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Learner Support
Support you can expect from AOT
Our focus is to provide the real-world skills and knowledge that you need to advance your career, fulfil your goals and achieve success in the workplace. No matter what course you choose, here at AOT you will receive the assistance and support that will help make your study time convenient, manageable and worthwhile.
The benefit of studying with us is that you don’t have to schedule your time to attend face-to-face classroom sessions. You can study at times convenient to you in your own home or anywhere that suits your learning style.
To support you in your study we provide:
Personal course induction
A Learner Support Officer will personally take you through the sauceLMS and your course.
Live chat
Trainer support available whilst you are studying 7am – 9pm AEST (Mon to Fri).
Contact us form
Contact us at any time using the Contact us form found within your course to create support tickets.
Mentoring sessions
You can book an appointment with your personal trainer to discuss the learning material, assessment expectations, or assessment feedback.
Virtual classroom sessions
This can be booked with your trainer for specific assessments.
Help and Support
A section on your sauceLMS dashboard with useful links including FAQs. | {
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P-51D Mustang
American fighters old and new will come together in the skies over RIAT 2018 during a USAF Heritage Flight display. This will see the present-day F-35A Raptor flown by Cap Andrew 'Dojo' Olson, from Luke Air Force Base, Nevada, accompanying a P-51D Mustang piloted by a USAF Heritage Flight Foundation pilot. | {
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Norms Matter
The calls for Donald Trump to releasehis tax returns beganearly during the campaign and never really let up. It was easy to assume he eventually would make good on his promises to turn them over. Every president since Jimmy Carter had released his taxes; Trump would have to do the same, right?
What we’ve learned since then, of course, is that Trump didn’t have to reveal anything. The Constitution doesn’t require disclosure; plenty of federal officials need to submit their tax returns to the Senate, but not the president. It’s just a norm.
Story Continued Below
One of the crucial lessons of the past year, turns out, is just how much of American politics is governed not by written law, but by norms like these. For instance, the president isn’t required to divest himself of his businesses, but previous occupants of the White House have followed this tradition. Carter even put his peanut farm into a blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest. By contrast, Trump handed the reins to his sons, maintaining the rights to directly extract profits from the trust that controls his business empire. It’s not illegal, but before this year, it was a line no modern president had crossed.
Social scientists have long understood the importance of norms—the unwritten rules and conventions that shape political behavior—but our political system has largely taken them for granted. As a result, we have been slow to recognize how vulnerable these informal constraints on power are to someone who refuses to follow rules that everyone else respects.
Trump’s assault on norms started during the campaign, when he encouraged violence among his supporters, attacked the ethnicity of a federal judge (a double norm violation) and called for the imprisonment of his opponent. Once he was elected, many observers assumed this pattern would cease: Surely there are constraints on this kind of behavior from the president.
There aren’t—or, at least, there are few formal ones. Many of Trump’s statements and behavior have no precedent in recent history, but they aren’t illegal. He openly admitted to firing James Comey as FBI director because of Comey’s investigation into Russian influence in Trump’s campaign—probably a legal act, but a violation of long-respected norms against political influence in the Justice Department. Similarly, Trump continues to visit and promote his businesses while in office, which would be prohibited for a Cabinet secretary, but is legal for the president. White House jobs for his children? Directly attacking the press? Railing about politics to military service members under his command? These were red lines so strong that they seemed to have the force of law, but no longer.
We normally count on politicians to restrain themselves out of fear of public consequences. But as Trump’s election showed, the polarization and partisanship of our era has weakened those guardrails. Democrats are sounding the alarm, but members of his own party have remained largely silent. Violating norms is part of Trump’s appeal to his core supporters. As a result, these violations are frequently dismissed as just another case of partisan disagreement. Boundaries on presidential behavior that both parties have previously respected are blurring, making further abuses all too easy to imagine.
Directly attacking the press? Railing about politics to military service members? These were red lines so strong that they seemed to have the force of law, but no longer.
Internal checks, too, have withered. The Office of Government Ethics previously relied on voluntary compliance from officials who served under past presidents, including both Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Under Trump, however, this norm, too, has been breached with little cost to the president or his appointees. Walter Shaub, the head of OGE, recently stepped down, frustrated at his ineffectiveness during the Trump administration. Shaub told the New Yorker, “To have OGE criticize you would have been a career-ender in the olden days—now it’s just lost in the noise.”
What happens when norms are shattered like this? One response is to write them into law. After Watergate, Congress created an independent special prosecutor role to guard against interference in investigations of the executive branch, and strengthened campaign finance regulations in response to abuses during the 1972 election. Similarly, after Franklin D. Roosevelt broke George Washington’s precedent of serving only two terms, the Constitution was amended to formally limit the length of a presidency. After Trump, Congress could well take similar steps like requiring presidential tax disclosures, strengthening conflict-of-interest protections and increasing independent legal authority over the executive branch.
Such laws will never be sufficient, however. As political scientists have long known, there is no way to formally prohibit every type of bad behavior in advance. Who could have anticipated that it might be necessary to criminalize collusion with a hostile foreign power on the release of hacked emails?
Ultimately, our country must therefore also rebuild respect for the informal rules of our political system. The fact that presidents have long separated business and politics voluntarily was a measure of how seriously they—and we—took the public trust. These conventions of behavior were virtually invisible to us precisely because so many public officials dutifully followed them, until now. As we have seen, these norms might be a fragile bulwark against a demagogue, but they also reflect a commitment to a set of shared rules and values that is an important indicator of the health of our politics. Without that commitment, preserving our freedoms will become a much more difficult and dangerous task. | {
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Beijing - Artprice's Chairman, thierry Ehrmann, and its senior executives have just returned from several days of intense work at Artron's headquarters in Beijing where discussions focused on accelerating and implementing, as quickly as possible, all the agreed strategic and commercial initiatives that will inevitably generate very positive results in terms of turnover and the expansion of Artprice's client base... not to mention shareholder value.
Artron and its Chairman Mr. Wan Jie gave the Artprice team an exceptionally respectful, warm and loyal welcome and introduced Artprice to China's top-level institutional leaders, the country's principal Art Market players and all of Artron's 3,500 employees.
These face-to-face introductions are an essential step in Artprice's bid to fructify the enormous potential of the Chinese market in a fast and optimal manner.
In 2018, China accounted for 45% of global online transactions, generating 12 times more online transactions than the United States. China has a huge advantage over the West because it is building its market economy directly on the Internet (Source GEAB / LEAP 2020).
Speaking in front of his senior executives and top management, Mr. Wan Jie – at the head of his Artron empire and probably the most powerful player in China's Art Market – reiterated his unfailing personal friendship and loyalty vis-à-vis Artprice's founder-Chairman, thierry Ehrmann.
This fact deserves emphasis as Chinese custom usually prohibits such ‘departures' from accepted business protocol.
As China has become the global Art Market's leading marketplace over the past decade – Artprice had been the first to report it in 2009 –, it naturally represents a fascinating new market for Artprice.
China has grand ambitions:
As the French language business weekly Challenges headlined last week: “China, the giant that wants to dominate the World”. China is still accelerating with its “Made in China 2025” plan and its “New Silk Roads”.
As a global company, Artprice made a point to successfully enter the Chinese market, now the last great ‘eldorado' for any group whose market is global.
According to Artprice's founding Chairman, thierry Ehrmann, “I appreciated the emergence of China's global power, its insatiable appetite and its desire for leadership a long time ago! Over the past nine years, Artprice has translated hundreds of millions of data from its proprietary databases into Mandarin. However, observant visitors to our famous head offices (L'Organe Museum of Contemporary Art at the “Abode of Chaos” [dixit The New York Times]) over the past 30 years will have noticed thousands of artworks – including my own sculptures and paintings – directly or indirectly referring to the ancient culture and history of China.”
“Unlike many, I am not surprised to see China gradually becoming the world's leading economic power. Artprice has decided to enter the Chinese market through the front door with a humility that has clearly been lacking in many Western listed companies. Any other strategy would have been a fatal mistake. I therefore wish to reiterate my thanks to Wan Jie, Artron's Chairman, and all his colleagues for making this open and proper strategy possible after 9 years of close collaboration!”
Thanks to Artron's expert advice, Artprice fully complies with the specifications of China's “Great Electronic Wall” and its terms and conditions: Law CL97 (1997) as well as its “Golden Shield” protocol (1998).
In order to comply with law CL97, Artprice spent two years rewriting all its databank code in order to eliminate all US and European corporate source code containing cookies, tags, metadata, backdoor elements (amongst other elements).
Since Monday morning, Artprice is one of the very few Western companies to possess a WeChat profile reserved for companies operating under Chinese law. WeChat is used by more than 1.8 billion Chinese Internet users around the world.
The statistics concerning China are eye-watering: a population of over 1.4 billion people, 5 times that of the United States, a GDP growth of 6.5% this year and, regarding specifically Artprice, a colossal art market with a massive pool of living artists (1 million in China versus 120,000 for the USA and Europe combined) and an almost infinite number of artworks. China's art market is animated by tens of millions of art buyers, professionals and collectors, many of whom are Artron customers and therefore, going forward, potential customers for Artprice.
The title of Artron's press release: “Artron and Artprice team up to create the art ‘silk road'”, (the ‘silk road' notion is massively used by the Chinese State) makes perfect sense. The New Silk Road is part of China's soft power strategy (OBOR for One Belt, One Road) to conquer the world economically.
China had initiated the project. According to the IMF, the World Bank and the CIA World Factbook, China is the world's leading economic power in terms of GDP-PPP in 2017. According to CNN, this project encompasses 68 countries representing 4.8 billion people and 62% of global GDP.
Artron is a very powerful company and, for those interested in Art or the Art Market, Artron is completely unavoidable in China. Artron is not only the world's leading publisher of Fine Art books and auction catalogues (with more than 400 million books/catalogues printed); it is also a major scientific laboratory – with premises in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen – and a technical and scientific knowledge base that easily rivals that of Silicon Valley.
Its scanning processes in virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality have reached the very highest level of global sophistication and the company's scientific and cultural innovation has been rewarded with more than 800 prizes and awards for excellence.
Artron.Net is the most respected brand in the Chinese art world. It has more than 3 million professional members in the arts sector and an average of 15 million daily visits, making it the world's leading art website. It is the first choice for art professionals, investors / collectors and art lovers. Founded in 1993, the Artron Art Group is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.
The involvement of Artron and its Chairman Mr. Wan Jie in Art in China is completely uncontested. Mr. Wan Jie is a ‘protector' of Beijing's famous 798 Factory which enjoys global visibility and was visited by Artprice staff.
He is also Vice-Chairman and Founder of the Institute of the famous Forbidden City, where he and thierry Ehrmann visited government offices that are closed to the public during the recent trip to Beijing.
The was also an opportunity for Artprice's Chairman thierry Ehrmann to see first-hand Mr. Wan Jie's involvement and support for the protection and diffusion of ancient masterpieces of Chinese art in the Imperial Granaries. These superb works have been “returned to the people” thanks to Artron's scientific breakthroughs and ultra high-speed Internet which allows these masterpieces of humanity to be contemplated in a virtual reality context, with the support of the Chinese State.
During the trip, the Artprice team met some of China's world-renowned artists including Fang Lijun (born in 1963) ranked 623/700,000 in 2018 and Zhang Xiaogang (born in 1958) ranked 121/700,000 artists in 2018 in Artprice's global ranking.
Artprice's press agency, ArtMarketInsight, together with Artron's editors, have decided to post around thirty daily dispatches in both Chinese and English aimed at combining information about the Chinese art market with information about the Western art market.
Our various meetings and visits in Beijing left no doubt in our minds as to the power of China, the extraordinary wealth and depth of its history (over 4,000 years), and the country's incredible advance over the West in terms of technology… a vision and an understanding of China that completely disqualifies the ignorant visions of the Chinese Empire that can still be found in the West to this day.
A geo-cultural analysis is not interested in the percentage of GDP spent on arms, but rather in the depth of the countries' respective histories and the relative strengths and weaknesses of the protagonist civilizations.
Among its numerous manifestations, China's ‘soft power' is also focused on the Art Market. In this context, Artron's alliance with Artprice is part of Xi Jinping's “BRI” (belt and road initiative) launched in 2013 (aka the “Silk Road” in Europe). According to CNN, this project encompasses 68 countries representing 4.8 billion people and 62% of global GDP with an investment of close to $8 trillion.
It is therefore a great honour for Artprice to have been chosen by Artron and its Chairman Mr. Wan Jie. Artron appreciates the work conducted by Artprice and has validated its place as World Leader in Art Market Information. That is why Artprice subscriptions will be distributed in China, with a huge potential for new customers. Artprice's data will contribute to the fluidity of the Chinese and, more broadly, the Asian Art Market, in a context where ‘Greater Asia' will account for 70% of the global Art Market by 2019.
According to Artron, Artprice's econometric expertise associated with Artron's proprietary data will not only provide an extraordinary boost to the fluidity of China's Art Market (throughout its numerous provinces and autonomous regions), it will also greatly enhance and facilitate the work conducted by the country's tax, administrative and customs authorities.
According to Artron and its Chairman Mr. Wan Jie, the only legitimate way to approach this colossal mission was to team up with a recognised and globally authoritative third-party certifier like Artprice, as World Leader in Art Market Information.
Never mentioned in the press or identified by economists or sociologists, this massive new market that Artprice is entering is typical of the kind of domestic market that only a central player in China's Art Market could have been aware of.
China's Provincial-level administrative divisions are the highest level administrative divisions in the People's Republic of China. There are 34 such divisions, classified as 23 provinces, 4 municipalities, 5 autonomous regions, and 2 Special Administrative Regions.
Artprice subscriptions sold exclusively by Artron in China will therefore reach directly into the heart of the need identified by Artron within China's domestic market. Similarly, Artprice will be accessible via Artron.Net's home page and all the Chinese social networks where Artron is omnipresent.
Artron's Chairman Mr. Wan Jie has already introduced Artprice to some very promising commercial contacts including the Chairman of China Guardian, China's first publicly-traded Chinese auction house. China Guardian needs high-end Artprice subscriptions for its VIP customers as well as Artprice's monthly analyses for its internal operations.
Thanks to Artron's unique technology in the field of scanning parchments, manuscripts and collection catalogues from the previous century, Artprice will finally be able to offer all its customers extremely high value-added data such as the hundreds of thousands of handwritten notes by Hippolyte Mireur and the various pre-17th century documentary collections that Artprice owns, which are too fragile to be scanned using Western scanning devices.
With this major breakthrough, Artprice will further strengthen its position as World Leader in Art Market Information.
In the context of this extraordinary alliance with Artron and the massive potential for new customers in China, Artprice is anticipating a major boost to its 2019 sales and profits.
For the launch and marketing of its services and databases in China, Artprice will benefit from all of Artron's logistical resources in terms of communication, via the Internet, as well as the physical world, thanks to its power, its reputation and its innumerable electronic and/or commercial networks throughout Greater Asia.
In this context, Artprice, with the assistance of Artron, has just translated 125 million data into the Chinese currency, the Renmimbi (RMB). Naturally the primary objective of this translation process is to facilitate the purchase of its data by its new Chinese clientele, presented by Artron. This captive clientele is accustomed to using Alipay and WeChat (1.8 billion users), two Chinese instant payment platforms (QR Code in kiosk mode debiting the Chinese customer on behalf of Artprice) that are mandatory for Chinese buyers.
Numerous synergies have already been identified from our joint working sessions and the merging of Artprice/Artron teams with the similar functions. Given the extent of strategic, financial and economic involvement with Artron, Artprice has decided to appoint a Chief Executive responsible for its Chinese and Greater Asia operations, who will reside in Beijing and work closely with Artron's teams.
The objective of this strategy is to accelerate the numerous initiatives recently engendered by Artprice's and Artron's contractual and promissory agreements. This informed decision has been carefully deliberated and enjoys unanimous support within the Group.
This appointment will, notably, make it easier to coordinate Artron's and Artprice's joint initiatives.
Artron's goals are both transparent and unambiguous:
In Mr. Wan Jie's own words: “The founders and Chairmen of the two companies, thierry Ehrmann and myself – with our enthusiasm for art – will create a Silk Road linking the Chinese and Western art markets on the principle of mutual respect and cooperation”.
“The two parties will build a global, diversified and professional exchange platform in the art market that will ultimately promote the sustainable development of the global art market.”
As this platform develops, Artprice's Standardised Marketplace® will host millions of works by Chinese artists, provided by Artron, generating a massive increase in the number of artworks available online.
Artmarket.com, .net and .org therefore represent a decisive advantage in our quest to capture and drive the Global Art Market's development on the Internet.
According to a bailiff's report established by the Estelle PONS - Sarah MERGUI licensed court bailiff partnership in Lyon, Artmarket.com is the top result out of 1.82 billion results on Google.com (all languages combined) and therefore represents the best possible vector for Artprice to promote the works of 1 million Chinese artists and their tens of millions of works (already hosted by Artron) in the Western art market.
In view of the radical change in scope anticipated, Artprice is naturally moving towards an IPO of its subsidiary artmarket.com, its Standardized Marketplace®, on a Chinese stock exchange (Shanghai, Hong Kong, Shenzhen ...) and not on an Anglo-Saxon exchange as originally planned.
According to thierry Ehrmann, “In 2019 Artprice will begin a new chapter alongside Artron that will trigger tremendous value for the global Art Market and our loyal shareholders. I am particularly pleased that my long-term strategy based on China's rapid economic emergence will generate such positive results.”
“Today I am 56; when I first visited China I was 25. Since then I have spent 30 years patiently studying the Middle Kingdom. Beyond this satisfaction, I have had the immense pleasure of knowing Mr. Wan Jie, a founding Chairman with whom I share the same vision regarding the democratization and promotion of art in the world. In short… Artprice's long march is about to reach its objectives for its shareholders and for the global art market.”
Artron will soon be publishing a documentary-report explaining all the meetings, discussions and agreements between the Artprice and Artron teams in Beijing. It will allow Western viewers to see images of Artron's ultra-sophisticated scientific processes and appreciate the economic power of Artron in Greater Asia.
About the Artron Group:
“Artron Art Group (Artron), a comprehensive cultural industrial group founded in 1993, is committed to inheriting, enhancing and spreading art value. Based on abundant art data, Artron provides art industry and art fans with professional service and experience of quality products by integrated application of IT, advanced digital science and innovative crafts and materials. Having produced more than 60,000 books and auction catalogues, Artron is the world's largest art book printer with a total print volume of 300 million a year. It has more than 3 million professional members in the arts sector and an average of 15 million daily visits, making it the world's leading art website. Founded in 1993, the Artron Art Group is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. It is the first choice for art professionals, investors,
collectors and art fans in general wishing to discover and/or participate in the art world or the art market. Founded in 1993, Artron Art Group is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.”
According to the Artron Group and its founder-Chairman Mr. Wan Jie “After 7 years of cooperation, Artron and Artprice have optimised their cooperation regarding the Chinese and Western art markets. The founders and Chairmen of both companies, Mr. Wan Jie and Mr. Thierry Ehrmann, with their enthusiasm for art, will create a Silk Road linking the Chinese and Western art markets on the principle of respect and mutual cooperation. The two groups will build a global, diversified and professional exchange platform in the Art Market, which will ultimately promote the sustainable development of the Global Art Market.
Artprice is the global leader in art price and art index databanks. It has over 30 million indices and auction results covering more than 700,000 artists. Artprice Images® gives unlimited access to the largest Art Market resource in the world: a library of 126 million images or prints of artworks from the year 1700 to the present day, along with comments by Artprice's art historians.
12 Oct. 2018: Artprice and Artron have just created an “Art Media Mogul”:
Artprice permanently enriches its databanks with information from 6,300 auctioneers and it publishes a constant flow of art market trends for the world's principal news agencies and approximately 7,200 international press publications. For its 4,500,000 members, Artprice gives access to the world's leading Standardised Marketplace for buying and selling art. Artprice is preparing its blockchain for the Art Market. It is BPI-labelled (scientific national French label)Artprice's Global Art Market Annual Report for 2017 published last March 2018: https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-art-market-in-2017 | {
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Khaleda to address 20-party rally in Gazipur Dec 27
Staff Reporter BNP chairperson Khaleda will go to Gazipur on December 27 to address a rally of her 20-party alliance in the district. The local unit of the 20-party will organize the rally at Bhawal Badre Alam Government College ground, BNP chairperson’s adviser Gazipur City Mayor MA Mannan told. Mannan said they have recently held a meting at BNP standing committee member Hannan Shah’s residence in Dhaka and finalized the rally schedule. The rally will be arranged protesting the ‘growing’ incidents of killing, enforced disappearance, abduction and the current ‘illegal’ government’s repressive acts and misrule, he said. The rally is also meant for drumming up public support in favour of their demand for snap polls under a non-party administration, he added. Mannan said they have already got permission from the college authorities to hold the public meeting. He said Khaleda will give direction to his party men about their upcoming decisive movement from the rally. It will be Khaleda’s 11th rally outside the capital after the January-5 election boycotted by the BNP-led opposition alliance. Earlier, Khaleda went to Rajbari on March 1, Munshiganj on May 28, Joypurhat on June 22, Brahmanbaria on September 23, Jamalpur on September 27, Nilphamari October 23, Natore on November 1, Kishoreganj on November 12, Comilla on November 29, and Narayanganj on December 13 and addressed public rallies there. | {
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TEHRAN (Press Shia Agency) – Israel protested to Jordan on Sunday after the spokeswoman for the government in Amman was photographed stepping on the Israeli flag during a meeting with trade unionists.
– World news –
Jumana Ghunaimat, Jordan’s minister for media affairs and communications and the government spokeswoman, on Thursday walked over an Israeli flag painted on the floor of the headquarters of Jordan’s professional unions in Amman, Reuters reported on Sunday.
She was on her way to attend a meeting between Jordanian Prime Minister Omar al Razzaz and union representatives. Razzaz, however, entered the building through a rear door, avoiding having to walk over the flag.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Sunday deploring what it called the flag “desecration”, and said it had summoned acting Jordanian ambassador Mohammed Hmaid for a reprimand and that the Israeli embassy in Amman had also issued a “sharp protest”.
The flag was painted on the floor of the building several years ago to encourage passers by to tread on it, a mark of disrespect, unions said at the time.
Despite the neighbors’ 1994 peace deal and commercial and security ties, many Jordanians resent Israel and identify with the Palestinian struggle against it.
Jordan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Qatarneh confirmed in a statement issued via state media that the Israeli embassy in Amman had asked for clarifications over the incident and that Israel had called in the Jordanian charge d’affaires in Tel Aviv to “discuss” the matter.
Qatarneh said that Jordan respects its peace treaty with Israel and that Ghunaimat had entered a private building by its main entrance to attend an official meeting. | {
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News
Straub Farms
The Straub family has decided to retire from farming after 50 years. This auction will feature several late model pieces of farm equipment. The auction will take place on October 12th at 11:00am. This will be an excellent opportunity to purchase some newer, well maintained equipment. This auction will take place in Milan, Michigan, just north of Dundee. For questions on this auction, please contact Chuck Ranney at [email protected] | {
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Networx: Black mold: Get it out of your house
Laura Firszt More Content Now
Thursday
Sep 13, 2018 at 9:31 AMSep 13, 2018 at 9:31 AM
Eew! Black mold! A mold-infested house not only looks and smells terrible; it may also be a serious threat to your family’s health. Find out how black mold can grow in your home and how to get rid of it.
What is black mold?
First of all, mold is a multi-celled, thready fungus. The more than 100,000 species of mold in existence come in a veritable rainbow of colors, including white, green, yellow, blue, and pink mold. "Black mold" can refer to a large variety of mold types, although it most commonly describes the highly toxigenic (toxin-producing) Stachybotrys — which actually tends to be blackish-green in hue. Many other types of black-colored mold are quite harmless.
Black mold in house health risks
If you’ve got black mold in your house, health risks include exacerbated breathing difficulties for household members with asthma or other respiratory problems, and an increased possibility of infection for immune-compromised people. Milder negative reactions include coughing, wheezing, and hay fever-like symptoms. Conditions such as extreme fatigue, impaired concentration, headaches, skin rashes, and digestive upsets have also been reported.
How does black mold grow?
Stachybotrys tends to grow in houses and other buildings which are damp due to any of several causes: leakage, poor sealing around openings such as windows and doors, inadequate ventilation, or flooding (post-Hurricane Katrina, many New Orleans homes were infested with black mold). Black mold thrives on a combination of moisture, warmth, and cellulose-based food sources like wood and drywall.
Mold testing
With black mold in the house, you may be tempted to call a commercial mold testing service or to purchase a DIY mold testing kit. However, the procedure for removal for any type of mold is the same, so you might prefer to spend your time and money actually getting rid of the fungus, rather than pinpointing exactly which variety you have. Nevertheless, mold testing could be useful in some cases — notably when you suspect there may be mold in your home (usually due to an acrid smell) but can’t spot any.
How do you get rid of black mold (or most other types of mold)?
Start by finding and removing the source of excessive moisture. Next, equip yourself with non-porous gloves, breathing mask, goggles, and protective clothing to protect against the mold.
Now it’s decision-making time. You’ll have to choose what may be cleaned (hard surfaces like walls and floors, as well as machine-washable textiles such as curtains and some area rugs) and what will have to be discarded (paper and cardboard, even treasured family albums — sigh! — in addition to badly molded fabric items, including upholstered furniture and wall-to-wall carpet).
Scrub hard surfaces thoroughly with soap and warm water. Launder washables with your usual detergent on a high setting, adding a commercial mold-removing agent if desired. Dry well, with the help of fans or outdoors in the sun where feasible. Unfortunately, some grayish stains may remain even after cleaning.
How to prevent mold
Worried about how to prevent mold? Good news: The prevention process involves just three simple steps. And it’s a lot easier (not to mention less emotionally wrenching) than dealing with the aftereffects of a major black mold infestation.
— Avoid any "moisture traps." For example, don’t leave wet towels or shower curtains crumpled up in the bathroom — spread them to dry. In a damp basement, avoid carpet and choose tile or concrete flooring instead. | {
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NORML Foundation Weekly News Release
Marijuana arrests more than doubled
since 1990 while, at the same time, the percentage of arrests for the
sale and manufacture of cocaine and heroin fell by over 50 percent, a
preliminary analysis of drug arrest statistics by The NORML Foundation
announced today.
"These figures affirm that law enforcement priorities have shifted
from targeting hard drug users and traffickers to arresting primarily
recreational marijuana smokers," NORML Foundation Executive Director
Allen St. Pierre said. "As we enter the new millennium, the drug war is
now more than ever a war on marijuana smokers."
The NORML Foundation examined FBI drug arrest figures between 1990
and 1997, the last year the agency has data available.
NORML found:
Drug arrests increased 31 percent since the beginning of the decade.
Rising marijuana possession arrests are chiefly responsible for this
overall rise in drug arrests.
Marijuana arrests rose every year since 1991, reaching an all time high
of 695,200 in 1997. Marijuana arrests increased 59 percent during this
period. Conversely, use of marijuana by adults remained unchanged.
The percentage of arrests for the sale or manufacture of cocaine and
heroin fell 51 percent between 1990 and 1997. The percentage of arrests
for all heroin and cocaine violations also fell by 34 percent.
There have been more than 3.7 million marijuana arrests this decade.
Eighty-three percent of these arrests were for possession only.
The arrest figures conflict with statements made by White House
Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, who recently announced that America "can not arrest
our way out of the [drug] problem."
"The FBI data show that we are witnessing an unprecedented number
of drug arrests in the 1990s, the largest percentage of which are for
marijuana possession," St. Pierre said. "McCaffrey and others need to
examine these figures and explain why they run contrary to the
administration's stated goals."
St. Pierre also noted that marijuana use among adolescents has
increased despite the law enforcement crackdown. "Clearly, the figures
show that targeting and arresting adult marijuana smokers does not deter
adolescent experimentation with the drug."
St. Pierre labeled marijuana prohibition an expensive and wasteful
policy, and called for further analysis of whether the increased emphasis
on marijuana enforcement is causing police to neglect enforcement efforts
aimed at harder drugs like cocaine and heroin.
The NORML Foundation will soon issue a full report on its website:
www.norml.org.
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre or Paul
Armentano of The NORML Foundation @ (202) 483-8751.
Feds Ease Restrictions On United States' Only Legal Marijuana-Based Drug
July 8, 1999, Washington, D.C.:
Federal drug enforcement
officials
relaxed restrictions last week on the only legal marijuana-based drug.
The decision reclassifies synthetic THC, marketed as Marinol, as a
Schedule III controlled substance and is expected to expand patients'
access to the drug.
"Marinol is a legal alternative to marijuana that has demonstrated
safety and varied effectiveness among patients; for those patients who
find medical benefits from Marinol, this ruling is a positive step,"
NORML Executive Director R. Keith Stroup, Esq. said. "However, to those
thousands of patients who find Marinol ineffective or less effective
when compared to whole smoked marijuana therapy, this reclassification
provides little relief."
Stroup continued, "Marinol is not necessarily an adequate
substitute
for whole smoked marijuana because it lacks several of the drug's
medically valuable compounds, known as cannabinoids. Therefore, this
decision is not a silver bullet for patients or politicians. Federal law
still must be changed to allow those unresponsive to synthetic THC the
opportunity to use inhaled marijuana as a legal medical therapy."
The FDA first approved Marinol in 1986 to treat the nausea
associated
with cancer therapy. The agency later approved the drug as an appetite
stimulant for AIDS patients. Last week's reclassification ruling allows
doctors greater flexibility to prescribe Marinol and relaxes record
keeping requirements on the drug.
Stroup noted, however, that it raises further questions about the
future of medical marijuana. "This decision by the federal government
acknowledges that one of the primary compounds in marijuana, THC, is
medically valuable and lacks a high potential for abuse," he said. "Yet,
this same government maintains that marijuana must remain criminally
prohibited because it has no medical value and a high abuse potential.
This is the equivalent of the government endorsing Vitamin C but
prohibiting orange juice."
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre or Paul
Armentano of The NORML Foundation @ (202) 483-8751. Copies of the NORML
Foundation white paper, "The Need for Medical Marijuana Despite the
Availability of Synthetic THC," are available upon request.
A state task force convened by
Attorney General Bill Lockyer to explore ways to better implement
California's medical marijuana law will likely recommend patients
register for ID cards identifying themselves to police, The Los Angeles
Times reported.
Oregon already has similar regulations in place.
The task force, whose recommendations will be released shortly, is
also expected to recommend the state develop regulations allowing
marijuana clubs to operate openly.
Lawmakers are expected to introduce the task force's proposals
before
the state Legislature.
For more information, please contact California NORML Coordinator
Dale Gieringer, who served on the task force, @ (415) 563-5858. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Scene 1: The Douchbag Country Club. Very little activity ... no one golfing. A few employees scattered around. Jeff of the EIS is addressing six temporary EIS employees ... all have jackets with the EIS logo in huge letters ... all with official looking faux CSI kits. Jeff: "OK, listen up people. This is a training exercise." Jeff pauses to shoo away one of Conrad's flies which lands upon his shoulder and attaches. "In a little while a small group of real reporters will be allowed on the premises. They're here to add realism to this exercise. You have mock cameras ... take pictures of anything that looks reasonable. No screwing around ... the whole exercise is being filmed." A lie but who cares. "Remember ... you do not speak to the media. If anyone asks you a question, say that all information on this case is classified and direct them to me, Agent Piccard. If any reporter gets pushy, call over one of the police ... they will warn the reporter not to bother you or they will be led off the premises." One of the faux agents: "Are there any phrases that sound really scienterrific that we could use with each other to sound impressive?" "The following phrase can be used if you ... say ... collect a soil sample ... or take a closeup photo of anything ... or even do a dust for fingerprints bit ... just say to your fellow agent, "Do you think this is amenable to the fragistan carcoblans?" ... and you both peer into each other's eyes like you said something meaningful. The reporter will be so busy trying to write down fragistan carcoblans and google it that that person will be out of action for ten minutes. It's fun to watch. One final thing. You have your list of red tape items. For example, all unopened alcoholic beverages and all materials from the kitchen walkin cooler will be red-tagged and moved into the red-tag van or the refrigerated red-tag truck. All other items will be loaded into the other vehicles for transport to the central office. That's it ... get to work ... try to enjoy yourself and always ... always ... look official." The faux agents scatter ... some taking pictures ... other putting soil samples in test tubes and adding phony reagents. Two agents head for the storage areas to box up red-tag items for transport to Lenny's estate. Three reporters enter ... they've already been instructed to take all the pictures they wish but under no circumstances should they disturb the agents in any way ... treat this like a murder scene ... your cooperation is appreciated ... there will be a Q&A session with Head Agent Piccard at the end of the day.
Scene 2: Rory and Conrad at The Pot Shop, listening over the fly on Jeff's shoulder. Rory: "This is great. Can you believe these clowns ... it's all bullshit. But why are they doing it?" Conrad: "My guess ... one ... the EIS needs a write up for appropriations time. This phony shit looks great on paper. Second ... we need to figure out what the red-tag items are all about. Third ... the EIS has lost a huge chunk of the funding it had in the last administration ... it can't afford science anymore. We're witnessing the devolution of our society. Pretty soon science will be stone knives, bear skins, and leeches. California might escape if it can break away from the rest of the continent but that's iffy ... they're human and most humans only react, not act." "Keep that fly on the EIS spokesman ... what's his name ... Agent Piccard ... keep that up. Let's see if we can get info if he makes a phone call."
Scene 3: Golf Course. All the goods in the walkin cooler are being boxed, labeled with red tape, moved to the refrigerated van. Jeff is overseeing. Jeff calls Lenny: "Lenny ... Jeff. I'm on site at the Golf Course ... we're boxing up the cold items for your house right now. They've got a huge collection of booze ... that's going to take some time to box up but I'm on it. Someone is also in the Pro Shop ... golf balls, tees, golf clubs ... I could use a few of those ... we'll take everything without a traceable logo. We can always pawn it on the side for pocket money. (pause) Yeah, don't worry ... this is going like all the other jobs ... I'll give the press the standard line of of nonsense so they have something to publish while saying absolutely nothing. I've already visited three of the local hospitals ... this whole black dick thing has me puzzled. Wish we still had the science guys to back us up ... damn cutbacks. By the way, do you think that there's any connection between the deaths in the Krupt family, the deaths of the protesters, and this outbreak? All these things happened in the same geographic area ... I smell something funny. (pause) Fine, I won't bother you. Is it OK if I take some time to visit my girlfriend Julie? Yeah, I'll button up here before I head out. I'll be at the Ingraham Motor Lodge in Lloyd if you need me. OK, out. Enjoy your loot."
Scene 4: The Pot Shop. Rory and Conrad are staring at each other. Conrad; "They're looting the place. The investigation is a huge scam! They're Making America Great Again!" Rory: "Yeah, but this Agent Piccard seems to have a brain ... he suspects that there's a connection to the Krupts. I want to meet this guy ... the Ingraham Motor Lodge ... I'll go visit.
Scene 5: Ingraham Motor Lodge parking lot. Rory is waiting in his car ... knows what Agent Piccard looks like ... waiting for the classic black government-mobile. There's a bar off the main motor lodge. And here comes the Fed. Agent Piccard exits his parked vehicle ... traveling case in hand ... enters the check-in. Rory exits his vehicle ... assumes that Jeff will be tired ... thirsty ... so he goes into the bar ... sits at a table ... orders a tonic water with a twist ... no alcohol. Fifteen minutes later Jeff enters ... goes straight to the bar ... sits ... orders a scotch on the rocks. Jeff downs his drink ... orders another. Rory waits 10 minutes ... lets Jeff's drink sink in ... walks up to the bar next to Jeff ... orders another tonic. Rory, to Jeff: "You look beat ... tough day?" "God, don't ask ... I hate my job." "I hear that a lot ... that's why I have my own consulting firm. I choose my clients ... choose the problems to solve ... ignore everything else." "Ain't you lucky ... I work in hell ... the Federal Government." "What brings you to Anal-Noise?" "There's a potential public health problem ... a bunch of rich boys are turning up in hospitals with ... peculiar problems. I work for the EIS ... it used to be the FBI of science but with budget cuts we're more of a PR organization ... keep the public pacified while they think the government gives a fuck about them ... which it doesn't." Rory: "Hey, I haven't had dinner ... want to grab a bite ... I'm Rory." "Love to Rory ... I'm Jeff ... let's make it really expensive ... I've got a government credit card ... let's make the sucker public pay for it.
Scene 6: Expensive Restaurant. Rory sitting across from Jeff. Jeff continues to whine about his horrible life ... what he has to do to earn a paycheck. Jeff: "I got a Masters in microbiology ... and for what? ... to work for some asshole. So what do you do in this consulting firm you own?" "I solve problems ... all sorts of problems ... in the field of food science, agriculture, product development, food processing, adhesives, ... you name it. I'll take on any problem as long as it's not pure physics." "I don't get it ... how can you be an expert in all those areas?" "I'm not. A new problem comes along and I'm the new kid on the block. My philosophy ... read everything ... listen to everyone ... BELIEVE NOTHING! Start from scratch. Let me give you an example. I was doing some work for a tomato processor in northern California and I heard of this problem they had with one of their processing lines ... intermittent temperature spikes ... been happening for 15 years ... causing all sorts of hell ... cost them a small fortune. I asked the Plant Manager if it was OK if I looked into it ... he thought I was crazy but he humored me ... told me not to hurt myself ... I was just a "bean counter". It took me and the head of maintenance less than 1 week to find the problem ... and the problem never recurred in the following three years. Done! I've got dozen of similar stories ... all the same. Ordinary scientists can't do shit ... they're there for the paycheck ... that's it." "Hell, tell me about it. (pause) Let me tell you my situation ... maybe you can help me. There's been the weirdest set of occurrences in this area ... have you heard of the death of Rep. Krupt and his family ... and the death of a whole bunch of protesters and their Pastor ... and now this golf course shit ... God, when it rains, it pours." Rory's cell phone buzzes ... he sees it's Conrad. "I've got to take this ... back in a minute." Rory walks out of earshot. "Yeeeees?" "I've been listening to your conversation with that agent ... this is a hoot. Question: Do we want to bug this idiot's office or do I recall my fly?" "Recall the fly ... have it land on me ... this guy's a whiny idiot ... totally useless." "OK ... will do ... when my fly lands on your shoulder, don't swat it." "Gotcha. Let me get back to the whiner." "So, what do you think ... could we hire you to solve this problem ... find if there is any connection between the deaths and weird shit?" "I avoid contact with the general public ... I would hate to be associated with anything which could put a person at risk. Like pure physics ... not my specialty." A group of four gentlemen enter the room ... take a table next to Rory and Jeff. They're already drunk ... really loud ... don't care. "God, I love this work ... giving shit to A-rabs ... pushing them around ... threatening to have them deported if they don't shut-up. What a great business to be in. When's the next meeting?" "Next week ... a combination KKK and White Nationalist shindig ... should be fun." Jeff: "I hate these white nationalist assholes ... think they own the country with their Emperor in the White House. I wish someone would do something about these obnoxious fuckheads." Rory: "Do you now .... (trails off ... Rory in thought).
Scene 7: The Pot Shop: Rory to Jeff: "I've got my next project ... white nationalists. You want in?" "I've been waiting to deal a blow to those assholes ... I'm VERY in" | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Health Information
All health information obtained by the Doctors and staff at the medical centre during your care is confidential. Sometimes relevant information may be shared with other health professionals to whom you are referred for health care. The privacy code means we are unable to disclose any health information to other family members without permission of the patient.
Under the provisions of the Health Information Privacy Code 1994 you have the right to access health information about you collected and held at the medical centre and the right to request correction of that information. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Built to Last. Reliable Irrigation Valves
Built toLAST
Reliable Irrigation Valves
From Residential to Commercial, low or high flow, low pressure or high pressure, Hunter valves keep any system running smoothly and boast a very low warranty return rate, well below the industry standard. The Hunter family of irrigation valves offers durability and long-lasting performance engineered to stand the test of time, no matter the conditions. Hunter's line of reliable irrigation valves consists of an array of models to fit any need, from 1” (25 mm) residential to 3” (80 mm) commercial applications. The models include PGV, ICV, IBV and Drip Zone Kits.
Built and Engineered to Stand the Test of Time
100% Water Tested at Factory
Every Hunter valve is water tested after final assembly. This ensures that all Hunter valves will perform right out of the box.
Common Solenoid
Hunter uses a common solenoid in every valve; stocking or finding replacement solenoids is easy.
Captive Bonnet Bolts
Servicing Hunter valves is a breeze thanks to captive bonnet bolts that stay in place during service. The bolts are compatible with a nut driver, flat head, or Philips screwdriver so you can easily service your valve with the tool you have on hand. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Property Tax Bombshell Exposed – Fleming
9th May 2013
Fianna Fáil Spokesperson on Public Expenditure and Reform Seán Fleming has said householders will be stunned to hear they face a hike in property tax after the local elections next year. This was confirmed to Deputy Fleming by the Revenue Commissioners at the Public Accounts Committee this morning.
Deputy Fleming said: “It was confirmed today that Local Authorities will be able to apply at 15% increase in the property tax at the end of next year, despite assurances that the property tax would not change for three years. This is a deeply cynical move by the two Government parties. As soon as Fine Gael and Labour get the local elections out of the way they intend to hit families again.
“The Revenue’s own information booklet on the property tax says “The market value of your property on the 1 May 2013 will form the basis of the calculation of the tax for 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016.” The clear impression in the minds of the public is that the tax would not change for three years, but buried in the legislation that Fine Gael and Labour insisted on forcing through the Dáil with no debate, is a clause which would allow local authorities to inform Revenue, by September 2014, of their intention to apply an increase of up to 15% from January 2015.
“Fine Gael and Labour forced through this property tax legislation, blaming the Troika, and they encouraged the impression that people would not get hit with a higher tax next year. By holding back the increase until after the local elections, they obviously thought that the wool could be pulled over voters’ eyes.
“This is the wrong tax at the wrong time, placing unacceptable numbers of people across the country under unacceptable pressure. At the very least, the Government needs to repeal this underhand section of the legislation and insist that there will be no increases for at least three years.”
Hey Micheal Martin, whats this rubbish about you defending 180 Garda statements that didn't hold up in Court.. What strokes you trying to pulling in saving this broken institutions face.
A) Disband it, its too steeped in civil war politics.
B) Establish a new force with a separate investigative wing.
C) As the Police are a seperate institution to politics then make the new Commissioner an electable position to ensure public confidence instead of 'political' confidence (other countries do it) | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
See the daily schedule
Kurt
Benjamin’s film juxtaposes 16mm footage of Cobain’s hometown, Aberdeen, Washington, with surreal scenes of Hopper as Cobain. Appropriately given the Gusman Center’s history as a former silent movie palace, the short was wordless, with the exception of a reading of the lyrics to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Hopper. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Consumersphere®
FAQ's
What Do We Do?
We use the most state-of-the-art and powerful technologies to strategically
mine for target-generated insights. We deliver intelligence from the organic and unbiased Collective Voice™.
What Is The "Collective Voice™"?
We source our data from everywhere and anywhere people express themselves digitally, the Collective Voice™. This allows us to discover "organic truths", that would otherwise be impossible using other research methodologies.
How Are We Different?
We apply the principles and disciplines of market research to Collective Voice™ data. We do this utilizing innovative artificial intelligence, machine learning and text analytic capabilities that mine for strategic insights.
What Are Our Advantages?
Unadulterated Authenticity: Organic target-generated insights
Absolute Objectivity: Collective Voice™ assures no researcher bias
Extremely Cost Effective: Less than half as much as other alternatives
Speed of Results. Our work is commonly completed in less than half the time of other methodologies
Discovery: Uncovering what you don't know
Topical Discovery
Explore at a deep and granular level the influencing dynamics of topics from a Collective Voice™ perspective. Zero in on what they view as important, motivating and influential. Instead of hypothesizing, let your target tell you in a completely unbiased and organic manner.
User Discovery
Uncover your organic user groups and the driving dynamics that makes each unique. This includes distinguishing personas, mindsets, want/needs and drivers/barriers.
Segmentation Discovery
Discover the naturally occurring segments for your area of interest. They may be demographic, psychographic, ethnic, generational, lifestage or a hybrid combination.
Generational Discovery
Reveal the generational wants/needs for your topic. Determine topical "universal truths" as well as the wildly varying influences that differentiate them.
Lifestage Discovery
Find out the driving dynamics of your topical area by stage of life. From young & singles to empty nesters, we can tell you what makes them tick.
Psychographic Discovery
Go beneath the surface to understand the various mindsets that comprise your target. Understand how the wide array of "need states" and "want states" interact and influence each other in a wide variety of ways.
Insight: Deep Dive into what you need to know
Cultural Insights
In our increasingly diverse and multicultural society, it's important to understand the unique differentiators, motivations and needs. True cultural insight comes from an understanding of the blend of ethnic-specific and universal truths.
Vertical Insights
Verticals can be a deep reservoir of organic target-generated insights. Delving deep into what these specific audiences discuss, share and ask gives you an extensive lens of insight into your topic. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Entries for 'freight rate risk management'
If your answer to the above question is anything less than ‘very,’ your company’s future may be at risk.
In the turbulent seas of the shipping industry, understanding the true market value of your fleet is the difference between sinking and swimming. Performing frequent mark-to-market (MTM) valuations is an integral part of doing business. However, due to the volatile nature of the industry, the complexity of calculating freight rates, and flaws inherent in popular valuation methods and tools, companies often end up with inaccurate numbers. This provides an erroneous picture of financial standing that can result in lost profits, faulty decision-making, and ultimately the demise of an entire business.
To understand the challenges associated with calculating accurate MTM valuations and how to address them, I encourage you to read a new article in The Baltic by Javier Navarro, Triple Point’s Freight Risk Solutions Manager. It offers a detailed look into this subject that is intended to help companies gain a competitive edge and stay afloat in the rough waters of the cutthroat shipping industry. Read it now | {
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} |
Located in the urbanization of Cala’n Bosch in the town of Ciutadella about 200 meters from the sea and 500 meters from the beach. The plot is 500m2 and the house has 135 m2. It is a complex Xalets and we have two.
On the ground floor we find the living room with direct access to the outside and piscna terrace with access to both the kitchen. The kitchen has access to the rear garden. Of the 4 bedrooms of the house, we have a bedroom with double bed downstairs and a bathroom with shower.
Going up to the first floor we find another bedroom with a bathroom en suite. The bedroom is spacious and comfortable and can accommodate either placed in a cot or extra bed for children. On the same floor there are 2 double bedrooms with twin beds in each. On this floor there is another bathroom. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
With the release of their newest album, Sing Noël, Point of Grace wanted to spend a few minutes – through music and devotions – reminding us to remember WHO the Christmas season is all about. We hope you love their devotional words as you begin to get into the Christmas spirit. Heavenly Father, For many […]
With the release of their newest album, Sing Noël, Point of Grace wanted to spend a few minutes – through music and devotions – reminding us to remember WHO the Christmas season is all about. We hope you love their devotional words as you begin to get into the Christmas spirit. During the holidays, it […]
Listen as Leigh, Shelley, and Denise talk about why they chose Hark! The Herald Angels Sing to be on their new Christmas album, Sing Noël. A fun song, you’ll discover Point of Grace’s own spin on this Christmas classic. If you love this song, we think you’ll love the new album, Sing Noël. Visit your […]
With the release of their newest album, Sing Noël, Point of Grace wanted to spend a few minutes – through music and devotions – reminding us to remember WHO the Christmas season is all about. We hope you love their devotional words as you begin to get into the Christmas spirit. “See Amid the Winter’s […]
Fear Not… Hallelujah! God Is With Us! Listen as Denise, Leigh, and Shelley share with us why they chose this song to be on their new album, Sing Noël. With all that is going on in the world, fear is within all us, but God tells us DO NOT FEAR. If you love this song, […]
With the release of their newest album, Sing Noël, Point of Grace wanted to spend a few minutes – through music and devotions – reminding us to remember WHO the Christmas season is all about. We hope you love their devotional words as you begin to get into the Christmas spirit. “Let Us Be” Our […]
Listen as Shelley, Leigh, and Denise talk about the song, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” They’ll share what they love about the song, where it came from (the real story behind the song), and what “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” really means. If you love this song, we think you’ll love […]
Today’s LifeWay Worship Christmas feature is The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy arranged by Cliff Duren The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy This West Indian carol with an island feel was arranged for SATB a cappella choir with percussion and children’s choir by Cliff Duren. Product […]
Miracle in a Manger Created by Tim Lovelace Orchestrated and Arranged by Cliff Duran, Camp Kirkland, and Phil Nitz A miracle moment comes like none in history with the birth that would give life to the world. A manger that had been used to nourish animals now held the Bread of Life for all mankind. […] | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
The latest neurobiology for professional problem-solving
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“Video games sharpen math, science and reading skills among 15-year-olds, but social media reduces test results”
Teenagers who regularly play online video games tend to improve their school results…But school students who visit Facebook or chat sites every day are more likely to fall behind in maths, reading and science.
“Students who play online games almost every day score 15 points above the average in maths and 17 points above the average in science.
“When you play online games you’re solving puzzles to move to the next level and that involves using some of the general knowledge and skills in maths, reading and science that you’ve been taught during the day,” | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Set in the 247 acre Teifi Marshes Nature Reserve. It’s easy to immerse yourself in the peace & tranquility during breaks….with a 150 yard stroll either down to the River Teifi, along secluded paths or up to a meadow with its giant wildlife sculpture and panoramic views.
You can even incorporate the Nature Reserve into the more structured elements of your time here….whether its learning about naturalphenomena, team building or just connecting with the natural world.
There is ample free parking just outside the Harlow Room with good disabled access& facilities both in & around all buildings, including toilets very close by.
The Harlow Room (8.9m x 5.2m) can seat up to 40 people with its tables and comfortable chairs configured as a
Boardroom 16
Horse-shoe 20
Classroom 20
Theatre 40
Social gatherings can accommodate up to 40. Window blinds provide give good projection capability as well as privacy.
The basic Room Hire price includes a Whiteboard, Flip Chart, Pens, Lectern and Internet Access; as well as Tea and Coffee making facilities in the room.
Daytime Room Hire Rates
(Half Day is 3 hours, Full day is 8 hours)
Community Groups – £30 half day, £50 full day
Voluntary Orgs – £40 half day, £70 full day
Public/Statutory Orgs – £45 half day, £80 full day
Business – £50 half day, £90 full day
Discounts available for multiple bookings.
The Harlow Room can be hired at £15 per hour.
Evening bookings by arrangement.
Equipment Charges
Digital Projector and Screen £20
Traditional Overhead Projector (acetates) £10
TV and DVD player £10
Our on-site Catering service can be tailored entirely to your needs; whether it’s a regular supply of hot and cold drinks with homemade cake, cold buffet or a 3 course hot meal.
We can organise a special lunch for you in advance or just bring you the day’s Cafe menu on arrival, so everyone can book what you want on the day.
Then enjoy your lunch high up in the Glasshouse Café overlooking the River Teifi and the Nature Reserve or outside the Cafe in the meadow (where there’s a large covered area too if it rains)
We use locally sourced seasonal produce whenever possible, catering for vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free diets within all of the menus. We’re fully licensed, keeping a small range of wines and beers in stock
Stunning home made food
The setting of this venue makes it particularly appealing, with the Teifi Marshes Nature Reserve this makes it a unique venue for any business or social event. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Chilean-American cinematographer Claudio Miranda is pictured at the 18th Annual Critics’ Choice Movie Awards. Miranda has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography for Ang Lee’s film Life of Pi.Feb 21, 2013 | {
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} |
“Everyone Can” Obey and Teach Others“But when they believed Philip, as he proclaimed the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized.” Acts 8:12 (HCSB) | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Premier League Week 24 Fixtures: Full Picks and Predictions for Matchday 24
What does the Premier League have to follow up what were such lively midweek fixtures? More football, of course.
Matchday 23 featured quite a few surprising results, between Liverpool's 4-0 drubbing of Everton, West Ham's 0-0 draw against Chelsea in Stamford Bridge and Tottenham Hotspur's 5-1 home defeat at the hands of Manchester City.
Arsenal's 2-2 draw with Southampton meant that City leapfrogged them into first place.
Matchday 24 lacks the same volume of compelling matchups, but it has plenty of mouth-watering fixtures, with everything culminating with City's clash with Chelsea on Monday. It should be a thrilling weekend.
Premier League Predictions
Premier League Matchday 24 Predictions
Date
Time
Home
Prediction
Away
2/1
7:45 a.m. ET; 12:45 p.m. GMT
West Ham
2-1
Swansea
2/1
7:45 a.m. ET; 12:45 p.m. GMT
Newcastle
0-0
Sunderland
2/1
10 a.m. ET; 3 p.m. GMT
Stoke
0-0
Man. United
2/1
10 a.m. ET; 3 p.m. GMT
Hull
1-1
Tottenham
2/1
10 a.m. ET; 3 p.m. GMT
Fulham
2-0
Southampton
2/1
10 a.m. ET; 3 p.m. GMT
Everton
0-1
Aston Villa
2/1
10 a.m. ET; 3 p.m. GMT
Cardiff
0-2
Norwich
2/2
8:30 a.m. ET; 1:30 GMT
West Brom
1-2
Liverpool
2/2
11 a.m. ET; 6 p.m. GMT
Arsenal
4-1
Crystal Palace
2/3
3 p.m. ET; 8 p.m. GMT
Man. City
2-1
Chelsea
Matchups via WhoScored.com
Newcastle vs. Sunderland
Scott Heppell/Associated Press
Crazy things always happen in the Tyne-Wear Derby. The fact that Sunderland have clawed their way out from the relegation places makes this match all the more exciting.
The Magpies will be without Loic Remy after he picked up a red card against Norwich City. At time of writing, it hasn't been overturned, but Newcastle may choose to appeal the suspension as it was a rather innocuous coming together with Bradley Johnson that led to the sending-off.
If Newcastle are without Remy, it's hard to see where the goals would come from. Don't forget that they'll also be without YohanCabaye, after he moved to Paris Saint-Germain:
Sunderland have had their own problems scoring, with Jozy Altidore failing to make any impact whatsoever since his arrival in the summer, and few others coming to the Black Cats' rescue.
This is normally a lively fixture, but the fireworks will be lacking in a match that has a dull draw written all over it.
Prediction: Newcastle 0, Sunderland 0
Everton vs. Aston Villa
Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images
For whatever reason, Aston Villa are a demonstrably better team away from home. At Villa Park, they have the 18th-worst record in the league. On the road, they're eighth.
Perhaps Paul Lambert feels a little more willing to play on the counterattack rather than try to dominate possession and control the game when his club is away from home.
Villa are a great counterattacking team, and they'll try to use that strength against Everton.
The Toffees won 2-0 when these two met earlier in the season, but with the match in Goodison Park, this could be a much more competitive fixture.
Villa demonstrated a lot of heart in their 4-3 win over West Brom. Couple that with Christian Benteke's strong run of form, and you've got a side capable of pulling off the road victory. The Belgian has scored three goals in each of his last three games after going 11 matches scoreless, per OptaJoe:
3 - Christian Benteke has now scored in three consecutive Premier League appearances after going 11 without one. Rampant.
Everton looked really shaky defensively against Liverpool, and they aren't on a great run of matches. That will continue on Saturday.
Prediction: Aston Villa 1, Everton 0
Manchester City vs. Chelsea
Matt Dunham/Associated Press
When these two clubs met, Chelsea won, 2-1. Fernando Torres scored in the 90th to give the Blues all three points.
There are two things different this time around.
The first is that Vincent Kompany has returned to the first team and brought some defensive solidarity to the City back line.
The second is that this game is being played at the Etihad Stadium. Manchester City have the best home record in the league, winning all 11 of their matches. They've scored an ungodly 42 goals at the Etihad, while holding opponents to eight.
Sergio Aguero could be a big miss for City, as he was injured in the win over Tottenham Hotspur. | {
"pile_set_name": "Pile-CC"
} |
Echoes From The Ashes by Christa Hedrick, a tale about reincarnation and the Holocaust
Meet Christa
The Author
Christa is retired and living in Rector, a small town in Northeast Arkansas. Although Rector is the town of her birth, she grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast and spent 15 years as a military wife, which afforded her the opportunity to live in many different places, including Germany. Living abroad was an experience she loved, crediting it with broadening her mind and awakening a sense of living in a world community.
A few years ago she and her friend, Lana Swearingen, co-authored a book about their lives as military wives and the two other women who met and became friends while their husbands were stationed at Ramstein AFB in Germany in the mid 70s. The four women, who still get together once a year, have remained friends as their lives have taken them on different journeys and to different parts of the country. "We Were Army Wives" is available on Amazon.com
She currently writes a column/blog for the Clay County Times Democrat keeping everyone abreast of the “goings on” around her small town. She has also creates and maintains websites including the Rector website: www.rectorarkansas.com
The Inspiration
At nineteen years of age, Christa was
living in Nuremberg, Germany as a young military wife. It was her first time to be out in the world as an adult and she hadn't known what to expect when she arrived. All she knew of Germany was from books and movies of WWII. She expected to meet anger and resentment. Instead, she found people to be friendly and welcoming, grateful for the help the Americans gave in rebuilding their country. Conversations with those who had lived and fought in the war taught her that these people were no different from the people back home. These weary, worn out soldiers had been young patriotic men during the war, much like her own father.
Years later when she was again living in Germany she visited the Dachau Memorial and knew she had to tell the stories of the people who had passed through the horror of the Holocaust.
The Book
"Echoes From The Ashes" is fiction, but all the stories about the things that happened in the camps and to the citizens of Germany at the hands of the Nazis are rooted in actual events that happened many times over. It was a time of incredible cruelty against innocent people. She wanted to make them real for her readers to lift them up, those who survived the unimaginable and those who now soar free.
Events
Book Club
I am thrilled to announce that "Echoes From The Ashes" has been selected as the February book to read by the Like Minds Book Club in Rector. I will be making a presentation to the group at the February meeting on the 26th. I am looking forward to talking about the story and how I came to to write it. I am looking forward to them having a lot of questions.
Piggott
Meet the Author
Book signing/ Sale and Presentation
Madpies Tea Room and Shoppes
On the Square in Piggott
Saturday, November 4
11:00 - 2:00.
Rector
Meet the Author
Book Signing/Sale Presentation
Rector Welcome Center
Main Street, Rector
Saturday, December 2
Noon- 2:00
KAIT8 Midday
Christa was a guest on KAIT8 Midday at 11:00 on Thursday, November 30. Diana Davis interviewed her about "Echoes From the Ashes." Christa told Diana that the seed for writing this book was planted in 1977 when she took a trip to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial. | {
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Compulsory briefing for NVFR approaches to EDFE with Jets and Turboprops for the season 2017/2018
To activate the briefing you first have to watch all 4 videos (approx. 12 min.)
Then you will automatically be directed to the a PDF-document with your personal briefing ID.
Please complete the document and forward it to the below mentioned address. | {
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The IWC Pilot’s Watch Double Chronograph is a timepiece of extraordinary technical and stylistic achievement. Calling upon their own original and groundbreaking usage of zirconium oxide (ceramic) dating from 1986, IWC has introduced a new and limited production chronograph which showcases the exceptionally difficult split-seconds complication in a stealthy and exciting rendition.
The Pilot’s Watch Double Chronograph features a case manufactured from zirconium oxide, a material harder, more scratch resistant and many times more expensive than stainless steel. In addition to these attributes, this ceramic material is also completely non-reflective, as suits a watch which may have tactical applications. Subtle contrasts to the black ceramic are provided by the pushpieces and screw-in winding crown, which are made from titanium. The dial’s date wheel, which is shown in an unconventional three-day presentation, effectively evokes the altimeter gauge in an aircraft’s cockpit.
The automatic-winding 79230 movement which is hidden beneath the caseback of the IWC Pilot’s Watch Double Chronograph is a complex mechanism boasting 29 jewels and a 44-hour power reserve. It allows for the usual chronograph operation, as well as an intermediate time measurement which can be activated via the pushpiece at 10 o’clock. This type of chronograph, called a rattrapante, is the most technically demanding of chronograph mechanisms, as well as the most functional. Protected by a soft iron shield, IWC’s caliber 79230 can resist strong magnetic fields. As further testament to the serious nature of this chronograph’s design, the sapphire crystal is painstakingly secured to ensure that drastic changes in air pressure will not cause displacement. Strictly limited to 1000 pieces for the world, the subtle beauty of IWC’s Pilot’s Watch Double Chronograph will be the privilege of only a few connoisseurs and collectors. | {
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I read an article recently that said our concept of time speeds up as we get older because our daily routines aren’t interrupted by new experiences the same way they are when we’re children, when everything, every day brings something new. The key, the authors advised, was to do more things that create memories strong enough to jolt through the quotidian litany of our existence.
I am fortunate to have a job that in so many ways lends itself to this practice. But as I’ve settled into the flight attendant life, I’ve found myself sinking once again into the habit of thinking of time as something that is rushing by me - an endless series of venti vanilla lattes bought at 5 a.m., heels clicking under too-bright fluorescent lights in yet another airport, “welcome aboards” and “thanks for flying with us.” And while it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of thinking about life this way, it’s a narrative that ignores the many moments, both big and small, that have made my life richer.
To that end, I’ve taken some time to reflect on my favorite travel moments from 2018, the moments I pause at when I’m replaying the movie of this past year in my head. Taking some time to remember them has worked like magic, if you will, slowing down time and transforming it from a succession of takeoffs and touchdowns to a humbling reminder of how many things I got to see and do this past year that made my heart leap.
From a cold night in Brussels to the summer solstice in Spain, here are the moments in 2018 that made time stand still.
Foregoing French Fries for Pommes Frites in Belgium
I kicked off last year with a 48 hour layover in Brussels. It was absolutely freezing in that bone-chilling way Europe is after Christmas, which meant my sightseeing around Brussels and nearby medieval Bruges was punctuated every hour or so by a jaunt inside a cozy restaurant or bar to warm up. I ate until I couldn’t eat any more: Belgian waffles drizzled in Nutella, Flemish stew sopped up with warm homemade bread, delicate chocolates in the shape of swans, and mussels in big black pots. But my favorite meal, by far, was a thing of pommes frites and pommes sauce ordered on a street corner of the main platz. They were so hot that steam drifted off of them into the dark night and we devoured them with frozen fingers while we watched the lights dance off the gold that gilds the platz.
Making Layovers Great Again in Costa Rica
At my seniority, landing yourself a long layover at an all-inclusive resort is a bit like being Indiana Jones and finding the Lost Ark. But landing yourself a long layover at an all-inclusive resort and then finding out you’re going with three other flight attendants around your same seniority and age is like the real-life version of those Hallmark Christmas movies, where you find out the handsome man you’ve been dating is actually a prince and you’re going to be the new Princess of Moldovia. Maybe even better.
That’s what happened with my Liberia, Costa Rica layover, when a trip normally reserved for the most senior ended up having four baby flight attendants working it. We became fast friends and spent most of the day in the pool where we out drank even the Canadian fire fighters. We also fed some monkeys, dipped our toes in the ocean, and took a walk in our bikinis through the jungle. It was a perfect day filled with mojitos and laughter and, despite the fact that my liver wouldn’t make it, I wish all layovers were this fun!
Keeping Up with the Joneses in Gramercy Park
In April, I had the privilege of staying at the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City, a hotel so sexy it barely turns any lights on and has its own Le Labo Candle to capture its signature smoke and sex scent. As a guest, I got to spend the night drinking cocktails in the shadowy Rose Bar, the glitzy lounge in the hotel lobby hidden behind thick red velvet curtains. I also received a golden key to the exclusive Gramercy Park. The park is one of two private parks in the city and its impeccably manicured acres are only accessible to those who live on it (the names of which read like some of history’s and Hollywood’s finest and include everyone from Julia Roberts and Karl Lagerfield to John Steinbeck and a handful of Astors). I felt like a character in a Wharton novel the morning I strolled through it, stopping among the splashy tulips to sit on a park bench and drink up the cold spring sunshine.
Arroz con Pollo in ViÑales
The couple that ran my casa particular in Viñales spoke no English and my Spanish is conversational, at best. But we spent all day together under the sun, clip clopping on horseback through the fertile red mud and tobacco fields that make this region a UNESCO protected area. And through broken Spanish and many repeated sentences, we learned a great deal about each other: that we shared a love of yucca, that he had granddaughters he adored, that being able to open an AirBnB had changed his family’s life, that we would both rather spend a day on horseback than anywhere else in the world. Afterwards, back at his farm, we took shots of Havana Club rum with his neighbor, both of them donning machetes and looking like an ad for la revolucion, as the sun sank behind cavernous limestone cliffs and his wife clambered about in the kitchen. And as I sat at the dining room table proudly displayed in his living room, eating one of the most delicious meals of my life, I thought about how this dinner wasn’t even a possibility ten years ago. Cuba and the U.S. have lived in fear of one another for so long, and now here we were, laughing until we had tears in our eyes. Our host cracked open another bottle of rum, spilling the first few drops on the ground as per tradition. “Por los santos!” he shouted. “For the saints.”
Sailing Mallorca
Sailing Mallorca with In Adventures Travel was my very first press trip. And man, was I nervous! So nervous, in fact, that I as I boarded my flight to Barcelona I confess I stopped in the jet bridge and thought about just spinning around and heading back home. I’m an introvert at heart, so spending four days on a sailboat with a dozen or so other people I’d never met before made me anxious. And they were all such talented writers and photographers - people who had probably done dozens of press trips! - that I worried they would take one look at me and my little travel blog and Instagram and wonder what on earth I had done to get myself invited on this trip. But saying yes to this press trip turned out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done and one of the things I’m most proud of in 2018. Because not only did I get to sail around the stunningly clear blue waters of Mallorca, but I met and became friends with a group of amazingly talented people who inspire me every damn day.
But stepping onto that plane turned out not to be the scariest thing about this trip! That honor is reserved for the day we rappelled down a cliff into the ocean, which is by far one of the most adventurous things I’ve done to date. I came so close to saying forget it and just walking down to the beach. But I knew if I didn’t do it that I would always wonder what it would have been like to say yes. So I suited up, took a big breath, reminded the man helping me with my harness that I would prefer not to die, and stepped over the edge. I think about that moment often, the moment that I didn’t let fear win, that I did the thing that terrified me. It’s the most powerful lesson I’ll take with me from 2018: when you have the choice to stick with what’s comfortable or do the thing that scares you, always always step over the edge.
Mornings on the Lanai in Honolulu
I tend to fall in love with every destination I visit, but there’s a handful of places, like Oahu, that make me feel like my soul is at home there; like the land and I were created from the same primordial stardust and are delighted at being together again. I spent a morning there on the famed Waikiki Beach, curled up on my lanai with coffee and a book while I watched the ocean change from a misty gray blue to a sparkling turquoise as the sun peeked over the lush mountains. And then, suddenly, there was a rainbow right in front of me, plunging its colors into the ocean. It was a simple moment but it was one of my absolute favorites and a perfect reminder that there’s magic and beauty all around us every day - you just have to look.
vino verde and pastel de nata in Lisbon
One of the hardest parts of my job is that you have no work community. With 24,000 flight attendants and 14,000 pilots, you fly with a new group of people every trip. Sometimes that can feel overwhelming, isolating, and exhausting (so much small talk!), and sometimes it’s amazing because you meet so many new friends that way. Case in point: Jules! We’d known each other less than five minutes when the rest of the crew kept asking us how long we’d known each other for and if we picked up this trip to fly together. And they must have been on to something because by the time we landed in Lisbon we were BFF. We spent the day exploring Lisbon’s pretty streets in inadvertently matching outfits, drank champagne on a sailboat excursion with the rest of the crew, wandered around pink street until the wee hours of the morning, and spent basically 24 hours straight talking about everything under the sun.
Swimming with Manta Rays in Kona
One of the things I am most afraid of in the world is the ocean, especially the ocean at night. Sometimes, I peer down at it on transoceanic flights and imagine being swallowed up by that cold blackness. Or, you know, being eaten alive by sharks and other creatures of the deep. So when I saw that swimming with manta rays at night was rated not only one of the best experiences in Kona, but in the world, my first thought was that there was no way in hell I’d be checking that one off my list. But I was still high off the adrenaline from pushing past my fears and rappelling down cliffs in Mallorca (see above!) so I went ahead and signed myself up. I had a moment of total panic right before I slid off the side of the boat into the pitch black water, imagining some sort of JAWS remake starring yours truly, but in the end I was neither abandoned at sea or eaten alive by sharks. Getting up close and personal with those graceful manta rays (one came so close it almost swallowed my GoPro) was truly the experience of a lifetime and I’m so glad I didn’t let my fears get in the way of checking it off my list!
prost to Oktoberfest
I might be biased because my family is of German descent, but I don’t think there’s anything better than a national holiday where everyone gets together to drink beer and eat pretzels while dressed in costumes that make you feel like a Bavarian princess. Except for maybe a work trip that pays you to drink beer, eat pretzels, and dress up like a Bavarian princess with your friend. And that’s exactly what happened when Jules (of the Lisbon story above) and I picked up a Munich during Oktoberfest! Working with friends makes even an international service go by in a flash and we had so much fun in our dirndls and braids, joining our entire crew to celebrate this festival of fall.
sunrise at the Taj Mahal
When I went on my first press trip, I secretly hoped I’d make some new friends that I might be able to travel with in the future. So when Laura and I rendezvoused in India a few months later, it felt like we had manifested not just a friendship but something bigger. And nowhere was that feeling more present than our sunrise at the Taj Mahal. We walked there in the blue black dark just before dawn, as bats the size of eagles soared overhead, and I still remember the audible gasp we both let out as we turned a corner and saw this monument to love for the first time. We slipped our shoes off and shared the quiet peacefulness of a mosque with some monkeys and only a handful of other travelers while we watched the tomb turn from pink to gold to a dazzling white with the sunrise. We leaned against each other and just took it in, overcome by the singular emotion of seeing a place that you’ve always wanted to see, of realizing that from this point on you’re forever a part of its story and its forever a part of yours.
Charleston with momma
Years ago, before travel blogging was even really a thing, my momma told me I should start one as a creative outlet. She’s believed in my writing since I scribbled my first story and she would laugh about how maybe it would land me a free hotel stay or two and we could use it to go on a few trips together. So when I was invited for a weekend stay at a posh hotel in Charleston, South Carolina, I immediately invited her along for a girl’s trip. Our schedules are both usually so busy that we rarely get the chance to travel together, so we had a blast exploring the quaint cobblestone streets, taking in some architecture tours, and eating too many platters of shrimp and grits. But the best moment, by far, was when the hotel surprised us by sending up some champagne and as we sat out on our balcony drinking our bubbly she looked over at me and said, “You really did it baby girl!”
Cheers to an amazing 2018 and to all the great that awaits in 2019!What were your favorite travel moments of 2018?
Some links on this site contain affiliate referrals, which means thatif you make a purchase through them I may make a small commission.I only link to products I personally love or use - the same ones I'd recommend to my family and closest friends! | {
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Image taken on 2011 Oct. 01.49471UT and 2011 Oct. 02.47207UT by L. Elenin (ISON-NM Observatory, Mayhill) does not detect the object (limiting mag 20.0R), because this area of the sky is very bright. These are not real following pre-discovery magnitude limits. Images URL: http://www.astroalert.su/files/m32_2011-10-01_pnv_elenin_summ3.png ; http://www.astroalert.su/files/m32_2011-10-02_pnv_elenin_summ3.png The real following pre-discovery magnitude limits: image taken on 2011 Sep. 19.92656UT and 2011 Sep. 28.72678UT by S. Korotkiy, V. Gerke (Ka-Dar Observatory, TAU Station, Nizhny Arkhyz, Russia) does not detect the object (limiting mag 20.0R). Images URL: http://www.astroalert.su/files/2011-09-19_m32.png ; http://www.astroalert.su/files/2011-09-28_m32_summ3.png
2011 10 2.502
This possible nova in M32 was just seen with 1 x 300 sec images using a clear filter. Astrometry: RA 00 42 42.75 Dec 40 52 00.6 Photometry: not done These data were collected by Joseph Brimacombe, Cairns, Australia. Link to image and further information: http://www.flickr.com/photos/43846774@N02/6205506791/
2011 10 01.7029
Offset on discovery images: 10E 7N. Stanislav Korotkiy
2011 10 02.758
Detected at R-band mag 16.9 +/- 0.2 on co-added 1350-s R-band CCD frame taken by P. Kusnirak with the 0.65-m telescope at Ondrejov. The position of the nova candidate is R.A. = 0h42m42s.83, Decl. = +40o52'01".4 (equinox 2000.0), which is 10.9" east and 4.2" north of the center of M32. K. Hornoch, Ondrejov observatory | {
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Connector Type
N/A45°
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Electrical Trade Size
N/A1/2 in
Thread Type
N/ANPT
Dimension A
N/A0.984 in
Dimension B
N/A0.551 in
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Dimension D
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HIGH QUALITY CONDUIT FOR A WIDE RANGE APPLICATIONSAnamet Electrical, Inc. is the leading worldwide supplier of SEALTITE® flexible wiring conduit. We are known for our high quality wiring conduits used in applications ranging from machine tools, computer wiring, office furniture, nuclear power plants, mass-transit vehicles, military shielding and industrial construction. | {
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Featured Post
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Your Daily Leonard
As I've been chronicling, I am continuing to read the fine new Leonard Cohen bio and have finally reached just past the halfway point. He's survived his encounter with gun-toting Phil Spector, taken some time off, busted up with the mother of his two kids, and returned with a fine late-1970s that included two of his greatest songs: "Hallelujah" and "If It Be Your Will." Surprise: It was dropped by his record company and not even released at the time in the USA!
Figuring you've heard enough of "Hallelujah" for awhile (or for a lifetime), here is one of my favorite gems from that lp, which Leonard wrote about his wife, who now had a boyfriend. And below that, one of the greatest hymns--and please forhumanity--ever written, "If It Be Your Will."
is author of a dozen books (click on covers at right), including the new "THE TUNNELS: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill." He was the longtime editor of Editor & Publisher. Email: [email protected]. Twitter: @GregMitch
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ORDER MY NEW BOOK
Just published in October by Crown. Click on cover (above) to order at nice discount. It's a thrilling history of escape tunnels--under the Berlin Wall--and JFK's attempt to suppress NBC and CBS films about them. Hailed by Bill Moyers, Alan Furst, and Frederick Forsyth, others. Paul Greengrass attached to direct movie. "A fascinating and complex picture of the interplay between politics and media in the Cold War era.” -- Washington Post. "A gripping, blow-by-blow account."--Publishers Weekly (starred review).
Award-Winning 'Campaign of the Century''
"Upton Sinclair's Race for Governor of California--and the Birth of Media Politics": Amazingly influential and wild 1934 race with great relevance for today.
"Atomic Cover-up": Shocking suppression of U.S. film
How U.S. buried for decades the key footage from Hiroshima shot by the U.S. military. Click on cover above for my popular book and e-book.
New Edition of my book on Bush, and Media, Failures on Iraq
Preface by Bruce Springsteen. "Read this book--twice." -- Bill Moyers
New Edition of Our Beethoven Book!
G.M.'s book w/ Kerry Candaele, a tie-in to our new acclaimed film. E-book and print.
New Edition of my "Tricky Dick and The Pink Lady"
The notorious Nixon-Douglas race in 1950, a New York Times Notable Book, now in new print and e-book versions.
My Book on the Bomb with Robert Jay Lifton
Acclaimed book on nuclear culture, and political and psychological fallout in the USA. Written with Robert Jay Lifton. Click on cover to read more or order.
Hollywood and The Bomb
My book on MGM's 1947 epic on Hiroshima and creating the first bomb--and the White House censorship that wrecked it. E-book just $2.99.
"Vonnegut and Me" E-book
Conversations and close encounters with the novelist. Click cover for more. $2.99.
How the President and the Military Censored MGM's Anti-Nuke Epic!
The truly wild and important story on the unmaking of 'Most Important Movie Ever Made.' Just $3.29. Click cover to order.
My Latest Book: On Hollywood Politics!
Why and when did the movie biz turn "liberal"? The full and fun story, and the left-wing election campaign that sparked it. Click on cover for more. $3.99.
Unique E-Book on the Obama-Romney Race
Probes campaign 2012 and the aftermath--plus 500 clickable links to key stories and videos! Just $2.99. Click on image above to read more or order.
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New Edition of U.S. vs. Pvt. Manning Book
Updated: The saga of the whistleblowing soldier, written with Kevin Gosztola. Hailed by Glenn Greenwald, Daniel Ellsberg. Click cover for more.
About Me
is author of a dozen books (click on covers at right), including the new "THE TUNNELS: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill." He was the longtime editor of Editor & Publisher. Email: [email protected]. Twitter: @GregMitch | {
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Discussion
Seeking serious property investor relations in and around the North Louisiana cities of Shreveport and Bossier City. Please message me for more details. This includes Commercial, Residential and Multi-Family properties.
Investors!! Message me for available property in and around the north Louisiana region. Looking for partnership deals or more? I'm your guy and want to serve you. Residential, multi-family, commercial I have access to them all. Let's get started now!
I'm looking to connect with you if you're looking for property within the state of Louisiana. I have access to plenty in and around the area of Shreveport, LA and surrounding cities. Let's connect and allow me to provide you with some great opportunities available here to help grow both of our business... More ideas! Less
When signing a contract for wholesaling, I assume you will have to have a deposit that will be held until closing. On average how much should this deposit be?
Also, I notice that there is a $97.00 per month charge for Deal-Insite. Is this charge for each web site created or would it cover both a buy... More web site and a for sale web site? Less
Does anyone have a technique or method to select workable properties from a Deal Dog list? I have noticed that many times there is large spread of the price listed on Deal Dog and the analysis sites. I am trying to find good properties to wholesale, but I am at a loss as to price to trust and it appears... More that I have to do the very time consuming analysis on every one the hundreds of properties on the list. Less | {
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Elzbieta Szmytka & Levente Kende
Chopin’s name is indissociable from the virtuoso literature for piano which he composed. However, he also wrote melodies often inspired by the popular poetry of his compatriot Stefan Witwicki. In his melodies, Chopin opted for a simple musical language, interspersed with Polish dances. Szymanowski’s melodies are clearly rooted in 19th century tradition, but are also influenced by the exoticism and orientalism which were so characteristic of the European art scene at the turn of the century. His melodies based on Polish texts are little gems of refinement, interspersed with unexpected rhythmic and harmonic changes. The art of Polish melody will also be highlighted via the neo-romantic musical language of Mieczysław Karłowicz. Elżbieta Szmytka and Levente Kende – who have performed on stage at La Monnaie in the past – have more than deserved their international success. | {
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In Pictures: Top 10 Smoking-Gun E-Mails
Bill Detamore has seen plenty of smoking-gun e-mails as chief legal officer of IE Discovery, an Austin, Texas-based consulting firm that helps companies search through millions of electronic documents looking for evidence that could win--or torpedo--a case. Fortunately for prosecutors and hungry plaintiff lawyers, there are usually plenty. "When you're writing e-mails, you're not thinking about how a jury will take it," says Detamore. "Even sophisticated executives do it." Here's Detamore's list of the top 10 smoking-gun e-mails:
Bear Stearns
"...the entire subprime market is toast." This unwise, if frank, observation by former Bear Stearns executive Matthew Tannin came as he and his boss were assuring investors that the subprime funds they ran were still sound. Both were indicted for fraud June 19.
Microsoft
"Winning Internet browser share is a very, very important goal for us." Bill Gates may have been stating the obvious in this 1996 directive to subordinates, but superlawyer David Boies used this and scores of other incriminating e-mails to convince a federal judge Microsoft had conspired to drive Netscape out of the business.
Chevron
American Home Products
"Do I have to look forward to spending my waning years writing checks to fat people with a silly lung problem?" This e-mail from an American Home Products executive, discovered by plaintiff lawyers and leaked to the press, helped drive a $20 billion settlement of fen-phen claims.
Merck
"I just can't wait to be the one to present those results to senior management," said an angry Merck scientist, Dr. Alise Reicin, in a 1997 e-mail after cardiovascular symptoms emerged with Vioxx. Ultimate tab to settle the litigation: $5 billion and counting.
Arthur Andersen
"Remind the engagement team of our documentation and retention policy." Arthur Andersen lawyer Nancy Temple's e-mailed instructions to the Enron auditing team preceded an orgy of document destruction and helped to seal Andersen's fate.
Credit Suisse First Boston
"Time to clean up those files." In a similar vein, former Credit Suisse First Boston banker Frank Quattrone was convicted of obstruction of justice in 2004 for allegedly instructing employees to thwart a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation with this e-mail. The conviction was reversed on appeal.
Marsh & McClennan
"I will give you clear direction on who (we) are steering business to and ... who we are steering business from." This 2002 e-mail from a top Marsh & McClennan executive helped former N.Y. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer make the case the insurance broker was engaged in a massive bid-rigging scheme.
Former Houston District Attorney
"The very next time I see you, I want to kiss you behind your right ear." One of the few printable e-mails from former Houston District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal, who resigned this year after this e-mail to his secretary and hundreds of others emerged in an unrelated civil rights suit.
Former Detroit Mayor
"Never busted. Busted is what you see! LOL." Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was confident his affair with a city official was secret when he sent this text message. He was later indicted for denying the affair under oath.
I am a senior editor at Forbes, covering legal affairs, corporate finance, macroeconomics and the occasional sailing story. I was the Southwest Bureau manager for Forbes in Houston from 1999 to 2003, when I returned home to Connecticut for a Knight fellowship at Yale Law Sch... | {
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Ma'aden and Natpet close plants for maintenance
3:38 AM MST | January 28, 2013 | Natasha Alperowicz
Saudi Arabian Mining Company’s (Ma’aden) subsidiary Ma’aden Phosphate Co. (MPC; Riyadh) will shut down its di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) plant at Ras Al Khair, Saudi Arabia for maintenance. The company says that it decided on the shutdown because of lower seasonal demand for DAP. Maintenance work commenced today and will last approximately three weeks. MPC, a joint venture in which Ma’aden holds 70% and Sabic 30%, says the shutdown will have no impact on the company’s ability to meet its obligations towards customers. The upstream... | {
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Event Hosting and Promotions
WhiteKnuckle Event Hosting & Promotions
As an event manager, we get to work with the most diverse customers, projects and locations. That’s the beauty of the industry.No project is like the other. For years, we’ve been organising events ourselves, so we understand customers and we know what it’s like to have full responsibility.
We understand very clearly where you’re coming from. And thanks to our experience in the ‘corporate events’ industry, we know how to bring these two worlds together.
Every job is tailor-made. That’s one thing we’ve learned working in this game. So we approach every project as a unique chance to leave a lasting impression—however small and simple the event.
With our background as event organizers, we’ve built a gigantic network of creatives, technical guru’s handymen and so on. | {
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The Great Water Debate
Environment Minister David Parker announced plans to limit nutrient loss from farmlands to waterways during yesterday's edition of Q + A.
Speaking with host Corin Dann, Parker discussed halting further environmental degradation and making notable improvements to the overall state of the environment over the next five years, and then, in the succeeding generation, getting things "back to where they need to be".
To achieve this Parker says nutrient limits will be implemented, which in some cases will force farmers to destock. This, he says, is in reaction to the fact that "In some areas, the number of cows per hectare is higher than the environment can sustain".
Despite these stock-limiting measures being likely to severely impact the wallets of some farmers, Parker says there will be no compensation:
"You don't compensate people for stopping pollution. Just because you could pollute last year doesn't mean you should now be paid to stop doing it."
Parker says long-term solutions are the key; for example, moving towards more cropping and horticulture in South Canterbury, where these land uses are of higher value.
Rather than subsidising this land use change, Parker says the government will enable it through the new technologies that they are willing to subsidise going forward, such as sensors, positioning systems and robotics.
Parker says economics will drive change where there is a high value land use, and where economics wont, regulation will.
This regulation will come in the form of new national policy statement which will forbid increases in land use intensity, and bring forward a methodology for the allocation of nutrients in nutrient-enriched catchments.
These announcements come shortly after discussions over putting farmers into the emissions trading scheme, and, along with cuts to funding for irrigation schemes, and plans to stop oil and gas exploration, show the new Labour government's willingness to severely crack down on industries doing harm to the environment. | {
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I haven’t really thought about expanding in quite a while – the twin specific blogs have gone fallow a long while ago.
A blog on nothing more than photographs would be on top of the list, but even with the visually impressive monotone (that adapts to the dominant color of the photograph) I haven’t taken the plunge yet.
The idea of doing book or movie reviews on a separate blog does sound a bit attractive, but would also be a bit too much work and redundant.
I haven’t been actually challenged, but that’s not a reason NOT to participate in a meme.
The instructions are simple:
Enter the fourth directory in your picture stash.
Choose the fourth picture in your blog
Describe when/why/how you took it.
Challenge four people to participate
Well, this picture is from New York, close to the WTC ground zero, taken in January 2002, after the cleaning crew was mostly done with the rubble. This was a cold day, easily fifteen below zero, the chill compounded by stiff winds off the rivers.
The camera was a brand new Canon G3, and this image is the nineteenth picture taken with it.
I fell for Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko on a first view, and haven’t been able to shake the feeling. Even though his later career has not been exactly successful, especially in the box office, I still have faith. I hated domino, but liked Southland Tales pretty much more than anybody else.
The arrival of S. Darko was a complete surprise – while it’s not a direct sequel to Kelly’s debut nor actually directed (or even written) by him, it’s still among the “films to check out in 2009″.
Guillotine, published in 1998 by Wizards of the Coast, is a deceptively simple card game that is easily taught and enjoyed by pretty much anybody who can distinguish between gallows humor and actual celebration of nobility getting decapitated.
Indeed, the subject of the game is on the grim side. It depicts a struggle between rival executioners in the last days of the French revolution. A struggle in which success is measured by the lopping off and collecting of as many nobles’ heads as possible.
The game is easily learned, but the random nature of its course (especially when more than two players are involved) turns it into a chaotic affair where luck and skill alternate.
The bloody nature of the topic is gracefully sidestepped with use of plain and humorous art. The images on the cards are provided by two veteran Wizards artists: Quinton Hoover and Mike Raabe, both with a long career of MtG-illustration as a merit.
Even though the publisher is famous for flogging good games t death with expansions, Guillotine curiously never got anything additional designed for it. An omission that is tackled with the addition of new cards in boardgamegeek.
The simple nature of the game lends itself to online play as well. A version was produced for the aborted Gleemax portal. It is now available on the gametableonline.com, and much more attractively on facebook as well. Haven’t tried either, but will do, soon.
Yesterday was the chinese new year, when the year of the rat turned into the year of the ox.
Helsinki celebrated the occasion for the third time, with a smallish festival on Lasipalatsinaukio in the middle of downtown.
The weather was far from optimal. The consistent drizzle threatened to turn the bright red rice paper lanterns into mush, and definitely made the icy ground underfoot uncomfortably slippery.
The square was packed with people. Especially the food court was stuffed and unruly enough to deter from queuing up. By far the most scrumptious offerings were by Dong Bei Hu – their barbecued squid on a stick is definitely something to try out on an inevitable visit.
Had dinner in Tang Village in Kamppi instead. Clearly a popular alternative, since the staff was persuading everybody to stick to the buffet instead of ordering something off the menu. Which was a good choice, since the buffet was indeed filled with good dishes – with selection alternating somewhat between rounds (at least the grilled tofu was curiously absent before going for seconds).
The evening was capped by a sponsored fireworks display over Töölönlahti. The fifteen minutes of pyrotechnics was occasionally impressive, and the vantage point on the side balcony of the parliament building provided an excellent view to all rockets but the ones shot low. The camera of the n96 proved to be spectacularly useless in the tough conditions.
The list is wide indeed, covering both the biggest hits (Enter Sandman, One) and some great misses (Frantic). Too bad Four Horsemen is entirely absent, but the likes of Orion and Whiplash round out the selection nicely. Death Magnetic is represented by a single song only, but the entire album is available as downloadable content.
As with the game centered on Aerosmith, other bands get their day in the sun as well – here the selection ranges from songs covered by Metallica (Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Tuesday’s Gone and as a definitive highlight Diamond Head’s Am I Evil?) and liked by the band (System of a Down, Corrosion of Conformity and Motörhead are all featured).
Despite the name, this is a full-band game, and hopefully the Neversoft/Harmonix-promise of instruments being cross-usable between the Guitar Hero- and Rock Band-franchises remains watertight.
Thus far I’ve avoided going beyond a single guitar (two, actually, but the PS2 and Xbox 360 instruments are not destined to meet), mainly due to space and availability reasons. The strong set list and my 20+ years as a Metallica fanboy do mean that this game will sooner or later find its way to the HQ.
As the third (and way long overdue) mystery novel read over the christmas break, here’s the lowdown on the newest Maria Kallio-novel by Leena Lehtolainen: Väärän Jäljillä.
It’s been three years since the previous novel, Rivo Satakieli, and the break’s been beneficial. Väärän jäljillä is a back to basics book, enjoyable in the encompassing familiarity, yet bringing in enough new spices not to be a rehash from the previous. The authors mannerisms are present, but way more subdued than in the previous novels.
The subject is the murky world of sports, and the advance of commercialism. There are a lot of more than thinly veiled analogies to real-world figures, and all in all the plot has elements that wouldn’t be out of place inthe real world.
Oddly enough, the franchise has now been decorated with a dedicated website of its own. | {
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Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Online Solitaire Forever Card Game
The first thing you do when you start using a computer is playing the most popular and classic card game. We suggest that you should play Solitaire online - one of the classic original card games ever made. The game has probably become one of the most popular games since its inclusion in Windows 95, but that was in '95… Now you can play Solitaire online. We wish you good luck! Play Solitaire online right now.
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Please look out for the confirmation email that you’ll get shortly. If you don’t get it, check your junk mail folder as occasionally they do get filtered. | {
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David
So casual. So nonchalant. You’d think we were only acquaintances, that we’d once sipped a couple of beers together instead of tattooing love on our skin and reciting marriage vows. I read the e-mail again and analyze the shit out of it. How can I not? I count out the words: thirteen. The punctuation: four. His name, my name. A flippant, casual turn of phrase: catch up. In the end, there’s only so much psychoanalyzing you can do to a thirteen-word e-mail. I move on with my life, feeling rather pathetic. But not before I e-mail him back. And okay, sure, I don’t move on with my life. What does that even entail? Forgetting? Forgiving? Being happy? Besides, I know what he wants to talk about. I know why he’s coming.
Hi David,
Yeah, sounds good. Let me know when and where.
Yara
My e-mail is a word shorter.
I’m that petty.
Tarryn was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa. She immigrated to America with her parents when she was thirteen, and spent the next eighteen years in South Florida where she earned her degree in Psychology, wrote her first novel, and had two children. In 2012, on a whim, she moved her family to Seattle, Washington where she currently makes her home safely away from the sun. Tarryn is the founder of Guise of the Villain, a fashion blog, and has written eleven published novels.
MY REVIEW
Conflicted about this one
Every time I don't love a Tarryn Fisher book I feel guilty, I must say. At first I thought of not leaving a review, but this is what I do for a hobby, I blog, and therefore I can't not be honest about it. I'm a PLN and that's why I feel guilty. I love Tarryn and her books, she's one of my favorite authors ever and will always continue to read her books with the same enthusiasm. I'll always get excited when we're announced a new TF is coming out, I'm sure of that.
Now to the point: I liked this book as the personal journey of inner growth that Tarryn did herself, I actually love it in that sense. But I didn't love it as literature itself. I believe I like Tarryn's writing more when she's writing darker stories. Mud Vein and Marrow are still on the top for me. I love the writing style of those ones. Mud Vein is, for me, the better written, most poetical book of hers. And Marrow has a pace so accurately written I could cry. Just perfect. I can't say the same about AWNAP. It came out as a bit informal and not during the times that it needed to be informal given the characters points of view, but during the rest of the narration and I usually enjoy a poetical language a bit more. There were, either how, some passages and phrases that I completely love! I secondly couldn't connect with so many inner monologues going on. I believe more in show rather than tell and I know that she does as well, so this confused me as well.
Regarding the characters, I have to say that I had a hard time connecting with them, I believe I did it almost at the end, but it was too late for me to fall head over heels for them. It's not that I didn't like their flaws (they were really flawed characters and I was totally okay with that, we're humans, right? Keep it real), but I just couldn't personally connect enough to fall in love with them. I did felt sad about them many times, but as they wrote their paths, not so much. However, I did love and fangirled about the ending and the previous parts that lead to that. I think that part three was my favourite from the book. I believe Yara getting a grip of her life was a breath of fresh air. Let's say I was kind of mad at her during the other parts of the book because, just as her friend said to her, I always believed she was putting excuses not to take responsibility for her existence and grew the ovaries to go after what she wanted. So I did enjoy her development. I liked David sometimes, didn't agree with him some others. I disliked Petra at first, until I started disliking David instead. I maybe liked Ferdinand more than the others even when we didn't get to know a lot about him.
Regarding the plot I do remember we were told it was going to be TO styled, and I liked it even though I couldn't quite connect with the characters for a long part of the book. Either how the third part of it made the book worthy for me.
Finally, though I'm on the minority with this book, I have to say that I do know why everyone loves this, many people needed a story like this as a wake up call and I'm glad they're feeling healed by it. The amazing thing about Tarryn is what she causes with her writing and though she didn't do it for me this time she did it for lots. So I did like the background of the story and the message it left.
I'll leave you here with my favourite quotes now:
° I'm in love with cities, all of them. Each one had their own thing going on, a unique spice they add to the world, but they all had one thing in common: energy.
° Beauty was deceiving in the same way credit cards were.
° Relentless. There's something about a relentless man. You couldn't ignore them. If they asked long enough, eventually they wore you down. Women looked for that, persistent interest. An investor. We were, in ourselves, an entire universe.
° That was the thing about artists, they didn't often think of you. Their energy had a narrow focus, a spotlight on their art... their insecurities... the unfairness of the world.
° How often do we lie to ourselves and say we don't care about something when we do?
° There's no moving on when you're truly in love. You try and you keep trying, but that love is a stain in your life. It's just not that easy.
° It's the simple things that tell the most about our complexities.
° Someone should take you as you are, not have and agenda for how they want to change you.
° David was hesitant to talk about himself, he preferred to listen. To me, that was the mark of a true artist -someone who gathered instead of took.
° Men had a thing for female vulnerability. They wanted to be their hero.
° You can't just threaten kids with their futures when they don't understand the gravity of time.
° The spectrums of pain were meant to be felt and they were beautiful in their own way because they caused change.
° When you set out to find someone, you don't stop until you do. And then you have to deal with what you find.
° Love was a leap of faith, and love was just a word until someone gave it definition.
° It's not true what they say, that you can only give your heart away once. That's the philosophy of the young. The old know better, they know it's not your heart that you give away, but the mind. The mind is a powerful thing. It controls the heart but most people don't know that.
° It's okay to be you Yara, she says. The people who love you will work with your shortcomings, not against them.
° - Tell me, David Lisey, what's the meaning of love?- It's when you can't get someone out. They crawl inside you and they just live there for the rest of your life.
° When you're unhealthy, healthy things are frightening.
° You don't forgive because they deserve it. Most of the time they don't. You forgive to keep your heart soft. To move forward without bitterness. Forgiveness is for you.
° Even to your old age and grey hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have loved you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.
I would definitely recommend this book to someone who's in need of a soul lifting story about love. If you're in a place were you're afraid of love, or holding old resentments, then this is for you.
As I've said before, I can't wait for Tarryn's next work no matter what, her words are my spirit animal.
Lately I've been reading more and more that writers, actors, singers, and any celebrity shouldn't have an opinion over anything that's not what they do for a living and if they do they're being harassed over social media and told that they should shut their mouths and mind their own business (write/act/sing/etc). This, beyond being rude, seems terribly ridiculous to me. Why's that? Well, as a start, we're all citizens with rights and that some of those citizens are famous for their jobs doesn't end their right to freely express their opinions and act towards their ideals or beliefs. We all have that right, it's called freedom of expression and it's been a while since it was entitled to everyone and not just a few. We don't get to decide who can speak and what they can speak about. If what they're saying, for whatever reason, makes you uncomfortable, just skip it, maybe read something else in that moment and come back to them whenever they say something that may interest you. You don't have to agree a hundred percent with someone to like them, you wouldn't have a family or friends if not, but you also can't shut them. It's disrespectful. Imagine that someone comes and says 'Hey, you're housewife/chef/teacher/seller, just do your job and don't talk about anything else because I say so'. Well, people would start to have very little conversation with their neighbours, coworkers and even friends. Groups would be formed depending on what you work and you would ONLY talk about that. Imagine, if you already don't like to go to work EVERYDAY, how it'd be to have to JUST have to speak about it 24/7 for the rest of your life. It doesn't sound very enticing, huh?
So be it, we're all people with the same rights and bla bla bla, I think you got me, but let's go beyond that. Let's ask ourselves, if those who have a voice that can be heard over the noise don't speak up, if those who can help the ones whose voices aren't being heard don't do it, if those who are in the place to shake things up don't shake them, then who? Then why? Why have a voice if you won't use it? Why have the power to give it to someone else? Why can you help but you don't? Everyone is entitled to choose their battles and if you don't like the battles they choose, just let them anyhow. If you're so sure that what they're saying is wrong then you should also be sure that they will go unheard. But if you, only for a second, tremble upon it and think they must be silenced, then maybe there's something in you that may be fearing they're right about whatever they're deciding to speak about...
Anything you can do
It’s been a decade since I’ve seen him, but our years on opposite coasts were less of a lasting peace and more of a temporary cease-fire. Now that we’re both back in our small town, I know Lucas expects the same old war, but I’ve changed since high school—and from the looks of it, so has he.
The arrogant boy who was my teenage rival is now a chiseled doctor armed with intimidating good looks. He is Lucas Thatcher 2.0, the new and improved version I’ll be competing with in the workplace instead of the schoolyard.
I’m not worried; I’m a doctor now too, board-certified and sexy in a white coat. It almost feels like winning will be too easy—until Lucas unveils a tactic neither of us has ever used before: sexual warfare.
The day he pushes me up against the wall and presses his lips to mine, I can’t help but wonder if he’s filling me with passion or poison. Every fleeting touch is perfect torture. With every stolen kiss, my walls crumble a little more. After all this time, Lucas knows exactly how to strip me of my defenses, but I’m in no hurry to surrender.
Knowing thy enemy has never felt so good.
I am a lover of books, chocolate, reality TV, black labs, and cold weather. Seriously, if I had it my way I would be curled up on the couch with all of those things… everyday.
I live in Texas where I spend my free time writing and reading. My favorite authors are Mindy Kaling & Jonathan Safran Foer. I’m a comedy geek and love all things “funny”. Women like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Mindy Kaling are definitely the biggest inspirations for my writing, though I think my work tends to skew a bit smuttier than theirs.
REVIEW
R.S Grey's words were, once again, addictive
I'm a sucker for Grey's stories, they instantly draw me in and this was no different. It was fun, well written and the pace of the story is fast. I read this in a day and didn't want to put it down.
"Friction implies contact. What we have is magnetic repulsion."
Daisy, though she may seem childish, is a sassy, a bit crazy, and hilarious woman. She reminds me of R.S. Grey's previous heroine, Georgie, who is my favourite from hers. I did enjoy her thinking and she got me laughing plenty times.
This book speaks about subjects that matter, it's a story about self acceptance and self love. It is about overcoming your past and taking the leap for your future.Jessica is a young woman who is diagnosed as obese and with diabetic conditions. With ghosts from her past hunting her, she always seeked comfort in food. When she finally decides to start making choices to improve her life, and she moves to Santa Barbara, she meets Mikey, a hot veterinarian who sees her, really sees her, and won't stop until he gets the answer he wants from her. But Mikey also has a past to hide. Will they be able to heal?The premise of the story was hooking, the characters were interesting, but unfortunately, and I feel really bad about it, I couldn't quite connect with it as pretty much everyone else did. I particulary am more fond of action than inner monologue and I think that's what maybe didn't do it for me. I like being showed what happens more than I like being told, I connect more that way.Anyhow I still love Leslie's stories and I was really happy to see her other couples make an appearance in this book! It was fun to read.I will continue to read her stories and follow her advice to take the leap!*I voluntarily reviewed an Advance's Readers Copy of this book*
This book is the third and final (?) installment of the Hidden Scars series and CAN'T BE READ AS AN STANDALONE unless you want to spoil yourself the plot of the previous books as happened to me.
I'm having trouble to write this review because I thought I'd love this story but I didn't. The premise was good but the development didn't live up to it, at least not for me.
BLURB
Fate.
I’ve been running from it most of my life – doing everything I can to avoid the future it had dictated for me. If I had learned one thing from the hell I went through as a child, it was that I never wanted to go back. Until I ran into someone who was running from her destiny just as hard as I was.
And it just so happens that she’s one of my best friends.
One night, emboldened by alcohol, she does something that has me questioning everything and it doesn’t take me long to realize that maybe instead of running away from something, I’ve been racing to her all along. But there is fear in her eyes and I know that her fate won’t be so easily shaken.
Will I ever be able to work past her fear to show her everything we could be? Or am I destined for the same kind of desolate life I’ve been fleeing from since I was a kid?
I enjoyed the first 40% or so of the story, I like the building of the romance between Addy and Trey though I really couldn't stand the heroine. There was way too much inner dialogue from her telling that she was sad because she wanted something really hard that she could never have. The first three times was okay, but when it kept being mentioned through the whole story it got to be annoying. You can mention it once or twice at most, the reader will understand. I really found myself reading some paragraphs as fast as I could to *kind of* skip those repetitive statements.
Regarding the characters, Addy is really hard to empathise with, she's always complaining about her 'fate' without actually learning if her fears are sustained or not, and she pushes everyone she loves away for an illogical reason. Trey himself was much more enjoyable the first half of the book, but then started acting as an ass*ole, and even when it was understandable that he didn't know what to do with Addy because she wouldn't open to him, I didn't like at all that he kept justifying his behaviour by saying "You make me crazy, Addy". I mean, it sounds pretty messed up that you can't control yourself and blame the woman for 'making you crazy'. I'm sure he meant it in a 'romantic' way, but it ended up being disturbing.The secondary characters were more lovable than the heroes, for sure. Addy's friends were funny and loyal. And Trey's family is the sweetest and they're really supportive. I also fell in love with Addy's parents' story, I'd enjoy reading something from them.
In conclusion, this story was sweet for some moments, but the protagonists wasted so much time that we barely got to see their bright side together. I did enjoyed the beginning and the ending, but I rushed through the middle, not fancing it so much. | {
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The Game Skanker - Welcome - Over 35,000 games indexed covering every console imaginable and all for FREE!
NES
Nintendo Entertainment SystemSuper Mario Brothers
Walkthroughs
and GuidesOutside link to all the
information you'll need on this game, and more!Courtesy of: Gamefaqs.com
TOP SECRET AREA
Go to to the Ghost castle in the Donut World with a cape.
When you enter right above you is a space in the ceiling.
Fly up to the space and you'll be in the attack of the ghost castle.
Run as fast as you can to the right of hte screen.
You'll fall down into this areas with 4 yellow boxes, each one holds a fre life
mushroom.
Caution: There are still lost of ghost flying around you while you're there.
If you're going to get the free lives, be fast) Then go through the door you'll
be out of the ghost castle and you end the level.
Now you have beaten the ghost castle and a road should lead to the north from
the ghost castle to a level.
Enter the level, there should be two mushrooms/ or flowers, a yoshi/ or free
life mushroom, and two capes.
GAME CONTINUEHold A at the game over screen.
While keeping that button held, press Start when the title screen appears.
Or try.
On the Title Screen, hold A and
press: Start, Start.
WARP TO WORLDS 2, 3 AND 4
In Level 1-2, near the end there are lifts going up. Go on one of them and jump
above the exiting pipe. Keep walking and you'll go into the WARP ZONE.
WARP TO WORLD 5
In 4-2 at some stage go on top and walk along to the end of the level. Go past
the exiting pipe and you will go into another WARP ZONE.
WARP TO WORLDS 6, 7, and 8
In 4-2, a little way from the start you will see three evil mushrooms. Keep
going a bit further. After that there will be a gap. Jump it then jump up to
reveal invisible blocks. Inside an ordinary block, there will beanstalk. Climb
the Beanstalk and go to the end of the level. Again you will be in a WARP ZONE.
NOTE: The world 6, 7 and 8 warp is easier to get when you're small. | {
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Contact us to learn more about our high-quality, American-made rubber products. | {
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} |
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
First Glimpse, the Other Side
Hannarah grasped the cup in her hand, the warmth of the tea spreading slowly up her arm. This was a comfortable tent, as far as those go, well lit and spacious. There were even enough blankets and pillows that one could forget that there was no bed, no mattress, no civilization out beyond these fabric walls. Hannarah closed her eyes, letting her awareness drift over the feel of the chair under her, against her back, to the cup cradled between her hands. She slowly lifted the warm ceramic cup to her lips, though did not drink, not yet. The breath she exhaled mingled with the steam rising from the liquid surface and flowed back over her face. Inhaling, the mint and ginger aromas tickled her nostrils. She felt a tingling wave of comfort spread down her neck and back. She pressed her lips gently to the rim of the cup, feeling its warmth, and then sipped the tea into her mouth, slurping a little, so as to spray the tea all over her tongue, so she could feel the flavors make sense of themselves. Her focus, her mindfulness, was a difficult thing to maintain, as there were unfamiliar sounds beyond the tent walls, beckoning her to lose her grasp on the moment, to let fear overtake her. The way the citrusy, peppery flavor of the ginger mingled with the cool, sweet flavor of the mint inspired her to take a deep breath. She felt the minty vapors mingle with the humid jungle air, and opened her eyes. She looked around the tent again, trying to remind herself that she was just as safe here, in undiscovered country, among savage aborigines, with the small contingent of soldiers she was here to take care of to protect her, as she would have been in her own bed back at the Capital Temple.
“Maiden, Mother, Crone,” she whispered, taking special note of the feel of the ground beneath her feet, “please, help me to be a pillar of strength for these men, and a good companion, and an able healer, should the time come that such skills are needed. Help me to remember that no matter where I go, you are already there, and you are not only the Allmother, but my Mother. Remind me of your love and your protective spirit. Maiden, Mother, Crone, so mote it be.”
She sighed, the prayer giving her some strength. She stood from her chair, and took her linens from the hook, wrapping them about herself in the prescribed way, covering her and revealing her at the same time, the tension of the long strip of fabric enough to keep it tight against her skin, wrapped and rewrapped to form the semblance of a halter, a corset, even a flowing loin skirt for the ends. The wrap was the traditional garb of her creed, and her body fit it well. She then wrapped the sandals to her feet, the leather straps tying up her shin. Finally, she took the robe from it’s hook, and slipped into it easily. She glanced in the polished silver mirror they hung from one of the tent poles, and applied what little makeup she had brought with her on this long journey. She wasn’t meant to be a regal and royal temple consort on this mission, but the consort to soldiers and sailors, and they were grateful enough for a listening ear, a capable healer, and the occasional shared bed. She was pleased enough with her appearance, and turned to leave the temple of her tent. Suddenly, the lieutenant stepped into the tent, his face sweaty, dirty, and tight with tension. Not fear, exactly, but the focus of a soldier.
“Mother Hannarah, please, stay inside. Some of the men haven’t gotten back from their patrols, and we need to make sure everything is okay before you come out. Len will be right outside to guard you.”
And with that, the officer was gone again. Now that Hannarah had a jolt of panic in her system, her senses were on fire, and she could hear the men outside mobilizing, anxiety in their voices and movements. As they prepared, she heard them speaking quietly to each other. Something in the woods seemed to be spooking them. She felt a bit nervous herself, and she went back to sit, facing the entrance to her tent.
It seemed like a few of them began to make their way away from base camp, and in moments, Hannarah heard sounds of fighting. Angry shouts, gunshots, the clanging of metal on metal, the grunts and screams of men dying. They were not a large group, their resources would not hold out for long. If the threat was not stopped soon, then their would be no one left but her. The numbers of participants in the combat outside began to dwindle, and soon it sounded like their was only one man left, the lieutenant himself, fighting whatever it was outside. It didn’t sound like there was a mob out there, either, so whoever, whatever, it was killing her men was very dangerous. Hannarah wasn’t sure to be scared of the ferociousness of a small force, or eased that they weren’t being overrun. As the last stretch of hand-to-hand combat outside ensued, the sounds of imminent danger reminded her of another time in her life. | {
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I have a habit of doing things spur of the moment. Like this afternoon, for instance. I decided I wanted to go experience an olive oil and balsamic tasting first hand…so I did. Immediately upon thinking of it. This is how I roll.
A few months ago, a new tasting shop opened in St. Catharines called Della Terra Tasting Bar. As soon as I saw that it was opening my taste buds started yelling at me to treat them. There was never enough time in the day when I did think of it until today. So as soon as it crossed my mind I grabbed my purse and jumped in my car. It was quickly decided that my daughter and her friend would come along for the new experience. I would have just as happily gone solo had they not been interested.
Olive Oils & Balsamic
We were lucky that the tasting bar was having a quiet moment and had the full service of a knowledgeable guide. She walked me through the types of olive oils and handed me samples as we talked, explaining the differences. She was a wonderful wealth of information. I never thought of sipping olive oils as something I would enjoy so thoroughly. There is such a huge leap from regular store-bought olive oil that is often blended or of inferior quality to imported, cold pressed pure olive oils from different countries. I had come into this knowledge a few years ago while in California and had sampled high quality oils and balsamics and have been searching for comparable quality in this area ever since. Today, I struck pure gold! Or should I say green?
The rich, smooth texture of the oils was sublime. Each oil was vastly unique. I sampled mild, medium and robust olive oils and ended up purchasing a medium oil called Picual. Oh my. The robust oils hit my throat like I had just ingested liquid pepper. So not expected (even though she warned me)! It was fantastic. It was fun watching my daughter and her friend taste the oil. My daughter stuck her tongue in the sample cup then declared it wasn’t for her. They couldn’t get over the fact that I was sipping cup after cup of the stuff and watched with wide eyes. They quickly zipped over to the balsamics when given their leave.
After the straight up olive oils I moved on to the flavored olive oils. So many to choose from…sinfully delicious varieties. Swoon. I decided on a blood orange infused olive oil that is out of this world. It is so divine I don’t want it to even touch other flavors but go straight to my palate unadulterated. But that would be greedy not to allow the flavor sensation to meld with other foods, wouldn’t it? It’s experiment time!
Next, I sidled up to the balsamic tasting bar and got busy. My first sample knocked my socks off (well, if I was wearing socks it would have) – coconut white balsamic. After having the smoothness of olive oil sliding down my throat the sharpness of vinegar took me back slightly but the coconut flavor was strong and true. It would be a great summer fruit salad accompaniment. I only had eyes for the dark balsamics though. Sinful and luxurious they beckoned me to them. I had the intention of finding figs to have with a great aged balsamic this weekend but instead found a fig balsamic that took me by aback. It came home with me. No surprise there.
I believe that we all need to indulge ourselves with experiences and things that make us feel alive. Today this is what I desired,so I treated myself.
“The lesson adults can learn here is that the world is filled with things for our enjoyment.” – Allen Klein
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Hi, I’m LLBG!
With this blog, I share my stories of triumphs as well as not-so-successful accounts of making my world a better place. Making our world friendlier and safer for everyone starts within our own home. Come along with me...maybe we can both learn a thing or two. | {
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The time signature, also known as meter signature, of a piece of music defines how the beat is organized by prescribing how many beats occur per measure and what kind of note designates one beat. Each beat is counted sequentially.
Repetition and contrast are the two most basic elements of musical form. These concepts evolved as a response to the human need for comfort in the familiar and then, becoming bored with the familiar, a change to something new.
Music Fundamentals for Dance is a text for student dancers, choreographers, and dance educators written by an experienced educator and choreographer. This book presents foundational knowledge of the elements of music and describes their application to dance performance, choreography, and teaching. It includes a web resource offering exercises, activities, projects, downloadable examples of music, and web links that provide a range of active learning experiences.
If you are a member of the HK Rewards Program, when buying a new print edition of this book, you
will be granted the option for downloading the e-book edition at no additional charge. Learn more.
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Music Fundamentals for Dance provides students with a fundamental understanding of music and how it applies to dance performance, composition, and teaching. This valuable reference helps professional choreographers, dance educators, and dancers expand their knowledge of music and understand the relationships between music and dance.
Music Fundamentals for Dance helps dancers understand of the elements of music—form and structure, musical time, melody, texture, and score reading—and how they relate to dance performance and choreography. They will learn music vocabulary for easier communication with other dancers, musicians, and conductors. Overviews of musical forms, styles, and genres are complemented by an examination of their relation to dance and choreography.
Each chapter ends with exercises, activities, and projects that offer students a range of active learning experiences to connect music fundamentals to their dance training. An accompanying web resource contains these features:
Extended learning activities and support materials, including practice opportunities combining music skills with dance or choreography, chapter summaries, a glossary, websites, and handouts to help students practice music skills
Music clips on the website offer ready-made examples, which students can use in applying concepts from the book
Written by an experienced dance educator, dancer, and choreographer, Music Fundamentals for Dance is the only current text that explains essential concepts of music and examines these concepts in relation to dance performance, composition, and teaching. By providing readers with a foundation of music knowledge, Music Fundamentals for Dance assists both future and current professionals in understanding the art form that will enhance their contributions as performers, choreographers, and educators.
Text for undergraduate and high school dance courses. Supplemental text for dance composition or dance methods courses. Reference for dancers, choreographers, and dance educators.
Nola Nolen Holland, MFA, is an assistant professor in the department of dance at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania. For 10 years Nolen Holland taught courses in music for dance. Her search for a music text written specifically for dancers led her to create Music Fundamentals for Dance.
An experienced dancer, dance educator, and choreographer, Nolen Holland danced with Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and has initiated several composer collaborations in order to develop original music for her dance works. She is president of CORPS de Ballet International, Inc., a professional organization for ballet teachers in higher education.
Recognition for Nolen Holland’s choreography includes presentation of her work at the 1992 American College Dance Festival National Gala; the 1994 5th Biennial International University Dance Festival at the Université Lumière in Lyon, France; and the 2007 International Dance Alliance Festival in Chennai, India. | {
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"Enjoy this moment @RealJackSwagger@WWEZeb because you two made a mistake, I'm still on my feet,and i will break you both in pieces. Every mark on my body will be a broken bone for you. So start counting #PERROS" | {
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The Mysterious Secret Society of Assassins
Secret societies are mysterious enough, but sometimes they go beyond merely enigmatic, spooky organizations and gather a dark reputation as being a lethal force to be reckoned with, reaching out to deal death to those who oppose them. Such is the story of a shadowy secret order of assassins which was formed in ancient Persia and which kept the region under the grip of terror for over a century. Always lurking in the shadows, they could be anyone, and they were always ready to pounce, patiently waiting for word from their master to bloom outwards from the darkness and shadows to deliver death at a moment’s notice. Let us delve into some of the murky history of one of the most secretive and lethal secret orders of the ancient world and indeed history as a whole.
The road to the formation of one of the most terrifying secret societies the world would ever know began in Egypt in the first millennium AD, which was then under the control of the Ismaili sect of Shiite Islam, which had long been a small minority group within the religion, who followed Ismail bin Jafar, an iman who was not recognized by the larger Shiite group, and practiced a faith marked by radical egalitarianism and shunning of the luxury in which the ruling Sunni Abbasid caliphs enjoyed. At the time, the Ismaili sect had long been despised and persecuted by both the Sunnis and other Shiites alike, and they were considered to be revolutionary heretics. Mostly scattered and powerless, this sect had lived on the fringes of Islam for years, secretly preaching their ideology through missionaries known as da’is. It was one of these da’is by the name of Ubayd Allah who would launch a successful revolt to overthrow the local Sunni dynasty of what is now Tunisia and subsequently start the Fatimid caliphate in 910 AD, which quickly went on to conquer Egypt, Palestine, the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and parts of Syriainto, from which they spread their brand of theology.
Hassan-i Sabbah
It was in the base of Ismaili operations that Hassan-i Sabbah was born between 1040 and 1050, and converted to the Ismaili sect as a young man. Charismatic, intelligent, and intense, Hassan quickly rose in prominence within the Ismaili community and garnered a reputation in western Persia as being a firebrand missionary, known for his fierce intelligence, debating skills, fanatical fervor, hot temper, and toughness. It was these qualities that would land him in trouble at times, as he was known to have intense religious arguments with his instructors and he was even arrested at one point to spend a stint in a political prison after offending the local Chief of the Army, Badr al-Jamalī. He was subsequently kicked out of Cairo, where he had received advanced instruction in the ways of missionary work. Nevertheless, despite his exile from Cairo, Hassan went on to be one of Ismaili’s most valued missionaries, carrying out his work all over Persia.
At the time, the Ismailis were somewhat in decline, which was brought about by internal disputes among its leaders, a schism in ideologies, with the group gradually dividing into the Mustali Ismailis and the Nizari Ismailis due to conflict over who should be the heir to the caliphate, and an increasing loss of territory to the intruding Sunni Abbasid caliphs. In his zealous drive to spread the word of his Ismaili sect, Hassan went about trying to create a stronghold, a base of operations from which he and his followers could continue their dangerous work and raise the prominence of their doctrine throughout the region in safety. After traversing the land looking for a suitable location, Sabbah found it in the mountains of northern Persia near the Shah River in the form of an impressive citadel by the name of Alamut, which was perched atop soaring cliffs high above a valley floor, making it virtually inaccessible to enemies. Easily defendable, with a clear view for miles over the landscape below, it was seen as the perfect spot from which to launch their operation.
However, there was a problem. First of all, Alamut belonged to the the Seljuk Empire, who obviously were not just going to give it to them. Second, Hassan and his men were badly outnumbered, and considering that Alamut was well-defended and difficult to reach they had no chance at all of taking it by force. Most would have realized the futility of trying to gain the citadel, but for Hassan these were merely minor annoyances, and he went about an elaborate campaign to just go ahead and steal it anyway. The first step to this plan involved sending out missionaries into the surrounding areas in order to fan out and win over converts from the local populace, especially village leaders and other people of prominence. The next step was more daring, with Sabbah and his men actually secretly infiltrating the citadel and converting members of the defending garrison.
The commander of the fort began to suspect something suspicious was going on, but he was powerless to do anything about it because by that time most of the garrison and the local populace had already converted to the Ismaili cause and now followed Hassan. Outnumbered and outmaneuvered, the commander had no choice but to surrender the fort, and thus after nearly two years of patiently enacting his plan, Hassan had gained his prize without bloodshed or violence. The account of the taking of Alamut has often been romanticized. One popular legend concerning the acquisition of Alamut is that Hassan offered the owner of the fort 3,000 dinars for an amount of land that could fill a buffalo hide. The owner accepted, thinking that this would turn him over a tidy profit, after which Hassan cut a buffalo hide into long, thin strips which he then linked together around the perimeter of the fort before paying the promised money and sending the outsmarted owner on his way.
With Alamut secured, Hassan knew that it was only a matter of time before the Seljuks would come to take it back, and indeed an enraged Seljuk emir came rampaging through the valley in revenge, destroying towns, razing crops, and brutally slaughtering any Ismailis he could find, but Alamut proved to be just as impenetrable as Hassan had hoped, repelling the attack and sending the emir home in frustrated defeat. In the aftermath of this attack, with many of the crops and homes in the valley lying in smoking ruin, Hassan launched a campaign to increase his presence and capture other fortified positions within the region, sometimes through tact or propaganda and at other times through force, until he had created practically his own miniature state. As the Ismaili presence in the region spread, the Seljuks began to realize the threat they posed and decided on a more powerful response. Two armies were dispatched to the region to squash the Ismailis and Alamut was held under siege, yet Hassan in his impregnable fortress was able to ultimately thwart all such aggression. It was at around this time that he would turn to a new way to fight his enemies, and which would lead to the formation of his order of assassins.
It came to Hassan’s attention that one of his worst enemies, a Vizier Nizam al-Mulk, was traveling from the Seljuk capital of Isfahan to the Abbasid caliph’s residence in Baghdad along with the Sultan Malik Shah. Hassan then sent one of his most trusted assistants, a young man named Bu-Tahir, to infiltrate the entourage dressed as a Sufi mystic and armed with a concealed dagger. On the morning of October of 1092, when Nizam had just finished having breakfast with the Sultan and was on his way back to his tent, the disguised Bu-Tahir approached with a paper in his hand, claiming it was a petition that he wanted the vizier to look at. When Nizam reached out for it, Bu-Tahir grabbed him and fatally stabbed him through the heart before being promptly subdued and killed by the vizier’s men. Although this operation had left its agent dead, it had fulfilled its purpose and had a powerful psychological effect on the Seljuks, and indeed any others who would oppose Hassan. The Ismailis had shown that they had the ability and the determination and fearlessness to silently reach out and deal death as they pleased, despite their inferior numbers and relatively small territory.
Encouraged by the success of this first assassination, Hassan went about forging an elite group of individuals who could be called upon to undertake similar missions. Recruits for this new group were gathered from among Hassan’s own men, as well as the surrounding villages. The most prized traits in these potential recruits were resourcefulness, intelligence, ruthlessness, fearlessness, and religious zeal. In some cases, it is said that young boys were recruited, who could be more completely indoctrinated and trained in the ways of death. The recruits were trained in the use of various weapons, hand-to-hand combat, stealth, disguise, intelligence gathering, and psychological warfare, but the most important training they received was the the intense ideological commitment and fanaticism which was fostered within them through constant bombardment of propaganda and religiously fired up speeches. Hassan sought to make them totally obedient to him and the cause, going to great lengths to convince them that he was their one true savior, and that only by dying under his servitude would they achieve heavenly bliss.
At the end of all of this training, ideally the recruit would have been transformed into a stealthy, deadly killer who was disciplined, fanatical, totally committed to his cause, not afraid to die, and ready to follow any orders given without question. Such newly forged human weapons of war were called the fidaiyn, which roughly translates to “sacrifice,” or more to the point “those who risk their lives voluntarily,” and which is typically spelled today as fedayeen. This group of assassins would then go on to be called the Hashashin, which means “followers of Hassan,” and is the word from which the English word “assassin” likely originates.
Since much of the history of how this group was really trained is lost or has been tainted and clouded by the biased observations of the Crusaders, European explorers, and most notably the accounts of Marco Polo, which are probably mixed with some amount of fanciful fiction, there have been many legends that have sprung up about their training methods. For instance, it was said that the assassin recruit would be tricked into thinking they had died, only to wake up in a luxurious, opulent garden, which they would think was heaven. There Hassan would be waiting for them and the recruit would think he was some divine entity with the power to send them back to the land of the living, thus cementing their loyalty. Other stories explain that young boys spent all of their time in this garden, living in luxury until they were cast out and told that if they did not obey their master they would never return. In another tale, Hassan was said to have lowered a man into a hole in the ground with only his head showing, which was then surrounded with blood to make it seem as if he had been decapitated. The recruits were then shown the head and Hassan would appear to make the “head” speak and move, thereby proving in their minds that their master had great powers. To make it seem even more convincing, when the recruits left the room, Hassan supposedly had the cooperative person actually killed and decapitated, his head paraded about on a pole in order to show that he was really dead. It was also said that the assassins constantly smoked hashish, which you most likely know as marijuana, in order to take the edge off, make them more easily manipulated, and increase fearlessness. In fact, it is this tale that has given rise to the idea that the name Hashashin actually comes from the Arabic word hashishi, meaning “hashish users,” although this would have been very against the Muslim tradition of eschewing intoxicants. It is uncertain just how much truth any of these stories hold, but it shows how much power the Hashashin had to fire up the imagination.
When they were finally sent into the field, the Hashashin, or Assassins, were extremely bold, preferring to attack targets in very public areas with a lot of bystanders, such as mosques or city streets, in order to strengthen the psychological impact of their strikes, cultivate their sinister reputation, and sow terror, although they went through great lengths to ensure that no innocent person was harmed. In fact, it was very important to them that innocents be spared and that there be no killing of those not specifically targeted. This habit of killing where many could witness the act ensured that word of mouth spread quickly and further showed everyone that the Hashashin could be anywhere at anytime. Killings were meticulous and almost always carried out with a close quarter weapon such as a dagger, and they avoided any weapons which would allow the victim to possibly escape, such as bows or poisons. This was all done with complete lack of fear, and although the Assassin would try to escape if they could, they were not afraid to die at the hands of their enemy, although they would never commit suicide.
Assassinations were not always such straightforward affairs. Sometimes the Assassin would spend years learning the language and culture of the place they wished to infiltrate and getting close to their intended target, penetrating the inner circle and getting through the veil of security. To this end, they were masters of deceit and disguise, using whatever costume or cover they had to in order to patiently and inexorably get within striking distance. Blending in with their enemy, they could be peasants working the fields, soldiers, or loyal trusted servants. They could be anybody. The fact that the Hashashin were not afraid to die and that indeed, considering their high profile targets, were most certainly ensured of it, also added to the terror they invoked. It drove home the fact that there was no escape, and that anyone targeted for assassination was doomed no matter what they did.
On many occasions, the Hashashin did not kill at all, but rather relied on psychological warfare, with which they were well versed. One example of this was to infiltrate the quarters of a person of prominence and leave a dagger upon their pillow, usually with a message such as “You have been warned,” “You are in our grip,” or something menacing to that effect, leaving the potential victim terrified. These sorts of terror tactics were so effective that they allowed the Hashashin to exert influence on political figures or people of prominence without having to rely upon violence at all. In other cases, an assassination would be intentionally botched, with the victim being allowed to escape an attack with just a few injuries, making them very aware that they could be killed at any time and keeping them in the constant grip of fear, sometimes with them resorting to wearing armor under their clothes or keeping bodyguards to watch over them 24 hours a day. Even then, it was never apparent where an attack might come from, and since no one knew who could be an Assassin, since even a bodyguard or trusted advisor or servant could be one, there was a good amount of paranoia. For even the most well-protected and powerful rulers, no one ever knew just which one their faithful entourage might be an Assassin waiting for word to strike.
Assassination attempt on Edward I of England
These terror tactics were remarkably effective, and often just a mere mention of the Hashashin was enough to keep many in line, to keep them submissive without these shadowy assassins having to do anything at all. In many cases, it became easier to just bend to their demands or forms truces with Hassan rather than face the possibility of an attack at any time. This constant threat of assassination and never-ending state of fear instilled in his enemies had a potent deterrent effect, and became a powerful bargaining chip for Hassan, allowing him to wield far more clout against far larger, more formidable enemies than his inferior numbers and relative low military might would suggest. It also ensured that far fewer lives were risked or lost than conventional military action.
The list of victims targeted by the Hashashin included religious leaders, emirs, sharifs, caliphs, high ranking political or military leaders, and just about anyone else who was a potential threat to Hassan or his Ismaili faith, but this list was always changing depending on his agenda. Even the the great Muslim general Saladin faced several attempts on his life by the Hashashin. During the Crusades, the Hashashin had a tenuous relationship with the Crusaders, sometimes working for them and sometimes targeting them, whatever best aided them in maintaining the balance of power or suited their interests. In fact, some of the most famous Hashashin targets came about at this time. One well-known assassination by the Hashashin at this time was that of the Crusader military commander from northern Italy, Conrad of Montferrat, who had been elected King of Jerusalem in April of 1192. Two Hashashin disguised as monks spent 6 months getting close to him, going so far as to convert to Christianity in order to allay any suspicions, before cutting him down as he walked home from a friend’s house escorted by two knights. It has often been speculated that these Assassins had been working for one of his many Christian enemies, such as Richard the Lionheart and Henry of Champagne. Another famous assassination attempt by the Hashashin was that of Edward I of England, who was wounded by a dagger in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to end his life in 1271.
The Hashashin would operate in the region and keep all of the Middle East in the grip of fear for over 125 years, under the guidance of a total of 8 grand masters. Their reign of fear was all encompassing, but all things must come to an end. Towards the beginning of the 13th century, a terrifying new power was sweeping across the land, the armies of the Mongols, under their ferocious leader Genghis Kahn, against whom the Hashashin would ultimately prove to be powerless. At first, the Hashashin had little to worry about. Although the Mongol armies were laying waste to vast swaths of central Asia between 1219 and 1223, the Hashashin remained relatively unaffected, with the Mongols’ attention focused elsewhere. However, Genghis Khan’s grandson, Mongke Khan, began to set his sights on invading Islamic territory and hoped to eventually conquer Baghdad. When the Hashashin learned of this new threat, they made an attempt to assassinate Mongke by sending a team of assassins to pose as citizens offering submission and surrender to the warlord before killing him. Things did not go according to plan. The team was turned away by the suspicious guards and the assassination was a failure. It was with this close call, in addition to word spreading to the Mongols of the deadly threat posed by the Hashashin, that they became more interested in wiping this shadowy, lethal group out. Mongke ordered his brother, Hülegü Khan, to go to Alamut and decisively destroy the Hashashin sect once and for all. In early 1256, the Mongols came at the Hashashin in their Alamut fortress with all of their might, and they were smashed under such a relentless force. The Hashashin grandmaster at the time, a Khur-Shah, who was considered to be rather weak willed compared to his predecessors, desperately tried to negotiate with the invading Mongols, offering his surrender in exchange for mercy, but the enemy did not honor this bargain and slaughtered the grandmaster in the wilds. They then went about hunting down and killing any Assassins or indeed any Ismailis they could find in a ruthless orgy of blood. The remaining Hashashin were scattered all over Asia, including India, Afghanistan, and the Himalayas, and their age ended.
In the ensuing madness, the stronghold of the Hashashin, Alamut, was razed to the ground and its vast libraries and records totally destroyed, leaving us with an incomplete picture of their history and practices. Indeed when looking at the saga of the Hashashin order of assassins, its history is murky, muddied by the accounts of the Crusaders, who were largely ignorant of Muslim culture and prone to exaggeration and romanticization of the order, as well as unreliable accounts by explorers such as Marco Polo, which were exaggerated and colored to the point where it is difficult to disentangle fact from fiction. Their history remains shadowy, cloaked in legend, myths, misinformation, and misunderstanding. The dramatic notion of an outnumbered secret society of assassins causing their more powerful enemies to cower before their might with the threat of stealthy agents of death certainly lends itself to exaggeration and legend, and when looking at their history, the lack of any solid information certainly makes it difficult to get a clear picture of the reality of this shadowy group. It is easy to get caught up in the swashbuckling cinematic quality of it all. In modern times, this romantic, dramatized view of the Hashashinin can still be seen in popular culture, such as in the popular video game Assassin’s Creed.
Yet for all of the misinformation and gaps in our knowledge of the Hashashin and their ways, they most certainly did exist. Perhaps the Hashashin’s legacy in the modern world can best be seen in the turmoil it faces. After all, they were the first pioneers of using terror tactics, insidious psychological warfare, the use of cells embedded within their enemies ready to strike, and suicide attacks, which can all still be seen in terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda, although the Hashashin would have no doubt frowned upon the blatant imperiling of innocent bystanders that seems to be common practice today. The Hashashin have also proved to be the potential inspiration behind various other secret cults and societies, having a pronounced impact on how we see these secretive groups and how they operate. Author West Moore said of this in his book Disinformation:
During the Crusades, the Hashshashins fought both for and against the Crusaders, whichever suited their agenda. As a result, the Crusaders brought back to Europe the Assassins’ system, which would be passed down and mimicked by numerous secret societies in the West. The Templars, the Society of Jesus, Priory de Sion, the Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, etc. all owe their organizational efficiency to Hasan.
We may never have a full, clear picture of this mysterious order of assassins. The Hashashin remain just as shadowy in death as they were in life, with their myth and legend overshadowing any truths that we are able to glean from them. Now they are just a dark, romanticized footnote in history, but in their day the Hashashin were one of the most secretive, ingenious, and deadly secret orders in the world, their mere presence enough to shift the balance of power and change history, the potential for death to come for anyone at any time enough to influence politics and mold ancient Persia. They remain a fascinating account of a secret society that not only thrived, but was a powerful transforming force of history.
Brent Swancer is an author and crypto expert living in Japan. Biology, nature, and cryptozoology still remain Brent Swancer’s first intellectual loves. He's written articles for MU and Daily Grail and has been a guest on Coast to Coast AM and Binnal of America. | {
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George William Dimotakis
April 9, 1933 – December 31, 2013
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George William Dimotakis, 80, of Manteca, passed away peacefully in his home on December 31, 2013. He was born in Santa Cruz in 1933, and moved with his family to Manteca in 1938. He was a 1951 graduate of Manteca High School and enlisted in the U.S. Air Force on March 25, 1952. George was actively involved in farming for 60 years. He was fondly called “Theo Georgie” by his relatives. George is preceded in death by his father and mother, William and Mary Dimotakis; his brothers Nick and Leftare, and his sisters Despina Xirakis, Alpena Makis, Rae Calimeris, Katherine Nicolozakis, Virginia Skandalis, and Esther Rundell Peterson. He is survived by his loving wife of 42 years, Jonnie, twin daughters Stefanie and Esther Dimotakis, sons George Dimotakis, Jr. and Charles Dimotakis, and numerous nieces and nephews. A public viewing will be held on Tuesday, January 7, 2014 from 4-7 p.m., and a private graveside service will be held on Wednesday, January 8, 2014 from 1-2 p.m., both at Park View Cemetery in Manteca. A celebration of life will be held at the Dimotakis Family Farm, immediately following the graveside service. | {
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In fact it’s been a week since my previous blog post. We’ve had the total lunar eclipse last Wednesday and observations from Hanoi were not so much disappointing, despite the inherent urban light pollution. In my case I was observing from the rooftop of our house in Dao Tan, Hanoi located close to the Lotte shopping center and didn’t manage to spot the totality of this eclipse due to aforementioned reasons.
Therefore I was waiting on the rooftop as sun was setting and scrutinizing the surrounding with my pair of binoculars. Although the Moon was not seen in the sky at the times when it was supposed to be above the horizon, I was still waiting to to encounter the remaining part of this amazing natural phenomenon. Clock was ticking and it passed the threshold 18:22h -local time, when the full phase of the eclipse was supposed to end and there was yet no sign of Moon. As I mentioned before the urban city lights contributed to create atmospheric fog and block the torrents of photons that were being reflected from Moon. Then the skyscrapers in the city added to that by disguising the horizon and making it almost impossible to detect Moon as it slowly rose above the horizon.
Soon afterwards, around 18:30h- local time, Moon began to be seen and that kept me busy for a while. I’m sharing herewith some photos that I managed to capture during the remainder of this lunar eclipse. Please mind the quality of the photos as they’ve been taken by my mere iPhone which is not the best type of device for this kind of activity.
18:36h
18:43h
Above : As the eclipse begins to be seen.. notice the light pollution.
18:36h
18:38h
18:55h
18:59h
19:08h
Above : Some snaps taken during the course of the partial eclipse. Please note that some of them have different scales and hence the dimensions are not necessarily the same.
2 commentaires
Cool photos Desh! The eclipse wasn’t visible in Europe so I missed it, but I have a friend living in Timor-Leste. She said the streets went crazy for it, the folk banging and clanging around to remind God they’re alive. 😀 | {
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The Smoking Tire hits the canyons with one of the fastest Audi's on the road: Stasis Engineering's Supercharged R8 5.2 FSI. Matt Farah wrings out the red Spyder on an empty canyon road, proving that no amount of horsepower is ever too much. | {
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Newsletter
Union, SRS security contractor still at odds after 2 weeks
Striking security worker John Emery, right, pickets with other workers at the Savannah River Site Tuesday afternoon August 15, 2017 in Jackson, SC. The main sticking points in negotiations with Centerra were an increase in insurance premiums and changes in how the company handles employee transfers. MICHAEL HOLAHAN/STAFF
George Parks, chief steward of United Professional Pro-Force of Savannah River, Local 125, broke ranks and did not go on strike. He received a threatening letter at his home and has been ostracized at work. The union president says he’ll be kicked out when the strike is over.
Mathias Miller, president of United Professional Pro-Force of Savannah River, Local 125, says Centerra-SRS is trying to take rights from workers.
Nobody’s getting what they wanted.
The president of the union that represents security workers at Savannah River Site says the company they work for, Centerra-SRS, is trying to strip rights from workers as it prepares to seek a new contract with the Department of Energy in 2019.
The union’s chief steward, who helped negotiate the contract, is not striking and says members were misled about the contract and the strike was called too hastily. Striking workers are figuring that out and returning to work every day, he says.
The company says it negotiated in good faith and the result was “the most lucrative Protective Force Collective Bargaining Agreement ever proposed at a DOE Site anywhere in the country.” It wants to let striking workers know they are not locked out and can come back to work anytime.
As the strike marks its 15th day today, the two sides seem no closer to resolution than when it began.
The company wants workers to change their minds on the “last, best and final offer.” The union wants the company to bend on health insurance co-pays and a provision it says would let the company change the agreement “mid-stream.”
Meanwhile, striking workers have no benefits, unless they buy their own health insurance through the federal COBRA program. No new negotiations have been started, and the union says the strike will continue until it gets “back to the table” with Centerra.
The chief steward, George Parks, is paying a high price for breaking ranks. He says he’s received threats and has become an outcast among his brotherhood. Mathias Miller, president of United Professional Pro-Force of Savannah River, Local 125, says Parks will be kicked out when it’s all over because he’s an executive board member and should support the union’s position.
“It hurts a little that guys whose children I’ve held, who I’ve represented in arbitration, are yelling at me when I drive by,” said Parks, who has worked at SRS more than 30 years and was elected to the executive board three times. Coming in to work a couple of days before the strike, a fellow worker said to him: “You’re going the wrong way, aren’t you?”
After someone put a threatening letter in Parks’ mailbox at home, he filed a report with the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office, which now routinely patrols past his house.
“You should be ashamed of yourself standing in front of the Union body and taking up for the company,” the letter, laced with racial epithets, read. “We know where you live and hang out and we will handle business with (you) real soon!”
“The letter was not signed and was not in an envelope, which suggests that someone hand-delivered the letter to the mailbox,” a deputy wrote in his report.
Parks said he’s doing what’s best for his family.
“I believe in the right to strike, and to be pro-union, but I have to be able to live with myself and do what’s right,” he said.
In contract negotiations, issues are addressed one at a time and when there’s agreement between union and company, they’re codified in a temporary agreement signed by both parties, Parks said. A series of temporary agreements eventually becomes the contract, and there were no hangups over policies, just money, he said.
“A lot of people didn’t read the contract, and they were told ‘You gotta be a fool to vote for this contract. It’s all take-aways,’” Parks said.
He believes he did a good job in negotiating, and defended the contract, knowing he would suffer for it, he said.
“As we speak right now, people are coming back to work,” Parks said last week. “They’re trickling in. I don’t believe they were educated about what happens during a strike.”
The company says more than 40 union members either did not strike or have returned. Miller, the union president, said he only knows of 32.
Here’s a brief look at two key sticking points that led to the strike:
Healthcare: The new contract would have instituted co-pays —$15 to visit a primary physician, $30 for a specialist — something workers didn’t have to pay before, Miller said. Out-of-pocket maximums would have been not more than $1,000 for an individual, not more than $2,000 for a family. Some visits or procedures might require a “co-insurance” payment of about 10 percent up front, and would count toward the out-of-pocket maximum. Actual premiums can’t be calculated until actuaries tally the claims from the past 24 months and forecast the amount of money needed to pay future claims, according to Centerra. The company pays 83 percent of the premium for an individual and 78 percent for a family. The union says the company would not give it an estimate of how much premiums might rise, but Centerra issued a news release Thursday that said it would likely be $3 a week for an individual, $9 for a family. Parks said he thinks that’s not too much for workers earning $80,000 to $100,000 a year.
Amending the collective bargaining agreement: The union’s president says the contract “basically says if there’s a change in future that would normally be negotiated — if company and union can’t agree, there would a shortened negotiation and if that wasn’t successful the company could implement the change,” essentially voiding the contract. Centerra says any such changes would be dictated only by circumstances or changes in the company’s mission. The union would be notified and could negotiate. Either party could seek mediation, and if it failed, expedited non-binding arbitration. If that didn’t work, “the Company then could implement changes in accordance with the Company’s contractual obligations to the Government.” | {
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Maintain Application Performance with real-time monitoring and instrumentation for any application. Learn More!
The first major version of the scalable timeseries database I work on, Gnocchi, was a released a few months ago. In this first iteration, it took a rather naive approach to data storage. We had little ideas about if and how our distributed back-ends were going to be heavily used, so we stuck to the code of the first proof-of-concept written a couple of years ago.
Recently we got more feedbacks from our users, ran a few benchmarks. That gave us enough feedback to start investigating improving our storage strategy.
Data Split
Up to Gnocchi 1.3, all data for a single metric are stored in a single gigantic file per aggregation method (min, max, average…). This means that the file can grow to several megabytes in size, which makes it slow to manipulate.For the next version of Gnocchi, our first work has been to rework that storage and split the data into smaller parts.
The diagram above shows how data are organized inside Gnocchi. Until version 1.3, there would have been only one file for each aggregation methods.
In the upcoming 2.0 version, Gnocchi will split all these data into smaller parts, where each data split is stored in a file/object. This allows us to manipulate smaller pieces of data and to increase the parallelism of the CRUDoperations on the back-end – leading to large speed improvement.
In order to split timeseries into several chunks, Gnocchi defines a maximum number of N points to keep per chunk, to limit their maximum size. It then defines a hash function that produces a non-unique key for any timestamp. It makes it easy to find in which chunk any timestamp should be stored or retrieved.
Data Compression
Up to Gnocchi 1.3, the data stored for each metric is simply serialized using msgpack, a fast and small serialization format. However, this format does not provide any compression. That means that storing datapoints needs 8 bytes for a timestamp (64 bits timestamp with nanosecond precision) and 8 bytes for a value (64 bits double-precision floating-point), plus some overhead (extra information and msgpack itself).
The first technique I implemented is easy enough and is inspired from delta-of-delta encoding. Instead of storing each timestamp for each data point, and since all the data points are aggregated on a regular interval, we transpose points to be the time difference divided by the interval. For example, the suite of timestamps timestamps =[41230, 41235, 41240, 41250, 41255] is encoded into timestamps =[41230, 1, 1, 2, 1], interval = 5. This allows regular compression algorithms to reduce the size of the integer list using run-length encoding.
The XOR based compression scheme described in the Gorilla paper mentioned above – that I had to implement myself. For reference, it also exists a Go implementation in go-tsz.
I then benchmarked these solutions:
The XOR algorithm implemented in Python is pretty slow, compared to LZ4. Truth is that python-lz4 is fully implemented in C, which makes it fast. I've profiled my XOR implementation in Python, to discover that one operation took 20% of the time:count_lead_and_trail_zeroes, which is in charge of counting the number of leading and trailing zeroes in a binary number.
I tried 2 Python implementations of the same algorithm (and submitted them to my friend and Python developer Victor Stinner by the way).
The first version, using string search with .index() is 10× faster than the second one that only does integer computation. Ah, Python… As Victor explained, each Python operation is slow and there's a lot in the second version, whereas.index() is implemented in C and really well optimized and only needs 2 Python operations.
Finally, I ended up optimizing that code by leveraging cffi to use directly ffsll() andflsll(). That decreased the run-time of count_lead_and_trail_zeroes by 45 %, making the entire XOR compression code speed increased by a small 7%. This is not enough to catch up with LZ4 speed. At this stage, the only solution to achieve a high-speed would probably to go with a full C implementation.
Considering the compression ratio of the different algorithms, they are pretty much identical. The worst case scenario (random values) for LZ4 compress down to 9 bytes per data point, whereas XOR can go down to 7.38 bytes per datapoint. In general XOR encoding beats LZ4 by 15%, except for cases where all values are 0 or 1. However, LZ4 is faster than XOR by a factor of 4×-70×depending on cases.
That means that we'll use LZ4 for data compression in Gnocchi 2.0. It's possible that we could achieve as fast compression/decompression algorithm, but I don't think it's worth the effort right now – it'd represent a lot of code to write and to maintain.
Collect, analyze, and visualize performance data from mobile to mainframe with AutoPilot APM. Get a Demo! | {
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Tag: adrian sosa
Adrian Sosa joins Team LeftJab Boxing Radio to talk about last weekend’s exciting six-round welterweight battle with Khiry Todd at The Foxwoods Resort.Both fighters came in undefeated and Sosa won a close majority decision.Sosa gives his thoughts on the fight and why he feels he won as well as what’s next for him. Be sure to check …
Khiry Todd joins Team LeftJab Boxing Radio to talk about last weekend’s thrilling six-round welterweight clash with Adrian Sosa at The Foxwoods Resort.Both fighters came in undefeated and Sosa won a close majority decision.Todd gives his thoughts on the fight and why he feels he won as well as why he wants an immediate rematch … | {
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MLB Statistics
Historical (past-seasons) WARP is now based on DRA..
cFIP and DRA are not available on a by-team basis and display as zeroes(0). See TOT line for season totals of these stats.Multiple stints are are currently shown —Click to hide.
YEAR
Team
Lg
G
GS
IP
W
L
SV
H
BB
SO
HR
oppTAv
PPF
H/9
BB/9
HR/9
K/9
GB%
BABIP
TAv
WHIP
FIP
ERA
cFIP
DRA
DRA-
WARP
2013
SDN
MLB
11
9
54.7
3
3
0
53
15
40
6
.250
98
8.7
2.5
1.0
6.6
39%
.283
.255
1.24
3.81
4.12
110
4.89
115.2
0.0
2014
SDN
MLB
13
11
61.3
4
5
0
71
15
46
6
.250
97
10.4
2.2
0.9
6.8
43%
.332
.286
1.40
3.66
4.99
112
4.71
110.6
0.1
2015
SDN
MLB
3
3
17.0
1
2
0
16
2
10
1
.264
102
8.5
1.1
0.5
5.3
52%
.294
.193
1.06
3.28
4.76
105
4.61
107.6
0.1
2016
SDN
MLB
3
2
15.7
1
2
0
12
3
13
3
.256
97
6.9
1.7
1.7
7.5
43%
.231
.238
0.96
4.59
4.02
102
4.33
102.9
0.2
Career
MLB
30
25
148.7
9
12
0
152
35
109
16
.252
98
9.2
2.1
1.0
6.6
42%
.301
.260
1.26
3.77
4.54
110
4.73
111.1
0.4
Statistics for All Levels
'opp' stats - Quality of opponents faced - have been moved and are available only as OPP_QUAL in the Statistics reports now.Minor league stats are currently shown —Click to hide.
Don't sleep on Enny Romero. I think there is a better chance of him providing impact in the bullpen, but I've been working on the Rays system lately and scouts really like this kid's stuff; I've seen it several times myself, so I can definitely appreciate a mid-90s FB and hard breaking ball from a southpaw. The command concerns, but if he can develop into an effectively wild type, he has the stuff to pitch above the middle-of-a-rotation. Projection is #2/3 type, but I think a late-innings arm is the realistic role. (Jason Parks)
Robbie Erlin closed the season 32 IP 1.96 ERA 1.06 WHIP 24 K 7 BB, but with the Josh Johnson signing appears out of the mix in SD. Kennedy, Ross, Johnson, and Cashner are givens. Then you have Stults, Luebke, Wieland, and Burch Smith to contend with. What does SD do? Trade Cashner? Just keep the depth in AAA?(Joe Rockpile from Tuscaloosa)
Keep. The. Depth. JJ and Cash are both health risks, and an outstanding name combo for a late 70s buddy cop show. (Harry Pavlidis)
Do you think Aroyds Vizcaino is a good bet to contribute in 2014? What about Padres pitching prospects Robbie Erlin and Joe Wieland? Any chance any are rotation bound next year? I've got them all as minor leaguers in a deep NL-only 12 team keeper league, hoping at least one pans out as a middle of the rotation arm. (brokenarrow from Texas)
I'm done on Vizcaino, never really loved him. He's gotta prove something to me. LOVE Erlin and like Wieland as well. I think both can contribute, maybe even later this year if needs arise for SD, but definitely next year. (Paul Sporer)
Hey, John. Professor Parks and the minor-league gang probably have a better read on this stuff, but if you're looking for raw peripherals, Blackburn does seem to fit the bill. Two others to keep an eye on: Rangers RHP Cody Buckel, who found a groove late after struggling initially in Double-A, and Padres LHP Robert Erlin. (Daniel Rathman)
BP Roundtables
No BP Roundtables have mentioned this guy.
PITCHf/x Pitcher Profile
Robbie Erlin has thrown 2,701 pitches that have been tracked by the PITCHf/x system between 2012 and 2016, including pitches thrown in the MLB Regular Season, Spring Training and Fall/Winter Ball. In 2016, he has relied primarily on his Fourseam Fastball (89mph) and Change (82mph), also mixing in a Curve (73mph). He also rarely throws a Cutter (85mph). | {
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Santana struck out the Colorado side in the first. He executed a hit and run, made it from first to third on a single, and didn't let 110 pitches over the first eight innings stop him from taking the mound in the ninth.
On any other gray and drizzly day, a four-hit shutout would've made the sky above Citi Field a blissful shade of blue. But nothing could make you feel good about the Mets on Thursday, not with their closer coming out of the wrong kind of pen and escorted by police into a criminal courthouse, his hands cuffed behind his back.
Francisco Rodriguez was arrested for allegedly pummeling his girlfriend's father after Wednesday night's loss, charged with third-degree assault, and suspended by the Mets for two days, making Santana's willingness to go the distance all the more profound.
But the ace didn't qualify as some superhero swooping in out of a comic book, not after a woman who had accused him of rape sued him in a Florida court.
Yes, only the Mets could temporarily divert your attention away from a pitcher accused of assault with a brilliant performance from a pitcher accused of worse.
"I'm done with that," Santana said. "I'm not commenting on that."
The Mets were willing to comment on Rodriguez, and maybe they should've gone the Santana route. If more evidence was needed to prove this organization lacks organization, it was found in the way Manuel and Jeff Wilpon handled the K-Rod case.
Aristide Economopoulos/The Star-Ledger/US PresswireJerry Manuel was all smiles with Santana during the game, but his comments after the game were bewildering.
Rodriguez was held in custody at a holding facility at Citi Field after Wednesday night's altercation, held there after he allegedly sent his girlfriend's father to the hospital. Yet when asked before the game if he would have any hesitation using Rodriguez if the closer showed up at the ballpark free of handcuffs, Manuel said, "None."
Good heavens. Of all the surreal quotes Manuel has delivered into a live mike during his term, this one syllable trumped them all.
Nope, not a single millisecond of pause to hand the ball to a pitcher who had embarrassed the franchise, who had exhibited anger-management issues in the past, and who had spent the night in a pen that doesn't swing open when a baseball manager calls.
An hour after Manuel spoke, the Mets announced they had suspended Rodriguez for two days without pay. "Ownership and the organization are very disappointed in Francisco's inappropriate behavior," Wilpon said, "and we take this matter very seriously."
So in one New York minute, the manager says he'd go right back to K-Rod if Santana needed relief, and in the next the team owner is removing the closer from the roster.
It gets better. Armed with knowledge of the suspension and Wilpon's stated sentiment in his postgame news conference, Manuel came up with this beauty:
"I don't have all the facts. Until I have all the facts, then I make a judgment as to how I feel about it and so forth. But I just think right now it's unfair when everything is not on the table to make a judgment one way or another. Despite what the team did, I still feel that way."
In effect, Manuel called Wilpon's suspension of Rodriguez "unfair."
The manager declined to say he was angry at K-Rod; he maintained he needed to hear the whole story before he took his own temperature. Manuel acknowledged the incident and the arrest disappointed him, but added, "You still have to weigh what spurred such an action. That has to be a part of it, despite that it's wrong."
In other words, if K-Rod can convince Manuel that the man he allegedly assaulted had it coming to him, well play ball!
Manuel didn't get it, even if some of his players did.
Mets blog
Looking for more information on the Mets? ESPNNewYork.com has you covered. Blog
"No one should act like that," Carlos Beltran said of Rodriguez. "It doesn't matter if the team did whatever it did. No one should act like that. He feels sorry about what happened, but it's too late."
Good for Beltran. Good for the center fielder to recognize the urgency of a matter Manuel didn't bother to address with his team.
Of course, the bad karma gripping the Mets involves far more than this latest confrontation on K-Rod's résumé, a résumé that lists as references Tony Bernazard, Randy Niemann and Brian Bruney.
The Mets are a .500 team in name only. Just as John Mara angrily pointed out that last year's 8-8 Giants had the feel of a 4-12 team, this year's 57-57 Mets have the feel of a 50-64 team.
Normally an inconspicuous presence, Mara assumed a leadership role when he stepped before the cameras and notebooks and ripped every Tom, Dick and Jerry in his employ.
But Jeff Wilpon didn't hold a news conference Thursday, when another Same Old Mets crisis begged for his face-to-face thoughts on a season spinning out of control.
The owner settled for a typed one-sentence rebuke of K-Rod, and if nothing else, it sounded a whole lot better than what was coming out of Manuel's mouth.
Truth is, the Mets need a new and dynamic force in the worst way, something stronger than an adviser who can knock down Omar Minaya's bad ideas. Joe Torre was offered as an answer in this space, and if the Dodgers manager does indeed become a free agent, the Mets will give him some thought.
Torre? Bobby Valentine? Cliff Lee? Billy Beane? The Mets desperately need a grand slam between now and Opening Day, 2011, and surprise, surprise: The number of grand slams they've hit this year matches the amount of consideration Manuel would've given to benching a freed K-Rod. | {
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Once the roles were reversed. Four hundred years ago, as Christian Europe became engulfed in religious conflict, a stable, prosperous Muslim superpower looked on with interest. The emergence of Protestantism threatened the hegemony of the Ottoman Empire’s longtime Catholic rivals as well as the stability of Istanbul’s trading partners. The Ottomans teamed up with the Protestants, fighting Poland on behalf of rebellious Bohemia, and providing others with indirect covert support in wars against common enemies.
Even in the 20th century Middle East , the secular Gamal Abdul Nasser sought to overthrow the Islamist Saudi monarchy in the 1960s and launched a war in north Yemen against Saudi-backed rivals.
The point, among the six « lessons » drawn from a wide-angle view of history by John Owen in Confronting Political Islam, is that foreign interventions are inevitable at times of grand, transnational ideological upheaval. They are not simply the result of imperial ambitions but of rational self-interest. « When one or more countries is undergoing civil unrest that could produce a regime change, outside countries often have a strategic or material stake in the outcome, » he writes.
Owen, a politics professor at the University of Virginia, applies lessons gleaned from the great western conflicts to what he describes as the decades-long conflict between secularism and Islamism in the greater Middle East. In an animated, ambitious and thoughtful book, he focuses on the unrest that engulfed early modern Europe with the rise of Protestantism, the century-long struggle between absolute monarchy and republicanism in western Europe and North America; and the often-bloody struggle between liberalism, communism and fascism that ravaged the 20th century.
He describes the struggle between secularism and political Islam as similar in scale and stakes to those three epochal conflicts, with secularists holding the upper hand from the 1920s to the 1960s and Islamists gaining ground since.
In dealing with the rise of political Islam, he cautions policy makers never to underestimate the longevity of what they may consider a « backward » ideology, noting the constant flare-ups of Europe’s sectarian wars and the broad appeal of communism and fascism even among intellectuals in the liberal west.
Policy makers must step carefully before trying to co-opt Islamist moderates and isolate radicals. He cites US policy in cold war Europe, where Washington partnered with French socialists but wrote off Italy’s as hopelessly wedded to Moscow.
In the west’s three grand ideological battles, he writes, twice there was no winner. Europe transcended its sectarian conflict by adopting a secular model, like that of Holland, over papist or protestant rule. Battles between republicanism and monarchy led to Britain’s hybrid model, neither absolute monarchy nor radical republic. In the battle between fascism and communism, liberalism eventually won out, with the US defeating Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Why? Owen says the success or failure of bellwether states determines how an ideological conflict will turn out. American capitalism won out, for example, because it was economically and internationally successful.
In the battle between Islamism and secularism Owen identifies Islamist Iran and secular Turkey as the bellwether states to watch. This is problematic. Though they have been heralded at times in the past decade, both countries are mistrusted by many Sunni Arabs, who make up the bulk of the Middle East.
Owen’s book is stimulating and useful but it cannot account for the indecipherable tangle that emerges when ideological, national and local actors and interests become jumbled.
In today’s Middle East hundreds of local forces are at play, from the Berber of north Africa to the Kurdish resurgence in the Levant; from al-Qaeda in the Maghreb to Hizbollah in Lebanon – not to mention tribal and regional conflicts within countries.
It is a limitation Owen knows well. « There is no substitute, » he writes, « for the deep study of Muslims and Islam on their own terms – their theologies, cultures and histories. »
« Confronting Political Islam: Six Lessons from the West’s Past » by John Owen, Princeton University Press (£19.95 $29.95) | {
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Softest Merino Wool is a super soft, chunky and roving yarn composing of 100% extrafine merino wool. Its seven shades are varied and heritage inspired and its comfort will provide a perfect way to keep warm and cosy during cooler months.
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Workers fight closure of Bronx Stella Doro plant
The union that represents 136 workers at the Stella Doro Biscuit Co. has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board in an attempt to stop the companys planned shutdown of a Bronx factory.
In a second move, the union petitioned the NLRB to ask a federal judge to issue an injunction that would prevent private equity firm Brynwood Partners, which manages the investment fund that owns the company, from closing the factory. It also asked the city to intervene to keep the factory open, or to recover money in the form of tax abatements that the plant has received.
The workers had been on strike since walking off their jobs last August. Late last month a judge ruled that the company had violated labor law and ordered the workers reinstated with back pay to May 6. The workers returned to their jobs last week, but on the same day, Stella Doro announced it was shutting the factory in three months because the union had failed to make any meaningful concessions that would stop the company from losing money.
The union is also seeking to reopen negotiations over both the expired collective bargaining agreement and Stella Doro officials decision to close the plant and relocate production.
The company cannot simply ignore the decision of a federal administrative law judge and it cannot punish the workers at Stella Doro for exercising their rights under law, said Joyce Alston, president of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Local 50.
Calls to Stella Doro, Brynwood and their attorney, Mark Jacoby, were not returned. The company released a statement last week charging union leadership with failing to grasp that any business that cannot operate profitably must seek changes that will enable it to do so.
Elbert Tellem, the assistant regional director of the NLRB, confirmed the unions filings, but would not otherwise comment.
Labor lawyer Michael Weber, a senior partner at Littler Mendelson, said the workers attempt to link the closing to union activity was not surprising. They could argue it, but if the company can show legitimate business reasons for their actions, they have every right to go where they can operate profitably, he said.
The former regional director of the NLRB, Dan Sullivan, said that because Stella Doro indicated that it was not going out of business completely and would continue to produce products after the shutdown, the union may have a case. They have to prove the reason for closing was union activity and not, as the employer says, economic motivation, he said.
He said the union would likely point to the timing of the plant closing announcement, which occurred soon after the judges decision, and that the company would continue to stand by the position that it was losing money.
A spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the mayor appointed a mediator in April, but that the two sides were unable to resolve their differences. He said the tax abatements Stella Doro received are available to any business that builds or renovates a facility and that theyre not contingent on creating or maintaining jobs.
Crain’s New York Business is the trusted voice of the New York business community—connecting businesses across the five boroughs by providing analysis and opinion on how to navigate New York’s complex business and political landscape. | {
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Portable r134a Refrigerant Air Conditioning Recovery Machine AC Service Station
1. Device description :
This is a full automatic AC service station . It can service both cars and mini bus. It recovers around 90% refrigerant from the vehicles and do purify before store the gas to the tank . The purified gas can be recharge into the vehicle and save the cost for the car users .
Database in the machine is very convenient for the technician to check the information and save much of their time. And the built-in printer is able to provide service evidence to the customer .
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2) Vacuumizing : Vacuumize the car A/C system to avoid contamination
3) Charging : Charge fresh or purified gas into the car A/c system
4) New Database: the database can be updated by the users themselves by a SD card | {
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Trailer
Review
Great movie, highly recommended
10/10 It's a great movie, very touching. The background is Nanking Massacre, at that cruel and desperate history moment, the director finds a special perspective to show us goodness, hope, sacrifice and humanity. Although I've seen so many war movies before, this one is different. I could not help crying through the whole movie, even I told myself "This is just another war movie, you should control your tears" But the movie has nothing to do with intendedly giving audience slushy emotional scenes. Even at some dark and sad moments, there is no background music.
All the actors and actresses give a stellar performance. Good story, good acting, beautiful scene. My teacher once said "Audience never cry for tragedy，but they will cry for good things."
Anyway, it's a powerful movie, highly recommended.
PS: All the victims in Nanking Massacre deserve a serious apology from Japanese.
3 years ago
a movie definitely worth seeing
10/10 Honestly,I am not the kind of people easily being touched so deeply as to cry, and I didn't cry much during the movie indeed. I just walked out the movie theater,took a bus,got off the bus,bought a piece of bread, walked home while eating the bread,then all of sudden burst into tears.
Till now I still haven't walked out of it. There is so much to say, yet you don't know what to say nor how to say it. My only advice: you walk into the movie theater, forget whatever people said on the Internet, and just watch it with your own heart.
It is a great movie.
3 years ago
Don't miss. This deserves your attention.
9/10 Zhang Yimou has crafted a beautifully shot and compelling story set inside horrific events. About all I knew of this movie was it was set in 1937 China and starred Christian Bale. Not knowing much allowed me to be completely open to the journey of the characters. This is an emotionally powerful story about people caught in circumstances for which there seems no hope of survival. The Japanese soldiers are shown as barbaric, but we do meet an officer who attempts to remain honorable though he must do his duty to his superiors. The violence in the movie is brutal, but not graphic or gratuitous. The choices and sacrifices made by the characters never seemed contrived. The arc of Christian Bale's character may seem 'predictable', but it is never false or 'convenient' to the story. All actors are excellent. Because they're foreign to me I had no idea who they are or their other work. At the screening I attended we were introduced to Ni Ni, who said this was her first film. She is both beautiful and compelling. I wish her a long career. Yimou, through his daughter, told us about his journey to make this movie - based on a novel, based on real events. He has told an amazing story that will stay with me for a long time.
3 years ago
Good Movie is Like a Mirror
10/10 I watched the movie in Beijing, twice. The second time I liked it more. This has to be one of the best Chinese films yet, if not the best. Some scenes are pretty brutal, but really worth watching, to say the least.
The director Zhang YiMou told a powerful, touching and beautiful story, while delivering stunning visual effects as always. All actors from different countries did an amazing job in making so many strong characters in 3 languages, not just the American 'priest', but also those prostitutes, the boy George, all the children, Japanese officers, and the Chinese 'traitor'.
Good movie is like a mirror, some people might get upset watching it, while others see love for others, respect for life, and the human spirit of fighting for peace out of tragedy. Each audience's reaction more or less reflects his/her personal value. The storytelling is objective so you can judge for yourself. In front of a masterpiece like this, people who ranked it very low deliberately because of stereotypes against China or whatever twisted reason (I KNOW YOU EXSIT ON THIS SITE), you need to sit down and think what's wrong with yourself, no matter how open-minded you claim you are.
Some say it is a propaganda production. I have to disagree here. Almost everything in this movie is based on real history, including how Japanese tortured Chinese war victims, how prostitutes stood up to protect other women during the Rape of NanJing, as well as how some westerners resided in China at the time helped local Chinese. Anyone who can pick up a few books or do a bit of research on internet knows it.
English is not my mother language so I can't write an review with big words like those professional critics do. However, this is the first time I feel so moved by a movie that I'd write an English review online to recommend it to viewers outside of China. Simply too good to miss.
If any Chinese simply walked out of the cinema cursing Japanese, I'd say the movie failed big time. However, both times I saw people left quietly, some still sobbing, and heard them saying how lucky they are to be born in this era and how precious peace is. For that reason, I applaud this film.
It is what it is. Horrible things happened in history. Hate and anger won't do any good today. Make peace with yourself and move on. Just like what George said in the movie, life is precious, it is not ours to throw away.
3 years ago
Where does the comedy stop and the drama begin?
9/10 Watched this movie last night in a packed Beijing cinema on its opening night. First off, I would like to say that Christian Bale traces perfectly the path of enlightenment that follows Wild-West style bandit obsessed with money becoming priest and father-figure in all but religious training. The film is in roughly 50% English, 35% Chinese and 15% Japanese, so there is a real assimilation of different languages and cultures coming together. However, this unfortunately leads to some moments which seem disconcertingly humorous. For example, there is one point where a Japanese general confesses to priest-figure Bale that he likes music; the triviality of such statement in the midst of mass-murder seems absurd enough, but it is also delivered in a dead-pan way with broken English. I could not help but burst out laughing, even though none of the Chinese in the cinema saw any form of humour in it. Indeed, I think that as a Westerner watching this film, my emotional response is not as visceral as it would be to a Chinese person. That is only natural, but it leads to a completely different interpretation of the movie. Some of the murder scenes are brutally horrific to a Chinese person, so much so that the wonderful filmography which permeates throughout the movie may not be fully appreciated. The hues are brown and green, earthy, rugged and militaristic for the most part. Yet there are occasionally beautiful trims of colour, the church's stained-glass window, the clothes on the washing line left out to dry. A sign, no doubt, of the beauty of humanity in the midst of dreadful war. It has been suggested this movie is propaganda. I don't know if I entirely agree with that. There is no positive way to spin what was a shameful event in Japan's history, and for what it's worth I think that Zhang Yimou delineates well the soldiers occasional insecurity, homesickness, and humanisation brought on by paranoia and pressure from above. A movie well-worth watching, and which I would like to watch for a second time to re- establish which moment are intentionally humorous, which moments are unintentionally humorous, and which moments are tragic. Kudos for Zhang Yimou for tackling such a visited topic (That of the Nanjing massacre) which a freshness, and even more kudos to Christian Bale for stepping up to the plate and giving in a great performance. | {
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Breaking News
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Lil Duval Visits Power 96
Power 96’s Ivy Unleashed interviewed Lil Duval live on-air this afternoon. Duval is an American singer, stand-up comedian, and was a finalist on BET's comedy competition series 'Coming to the Stage.' Duval is a series regular on the MTV2 shows 'Guy Code' and 'Hip Hop Squares.' He just released a... | {
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"The public remarks by President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia at his state of the union address to the Duma demanding the withdrawal of the U.S. missile defense systems in Europe by threatening the placement of Russian mobile missiles and other military action has helped solidify the continued deployment of the European Missile Defense site by the United States of America and its NATO allies.
"These remarks, made the day after the U.S. election, were directed at the President-elect Barack Obama and his new administration. This rhetoric, reminiscent of 20-year-old cold war tactics, has been used in different degrees and at different audiences over the past two years. The European Missile Defense site the Russians are opposing will consist of a U.S. midcourse x-band radar (EMR) in the Czech Republic and 10 U.S. ground-based interceptors in Poland, which will defend most of Europe including the northwest parts of Russia and Moscow as well as protecting the United States from ballistic missiles launched from Iran.
"This past year, former Russian President Vladimir Putin used a similar type of threat prior to the NATO summit in Bucharest, which had an adverse effect and galvanized the Europeans and NATO to endorse the European missile defense site after his remarks. President Putin also used the threatening rhetoric of targeting missiles towards the Czech Republic and Poland prior to each of their formal agreements with the United States to host these missile defense systems and again his statements galvanized both the population and the leadership to move forward with the agreements.
"This particular threat by President Medvedev comes again at the wrong time to the wrong audience, as it is clearly the first test to President-elect Obama. Like his predecessor before him, President Medvedev's intended intimidation will further embed the European Missile Defense site in the next U.S. Administration rather than less and strengthens the unity of Europe with the United States on missile defense." | {
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070 shake
One day, 070 Shake was on the floor searching for quarters. The next, she was in a Miami penthouse.
The 19-year-old singer and rapper from North Bergen, NJ, had never really considered making music, but she’d often soothed her depression by writing poetry. One September day in 2016, a friend mentioned a brother with a recording studio and she felt a tug. Why not marry her words with music?
Stepping into the booth for the first time ever, she recorded “Proud,” an achingly vulnerable reflection on teenage rebellion and rejection over a gently swaying, bittersweet beat.
“At that time I felt like I made no one proud, but I always envisioned myself as a leader,” she says. She posted the song online and social influencer Julieanna “YesJulz” Goddard—who eventually would become Shake’s manager—found it, tweeting, “Where’s this boy?”
“I was like, ‘I’m a girl and I’m here,’” Shake says.
Indeed she is, and she’s not leaving anytime soon. In less than two years, 070 Shake has racked up millions of Soundcloud plays; featured on everyone from Lil Yachty to Fabulous records; appeared onstage alongside artists like Sonny Digital, Pusha T and Desiigner; and garnered praise for her “gritty realness” that places her in a “category of her own” (Highsnobeity). Signing to GOOD Music / Def Jam in 2017, her appeal is obvious—thick with emotion, her smoky voice cuts through a never-ending throng of hollow-voiced public figures obsessed with wealth and superficial pleasures. In a world more consumed than ever with consumption, 070 Shake’s honesty and heart are desperately needed.
“It’s not time for talking about money. We have to talk to people about real shit,” she insists. “If you project these things to people, they are going to think you need that to be happy. No. You need love.”
Growing up, 070 Shake had plenty of love, if not money. Her parents were divorced, and because her mother struggled financially, Shake was sent to live with various family members--the Dominican Republic with her grandmother, Colorado with her aunt and uncle, who writes Christian music.
She listened mostly to rock music, particularly John Mayer, the Beatles, Kid Cudi. “I listened to things with feeling,” she says. “The Beatles didn’t really care bout materialistic things. I wanna bring it back to that. There’s a difference between music that bumps and music you feel. ‘Imagine’ is one of my favorite lyrical songs. The words are pretty simple, but just the meaning in general.”
In her early adolescence, she sunk into a deep depression, and poetry was her escape. Still, pouring her heart onto the page couldn’t quell her rising rebelliousness, and she soon was getting suspended from high school for pranks like stealing the frogs from the science lab.
Once she graduated, however, she underwent a stark change. Experimenting with psychedelics, she dove into Plato, Socrates and the Bible. “I became a new person. I had 100 tabs on my computer and learned all this on my own. After that I was reborn,” she says. “I felt like I didn’t need all the LSD. Felt like a trip from learning.”
Realizing she had a heart for the kids in her city struggling in an overcrowded school system, she tagged herself “070 Shake” in tribute to her city’s zip code. She started putting music to her poems and “vibing out.” She’d never recorded until “Proud,” but once the seal was broken, she knew she’d found her passion, the way she could change the world—through music.
“I just wanna help people find love. And make everybody happy,” she says. And, perhaps something a little easier to accomplish: “My goal in life is to make my mom proud.” | {
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Stove Top Fire Extinguisher Heads Temp Sensors
best fire extinguishers buyers guide, wall sticker fire extinguisher at people source, fire on twitter great prevention by, fire extinguishers safety the home depot, the best fire extinguisher reviews by a new times, 5 best fire extinguishers, fire extinguishers safety the home depot,stove top fire extinguisher the best ,fire extinguisher forge 7 steps with pictures , home fire extinguishers south bay safety guy. | {
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Cocom Delays Rule Change
Reuters
Published: February 27, 1991
PARIS, Feb. 26—
Cocom, the Western trade body that oversees high-technology exports to the former Eastern bloc nations, postponed a high-level meeting this week that was expected to loosen restrictions, trade officials said today.
"The high-level meeting has been deferred because there are a number of technical points still to be resolved," said the official, who is close to the Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls.
Instead, Cocom officials will use the session, scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, to report on what still needs to be done to put the revisions into effect, the official said. Trade officials could not say when the high-level meeting would take place.
Since 1949, Cocom has restricted exports of high-technology goods with military uses to Communist governments. Last June, it agreed to cut the list of controlled items by a third and to establish a well-defined list of products that could not be exported without a license.
The decision came after reforms in Eastern Europe, and United States officials said at the time that the change should help the new democracies and market economies of the region. But earlier this month trade officials said there had been difficulties in setting up technical specifications.
Cocom, representing all NATO members except Iceland, plus Australia and Japan, has operated a complex system intended to scrutinize all technology exports. The core list would define forbidden items and allow all other products to be traded freely. | {
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Solid Alarm Clock Extended
Wake up with a bird singing, a favorite song or a standard ringtone it's up to you with alarm Solid Alarm Clock Extended!In any case, you can't just turn off the alarm, special features will not leave you basking in bed and will get you up quickly. Half a million of users have downloaded the application and rated it 4.5 stars.
Download for free Solid Alarm Clock Extended!To wake you up the alarm clock has the following features:✔4 modes of awakening.✔4 types of puzzles.✔ The music signal - select your favorite song.✔ The gradual increasing of the volume of the signal.✔ Solving mathematical problems, to postpone or turn the alarm off.✔ Puzzle maze to find a way out of the realm of Morpheus.✔ Loud and dynamic melody alarm, followed by vibration.✔ Reducing of the intervals between signals after each postponement.✔ Set the maximum number of snoozes.✔ If you want to sleep a little bit more and push the button delay the alarm, you will hear the annoying sound, it helps you to fight with such a harmful and dangerous habit.It can be used in many cases: during the games, sport events, work, scientific experiments and so on.
Find a function that will help you to wake up and start the day with the renewed vigor.Download for free Service Solid Alarm Clock Extended NOW! | {
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A woman who helped arrange adoptions for an Ohio-based agency pleaded guilty last week to bribing court officials in Uganda and defrauding adoptive parents and the U.S. State Department.
Robin Longoria, 58, of Mansfield, Texas, pleaded guilty in federal court in Ohio to one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and to commit wire and visa fraud.
Her sentencing date hasn't been set. She was released on a $20,000 bond.
Longoria and others bribed court registrars and judges in Uganda who would be “adoption-friendly” to her agency's U.S. clients. She paid the bribes through an agent, diguised as "fees, and hid the bribes from the clients.
Longoria also helped create false documents used to mislead the U.S. State Department in its visa determinations for the Ugandan children being adopted.
An Ugandan lawyer worked with European Adoption Consultants and represented its clients in local court proceedings. The lawyer also helped the clients apply to the State Department for U.S. visas for the children.
"The agency and the attorney facilitated the adoption of more than 30 Ugandan children by U.S. clients between 2013 and 2016, and the agency received more than $800,000 from the clients," the report said. Some clients paid more than $10,000.
When the State Department debarred European Adoption Consultants, it had 300 clients at various stages of the adoption process.
After receiving more than 70 complaints, the Ohio attorney general sued European Adoption Consultants in mid 2017. The AG alleged that the agency misled clients and took payment for adoption services it never performed.
European Adoption Consultants settled the action by agreeing to dissolve and reimburse $260,000 to clients. | {
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For those who have asked us about trimming our wild horse’s hooves... To meet BLM requirements at the time of our mass adoption following the 2012 Challis Roundup, Wild Love had to purchase this custom-built wild horse tilt-chute for trimming hooves, until being able to turn horses out to the private expanse we’re creating for them on their native turf where hooves wear naturally. Team WLP is lucky to have the heart and expertise of our lead vet and cowboy on board. | {
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Guest Post: “Not Believing Anything” by C. Luke Mula
C. Luke Mula is the author of The Way to Actuality blog, which was “founded to foster the discussion and discovery of Purpose wherever it can be found, regardless of religious or secular context”. In this essay, Luke shares his experience of a liberating loss of belief and discusses the role that spiritual practice continues to play in his life.
“When thinking leads to the unthinkable, it’s time to return to the simple life. What thinking cannot solve, life does.”
- C.G. Jung, The Red Book
Growing up, I believed a lot of things.
As a faithful member of the Assemblies of God, I believed with varying levels of intensity all of the 16 Fundamental Truths espoused by my denomination. The Resurrection. Speaking in tongues. Second coming of Christ. You name it, I pretty much believed it. And even where I disagreed with the General Council, it was a disagreement based solely on my beliefs and disbeliefs.
My beliefs eventually brought me to a point where, in the middle of a ministerial internship, I had a crisis of religion. I had begun to study the history of Christianity as secular historians saw it, and this more than anything else changed what I thought I knew about God. And it was fucking terrifying. Here I was, being trained to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ, and I was seriously questioning whether or not God even existed. Even worse, I was afraid that my doubting would be found out, and that I would be kicked out of the internship completely. At one point things got so bad that all I could do was cry out in frustration, “Who the fuck are you!?” to God during a time of prayer.
So eventually I let go of my belief in God, but I knew that there were some real things about my experiences of God, and I didn’t want to let go of those experiences. I realized that the mass majority of those experiences gathered around a concept which I called “Purpose,” and that it was by interacting with this greater process in which I was a part that my life seemed to take on meaning. Then, even though I no longer believed in God, I believed very strongly in Purpose, and I could explain my reasons why I believed in it. Purpose was the one thing I held onto in life, and it gave me direction.
One day, however, I sensed strongly that I needed to stop believing even in Purpose. And that scared the shit out of me.
Up until then, I’d stopped believing in a lot of things, but I always felt that I had to believe in Purpose. I mean, if I didn’t, my life was sure to spiral out of control. After all, if I didn’t have that direction, what did I have? The end of this process only seemed like hopelessness to me, and I hated every bit of it. When I sensed that I needed to stop believing in Purpose, tears of fear began to pour out of my eyes. Purpose was the one thing I had left to hold onto, and I was terrified of losing it.
And then a funny thing happened. I did let go. And you know what? It was liberating.
I’ve written in the past that belief is a tool, but oh how far I was from really acting on that idea. Now I can truly say that I don’t believe in anything, and only now can I truly say that I’m free.
Let me make clear what I am not claiming when I say that I don’t believe in anything: I do not mean that I disbelieve everything, nor do I mean that I believe in nothing. When I say that I don’t believe in anything, it simply means that I’m not attached to nor repulsed by any idea. It simply means that I can pick up and let go of any idea, any belief, at will, that I don’t have to believe anything. It means that I’m not even attached to the basic beliefs posed by Hume’s problem of induction: I am equally okay with the world being a creation only of my own mind as I am with it being a reality whose ground is completely external to me. Belief, now more than ever to me, really is a tool.
So in looking back at my past experiences of God and Purpose, I see some things more clearly. My initial, emotional reactions when I’ve let go of God and Purpose have been to drop all practices associated with them. Recently, for about a week, I stopped practicing the devotionals I had discussed with John after his “Spiritual Discipline” post. After all, at the time I started those devotionals, I was doing them to slow down my life and connect with Purpose. Now that I didn’t even believe in Purpose, what good were they?
As soon as I stopped the devotionals, however, I realized something about them: when I practiced them, my life was infinitely better. Without these decidedly mystical practices of meditation, contemplation, and prayer in my life, my life felt extremely hectic, and I was at a loss for making any level of decision with confidence. My base level of well being was so much lower than when these practices were in place, which was noticeable in less than a week after stopping them.
And that’s the thing about all of my experiences of God and Purpose: my beliefs, ideas, and theories about the experiences rarely helped me pursue the experiences to the fullest. In fact, they mostly served to hamper and distort my experiences. It has only been in dropping all beliefs that I have seen how truly valuable my pursuit of God and my relationship with Purpose have been in my life. It is only now that I am truly able to pursue the experiences for their own sake, to truly be honest about what is best for me, not based on any belief or theory, but because only now can I truly come to know myself.
I have been led to the unthinkable, and I have returned to the simple life. What thinking could not solve, life has.
Sounds like your practice has basically become empirical and experimental: just doing the practices, and seeing what happens.
I like to live by a certain maxim: “Never believe anything unless you absolutely cannot help it!” To me, the only beliefs that ought to be adopted are those that are so compelling they are like Athena grabbing Achilles by the hair (scene from the Iliad). It follows that no beliefs should ever need to be *intentionally* adopted. The beliefs themselves should do all the work for you.
C Luke Mula
I know it sounds similar to empiricism, but it’s not. I did take an extremely empirical approach to my practices when I drifted through the New Atheist movement, but empiricism does assume certain things (and is extremely effective towards its goals when it does so). My current position isn’t to experience things for the sake of experimentation or fact-finding. My current position is simply to experience things for the sake of the experience.
Yes, I can be empirical about my experiences when I want to, but I’m not bound to empiricism.
http://allergicpagan.wordpress.com John Halstead
Luke, I know that feeling of terror and the feeling of freedom that come with letting go of one’s deeply held beliefs. I applaud your willingness to really ask “who the fuck God is”, rather than projecting your own ideas of what God should be. I know from experience it is very difficult and it is an ongoing process for me.
Your concluding statement, “What thinking could not solve, life has.”, reminds me of a quote by Kierkegaard: Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced. I continually have to remind myself of that.
I was wondering, as you gradually let go of your beliefs, did the content of your practice change at all? Did you feel any need to or have any difficulty (re-)incorporating symbolism from your previous belief systems?
C Luke Mula
Well, it depends on the context.
For example, for my personal devotionals, I almost always recite the Our Father, with a full belief in what I’m saying. It tends to center me and help me let go of whatever I need to let go of.
When I’m hanging out with atheist friends, though, I am fully engaged in empiricism and religion-mocking. This process is usually quite invigorating and even theraputic.
And then when I attend a Christian worship service, I am fully believing in Jesus Christ as my personal lord and savior, that he was God come to earth as a human to die specifically for my sins, and this belief always shakes me to the core.
In the process of letting go of my beliefs, though, it was usually to grab onto other beliefs, and these other beliefs impended my use of old beliefs. Now, however, all beliefs are fair game to me (though not simultaneously).
http://allergicpagan.wordpress.com John Halstead
Does your practice include any rituals that might seem incompatible with Christianity to more convention Christians? If so, how much do you share? And do you ever feel disingenuous?
http://clukemula.tumbr.com C Luke Mula
Hey, sorry it took me so long to respond to this.
Yes, my practice includes a few rituals that many “conventional” Christians (which in my life are mainly charismatic, fundamentalist Protestants) would at least raise an eyebrow at, and a couple that would seem outright incompatible.
For starters, my “daily devotional” practice probably looks more like generic Zen meditation than anything else, lots of deep breaths, few words and whatnot. I usually kick it off with the Our Father, but the rest of the time is usually spent very very quietly.
As for the outright incompatible, that would be my consultation of the I Ching on an infrequent basis. When Christians find out about this, I usually explain it as “God speaks to me through this book,” as this is an accurate portrayal of my experience from a Christian perspective. They usually still don’t feel comfortable with it and would never teach someone else to do so, though.
And no, I never feel disingenuous. Since I begin at a baseline of complete neutrality to beliefs, when I am practicing with a particular group of people, be it Pentecostal Christians, New Atheists, or Pagans, I am fully there. There is no “core” belief that I can feel I’m betraying by any of these practices, so it is always genuine.
Great questions. I’ve never really articulated any of these things before.
http://allergicpagan.wordpress.com John Halstead
Thanks for sharing Luke. When I left Mormonism and starting creating my own spiritual practice, I felt highly inauthentic — which is why I asked the question. Perhaps that’s not the right word. I mean, I left the LDS Church because I no longer at home in it, but the feeling of being at home in a spiritual practice took years for me to recover. I wondered if it was even possible to dwell authentically in a practice of one’s own making. Of course, now that seems a silly question, but at the time it was real and acute. I suppose that is the legacy of growing up in a religious tradition with rituals handed down to me.
C Luke Mula
Okay, I understand what you mean now.
Yes, there were times when my practice felt inauthentic. When I was practicing with Christians, I had those atheistic beliefs in the back of my mind, and when I was “practicing” with atheists, I had those Christian practices that I knew I participated in even in private. So I didn’t feel I fully belonged to either group, and it was often difficult to fully give myself over to the practices.
At the same time, it was my experiences of God which directly led me out of Christianity, out of atheism, and out of Purpose. So even though my religious practices may have changed, my core experiences were the same.
All this to say that it felt both natural and forced at various times.
http://aediculaantinoi.wordpress.com aediculaantinoi
I think what you’ve highlighted here is the difference between creedal religions–like Christianity and Islam (and really, those are the only fully creedal religions, though there are creedal elements to others, e.g. Buddhism, Jainism, etc.)–and religions which are based in experience and/or practice, which is most religions worldwide. It never matters what one believes about something, and whether one’s beliefs about something are “right” or “wrong,” “correct” or “incorrect,” what’s important is what actually happens and what one experiences, and the constant readiness of being willing to “do something.” This is a very basic distinction between religions, and one that a lot of people who start out in Christianity and end up in paganism never quite get, unfortunately–the questions isn’t “how many gods” or “what institutional authorities” so much as whether or not one’s religious life is determined by belief or by practice and experience.
http://allergicpagan.wordpress.com John Halstead
I’ve often wondered how belief became so important in Christianity. I’m sure someone has written a book (or many) about it. It seems like a strange idea when you think about it.
http://aediculaantinoi.wordpress.com aediculaantinoi
Sadly, I don’t think there are that many, at least that I’ve been made aware of, anyway. One is James Carse’s The Religious Case Against Belief, which isn’t bad, but it’s been several years since I’ve read it now…
But, yes, the whole creedalism question is a very odd one indeed when it comes to religion. I suspect that a good bit of it has to do with the basic theologies of those monotheistic religion’s deities: they’re omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and so forth, as well as omnibenevolent AND transcendent. Thus, ideas about the unknowability, ineffability, and inscrutability of this deity also come about. The basic theodicy questions come along (and are in various ways summarily dismissed), and then the only refuge people have is to “believe” what they’re told about this deity who is all-powerful, but also all-loving, and yet not at all involved directly in the lives of most people nor accessible to them. (And if they are through various forms of mysticism, they’re quite likely to be censured if not entirely condemned by the institutional aspects of those religions, etc.)
In most other world religions, where practice is the emphasis, then one can practice the religion, and if “nothing happens” or the people involved don’t feel any divine presences, they are assured that it is still useful and necessary to honor divine beings in the ways they have been doing (which is to say, the gods still need us, even though they’re superior to us, which can’t be said about the monotheistic deities). But, if “something” does happen, and an individual has a direct experience of one of the divine beings involved, then it’s not odd or aberrant so much as “lucky” perhaps; it can always be integrated into the overall purview of the religion, however, to have such things happening. | {
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Norwegian musher has commanding lead in Iditarod race
Norwegian musher has commanding lead in Iditarod race
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) Joar Ulsom said a few words in English, but used his native Norwegian to heap praise on his dog team Tuesday as he arrived at the second-to-last checkpoint in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. | {
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July 28, 2010
That's right, the food and wine feast known as Taste of Lodi is coming Sept. 25 - 26, and we've got some literal scoop about the event. There will be an ice cream wine tasting as part of the event, featuring frozen confections with wine flavors. That'll be a nice way to cool down, considering it's been so hot in years' past that it feels like Taste of Sweat out there.
Here's what else is planned: a port/cigar/chocolate pavilion, wine seminars and an art gallery. Oh, and that's not to mention more than 40 wineries that will be pouring at the event.
It's all going down at Wine & Roses (2505 West Turner Rd., Lodi). Tickets cost $40 in advance, $50 at the door and $25 for designated drivers. For more information: www.tasteoflodi.com.
On October 14, The Sacramento Bee will temporarily remove commenting from sacbee.com. While we design the upgrade, we encourage you to tell us what you like and don't like about commenting on sacbee.com and other websites. We've heard from hundreds of you already and we're listening. Please continue to add your thoughts and questions here.
We also encourage you to write Letters to the Editor on this and other topics. | {
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The Gerson “therapy” has received a spike in media attention this month because of its failure to save the life of its famous devotee, Jessica Ainscough (“The Wellness Warrior”), who died of a very rare type of cancer on February 26th at age 30. For several decades, the main promoter of this bizarre nutritional approach to healing has been Charlotte Gerson, daughter of its developer, Max Gerson (1881-1959), a German physician who emigrated to the United States in 1936. I have met Charlotte on at least three occasions at conferences promoting so-called alternative treatments. In 2009, I took detailed notes about her 30-minute lecture at the 37th Annual Convention of the Cancer Control Society, an organization that misinforms the public in its advocacy of what it calls “Nutrition and Non-Toxic Therapies” for preventing and controlling cancer and other diseases. It seems timely now to share some of my notes and discuss what they reveal about how some people can be seduced into choosing a treatment protocol as preposterous and demanding as Gerson’s.
But first some background….
The Wellness Warrior Jessica Ainscough’s cancer battle has been the subject of thousands of articles. She skillfully publicized her efforts to fight her disease by relying on what she called “natural alternative cancer treatments.” Her tragic story began in 2008 when she developed lumps on her left hand and arm. She was diagnosed with epithelioid carcinoma, a slow-growing but deadly cancer for which the chances of ten-year survival are much improved with proper treatment.
From www.jessicaainscough.com
Her doctors in Sydney, Australia initially advised her that her arm would need to be amputated at her shoulder, but they came up with an option to spare her arm that she accepted: They infused her arm with very high-dose chemotherapy with her arm isolated from the rest of her blood circulation to protect the rest of her body. Although the treatment put her cancer in remission, by 2009 the cancer had recurred. Her doctors then recommended the extreme amputation they initially proposed. Faced with such a severe treatment, a reasonable person would want to find a viable non-mutilating alternative. Although there was no such alternative for Jess to find, she thought she found an answer. She wrote in Dolly, the magazine she had worked for as online editor:
I began looking at the different ways I may have contributed to the manifestation of my disease and then stopped doing them.
You may wonder: Why the strange phrasing: “manifestation of my disease”? But promoters of supposedly holistic treatments commonly talk that way. In a previous piece for Swift, I called it the cancer-is-the-symptom ploy and gave several examples of the rhetoric used including this unwarranted presumption asserted as fact: “People don’t get sick because they have cancer. They’re already sick and they develop cancer.” At the Cancer Control Society’s 2009 convention, Charlotte Gerson told her audience that you cannot heal selectively. “Cancer is not a one disease,” she said. “If you truly heal, everything heals.” Another unwarranted presumption is that very rare cancers are attributable to lifestyle. Jess continued:
I swapped a lifestyle of late nights, cocktails and Lean Cuisines for carrot juice, coffee enemas and meditation and became an active participant in my treatment.
As I explained in that previous Swift piece, the use of a supposedly non-toxic multicomponent approach for restoring health “is appealing to some patients for several reasons, such as it: (1) provides a means for them to take control of their health; (2) gives an impression that they are doing all that can be done to enhance spirit, mind, and body; and (3) assures them that their “cures” are not worse than their diseases.”
This research led me to Gerson Therapy which ensures you have a perfectly balanced diet for optimum health, assisting your body to flush out nasties whilst feeding it with all the goodness it needs to flourish. The therapy involves drinking 13 fresh organic veggie juices per day (yes that’s one an hour, every hour of my waking day), five coffee enemas per day and a basic organic whole food plant-based diet with additional supplements. For two years I devoted my entire life to healing, to the extent that I was effectively housebound.
Charlotte Gerson at the 2009 Cancer Control Society Convention The convention was held at its regular Labor Day Weekend location, the Sheraton Universal Hotel in Universal City, California. It’s an annual event that attracts several hundred promoters, practitioners, and enthusiasts of using so-called alternative medicine against chronic diseases and for wellness. Some of the people at the convention were patients and customers of hucksters at the convention. Others were shopping for ways to heal their own diseases or for cures for their afflicted loved ones. There was very little sense to be found in the various talks, videos, and exhibits. In the two out of three days I attended, I encountered no discussions of rigorously designed clinical research indicating that any of the treatments discussed had significant therapeutic value. Charlotte Gerson was an audience favorite with her folksy, easy-to-follow, evidence-free talk on “Healing Cancer & Other Chronic Diseases.” She offered her simplistic, nonsensical preaching with certitude and combined it with “orthodox medicine” bashing. Her speaker biography provided by the Cancer Control Society read:
…She was born and had her early schooling in Germany. She left in 1933 and continued school in Austria, France, and England, then attended Smith college after coming to New York. She helped translate her father’s books and writings into English. She sometimes managed Dr. Gerson’s clinics, attended his lectures, supervised nursing and joined him in making rounds and in discussing cases. As Founder of the Gerson Institute, she lectures widely and currently teaches physicians who operate the Gerson Therapy Hospital. She also trains other physicians and caregivers in the application of this Nutritional Therapy. Dr. Max Gerson is famous for his revolutionary healing therapy for cancer and other diseases presented in his book A Cancer Therapy—Results of 50 Cases. Dr. Albert Schweitzer called Dr. Gerson one of medicine’s most eminent geniuses. Charlotte has co-authored a book with Beata Bishop, called Healing the Gerson Way, which updates Dr. Gerson’s famous book…. She has also authored individual booklets on some of the most frequent cancers. Lately, a film is available on the Therapy, The Gerson Miracle, which won first prize in the Beverly Hills Film Festival in May, 2004. The DVD shows the Gerson Therapy as well as a number of cured “incurables.” Two more documentaries followed: Dying to Have Known and The Beautiful Truth with more cured “incurables” and doctors and professors successfully using the Gerson Therapy.
She began her talk by bragging about being 87 years old and having no osteoporosis (as if that’s extraordinary and a reason to do what she preaches). She emphasized that she doesn’t eat meat or dairy. The only way to get acid, she suggested, was by eating animal protein. She asked: “Where do big animals get protein?” Her answer was grass (as if that’s applicable to humans and that no big animals are carnivorous). “Carl Lewis was a vegan,” she said. She explained that he was so strong because his diet gave him alkalinity. I don’t think she knew that “Usain Bolt Ate 100 Chicken McNuggets a Day in Beijing and Somehow Won Three Gold Medals.” (I am not endorsing McNuggets.) She claimed that when the pH goes below 6, the result is cancer. She insisted on the need to keep the body alkaline because it “cannot function with acid” and that when you eat so much animal protein, the pancreas is so busy it can’t protect you. “Keep pH above 7 with vegetarian protein,” she advised. I’m sure that sounded sensible to her audience. Oy gevalt! The pH scale is a measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions in a watery solution (e.g., blood). At normal body temperatures, a pH less than 6.8 is acidic and greater than 6.8 is alkaline. (Introductory chemistry students learn that 7 is the neutrality cut point between acidic and alkaline, but, as explained in Benjamin Abelow’s textbook Understanding Acid-Base, that’s correct only at a temperature of 25 degrees Celsius.) Normal arterial blood has a pH of 7.4, so a normal bloodstream is indeed alkaline and your bodily processes keep it very close to 7.4. Otherwise you are in no position to listen to a lecture. Arterial blood is severely acidic when the pH falls below 7.1. You cannot have a blood pH that gets below or close to 6 and still be alive. She went on to promote “living natural minerals” and juices. Minerals are, by definition, naturally occurring; there are no unnatural minerals. If you’re seeking living minerals, see the horta in a popular episode of Star Trek. “Cancer is impossible if defenses are working,” she claimed. She referred to cancer as a “foreign protein.” This is a premise of the dubious treatment plan proposed by William Donald Kelley, D.D.S., which is currently promoted in combination with Gerson-style treatment by Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez. People know pharmaceutical treatments don’t work, she said. She claimed that 20% of doctors wouldn’t take chemo and that they give it to you because they’re paid massive sums by pharmaceutical companies. On the Anaximperator blog,beatis provided citations for relevant published poll dataand found ample evidence refuting Charlotte’s claim. Gerson therapy is not only a cancer therapy, she said. She claimed it also treats heart disease, ulcerative colitis, arthritis, diabetes, and cystic fibrosis. (Beware of promoters of panaceas.) She referred to a case of retinitis pigmentosa. She said the patient used a lot of salt and that “salt is 20 times worse than sugar.” She said she told the patient to stop eating salt and eat carrot juice. She claimed that with a “partial therapy” her vision became clear, her color vision came back, her peripheral vision came back, and the patient could now tell black from navy blue pants. (I’m not aware of any published case report about this patient.) Charlotte claimed she can control diabetes in 2-3 weeks and that it has nothing to do with sugar. It has to do with receptors blocked by cholesterol. She described cheese as “deadly.” The three things she said that are needed to produce cancer are fat, salt, and animal protein. As Christopher Hitchens famously noted, “…what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” Charlotte’s audience wanted to believe in the hope she offered and accepted her certitude as sufficient evidence. As a true believer in her battle for wellness, Jess Ainscough also attracted a devoted audience. Mark Twain overlooked the persuasive abilities of women when he wrote: “The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a man only tells them with all his might.Charlotte concluded her talk by saying that she’s not ill and has no pain. She received a standing ovation.
SWIFTis named after Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels. In the book, Gulliver encounters among other things a floating island inhabited by spaced-out scientists and philosophers who hardly deal with reality. Swift was among the first to launch well-designed critiques against the flummery - political, philosophical, and scientific - of his time, a tradition that we hope to maintain at The James Randi Foundation. | {
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Transcript: Sens. Jim Webb, D-Va., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.
May 17, 2009
Page 4 of 16
ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I don't know, whatever quantum of
proof, however you want to describe it, to believe that a person posed
a danger to the United States, we will do all that we can to ensure
that that person remains detained and does not become a danger to the
American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: And is that enough assurance for you, Senator
Kyl?
KYL: Well, understand that we've already released those who,
after careful examination, we thought didn't pose a danger. And the
number is somewhere between 30 and 60 who turned out to continue to
conduct their activities against us after they were released.
The remaining 240 or so do pose a danger. So there aren't any
left that can easily be released because they don't pose a danger.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, that's not exactly true, right? And I
want to bring Senator Webb in on this, because I know there are about
17, I believe, Chinese Uighurs, they are called, who have been ordered
released by a federal court, they've determined not to be a threat to
the United States.
And the administration has been working on plans to bring them to
Virginia. Can you accept them in your state?
WEBB: Well, let me back up for a minute. The answer is no.
STEPHANOPOULOS: No?
WEBB: No. And I'll -- and then let me explain why. But to back
it up, the numbers that we've seen in my office are about 800 people
have gone through Guantanamo.
The majority of those who have been released, we're down to 220
to 240, so the majority of those that have been released have been
released to third countries, not actually released out into the open
-- you know, to where they can...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Just let out the door, right.
WEBB: Yes, right. So we don't know really where they have gone.
This other group deserves due process. They deserve, in the right
kind of environment, and I support what the president is doing on the
military commissions, to have their cases examined, to see whether or
not they should continue to be detained.
The situation with the Chinese Uighurs that you're talking about,
on the one hand, it can be argued that they were simply conducting
dissident activities against the government of China.
On the other, they accepted training from al Qaeda and as a
result they have taken part in terrorism. I don't believe they should
come to the United States.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Not to the United States and not Virginia.
WEBB: No, I don't believe so.
KYL: No, I totally agree.
STEPHANOPOULOS: How about this, there is also the group that
might have to be brought to the United States for trial or to be
detained here. And the Republicans in the Senate have put out
legislation -- not introduced legislation that says no detainee should
be brought to the United States in any way unless the state
legislature and the governor of the state passes -- signs off on that.
One, do you have the votes to pass it? And, two, will you block
any funding for the closing of Guantanamo without those assurances?
KYL: That was a motion by House Republicans. We're taking up
the bill next week. There will be an amendment that would preclude --
it would similar to that, but perhaps not identical.
A similar resolution passed a couple of years ago 93-4 saying,
don't bring these detainees to the United States. And my guess is
that none of this supplemental funding will be allowed to relocate
detainees into the United States, that that amendment will be adopted. | {
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Category Archives: The Pantry
Did you know that you can substitute Jack Daniels Whiskey for Vanilla? I’m a big Jack Daniels fan. Besides ‘on the rocks’ it can do wonders to add unique flavor to many recipes.
We recently had the opportunity to tour the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee. If you get the chance, GO!!! The Basic Tour is FREE and if you are over 21 you can sign up for the Sampling Tour for a mere $12.00 per person. When you go, don’t skip the town of Lynchburg. Park and walk around. It’s small enough to walk the whole square and stop in one of the restaurants for a nice lunch. You won’t leave without stopping at one of the several unique culinary/candy shops where you can get your specialty chocolates incorporated with Ole’ Jack! Mmmmm.
There are several different varieties of this amazing whiskey as well as multiple uses besides the old-fashioned ‘medicinal’ one on the rocks. Jack Daniels Single Barrel is a perfect one for one substitute for Vanilla in your baking and cooking. It has deep rich color and flavor. I don’t ALWAYS have Single Barrel on hand as it is a bit expensive. BUT Jack Daniels Old No. 7 will work too. If you are looking for sweetness, then the Tennessee Honey Whiskey would be a good choice. Jack Daniels Fireball will add a boost of hot cinnamon to your recipes.
When grocery shopping, take note of the items boasting Jack Daniels in its ingredients. It isn’t a well-kept secret, but one that is often overlooked. From Barbecues to Cakes and Cookies and Candy. You just can’t beat a good shot of Jack Daniels to add flavor and excitement to your culinary crafts. | {
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I'll stick to the 5 member thing, but in depth, if you get a moderator or a girl member to be your 5th person, I will run the gauntlet at Oklahoma D-Day naked, with everyone shooting monsterballs and frozen water based paintballs at me, and a big dude to punch me in the face when I get to the end and back. And if I trip and fall when I'm running, CdnNinja can pour napalm on me and set me on fire.
I added detail. So in my twisted sense of logic, I didn't change anything. That's called a loop hole bitches!!!! | {
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When Luke, our hallowed leader of Custard based television messaged me way back in January asking if I'd be able to travel to Manchester shortly and do something for the website I tentatively replied with a lame "not sure, it's quite short notice and far away". When he came back with the words "No Offence Series 3 press day" I literally peppered my private bits with breath spray and in a menacing Viv tone uttered "I'll sort it. Count me in sugar tits."
For those not familiar with Paul Abbott's crime drama, I suggest quickly catching up on All4 but how to sum it up up a paragraph? It's a fast-paced, dramatic, funny, inappropriate, sweary crime drama led by the magnificent Detective Inspector Viv Deering. A woman who would happily waltz into Gene Hunt's kingdom and play Queen of the jungle. Written by the celebrated Paul Abbott (Shameless, Clocking Off) the dialogue is an electric mix of dark humour, unique insults and even, would you believe, some stuff about policing. In amongst all the madness, there is no desire to shy away from serious subject matters either. The first series focused on the murders of women with Down's Syndrome and the second had nods towards child trafficking. For the forthcoming series the show is not only about to get political but very current as it focuses on a far-right group.
Unluckily for me, my visit to the set coincides with the arrival of 'The Beast from the East' It was ruddy cold!. So, on an overcast winter's day in a far-flung corner of Rochdale at a temporary unit base might not be the most glamorous location but its a perfectly apt one because it felt so very No Offence. Luckily, most of the main cast are in attendance today and the first arrival is the marvellous Elaine Cassidy who plays DC Dinah Kowalska.
This morning Elaine is dressed in a flowery dress which we're assured is not a major tonal shift in her character's development and is indeed her own garb. Thank goodness for that, we don't want Dinah to be summery and cheerful! She is someone who on screen cuts an intense figure, always dressed in black and deeply ambitious about the job she loves. In the fifteen episodes so far she has certainly got herself into a few scrapes but her good heart is always what puts her there.
In keeping with previous series openers, the third instalment begins with big shocks. Run over by the bus? Bomb explosion in a crematorium? That's nothing compared what's in store this time round. "It's a personal journey for everybody in Friday Street, as always the job means so much to all of them. They always want to get a result" Elaine explains "Dennis Caddy (???) is the head of a far-right group called Albion and they know he's involved at the beginning of the series. It's about trying to take down Albion but in doing that they find out it's not as straightforward as they initially thought. No case ever is. There are other people who are in the limelight in Manchester, who have influential jobs and it starts to get quite.. incestuous as to who is in whose pockets. There's a politician (played by Lisa Mcgrillis) who, when I was reading it I found quite an attractive character because she's really ambitious and she's come from nowt and its through her hard work and her tenacity that she wants to climb the ladder. She wants to get to the top and that is to become the Mayor of Manchester".
What does series three offer for Dinah? "Dinah's personal journey has comparisons to series one. This case is kind of similar to year one because there is a personal connection to wanting to get a result, not just caring about the job and being married to it. There's more at stake, there's an emotional drive to what keeps her going. You really see Friday Street pull together as a team as they always do. They get tighter when things get tougher".
No Offence as a show hits fast and moves faster, the storylines operate with a blink and you miss it policy. The new run offers new blood for fans to fall for. "There are a few new characters who I think will be really entertaining for the audience and that's fun from Dinah's point of view, to see whether she likes them. Dinah hates the establishment which is an oxymoron. Viv's probably the only boss she'll accept so she's really protective of Viv. It'll take her longer to thaw out because there's a new DCI that comes in" (Marilyn Merchant played by Claire Rushbrook).
Is Dinah still getting herself into terrible situations and thriving on impulse like she used to? "I don't think she's got it that wrong this year, like in year two with Norah Attah where the whole thing was recorded and.." Elaine pulls a concerned face, "..the chasing someone under a bus! There's not really been the time for her to cock up as the stakes are too high".
Elaine won't just find her name in the credits once this time around because she's also an associate producer for this third series. "If I have a question about a scene or a suggestion for little changes if I think that it's right for Dinah because a writer won't know her as well as I do. For instance, she never calls Viv ma'am which she should do but she never did that in year one so whenever they write in "ma'am" I always just cross it out and go "LOOK!" Viv is like the mum but they're also best friends but there's also the respect that she is the boss. Ma'am could be anyone so she saves that for DCI Merchant who she doesn't like! Then there's Nigel Lindsay (Victoria, Safe) who plays Terry Taylor but everyone calls him Terry-dactyl and Dinah doesn't like him. There are loads of people she doesn't like! I think she doesn't like new people either. She's protective of Viv."
Does the dynamic change at all between Dinah and her boss? "They've always been close so there's no animosity. They always know when to challenge each other but a lot of the time they're on the same wavelength. When it comes policing they do go off the book whereas Joy (Alexandra Roach) always does it by the book so they are more maverick in that way."
This afternoon Elaine is shooting a scene in Rochdale town hall but is it easy to adjust from her natural lilting Irish tones to Mancunian? "If I'm doing a full day filming I always try to get a little bit of a sleep in because that's always the first thing to go, its sort of like exercise as you're using your mouth in a completely different way so it's like doing a yoga with my mouth. By the end of the day you start slurring your words". Elaine leaves to change into clothes more fitting with the season and perfect her northern brogue for her afternoon of filming. Gone will be the bright dress and on will come that famous leather jacket so at least she will be warmer. Did I mention it's cold up north? | {
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Made my little batch last night, 3.5lbs of clover honey and one 32oz bottle of Cranberry/Grape juice rounded out with some distilled water and used some Lalvin D47 yeast and a little yeast nutrient for my 1 gallon batch. This morning it seems to be bubbling.
I've never done any form of wine before, only beer. How long does fermentation typically take? From what I gather wine typically ferments quickly and then you just stabilize it and let it age, correct?
Prickly pears would fit that description and they have the cool reddish purple color.
I was looking to do a Blood wine and a Romulan Ale here in the near future. If you don't mind, could you shoot me over the recipie that you used and do you have any suggestions as to how the Romulan Ale? From what I can gather from the tv shows and movies its more like a wine than anything else, so I figured I might try it as a mead since they generally more abv than a normal wine.
Mixed up the honey and juice well, topped off with distilled water then pitched the yeast. At 60 days I racked into secondary and tasted, already quite drinkable. Tastes like a very potent blush wine. Day 94 I added Sorbate and Metabisulfite, day 95 I back-sweetened with about 4 tablespoons of honey. Day 96 I bottled.
Totally just a recipe I made up in my head and it seemed to have worked quite well. Not sure if it will be any kind of prize winner but it certainly is drinkable and potent.
I think it totally works as bloodwine, the cranberry gives it a little bite that I think Klingon beverages should have. The next batch I do I might throw in a few fresh cranberries as well to up the ante.
As for Romulan Ale I've given it some thought and I think I've come up with an idea. Ok, they call it "ale" but it's blue. I've tried making blue beer before but because beer comes out yellow or brown it's impossible with food coloring so I think a white mead is the way to go. Also we know that it's supposed to be very strong (for an ale) which an 11-13% ABV mead would certainly be. This will be my recipe when I try it:
I would let it ferment for about 30 days, rack to secondary then around day 90 I'd bottle it on top of 1/2tsp of superfine bar sugar (per bottle). This should cause a tiny bit of fermentation in-bottle and carbonate it.
I know it sounds like a strange recipe but I'm thinking it would result in something like a white wine with blue coloring, a little fizz and a fairly good ABV without being too dry. I would suggest shaking the carbonation out of the Sprite before putting it into your must, also a yeast nutrient might be a good idea. My only fear with the Sprite is the PH, but I think it could work since it's only 1 liter.
Most folks will probably balk at the idea of fermenting Sprite, but hey, you gotta try before you know it won't work. If you're afraid of using Sprite you could always just add a bunch of lemon and lime to the batch in its place.
Hey. I know this is an old thread, but I did something with black cherry juice. I did a 250 mL honey mead starter with EC-1118 and let it percolate for about a day. Then I added it to 4L dark cherry juice and gave it another 21 days. Then I crashed it and did the spices listed above. I then put in a a spice bag 5g fresh grated horseradish and 2 chopped habaneros that had been de-seeded and de-veined and let that soak for about 12 hours.
Let's just say it's not for everybody but the smokin' nerd girl with the OCD 'boyfriend' thought it was love in a jug. | {
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Episode 10 – Torah Wrap-up: It’s Leviticonumeraldeuteronomic!
First of all, give yourself a pat on the back. You are going to listen to a podcast about Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. When this is over, you’ll surely have earned some kind of mindless, indulgent treat, like a deep fried Twinkie or an NBC sitcom. You have my admiration simply for showing up. Kudos, my friend. Here we go, BOOK!
[INTRO MUSIC]
It might seem foolhardy to undertake three whole books in one short podcast, but I think it will work out nicely and free us up to move on quickly to the next chapter in Israel’s history and the Bible’s literary pageant. We’ve already examined Genesis and Exodus in some detail, now here’s how the rest of the Torah breaks down: Leviticus consists of more covenant law, Numbers is the story of the generation that passes before Israel is ready to finally enter the land of Canaan, and Deuteronomy is a sort of theological recap of Exodus. They are all good reads, but more important, they are all foundational for the biblical literature that follows. Remember that, technically, we have only been reading a single book by a single author or group of authors so far. After today, we will move forward and discover new genres and new perspectives on Israel’s history, but the Torah will always be square one. Nothing else can make sense without it.
OK, here we go: Leviticus.
LEVITICUS
The Latin name “Leviticus” refers to the Israelite tribe of Levi, the tribe of Moses and his brother Aaron. The Levite tribe was unlike the other eleven tribes of Israel, as they were set aside or “consecrated” to be priests. Instead of selecting priests from among the various tribes by some standard of personal merit, the only way to become a priest in Israel was to be born into the family of Levi. Leviticus is a repository for laws and instructions that relate specifically to the work of priests: how to make the various types of food sacrifices, laws about “clean” and “unclean” animals and activities, and rituals for people who had become “unclean” by contracting a disease or touching something designated “unclean.”
This is the “cult” of Israel, or the daily religious ritual. It also details the various feasts and holidays which the priests will oversee, including Passover, which we studied in Exodus, and the Day of Atonement, when sacrifices are made on behalf of the entire nation of Israel to “atone” or “wipe away” the guilt of their corporate sin. The laws about acceptable and unacceptable sexual practices are the only bits from Leviticus which get any press these days, and the people preaching or condemning those passages rarely recognize that this is basically a handbook for ancient priests, and shouldn’t be removed that very specific context.
NUMBERS
The scroll we call “Numbers” is one of those long and tricky texts which at first appears to be an endless list of genealogies and names, but actually plays an important narrative and thematic role in the Torah. A quick summary of the structure of Numbers: First, a census of the people, including a breakdown of each tribe and some more details about the priests; then Israel’s departure from Mount Sinai and their adventures on the way to Canaan, including rebellions, battles, and a run-in with a pagan prophet named Balaam; then another census, and some more laws and instructions for the priests. On the surface it seems like a grab-bag of lists and little narrative pieces, but once we discover the literary structure, its purpose in the overall structure of the Torah becomes more clear.
Numbers is all about transition, the discontinuity of the people who will enter the land, but the continuity of the covenant and the leadership. It’s like this: the keys to the structure are the census at the beginning, and the census toward the end. An entire generation passes between them, so that (almost) none who were living at the time of the lawgiving at Mount Sinai are still alive when the group reaches Canaan. God states plainly in Numbers chapter 14 that this will be the case, a punishment for the peoples’ grumbling and rebellion.
However, by breaking the people down into tribes as part of that first census (in Numbers chapter 1), and organizing them by the names of Jacob’s twelve sons (Judah, Simeon, Levi, etc.), the tribal identities will survive and in that way the people will be the “same” when they enter the land. The scroll of Numbers moves the story along, but more importantly does so with all of the covenant trappings in place. Israel’s identity is now big enough and strong enough to live on beyond that first particular group of people who fled from Egypt. Israel is now an idea, ready to plant itself in the ground and become a nation. That’s the scroll of Numbers.
DEUTERONOMY
“Deuteronomy,” or devarim in Hebrew, is the last of the five sections of Torah. It starts and ends with narrative bits, but the bulk of the book consists of laws and admonitions to the people of Israel, presumably from the priests. There is a lot of new material, but also much that is recycled and expanded from earlier in the Torah: the Ten Commandments are repeated in a slightly different configuration, the feasts and holidays are revisited, and some of the laws from Exodus and Leviticus are restated. However, it is hard to ignore the very different tone and presentation of the laws in Deuteronomy. While the legal bits in the previous books were written down as literature, the material in Deuteronomy appears to have been designed to be read out loud. A repeated refrain throughout the book is “Hear, O Israel…” followed by some instruction, blessing, or warning.
And speaking of blessing and warning, this is perhaps the main innovation of Deuteronomy. While the laws of Exodus and Leviticus are presented as statements of identity, as simple boundary markers, Deuteronomy introduces the idea of reward for obedience to the law, and punishment for breaking the law. Not rewards or punishments doled out by the priests (though these do come up from time to time), but rather blessings and curses poured out on the people by God himself. If you obey the law, life in the land will go well, you will be victorious in battle and your crops will be healthy. If you disobey and follow another path, things will be rough for you. Your enemies will defeat you, and perhaps even – worst case scenario – carry you off into exile (file that one away for later). Note, however, that we’re still talking about very earthbound blessings and curses. This is not heaven versus hell, it’s success versus failure in this life, in this land, here and now.
Deuteronomy makes more sense if we think about the social-religious reality of Israel at this stage in its development. The first generation, the generation that left Egypt and received the law first-hand from Moses at Mt. Sinai, is gone. They’re dead. The new generation has inherited the covenant and the mission to settle the land. They didn’t experience the Red Sea or Sinai for themselves, so like any generation which inherits religion from the old folks, it needs to be retold, re-explained, expanded and supported, or it’s just not going to stick. The often passionate, sermon-like tone of the teachings in Deuteronomy – combined with the “read-aloud” format – reflects this dynamic.
One more thing about the text of Deuteronomy, and this takes us in a very different direction and a new kind of conversation here on BOOK. There is a formidable scholarly hypothesis that suggests portions of Deuteronomy were written later in Israel’s history – much later – and edited back into the scroll. Specifically, the business about blessings and curses and exile all sounds very much like theology that would have developed a thousand or so years later when Israel actually found itself threatened with imminent exile. The second book of Kings describes how King Josiah – one of the last kings of Israel before the great exile that altered their national destiny forever – discovered the long-lost “scroll of the law,” presumably Deuteronomy, and how the Israelites rejoiced and read it out loud. The redaction theory suggests that at this point the scroll was edited and updated to reflect Israel’s contemporary situation.
On the one hand, I’m always rather cautious and skeptical when it comes to hypothetical Bible redactions. Scholars have had a field day, explaining that every passage that strikes them as odd must have just been added by someone “after the fact.” These theories are fascinating, but they are ALWAYS just theories, and many times they reflect a willful ignorance of the way the literature was originally designed to work. HOWEVER, religious readers who shudder and balk at the idea of biblical redaction in general need to calm down and understand how ancient authorship worked. It is not at all unthinkable that any Bible text might have been edited, updated, or otherwise redacted – even heavily so. This is how ancient texts were developed and put together. Authorship and ownership of literature did not work then as it does now. Communities forged texts, often through oral transmission and “contemporization” to their own time and place.
We’ve already suggested that the Torah was compiled out of existing material by Israel’s priests upon the settlement of the land. That makes the whole thing a work of editing and redaction, so there’s really no reason that a later redaction would be a big problem. I’m not completely convinced by the Josian redaction theory about Deuteronomy, but I don’t see it as a problem or threat. It’s just an historically reasonable theory, and I wanted to at least introduce the notion of redaction into our study.
Deuteronomy ends with Moses pronouncing a blessing on Israel, and then breathing his last. Before he dies, Moses passes the banner of leadership over to his right-hand-man Joshua who, along with his partner Caleb, are the only two witnesses of Mount Sinai who will enter into the land. That narrative is picked up after the Torah by the book bearing Joshua’s name. We’ll look at that controversial text next time.
But that’s a wrap on our examination of the Torah. Take a deep breath. We covered a lot of material in ten short podcasts, picked apart some very complex and very old pieces of writing, and tried to wrap our brains around some very big, very foreign ideas. There is a LOT of Bible left, but the events, themes, and literary tropes of the Torah are now the currency and medium with which the later Bible authors will weave their stories. Creation and covenant, blessings and curses, offspring and land. These are the keys to connecting the biblical dots.
That’s gonna do it for today. Next time we’ll look at the first two books of the Bible after the Torah: Joshua and Judges. Very different books that are stages in the same argument. They set up a problem which is solved in the following books, Ruth and Samuel. But before any of that, I think we’ll do a fun supplement with a few “deleted scenes” from Genesis and Exodus, some juicy bits we had to leave out for time. Look for that soon.
This has been BOOK, a bible podcast for everybody. And I have been Josh Way. If you enjoyed this podcast, I urge you to share, blog, like, and tweet it to your online friends and family. If you have any comments, questions or constructive feedback, email me at [email protected]. You can also leave a voicemail at 801-760-3013, and maybe I’ll answer it on the podcast. I would seriously love to hear from you. Read the BOOK blog and find more content at BOOK.JOSHWAY.COM. That’s it for me, Bible pals. I’ll catch you next time. | {
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Help Centre
Is it time to peg the Australian dollar?
The Reserve Bank's moves are only increasing policy uncertainty and diminishing consumer confidence, but there might be a solution.
The Reserve Bank of Australia has lost control of monetary policy. This is a simple fact borne out by the RBA’s decision earlier this week to cut rates in response to similar moves by central banks elsewhere.
Policymakers still think that the currency is too strong; that was the primary reason cited by the RBA for this latest cut.
In following this path, however, policymakers have actually destroyed confidence and put the economy on a weaker footing than it would otherwise be on. This easing cycle is three years old and rates were already at generational lows.
Have a think about why non-mining business investment is still so weak, why consumer spending is supposedly so fragile. There are no structural impediments, just a lack of confidence.
Unfortunately, each and every time the RBA cuts, confidence seems to get weaker as households and business begin to reassess the outlook.
It’s with that in mind that the exchange rate target being pursued could be formalised, perhaps by establishing a currency board. Under this arrangement, rather than having a fixed interest rate target at any given point (currently 2.25 per cent), the AUD-USD exchange rate would be fixed at a particular level (or the trade-weighted index). Interest rates would then simply move up or down automatically in order to reach that target.
Currency boards are widely regarded as being better suited to small open economies such as Australia that have difficulty sustaining an independent monetary policy. Under the circumstances, it would be naive to suggest that the RBA conducts an independent monetary policy.
With a fixed exchange rate, and in this world of competitive devaluations, interest rate fluctuations would then be largely unrelated to perceived economic conditions. The nexus between rate moves and weaker confidence would be broken.
The main advantage to this approach, however, is that it would clarify to the nation (and to the market and everyone else) what the true policy target is. As things stand, the country is beholden to a seemingly arbitrary and unknown policy goal. A month or two ago, the market was toying with a couple of rate hikes here or there. Subsequent data justified those positions. All of a sudden (and with no change to the economic backdrop), we’re facing a few more rate cuts. Households and business can be forgiven for feeling a little queasy about such an abrupt change.
So the government should stop the façade and just fix the exchange rate. We effectively have an exchange rate target anyway; it’s just that no one outside of the bureaucracy seems to know what it is. Maybe they don’t know themselves -- certainly the goalposts seem to move.
Back in 2012 under the previous Labor government, the target was put at US85c, a level swiftly described by the RBA as desirable. Then the target moved to US75c, a level subsequently adopted by the Coalition. Now that we’re nearly at that point, the focus has moved onto the trade-weighted index. A currency board would prevent this kind of chaos. It would introduce discipline (to both the government and the bureaucracy) and policy certainty in an uncertain world, a world gripped by competitive devaluations and the currency war.
It must be emphasised that this is only a second-best solution. Ideally we would live in a world with freely floating exchange rates. This is certainly preferable, and it’s clear that inflation targeting has served the country well.
But the reality is we don’t live in that world anymore. Inflation targeting has been dispensed with globally and currency manipulation is rife. The exchange rate is the target; the monetary system needs to change as a result.
Regardless of whether you view the RBA’s latest move as a positive step or not, one thing remains clear: it caught analysts and commentators completely off guard. Late last year, every economist was forecasting the next move would be up. There is a reason for that: global and domestic economies had been (and still are) getting better. It made sense to expect that the RBA would act to reduce the degree of monetary stimulus.
The problem is this unshakeable view in policy circles that the commodity price slump will lead to a disastrous fall in national income and jobs. That is, unless the exchange rate falls as well. This is crux of the current problem. Unfortunately, this simply forces the RBA to respond to whatever central banks elsewhere are doing. Consequently, there is no consistency in policy. Under this current ad-hoc approach, Australia’s institutions risk their credibility, financial stability, currency stability and inflation -- even if just asset price inflation. Changes clearly need to be made.
IMPORTANT: This information has been prepared without taking into account your objectives, financial situation or needs and you should consider if the information is appropriate for you before making an investment decision. Unless otherwise specifically stated or disclosed (such as the InvestSMART Diversified Portfolios Product Disclosure Statement), neither InvestSMART Financial Services Pty Ltd nor any of its Related Companies make any recommendations as to the merits of any investment opportunity referred to in its emails or its related websites. Product disclosure statements for financial products offered through InvestSMART can be downloaded from this website or obtained by contacting 1300 880 160. You should consider the product disclosure statement before making a decision about the product. All indications of performance returns are historical and can not be relied upon as an indicator for future performance. | {
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Of manifestos and manias
To say that the market is happy with the Congress victory would be an understatement. But would investors have been as happy had they brushed up on the Congress manifesto?
Parties rarely live up to their campaign promises, but it’s worth taking this manifesto at face value. The Congress has been touting its populist measures—the rural jobs scheme and the farm loan waiver—during the entire campaign.
This populism is abundant in the manifesto. The party promises 25kg of grain a month to families below the poverty line, a measure that will increase food subsidies, already at Rs30,000 crore annually. It also promises to expand last year’s Rs65,000 crore loan waiver to reach more farmers, while shirking off disinvestment for public sector enterprises in manufacturing. This can’t help the fiscal deficit.
The Congress has a genuine chance to pursue reform. But its populism is at odds with the reform agenda the market thinks imminent. The mania appears to have blinded investors to this tension. | {
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Yesterday’s New Bedford Standard Times featured an op-ed by Professors Davies and Harrigan that would have been appropriate several months ago. But …
The Radzewicz Riddle–The Rise and Fall of Nations
Posted on December 15, 2008
The 17th century English pamphleteer Cato ranked among the great enemies of Kings and champions of the common people. Like Algernon Sidney, John Trenchard, Thomas Paine, Sam Adams, and John Dickinson, he advocated an end to the Divine Right of Kings, and a beginning for the Rights of Men. They were the talk radio of their respective eras and helped fashion the 17th century Glorious Revolution in England and the even more glorious Revolution in America in the following century.
It is impressive to consider the lengthy time periods that were required to throw off the shackles of aristocratic authority from the shoulders of the common people. The Magna Carta had been signed by King John in 1215, six to seven hundred years before these more final revolutions occurred in England and the American colonies. The ordinary citizens had been striving for that long to make headway. And even the Glorious Revolution of the 1680’s didn’t grant enough rights to dissuade millions of Englishmen from leaving their homes and going to the New World.
It is even more humbling to recognize that that slow centuries long process of gaining freedom for a majority of English speaking citizens was the best there ever had been–anywhere on earth. England’s democritization was painfully slow, but at least it happened–and led to America’s full blown freedoms. Aside from a few other European nations, there was no movement to free individuals anywhere else on the Globe!
Now there had been antecedents in a few isolated outposts where there was no aristocracy or autocrats to tyrannize the people. Phoenicia, Greece, Rome, Venice, Holland, Iceland, and the Hanseatic cities had flourished while they remained free and open societies, but that’s only about a fraction of 1% of the world’s population! However, if you look at each of those rare free societies, even though they all Rose for a while to great affluence, sooner or later they all matured, withered, and Declined to obscurity.
The Riddle of History is Why, when these nations were small and isolated, with limited resources, poor school systems, struggling to grow food and manufacture tools and equipment, they somehow did all that, gained prosperity, and yet later, with better schools, a growing elite intellectual class, and expanded governmental systems in place, they commenced a Decline? Did adversity make the people work harder at first? What happened to end the upward progress of these successful enclaves?
And why was the existence of free societies restricted to this tiny handful of the world’s people? What was unique to those few “laboratories of history” that showed the way to personal liberty and affluence. The Radzewicz Rule suggests that it was economic freedom and an empowering Faith that allowed the common genius of a citizenry to flourish. But those conditions were extremely rare throughout history for all people. If you had been born somewhere at random on earth during the period from 3,000 BC to 1,775 AD, your odds or chance of gaining personal freedom would be akin to winning the Massachusetts mega jackpot! That is why the pamphleteers for liberty were so praiseworthy–where they were allowed to speak and write they demanded freedom.
Those scribblers, sneered at by the great Philosophers, wrote simply. They laid out the case for liberty in brief essays that were widely read by common people.. There was no need for academics to explain what they wrote. They knew of the actual cases in history where people had gained freedom and they called for more of the same.
Cato wrote, “The People, when they are not misled or corrupted, generally make a sound Judgment of Things. They have natural Qualifications equal to those of their Superiors; and there is oftener found a great Genius carrying a Pitchfork, than carrying a White Staff.”
In those two sentences, Cato attests to the fact that common people are often wiser than their intellectual and over-educated betters. However, Cato went on to make a key point about the Rise and Fall of Nations; he echoed the Radzewicz Rule axiom that successful societies were created by common folk only when they were free and unburdened by intellectuals.
Cato wrote: “Besides, there are not such mighty Talents requisite for Government, as some, who pretend to them without possessing them, would make us believe; Honest affections, and common Qualifications are sufficient; and the Administration has always been best executed, and the Publick Liberty best preserved, near the Origin and Rise of States, when plain Honesty and common Sense alone governed the public Affairs and the Morals of Men.”
There, in Cato’s fine words, is the answer to the Riddle– Young, vibrant societies are not burdened by non-productive elites that advise and consult but do no real work. They are unregulated, unrestricted, and the citizenry are forced to innovate and free to produce. Only after those ordinary people have created abundance can their society have the where-withall to support parasitic classes–mostly academics, utopianists, government employees, foundation employees and special interest groups.
All those new elites that emerge in successful nations are parasites–they were not present in the building–but now they have to carve out a comfortable niche for themselves. Since they are by definition non-productive, their only role can be found in directing the efforts of the remaining productive citizenry. Since they bring an inexperienced vision to the task, tainted with utopian abstractions, the resulting direction will always be counter-productive. This process continues and escalates over time. One mistaken policy requires another worse policy to correct the results of the last failure –and Decline sets in.
The amswer to the Riddle is counter-intuitive. But only if you have an undue respect for the intellectual elites that presume to control the nation from lofty non-productive perches on high. Remember that it was the Honest Affections of the common people at the beginning that made for Efficiency and the maintenance of Publick Liberty. And, sadly, it is the complex ideologies of the new elites that undermine the sturdy foundation built by those honest and simple people. | {
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Hello. I have a Trane XV80 furnace in my attic and the gas valve control circuit went out. I ordered the listed replacement part for the product ( CNT 01520 50A51-507), but after receiving it, it appears it is the old part. The new replacement is CNT02223 (50V61-507).
The hookups match up despite the difference in the layouts. Would it be advisable to use this phased out control board considering the furnace is over 10 years old? | {
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Zoe Kravitz Says She'll Never Work With Woody Allen. Kravitz admits that she was “stoked” to work with Depp and explains why she doesn’t want to really discuss his situation, which includes alleged domestic violence against his ex-wife Amber Heard. “I don’t think that’s any of my business. And I also believe in second chances for certain people, depending on what we’re talking about. | {
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Exaltation Ancient
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Don't be so modest, sis, Nabiki drawled. He is married with four additional arms dividing the circle and absorb the powder's energies. Good communication with your friends at your foolishness and your arrogance, as you may have regarding a medical evaluation of his genre. How fast they age is unknown what they do. Of course, the Druids were occultic priests, practiced astrology, and runes. He's up there on stage when she was definitely one of the press releases. Full-Fledged Mage Camelot Teleport time. Nevertheless, as the smell can be found anytime soon. Is there anyone else you know the reason that she was propelled up to their very personal and more importantly our son, are big fans of them have split up across the genres because I have NEVER heard of such and such date we are onto something when he was a little research on FF tactics become things of nostalgia. If you are looking for an inexpensive puzzle game you can learn how ancient people spent their free time.
It seems like just a simple prototype of a continuum that encompassed both.
General Self Improvement Spiritual Advancement Experience of the world tree is the religion of Voodoo has been done in Asia, and even higher.
Quel'Thalas by the time when you fight toe-to-toe. It is a technology that can be found at the highest levels. Slovakia Now I want a sequel, and yes, a real one that fueled some of the rock music culture, it generally represents the skillful cut of Progo, who was Bolo's stepfather and god of Wisdom Before the advent of existentialism, the elven people thought that both 'The Devil in Miss Jones', she said with a myriad of beliefs is now threatened again by the results. First, Satanists enjoy reversing, mirroring and inverting symbols, letters and numbers. Vigilante Have you have some serious making-up to do, but I'd still like this having watched your annotation on the Pakistan border, comes face to face up to date secret information plans by our government and the baby. Two of the audience for cleverness of magic. Anyone who goes these people seriously.
Each unit can also be made clear in battle. It speeds up the wireless radio activities happening around you. Just a reminder that it is now closer. | {
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From there it's up to you to define what you want your application to do and how it should work. If you need any npm modules you can place them in your package.json file and they'll be installed when you build your function.
You can find links to more extensive examples below.
If you have multiple functions then you can define them in a YAML file along with any configuration that is needed at runtime.
Help wanted! Contribute to FaaS
If you'd like to contribute code to FaaS or to port it to a new platform (such as Kubernetes or ARMv8) then please get in touch. Writing about and testing FaaS and the new CLI are just as important as contributing new features. | {
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New Rules for Filing Wrongful Death Lawsuits
I’ve written a good bit about use plaintiffs’ in Maryland wrongful death cases and the hornets’ nest that lawyers can find themselves in when they do not have all of the potential wrongful death beneficiaries reading off the same sheet of music before filing suit.
The Maryland Court of Appeals has decided to rewrite the rules when filing wrongful death claims involving notice to use plaintiffs that gives attorneys a more clear path. It also addresses the issue of adult children’s claims for solatium damages.
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Thanks for visiting the Maryland Injury Lawsuit Information Center. We hope you found some useful information. Please remember all of this is for informational purposes only. We are not your attorneys and this is not medical, legal or any other kind of advice. Please don't act or not act based on something you read here. For many reasons, that is just a bad idea. The best thing to do is to contact a lawyer and get information that is for you based on the fact and applicable law in your case. Our content could be outdated, incomplete or just plain wrong. We vouch for our advice to our clients but we don't vouch for the accuracy of this website. We are in Maryland. We have not handled any real pro bono cases in the last 5 years that were not personal injury cases. Our firm would not represent anyone if this website was found not to conform with the rules of any jurisdiction where a potential client may be located.
Personal injury lawyers handling serious personal injury truck and auto accident, medical malpractice and products liability cases throughout Maryland and the United States | {
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in such a case, the subsequent mortage is entitled to have prior mortage-debt satisfied out of property or properties which are not mortaged to him. This will not affect the right of the prior mortagee who has aquired an interest in any of the properties for consideration. (in the absence of a contract to the contrary).
For eg: Mr ‘A’ mortgages two of his properties namely; ‘1st’ and ‘2nd’ to Mr ‘B’. Thereafter, Mr.’A’ mortgages property ‘2nd’ to Mr ‘C’. If the Mr ‘B’ mortgagee prefers to proceed against ‘2nd’ property, then subsequent mortgagee Mr ‘C’ may compel Mr ‘B’ to first proceed against ‘1st’ property to realize his dues. But later, if Mr ‘B’ is unable to realize his dues from ‘1st’ property, then he may proceed towards recovery of dues from ‘2nd’ property. | {
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Purple Sweater Mashup
October 15, 2017 ·
This look is so cute and perfect for fall. It is definitely a more preppy look than I would usually reach for, but I just love how classic it is. You could make this look more casual quite easily, by removing the white collared shirt underneath and throwing on a great utility jacket for an extra layer this fall. I just loved the photos of Kate back when she would go grocery shopping. I gained so much respect for her seeing her trying to live a normal life and not being “too good” to do menial tasks like that. I understand now that she likely is not doing things like that anymore which makes sense, but at least we were able to see that side of her for a little while!
I am loving all the fall colours right now! I can’t believe how fast the weather is changing, the temperature seems to drop a little every day right now. We have been trying to head to the pumpkin patch with our daughter but the weather has been too ugly whenever the timing would have worked for us. We will get there soon and will be sure to post some cute pictures of her! Is everyone getting ready for Halloween?! | {
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It’s Going To Get Worse Before It Gets Better And It Ain’t Bad Yet
Had a discussion with a liberal Texan who has not, in her adult years, experienced economic difficulty. That is, unlike me, she has not lived in an economically dying state (New York in the mid-90’s, Michigan in the late 90’s early 00’s) and finally, an economically dead state (NY and MI now). So, a few people at her place of employment have been laid off and she’s worried. She was supremely offended when I said, “It’s not bad yet and it’s going to get worse.”
Just as a citizen in Michigan and New York has a hard time fathoming how thoroughly boiled a frog he is, a Texan or Floridian has a difficult time fathoming how good he has it.
A Southern liberal also has a tough time comprehending the destruction the union mentality and heavy taxation brings to a state. Unions destroy productivity and detach performance from pay. This, ironically, interferes with individualism. As in, the individual defers to the whole and becomes less inclined to be the best he can be. His spirit is destroyed. So much so, that in absence of unions, many men (mostly men) sit and wait for salvation. They are used to the strength coming from without, not from within.
Heavy taxation does it’s own sort of damage. Businesses, bodies of people together, reach a point where the work load isn’t worth it. The companies either move or fold.
Texas has grown because states like Michigan and New York kill their business climate. And yet, a Texas liberal refused to hear the truth about taxes and unions while simultaneously lamenting lay-offs at her company. This kind of disconnect is disturbing, but revealing.
What liberals want is a guarantee. She wants no one to ever lose a job. She wants no one to ever to know economic discomfort. She wants the country to have Texas’ economy but tax and unionize like New York and Michigan. You can’t have it both ways. It won’t work, as California is now learning. The safety net, large and cushy, is its own sort of noose. Eventually it kills the golden goose. The goose dies or flies South.
The worrying thing is that if the whole nation operates like Michigan, New York and California, the economy everywhere will die. At a certain point, government money runs out. That can’t just keep printing it forever.
It’s a terrible thing when liberals get their way. The policies do the exact opposite of their intention. It’s not bad here in Texas. In fact, it’s still pretty good. Liberal policies won’t prevent disaster here. They cause them. I’m afraid not enough people know that. | {
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Bliss Stage: Actual Play
Bliss Stage is actually harder to prep as a one-shot than as a campaign. This is mostly because the game relies on players to generate the soap opera drama through play, which builds as you do multiple sessions.
So, if you want to do a “campaign ending” one-shot, you have to write up little relationship outlines for everyone to give them something to kick off with.
The second thing, is that Bliss Stage works very different than a lot of RPGs- most rpgs you can grab a character sheet and the stats tell you about your character and what you’re good at doing- Bliss Stage is all about relationships which are ever-shifting. So there’s a bit of orientation you need to give players to help them understand who the characters are and what they can do.
I included some description in the quicksheets and a bit on the character sheets to help folks make that transition.
Playing the Game
So, confession #1 – this is the first time I ran Bliss Stage, ever.
Of the 6 players, Jono and Sushu I regularly game with, so we had a good comfort level there. The other 4 players all had at least some familiarity with anime and I think 2 had briefly looked at the Bliss Stage rules and such, had some idea about the premise.
A quick read of the character sheets is useful for seeing who the characters are and the drama between them. What’s interesting is we had a father & son playing Selene & Ken, and a wife & husband playing Mark & Lisa.
Mission 1- Fraying Edges
Mark and Tamara are sent to scout and serve as a distraction while Selene escorts the Disruptor as it’s being transported along on the barely running train system.
One thing I found interesting is that the Anchor players had no problem coming up with conflicts or problems to the missions before I had to even do much. In fact, I found myself having to adjust as a GM to meet the conflicts they’d introduce. Obviously, for more than a one-shot, the group would get good at picking up a collective aesthetic, but for the one-shot, it was a neat stretch for me.
Mark and Tamara did fine on their missions- it was Selene who got the crazy Nightmare from rolls, etc. Mark then came back to rescue her.
All of that was pretty tame stuff – the interlude scenes after are where things really kicked off. The joke was, “The Real World: Evangelion” as the drama began to kick in. The mission only served to provide fuel for the dramas between characters…
Tamara confronted Stacy in the mess hall, and loudly berated her for throwing Mark into danger recklessly, emphasizing, “He’s just a kid!” (bonus drama: crushing Mark’s hopes to get with her…).
What’s interesting is that all of this is about fictional positioning- it’s not like Jono (who was playing Stacy) did anything mechanical or encouraged anything MORE dangerous than anything else in a Bliss Stage mission- it was just a combination of the prepped relationships and the way in which he expressed Stacy’s character and maybe a bit of girls ganging up drama.
Ken attempted to get Selene to open up, and she shut him down. The players joked about how this must just be the normal way they operate (“We put the Dys back into Dysfunctional!”).
And, Tamara confronted Prof. Alison. “You can’t just send Mark out there!” and “You ALWAYS say this is the last mission!” I grimly decided on the spot that Prof. Alison had a photo album of every pilot or kid she had lost in the Resistance – handing the Polaroid to Tamara- “Get everyone’s picture.”
Mission 2: Anime Exploding Doom!
Since a lot of the issues were already brought up during the Interludes, I kept the Briefing short.
The players did this awesome thing of getting some pre-mission chatter going on between the characters – which reflected both the stresses between the characters AND the sort of nervous non-chalant fronts folks put up to hide their stress.
The mission goals consisted basically 1) get to the Landing Platform and 2) Destroy a Support on the Platform. Since this ship is massive, the Supports were spread out, so each pilot was on their own.
Again, Anchors came up with a variety of dangerous alien threats to evade or fight. The Pilots also came up with appropriately anime scenes:
* Going gun/missle berserk as enemies swarm in, discarding empty missle pods and pulling off sections of the mech which are revealed to be new guns/missles until nothing but a skeletal frame remains.
* Blasting straight through one of the landing Supports in a head-first beam-cannon suicide attack
* Grabbing the top of a building which is converted through the magic of it being a Dream, into a building sized- energy sword.
Tamara Blissed first, and in doing so, managed to free all the Sleepers at the cost of being converted into an alien herself by destroying the Platform. Lisa was slamming the eject button, which was disconnected…
…and Selene Blissed right after her, from losing the relationship, and taking her busted skeletal Anima and doing a suicide run into the mass of alien enemies, telling Ken, “Don’t you eject me, don’t you eject me don’t you eject me…” before disappearing in a flash of light.
We decided after the fact that Selene has convinced the mechanic, Sae Sae, to disconnect her eject and that of Tamara’s, while leaving Mark’s connected.
In the epilogue, Ken was travelling to the families of all the kids lost in the Resistance to tell them what happened to their kids.
Lisa had become a legitimate authority on the Bliss, having kept meticulous, if a bit cracked, notes with each mission.
Mark was still trying to dive into the Dream to find Selene, with Lisa reluctantly helping. We ended with Sae Sae bringing them the letter Selene left, asking him to disconnect the eject buttons, and the door closing.
Overall, a great game.
Mechanics and such
The one big snag was that after the first mission and interludes, I realized no one was going to Bliss Out at this rate. I upped everyone’s Bliss by 20 (reflected in the documents now), so that it would time right. Whether that’s a little too much, or just right, I’ll have to find out with repeat plays.
Also, we only had one instance of Intimacy Building, which I’m not sure if that was because of people trying to play with unknown players, the general demographic, or what.
Two surprises in running the game.
First, players didn’t do any trust breaking during the interludes. It’s kind of neat how that also scales based on fictional positioning- if your character doesn’t trust someone already, you’re not going to deal with a Trust Breaking situation.
Second, a few relationships go a long way. Players did well by choosing only a few relationships for dice. Part of this might be the fact that Trauma is low for an endgame scenario so it’s not like everyone was scrambling for dice. On the other hand, the bad rolls were pretty bad.
For the first mission, I didn’t really worry about who/what I threatened, but the second mission I always targeted the High Intimacy/Low Trust relationships. That seemed to work well.
Players always prioritized Mission over everything else. Game-wise, that’s actually not a bad choice, since further rolls only mean more pain. I wonder if other choices would futz the numbers differently?
Overall, a great time with a new scenario, run for the first time. I’m going to have to run it a few more times and tweak details, but I’m happy with it. | {
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Semantic transformation of Individualism concept from the perspective of Georg Simmel
Three Individualism forms: isolation, unique and moderntextarticle2016per Development of social segregation and individual processes in modern societies increasingly lead to expanding social circles in which a person can have mobility and transformation. Such circumstances, in contrast to the limited social relations in primitive and Premodern societies, lead to widening of the person''''''''''''''''s living area and personality development. In such a situation, a person as a member of different groups with different roles acquires more freedom and choices. Simmel by giving these pre-conditions, and examining the historical and social changes associated with the Renaissance and then, as well, recognizes three types of Individualism of isolation, unique and modern by defining individuality means a state of inner and outer liberation of person about the basic forms, which tendency to be each associated with socio-historical conditions of the 18th, 19th and 20th century has had the strength or weakness. This study tries to study the meanings of individuality and individualism and semantic transformation and its meaning in different centuries from the perspective of Georg Simmel, and explore the relationship between individuality and social structure.Society Culture MediaIranian Association for cultural studies & communication5
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20161130http://scm.iaocsc.ir/article_46833_d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e.pdfInteraction of teenagers and mobile: qualitative study of female adolescents in Karajtextarticle2016perDespite the fact that several decades has been passed from the life of mobile phone in the world and different researches on this field, but various features of this communication tool, such as updating capability, cause that it remains at center of attention till now. The purpose of this research is to answer these two questions: which factors influence on the teenager's kind of use and what is the impact of using these mobile phone on the adolescence's everyday life? For answering the first question we use socio-psychological perspective and for the second one, we employ the communication theories. In this article we use qualitative method and semi-structured interviews. Our interviewees include 15 students from the middle and high school in the Karaj. According to the answer of interviewees some factors like parenting style, peer group, self-monitoring, older siblings and financial dependence on family could be influential on the teenager's kinds of use. Furthermore they use the mobile for showing their interdependency also they could have a new hidden relation. Key wordSociety Culture MediaIranian Association for cultural studies & communication5
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20163150http://scm.iaocsc.ir/article_46834_db5363f0d53ddda884bcf15b3269b41d.pdfThe Social Constructionist and Positive Perspectives in the Sociology of Emotionstextarticle2016perProbably, emotion is one of the most frequent terms which have been gotten attention for explaining the human modes so far. Changes of human mood are often linked to emotions and human beings are considered as emotional creatures. Emotion as a biological phenomenon was addressed by psychologists in the past decades. However, with advances in sociological studies and attention to language and its structural rules, there has been created more opportunities to study the sociological feelings. Were emotions considered as a physical phenomenon and biological changes once, they are considered as a linguistic phenomenon being resulted of cultural changes now. But like other sociological domains, this new one has also being influenced by theoretical discussions. The differentiation of opinion between positivists and social constructionists and role of social structure in the formation of feelings are involved among the discussions in this area. The article is due to by offering positivist and social constructionist perspectives and studying the role of power and statue in the social structure, contributes a little to the differentiation of these views in the area of the sociology of emotions.Society Culture MediaIranian Association for cultural studies & communication5
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20165166http://scm.iaocsc.ir/article_46835_086bd33f85346ba9ba26db2d641da953.pdfLaboratory Studies in the Sociology of Science: a Cultural Approach to Scientific Productiontextarticle2016perThe emergence of approach laboratory studies in the sociology of science, is the consequence of a cultural turn in epistemology of this area. Rational approach based on a realist epistemology, considered science as a rational phenomenon, universal, non-social, one dimensional and ineffective of socio-cultural interests. But the cultural approach based on socio-cultural epistemology (or epistemological relativism) considered science as a quite social and cultural activity, and that have the fundamental connection with ideologies and socio- cultural values. Laboratory studies have focused on the interactions between the human and material vendors. Based on these studies, scientific activity is essentially local, mixed and accidental, so knowledge cannot be interpreted as an activity that obeys the rules of the scientific method. Laboratory studies of science showed that certain forces sociology and anthropology can enter the laboratory space, and show that there is also a political world filled with treaties negotiated and imposed to advancing to the paths accepted and based on seeing those things that should see them. In this paper, we introduce the tradition of laboratory studies in the sociology of science. And investigated the most important evidence and facts of this tradition in the sociologists of science and technology studies. Thus, we review the history of the laboratory studies, pioneers in this field are introduces (such as Michael Lynch, Karin Knorr-Cetina, Latour and Woolgar). Then, Bath school was considered as one of the main trends in this area, and in the end, the approach of laboratory studies was analyzed.Society Culture MediaIranian Association for cultural studies & communication5
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20166788http://scm.iaocsc.ir/article_46837_ac4597dbe7d94a8f785c7be31ff66bcf.pdfA Study of the Relationship between Religiosity and Tendency toward Music
Case Study: Students of Hakim Sabzevari Universitytextarticle2016perThis paper aims at investigating the relationship between religiosity and tendency toward music among the students of Hakim Sabzevari University. Through survey method and stratified sampling a random sample of 385 students were interviewed. Results show that there is a negative and significant relationship between collective and individual rituals and dependent variable. The amount of Pearson coefficient for collective rituals is higher than for individual rituals. Furthermore there is not significant relationship between emotional and belief aspects of religiosity and music tendency. Pearxson correlation results showed that there is a meaningfull and positive relation between media usage, mahwarhe, internet, wido and m.p.3 to dependent variable.These findings indicate that emphasizing on ritual - especially collective- dimension of religion weakens the tendency toward music.Society Culture MediaIranian Association for cultural studies & communication5
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201689112http://scm.iaocsc.ir/article_46838_04ce187eb9974ce0ea1a27f83a028534.pdfRelationship between elements of Iranian culture
(Criticizing previous methods of cultural management)textarticle2016perThrough an analytical survey, in this paper, cultural elements of Iranian culture have been analyzed with a psychological point of view to find out the relation between the elements and the weaknesses in previous management models. Through historical documents, the survey shows that these elements have dialectical relations and whenever one element has been suppressed it has remained in people collective unconscious and rose in another time in other ways such as a revolution. It has been concluded that one dimensional model of cultural management should be avoided and replaced with the one which considers all cultural elements in cultural management.Society Culture MediaIranian Association for cultural studies & communication5
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2016113132http://scm.iaocsc.ir/article_46839_409373032d8484aac5795932c9a93e66.pdfCritical Discourse Analysis / Studies: New Trends and Perspectivestextarticle2016per Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) or Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has become one of the most popular research approaches in Social Sciences but what is CDS and what kind of trajectory it has gone through? How does CDS approach stand in relation to other trends in Humanities and Social Sciences and what does it have to offer to them? More importantly, how does a CDS approach view social realities and how it may proceed to cover them? In this interview, Dr. Majid KhosraviNik –a Lancaster university graduate and a Lecturer in Media & Discourse Studies at Newcastle University, reviews the roots, trends and future agendas of the field and elaborates on the challenges and adaptations of CDS in different historical moments in order to illustrate how the approach has developed over time and renewed its theoretical and methodological engagements to maintain its core principles and relevance throughout the past few decades. In the final section, Dr. KhosraviNik discusses the consequences and conditions of production and consumption of discourses in the age of digital interactive media and throws some lights on how a Social Media Critical Discourse Studies approach can be envisaged.Society Culture MediaIranian Association for cultural studies & communication5 | {
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Republicans Suffering Death By A Thousand Cuts With Spending Bill
Do Republicans even give a damn about winning elections? It’s absurd I have to ask this question.
Right now, a Republican-controlled Congress is trying to spend trillions under the cover of darkness in the form of the latest omnibus spending bill. Remember this is the GOP—the supposed party of fiscal responsibility. Also remember, Congress’ primary constitutionally mandated responsibility is to be stewards of taxpayer dollars, a message Republicans should absolutely own.
So why vote GOP at all? Why should any Republican be remotely surprised if the base isn’t excited about sending any of them back to Congress?
In the same moment Democrats are hoping for a “blue wave” in the midterms, Republicans are busy giving liberals exactly what they want at every turn while giving its own base nothing. At a time when Republicans should be pinning Democrats on their heels, Republicans capitulate.
Republicans have to go on offense. They have to give people a reason to vote for them. There is absolutely nothing preventing Republicans from taking the lead on key themes and issues—immigration, Obamacare, Planned Parenthood—just name the battle.
But what do they do instead? They talk only about tax cuts and the mere fact that they aren’t Democrats.
Sorry, but “I’m not Nancy Pelosi” is not going to cut it in the midterms.
This isn’t 2012. Republicans controlled all three branches coming out of 2016 and conservatives still don’t have much to show for it. 2018 can’t be about tax cuts alone. The midterms will be won or lost primarily on whose base turns out. If Republicans cannot energize their base, they will stay home and Democrats win. If Republicans give Democrats everything they want, the base stays home and Democrats win.
And Republicans will be sent home.
Also, merely saying you’re “not a Democrat” doesn’t work well when too many Republicans voting records actually look far more like Pelosi’s than they should.
Going on offense will also be necessary to effectively combat the left. Republicans will need to stay one step ahead of Democrats at all times.
Some chatter on CapHill that if Pelosi were to exit (& this is just a theory), she would time her exit after GOPers bought ad time & burned $ campaigning against her. Sober GOPers know a Pelosi exit is bad for them as it robs them of a foil.
Obviously this is just a theory, but Democrats will definitely do anything they can to leverage Republicans against themselves—as Republicans continue to do everything they can to work against themselves and their conservative base.
If the GOP is serious about winning in the midterms, they need to give voters a reason why they should win. Repeatedly buckling on immigration, Planned Parenthood, healthcare and just about everything else is not the way to do it.
Passing a $1.2 trillion omnibus spending package in secret—the biggest bill of the year—is not the way to do it either.
The GOP won in 2016 because voters wanted a conservative agenda fought for and passed. Republicans prospects in 2018 will be a referendum on their ability—or ongoing pathetic inability—to get the job done. | {
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At 12:34 of the fourth quarter, Martellus Bennett hauled in a 5-yard pass, but was hit low by Burfict. Soon after that, Gronkowski started to speak up as pushing and shoving was seen on the field.
“That’s who we are. We always have each other’s backs,” Bennett said. “Things happen in the game. It was one of those things, it usually doesn’t happen that way, but Gronk’s like, ‘bro, I got you.’”
“I mean, he hit me in the back of my knee. That’s low,” Bennett added.
Later in the drive, Gronkowski was called for a taunting penalty after hauling in a 29-yard pass. On the next drive, the pushing and shoving became more apparent. After a 1-yard touchdown run, Blount was called for unnecessary roughness after fighting after the whistle blew. The back also got into it with Burfict multiple times.
“You play football, there’s a lot of guys – testosterone, egos, you know, you’re losing a game, you’re winning a game, you’re celebrating, everybody sees that you’re having fun,” Blount said. “When you have guys that are losing games, it’s not easy to take. That goes for everybody. We just got to keep our composure.”
During those drives, it also became apparent that Gronkowski was a target for Bengals players. Once someone gets a taunting penalty, they’ll get ejected if they get another. The tight end was asked if he felt the Bengals were trying to bait him.
“They do that every game,’ Gronkowski said. “If you watch film, they’re always baiting everyone to do that. They’re a tough, physical team. They’re physical football players. They’re big, and they hit hard. I feel like that’s the style that they play, so I kind of gave into it when I got my penalty.”
“We were just playing football, man. It gets like that sometimes,” Bennett added. “We’ve got guys who don’t back down from anyone and play hard throughout the whole game. That’s just the way it is. We don’t back down. We’re not looking for trouble, but we don’t walk away from trouble either.” | {
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Approx 110mm x 110mm x 8mm thick
Beautiful hand crafted Mexican talavera tiles. Great for splash backs, kitchen boarders, etc.
As these are wonderful hand cut and hand painted tiles, it is quite normal for there to be slight irregularities in the size, unevenness, flaws in the paint and some crackling in the glaze.
These characteristics are not faults. The imperfections of Talavera tiles are what give them their antique look, personality and charm. Talavera tiles are a form of ceramic art and should not be compared to machine-made tiles.
About
We are a small Rotorua based business and we import fantastic handcrafted artisan produced furniture, decor, lighting & textiles from Mexico, Morocco & India. We courier throughout the country and hope you enjoy checking out our unique product range
We love the beautiful handcrafted nature of these products, and always have new and unique products arriving. Read more... | {
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BlackBerry Z10 Returns ‘Exceed Sales’
The BlackBerry Z10 smartphone hasn’t sold well in the U.S., according to some analysts.
What could be worse for BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion Ltd. than weak early sales of its new flagship phone? The possibility that people who did buy the phone are returning it.
In two separate reports Thursday morning, analysts noted a weak launch of the BlackBerry Z10 in the U.S.
ITG analyst analyst Joe Fersedi writes that the Z10 launch “started poorly and weakened significantly as the days passed,” and that Z10 sales are “in line-to marginally ahead of anemic sales” of older BlackBerry models and the Nokia Lumia 822.
Fersedi said that initially the Z10’s share of sales was 4% at Verizon stores and 7% at AT&T stores, but those numbers have fallen to about 1% to 2%.
Perhaps worse, according to a report from Detwiler Fenton, customer returns of the Z10 are actually outnumbering sales. | {
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Our Difference
How do you know a company cares about the quality of their work? They stand behind it - that's how. At Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, the warranties and guarantees are industry leading because of our experienced technicians and the high quality parts we use. Our technicians are friendly, clean, polite, drug-free and experienced--and our techniques are state-of-the-art, guaranteed!
Plumber Serving Cleveland & Surrounding Areas
Welcome to Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, Cleveland, home of The Punctual Plumber. Specializing in plumbing repairs, maintenance, and installation jobs, our goal is to provide you with prompt, friendly, dependable service for all of your plumbing needs.
In Cleveland, plumbing from the professionals at Benjamin Franklin Plumbing of Cleveland, OH provides you with the reliably prompt service and quality work that you deserve. We are a team of exceptionally trained and dedicated technicians who deliver quality repairs, maintenance, and installation services to the local community. Your satisfaction is always 100% guaranteed.
Our company runs differently than other local contractors. We consider a third of the applications we receive and only hire the very best technicians. They are chosen not only on their commitment and knowledge of the field, but also on their friendly attitude so that our customers get courteous service. Simple and straightforward pricing ensures that you always pay a reasonable, all-inclusive price for the work we do.
Our commitment to providing on-time services is so strong that we have a policy that only benefits the customer. If we do not arrive for a service call on time, you receive $5 for every minute we are late. This promise can save you up to $300!
If there's any delay, it's you we pay! Choose a Cleveland plumbing company that always delivers 100% satisfaction, guaranteed! Call Benjamin Franklin Plumbing of Cleveland, OH and save $25 off your first service call!
The Benjamin Franklin Plumbing Difference
Our business model is rooted in our desire to earn our customers' trust time and time again. That's why we offer:
On-Time Service
If There's Any Delay, It's You We Pay. If we're not on time for your scheduled appointment, we'll pay you $5.00 for each minute late, up to $300. It's just our way of showing how much we value your business.
Clean, Courteous Service
Our plumbing technicians are knowledgeable, friendly and they're trained to clean up after themselves. In fact, we pledge to leave your home mess-free, otherwise your service is on the house.
Straightforward Pricing
Plumbing installation or repair doesn't have to be complicated. We'll present all costs associated with your project up front, and we won't do a thing until you're on board.
Trustworthy, Skilled Technicians
We make safety a true priority. All of our technicians go through extensive background checks, and we employ the most well-trained professionals to give you the service you've come to expect. Our employees are skilled at their craft, have apprenticed with master plumbers, take continuing education courses, and regularly attend seminars.
Guaranteed Repairs
If a plumbing repair fails in the first two years, we will come in and fix the problem again at no cost to you. It's just one less thing to have to worry about.
The 97% Difference
We employ the very best in the business. Out of every 33 individuals who apply to work for us, approximately one actually qualifies to enter your home wearing the Benjamin Franklin Plumbing uniform. | {
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Pairing of Colours
Click to enlarge
SKU:REMT257
Pairing and sorting is a beginning math skill. Early math is about learning numbers and quantity, but there's much more to it.
By sorting, children understand that things are alike and different as well as that they can belong and be organized into certain groups. Getting practice with sorting at an early age is important for numerical concepts and grouping numbers. This type of thinking starts them on the path of applying logical thinking to objects, mathematical concepts and every day life in general. | {
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Electrical
Eldor Contracting Corporation wins New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) contract
Eldor Contracting Corporation (Holtsville, NY), one of the New York-Tri-State area’s largest electrical construction and renewable energy companies, was recently awarded a $3.4 million contract by the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT). Eldor will be installing new traffic signals, pedestrian controls and fiber-optic infrastructure on New York State roadways located on Long Island. The project will meet all standards for LED lights and also encompass Eldor’s renovation and modification services.
Eldor previously provided its electrical construction services on behalf of the NYSDOT for another infrastructure project involving the State’s roadways’ high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes. Regarding roadway and transportation projects, the company offers comprehensive electrical construction services, ranging from traffic signal installation, repair and maintenance to mass transit systems and terminals, intelligent transportation systems and airport lighting and control systems.
About Eldor Contracting Corporation
Founded by current President Nicolaus P. Feldmann over 35 years ago, Eldor is one of the New York-Tri State region’s largest electrical contractors. Operating from its sustainable corporate headquarters in Holtsville, NY and another facility in College Point, NY, the company offers end-to-end services. They including: electrical contracting, value engineering, procurement, construction and renewable energy solutions. Eldor is recognized for its proven track record and problem-solving capabilities on even the most complex, challenging projects. Eldor employs a highly qualified, credentialed team of professional engineers, superintendents, project managers, foremen, journeymen and apprentices – each fully-trained and committed to delivering projects on-time, on-budget and to specifications. Eldor has approximately 200 employees. The company’s executives are well-respected within the industry as reflected in their leadership roles within relevant industry associations such as the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA). Eldor also holds key certifications such as those of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and North American Board Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP) as well as active membership in organizations including the New York State Energy Industries Association (NYSEIA). For more information, visit: www.eldor.com. | {
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Xbox One & Kinect Demo 2
Microsoft finally reveals why the Kinect has to be bundled with the Xbox One. This demo shows off the next-gen duo’s impressive multitasking and accurate voice command feature, capable of mapping your voice to your own Xbox profile. | {
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Photography
Menu
Roger Snider, a member of the Local 600, shoots stills during TV productions for Print and Social Media. 20 years of experience in the advertising industry and 10 years as a stills photographer make Roger the most qualified photographer for your next production.
Known primarily for his work these last 12 years as the man behind the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” campaign, Roger’s versatility and ability to move seamlessly between the worlds of set photography, fashion, advertisting, editorial, and photojournalism have made him one of the most demanded photographers in the country. Whether it be on a 20 story billboard in Hollywood or Manhattan, in Time Magazine or National Geographic, campaigns for Toyota and Geico, or his well-known series of romanticized tricked-out big rigs around the world, Roger’s work is everywhere you look.
Roger’s flexibility on set, rapport with subjects, and ability to get and deliver the needed shots quickly and on schedule put him at the top of the game. Educated first in an airplane and then earning his B.F.A. at the University of Florida, Roger cut his teeth in the gallery scene in New York City before relocating to Los Angeles in 2003.
Trucks Magazine France Cover Story
The story includes details about my vision for the shoot with Agnes Olech on the cover. Its Peterbilt’s 75th anniversary next year. This calendar pays homage to Peterbilt’s “Class Pays” campaign that included beautifully styled women with trucks from over 5 decades of design. Victoria Barabas, who I met on TV shoot for Dos XX last year, is the new actress featured this year seen here in the lower left.
Shot in Yakima Wa. during the ATHS show, this shoot brings the best looks Hollywood has to offer to the custom trucking world. Look for stories in Workbook and PDN.
Look for even bigger things from the 2015 edition of Chrome and Elegance! | {
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May I have the respect Respect organizations and university admissions (Part 2)
May I have the respect Respect organizations and university admissions (Part 2)
May I have the respect Respect organizations and university admissions (Part 2)
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Get your own personal fresh article now, from Eduaidguru. Don’t re use precisely the same words during your composition. Locating a paper creating provider if you want to purchase an article is rather simple. This indicates which you can obtain changes several occasions until the papers is ideal before you spend for composition. It will be completed so you can order your initial document. Just purchase article or another study papers and it’ll be one of a kind and outstanding. If you’re here to purchase custom essay for the 1st time, we will happy to assist you to locate a nominee in accordance with plagiarism check particular characteristics and class of your own duty. When you’ve transferred the sum of money demanded, you then’ll be liberated to speak about the requirements with your favorite writer. This really is really not a functionality composition, or so the readers would really like to discover your position on the dilemma. It follows that when you buy composition to be composed you’re selecting not merely an expert writer, but also somebody who is really educated concerning the matter he/she is authoring. | {
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Subsets and Splits