimited number of book on one page. Lightbox works also with deeplinking.
+ More settings for the background ( you can set the transparency and color for the background )
Version 1.17 – 9.VII.2014
+ New feature:support multiple file upload ( <a href="https://2.s3.envato.com/files/96874362/preview/13.jpg">here</a> screenshot )
You can upload all your pages at once - no need to add each page separately. <br />
( more in documentatio "Add Page - from many images" )
Version 1.16 – 3.VII.2014
+ New feature: PDF support (<a href="https://2.s3.envato.com/files/96874362/preview/12.jpg"> here</a> screenshot ) Now you can create a book directly from the PDF file.. Pdf file is automatically converted to jpg files.
Version 1.15 – 13.VI.2014
+ New feature: Lazy loading In the administration panel appeared attribute "Lazy loading".Lazy loading can be set for pages in book and for the thumbs list.
Version 1.14 – 30.V.2014
+ improved function "duplicate book"
Version 1.13 – 27.V.2014
+ correction of the error images into the latest version of Firefox
+ change redirect for image and text ( shortened code ) - no need to use the code "javascript: setPage (2)," , now simply "setPage (2)"
+ improving the color changes to page manager in the admin panel
Version 1.12 – 15.IV.2014
+ Fixed errors on some theme and servers - "error load book" and "Fatal error: Cannot redeclare q5_flipbook_v5()" Now the plugin is 100% compatible with the theme Avada
Version 1.11 – 28.III.2014
+ New feature - duplicate book
Version 1.10 – 04.II.2014
+ fixed the work of the browser IE 9.0
+ deleted conflict with plugin NexGen Gallery
Version 1.9 – 11.II.2014
+ changed the name flipbook to the shorter
Version 1.8 – 4.II.2014
+ fxed color change (head h3) on the left side of the book
+ improved display of admin bar
+ corrected the color change for background toolbar
+ fixed list thumbs under the browser Chrome on iOS
+ fixed list ul and ol for pages in book
Version 1.7 – 17.I.2014
+ update query.address to version 1.6
+ optimization drag book - when zoom is used
Version 1.6 – 11.I.2014
+ reverse flip book for the eastern countries (right to left)
+ improve the operations of the IE
+ added a new color parameter in admin
+ flipbook slug shows in the browser address
Version 1.5 – 9.XII.2013
+ fixed display of icons
Version 1.4 – 6.XII.2013
+ added shortcode - you can put flipbook anywhere in content ( page, post, custom post etc)
+ insert scripts in section head - only subpages where is the shortcode flipbook
+ you can disable / enable individual icons in the admin panel
+ You can disable the complete bottom bar
+ you can change the width input text in bottom bar
+ added the icon fullScreen ( only works under FF and Chrome )
+ new preloader
+ you can change the zoom to double click the mouse
+ you can change the zoom step for zoomIn and for zoomOut
+ you can enable / disable deeplinking (string at the end of the browser's address)
+ fixed scroll thumbs on mobile devices
+ changed the scaling for the page - now all elements are scaled (previously only text)
Version 1.3 – 18.XI.2013
+Flipbook is now compatible with the latest version of WordPress - 3.7.1
Version 1.2 – 16.XI.2013
+ Fixed title (deep linking) for page - now white spaces are removed automatically after writing (white characters in the title are NOT allowed - then flipbook does not work properly) | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Tag: Manipur Tourism Forum
Imphal, Nov 13: As per the customary, the last rites of three Japanese soldiers who were killed in the World War 2 and their skeleton were remains in the state till date were performed at Koirengei on November 12, 2017 by a delegate team from Japan Association of recovery and repatriation of war casualties from […]
Imphal, Nov 13: As per the customary, the last rites of three Japanese soldiers who were killed in the World War 2 and their skeleton were remains in the state till date were performed at Koirengei on November 12, 2017 by a delegate team from Japan Association of recovery and repatriation of war casualties from […]
Commemoration of 73rd Anniversary of the Battle of Imphal (WWII) at the Imphal War Cemetery and Maidam Lotpa Ching, the Japan War Memorial Complex, Nambol under Bishnupur District on May 21, 2017, jointly organised by World War II Imphal Campaign Foundation and Manipur Tourism Forum (MTF) in association with Commonwealth War Grave Commission (CWGC). N […]
Commemoration of 73rd Anniversary of the Battle of Imphal (WWII) at the Imphal War Cemetery and Maidam Lotpa Ching, the Japan War Memorial Complex, Nambol under Bishnupur District on May 21, 2017, jointly organised by World War II Imphal Campaign Foundation and Manipur Tourism Forum (MTF) in association with Commonwealth War Grave Commission (CWGC). N […]
IMPHAL, Apr 25: The Deputy Chief of Japanese Embassy in India, today, apologised for the people who were killed during a feast at Khurai Chingabam Mandap due to a Japanese bomb during World War II. On April 20, 1943, a Japanese bomber dropped a bomb which killed around 100 individuals during a feast and destroyed […]
IMPHAL, Apr 25: The Deputy Chief of Japanese Embassy in India, today, apologised for the people who were killed during a feast at Khurai Chingabam Mandap due to a Japanese bomb during World War II. On April 20, 1943, a Japanese bomber dropped a bomb which killed around 100 individuals during a feast and destroyed […] | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Opendoor Hackathon Dec 11th
Hive13 is participating in the Opendoor Hackathon on Dec 11th. Sign up for the mailing list (link at the bottom) if you are interested. You can also contact [email protected] for additional details.
The OpenDoor Hackathon is a hackathon to benefit the members of hacker/maker/artist/co-working spaces by creating a standardized, Open Source access and membership management system that can be used by everyone. At the end of the hackathon, the systems (or subsystems) created by each space will be voted upon, and the best system (or combination of systems) will be chosen. Implementing the system afterward is, of course, optional.
Why are we doing this?
I know, the word “standardized” sends chills down my spine too, but I assure you that this is a good thing! Deciding upon a common system would enable the following things:
The ability to share membership between spaces
Crowd-sourced security enhancements and feature additions
Easier membership management
A warm fuzzy feeling of being connected with other spaces
What we’re envisioning (and what many of you already have) is a sort of Reciprocikey or Space Passport system. We believe that the only way to create such an awesome system is to work together on it!
When is the OpenDoor Hackathon?
The OpenDoor Hackathon will begin on Saturday, December 11th at 2pm PST, ending 24 hours later at 2pm PST on Sunday, December 12th.
How do I sign up?
You can register your space’s team at the Eventbrite here!
I realize that this post was mostly grabbed off the Opendoor Hackathon’s page, but this line “I know, the word “standardized” sends chills down my spine too, but I assure you that this is a good thing! Deciding upon a common system would enable the following things:” really aggravated me.
Without open standards hackers (both software and hardware) could not function. With every device we wanted to modify we would need to reverse engineer every component. With every project we wanted to build we would need to start from the ground up.
About Hive13
Hive13 aims to create a place where a diverse community of makers can collaborate and pursue creative projects. Hive13 promotes science & technology education, open source values, and skill sharing amongst it’s members and the community. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
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What is Norman Powell’s potential?
Since the Toronto Raptors have been without DeMarre Carroll, they’ve been forced to experiment with different starting lineups. As of recently, these starting lineups have featured rookie sensation, Norman Powell. While this promotion is almost definitely temporary, the question is put forth: what is Norm’s long-term potential?
While the young guard has excelled in his rookie season relative to expectations, it’s still unclear whether he’ll have a more prominent role with the team once DeMarre Carroll returns. If the Summer League is an indication of a player’s progress, it’s worth noting that Norm was the only rookie to earn the honours of being on the 2015 Summer League All-NBA team. However, this franchise is far too used to speculation. The area we must focus on is results. As is the case with Norman Powell. What justifies him being considered a ‘steal’? I see three possible outcomes which could play out in Norm’s career.
Role Player
The league has several role players and while that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Powell has the build of a strong and fierce scoring guard. In his rookie season, Norm hasn’t exactly turned heads as he’s averaging 3.2 points and 1.7 boards on 34.3% shooting in 39 games this season. There’s no doubt he has potential, but will he live up to it? He had one game with 17 points against Milwaukee but even then, he shot 6 for 15 from the field and didn’t really contribute much else. He also had a game against Oklahoma City where he scored 18 and shot over 50%. Maybe he would be a similar player to Rodney Stuckey or Nick Young but explosive. A high-volume shooter and not much else. This seems pessimistic, however.
Sixth Man
Maybe Powell will prove to be a sixth man at best. The Raps had a guy who won Sixth Man of the Year just last season in Lou Williams. Powell was a scorer in the summer league, if nothing else. I’m not saying he’s similar to Lou in anyway, however, he can certainly get to the rim and has flashed potential whether it be as a starter or off the bench. The only time Powell has ever really come off the bench was during the earlier part of the season in games where the Raptors would have already had a sizable lead. This seems like a very plausible outcome.
Starter
While Powell has not had much time in the previously mentioned roles, as of this writing he has started in 14 of 39 games. During his time as a starter, he has averaged 6.6 points, 3 rebounds and 1.3 assists on 39% shooting. These numbers are not pretty and don’t make a good case for Powell as a starter. However, it’s only his rookie season. If there was one game where he was given a legitimate opportunity to showcase his skills, it was during the 17 point outing he had against Milwaukee. He also had this play, demonstrating his speed and his ball handling skills. Not to mention, the jam:
His contribution helped lift the Raps to a 107-89 blowout of the Bucks. He managed to shoot 40% from the field, go 3/7 from beyond the arc while accumulating 2 blocks and a steal in that game. Powell also provided a solid performance in a loss against the Houston Rockets. He tallied 13 points, 4 boards, 2 helpers, a block and a steal. Even more impressive was the game he had against the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Raptors may have dropped the game, but Powell provided the team with 18 points, 4 boards and 2 blocks all while shooting 54% from the field and a ludicrous 57% from downtown in 28 minutes. Keep in mind, this is only a glimpse of what he’ll be capable of doing in 2-4 years.
Verdict
It may be too early to say what role Powell will serve, and even where he might be. However, with his combination of athleticism and his work ethic, plus the fact that he’s already established himself as one of the top second-round rookies, there’s no doubt he has the tools to be a very good player for years to come. | {
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