text stringlengths 64 731k | id stringlengths 47 47 | url stringlengths 14 3.85k | language stringclasses 1 value | language_score float64 0.65 1 | fasttext_score float64 0.02 1 | dataset stringclasses 1 value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Beaks Sharpened, Finches Were Groomed to Fight: Report
Affidavit officers disturbing recipe to make songbirds fight
View Comments ()
Getty Images
This bird is sweet until you sharpen its beak and pump it up with mystery supplements, cops said.
The leaders of an alleged finch-fighting ring apparently used some disturbing measures to make sweet little birds go into brutal combat. They sharpened their innocent little beaks and used mystery supplements, according to an arrest affidavit unsealed Thursday.
Some of the saffron finches seized when cops busted a bizarre bird fighting ring had beaks sharpened to a point and at least one had a sharp metal object attached, police said.
The arrest affidavit unsealed Thursday offers more grim details spelling out the recipe the suspects allegedly used to turn the song birds into fighting machines -- superglue, antibiotics, skin and blood supplements and a mini digital scale.
There were also powders. Cops don’t know what they are, but they're testing them. They think this stuff was all used to treat injured birds and increase their stamina to fight.
Police arrested 19 people from Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey and seized 150 of the birds when they raided the house last month.
The homeowner denied the charges and says he had the birds “for singing.” From the evidence, it seems the only song these birdies might have been singing is the saffron finch fight song. | <urn:uuid:e55be9d9-2478-40bc-a3b2-762b05a89afa> | http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/breaking/Beaks-Sharpened-Finches-Were-Groomed-to-Fight-Report-52666122.html | en | 0.947777 | 0.019842 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Code Red: Lost Ages
This entry is part of the PBM List.
URL: [ dead link ]
Type: science fiction, action, mystery
Last-Update: 2010Dec11
Keywords: free, open-ended, email, www, human, fantasy, space, modern, rpg, abstract
On a world rebuilding itself from a long, bloody war, men and women are taking to the abyss of space and time. With a madman and a betrayed AI on the loose, things are quickly turning grim for the officers of the Vinca Union. In the uncomfortable silence to follow, chaos breeds itself within the very tendrils of time itself, preparing to engulf the world in another war.
Standing between the world and the dark abyss beyond is the VSNS Golden Gryphon (Griffin), a space station that houses thousands of officers working around the clock to protect the planet, Drakor, from annihilation. But they are merely the tip of the iceberg, for inside the deepest depths of the station lies a terrifying device that can alter time... For better or for worse.
Be a part of the Vincan Space Navy and work as a full-time officer aboard the station, or be a captain of your own ship or fleet! If space isn't your cup of tea, join the time travelers who work to explore and prevent disruptions to the fabric of time... Whatever you choose, your fate will be your own.
Site Rating: Peggi 15 (PG-13)
Activity Level: Slow, but paced. Posting will range from a few times each day to three or four times each week.
Roleplay Type: Message Board, On-site Chatroom, Email -- several different ways to roleplay with us!
Open Since: First season Lost Ages began in June 27, 2007. There were a few stops and gos, but second season Lost Ages began approximately September 13, 2009.
Number of Players: 4 full-time currently. 2 part-time.
(Also see for additional information and a simplified method of joining)
Return to the PBM List.
Greg Lindahl | <urn:uuid:e5beb2fd-7dd6-4874-b88a-5ba374003e38> | http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/pbm_list/descriptions/1292028377.3333.html | en | 0.935326 | 0.111347 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Westmoreland man gets 21 years in prison for child sex abuse
Share with others:
Print Email Read Later
A Westmoreland County man who last year videotaped himself abusing an 8-year-old girl was sentenced today to 21 years in prison for producing child pornography, and could serve much longer when a state court weighs in.
Timothy Eugene Shearer, 55, of Avonmore, had nothing to say for himself at his sentencing hearing, and his attorney didn't have kind words for him, either.
"He's going to leave this building hanging his head for the terrible thing he's done," said assistant federal public defender Tom Livingston. "Then he's going to go back to state court where he's going to get banged by a judge."
Mr. Livingston said the best he could hope for was that the courts "give him a chance to die with dignity, at home, with some remnant of family."
Shearer faces state charges including rape of a child, statutory sexual assault of someone under the age of 11 and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child. Trial is set for Oct. 7 in Westmoreland County.
Mr. Livingston said he probably faces a 20- to 40-year sentence for those charges.
"Does he have any bargaining leverage? No," said Mr. Livingston. "Why? Because there's a video."
Mr. Livingston persuaded U.S. District Judge Mark Hornak to let 15 years of the federal sentence run concurrently with any state sentence, and six years consecutively. That means that even after Shearer's state sentence is complete, he'll serve another six years in federal prison.
Assistant U.S. attorney Jessica Lieber Smolar prosecuted the case and presented testimony from the victim's aunt. The aunt said the girl has lost weight, is depressed, can't sleep and "seems to be fearful of adult males."
The Post-Gazette does not identify victims of sexual crimes.
breaking - neigh_westmoreland
Create a free PG account.
Already have an account? | <urn:uuid:32bd7c95-80f3-4daa-8bf4-98eebd528a86> | http://www.post-gazette.com/westmoreland/2013/09/18/Westmoreland-man-gets-21-years-in-prison-for-child-sex-abuse/stories/201309180147 | en | 0.96744 | 0.035195 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Twitter Facebook YouTube
Password Forgot Password
Advanced Search Options
Search Stores By Set
Baseball: Singles 1900-1989
Item Title: 1971 Topps Baseball Card # 518 Joe Grzenda
Current Bid: $0.25 by captkirk History
Sportlots Auctions Q&A
• Why is Sportlots a better way to run online auctions?
• What are 1,2,3 Sold Auctions?
• How does the Max bid feature work?
• Is postage reduced when I win multiple lots?
• What do I do after I win an item?
• How do I sell on Sportlots?
• Seller: morecard(138) View seller's other items
USA:$3.00Mult items: $0.35 More Info?
CAN:$2.00Mult items: $0.35
Status: IN ORDER
Item Desc: You are looking a 1971 Topps Baseball Card # 518 Joe Grzenda in VG condition. No crease and clean back. Card will be ship the day after payment receive. Thanks and good luck.
Item Picture:
| <urn:uuid:760f437a-2cc3-4118-8f24-d36f31712d3c> | http://www.sportlots.com/auction/aucbin/itemdet.tpl?lotnbr=10038308 | en | 0.78759 | 0.021715 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Saturday, February 19, 2011
I Hit a Student
Yes, you read the title correctly. I lost control and hit a kid in the face this past Friday. It wasn’t my intention, but it just sort of happened. I thought I had the situation under control but I was wrong. This is how it happened…
It was a normal Friday morning and I was in the tile gym. I saw the student standing a measly ten yards away from me. He was mocking me, making faces at me, and even doing a fair amount of trash talking. So, I did it. In my defense though, I was aiming for his gut. However, my release was all off and the ball sailed a little high on me and caught this trash talking student right on the chin.
Soon after I released it I knew there would be consequences of this action as a barrage of bombardments balls flew in my direction. I was hit and out before my ill-fated ball even made contact with the poor student’s face.
I continued to play the rest of the game with the over 200 students in the gym that morning and had a blast. More than the fun of the game, but for the relationship building that happens on such occasions. For most students, teachers are just adults in a classroom that assign homework and give tests. In this case, I was a player just like every other person in the room and the kids love it.
Now when I ask the students to put some more effort into a project they are more willing. Why? The reason is that I am not longer just a teacher, but I am also that guy that will take a shot and play bombardment with the kids in the morning. I shoot hoops with them during study halls, and have been known to play RISK with them from time to time. In kid language it gives me a little street credit and that pays large dividends in the classroom.
Kids will work hard and do what is asked of them if it comes from someone they have a positive relationship with. Those relationships may take days, weeks, or months in a classroom. However, if you look in the right places they can be built in a morning of throwing bombardments balls at each other. They can be found playing table tennis, shooting hoops, kicking a soccer ball, or the host of other extracurricular activities available to kids. Those are great places to build those relationships that will help kids buy-in to your classroom and more importantly into you as the teacher.
Relationships are key in life and certainly key in a student, teacher relationship. How are you cultivating your positive relationships with students?
Friday, February 18, 2011
Are Teachers Obsolete?
I recently saw this commercial on TV and it got me thinking. Technology does move faster than the speed of light and the world is struggling to keep up. I remember not too long ago my parent’s first mobile phone. It was a bag that was kept in the car and had about a ten minute monthly plan and everywhere you went was “roaming”. My cell phone does more thing than the first computers I worked on in school. The reality is that the technology we have now will not be around in its current form when our children are our age.
With that being said, one has to reflect on the technology and teaching in the classrooms. Overheads are largely a thing of the past and interactive whiteboards are all over the place. However, has teaching really changed along with the technology being used? Is the way we go about doing our jobs different than a generation ago? As the technology changes and becomes obsolete, are traditional teachers becoming obsolete along with it?
To be clear I would define a traditional teacher as one that stands in front of the classroom as the grand dispenser of knowledge. Students sit in their desks and takes notes and study hard for their tests. Homework is assigned every night because that is what is done and if you turn it in late your grade is lowered. Tests are given as assessment of learning and certainly no such thing as student choice and retakes. To me this was largely what I experienced growing up in a rural public school system.
Has the practice of teaching changed or just the tools we use? Is the way in which students learn changing, or do we just understand it better now? Can a teacher that taught 50 years ago be successful in our classrooms today without adapting and changing to the students in the seats? Can students learn without a teacher? My 5 year old son is learning how to read with his ipad…and I find it an amazing thing to witness… Do the students need us to teach them? Or have our jobs changed?
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Common Sense
It has become abundantly clear to me in recent weeks that common sense is something that truly is not common. Regardless of what the topic or circumstances, common sense is just not common. With that in mind I wanted to share some things that I view as common sense but have gotten feedback to think I may be wrong. Am I wrong or are these things supposed to be common sense these days?
• Students are not motivated by grades.
• Nowhere in the “good teacher handbook” does it say you have to assign homework or grade everything students turn in.
• A five year old boy will always laugh when he farts…and his two year old brother will too.
• Technology is merely a tool and does not guarantee increased learning. Used properly, it most certainly can and will increase learning.
• Education reform is not a buzz word but something being done right now in classrooms around the globe.
• Pregnant women should not drink alcohol.
• Standardized tests are but one measurement of a child. Just as a free throw percentage is but one measurement of a basketball player.
• Good teachers are good because they’re good, not because of tools, resources, or technology.
• Experienced teachers have just as much to learn from new teachers as they do from them.
• The Chicago Cubs will always break my heart.
• Students will not misbehave if they are engaged in meaningful and engaging work.
• You can’t “make” your students do anything, you can only encourage them.
• The best way to see if something works is to try it yourself.
• Everyone is capable of learning.
Again, these are things that I view as common sense but maybe I am naïve. What am I missing that should be considered common sense in this day in age?
To Be or Not To Be...
Over the past few years I have been approached by various peers as well as administrators in my school district about pursuing my administrative degree and joining the administrative ranks. Naturally I find this flattering that anyone would think I would make a good administrator. However, my answer to those requests and comments has always been the same. No. I never say never, but at this point in my considerably short career I don’t see it happening. Recently, I have been trying to evaluate why my answer is always no and why teachers make the choice to become an administrator.
For some people there is a bump in pay which is a realistic and justifiable reason to make the move up the ladder. I don’t do the job for the money so this is not a motivator for me. Teachers that are motivated by money are not doing the job for the right reason and therefore would not make good administrators.
Another reason I see teachers move into administration is for the move up the ladder. In most corporate settings you start as low man on the totem pole and work your way to the corner office on the top. Some educators are not that different and see the move to administration as the move up the “corporate ladder”. I have no desire to move up a ladder and therefore this is not something that appeals to me. I would also argue that administrators that view this as their reason are probably not doing it for the right reason.
The third and final reason that I could think of for becoming an administrator is the increased influence and control that an administrator has in a school or district. Administrators can influence curriculum, school policy, staffing, scheduling, and nearly every aspect of a school. If we have good teachers in these positions we would assume that they could be good administrators. They use the increased influence to move a building or district in a forward motion to increase over all student learning. Through tapping into their experiences in the classrooms, they can look to make positive changes. However, we also know administrators that use their authority to push personal agendas or just keep the status quo.
I got into education because I like teaching. I enjoy working with students on a daily basis and sharing their learning and their lives with them. I enjoy the relationships I build with staff members and students alike. Administrators do have influence on building decisions, but I influence my students’ lives daily on a deeper level than I ever could in the front office.
So, if you are an administrator, I would love to hear why you made the decision to be one. If you are a teacher that does not want to become an administrator, I would like to hear why. | <urn:uuid:50c9be78-97cd-4f47-9015-8384bf6929bc> | http://www.stumpteacher.com/2011_02_13_archive.html | en | 0.982426 | 0.022286 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
This is not the first time D.B. Cooper-mania has swept the country. The legendary figure who parachuted from a hijacked plane over the state of Washington 40 years ago this November has been lodged in the American psyche ever since. His caper has inspired a feature film, a novel, myriad true crime accounts and television reenactments, and lots of amateur treasure-hunters. On Saturday, the Telegraph reported that the FBI, still riding high after arresting Whitey Bulger earlier this summer, had gotten a new lead on the mystery, though the bureau was tight-lipped as to exactly what that was. By Monday, more details began to trickle out about a new suspect, dead for 10 years, who hadn't been named before in the case, either by the FBI or as one of the thousands who have claimed credit for the crime over the last four decades.
Cooper's myth has all the irresistible elements--a well-dressed daredevil, a missing treasure, an unsolved mystery. The suspect, who actually called himself Dan Cooper, wore a tie and carried a briefcase when he bought a ticket from Portland to Seattle on Nov. 24, 1971. Once the plane was in the air, he ordered a whiskey, lit a cigarette, and handed a note to the flight attendant: "I have a bomb in my briefcase. I will use it if necessary. I want you to sit next to me. You are being hijacked." Cooper demanded $200,000 in $20 bills, and four parachutes to be delivered when the plane landed in Seattle, holding the passengers hostage. After the delivery, and refueling, he released the passengers and demanded to be taken to Mexico, but after the plane got airborne, he jumped out of the rear door somewhere over the Cascade mountains, the $200,000 strapped to his torso. He was never seen again.
The suspect: While the FBI hasn't named its new suspect, it has identified somebody internally. The man has been dead for 10 years, the bureau said on Monday, which means he lived for some 30 years after getting away with the crime. The Seattle Times reported that he died of natural causes. F.B.I. spokesman Fred Gutt told The New York Times the lead came from a former law enforcement agent who "'had an association with' the suspect from long ago." He told Reuters the suspect was "someone who surfaced who hasn't surfaced before," which is somewhat unique in this investigation that still attracts false confessions, both to the FBI and to news outlets. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote on Monday, "Since 2007, at least a half dozen people have contacted claiming to be Cooper, though none of the messages have given more than what's on his Wikipedia page."
The evidence: The new investigation comes from a tip given to the FBI by a former law enforcement agent, who provided the bureau with an item to be sent for fingerprint analysis, reports said yesterday. The Seattle Times reported that the item was a guitar strap, which was "not conducive to lifting fingerprints to compare to partial prints found in the plane," according to Gutt. But the bureau reportedly has DNA evidence from Cooper's Raleigh cigarette butts,* and the clip-on tie he wore, which it can test against the strap. The agency is working with the suspect's family to get more of his things for testing, The Seattle Times reported.
The frenzy: People love this story so much that even a hint the investigation might not be dead has brought amateur investigators and regular devotees out in force. According to the Post-Intelligencer, "By Monday morning, the whirlwind that forms whenever the FBI publicly discusses Cooper brought the agency more than 100 media calls." Amateur detective forums such as WebSleuths have lit up with the new details, and thousands of news outlets have picked up the story. But Houston Press blogger Pete Vonder Haar contends, via a Pearl Jam anecdote, that the frenzy is outdated and inappropriate:
I went to Lollapalooza in 1992, when Pearl Jam was the second act. During their set, a dude hopped up on stage, dodged security and ran through the band to dive off the opposite side. When the cops inevitably descended upon the kid, Eddie Vedder stopped the show and said, "No, you don't get it: If he makes it from there, across the stage, to there, without you catching him...he wins."
If Cooper survived the jump -- and that's a mighty big if, I grant you -- it means he's been eluding capture for four decades. In other words, he wins.
If the suspect is who the FBI thinks it is, he's already won by running out the clock.
*Since this story ran, Robert Blevins, co-author of Into the Blast: The True Story of D.B. Cooper, wrote to say that the detail of Cooper's cigarette butts had been misreported by the Daily Mail, which is linked in our text. In fact, Blevins said, the F.B.I. has lost the butts. A story last night on The Daily Beast supports that claim. | <urn:uuid:3ad2e1aa-b51c-4ddf-af1e-fe9ef0590dca> | http://www.thewire.com/national/2011/08/evidence-suspect-and-new-db-cooper-frenzy/40715/ | en | 0.964427 | 0.073283 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
UVM Tower The University of Vermont date
A Publication of UVM Extension's Vermont Vegetable and Berry Program
Stay Safe in the Sun
by Vern Grubinger
Vegetable and Berry Specialist
University of Vermont Extension
Ah, summer’s finally here. Long, sunny days that are great for growing crops and getting never-ending outdoor work done. But there is a serious downside to this season’s good weather that warrants attention: unprotected exposure to the sun is bad for your health.
Big deal, you may think, I’ve been working outside for years without any problem, and who doesn’t like a nice tan? The problem is that ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun can lead to skin cancer. Common sites for skin cancer include the face, tips of ears, hands, neck, forearms and lips -- areas that farmers typically leave uncovered.
Know your skin. The skin is the largest organ in the body, and it has 3 layers. From the outside in, they are: the epidermis, the dermis, and the subcutis. The top layer of the skin, the epidermis, is very thin and serves to protect the deeper layers of skin and the organs. The epidermis itself has three layers: an upper, a middle, and a bottom layer composed of basal cells. These basal cells divide into squamous cells, which make keratin that helps protect the body.
Also found in the epidermis is another type of cell called a melanocyte. These cells produce the pigment melanin. The tan or brown color of skin comes from melanin, which helps protect the deeper layers of the skin from the harmful effects of the sun.
Two types of skin cancer. Skin cancers are divided into non-melanomas and melanomas. Non-melanomas, usually basal cell and squamous cell cancers, are the most common cancers of the skin. Because they rarely spread elsewhere in the body, they are less worrisome than melanomas.
Melanoma is a cancer that begins in the melanocytes. Because most of these cells keep on making melanin, melanoma tumors are often brown or black, but not always. While having dark skin lowers the risk of melanoma, it does not mean that a person with dark skin will never develop melanoma. Melanoma is almost always curable in its early stages. But it can spread to other parts of the body. Melanoma is much less common than basal cell and squamous cell skin cancers, but it is far more serious.
The extent of the problem. Cancer of the skin is the most common of all cancers. Melanoma accounts for about 4% of skin cancer cases, but it causes most skin cancer deaths. The number of new cases of melanoma in the United States is on the rise. The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2006 there will be 62,190 new cases of melanoma in this country. About 7,910 people will die of this disease. Persons with white skin are 10 times more likely to have it than African Americans, but anyone can get skin cancer, regardless of skin color.
Cumulative sun exposure is a major factor in development of skin cancer. Small changes occur in the skin each time it is exposed to sunlight. People who burn easily, rarely tan, freckle or have a fair complexion, have blonde or red hair, or have blue or gray eyes, experience greater skin changes. Skin cancer usually is not associated with a single, painful sunburn, but rather with repeated exposure to the sun and changes in the skin’s makeup. By taking a few simple precautions you can reduce your risk of skin cancer.
Long lunch breaks? Stay out of the sun as much as possible when the sun is most intense during the mid-day hours. While this is not always practical for farmers, it does make sense to take a long lunch break, catch up on phone calls, or do some paperwork in the middle of that day when the sun’s rays are most damaging. Try to work outside early in the morning or late in the day when it’s probably cooler, anyway. While you’re outside, be sure to use sunscreen and to wear appropriate headgear, clothing, and sunglasses.
Use your head. Put on a hat. Protection for the face and other parts of the head can be just that simple, but not all hats do a good job of stopping the sun. The traditional farmer’s baseball cap does not protect vulnerable areas on the ears, temples, face, and neck. Other hats provide better protection, such as wide brimmed hats, pith helmets, and hats with flaps. There are many styles to choose from. If it makes you feel better, you can probably get your favorite farm implement logo sewn on these hats, too.
When selecting a hat, make sure it will be cool enough to wear on hot days, and that it’s practical for other conditions, like strong wind or rain showers. Most important, make sure it’s comfortable so that you’ll actually wear it.
Cover up. Clothing helps block the UV rays of the sun from reaching the skin. If possible, wear long-sleeved shirts, long pants, and socks. Closely woven or knitted fabrics are more protective because they lack open spaces that let UV rays through to your skin. Clothes dyed in dark colors can absorb ultraviolet rays and shield your skin better than light colored ones. However, some light colored and white clothes are specially manufactured to block UV rays. If not, they can be washed using a detergent with brighteners which can help absorb those rays and improve protection.
Lather up. Sunscreen lotion should be applied to skin that’s not covered by clothes, but sunscreens are not a substitute for wearing proper clothing. Sunscreens recommended for outdoor workers should have a sun protection factor (SPF) rating of at least 15. This means that you are protected from a reaction to the sun’s effects 15 times longer than you are without the sunscreen. Read the label to know when to re-apply sunscreen and whether it is waterproof.
Put on the shades. I was surprised to learn that our eyes need protection from the sun, too. Even the most effective hats can block only 50 percent of the UV rays that reach the eyes. A good shade hat combined with the use of sunglasses is the way to protect eyes from sun exposure. Note that sunglasses vary widely in the amount of protection from UV radiation. A peel-off label on the lens indicates its UV rating as the percentage of UV rays blocked by the sunglasses. If no information is provided by the manufacturer, the sunglasses may not offer any added protection.
The risk of skin cancer is real. Any steps you can take to reduce your cumulative exposure to the sun can help reduce that risk. Make it a habit to protect yourself from the sun.
Return to Vermont Vegetable and Berry Grower Pages | <urn:uuid:4b2336f6-90b1-457f-a79f-a6b4c9bab386> | http://www.uvm.edu/vtvegandberry/factsheets/sunsafety.html | en | 0.929095 | 0.086577 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Adobe says Flash will be huge...when will Apple follow Android's Flash lead?
Hey, Apple...Android seems to be able to handle security with Flash. Is iOS that delicate that it needs pure HTML?
Flash is a big deal. I know HTML5 is the best thing since sliced bread and we can all do wonderful things with AJAX and Javascript (and Java, for that matter) and CSS. But when it comes right down to it, if you want to code up a high-impact, media-rich, seriously interactive site, you're probably going to look to Flash.
Adobe has used this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to highlight the continuing trend towards the use of Flash, particularly on mobile platforms, despite Apple's unwillingness to budge on support for Flash in iOS. According to ReadWriteWeb,
Thanks in no small part to the rise of Android devices, Flash adoption has topped Adobe's earlier forecasts. At the Adobe MAX Developer Conference earlier last year, Adobe had forecasted 9% of mobile phones would support Flash in 2010, but as of year-end, the actual number was 12%.
And it isn't just Android. Android certainly wasn't even the first platform to support Flash (that honor actually goes to Windows Mobile), although it leads the market by a significant share at the moment. Windows Phone 7, RIM's BlackBerry OS, and HP's WebOS all currently or will shortly support Flash on their mobile phones, ensuring that everything from YouTube to the latest hardware-accelerated web-based games are supported on every major mobile platform. Except, of course, iOS.
There's no Flash on your iPad, your iPhone, or your iPod Touch. Plenty of rich and wonderful apps, but a whole lot of empty boxes on a whole lot of websites. Sure, plenty of those empty boxes just wanted you to spank a monkey and download some malware anyway, but Flash remains a dominant force on the interactive Web. Apple maintains that Flash in inherently insecure, although its desktop and laptop products have supported it for years.
Again, as Adobe representatives put it,
Video in particular is driving demand for the plugin, as people browsing the Web on their mobile phones "want to have access to the sort of content they're used to being able to access," says Adobe's Anup Murarka, Director of Product Marketing
So when will Apple finally jump on the train? If Flash isn't a universal standard, it's about as close as you can get for web multimedia. The sorts of ongoing development using Flash Media Server, whether targeting mobile or desktop devices, are quite compelling. Real-time video and audio collaboration? Check. High-performance web gaming? Check. 3D visualization and modeling? Check. Further death knells for the desktop computer? Check.
I give Apple a year until they cave. Android tablets will just be too cool and too useful for both entertainment and enterprise applications if they don't.
Subscription failed.
See All
See All | <urn:uuid:862b4a82-4b76-4788-9398-b4e193694953> | http://www.zdnet.com/article/adobe-says-flash-will-be-huge-when-will-apple-follow-androids-flash-lead/ | en | 0.933911 | 0.021545 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
China Appeals For Calm Amid Fears Of War Over US Escalation In Korea
Chinese officials appealed for calm in the Korean peninsula yesterday, as the United States deployed missiles and further military forces to East Asia amid a standoff over North Korea’s nuclear program.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said that Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui had expressed “serious concern” over the Korean crisis, in meetings with the US and South Korean ambassadors.
Hong added, “In the present situation, China believes all sides must remain calm and exercise restraint and not take actions which are mutually provocative, and must certainly not take actions which will worsen the situation.”
Tensions continued to rise, however, amid fears of a border clash in Korea that could trigger a wider war. Washington continued to deploy overwhelming firepower to the region and pressed China—the key ally of North Korea, a small and impoverished state that depends on it for critical food and fuel supplies—to whip Pyongyang into line.
According to Pentagon press secretary George Little, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned his Chinese counterpart, General Chang Wanquan, of a “growing threat to the US and our allies posed by North Korea’s aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons.” Hagel demanded “sustained US-China dialogue and cooperation on these issues.”
Washington also continued to ratchet up military tensions, deploying missile batteries to its Pacific island base at Guam. This came after weeks of US-South Korean “Eagle Foal” military exercises, during which the United States repeatedly sent nuclear-capable bombers and high-tech guided-missile ships to the Korean peninsula.
Details continue to emerge about the US military buildup in the region, which is aimed at escalating military tensions.
Washington is in particular arming the South Korean army, amid its “pivot to Asia” designed to contain China and maintain US hegemony in the region. It is upgrading a shipment of 60 F-15 fighter planes to Seoul, as well as sending a large number of Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) trucks.
USA Today indicated that these trucks, used to guard against roadside bombs in US-occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, would “offer similar protection in North Korea, should US forces need to travel on its roads”—that is, if US forces invaded and occupied North Korea.
American B-1 bomber pilots at Dyess Air Force Base in Texas have reportedly shifted their training programs, training for trans-Pacific flights towards targets in East Asia, instead of flights to Afghanistan and the Middle East. US ground troops have also already deployed to bases in Australia, while the US recently announced plans to send more warships to Singapore.
In another sign of rising tensions in the region, China yesterday cancelled its participation in a joint summit with South Korea and Japan. It cited tensions with Japan over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) islands.
The North Korean regime, for its part, released a statement through the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), stating that “The moment of explosion is approaching fast.” It added that US threats would be “smashed” by “cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means.”
Given that Pyongyang is thought to have only a few crude nuclear bombs, and no means to mount them on a missile—let alone miniaturized, subdivided nuclear devices like those fielded by the United States—such threats appear to be a bluff.
Pyongyang closed down the border crossing between South Korea and the industrial export zone at Kaesong, North Korea. The Kaesong zone generates a vital $2 billion a year in trade for impoverished North Korea, including approximately $80 million in wages to 53,000 North Korean workers. Some 1,000 South Koreans are also employed at the complex; if they returned to South Korea, they will no longer be able to return to Kaesong, as a result of the closure of the border crossing.
South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin provocatively announced that he is preparing contingencies for “military action” to rescue South Koreans at Kaesong, if needed.
Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute think-tank in Seoul told the Guardian that Pyongyang closed the border crossing at Kaesong apparently due to anger at “having been ridiculed for keeping Kaesong open for financial reasons,” while it was threatening war with South Korea.
Together with reports that sections of the North Korean regime are in discussions with German officials to restore full trading and market relations with the imperialist powers, such comments suggest that media presentations of Pyongyang as bent on waging suicidal nuclear war with the US are misleading. A divided, reactionary bureaucracy in Pyongyang is desperately seeking some form of accommodation in the face of overwhelming US pressure on Pyongyang and on Beijing.
Under conditions where no deal is forthcoming from Washington, however, North Korea’s rhetoric simply further inflames the situation.
Behind the US conflict with North Korea stands preparations and planning for a far wider and potentially devastating conflict, with China—America’s largest foreign creditor, who has also helped block US war plans against Middle Eastern countries such as Syria and Iran.
An article titled “War with China” in Survival, the magazine of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, lays out some of the calculations in leading US circles regarding the possibility of war with North Korea or a collapse of the regime in Pyongyang.
The piece was written by James Dobbins, a former US assistant secretary of state who currently holds top positions at the RAND think-tank. He lists “collapse” in North Korea as the most likely cause of a war between China and the United States, followed by conflict over Taiwan, cyber war, conflict over control of the South China Sea, and conflicts with India.
Dobbins makes clear that aggressive military operations by the United States, sending forces into North Korea, is the heart of any response envisaged by Washington. This action, taken with complete contempt for international law, would rapidly raise the possibility of a clash with Chinese forces stationed along the China-North Korea border.
He writes, “The immediate operational concerns for United States Forces—Korea/Combined Forces Command would be to secure ballistic-missile-launch and WMD sites. If any coherent North Korean army remained, it could be necessary to neutralize its long-range artillery, it could be necessary to neutralize its long-range artillery threatening Seoul as well… While South Korea would provide sizable forces and capabilities for these missions, they would be inadequate to deal with the scope and complexity of a complete North Korean collapse. Substantial and extended commitments of US ground forces would be required to rapidly seize and secure numerous locations, some with vast perimeters.”
Dobbins adds, “The likelihood of confrontations, accidental or otherwise, between US and Chinese forces is high in this scenario.”
Leave a comment | <urn:uuid:a3fbde18-56aa-4f61-b31f-445bc9755bf2> | http://zcommunications.org/znetarticle/china-appeals-for-calm-amid-fears-of-war-over-us-escalation-in-korea-by-alex-lantier/ | en | 0.94896 | 0.072385 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Friday, November 29, 2013
Are Corporations Evil?
Or are we neglecting our responsibility to make them account for externalities? Shouldn't we be making corporations pay for the harmful side-effects of what they do? When we carry out our responsibility as citizens, we will create rules that guide operation of industry to ensure that what is profitable is also what is good for society and the larger community of life.
We make corporations the villains because they do bad things. But the bad acts they commit are not expressions of intrinsic evil intent. They do things to meet the needs of their customers in the most profitable way. It is our responsibility as citizens to create the rules governing society. If harmful acts are profitable, we need to change the law. We should not blame corporations for their profit-seeking behavior any more than we would blame consumers for seeking the lowest price when shopping. Both corporations and consumers are economic entities. Seeking profit or seeking low prices is what they do. The problem we need to address is our own failure to make harmful acts costly to corporations. When putting pollution or depleting resources brings a substantial financial penalty to producers, then prices for things that are more harmful to the environment will be higher. Consumers will try to avoid buying those things because they are already inclined to avoid things with high prices. Corporations will try to avoid causing harmful environmental impacts in an effort to reduce costs of production and thereby increase profits. The most environmentally damaging industries will shrink or go out of business.
If corporations (if economic actors generally) were required by law to pay substantial penalties any time that they put pollution or take natural resources in pursuit of profit, then they would change their behavior and do those things less, because doing them would no longer be so profitable. The penalty could be in the form of a fee or a requirement to buy from a limited number of permits sold at auction. The fee amount would be greater (or number of permits offered would be fewer) if more people polled in a random survey wanted industries to try harder to reduce environmental impacts. The role of corporations in society is to meet consumer demand in the way that they calculate as most profitable or least costly. The role of citizens is to create the rules that businesses must follow. Those rules must include efficient and fair means of limiting overall environmental impacts to levels that most people feel are acceptable.
When we see corporations as evildoers, we are less likely to see our own responsibility as citizens to create systems of governance that would require economic actors to account for externalities. Accounting for externalities will ensure that the cost of environmental impacts are reflected in prices for goods and services. If we assign fees to industries that extract carbon-laden material from the Earth, for example, in proportion to the amount of carbon it contains (and in proportion to the amount of environmental damage caused by the extraction process), then fossil fuel will cost more. We will all get a signal (the higher price of fuel) that will tell us to burn less fuel. The industries that take carbon from the ground will shrink because they will not be able to sell as much fuel at the higher price. The threat to climate stability will be reduced.
We should recognize that corporations do not have any intrinsic desire to foul the air and water and deplete resources. They do these things only because we buy the products and services that they are able to provide by doing them. We have a responsibility as citizens to demand that corporations account for externalities. We must demand that industries pay some compensation to the people at large when they degrade the quality of the air or water, or when they take natural resources in pursuit of profit. When we do this, industries will learn to meet market demand in ways that create less pollution or no pollution. They will shift to manufacturing processes that rely more on recycled materials, with reduced inputs of raw materials. We will all learn to not buy so much of that which is harmful to the environment. We only buy as much fuel as we do today because it is deceptively cheap to do so. When environmental impacts are accounted for, prices will more honestly reflect true costs. We will make different decisions about how to live.
Why is there no connection drawn between the enormous environmental and climate stability challenges that we face on the one hand and the assault on human dignity and the serious threats to social stability and cohesion posed by extreme poverty and disparity of wealth on the other hand? These two problems--environmental degradation and severe material deprivation--are related to our failure to share natural wealth equally. This failure points us back to the citizens' responsibility to create systems of governance that ensure that environmental impacts are accounted for AND that benefits of natural wealth are enjoyed by all.
The problem of financing the change to a sustainable society will be resolved when the proceeds from the sale of environmental impact permits are shared among all the world's people. With fee proceeds going to all the people in the world, the money to finance the change will be in the hands of the people. If we buy fuel, for example, we will be paying a higher price. The corporations selling fuel may use this additional income to pay emissions fees. Alternatively, higher fuel prices might fund research and investment in carbon-neutral fuels. Higher fuel prices will cause some people to adjust their lifestyle to reduce their need for fuel. In fact, everyone will do this to some degree. For some, it will be easier to move to live closer to their work. Others may switch to public transit or invest in a fuel-efficient automobile. Each person will make the changes most suitable to their own situation.
Solutions to our problems can be found in our willingness as citizens to change the nature and character of government. Our government is an instrument through which we can fulfill our responsibilities to ensure an equal sharing of natural wealth, and to define appropriate limits to environmental impacts. The solution to our environmental problems is also the solution to our poverty and disparity problems: Charge fees to industries that pollute and extract resources; Give the fee proceeds to all the people, to each an equal amount. We will know that fees are set at the right amount when random surveys tell us that most people feel that overall rates of putting pollution and taking resources are not excessive. When we fulfill our role as citizens, we will live in the kind of world that we want to live in. We will have a truly democratic society.
A sustainable and just civilization requires that we use our moral sense
Systemic flaws are not reported
Equal sharing of Natural Resources promotes Justice and Sustainability
Anonymous said...
I found you in comments on Krulwich rainforest post @ NPR. Thank you for your reasoned discourse. Wishing you well, but I'm convinced after 60 years on this planet that humans are two-legged cockroaches. We're going to exterminate ourselves eventually; whether we'll leave sentient life behind is anyone's guess. Keep fighting the good fight, though.
Foppe said...
"Why is there no connection drawn between the enormous environmental challenges that we face on the one hand and the assault on human dignity and the serious threats to social stability and cohesion posed by extreme poverty and disparity of wealth on the other hand?"
There is, but differential access to political power, institutional barriers to political power, and (intellectual) corruption ensure nothing happens.
Furthermore, as you might have noted if you watched the police response to Occupy WS and its offshoots, those with institutional power are not at all unwilling to repress people, and to use violence in doing so. So your suggestion (via your chosen title, as well as some of your other statements, including your last sentence) that "it is our own fault" that we are ruled by corrupt kleptocrats only suggests to me that you are not particularly interested in real-world phenomena, and that you prefer instead to think and talk in (irrelevant) abstractions, which lead you to "exciting" conclusions such as "we deserve what we get" -- and so do the kleptocrats. Was your point really to provide 'intellectual' cover for their behavior, or is this accidental?
John Champagne said...
I think we deserve much better. (Your quote marks in the last paragraph wrongly imply that you are quoting what I have said.) We will have a much better world if and when we start making industries account for external costs. I went to Occupy Washington and, as with the Occupy group in my hometown, I noticed what I think is an unfortunate fixation on a narrative of corporation as villain. Many people who embrace this narrative seem impervious to the idea that, when it becomes costly to put pollution or deplete resources, industries will try to do those things less. With higher fees, those efforts will increase. There are real examples of this happening. This is not a mere abstraction. Unfortunately, these are fringe examples (sulfur emissions from power plants come to mind). We have not applied the principle of 'polluter pays' to the carbon extraction industry or to problems of deforestation, destruction of wildlife habitat and resource depletion/environmental degradation generally.
A change in the rules, to bring them into line with what basic moral principles require, will cause corporations to try to do what most people would recognize as the right thing (They would try every day to reduce pollution, depletion of resources and environmental impacts. If we set the right fees or issue the right number of permits for sale at auction, they will put the right amount of effort.) To point this out is NOT to condone repression of dissent or excuse current bad practices. I think that corporations know enough about the bad effects of externalities that they should be among those calling for their proper accounting. Perhaps I am mistaken about how much people really know about the topic. (Some industries would benefit when externalities are factored into the prices of goods and services.) But we as citizens must call for this accounting regardless of what corporations do.
Can you share a few links, if you are aware of any, to websites that point out the connection between externalities, environmental degradation, wealth disparity and poverty--and that offer solutions that resolve these problems?
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.
Dan Pedersen said...
I share your concerns for the environment and the poor, but I disagree with some of your conclusions.
"We only buy as much fuel as we do today because it is deceptively cheap to do so."
Fuel is not cheap, it has become increasingly more expensive. Generally, we consume a lot of fuel because many of us need fuel to travel to work. Also, businesses need fuel to ship their products. This is why people still consume a lot of fuel even though it is expensive.
"When we fulfill our responsibility as citizens and demand accounting for externalities, they will learn to meet market demands without causing such large impacts on the environment."
Making new government laws and creating new taxes will not accomplish this. This demand can be made by not buying products from businesses that do things that the consumer does not agree with. As for monopolies making it difficult for people to make that decision, monopolies occur because of government subsidies and various regulations that favor some businesses over others. The banking community is one example, they have a monopoly over the creation of money, an act that would land anyone else in jail.
"Our government is an instrument through which we fulfill our responsibilities to ensure an equal sharing of natural wealth, and to define appropriate limits to environmental impacts."
This is not the role of government. The role of government is to protect freedoms, not intervention in the economy. There may be some precedence for dealing with pollution, as this interferes with the freedom of others.
"We will make different decisions about how to live. We must recognize that the solution to our problems can be found in our willingness as citizens to change the nature and character of government."
This I agree with. But government needs to be changed in the opposite direction to what you are suggesting. The character of government is already one that interferes in the market, doing more of this will only cause more problems.
John Champagne said...
I think we have different ideas about how to decide whether prices are at the right level. You seem to think that, if you would rather not have to pay so much for fuel, then the price is too high. I think that the price of things should reflect the costs, the full costs, of their production and use. In the case of fossil fuel, whose use results in change in the atmospheric concentration of carbon-dioxide, we may never know within our lifetimes the true costs of using the fuel, because climate instability will impose costs or burdens on future generations. We cannot have perfect knowledge of what these costs will be, even if we had perfect information about what impact on climate will result from a given amount of carbon emissions. Also, there are always opportunity costs associated with the use of limited resources. If we use fossil fuel today for a particular purpose, that will deny a potential user to use that amount at some point in the future. (In the case of fossil fuels extracted with today's hydro-fracking methods, there will be associated depletion of helium because we are destroying the geologic features that hold helium. These features cannot be repaired or replaced.)
We cannot ask future inhabitants what they will have to do to respond to induced climate instability. We cannot really know what the costs are of our use of fossil fuels. In a democratic society, an imperfect but perhaps appropriate proxy for determining what the full costs of carbon emissions are would be to ask current citizens to give an opinion as to how much release of carbon-dioxide (and methane) is an acceptable amount. I have not taken the random survey even locally, let alone globally, but my strong sense is that most people feel that we should be reducing our carbon emissions. Assuming a lack of willingness on the part of the people at large to see such vast quantities of carbon being put into the air (and, indirectly, into the oceans), there should, in principle, be a policy that brings reductions in carbon emissions. The fact that there is more carbon being put than what most people want suggests an imbalance between the supply of the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb carbon and the demand on that capacity that results from our use of fossil fuel. Prices are set at the right amount when there is a balance between supply and demand. (Fees on emissions will dampen our demand for fossil fuels, to bring actual conditions, in terms of our demand on the atmosphere to act as a repository for our unwanted carbon, into line with what the people want. The underlying assumption is that the amount of carbon going into the air is a public policy question and should reflect the will or average opinion of the people.)
The question of whether the price is at the appropriate amount depends on there being a balance between the supply or capacity of the atmosphere to receive carbon and our demand that the atmosphere do so. I don't think there is a balance; rather, there is an imbalance tilted strongly toward excess emissions.
We will have a less-pressing concern about high fuel prices as we develop efficiencies and change our living patterns so that we, for example, live closer to our workplaces (or work closer to our home) or switch to reliance on public transit or eat lower on the food chain. As we make those transitions and others, we will spend a smaller, perhaps a much smaller, portion of our earnings on fuel-related expenses.
Whatever government involvement in markets that exists today, I would tend to agree with you that government should not be involved--except to the extent necessary to account for externalities (such as in the case described above).
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Dan Pedersen said...
In response to your reply from July 9, 2014.
Interesting thoughts, John. Yes, I agree, we do have different ideas about the subject of prices. My point about prices is in regard to what people are willing to pay, nominally, for a product or service and that such prices should be determined by the market, and that government interference distorts whatever prices the market would otherwise determine.
I understand your point about pollution and its cost to the environment, our health and to future generations. I agree we cannot put a price tag on this and there is some precedence for the community to deal with this in an organized way. I'm still not sure what the best way would be, but I do know that government intervention in the economy has historically made matters worse instead of better.
I would also add that I'm not sold on the issue of global warming/climate change and the alleged impact that carbon emissions may have on the environment. I'm not saying that it's not true, but I am saying that I'm not convinced. I won't get into the reasons here, but I will say that Lawrence Solomon's book 'The Deniers' is a compelling reason to question it. I am however concerned about pollution in general.
Thanks for your response. | <urn:uuid:9670ca41-c346-4768-8038-3a33e1f2cc01> | http://gaiabrain.blogspot.com/2013/11/are-corporations-evil-or-are-we.html | en | 0.962563 | 0.079569 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Cost of Software
Over the time, the Cost of Software or how much a software product or a custom software development feature will cost has become one of the most challenging things to refer to. What is also true is that the cost of software is one of the most important factors (in many cases the most important one) when deciding if you do the software development and/or, after the delivery, when outcoming if this was a successful project or not.
There are two stages where cost of software comes to interest (although it has importance in the whole software development lifecycle). The first stage is before you build anything. In this case, we talk about software cost estimation. We need software cost estimation in order to see how much it will cost us. Software houses and developers need this to price their software, managers need this in order to decide if and how they will proceed with software development and, of course, finance people and PMs need this for resources allocation.
The second stage is once we finish the development. In this case, we can calculate the actual cost. If it is a software product, we need to know how much it cost for pricing and marketing purposes as well as feasibility studies. If it is some custom software development we have to deliver to a customer, we need this in order to know how successful we were, what margins we finally have and to reorganize and re-evaluate our pre-development (pre-sales) costing methods in order to be more accurate in our pricing and resources allocation in the future.
Cost of software in both stages is very important and, at the same time, challenging and difficult, especially when we have to cost software in stage 1 (pre-development). The main reason for that is the fact that before we build a software tool we don't have all the elements of the actual product – deliverable (effort needed, lines of code etc.).
If you are going to build a table you know exactly what you need. You need 4 piles, one flat piece of something for the surface, 4 screws and 30 minutes to put everything together. If you have to build a simple contact form in a website, what will you need? You will actually have to write lines of code. Even if you know all the details of the form upfront, you can’t tell with accuracy how many lines of code you will need, you can’t tell exactly how much each line of code will take you and the things that may go wrong unexpectedly.
So, let’s see the differences for cost of software when it comes to pre-development or pre-sales and after the delivery of the product or the functionality.
Software cost before the development
-We have to estimate the time we need
-We have to guess what tools we will need
-We don't have all the details of the deliverable (most of the times)
-It is important to have a good idea about the cost since it may be a reason to even avoid doing the work
Software cost after the delivery
-We know the time it took us to build
-We know the tools we used
-Since we have built the product or function, cost of software is important mainly for future reference or to price a product on the shelf.
How to calculate the cost of software in the two main stages:
It is obvious that after the completion of software development it is easy to calculate the cost
-Take the time it took from the various people/roles to develop
-Multiply this by the rate/cost of these people
-Add the cost of tools you had to buy in order to build
Here is an example. The building of a web site took us 15 days of a senior designer, 30 days of a senior developer, 20 days of a PM and 10 days of a software tester. We also had to buy a third party tool of 2000 USD to integrate its functionality to our application.
In this case our software cost is:
15 * (senior designer daily cost)+ 30*( developer daily cost)+ 20*(PM daily cost)+10*(software tester daily cost) + 2000
To calculate the daily cost of the above roles get their yearly salary, multiply it by 1.25 to cover overhead costs (for some organizations this factor can go up to 3 depending on the benefits, luxuries offering to employees) and divide it by 260 to get their daily rate. If you have fixed costs for these roles (e.g. subcontractors whom you pay a standard daily rate fee) don’t add overheads.
But before the development at a pre-sales phase or early project stage you just don't have the details. You don't know how much time you will need; you are not even sure how many people you will need. So, here, you go for a cost estimate. In this case, you need a model, a method to make your software cost estimation.
There are plenty of methods available and all of them focus on estimating the effort we will need to build the software. In the previous example, you know the effort it took you to build the software, so you can calculate software cost easily. Now, you have to estimate the person days, multiply by the cost of person day and add any other costs you expect to occur, such as third party software licenses.
In order to make things simpler you can get the total effort you will make in order to build the software and multiply it by the average cost for the person day in your organization.
Here, the most challenging thing is to have accurate effort estimation. There is a good article on effort estimation here that can put you in the basics fast.
I would suggest the use of Effort Estimation Mobile Application that is optimized to give you fast and accurate effort estimations for mobile and web development, even to non experts. You can also try the free Orange Effort estimation tool for complex software development of general type, but it needs some field knowledge to use all models.
Cost Of Software
Add new comment
| <urn:uuid:4756a26a-a3f4-4017-87c7-75290c1e8418> | http://open-works.org/blogs/cost-software/ | en | 0.950502 | 0.044388 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Finding a book:
Advanced Search
Special Book Room
Buying information:
Shipping Rates
Contact Us
Information pages
About the Business
Additional services:
Free Wants Matching
Books to Sell?
Book Repairs
Stella & Rose's Books
You Say...
PERFECT!! Very friendly and reliable Ebayer. A real pleasure to deal with you! September 2014
Questions & Answers
Which Ladybird books should I collect?
As a budding collector, always collect books that you and your family will love, possibly a series that you remember from your own nursery bookshelf! You will have much more enthusiasm for the job, and it makes our work as book sellers far more enjoyable when we see the books going to a good home! Also, decide on your budget before you start collecting. Ladybird books vary widely in their price, as does the quantity of books in each series. Two of the most popular series for collecting are 606D (Well Loved Tales) and 561 (Adventure From History).
How many Ladybird series are there?
Although Wills & Hepworth produced several larger books prior to 1940, the first series printed in what is generally viewed as the standard Ladybird format was series 401. Including this series, Wills & Hepworth produced 6 different series in the 1940's. This included the elusive 417 (Wonk) and the exceptionally scarce 474 (Tasseltip Tales).
In the 1950's, Wills & Hepworth broadened their subject matter including series about history, nature and travel. They also printed a book called The Impatient Horse which is now one or the rarest Ladybird books to source. In total, 8 series were printed in the 1950's.
The 1960's was a time of change for Wills & Hepworth. However, in spite of this they managed to produce a massive 21 series. One of theses series, 606, was split into a further 7 sections. Without question, there most successful series of this era was 606D (Well Loved Tales).
Which Ladybird books are the rarest?
Several books have proved to be extremely elusive to say the least! Interestingly, How It Works: The Computer (654) was printed in a special edition for the Ministry of Defence. Although I have yet to see a copy of this book, I am assured of its existence. This is by far the rarest Ladybird book.
The following titles are hard to find with dust wrappers: Jeremy's Day In The Country (401), Pippety's Unlucky Day (401), Jonathan's Shopping Day (401), High Tide (401), The Ladybird Book Of Nursery Rhymes (413), The House That Jack Built (413), Babys First Book (413), Tootles The Taxi (413), Uncle Mac's Ladybird ABC Book (455), The Impatient Horse (538), and Cinderella (606D).
The following two series are also quite rare and valuable when found in their original dust wrappers: Wonk (417), and Tasseltip Tales (474).
Which Ladybird books were reprinted in facsimile editions?
In the year 2000, Ladybird celebrated 60 years of children's publishing. As part of their celebrations, they produced 4 facsimile editions. The titles of the 4 books were: Bunny's First Birthday (401), Bunnikin's Picnic Party (401), The Elves And The Shoemaker (606D), and The Gingerbread Boy (606D).
What does the series number mean?
The first 2 digits of the series number is the year in which the first book from that series was printed. Although there are several theories regarding the third digit from the series number, no conclusive information has been given by Ladybird!
What does the Tally number mean?
Between 1963 and 1974 some Ladybird books have what is known as a Tally number printed on them. If your book has a dust wrapper this will be located on the rear flap. For later books with pictorial boards, this number can usually be found on the rear board. The tally number is an indication of the number of different Ladybird titles published so far. It is also a useful way of dating your book. Compare your books tally number with the following tally table:
100-1963 160-1966 220-1968 260-1969 320-1973 370-1974
120-1965 170-1966 225-1968 270-1970 330-1973
135-1965 190-1967 230-1969 280-1970 340-1973
140-1965 200-1967 240-1969 290-1971 350-1974
150-1966 210-1968 250-1969 300-1972 360-1974
How does the price help to date my book?
Ladybird books were designed to be affordable to the masses. Hence the price of the book remained at 2'6 from the very first book published in 1940 right up until decimalisation was bought in during 1971. During the period of transition to decimalisation, some books also displayed the price of 12½ pence. This was quickly increased to 15 pence. Most books between 1971 and 1973 seemed to be priced at 15 pence. However, there is some overlap! Between 1973 and 1974 the price appears to have increased to 18 pence. Then, from around 1974 until 1976 the standard price seems to have increased again, this time to 24 pence. Confused? It has to be said, the price of the book is not an accurate way to date a Ladybird book!
Which books were produced with pasted on pictures to the front board?
Both series 401 (Rhyming Stories) and 497 (Animal Tales) had a small colour picture pasted to the centre of the front board up until 1957. The small hand pasted picture on the front board always had the same illustration as that which was on the book dust wrapper.
Which Ladybird books had catalogues to the rear of the contents?
Most Ladybird books published prior to 1955 were produced with 56 pages, rather than the later standard 52 pages. One of these extra pages was sometimes used to advertise other books printed by Wills & Hepworth. By examining and dating the last few titles listed on this catalogue you can often find the approximate date of the book you are holding.
How do the endpapers of my book indicate the date it was published?
Prior to, and including, 1953, Wills & Hepworth printed their books with black and white pictorial endpapers. Some post 1953 Ladybird books did have pictorial endpapers but these were printed in colour ink.
Between 1953 and 1961 Wills & Hepworth books were printed with patterned endpapers showing an open winged Ladybird. However, some were printed in brown ink and some in blue ink. The brown open winged pattern was printed between 1953 and 1960. The blue open winged pattern was printed between 1956 and 1961. Obviously, these periods overlapped by 4 years.
When did the publisher Wills & Hepworth become Ladybird books?
Wills & Hepworth changed to Ladybird books in 1971.
When did Ladybird books stop being printed with dust wrappers?
Originally, all Ladybird books were printed with a delightful colour dust wrapper. However, this was discontinued in 1965. From 1965, Ladybird books were printed with matt pictorial boards.
When did the Ladybird motif change?
From its start until 1961 Wills & Hepworth choose to have a logo showing an open winged Ladybird. Then, from 1961 until 1966 the motif changed to a Ladybird with closed wings displayed in an oval shape with a boxed border. Finally, in 1967 the logo changed again to a closed winged Ladybird drawn from a side angle. This logo stayed until the late 1970's.
When did the direction of the title on the spine of the books change?
When Wills & Hepworth first printed Ladybird books, the title on the spine read from the bottom to the top. However, this was different from the majority of book publishers. Therefore, in 1959 they reversed this practice, and started printing the title to read from the top to the bottom of the spine, as was more generally the custom.
Were any Ladybird books printed in foreign languages?
Ladybird books were successful on in international scale! Here is a list of just some of the languages you can find the books translated into: Welsh, Scots and Irish Gaelic, Swedish, French, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Greek, Turkish, Norwegian, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic. This list is by no means comprehensive!
If you require any further information regarding collectable Ladybird books, please email us at enquiry@rosesbooks.com and we will try our best to assist!
Tel: +44 (0)1497 820013 Fax: +44 (0)1497 821554 Email: enquiry@rosesbooks.com Call or text us on Skype
booksondogs.co.uk | ladybird-books.com | observerbooks.co.uk | rupertannuals.com | stellabooks.com | <urn:uuid:9c25d85b-159f-4960-9456-a932ad514c37> | http://www.ladybird-books.com/informationsource/questions.php | en | 0.951646 | 0.024213 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
THE SQL Server Blog Spot on the Web
in Search
Benjamin Nevarez
Fooling the Query Optimizer
Did you ever wanted to know which execution plans the Query Optimizer would generate for your queries should your tables have millions of records? You can actually generate those plans by using the undocumented ROWCOUNT and PAGECOUNT options of the UPDATE STATISTICS statement. These options can be used on small or empty tables and can be helpful for testing in some scenarios where you may not want to spent time or disk space creating big tables.
By using this method you are tricking the Query Optimizer as it will generate execution plans using cardinality estimations as if the table really had millions of records. Note that this option, available since SQL Server 2005, only helps in creating the execution plan for your queries. Actually running the query will use the real data and of course will execute faster than a table with millions of records.
UPDATE STATISTICS WITH ROWCOUNT, PAGECOUNT does not change the table statistics, only the counter of number of rows and pages of a table. But the Query Optimizer uses this information to estimate the cardinality of queries as I will show later. Also keep in mind that these are undocumented and unsupported options and should not be used in any production environment.
Let us see an example. Run the following query to create a new table on the AdventureWorks database
select * into dbo.Address
from Person.Address
Inspect the number of rows by running the following queries. It must show 19,614 rows.
select * from sys.partitions
where object_id = object_id('dbo.Address')
select * from sys.dm_db_partition_stats
where object_id = object_id('dbo.Address')
Run the following query
select * from dbo.Address
where city = 'London'
Running this query will create new statistics for the city column and will show the following plan. Note that the estimated number of rows is 434 and it is using a simple Table Scan operator
We can see where the Query Optimizer is getting the estimated number of rows by inspecting the statistics object. Run this query to see the name of the statistics object
select * from sys.stats
where object_id = object_id('dbo.Address')
Then use the displayed statistics object name in the following statement (the name may be different in your case)
dbcc show_statistics('dbo.Address', _WA_Sys_00000004_46136164)
By looking at the histogram you can find the value 434 on EQ_ROWS for the RANGE_HI_KEY value ‘London’ (Statistics and histograms are explained on previous posts in this blog)
Now run the UPDATE STATISTICS WITH ROWCOUNT, PAGECOUNT (you can specify any other value for rowcount and pagecount)
update statistics dbo.Address with rowcount = 1000000, pagecount = 100000
If you inspect the number of rows again from sys.partitions or sys.dm_db_partition_stats, as shown previously, it will now show 1,000,000 rows. sys.dm_db_partition_stats also shows the new number of pages. Clear the plan cache and run the query again
dbcc freeproccache
select * from dbo.Address
where city = 'London'
Note that the estimated number of rows has changed from 434 to 22,127.1 and that a different plan was generated using this new cardinality estimation. The Query Optimizer decided to parallelize this plan. But this is a very simple query, more dramatic plan changes can happen with more complex queries.
After execution the actual number of rows obviously is still is 434 but the Query Optimizer is not able to see this value.
If you look at the statistics object again, using DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS as shown before, the histogram has not changed. One way to obtain the estimated number of rows shown in the new execution plan is calculating the percentage or fraction of rows for the value ‘London’ from the statistics sample, which in this case is 19,614, as shown on the header of the statistics object. So the fraction is 434 / 19,614 or 022127052. Then obtain the same percentage from the new “current” number of rows which is 1,000,000 calculated as 1,000,000 * 0.022127052 and we get 22,127.1 which is the estimated number of rows displayed in the plan.
Finally, drop the table you just created
drop table dbo.Address
Published Wednesday, January 13, 2010 9:57 PM by Ben Nevarez
New Comments to this post are disabled
About Ben Nevarez
Powered by Community Server (Commercial Edition), by Telligent Systems
Privacy Statement | <urn:uuid:1ca294d2-d3f3-4c27-a30c-31e209e8ffa3> | http://www2.sqlblog.com/blogs/ben_nevarez/archive/2010/01/13/fooling-the-query-optimizer.aspx | en | 0.873286 | 0.04626 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Quote Of The Day
5 Responses to “Quote Of The Day”
• HP, I know this is off topic, but since you are strong proponent of “free markets”, what do you think of the Fed’s “bailout” if you will of Bear Stearns? I understand the Fed agreed to guarantee the obligations of Bear Stearns as part of the agreement for JP Morgan to acquire Bear Stearns. Was Bear Stearns so big that the government could not let it fail? What do you think of the government’s intervention?
• Instinctively, as a free market guy, I have an averse reaction to government bailouts. So I would be predisposed to be against it.
However, the banking industry is a complicated case. Banking, especially in a global market, is such a fundamental part of the economy that if it collapses you can expect to have serious ripple affects throughout the economy – and in todays markets, that would mean throughout the whole world. So letting the banks fall is tantamount to letting the whole economy fall.
The case with Bear Sterns involved trust. Remember, banks depend on trust. Without that, people rush to pull accounts and new accounts cease. Everybody becomes afraid to enter into transactions for fear that the other side won’t hold up its side of the bargain. The whole thing comes crashing down.
Bear Sterns probably has in the millions of very complicated (derivatives like swap, option, forward) deals on their books. Very difficult stuff to understand and under chapter 11, some judge would have to try to make sense of it all, and sign off on all substantial financial transactions. Do you think a judge, any judge, can do this accurately and fairly? I certainly don’t…and I’m sure the market does not either (which is why you saw their stock tumble so rapidly on Friday). So what to do?
Remember, if individuals doing business with Bear Sterns didn’t trust that the court would stand behind each transaction, then they would not trust Bear Sterns during a chapter 11 bankruptcy. This lack of trust would be the same as no deal, and the bank would evaporate.
So in steps Bernanke (a free market and right leaning economist himself btw) and underwrites some of Bear Sterns accounts while approving the purchase by JP Morgan. This restores trust and prevents a bank run. All necessary to keep the economy from falling into what could be a very severe recession.
Some economists I trust take on the issue, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Sorry for the late reply…its finals week at school and I have this really ugly project due on Friday.
• Good luck with finals. Always take care of business first and play later.
Most issues I think are never black and white. I think your comments illustrate that there is always a gray area like this. That is why I am suspicious of arguments that propose an “absolute” resolution that applies to all situations. For example, those arguments that say we must always have “free markets” all the time with no government intervention.
I tend to agree with your comments. However, there is no free lunch. I was watching/hearing CNBC The Call this morning as I was getting ready for work and they were discussing how the Fed agreed to “bailout” Bear Sterns, but in exchange has today proposed more government regulation of the markets. The funny thing was, the headline/logo splashed on the corner of the screen for the discussion was “Government Gone Wild”. If the Fed had done nothing and allowed Bear Sterns to be the first of many dominoes falling down, these same critics would be crying out loud that the governement did not step in to do something.
My former roomate in grad school used to work for the Fed for many years after we graduated. Actually, while we were in school, he was part of a team that went down to Chile to help re-write their Banking laws. He met with their Finance Minister and the whole thing. He now works for a private bank. Anyway, we have some good discussions on these types of Economic/Monetary Policy issues since he has inside knowledge of how the system really works. I always try to learn from him, but his knowledge goes way beyond my level of knowledge on the subject. Still, I am happy to get some crumbs of knowledge.
I will try to check out the links you provided as I have time. Thank you.
• With respect to the “complications of the banking industry” your response is a classic hypocritical right wing response; unless it benefits major corporations it’s bad. So the lesson is government help to banking industry “good” helping poor people get an education via tuition subsidies “bad.” If you and your right wing conservative hypocrites really had and balls you would believe in a true free market. If a bank collapses it is because it is weakly ran and was not competitive, market forces would either create an alternative institution or a better run bank. As for the economy “collapsing” well that’s too bad; new markets, institutions, entities etc would form via the invisible hand. But of course, the gutless right wing bush-o-crats and their corporate monopolistic cronies won’t let that happen. That is why we are still dependent upon antiquated markets like the oil trade. So in the end it is about preserving a failing system and not about the free market or capitalism for that matter.
• TacoSam,
Yeah, there certainly are not easy absolute rules like ‘government is always bad’ but there are tendencies. As this post shows, the movement towards more free markets and less government has, undoubtedly, made the world a better place. A few generations ago people actually thought that an economy fully controlled by the government, communism, was viable. Now only a small ignored segment of the left does.
With that said, I still think its somewhat misleading to call what the fed did a bailout, atleast in the traditional sense. As one of the links I linked to said, “this wasn’t a bailout; it was an orderly winding-up of business”.
What the fed did was guarantee a certain amount of Bear Sterns holdings and eased the transition for JP Morgan, a private enterprise, to purchase the company. And unlike traditional bailouts, in this case, the fed has a chance to actually make some money off the transaction.
With that said though, I am generally against bailouts by the government in any fashion. My only point here is to say that the fed did this, compared to traditional bailouts, in the least market intrusive and most efficient way possible, and for more noble goals (save the economy, vs mere save the company).
I’m curious TacoSam, you mention your old grad school roommate “was part of a team that went down to Chile to help re-write their Banking laws”…did you by any chance go to the University Of Chicago? Was he part of the Chicago Boyz under Milton Friedman?
I am very consistent in my beliefs. Not only do I demand competition amongst “major corporations” but I also demand competition amongst education for the poor. I do not think it is mere coincidence that our public schools in the ghetto are the worst in the country and also happen to have the greatest monopoly power of all. Competition is great…at the top and at the bottom.
Leave a Reply | <urn:uuid:c91e3ec2-ce6d-4bb3-9db9-7bc629ad4c55> | http://hispanicpundit.com/2008/03/17/quote-of-the-day-524/ | en | 0.968266 | 0.021467 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Friday, September 03, 2010
Ballot Discrimination In North Dakota
I was infuriated at seeing this item in the news. From the Forum of Fargo-Moorhead:
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Secretary of State Al Jaeger that was filed by three Libertarian candidates for the North Dakota Legislature who sought placement on the November ballot.
Richard Ames of Wahpeton, along with Grand Forks residents Thommy Passa and Anthony Stewart, argued that North Dakota’s ballot access requirements are unconstitutional because they require candidates to get a minimum number of primary election votes, even if they run unopposed.
It isn't a partisan outrage. If these were Socialist candidates, I'd feel the same way. I detest the judge's reasoning:
In an order issued today, District Court Judge Ralph R. Erickson wrote that states can require candidates to demonstrate a certain degree of support in a primary election.
Primary elections serve as a mechanism to “winnow out and reject all but serious candidates,” and ballot requirements allow states to avoid voter confusion, overcrowded ballots and frivolous candidates, Erickson wrote.
He concluded that North Dakota’s ballot requirements for the general election are “non-discriminatory and serve a compelling state interest.”
That's bullcrap. What exactly does an 'overcrowded ballot' look like? And, what is a frivolous candidate? That's for the voters to decide!
We have to work hard to make sure Mike Wherry gets his votes here in Indiana so that the Libertarian Party can maintain its ballot access for four more years. It isn't safe to leave the matter in the hands of judges, as this example in North Dakota shows, and as we're aware affected the Libertarian Party in Ohio for several years.
(h/t: Patriot Paul)
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Big Surprise! IndyGo Does Want More Tax Money
To no surprise whatsoever, the bus system that requires some 80+ of its funding to come from taxpayers, now wants even more. From the Indy Star:
IndyGo, another agency dependent on property taxes, also adopted a 2011 budget Monday, and it, too, will pursue a shortfall appeal as expected.
If approved by the City-County Council, the appeals would bring in $1.8 million for the library and $1.5 million for IndyGo. But for most homeowners, the increase combined would be only a couple of bucks.
The one-time levy, which would not increase the actual tax rate, would increase taxes by $1.21 for a $100,000 property, said library Chief Financial Officer Becky Dixon. The IndyGo increase would be roughly $1 per $100,000.
And just as typical is the Republican response:
Angel Rivera, a Republican who initially expressed opposition to the move, said because the increase was small, he "would give it a lot more consideration," though the council is still exploring other options.
"I don't like tax raises," Rivera said. "But if it's $2.50 per parcel, I think we'd have to seriously consider it."
Republicans are against tax hikes, until they are for them.
There are too many other things the Library and IndyGo can still do to generate revenue. They can charge their users for the services they use. Hike the fares, charge more for overdue videos, and charge to use the internet. Is this so hard to figure out?
I suppose it's easier to simply claw at the community as a whole.
Monday, August 30, 2010
IndyGo "Could" Nick The Taxpayer?
Way to go Indy Star headline writer! You gave me the chuckle that will carry me through this Monday! It read, "Action by IndyGo and library could nick taxpayers".
No kidding! Could nick the taxpayer? Bwaaahahahaha! That's about the only thing IndyGo does with any consistency!
As pointed out many, many times on this blog, IndyGo is heavily subsidized, with taxpayers making up a minimum of 80% of the bus service's funding. Fares, on the other hand, make up less than 20%.
As pointed out many times before, this represents a transfer of wealth from those who don't ride to those who do. What's that old saw about the sum of good government being not picking my pocket or breaking my leg? How's that go? Not IndyGo, that's for sure.
So here's the trick, per the Indy Star:
Municipal corporations that receive less tax money than expected can file what's called a shortfall appeal with the Department of Local Government Finance. If approved, that will raise how much the corporations receive the next year, but it also will raise property taxes for those who are not paying the maximum under the tax cap.
It's time to scale back our empire building. No, I'm not talking foreign policy in this case. I'm talking the empire of government. The money is not there. When the property tax reassessments happened a few years back, we were not in the midst of a down economy. Hit people now, with a 10% unemployment rate? For buses people don't ride?
Here's an idea: Raise the fares. Let the people who use the services pay for the services. Either that, or scale them back just as surely as families have scaled back on eating out or grilling t-bone steaks. | <urn:uuid:82609bcd-e5c3-4a4d-b73d-e7c01e87a723> | http://kolehardfacts.blogspot.com/2010_08_29_archive.html | en | 0.970182 | 0.084076 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Welcome to the last day of Jagrwatch; Start of Free agency
We've had some big time July 1st's. This one promises to be one of the most interesting.
Free agency begins in less than four hours, and the end of Jagrwatch probably shortly thereafter.
There were reports surfacing last night that the Penguins already prepared a "Welcome Home Jagr," design for their front page. While they might have prepared something, it doesn't mean anything really.
The Penguins and Ray Shero have all kinds of things happening, but the two biggest issues:
1. Can they get Double J to sign?
2. Are they going to keep Tyler Kennedy, and if they do will they overpay?
Tyler Kennedy would be a fool not test the free agent waters. He could get a contract that makes us all want to vomit. Shero has hinted that Kennedy wants to stay in Pittsburgh, and that some contract parameters are in place.
We're saying Kennedy walks, but whatev.
As for Double J? Who knows. The saga of Jagrwatch will never be forgotten.
If the Penguins don't re-sign Tk, and don't get Jagr there are some options, although not many.
A guy like Joel Ward from Nashville or Radim Vrbata could be part of the backup plan that Shero has.
So buckle up. And welcome to July 1st. | <urn:uuid:089fba93-d6de-4799-8d1a-3282619e3500> | http://thepensblog.com/tpb/welcome-to-the-last-day-of-jagrwatch-start-of-free-agency.html | en | 0.960284 | 0.101267 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Enter music instruction in Osyoos.
Peregrine Studios, located in Osoyoos, B.C., offers private music instruction in Penticton and Osoyoos. This includes classes, performance opportunities, community concerts and many other ways for people of all ages to experience music and make it an enjoyable part of their lives.
Kelowna Graphic Design by Media Button Communications Inc | <urn:uuid:7cd4cc30-1eba-4da7-999f-b3e68a834553> | http://www.peregrinestudioscanada.com/ | en | 0.942342 | 0.115711 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Trial begins for Cottonwood Heights man accused of killing wife
Cottonwood Heights • He killed her because of extreme emotional stress, defense tells jury.
There is no question who killed Touch Choun at her Cottonwood Heights home in 2009; no doubt over who stabbed her 19 times.
"This is Dennis Lambdin," defense attorney Neal Hamilton told the court as the 64-year-old defendant sat just feet away. "This is the man who brutally killed his wife."
Lambdin is charged in 3rd District Court with murder in the death of his wife. And as the defense and prosecution addressed 10 jurors during opening statements Tuesday, no one argued that Lambdin didn't do it. Instead, the defense acknowledged just the opposite.
"This is no whodunit. At the end of this trial, you will find [Lambdin] guilty of killing his wife," Hamilton told the jury. "What I need you to consider is, did he snap? Why did he snap? What was he going through that may have caused him to snap?"
The crux of Lambdin's defense centers around his supposed experiences and emotions at the time.
Choun, 41, they said, was an alcoholic, a gambler, an adulterer. She was having an affair and had gotten pregnant before asking Lambdin for a divorce.
If defense attorneys can convince the jury that Lambdin lost control and killed Choun due to extreme emotional stress, he may escape a first-degree felony murder conviction and a life sentence, and be convicted instead of the lesser offense of second-degree felony manslaughter, which is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Meanwhile, prosecutors will try to paint Lambdin as a scorned and calculating husband who wanted revenge.
"He didn't stab her one time or two times or even three, four or five times," said prosecutor Anna Rossi. "He stabbed her 19 times. ... And when he saw that she was still moving, he hit her three times in the head with a hard ceramic ball until she stopped."
Witnesses called to the stand Tuesday discussed the day Choun was killed, Aug. 17, 2009.
Cottonwood Heights police Officer Thom Daugherty was the first to testify. He was also the first on scene.
He recalled knocking on the door, calling in to Lambdin, asking him: "Did you do something stupid?"
"I've done something horrible," Lambdin replied.
Daugherty said he recognized Lambdin.
He had been to duplex at 2192 E. Fort Union Blvd. about a month before on a welfare call after one of Lambdin's coworkers worried he may have tried to harm himself when he didn't turn up for work. It was a false alarm.
But when officers forced their way into the home on Aug. 17, Daugherty said, they found a woman face down in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. Lambdin was bleeding from his hands and a bloody knife sat beside the sink. Upstairs, a rope hung in the hallway. Police were advised Lambdin meant to kill himself.
"His emotions would range from excited and telling us what he did to, just, 'Oh my gosh, what did I do?' " said Cottonwood Heights police Officer Brian Eschtruth.
All who encountered Lambdin that day said he told them what he had done.
"When we were riding in the ambulance, he became very agitated," paramedic Keith Plagemann told the court. "He said, [she] got what she deserved. He said it multiple times."
The case is scheduled to continue Wednesday before Judge Vernice Trease. The case is expected to go to the jury, comprised of six men and four women, by next week.
Twitter: marissa_jae | <urn:uuid:b3ba3dc0-3ba7-4cc0-926f-0c31dce10aa4> | http://archive.sltrib.com/printfriendly.php?id=55591426&itype=cmsid | en | 0.9829 | 0.038116 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Baseball Toaster Dodger Thoughts
Jon Weisman's outlet
for dealing psychologically
with the Los Angeles Dodgers
and baseball.
Frozen Toast
Google Search
Dodger Thoughts
02 01
12 11 10 09 08 07
06 05 04 03 02 01
12 11 10 09 08 07
06 05 04 03 02 01
12 11 10 09 08 07
06 05 04 03 02 01
12 11 10 09 08 07
06 05 04 03 02 01
12 11 10 09 08 07
06 05 04 03 02 01
12 11 10 09 08 07
06 05 04 03 02 01
09 08 07
About Jon
Thank You For Not ...
1) using profanity or any euphemisms for profanity
2) personally attacking other commenters
3) baiting other commenters
4) arguing for the sake of arguing
5) discussing politics
6) using hyperbole when something less will suffice
7) using sarcasm in a way that can be misinterpreted negatively
8) making the same point over and over again
10) being annoyed by the existence of this list
11) commenting under the obvious influence
Betemit a Solution in Search of a Problem
2007-06-13 18:18
by Jon Weisman
Wilson Betemit now has the highest OPS+ and EQA among Dodger infielders except Olmedo Saenz. He has the highest on-base percentage among Dodger infielders except for Andy LaRoche. His slugging percentage is third among Dodger infielders behind Jeff Kent and Saenz.
He still does have a massive platoon split, I will admit.
* * *
Tonight's game:
Retro Gameday
Comments (460)
Show/Hide Comments 1-50
2007-06-13 18:30:30
1. Eric Enders
That was the LAT of all LATs!
Anyway, what I was saying was...
I know you can't throw out one game, but still... more than half of Kershaw's earned runs this year were given up in one game. If you toss out the May 13 outing, his numbers for the year are 7-1 with a 0.77 ERA.
That's Lincecumesque. Or rather, you could say Lincecum is Kershawesque.
2007-06-13 18:32:29
2. Hallux Valgus
from the previous:
302 That means there are now four regular players in MLB without a home run this year. Two of them are playing for the Dodgers tonight. Perhaps Ned is on the phone trying to acquire Sean Casey and Luis Castillo as we speak.
Funny, I was trying to come up with the baseball team I would find hardest to watch. Casey and Castillo both made my team, along with AJ Pierzynski, Ryan Freel, Chone Figgins, David Eckstein, Wily Taveras, and Pierre. Steve Trachsel was my starter.
What I'm saying is: don't joke like that.
2007-06-13 18:33:04
3. Hallux Valgus
1 Hopefully not Lincecum today, though.
2007-06-13 18:34:10
4. Eric Enders
3 Or he could be like Lincecum today, in that he causes the Giants to lose.
2007-06-13 18:45:49
5. Hallux Valgus
re: interviews
Mike Moustakas > Matt Dominguez.
And Kevin Kennedy only wants to talk about Kevin Kennedy. No one cares when you were drafted, Kevin Kennedy.
2007-06-13 18:46:17
6. Bob Timmermann
If Betemit isn't part of the solution, then he's part of the problem isn't he? So if he is part of a solution, then isn't he not a problem?
2007-06-13 18:48:27
7. Bob Timmermann
Is Kevin Kennedy insisting that he's the greatest Taft High player ever?
Better than Robin Yount or Larry Dierker?
He isn't even better than Kelly Paris!
2007-06-13 18:48:48
8. Curtis Lowe
The only way to fix Betemit is by getting Betemit!
2007-06-13 18:49:56
9. Hallux Valgus
7 No, but he did make sure everyone knew he played with Yount. I still haven't figured out why he slipped that in.
2007-06-13 18:52:30
10. PHilldodger
Thanks to Jon and all the posters here. I've been stuck in airports a good portion of the day trying to get back to Kansas City. Reading through the posts and comments caught me up rather quickly from the action with the Mets.
Although if I don't happen to be able to fly out of Vegas tonight, it won't be as disappointing as, say, San Bernardino.
2007-06-13 18:54:05
11. Bob Timmermann
Going to Kansas City
Kansas City, here I come
There's some pretty little women there
And I'm gonna get me some
2007-06-13 18:56:22
12. Lexinthedena
Is Steve Lyons as bad or worse than Steve Phillips?
2007-06-13 18:57:30
13. Bob Timmermann
Steve Phillips is worse than Steve Lyons. I don't think it's close.
Lyons is a goofball. Phillips is a contemptible person and a goofball.
2007-06-13 18:59:27
14. Hallux Valgus
Steve Phillips is an idiot. Steve Lyons is just a dork.
2007-06-13 19:00:17
15. Lexinthedena
I agree....
Lyons doesn't take himself seriously....Phillips is slimey and talks out of his angus....
2007-06-13 19:00:58
16. Curtis Lowe
Steve Lyons is an Idiot. Steve Phillips is a Moron and Joe Morgan is NSFW.
2007-06-13 19:02:34
17. spacebrother
Judging by his picture on Gameday, Reyes needs a smaller hat size.
2007-06-13 19:03:09
18. Lexinthedena
17-That's the style homes!
2007-06-13 19:03:50
19. Bob Timmermann
I know this was more the fault of ESPN than Phllips, but the one year during the Winter Meetings when they had Phillips hold faux press conferences for each team telling what they needed to do, forever cemented Phillips in my brain as a guy who did not know what he was talking about. I don't know if he knew what any team needed help with.
2007-06-13 19:04:37
20. trainwreck
I don't have a problem with Lyons. Yeah, he is too much of a goof sometimes, but at least he does not take himself too seriously.
2007-06-13 19:04:40
21. CanuckDodger
As quite a few people are aware, the Yankees' Phil Hughes came into this year as the consensus best pitching prospect in baseball. After tonight, Kershaw has pitched as many low A games, 12, as Hughes had pitched at the time Hughes received a promotion to the next level, high A. After 12 games, here is Hughes' line, from 2005:
69.0 IP, 46 H's, 1 HR, 16 BB's, 72 K's, 1.92 ERA
Here are Kershaw's totals after the same number of games:
62.0 IP, 38 H's, 1 HR, 33 BB's, 82 K's, 1.89 ERA
Kershaw has given up slightly fewer hits per nine innings, he has been nearly equally hard to get a home run off of, as difficult to get a run off of period, and he strikes out more batters. The one area where Hughes has a big edge is in the walks department. I think the superior control Hughes demonstated may have played the biggest role in getting him promoted to the next level so quickly. I would keep Kershaw in low A till late July or August and make sure he has been throwing all his pitches for strikes over a good number of games before bumping him up.
2007-06-13 19:05:13
22. trainwreck
lol that is exactly what I was thinking. Those were so incredibly stupid.
2007-06-13 19:05:26
23. Jon Weisman
SOSG had an interesting duel on its site today. Rated PG-13.
2007-06-13 19:05:45
24. Lexinthedena
19- That was pathetic....what a bad idea....I loved Jeremy Shapp "in character" asking the tough questions....
2007-06-13 19:06:13
25. spacebrother
If that's the case, he needs to keep the stickers on it and wear it sidewayz like tha D-Train.
2007-06-13 19:06:56
26. Eric Stephen
Who are the nominees for worst MLB announcer? Here's a list off the top of my noggin:
Steve Phillips
Hawk Harrelson
Rex Hudler
Steve Lyons
John Sterling
Tim McCarver
Rick Monday
Mark Grace
Thom Brennaman
2007-06-13 19:08:34
27. trainwreck
Matt Vasgersian should be added.
2007-06-13 19:09:08
28. Bob Timmermann
I always wondered how reporters like Olney and Kurkjian felt having to play act their own jobs.
2007-06-13 19:09:17
29. Eric Stephen
Speaking of Phillips, this is another fault of ESPN, but did anyone see the other night (Monday?) on Baseball Tonight when Steve Phillips in a pink shirt debated Steve Phillips in a blue shirt?
It was truly awful TV.
2007-06-13 19:09:49
30. trainwreck
Olney is lucky to have that job. Honestly, I have no idea what that guy brings to the table.
2007-06-13 19:10:11
31. Hallux Valgus
Penny got a haircut
2007-06-13 19:11:36
32. Bob Timmermann
He wrote for the New York Times when the Yankees won a lot of World Series so people saw his byline.
And he's named Buster.
2007-06-13 19:12:15
33. scareduck
Bob, why do you think Phillips is a contemptible person?
2007-06-13 19:14:12
34. Bob Timmermann
He does not strike me as a man with a lot of integrity and he's still trying to take credit for the Mets success now.
2007-06-13 19:15:04
35. Hallux Valgus
26 I really really hate Jack Corrigan of the Rockies.
2007-06-13 19:15:51
36. Bluebleeder87
Bob Uecker is on your good list then?
I've never heard him so i wouldn't know if he's good or bad.
2007-06-13 19:15:53
37. Bob Timmermann
Niche hatred.
2007-06-13 19:16:45
38. El Lay Dave
21 Excellent observation. Also note that Kershaw is only a few months older than Hughes was at the time of his performance.
2007-06-13 19:16:54
39. Bob Timmermann
Bob Uecker as an announcer, as opposed to Bob Uecker doing comedy, is actually not bad.
2007-06-13 19:17:08
40. Eric Stephen
I forgot to add George Frazier of the Rockies. He might be my least favorite color guy in baseball. At least he contributed to the 1981 World Series.
2007-06-13 19:19:19
41. Hallux Valgus
39 Agreed. I enjoy Uecker's radio broadcasts.
2007-06-13 19:20:19
42. MMSMikey
the mets always seem to score 1st against the dodgers. sosa is bound to slip up, im feeling good about this game.
2007-06-13 19:21:15
43. Gen3Blue
Not too bad a start. I remember a few days ago some pitcher(maybe Lowe?) got through the first without trouble, and I thought I was watching the wrong game!
2007-06-13 19:21:35
44. overkill94
26 In my book, that list begins and ends with Joe Morgan
2007-06-13 19:21:58
45. El Lay Dave
As a former GM, Steve Phillips awful analyses are far more egregious than any ex-players. How shameless he must be to display at a daily frequency his utter incompetance for the relatively high-profile job he once held.
2007-06-13 19:22:48
46. Gen3Blue
Come on ,take some pitches.At least Furcal got 4, not bad for him lately.
2007-06-13 19:24:29
47. Hallux Valgus
45 I can't stand former GM's or coaches who offer insight like beginning, "what I used to do..."
If you were good at what you used to do, you wouldn't be a TV commentator now.
2007-06-13 19:24:47
48. Gen3Blue
Well are top three got at least 10 pitches,
which is about what we can hope for.
2007-06-13 19:25:31
49. overkill94
While I know I'm a bit late on this one, I didn't think this quote should be omitted from some of the discussion of the last thread:
- So then I said to Woody Allen, "Well, Camus can do, but Sartre is smartre!"
- Yeah, well, "Scooby Doo can doo-doo, but Jimmy Carter is smarter."
2007-06-13 19:25:35
50. MMSMikey
did nomar break his bat on that grounder, or is that how everything sounds coming off his bat?
Show/Hide Comments 51-100
2007-06-13 19:26:29
51. trainwreck
It works better in some sports. Such as basketball with Hubie Brown and Rick Carlisle.
2007-06-13 19:27:10
52. trainwreck
"The most rewarding part was when he gave me my money."
2007-06-13 19:34:07
53. Bluebleeder87
i don't know if your joking or not but the balls he hits don't seem to have the same pop they had last year.
2007-06-13 19:35:07
54. Gen3Blue
This Sosa seems to have found some extremely nasty stuff.
2007-06-13 19:36:43
55. overkill94
Are the balls wet tonight or something? Did someone subsitute a leather baseball for a rock? Sheez
2007-06-13 19:36:43
56. El Lay Dave
54 I would love it if Honeycutt asked for Sosa to be frisked.
2007-06-13 19:40:46
57. MMSMikey
yep. i think that ball kuo hit last night was hit harder than any ball nomar has struck this year.
2007-06-13 19:42:35
58. Bluebleeder87
pasiensia amigo, in do time. one hopes.
2007-06-13 19:45:08
59. Hallux Valgus
I was just about to type "Reyes on base with Penny's deliberate motion displeases me."
Penny looked like he was speeding up even from the stretch because he was worried about Reyes. That's why he chucked one in the dirt.
2007-06-13 19:46:06
60. Bluebleeder87
what was that all about??
2007-06-13 19:46:19
61. Hallux Valgus
Okay now I really want to know what Penny had to say to Green.
2007-06-13 19:46:49
62. Curtis Lowe
60 - Long story.
2007-06-13 19:47:23
63. Bluebleeder87
Looks like Penny went up to Green & they had some words, i don't think it unfriendly though. i don't know.
2007-06-13 19:47:44
64. MMSMikey
da heck.
2007-06-13 19:49:21
57- The best analogy I can come up with is, Nomar seems to be using a paddle tennis racquet while everyone else is using a real racquet. Even when he hits the ball on the nose, the ball doesn't seem to be hit all that hard.
2007-06-13 19:49:23
66. Hallux Valgus
Vin is offering more questions than answers. Someone send in A Martinez! He's the intrepid reporter we need right now.
2007-06-13 19:49:53
67. MMSMikey
lay off those spin balls matt.
2007-06-13 19:49:59
68. Gen3Blue
Well, at least it about the first time a D's Pitcher handled Green while I was watching. It was ticking me off because most of the times I watched Green as Dodger, the opposing pitchers seemed to handle him fine.
2007-06-13 19:50:38
69. overkill94
Abreu's a pitch-taking machine
2007-06-13 19:51:31
70. Curtis Lowe
Nice at bat by abreu
2007-06-13 19:51:40
71. overkill94
There goes the no-no!
2007-06-13 19:51:52
72. Bob Timmermann
I think Vin should be alerted that the Angels beat the Reds tonight and haven't lost two straight to the Redlegs.
2007-06-13 19:52:07
73. Bluebleeder87
lay off those spin balls matt.
that's what i was afraid of, he's gonna swing at 'em & there gonna keep on throwing them. Hopefully he'll lay of of them next at bat.
2007-06-13 19:53:06
74. MMSMikey
they will keep throwing them till he proves he can hit them. we know he can crush fastballs
2007-06-13 19:54:25
75. Bluebleeder87
that's the thing though, they weren't even strikes i think.
2007-06-13 19:55:18
76. MMSMikey
yeah they were down and away out of the strike zone.
2007-06-13 19:55:40
77. Curtis Lowe
75 - He took three of em then swung at the 6th pitch which was really close to being a strike.
2007-06-13 19:56:01
78. Frip
As a lip reader the best I can make of the Penny thing was "Sean you're insane for not using sunscreen, you gotta protect the skin." Green: "What are you talking about, I use it."
2007-06-13 19:56:39
79. MMSMikey
of course. pierre has to be up right now.
2007-06-13 19:57:12
80. Gen3Blue
Guess who's up
2007-06-13 19:57:43
81. MMSMikey
takes 2 strikes.
2007-06-13 19:57:46
82. Bluebleeder87
he also has to swing at the first pitch of course.
2007-06-13 19:58:10
83. Gagne55
77 Gameday made the pitch that Kemp grounded out on look about a foot outside. Not that gameday is necessarily trustworthy.
2007-06-13 19:59:10
84. Curtis Lowe
Stupid Wright.
2007-06-13 19:59:11
85. Gagne55
btw, Sosa's odd/even year splits are amazing
2007-06-13 19:59:13
86. MMSMikey
and we cant complain cause he actually hit a line drive.
2007-06-13 19:59:16
87. natepurcell
not really, it was boderline.
2007-06-13 19:59:23
88. JoeyP
The Pierre batting 8th experiment apparently didnt last very long.
83- It was.
2007-06-13 19:59:36
89. Bob Timmermann
I hate it when one of Pierre's line drives gets wasted. Those are precious, nonrenewable resources!
2007-06-13 20:00:24
90. Hallux Valgus
amazingly, advertising HD broadcasts by showing HD images on my no HD TV is less than ffective.
2007-06-13 20:00:26
91. El Lay Dave
87 88 This is what we call a difference of opinion.
2007-06-13 20:01:18
92. Bluebleeder87
he took 2? that's news he usessly swings at the first or 2nd pitch. nice line drive but caught by Wright.
2007-06-13 20:01:35
93. Uncle Miltie
That was a nice at bat by Pierre. He hit the ball on the button, but right at Wright.
2007-06-13 20:01:48
94. El Lay Dave
90 Tried and true formula though, remember color TV commercials when most everyone had B&W? Oh, you don't.....
2007-06-13 20:01:50
95. MMSMikey
and pierre makes a rountine play difficult.
2007-06-13 20:02:15
96. Gagne55
I'm confused. I don't know how 87 and 88 can both be true.
2007-06-13 20:03:37
97. El Lay Dave
96 Now I understand why eyewitness testimony can be considered unreliable!
2007-06-13 20:03:51
98. Bluebleeder87
yeah David Wright is pretty annoying with those base hits.
2007-06-13 20:05:28
99. bhsportsguy
I'm surprised Wright didn't try to steal, thanks.
2007-06-13 20:05:58
100. Bluebleeder87
matter of opinion Gagne55, that & gameday isn't very reliable.
Show/Hide Comments 101-150
2007-06-13 20:08:03
101. MMSMikey
god nomar.
2007-06-13 20:08:14
102. natepurcell
well theres always replay.
2007-06-13 20:11:24
103. MMSMikey
russell has been fowuling off a lot of pitches the last 2 nights he normally will crush.
2007-06-13 20:12:04
104. MMSMikey
2007-06-13 20:12:41
105. Gen3Blue
I'm afraid you have to keep a bat like Abreu or someone near the top of the order because the terrible threesom is going to most surely kill us.
2007-06-13 20:13:47
106. JoeyP
I got a feeling Martin's going to catch all 3 games of the Angels series, bc the Dodgers would rather have one of Ethier/Kemp/Saenz/Betemit/Loney bat in the DH spot instead of Lieberthal's.
2007-06-13 20:14:40
107. Bluebleeder87
he seems to be pulling a lot of balls on the outside corner, he should just go with the pitch. Plus he's been striking out on outside breaking balls.
2007-06-13 20:15:58
108. Hallux Valgus
106 Isn't the series in LA? No DH there.
2007-06-13 20:18:19
109. JoeyP
Nvm 106--The Angels series at DS---I guess the following week in Tampa/Toronto the Dodgers might go with that. I hope Martin gets one of this weekend's games off though.
2007-06-13 20:19:13
110. regfairfield
105 Coming into the game, Abreu was hitting worse than Furcal and had the lowest on base percentage on the team.
Small sample size, but it's pretty much the line I would expect out of him this year.
2007-06-13 20:22:05
111. Hallux Valgus
To my eyes, Penny is working harder today than in starts past. His motion seems forced. Maybe a short game for him (although he doesn't really go late in general).
2007-06-13 20:24:22
112. Greg Brock
My ISP went down, and now my PayPal account won't update properly. Enjoy DT Night everybody.
2007-06-13 20:24:55
113. natepurcell
boom baby!
2007-06-13 20:25:00
114. kadycee
He's at it again.
2007-06-13 20:25:05
115. Greg Brock
Boom goes the Betemit.
2007-06-13 20:25:06
116. Bluebleeder87
Betemit strikes again, YES!
2007-06-13 20:25:18
117. Hallux Valgus
2007-06-13 20:25:38
118. Uncle Miltie
Wilber is a beast. Wildebeest?
2007-06-13 20:25:48
119. trainwreck
Boom goes the Betemit.
2007-06-13 20:25:58
120. kadycee
The lights just dimmed in my house. I guess there's a power surge in LA...
2007-06-13 20:26:25
121. bhsportsguy
114 There's my baking pal.
2007-06-13 20:26:31
122. The Rabbits Rarely Loose
lets hope this is the begining of the end to Sosa's .200 BABIP
2007-06-13 20:26:40
123. Hallux Valgus
2007-06-13 20:27:11
124. Bluebleeder87
I wish i would have seen that Matt Kemp infield single live, the boy can flat out fly!
2007-06-13 20:27:14
125. Gen3Blue
Man that Kemp is fast!! It was at least a tie.
2007-06-13 20:27:27
126. Eric Stephen
Nice closing speed by Kemp
2007-06-13 20:27:33
127. Hallux Valgus
I'm developing an unnatural love for Matt Kemp.
2007-06-13 20:27:36
128. natepurcell
Betemits OPS+ is probably around 102 now.
2007-06-13 20:27:42
129. bhsportsguy
He got to be the fastest guy on the team.
2007-06-13 20:27:42
130. kadycee
121. I'm still eating those cookies, too. Apparently they haven't lost their magic.
2007-06-13 20:29:34
131. Eric Stephen
128 It was already 112 before the game.
2007-06-13 20:29:50
132. bhsportsguy
They are going to tire Matty out.
2007-06-13 20:30:28
133. Eric Stephen
Do a lot of hit & runs get called with Abreu batting, or does Abreu just seem to swing on his own every time a Dodger attempts to steal?
2007-06-13 20:30:31
134. bhsportsguy
131 Can someone send me an explanation of that stat.
2007-06-13 20:30:42
135. Bluebleeder87
would it kill you to take a pitch Etanislao!!
2007-06-13 20:30:45
136. natepurcell
2007-06-13 20:31:04
137. Gen3Blue
110 Someone then--maybe Loney? The top three have been gruesome.
2007-06-13 20:31:22
138. Greg Brock
Sosa's like the Latin Kevin Appier with that herky-jerky nonsense.
2007-06-13 20:32:31
139. Bob Timmermann
From BR-bullpen:
An important modification of OPS is "Adjusted OPS" or "OPS+", which adjusts the OPS to account for the ballpark and the league that the player played in. In addition, the number is "normalized", so that the median is 100, with better-than-average scores above 100. A single-season OPS+ performance of 140 or higher could be considered a Hall of Fame level performance for that season. As an example, the 2006 American League leader in OPS+ was Travis Hafner, with a 183. In terms of career performance, the top 100 players have a career OPS+ of 136 or higher. includes "OPS+" among the stats that can be viewed for each batter, and some serious fans consider it the best quick way to get a sense of a batter's quality.
2007-06-13 20:32:59
140. kadycee
2007-06-13 20:33:06
141. MJW101
Betemit, Kemp and Gonzo are the only position players generating ANYTHING in June.
In June Betemit is slugging .636, exceeded only by Kemp's .700 (both admittedly a small sample). Gonzo is next at .600.
This would not be that important except the #1 Furcal, #2 JP, #3 Nomar and #4 Kent are ALL slugging under .333 and OPSing under .650 for June. It is amazing we are winning any games at all.
2007-06-13 20:33:26
142. Bob Timmermann
I think someone here could spot you the cash for the ticket and trust you to pay them back.
2007-06-13 20:33:50
143. JoeyP
Sosa made a mistake there with 1st base open and Pierre on deck.
2007-06-13 20:34:42
144. Hallux Valgus
Deep fly by Pierre's standards! And then he screws it up.
2007-06-13 20:35:05
145. Greg Brock
142 Nah. I procrastinated, the procrastination gods stopped procrastinating and punished me.
It's my fault. I'll buy a ticket and come over and say hi to everybody. It's okay.
2007-06-13 20:35:08
146. MMSMikey
cant blame juan for that. knowing that nomar is only capable of hitting singles. he had to get into scoring position.
2007-06-13 20:35:51
147. bhsportsguy
Kemp might have been there.
But another three run inning started by Wilson "I'm back in the lineup" Betemit.
2007-06-13 20:36:07
148. The Rabbits Rarely Loose
Doesnt Pierre know my Grandmother could swipe a base off Loduca? in that case a single was as good as a double
2007-06-13 20:36:52
149. Bob Timmermann
But you won't be sitting with the cool kids. Instead you will be sitting with the nerds and stoners. And possibly the emo kids.
2007-06-13 20:36:59
150. Eric Stephen
128,136 Betemit is currently at .218/.359/.475.
If the adjusted league SLG and OBP are the same after today as after yesterday, Betemit currently sports a 120 *OPS+
Show/Hide Comments 151-200
2007-06-13 20:37:06
151. bhsportsguy
145 If you are talking about the DT game, I have not bought the tickets yet, so unless Jon has done something without my knowing it, go ahead and buy one or let me know and I will spot you.
2007-06-13 20:38:23
152. The Rabbits Rarely Loose
I miss those swings from Green which translate into groundballs to 2nd base
2007-06-13 20:38:39
153. kadycee
What was that Penny-Green thing about?
2007-06-13 20:40:08
154. bhsportsguy
153 We're not sure but I am sure Kevin Kennedy will recall a story when he was the Skipper and explain that he never liked his players to fraternize with the enemy.
2007-06-13 20:40:48
155. underdog
I still have no idea what that Green-Penny chat was all about, even after that replay. Neither does Vin. Anyone else have a theory?
Belatedly, but does Betemit have an easy home run swing or what? He's got so much power from so little effort (Seemingly). And hey, Pierre with an RBI. And then a nice running grab (for once properly judging it).
2007-06-13 20:41:22
156. Eric Stephen
And were you aware Kevin Kennedy was a former big league manager?
2007-06-13 20:41:35
157. MMSMikey
the mets hit 2 hardballs last inning 1 deflected off penny to abreu, beltran hits a liner to pierre. and nomar comes up and rolls a 27 hopper up the middle.
2007-06-13 20:41:51
158. JoeyP
If the Dodgers hold on to win tonight, they'll be 12-2 in Brad Penny's 14 starts this year.
2007-06-13 20:41:53
159. Vishal
[153] the mets guys speculated that penny was talking to him about peeking at signs.
2007-06-13 20:42:02
160. Bob Timmermann
So this Saturday, should I post a CONCACAF Gold Cup open chat thread on the Griddle?
Canada vs Guatemala is always heated.
2007-06-13 20:42:17
161. underdog
I'm sure Ron Darling has a conspiracy theory to cover it though. And probably suggested a brushback pitch at Penny in that last inning (I wasn't listening, I'm just guessing).
2007-06-13 20:42:32
162. bhsportsguy
156 I think he also was in the Dodger organization for many many years.
2007-06-13 20:43:11
163. Gen3Blue
My grumbling about the top of the line-up surprisingly seemed to help. I know I get a bit raspy at times.
2007-06-13 20:45:21
164. Eric Stephen
One of the few Dodger-related benefits of living in San Diego is my relative lack of exposure to Kevin Kennedy.
2007-06-13 20:45:26
165. imperabo
That was a Juan Pierre floater.
2007-06-13 20:45:34
166. underdog
Something's wrong with my MLBTV. It showed Garciaparra stealing a base.
2007-06-13 20:45:37
167. MMSMikey
wow never seen russell swing and miss like this, on what seem to be very hittable pitches.
2007-06-13 20:46:41
168. Greg Brock
Throw me away, Sosa.
Stupid running inside the baseline.
2007-06-13 20:47:07
169. The Rabbits Rarely Loose
Bad call, he would have been safe!
2007-06-13 20:47:18
170. overkill94
Is he out for getting in the pitcher's way while he was fielding it or because the ball hit him?
2007-06-13 20:47:19
171. JoeyP
That was a savvy move by Martin had it worked.
2007-06-13 20:47:33
172. Gen3Blue
I still find that rule hard to comprhend.
2007-06-13 20:47:54
173. StolenMonkey86
172 - so does gameday
2007-06-13 20:48:06
174. overkill94
Because there's no way he should be called out for the throw hitting him since he was, you know, just about to step on first base.
2007-06-13 20:48:13
175. bhsportsguy
Do you walk Wilson?
2007-06-13 20:48:15
176. Bluebleeder87
want a dummy!!! i would have kept Russell Martins helmet. Did you guys see that??
2007-06-13 20:48:23
177. MMSMikey
i think russell is just a little frusterated he hasnt been swinging the bat all too well of late.
2007-06-13 20:48:28
178. Hallux Valgus
160 You cannot stop DeMarcus Beasley.
Actually, Guatemala vs. anyone gets heated. Those guys play cheap. Mostly because they can't hit the back of the net at all.
2007-06-13 20:48:30
179. underdog
Martin just lost his helmet when he tossed it up, that's hilarious. It never came down, landed on the dugout roof.
Russ has no real argument there.
2007-06-13 20:48:40
180. JoeyP
Guess it always against the rules to run inside the baseline--although I'm sure other players do it and dont get called for it.
2007-06-13 20:48:44
181. The Rabbits Rarely Loose
He got hit as he hit first base
2007-06-13 20:49:05
182. Eric Stephen
According to Vin, Betemit is "full of ginger"
GEICO Caveman, do you have a response?
"Yeah...uh, what?"
2007-06-13 20:49:20
183. kadycee
154. I can't wait.
2007-06-13 20:50:04
184. neuroboy002
Someone please explain what's going on. No cable and my gameday stalled.
2007-06-13 20:50:28
185. kadycee
156. who has apparently managed everyone playing in MLB today.
2007-06-13 20:50:43
186. overkill94
It took a few different players, but I think Betemit finally got a fire lit under him
2007-06-13 20:50:52
187. KAYVMON
Jon, how do you know Betemit was going to have a big night?
2007-06-13 20:50:53
188. imperabo
There's our third baseman.
2007-06-13 20:51:06
189. underdog
I think we may have found our third baseman, after an in-house search.
2007-06-13 20:51:13
190. kadycee
well done!
2007-06-13 20:51:15
191. Bluebleeder87
can you keep the helmet or do you do an exchange thing like when a bat gets tossed to the fans?
2007-06-13 20:51:20
192. The Rabbits Rarely Loose
take that BABIP!
2007-06-13 20:51:24
193. Hallux Valgus
I really hope this is more indicative of Betemit's ability. I really want to believe.
2007-06-13 20:51:25
194. Eric Stephen
Instant Betemit update: .225/.364/.480, *OPS+ of around 123
2007-06-13 20:51:28
195. Bob Timmermann
We need to get you an Old-Timey Dictionary of Phrases. I think I have one that my grandmother was given back in Nineteen Aught Eight.
2007-06-13 20:51:28
196. JoeyP
175--Sosa's probably thinking he should have.
Thats 3 2-out RBI hits tonight.
2007-06-13 20:51:45
197. Rob M
I think betemit will get another start on Friday.
2007-06-13 20:52:03
198. underdog
Neuro, Nomar singled, stole second(!) on a busted hit and run, Martin dribbled out, and Betemit just lashed a hit up the middle to drive in Nomar, then made it to 2nd on the throw. 4-1.
2007-06-13 20:52:05
199. Greg Brock
184 Martin got called out for running to first inside the baseline. Betemit got an RBI single, goes to second on the throw home.
4-1 Good Guys.
2007-06-13 20:52:39
200. MMSMikey
kemp SMOKED that ball
Show/Hide Comments 201-250
2007-06-13 20:53:02
201. overkill94
It's such a breath of fresh air to see guys hit the ball hard
2007-06-13 20:53:22
202. Bob Timmermann
It's only illegal to run outside the 3-foot lane between home and first IF you interfere with a throw by doing so.
If you hit a ball in the gap, you can run up the line just about any way you like.
2007-06-13 20:53:38
203. imperabo
Whoever instucted the Dodger hitters to try hitting the ball hard is a genius.
2007-06-13 20:53:39
204. KAYVMON
How long before Vin starts doing the thing with Kemp that he does with The Killer Tomato? "I just can't understand why they keep throwing him fastballs."
2007-06-13 20:53:41
205. JoeyP
Should be an error on Reyes.
Sosa's regression to the mean happened tonight.
2007-06-13 20:54:04
206. underdog
And Kemp just lashed a single up the middle too. I love these kids, confarnit.
195 I like to read that after I get back from my weekly ether frolics or while having a phosphate at the 5 and dime.
2007-06-13 20:54:29
207. bhsportsguy
184 Nomar singled.
Gonzo flied deep to right.
Nomar stole second on a busted hit and run play.
Martin out because he ran out of the baseline.
Betemit, after being down 0-2, singled in Nomar and took second on the throw.
Betemit scored on a generous hit call (good for Kemp) because he hit a hard ground ball off Reyes glove.
Sosa going out.
2007-06-13 20:54:31
208. Eric Stephen
195 "My story begins in nineteen-dickitty-two! We had to say 'dickitty' because the Kaiser had stolen our word 'twenty'!"
-Abraham Simpson
2007-06-13 20:54:38
209. overkill94
194 IsoBetemit doesn't really roll off the tongue, how about IsoMeat? Sounds like something you could find at Whole Foods.
2007-06-13 20:54:55
210. Greg Brock
200 At the game on Sunday, kemp was butt out fooled on a fastball away and roped a one hopper into the 5/6 hole. Almost any other guy tries to pull that and rolls a 36 hopper to the shortsop.
That kid is strong.
2007-06-13 20:55:38
211. trainwreck
Everybody dance now!!
2007-06-13 20:56:28
212. Rob M
I think betemit will get another start on Friday.
2007-06-13 20:56:34
213. underdog
Even the umpires are catching balls better than the Mets tonight.
2007-06-13 20:56:51
214. natepurcell
yes, we're probably going to win!
2007-06-13 20:57:00
215. Hallux Valgus
this= awesome
2007-06-13 20:57:06
216. Gen3Blue
Bisons running free
2007-06-13 20:57:21
217. Greg Brock
Hit parade.
210 was an offspeed pitch, not a fastball.
2007-06-13 20:57:21
218. Eric Stephen
The Dodgers should just do this every night. It's so much cooler.
2007-06-13 20:57:28
219. imperabo
Kemp runs like he's falling down a cliff.
2007-06-13 20:58:04
220. underdog
HA! As they say on Bronx Banter. Beltran's play in CF is almost making me not so down on Pierre. (ALMOST.)
2007-06-13 20:58:08
221. Johnny Nucleo
Abreu is a doubles machine.
2007-06-13 20:58:31
222. Eric Stephen
Penny with 69 pitches through 6. I smell complete game.
2007-06-13 20:59:21
223. underdog
Ahem. Who's turn is it to bake cookies for us tonight?
2007-06-13 20:59:21
224. bhsportsguy
Kemp hit a ball 470 feet last night, since then he has three hits on three ground balls that have been fielded or at least touched by an infielder.
2007-06-13 21:00:11
225. Gen3Blue
I've been tough on Penny, but he is good this year. He has 69 pitches though 6. Not bad.
2007-06-13 21:00:16
226. bhsportsguy
223 I think Kady is overcome with 6 runs in 2 innings.
2007-06-13 21:00:31
227. underdog
Whose, rather. Sigh. I need cookies.
224 Just like a bison - power and, when needed, speed.
2007-06-13 21:01:16
228. bhsportsguy
You are a good team, you are a good team.
Personally I think he gave them all rides on his motorcycle after the game.
2007-06-13 21:01:28
229. LeeLacy
On Monday, Betemit finally surpassed .200 for the first time this season.
Now that that barrier has been obliterated, the sky's the limit!
2007-06-13 21:02:15
230. bhsportsguy
227 Are they ready to bring back Russ Ortiz since the kid has gotten beat up a couple of times.
2007-06-13 21:02:21
231. Greg Brock
277 You were right the first time. Roger Daltry is over here making some monster double fudge chip cookies.
2007-06-13 21:03:37
232. KAYVMON
You know guys, tonight might be one of those so-called "tipping points". I'm getting text messages from friends saying things like, "Cavemon, you're right, these kids are ready to play" AND "It just wouldn't be right to trade Nomar, BUT..."
2007-06-13 21:03:53
233. trainwreck
Brock can see into the future.
2007-06-13 21:04:44
234. Eric Stephen
277? Greg Brock can tell the future!
No ticket to DT Day, huh? What do you know that we don't???!!!
2007-06-13 21:05:32
235. Frip
154 - What was the Penny-Green thing about?
Funny, so true.
2007-06-13 21:06:22
236. Greg Brock
233 Grrrr...
Remember that Spring Training picture of Penny, lookin' all twiggy and whatnot? Did he gain it back or is the camera adding many, many pounds?
2007-06-13 21:06:22
237. neuroboy002
I quietly at dinner in the dark only to comeback and see that the younger generation make an impact in the 6th frame. Is it wrong to say I'm part of the "sit Garciaparra down" march and chowder society? Now let's see more of Loney!
2007-06-13 21:06:39
238. trainwreck
He's one of those Heroes.
Kill him!
2007-06-13 21:06:47
239. Hallux Valgus
my paypal account continues to refuse my attempts to log in.
2007-06-13 21:08:00
240. StolenMonkey86
236 - dunno. How many cameras did he swallow?
2007-06-13 21:08:38
241. Gagne55
If Ledee reaches, it's hook time.
2007-06-13 21:09:23
242. Bob Timmermann
I'm afraid that's not the correct usage of "marching and chowder society."
They aren't advocacy groups. You could form a James Loney Marching and Chowder Society, but the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Barry Sucks Marching And Chowder Society v Selig, 720 US 312, that a "Marching and Chowder Society" must be used in a positive, not negative tone.
2007-06-13 21:10:19
243. underdog
Those pitches sure aren't missing by much. If at all.
2007-06-13 21:10:21
244. Bluebleeder87
i'm still trying to figure out why in the world would you throw Valentin off speed stuff.
2007-06-13 21:11:11
245. bhsportsguy
242 But if Wilson is going to keep getting basehits, its fine by me if he is filled with ginger.
2007-06-13 21:11:18
246. Gagne55
Whew, Penny got out of it. But he is at 91 pitches so that is probably it for him. A solid 7 innings though.
2007-06-13 21:12:16
247. kadycee
226. yeah that, and I just had an ice cream sandwich. The faded memory of a cool-a-coo fluttered through my mind...
2007-06-13 21:12:56
248. Greg Brock
240 Nice. Very nice.
Furcal is stealing all of Jose Reyes triples.
2007-06-13 21:13:22
249. kadycee
2007-06-13 21:13:22
250. Eric Stephen
My head is full of images of Mary Ann
Furcal is the inverse Magic Johnson.
Show/Hide Comments 251-300
2007-06-13 21:13:45
251. kadycee
I wish I was there tonight
2007-06-13 21:14:10
252. underdog
That whole Grady Little telling the team, "You're a good team, you're a good team" - especially as Vin told it - reminded me of Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein, telling the monster, "This is a good boy, this a GOOD boy, such a good boy..."
Another triple for Raffy, wow! So much for worrying about him.
2007-06-13 21:14:42
253. kadycee
231. beware of what's in them
2007-06-13 21:14:58
254. bhsportsguy
So what our the Mets guys saying now?
2007-06-13 21:15:54
255. Gen3Blue
They are walking Nomar!! allright.
2007-06-13 21:16:12
256. Bob Timmermann
4th time a Dodger has had two triples in a game at Dodger Stadium.
The other three:
2007-06-13 21:16:14
257. StolenMonkey86
Feliciano intentionally K's Nomar. Take it.
2007-06-13 21:16:48
258. scareduck
252 - weirdly streaky, though.
2007-06-13 21:16:50
259. Gen3Blue
What a bonehead play.
2007-06-13 21:16:56
260. Bluebleeder87
Met's blog must be going bananas right about now. wow.
2007-06-13 21:17:26
261. kadycee
the baseball gods are on our side tonight
2007-06-13 21:17:39
262. StolenMonkey86
260 - Now I'm gonna grab a banana
2007-06-13 21:17:41
263. underdog
He looked like Jose Feliciano on that play.
2007-06-13 21:18:06
264. bhsportsguy
252 The other night I caught the blind man scene in Young Frankenstein and Gene Hackman is so good in that scene. For years I never knew what he meant when he said he was going make espresso. (Now my 7 year old niece knows what a nonfat vanilla iced latte is but I was a deprived kid)
2007-06-13 21:18:09
265. Bob Timmermann
Only the 10th time in Dodger Stadium's history someone hit two triples in a game:
2007-06-13 21:18:26
266. Gen3Blue
Repko!! Sax +Rusell
2007-06-13 21:18:46
267. scareduck
Mets got (arguably) jobbed on that call, if you believe in area code plays. Reyes had control of the ball but blew it pulling the ball out of his glove. Ump wasn't going to give him the area code play at second with a sloppy transfer.
2007-06-13 21:19:27
268. scareduck
265 - Bob, you are my hero.
2007-06-13 21:19:31
269. neuroboy002
242 But I thought sitting Nomar down was a positive? Perhaps the thought falls along the lines of when Homer was trying to spread religion to some natives:
Bart: Dad, are you licking toads?
Homer: I'm not not licking toads. Well, it's time to get to work.
2007-06-13 21:20:12
270. spacebrother
Does the stadium "security" confiscate brooms?
2007-06-13 21:20:30
271. underdog
264 Hah. I love that scene and that movie.
"Some varm milk? Ovaltine perhaps?"
2007-06-13 21:21:30
272. Gold Star for Robot Boy
265 - Bob, isn't BB-Ref's P-I fun?
So far, I've researched Jim Rice's game-ending GIDPs, which players have had seasons of at least 100 BB, K, R and RBI (Jim Thome leads the list), and how many times the '07 Dodgers have left the bases loaded.
2007-06-13 21:22:13
273. Marty
264 Cigars!
Don't inhale until the tip glows.
2007-06-13 21:22:26
274. Bob Timmermann
There have been 10 2-triple games in Anaheim and all but one of them have been by players who were not particularly famous.
2007-06-13 21:22:48
275. Gen3Blue
I can feel for the Mets. We have had days like these. Last year in fact. And nothing can prepare you for its persistance. It will pass.
But the way everything was falling for the Mets and the way their fans take it for granted make it almost satisfying.
2007-06-13 21:23:12
276. Gold Star for Robot Boy
Martin's cooled off as of late.
2007-06-13 21:23:17
277. bhsportsguy
I'd quote from Blazing Saddles but this is a family site.
Oh, okay.
Hello boys.
2007-06-13 21:23:31
278. Bob Timmermann
Brooms are specifically listed among prohibited items at Dodger Stadium.
2007-06-13 21:23:39
279. Robert Fiore
What an awful night to be a Mets fan. You gotta feel for them.
2007-06-13 21:24:22
280. scareduck
277 - now, do you feww wefweshed?
2007-06-13 21:24:22
281. MMSMikey
we have suffered long enough. i can feel for cubs fans. thats about it.
2007-06-13 21:24:38
282. Gen3Blue
Penny for the eighth. Why not?
2007-06-13 21:24:42
283. spacebrother
A whisk perhaps?
2007-06-13 21:25:05
284. Gold Star for Robot Boy
274 - Luis Polonia is famous... among law-enforcement types, anyway.
2007-06-13 21:25:19
285. spacebrother
I meant 278.
2007-06-13 21:25:22
286. spacebrother
I meant 278.
2007-06-13 21:25:23
287. spacebrother
I meant 278.
2007-06-13 21:25:49
288. Bluebleeder87
2007-06-13 21:27:33
289. kadycee
2007-06-13 21:28:05
290. kadycee
Speaking of Young Frankenstein - couldn't they do a remake with Beimel as the monster?
2007-06-13 21:28:46
291. Bob Timmermann
Jimmy Sheckard is the last Dodger to have three triples in a game.
But that was 106 years ago.
2007-06-13 21:29:28
292. bhsportsguy
290 Is that a comment on his appearance or his past late night activities?
2007-06-13 21:29:43
293. Bluebleeder87
It's pretty nice that the Dodgers rest tomorrow so Russell can get a well deserve day off. From what i understand he caught more innings then any catcher in the NL(?)
2007-06-13 21:29:52
294. kadycee
It's so cool the Dodgers were around 106 years ago.
2007-06-13 21:30:40
295. kadycee
292. well, appearance. I'm not sure how good Peter Boyle could pitch.
2007-06-13 21:30:43
296. scareduck
260 - nah, the Mets bloggers have all gone to bed. It's 12:30 and the Metropolitans are getting creamed.
2007-06-13 21:31:13
297. Greg Brock
291 Were they the Superbas or the Bridegrooms or the Robins then?
I still like Superbas. Bridegrooms, not so much.
2007-06-13 21:31:42
298. kadycee
293. The Dodgers have not yet won a game when Lieberthal plays - or did I miss one? That can't be good for one's self esteem.
2007-06-13 21:32:14
299. Jon Weisman
if you still want to go to DT Night, no problem. Just e-mail me and I'll hold a spot.
2007-06-13 21:33:19
300. bhsportsguy
Stay tuned if you have Prime Ticket because I am sure we will get this interview:
Reporter: Brad, nice game, what happened between you and Green after you struck him out?
Penny: Nothing.
Reporter: Well you said something didn't you?
Penny: No.
Reporter: I am sure I saw you speak to him.
Penny: I'm done.
Show/Hide Comments 301-350
2007-06-13 21:33:41
301. Bob Timmermann
The Dodgers were around 123 years ago, but the team will just say they've been around 117 years.
This perturbs me and likely no one else.
2007-06-13 21:33:56
302. underdog
I'm not sure how well Peter Boyle could do anything right now. Alas.
Beimel would be better cast in Lord of the Rings or something.
2007-06-13 21:34:50
303. bhsportsguy
The future is now.
2007-06-13 21:34:52
304. Daniel Zappala
I was curious about this, and it turns out there is quite a long list of umpires who were formerly players:
There are even 300 cases when an active player substituted as an ump, the last occurring in 1978.
2007-06-13 21:35:39
305. underdog
I used to mispronounce that as "Super-bas" - like they were named after some sort of powerful sheep.
Billy Wagner obviously needed some work...
2007-06-13 21:36:49
306. underdog
Can this Kemp kid play or what?
2007-06-13 21:38:54
307. scareduck
305 - whose principal rivals were the Super Humbugs.
2007-06-13 21:39:06
308. Bluebleeder87
Can you imagine if Kemp squares off a Wagner fastball. Whoa!!
2007-06-13 21:39:15
309. Bob Timmermann
The Dodgers have won 3 games in which Lieberthal has appeared.
The last one was on April 29, the 14 inning win over the Padres.
2007-06-13 21:39:39
310. kadycee
301. But why - do they say that I mean? I find it perturbing as well.
2007-06-13 21:40:24
311. MMSMikey
making his case!
2007-06-13 21:40:34
312. kadycee
302. He'd make a good orc I guess.
2007-06-13 21:40:38
313. scareduck
This Loney kid -- I think I like him.
2007-06-13 21:40:41
314. Gen3Blue
No power Loney!
2007-06-13 21:40:48
315. Greg Brock
I love these kids.
Tears. Tears of joy. Can't speak...Should have sent a poet...
2007-06-13 21:40:48
316. Bob Timmermann
The Dodgers as a team only count team records from when they joined the National League and don't recognize their six seasons in the American Association.
2007-06-13 21:40:48
317. bhsportsguy
An L Bomb for Loney.
2007-06-13 21:40:49
318. Eric Stephen
Loney HRs = Nomar HRs
2007-06-13 21:40:57
319. trainwreck
Loney Booomb!!!!!
2007-06-13 21:40:59
320. Bluebleeder87
Loeny, i'm knocking at the door Nomar can you hear me.
2007-06-13 21:41:18
321. kadycee
2007-06-13 21:41:22
322. JoeyP
Off Billy Wagner no less!
2007-06-13 21:41:27
323. dkminnick
With a bench of Kent, Pierre, and Garciaparra this team cannot be stopped!
2007-06-13 21:41:29
324. Michael D
Trade Nomar.
2007-06-13 21:41:38
325. neuroboy002
James Loney March and Chowder Society. Please join.
2007-06-13 21:41:44
326. underdog
Oooooohhhhh... my. That was truly sweet. Just to see Loney power up like that, wowsa.
2007-06-13 21:42:02
327. kadycee
I would feel sorry for the Mets if the Dodgers hadn't had games like this. Also, I enjoy schadenfreude.
2007-06-13 21:42:07
328. bhsportsguy
I actually do feel for any fantsy owner that has Wagner, I would be very upset at Willie for bringing him in.
2007-06-13 21:42:25
329. Bob Timmermann
The only way Furcal could have gotten a triple on that play is if Wright threw his glove at the ball.
2007-06-13 21:42:38
330. kadycee
Nomar must be starting to feel kind of sad right now...
2007-06-13 21:42:55
331. the OZ
I would be so happy to read "James Loney homers on a fly ball to right field. Matt Kemp scores." on Gameday for the next ten years.
2007-06-13 21:43:13
332. bhsportsguy
Derek Lowe is saying please save some of this for me on Friday. Please.
2007-06-13 21:43:14
333. Bob Timmermann
Thank you. When will you be serving the chowder?
2007-06-13 21:43:25
334. kadycee
307. I'm going to call the Giants that from now on.
2007-06-13 21:44:40
335. JoeyP
New lineup!
2007-06-13 21:44:45
336. Gen3Blue
A lot of players hit better when they move from triple A to the Bigs, and I hope Kemp and Loney are some. I remember the year Lynn and Rice came up to Boston and both had better stats than they had in AAA.
2007-06-13 21:45:04
337. kadycee
316. Oh. That's dumb.
2007-06-13 21:45:12
338. neuroboy002
333 As soon as you start pronouncing right. Say it Frenchy - "showdeeuuuuurrrr."
2007-06-13 21:45:16
339. scareduck
If you're happy and you know it
Read the score
2007-06-13 21:45:58
340. LeeLacy
Other Dodgers with as many home runs as Nomar:
Hong Chih Kuo and Jason Schmidt.
2007-06-13 21:46:08
341. underdog
Well someone told me yesterday
That when you hit the ball away
You act as if you don't care
You look as if you're going somewhere
But I just can't convince myself
I couldn't start no one else
And I can only play that part
And sit Nomar on the bench
So loney
So loney
So loney
So loney
(Apologies to Sting and everyone)
2007-06-13 21:46:38
342. kadycee
335. Excellent.
2007-06-13 21:46:57
343. scareduck
316 - perhaps that "Beer and Whiskey League" thing would put them at odds with their catering service people.
2007-06-13 21:47:48
344. Gen3Blue
290 Can he sing "putting on the Ritz in falsetto?
2007-06-13 21:48:27
345. underdog
Now they can bring Tomdrickson in and I won't worry. As much.
2007-06-13 21:49:14
346. Daniel Zappala
304 To make that relevant, maybe Pierre and Nomar can become substitute umpires.
2007-06-13 21:49:17
347. kadycee
This is for all the Loney people
Thinking that life has passed them by...
Don't give up until you
drink from the silver cup
and ride that highway in the sky...
My apologies to America (that old group from the 70s that was on the radio all the time when I was little. In case you didn't know).
2007-06-13 21:49:37
348. Greg Brock
Get your gloves ready in the pavilions, kids.
2007-06-13 21:49:58
349. underdog
Now they bring Lieberthal in.
2007-06-13 21:50:39
350. Gen3Blue
Tomk-O instead of Sait-O. I hope it works.
Show/Hide Comments 351-400
2007-06-13 21:50:42
351. underdog
347 Nice. We could probably do a lot of these.
2007-06-13 21:50:46
352. Hallux Valgus
348 you shut your dirty mouth
2007-06-13 21:51:11
353. kadycee
344. ha ha. I'd like to see that, actually.
2007-06-13 21:51:25
354. Gold Star for Robot Boy
347 - Ah yes, the band that sang "Ventura Highway." Not "Ventura *Free*way."
2007-06-13 21:51:26
355. scareduck
347 -
It's Ned Colletti's Loney Heart Club Fans
We hope that you will like the Show
Ned Colletti's Loney Heart Club Fans
Sit back and let the homers go
2007-06-13 21:51:32
356. JoeyP
One of Tomko/Hendrickson will be gone when Marlon Anderson is activated I hope.
2007-06-13 21:51:35
357. LeeLacy
Very nice.
He's really been a Demolition Man.
2007-06-13 21:51:44
358. Hallux Valgus
Abreu is far better at second than the mustachioed one.
2007-06-13 21:51:54
359. kadycee
WHY is Tomko still a Dodger? Why doesn't he just go away. Somewhere. Anywhere. Maybe the Mets can take him with them.
2007-06-13 21:53:16
360. Hallux Valgus
2007-06-13 21:53:17
361. Lexinthedena
Wow....just got in....see that Betimit homered to center....last night was an Oppo.....good signs.....
Man, exciting stuff.....
2007-06-13 21:53:44
362. Gen3Blue
We Win--and to think I was pessimistic about this series.
2007-06-13 21:54:27
363. kadycee
swept by the dodgers for the first time since 1996? wow.
2007-06-13 21:54:41
364. Greg Brock
We win.
2007-06-13 21:54:50
365. JoeyP
Youngsters played great tonight and the Dodgers rarely lose when Brad Penny starts.
3-1 since Kemp/Loney have been on the roster.
2007-06-13 21:55:07
366. MMSMikey
i love furcal interviews.
2007-06-13 21:55:39
367. kadycee
Kent and Nomar - there's probably a place for them at the La Brea tar pits. I'd go see them THERE.
2007-06-13 21:55:45
368. MMSMikey
hahaha "no, i dont know what they talking about"
2007-06-13 21:55:54
369. JoeyP
Is their a reason that Marlen Garcia says the question in spanish, then repeats in english?
2007-06-13 21:56:15
370. underdog
359 Actually, I think Tomko can serve as a decent mop-up and long reliever. I don't know why exactly, but I trust him more there than Hendrickson at this point. But definitely not as a starter and, yeah, we're not gonna need both.
2007-06-13 21:56:35
371. kadycee
362. Hey, I was told only Greg Brock said that...
We win! There, I did it too.
2007-06-13 21:57:15
372. kadycee
369. To annoy us
2007-06-13 21:58:03
373. kadycee
370. Actually, I think he'd just make a decent mop.
2007-06-13 21:58:13
374. Xeifrank
after tonight's game, Wally Pipp might be out of a job. vr, Xei
2007-06-13 21:58:23
375. Bluebleeder87
Nice sweep. The Angel series is gonna be tuff though.
2007-06-13 21:59:25
376. Xeifrank
The Dodgers helped regress Sosa's BABIP against back towards the mean a bit this evening. vr, Xei
2007-06-13 21:59:50
377. Bob Timmermann
Because not everyone is bilingual.
Why are Spanish speaking players expected to speak English while guys like Saito and Kuo use interpreters?
Lamentably, this is the double standard.
2007-06-13 21:59:55
378. underdog
Well, we just got the broom out, might as well get the mop out too. And Kent's mustache grooming comb. And other cleaning supplies.
2007-06-13 22:01:43
380. Bluebleeder87
Steve Lyon just gave an explanation on what when down with Green & Penny, apparently Green & David Wright were stealing signs.
2007-06-13 22:03:15
381. bhsportsguy
380 I wonder if that was why on that strikeout pitch to Green he threw a high fastball though Russell was setting up down and in.
2007-06-13 22:03:29
382. kadycee
377. It would be nice if Saito spoke some English. I'd like to hear from him directly instead of through and interpreter (and I don't think I'll be attempting to learn Japanese anytime soon, unfortunately).
2007-06-13 22:04:01
383. JoeyP
379--Thats pretty funny. It'll be great if the Mets get swept by the red-hot Yankees this weekend.
2007-06-13 22:04:46
384. Bob Timmermann
When Jimmy Sheckard had his 3 triples game for the Dodgers it was on Opening Day, 4/18/1901. But the New York Times boxscore didn't list Sheckard with any triples.
But the boxscore was wrong. The Brooklyn Eagle gave Sheckard three triples. Sheckard, who normally played the outfield, was tried out at third base to start the season.
He fielded .721 in 12 games and was sent back to the outfield.
The Dodgers even tried Willie Keeler at third base in 1901. And he was left-handed.
2007-06-13 22:05:04
385. Bluebleeder87
ah how cute! Steve Lyons is wearing a vote for Russell button.
2007-06-13 22:05:40
386. bhsportsguy
It took only two segments before he mentioned managing and Nolan Ryan too.
2007-06-13 22:06:08
387. JoeyP
382--Didnt Nomo pitch in the US for like 12 years and never once bothered to learn english and give an interview?
Although, its possible he just didnt like giving interviews so he used the 'dont speak english' thing as an excuse. In fact, I think I read a few times where Nomo's teammates would say he knew english fine, but just didnt want to be interviewed.
2007-06-13 22:06:47
388. kadycee
385. Where can we get those?
386. That's showing some restraint for him
2007-06-13 22:07:53
389. kadycee
387. Actually, didn't Fernando neglect the use of English (though some thought he could understand and just chose not to)?
2007-06-13 22:09:03
390. Bob Timmermann
Saito likely speaks English about as well as Furcal speaks English. But the Japanese are just very shy about speaking with an accent or saying the wrong words.
I have two friends from Japan, a husband and wife who met at Penn, and both have written books in English and they are constantly apologizing for their "poor" English.
When I get Spanish callers at work, I just push on through with my Spanish, which is far from fluent, but no one complains.
A bilingual beat writer for a paper should have a big advantage over other reporters.
2007-06-13 22:09:14
391. Some Guy in San Diego
If I remember correctly, Nomo knew quite a bit of english, but preferred to be interviewed with a translator. Not necessarily because he didn't like interviews, more because he was self-conscious of his accent and because he wanted to make sure he didn't mess up an answer.
2007-06-13 22:09:16
392. Jon Weisman
379 - Quoting a Rule 1 violation from another site doesn't prevent it from being a Rule 1 violation.
2007-06-13 22:09:50
393. Bluebleeder87
my sisters use to say that a lot, i was just joking.
2007-06-13 22:10:05
394. Lexinthedena
387-John Ireland was on the radio once saying that Nomo spoke better english than his interpreter....
Mets fans are going nuts....Hope Kuo becomes extra hated in Queens...the more they hate guys, the greater they become....
2007-06-13 22:11:29
395. kadycee
390. Interesting. I don't blame them. I feel very self-conscious when I attempt one of the 3 languages I've started to learn but never finished...
2007-06-13 22:12:45
396. Bob Timmermann
Remember that Sammy Sosa got a lot of grief from people for using an interpreter when Congress called him in to testify under oath. But it made sense to me. Why mess up what you're going to say when Congress can go and slap a perjury charge on you? It's one thing to joke around with the press, but you don't want to mess with Congress. They have much less of a sense of humor.
2007-06-13 22:14:01
397. kadycee
394. Seriously, the interpreters are far more annoying than an accent or awkward English. Too bad.
2007-06-13 22:14:16
398. Lexinthedena
Am I alone in seeing some Manny in Matt Kemp?
2007-06-13 22:15:10
399. MMSMikey
i see a little more derek lee in kemp than man-ram.
2007-06-13 22:15:52
400. JoeyP
I see Jermaine Dye, but Manny would be great also!
Show/Hide Comments 401-450
2007-06-13 22:16:29
401. scareduck
375 - I dunno. I think it'll be pretty evenly matched. The Dodgers are finally figuring out that Nomar can't play every day, they have better options than Kent at second, and the pitching staff has been shorn of its two least-productive members. The matchups look good on paper for the Dodgers:
Friday: Santana vs. Lowe: Lowe was a tough-luck loser in his last start but he hasn't been truly bad elsewhere; the Angels got to him in his last start with a fusillade of seeing-eye singles. Santana's road problems are well-documented, but he's never been able to string together consistent road starts, so this one ought to be an automatic Dodger win barring another meltdown.
Saturday: Weaver vs. Schmidt: Two pitchers battling injury and trying to avoid the DL. Jered Weaver claims to be fine after seeing the chiropractor following back stiffness experienced last Sunday; he got yanked in a game marked by a drizzly afternoon rain that exacerbated his pre-existing problem. Jason Schmidt's decline in velocity might prove equally problematic, and so we have the possibility of both starters getting the hook early.
Sunday: Escobar vs. Wolf: I give the Angels a slight edge here in that Wolf has started to resemble his old inconsistent self, but Escobar often tries too hard to strike out everybody and in the process leaves a few up. He looked good in his last three starts, but Wolf hasn't, giving up three or more earned runs in his last three.
2007-06-13 22:17:15
402. Lexinthedena
399-really? DLee's swing seems a lot more under control than Kemp...I see similarities in the swing, and the fact that(at least right now) Kemp sprays to all fields, but happens to have exceptional power....just like Manny...
2007-06-13 22:17:34
403. overkill94
It's not that these guys don't know the language, they just don't want to look dumb by using a limited vocabulary and occasionally using the wrong tense or something. We've all seen Furcal's interviews and they're not pretty, but from my experience with Asians who know limited English it can be very ugly.
2007-06-13 22:18:40
404. overkill94
403 Wow, my response looks so redundant now
2007-06-13 22:18:54
405. scareduck
401 - and one more thing: the Angels have to fly back after tomorrow's rubber match with the Reds on no days rest.
2007-06-13 22:19:31
406. Lexinthedena
403- I lived in Venezuela for a time, and it was hard for me to swallow my pride and speak broken spanish to folks because it made me feel like a child....
2007-06-13 22:20:28
407. bhsportsguy
Who else is going on Friday?
2007-06-13 22:22:26
408. kadycee
403. No, it made me chuckle. thanks
2007-06-13 22:24:31
409. kadycee
I'm sick of the Angels. I hate interleague play because of them. The Red Sox, the White Sox, the Yankees -- they're the only teams I care about seeing in interleague play. So of course, we never do.
2007-06-13 22:24:53
410. bhsportsguy
In each game, the Mets scored first but they never scored after the Dodgers took the lead. And after they took a 3-0 lead on Monday, the Mets scored only 2 runs in the next 23 innings while the Dodgers scored 18 runs.
2007-06-13 22:25:24
411. Eric Enders
301 Make that you and one other person.
2007-06-13 22:25:57
412. Some Guy in San Diego
The sudden, beautiful influx of young talent to this roster gives me more hope for the Dodgers now, and in the future, than I've had since Mondesi was a rookie. The biggest difference, I guess, is that it seems there is much more quality pitching, both on the Major League Club, and in the minors, than I have seen in years. This is exciting.
2007-06-13 22:32:33
413. underdog
I'm sure Mitch Jones doing interviews in Japan won't be pretty either.
2007-06-13 22:33:53
414. bhsportsguy
Brad did answer the question and it was what both Lyons and Kennedy thought though Penny added the part about Green having a history of giving location from second base.
2007-06-13 22:34:32
415. Eric Enders
Most of the players mentioned in this thread, including Fernando and Nomo, spoke English passably (or in Fernando's case, extremely well). Those two in particular just didn't like talking to the press, so they used the no-English thing as an excuse to keep people off their back.
Anyway, it's one of the real oddities of modern journalism that newspapers nowadays don't require their baseball beat writers to speak Spanish.
2007-06-13 22:36:00
416. Jon Weisman
415 - Like I've always said.
Anyway, Kevin Baxter speaks Spanish.
2007-06-13 22:37:10
417. kadycee
Is anyone watching Sammy Samurai? He's great.
2007-06-13 22:37:39
418. Eric Enders
413 I always wondered how many American players learn to speak Japanese when they go over there. Not many, I would guess.
It's always kind of interesting, and probably rare, when an American player learns a foreign language to communicate with his teammates. Mike Scioscia famously learned Spanish so he could talk to Fernando. Ethier told me last year that he was trying to learn Japanese so he could talk to Saito. Pedro Martinez spoke some French when he was playing in Montreal.
2007-06-13 22:39:38
419. scareduck
409 - huh? One of the most exciting games of the last four years was when the Yanks played the Dodgers over the weekend of June 18-20, 2004; the final game had an inside-the-park home run (not really; it was a single and an error by Hideki Matsui, but still immensely entertaining) by Dave Roberts, and a controversial called strike three against Matsui, who was having hell's own week of it.
2007-06-13 22:39:48
420. Bob Timmermann
We'll get a petition going!
2007-06-13 22:41:07
421. kadycee
419. I know. I was there. But that was 3 years ago.
2007-06-13 22:41:42
422. Xeifrank
If you travel to Guo's home country of Taiwan, and you look like a westerner, you will be swarmed by what look to be teenagers wanting to practice their limited english with you. Alot of the older (25+) people will pretend they don't speak english, because they are afraid of sounding foolish. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it is. I don't feel that way with my Mandarin, because I know it's not that good. One Taipei tv news station wanted to interview me at one of the tourist sites, but when they said they wanted to conduct the interview in Mandarin, I said "no thanks", or "bu yao, xiexie."
vr, Xei
2007-06-13 22:41:58
423. kadycee
419. Gagne was also great in that series
2007-06-13 22:44:07
424. Bob Timmermann
The American players get interpreters who follow them around all the time. But some Americans do try to learn Japanese. Bobby Valentine has tried very hard.
But most of the players are just there for a year or two.
Some of the guys who have been there for a while will pick up some Japanese. I think Tuffy Rhodes can speak a bit. Rhodes has played so long in Japan that he's not even classified as a foreigner.
2007-06-13 22:44:34
425. Eric L
Rob Neyer was on with Colin Cowherd this morning and they got around to talking about GMs. Somehow Ned was brought into the conversation and Cowherd called him "gutsy".
I can think of more than a few words to describe Ned, but gutsy isn't one of them. Maybe my definition of gutsy is different than Cowherd's, but has Ned made any moves that one would consider gutsy?
2007-06-13 22:47:16
426. Eric Enders
Gagne had a very memorable strikeout of A-Rod in that Yankee series. But kadycee is right, that's the only time we've ever played them in interleague play. And I think we've only played two series against the Red Sox. I don't remember any series against the White Sox, but there might have been one.
For the most part, this is because MLB and the Dodgers (understandably) insist on playing the Angels for more than the normal allotment of interleague games. MLB tries to create a lot of Mets-Yankees and Dodgers-Angels games, which results in fewer interleague games for those teams against other opponents.
2007-06-13 22:48:14
427. JoeyP
Good story on former Dodger farmhand Ryan Ketchner.
Ketchner's currently on the Padres 40-man roster and is pitching in the PCL.
4.86 ERA so far. Very average peripheral numbers so far, but it is his first year back from TJ surgery. It'll probably be a big story if he starts a major league game down the road.
2007-06-13 22:50:04
428. Eric Enders
I hope Ketchner makes it. For a while there it looked like he was not too far away from becoming a Dodger. At the time, that seemed like one of DePo's better trades.
2007-06-13 22:50:27
429. CanuckDodger
422 -- Xeifrank, I could probably find out by digging around the internet, but what is the story with the Mandarin/Cantonese divide? I imagine each is prevalent in different parts of China, but which parts? And I am surprised that in the thousands of years that Chinese culture has existed, and with autocratic government, that there was never any attempt to by the ruling class to stamp out the dialect of the non-elite.
2007-06-13 22:51:23
430. Bob Timmermann
The Dodgers played in Chicago and 2005 and got swept by the White Sox in very dispiriting fashion.
The Sox won one game on a walkoff homer by Pierzynski against Brazoban and the sweep was finished on a Sunday night ESPN game when Morgan pretty much spent the entire broadcast lauding Ozzie Guillen's "Smartball" as the dawn of a new era in baseball.
That was a really depressing weekend.
2007-06-13 22:54:45
431. scareduck
430 - Man, I remember that broadcast. I think I just now got the stains off my TV from throwing things at it.
2007-06-13 22:55:08
432. kadycee
430. I seem to recall seeing the White Sox at Dodger Stadium, too. But perhaps I imagined that...
2007-06-13 22:59:03
433. Xeifrank
429. Great question. Unfortunately, I don't know all the answers. Cantonese is prevalant in southern China (Guanzhou, HK, Shenzhen etc...). Much more people speak Mandarin. The interesting thing is that Cantonese and Mandarin both have the same written language, but they pronounce the characters totally different. I don't know any Cantonese, but know enough Mandarin to be dangerous, order food, find a bathroom etc... Mandarin is the official language of China, though Cantonese is spoken in the south, and many provinces have their own dialect which I am told is much different than standard mandarin (only the locals know it). It's quite interesting and confusing, but great that they have such a diverse culture when it comes to language.
vr, Xei
2007-06-13 23:03:25
434. kadycee
In 2003 - White Sox were at the Dodgers and I went to one of the games. I think Ishii was pitching. Still, too long ago...
2007-06-13 23:05:52
435. Bob Timmermann
I reread the gamechat from the Dodgers-White Sox game back in June 2005.
I was quite upset. And I sounded like a jerk.
And I kept saying the White Sox would lose in the first round of the playoffs.
2007-06-13 23:08:03
436. Bob Timmermann
In 2003, the Dodgers lost 2 of 3 at home to the White Sox. They beat Buehrle, but lost to Colon and Loaiza.
Lo Duca hit an ITP homer in a losing cause in the Sunday game of the series.
2007-06-13 23:30:07
437. Dodgers49
I have a cousin who lives in New York and is a Mets fan. On Tuesday I informed him that since we called up our kids we are an entirely different team and that I expected a sweep. He laughed. But he isn't laughing now. :-) I love this team. Bring on those Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
2007-06-13 23:36:25
438. Robert Fiore
I can't right offhand find the specific reference, but one of the ballplayers interviewed in The Glory of Their Times talks about a deaf-and-dumb teammate (whose name I also don't recall except that it wasn't Dummy Hoy) who inspired the rest of the team to learn sign language. The interviewee said that while riding the train he would still catch himself translating the signs with his hands as they went by.
2007-06-13 23:46:40
439. Eric Enders
438 That interviewee was Wahoo Sam Crawford, one of the great characters in baseball history (and also one of USC's earliest baseball coaches).
2007-06-13 23:48:41
440. Eric Enders
And the player Crawford talks about was Dummy Hoy, who was his teammate on the Reds. The other prominent deaf player in those days was Luther "Dummy" Taylor, a Giants pitcher.
Actually, there were a lot of Giants players interviewed for that book too, so maybe one of them discussed Taylor as well.
2007-06-13 23:51:28
441. gibsonhobbs88
Truly enjoyed being at the game and savoring a blowout for a change, instead of biting what's left of my fingernails. Youth must be served. Kemp, Betemit, Abreu and Loney all contributed along with Rafy's two triples. Even Pierre got a clutch two out single to drive in a run. Everybody in my fantasy league is now making trade offers for Penny.:)Good night everyone!!
2007-06-14 00:20:42
442. Greg Brock
My DSL service, which is run by the devil, has allowed me back on to say that I would always use an interpreter. Furcal is probably a smart dude...But speaking in a second tongue often makes you look bad. My Spanish is...uh...Not good. I'm sure I appear to be an ignoramus.
Of course, English doesn't make me look too great either. I believe it was Herodotus who said>>>>>DSL SERVICE FAILS...>>>DISCONNECTED>>>NETWORK CONNECTION UNAVAILABLE>>>
2007-06-14 00:44:52
443. natepurcell
Two sign: The Dodgers signed third-round draft pick Austin Gallagher, a high school third baseman, to a $250,000 bonus, and fourth-rounder Andrew Lambo (Newbury Park), a prep outfielder, to a $160,000 bonus.
my intial thought is that those numbers seem to be low.
2007-06-14 00:47:30
444. overkill94
430 Ugh, I was at a wedding the night of the Brazoban Massacre and decided to call a friend to see how the Dodgers had done, to which he responded "are you joking?" He then proceeded to recount the whole debacle which really put a damper on the rest of the evening. My recollection is that we were still pretty heavy in the NL West race at the time (but soon to fall hard) and that it was a pretty crushing loss.
2007-06-14 00:50:56
445. natepurcell
hey grady, try this lineup for fun against santana...
2007-06-14 01:34:40
446. Dodgers49
Life may begin at 40, but baseball will end for Kent
Second baseman says he won't play beyond next season, and even that's not guaranteed.
WARNING: The Surgeon General has determined that reading an article by T.J. Simers may be hazardous to your health.
2007-06-14 01:44:12
447. Dodgers49
>>> After the game, Kuo said he had not hit a home run since high school. Turns out he hit one last year — a grand slam, in fact — at triple-A Las Vegas. <<<
2007-06-14 01:50:27
448. Greg Brock
So, are the kids "beating the door down" this year, as they were told to do?
Because Ch-i knows that Loney's .900 OPS last year was too piss-poor to merit a starting job this year. And he hit a monster bomb off of Billy Wags, which happens all the time for lefties.
Maybe Kemp and Loney will drop .310 EqA's, and they'll be allowed to stick around.
2007-06-14 02:22:32
449. Greg Brock
Just for Shimmin:
After many, many hours of deliberation...Kanye's "Touch the Sky" beat is really better than "Move On." I know, I'm a huge Mayfield fan myself...It's blasphemous. But it's an improvement over the original. I don't like Kanye West at all, and I really hate samples, but the arrangement is awesome.
I have a feeling you won't agree.
2007-06-14 02:40:17
450. natepurcell
i was doing some digging and found that Orr, the 113th pick in 2006 draft signed for 435k.
Gallagher, the 116th pick in this years draft signed for 250k. I wonder how much over slot did they go for Orr.
Show/Hide Comments 451-500
2007-06-14 02:42:03
451. Eric Enders
Brock, what are you smoking and where can I get some?
Kanye West is great. But Curtis Mayfield is Curtis Mayfield. #449 is a rule 11 violation if ever there was one.
2007-06-14 02:46:39
452. Eric Enders
450 Signing bonuses for the 116th pick:
2006 $280,000
2005 $162,500 (this was well below slot... Toronto pick)
2004: $280,000
2003: $300,000
2007-06-14 03:55:17
453. Charenton
In these immigrant bashing/"English First" times, I'm pleased to see the relative support on this list for foreign ballplayers who don't feel at ease giving live interviews in English.
I've done both graduate level orals and radio interviews in French and even though I've been living in France for 20 years, it's still a nerve racking experience to speak in public. And even though I can write and spell French better than many natives, hardly a day goes by where sometime doesn't listen to me speak and say "So, where are you from?"
France is elated with Loney and Kemp on the team ! ! !
If they bring up shortstop Hu at the end of the season,(I think that's his name) then we might see a complete Dodger farm system infield. Would this be the first time since Garvey, Lopes, Russell , Cey ?
2007-06-14 06:12:17
454. Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh
Re: 429
Canuck, to answer part of your question, a common spoken vernacular in China is a modern innovation. Before the twentieth century, educated Chinese (a very small minority of the population) learned to read and write literary Chinese, but this was something altogether different from different regional dialects. The comp in the west would be Latin in the Middle Ages--the language of state and learning, but at home on a day-to-day basis, even the educated would use whatever vernacular language they grew up with. Or, to use another example, the Romans made sure Latin was the language of state, but they didn't really care if lower-class provincials spoke Aramaic or Greek or whatnot. The Chinese government declaration of what was essentially the dialect spoken around Beijing as the common vernacular, and then ALSO making that the primary WRITTEN language, was a reform measure of the twentieth century designed to help "modernize" China.
2007-06-14 06:26:22
455. D4P
James Loney Marching and Chowder Society
I prefer "Los Loney Boys"
2007-06-14 07:31:29
456. Disabled List
All the Loney people
Where do they all come from?
2007-06-14 07:54:49
457. bluegold
Kemp and Loney are beginning to erode my sense of urgency that the Dodgers need to acquire a proven slugger. I hope they are hitting a lot of curve balls in batting practice.
2007-06-14 08:48:23
458. ToyCannon
Sure is amazing how many have jumped back on the Boom Boom train. Six weeks ago it was about as light as Nomar's bandwagon is now. I think I'm the only one left on Nomar's.
2007-06-14 08:52:07
459. Bob Timmermann
You, Mia Hamm, and the woman with the ugly van.
2007-06-14 08:53:14
460. Jon Weisman
New post up top.
2007-06-14 08:54:06
461. Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh
Re: 458
I still think Nomar will eventually come around, but I also don't mind if Loney encroaches more and more on the former's playing time. Nomar may also just need the rest.
| <urn:uuid:16441e97-4d80-4592-bbfb-15d5c57989c6> | http://dodgerthoughts.baseballtoaster.com/archives/694818.html | en | 0.924481 | 0.037611 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Navigation path
Left navigation
Additional tools
Other available languages: none
Brussels, 13 May 2008
Conference on Counterfeiting and Piracy: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the purpose of the Conference?
The High Level Conference on Counterfeiting and Piracy has been organised on the Commission's own initiative. It aims to provide a platform for Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and major stakeholders, representing business, public administrations and civil society, to discuss the most important aspects of counterfeiting and piracy, exchange views and experiences and explore possible practical measures to enhance the fight against counterfeiting and piracy.
The Conference seeks to demonstrate that the Commission and MEPs fully support the drive for increased focus at the EU level in the fight against fake goods.
The Conference also aims to provide industry with a forum to expose the scope and the extent of the problems posed by counterfeiting and piracy, to express its readiness to actively engage counterfeiters and pirates and to collaborate with the authorities in public-private partnerships.
Counterfeiting and piracy also have a societal dimension. The Conference covers this via the participation of consumer and civil liberty organisations, either as speakers or as participants in the audience.
The Conference is not a one-off event but intends to be the starting point of a process towards a long-term strategy mobilizing both industry and public authorities to jointly combat counterfeiting and piracy.
What is the difference between counterfeiting and piracy?
The enforcement section of an agreement on intellectual property rights negotiated in the World Trade Organisation, known as the TRIPS Agreement[1], contains the following definitions:
"Counterfeit trademark goods shall mean any goods, including packaging, bearing without authorisation a trademark which is identical to the trademark validly registered in respect of such goods, or which cannot be distinguished in its essential aspects from such a trademark and which thereby infringes the rights of the owner of the trademark in question under the law of the country of importation."
This can be interpreted as being something made in imitation of something else with the intent to deceive.
"Pirated copyright goods shall mean any goods which are copies made without the consent of the right holder or person duly authorised by the right holder in the country of production and which are made directly or indirectly from an article where the making of that copy would have constituted an infringement of a copyright or a related right under the law of the country of importation".
This can be interpreted as an illegal copy of something that already exists.
What is the scope and magnitude of the problem with counterfeiting and piracy?
It is very difficult to produce exact figures, as counterfeit and pirated goods fall outside the mainstream economy. According to figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), international trade in counterfeit and pirated goods is estimated to have reached USD 200 billion in 2005. This amount is larger than the individual Gross Domestic Products of about 150 economies in the world, including 24 of the EU Member States.
The OECD figures do not include domestic production and consumption of counterfeited and pirated goods, nor the volume of pirated digital products being distributed via the internet. If these items were added, the total magnitude of counterfeiting and piracy worldwide could well be several hundred billion dollars more.
Over the last few years, there has been an alarming expansion in the types of products being infringed. They range from luxury items such as sportswear, watches and jewellery, to more ordinary items that have an impact on personal health and safety such as pain killers, razor blades, baby milk, children's toys and car parts. Asia emerges as the largest source for counterfeited and pirated products, with China being the largest source.
In 2006, EU customs officials intercepted more than 128 million counterfeited and pirated articles, involving 37,334 cases, a jump of 70% compared to 2005. In 2006, German customs officials alone confiscated about € 1.2 billion worth of counterfeit goods. This was five times more than in 2005.
How do counterfeiting and piracy affect the EU?
First, counterfeiting and piracy are detrimental to innovation, directly affecting job creation and economic growth. Industries protect their ideas through a variety of legal instruments such as patents, copyrights, designs, models and trademarks. Without the protection of their intellectual property rights, they are less inclined to develop new ideas and products. Risks are particularly high for industries in which the research and development costs are high compared to the production costs of the finalised product (eg pharmaceuticals). Faced with a diminishing turnover in the face of counterfeiting and piracy, industry innovation is set to slow down. This would limit development, growth and competitiveness, forcing them to simply close down or limit production.
Second, counterfeiting and piracy harm consumers. While some consumers are looking for what they believe to be bargains, knowingly buying counterfeit and pirated products, others may purchase counterfeit and pirated products believing they have purchased genuine articles. In both cases, products are often sub-standard and carry health and safety risks that range from mild to life threatening. Sectors where health and safety effects tend to occur include: car parts (brake pads, hydraulic hoses, engine and chassis parts, suspension and steering components, airbags, spark plugs, filters), electrical components (circuit breakers, fuses, switches, batteries), food and drink (tea, rice, vodka, raw spirits, baby formula), chemicals, toiletry, household products and tobacco products.
Third, due to its growing size combined with a high return on investment and relatively light penalties when operations are detected, piracy and counterfeiting have become an attractive investment for organised crime.
Finally, counterfeiting and piracy affect the public budgets of the Member States. Every year, millions in tax revenues are lost as a result of pirated and counterfeited goods smuggled through customs and sold on grey markets. Meanwhile, Member State governments often bear the costs associated with addressing the consequences of counterfeiting through further expenditure on consumer health and safety and on law enforcement.
What actions is the EU already taking against counterfeiting and piracy?
Within the EU, the Enforcement Directive (2004/48/EC) is the cornerstone piece of legislation in the fight against counterfeiting and piracy. It aims to harmonise the laws of the Member States on means of enforcing intellectual property rights (via sanctions and remedies). The Directive covers infringements of all intellectual property rights (trade marks, designs, patents, copyright etc.) which are for commercial purposes or which cause significant harm to rightholders.
It only covers civil measures. For example, remedies are available to rightholders, such as the destruction, recall or permanent removal from the market of pirated or counterfeited goods, as well as financial compensation, injunctions and damages. The Directive also contains the necessary safeguards and limitations to protect the interests not only of the defendant but also of potentially innocent offenders, who have unknowingly been involved in counterfeiting or piracy. (See IP/04/540)
As regards criminal sanctions, the Commission has adopted a proposal for a Directive and for a Framework Decision on intellectual property infringements. Member States were required to treat all infringements of intellectual property on a commercial scale as a criminal offence. The proposal is currently pending in the Council. (See IP/05/906 and IP/06/532)
Concerning customs cooperation, the EU customs legislation was modernised in 2004. The new regime sets out clear conditions under which the customs authorities may intervene in cases where goods are suspected of infringing intellectual property rights (See IP/03/1059).
In Relations with Third Countries, the Commission is reinforcing enforcement activity and cooperation with a number of priority countries, in particular in the EU's trade relations with China, Russia, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), South Korea, Mercosur (Southern Common Market), Chile and Ukraine. The Commission also works to improve enforcement in Turkey in the context of accession negotiations.
Recently, the US and Japan jointly proposed to strengthen anti-counterfeiting on an international scale through a new anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA). It identifies three key areas for agreement: international cooperation, principally between customs and enforcement agencies; enhancing the enforcement network by enhancing expertise; and the statutory framework. The Commission has received a negotiating mandate from Member States to achieve a formal agreement (see IP/07/1573).
What needs to be done further?
There are already a number of legal instruments in place, but in order to make them more effective, the European Commission is seeking stronger administrative cooperation between authorities at all levels in the fight against fake goods:
• Improving the collection and quality of data. As stated before, data on counterfeiting and piracy is still very incomplete and fragmented. The Commission will therefore analyse how data collection at the European level can be improved.
• Within Member States coordination between key players can be enhanced by sharing best practices. Between Member States, an efficient network of cross-border cooperation could be set up to facilitate a rapid exchange of information.
• Greater public-private cooperation can also be a useful tool to improve enforcement, for example through a platform that would enable this cooperation, facilitating the collection and exchange of information, while monitoring the developments in the trade of counterfeits.
• Inter-industry deals to crack down on the most evident forms of counterfeiting and piracy, including those on the internet, could prove to be a very effective and efficient way to diminish the extent of the problems. Opportunities also exist in the field of standardized tracking and tracing methods, possibly even across sectors, and user-friendly ways to authenticate original products.
Is there a link with the Community patent strategy?
Yes. The creation of a Community patent and a unified litigation system would strengthen the EU in the fight against fake goods. A unitary title providing equal protection throughout the entire territory of the EU would enhance and render more effective the fight against counterfeiting and the copying of products which are protected by patents owned by European companies. Complete geographical protection without any loopholes would help to prevent the entry of counterfeit products into the EU. An EU-wide scope of application would facilitate their effective seizure by customs authorities at all external borders of the EU and their removal from the market wherever they enter distribution channels.
[1] Agreement on the Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
Side Bar | <urn:uuid:aa5fa02a-c06f-4fe8-9682-c29a94be10f4> | http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-08-299_de.htm?locale=de | en | 0.948227 | 0.040721 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Miami Vice
So, I'm back from a long, long weekend with girlfriends in South Beach, Miami. Or "SoBe" if you're hip and cool. Three friends flew in from London and another came down from New York. I swear we spent the entire five days (I know!) laughing and taking the mick* out of each other. Oh I do miss a healthy dose of sarcasm now and then.
* - to mock, tease, ridicule or scoff
The flight down was interesting as the cabin temperature was somewhere in the sub zero range, and since it was quite a new plane, there were no little knobs you could turn to direct the icy blast elsewhere. Then I realised why. Apparently on May 1st, American Airlines stopped giving out free blankets. They are now $8 ("But yours to keep, ma'am"). Bit of a coincidence that isn't it?
We stayed in a house about a mile from South Beach itself. Very nice - big pool, big bedrooms, huge screen to watch the French Open on first thing in the morning. I had been going for hotels, but it being Memorial Day weekend, they were solidly booked.
At least I assumed it was booked up because of Memorial Day, but being not-in-the-know where these things are concerned, I was totally unaware that it was also Hip Hop Weekend. Oh yes. The entire area was packed to the gills with young hip hop fans and flashy, pimped out cars. Talk about sticking out like a sore thumb.
We spent most of our time acting like our mothers, or even our grandmothers - pointing out girls that we deemed too scantily clad, (fishnet dresses with thong underwear anyone?) and laughing at the young men whose trousers were hitched so low that you could see all of their not-very-white boxer shorts and the belts were literally below their buttock cheeks. I mean, how do they keep them up? And more to the point - Why? I don't know one female of any age who thinks it's attractive, so why so they do it?
We went on a Duck tour through the streets and then down onto the water, where we oggled at all the really posh, fancy houses. And then we all really dated ourselves again when we saw this house:
Anyone remember Miami Vice on telly?
Who was your personal fave? Don Johnson or Philip Michael Thomas?
Mother Hen said...
It sounds like you had a blast. Once a year 'The Fluffs' and I -4 women total, get away from life as we know it, usually in Europe, and have a long weekend and do just what you did.
Good on you! x
Maggie May said...
Its good to have these girly does and giggle fit to bust. Bet it did you the power of good.
Maggie X
Nuts in May
Calif Lorna said...
Wow, that sounds like people watching at its best! Sounds like a fantastic weekend, I'm very envious!
Didn't watch Miami Vice, but yes, I'm old enough to remember it.
Brit Gal Sarah said...
Sounds fab fun, but OMG what an opportunity you missed.
"Pants on the ground,
Pants on the ground,
looking like a fool with ya pants on the ground!"
C'mon if I can shout it across a WalMart car park at some idiot (much to Hubsters horror), then you could have sang it out loud!
Expat mum said...
Believe me Sarah - we were all over it. Again, showing our age though.
Mwa said...
Mmm, a long weekend with friends... no, can't even imagine what that's like. :-)
Smitten by Britain said...
Oh gawd! That's as bad as motorcycle week at the beach but with more flab.
Don Johnson naturally. Where is he anyway?
London City Mum said...
"how do they keep them up?"
More poignantly, why bother at all when they cannot even walk and seem to adopt a roly-poly swagger that entails swinging legs out at a right angle from below the knee in order to take a single step forward?
FortyNotOut said...
Your weekend sounds fantastic - although did you manage to avoid 7.00am yoga on the beach? The kids with the trousers hanging around their arse thing just makes me laugh! I so get the urge to yank them down and then run off...not that I would do that you understand? x
muummmmeeeeee...... said...
I don't get hip hop and I don't get low-slung trousers...I'm definitely getting old!
Apart from the sight of all those dodgy pants, South Beach sounds fab!
Blog Archive | <urn:uuid:dbf557f4-7363-48df-aebe-6dff69b25659> | http://expatmum.blogspot.com/2010/06/miami-vice.html | en | 0.971713 | 0.042143 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Paizo Top Nav Branding
• Hello, Guest! |
• Sign In |
• My Account |
• Shopping Cart |
• Help/FAQ
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game
Pathfinder Society
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Beginner Box
Pathfinder Adventure Card Game
Pathfinder Battles
Pathfinder Comics
Pathfinder Comics
Pathfinder Society Scenario #23: Tide of Morning (OGL) PDF
****( ) (based on 14 ratings)
Our Price: $3.99
Add to Cart
Facebook Twitter Email
A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st to 5th level characters (Tiers: 1–2 and 4–5).
Venture-Captain Dennel Hamshanks sends you to convince an Andoren druid named Hemzel to allow the Pathfinder Society to study his recently discovered lorestone, a minor magical item that unlocks some of the mysteries of the ancient Andoren druid circles. When you arrive and find Hemzel murdered and the lorestone missing, you must race against time to recover the lorestone and stop Hemzel's murderers from using it against the druids of Andoran.
Written by Steven Robert
Product Availability
See Also:
Product Reviews (14)
Average product rating:
****( ) (based on 14 ratings)
Sign in to create or edit a product review.
A whimsical and challenging scenario
****( )
Typically a morning is associated with being beautiful, if we are to trust various songs and lyrics. It is a description that in my opinion is also fitting for this scenario. I enjoyed it a lot. There’s just something whimsical and fun about dealing with fey-like creatures. It’s also not a creature-type you frequently get to face either, which in itself is a nice change of pace. I like facing uncommon creature-types, so it instantly gains some bonus-points in my book.
The storyline in this scenario is pretty straightforward and not all that unique, but it’s the encounters that really add a bunch of flavor and hilarity to the scenario. Let’s start by commenting on the role-playing aspect. You get to talk to fey. I think that says enough. One way or another you’re going to either burst into laughter or end up being completely baffled.
As for the fights, I can say they were rather challenging. Granted, we didn’t have an ideal party. Somehow we made our way through the first few scenario’s rather quickly - a crit from a musket has that effect on opponents at level 1 – but we really came close to failing our mission in the final encounter. We struggled tremendously and we only barely managed to prevent the insert-evil-plot-here from happening. It was the closest I’ve had a level 1 scenario be to date and that itself made it rather memorable.
Overall I’d say it was a challenging scenario. I can easily see other parties struggling as well. Still, I would definitely recommend this scenario, not in the least because of the whimsical nature of some of the encounters. Simply put: it was a blast to play.
Could be more detailed.
***( )( )
Perhaps I've been spoiled by more recent scenarios, which seem to be more thought out, but after running ths scenario tonight, I'm had pressed to find what it is I liked about it so much when I first played it a few years ago. Granted it is straightforwards. Your group will be put in straight into the adventure. The action doesn't stop, the gnome encounter is perfectly timed; it's short, perhaps even too short, but that isn't my gripe with it. I have issue with the lack of details, and some of the tatics used. The tactics for some of the npcs don't make sense, npc initial placement isn't indicated and the act 3-4 location isn't very well described.
Other than that its' a very efficient little scenario.
Also, if the chance presents itself to play up, do it if your party is well-built.
Fun with Fey
****( )
I really enjoyed running this scenario. Unlike a lot of adventures from this era, it takes some finesse to do well. The final fight requires some creativity on the part of the players, and is unlikely to get steamrolled like a lot of the other scenarios from Season 0. Well worth the time.
Nicely Different
***( )( )
This review comes from A GM point of view. Table played low with 6 players (3 new 3 experienced).
This is an old scenario and the age shows but not quite as much as some other scenarios of the season. Overall I consider this to be a middle of the pack scenario with the potential to frustrate players as the entirety of the scenario is basically made to stymie and aggravate. Some of the low tier encounters seem disproportionately difficult compared to their high tier versions.
Encounter 1: Weapon immune swarm in entangled terrain, dangerous combination for new people. One direct alchemist fire could end the encounter, or you could miss 4 like my group and have this grind everyone until this isn't fun anymore (touch ac is high, plus entangle, close quarters tends to mean cover). Becomes rat swarms at high tier which take half weapon damage and become arguable easier.
Encounter 2: Burning building seems hard to come into real effect, monster inside too easy for rounds to pile up. Allow full use of intelligent tactics so he can use darkness/invisibility to become relevant, if the theme of this scenario is annoying fights
Encounter 3: Gnomes have a high diplomacy DC for this level, encounters that use many (8 in this case) low CR creatures to generate a CR appropriate encounter is really bad design
Encounter 4: Snakes and easy to detect traps on a bridge. Could be a conversion issue but the low tier snakes have much better to-hits than higher tier(via Gm shared prep folder)
Final Encounter: Interesting idea of playing keep-away rather than a brawl. Would have required more time than allowed to play to its full conclusion. Vastly different encounter with 6 party members (they can box him in and maneuver better). I would like to see more "combats" with alternate goals like this.
Fast and fun!
****( )
This is a little gem from Season 0, a roller coaster into a fey setting with a nice mix of playful humour and creepy bloodshed. I'd argue it's the first PFS scenario that has a challenging concept boss battle that forces the players to look past their numbers in how they decide to battle an opponent.
It could benefit from some further development to increase the 'time pressure' of the mission, but aside from that it's a great little missionwhere the team is catapulted into circumstances they need to find solid footing on.
| <urn:uuid:1946a7d4-65a9-485d-92da-34688c7e5b3b> | http://paizo.com/products/btpy88sx?Pathfinder-Society-Scenario-23-Tide-of-Morning | en | 0.936806 | 0.018965 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Attorneys Coping with Huntington’s Disease
Vol. 28 No. 3
Susan Riegler is a counselor who works specifically with lawyers and provides consultation and educational programming to law firms around the country; she formerly was clinical director of the Illinois Lawyers’ Assistance Program, Inc.
Good health is easy to take for granted. In our society we tend to be heavily distracted by the bells and whistles of technology and can become preoccupied by the minor mental injuries caused by a bad day. Then a moment comes along and shakes you to your core. It could be a moment of sitting in a doctor’s office hearing that tests must be run to determine whether or not you have a fatal illness. You go home and discuss the possibilities with your family and you all pull together while waiting for a diagnosis. Facing a crisis such as this can make a person evaluate what is really important. However, the time in limbo can be full of imagined horrors as well as fear and anxiety for those who may be left behind.
Imagine knowing at the age of 11 that you have 50-50 chance of developing an unstoppable disease that will cause the neurological symptoms of uncontrolled and often violent movement as well as cognitive deterioration that may render you unable to recognize your closest loved ones. This situation is what my client “Ethan” faced. His mother, Carol, had Huntington’s Disease and began a physical and mental decline when he was 10 years old. He was protected from the truth for as long as his father could allow. Carol’s onset of symptoms at the age of 41, however, advanced with such rapidity that arrangements had to be made for her care in a nursing facility. Ethan’s father and their family doctor sat him down and tried to explain the complicated truth about the disease.
Huntington’s Disease (HD) is a degenerative brain disorder that leads to dementia, uncontrolled limb and facial movements, speech changes, and an unsteady gait. A person who has a parent with HD has a 50 percent chance of having the gene for the disease. The symptoms usually begin between ages 30 and 50 but can go well outside those ages on both ends of the scale. An individual with HD in the family may be tested prior to the onset of symptoms, although it is discouraged before the age of 18. There is no known cure for HD, and currently there is no way to stop the progression of the disease, although some of the symptoms are treatable. People who test positive live with the knowledge that eventually they will need full-time care while they lose their sense of self and awareness of their surroundings. As a result, depression and suicide are common within the community of people with this disease.
Carol’s mother also had Huntington’s Disease. She was unaware that her daughter had a 50 percent chance of avoiding this disease. It was not until 1983 that the genetic marker was discovered. The combinations of symptoms that make up this disease, and the fact that HD manifests differently by individual, created confusion in diagnosis and in some cases still do. Shaking limbs, body rigidity, and memory impairment can look like other diseases, such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s. In 1993 researchers found a means of testing possible carriers to determine whether they would in fact eventually develop Huntington’s Disease.
So while the teenagers around him worried about sports, academics, or petty school arguments, Ethan imagined a dark future. He swore that he would not have children. He would never put another person through this experience. Ethan admits that he hated visiting his mother during those early years while in high school. “I would get my head on straight and tell myself that mom was just away a lot. I could forget about the disease for stretches at a time. Then, my dad would make me go and see her again.” She lunged at people who came near her bed and tried to bite nurses who came in to adjust her pillows. In the cafeteria she would yell at people sitting near her and could not feed herself. Her wild jerking movements and angry disconnected words made Ethan keep several feet away from her at all times. “I hated looking at her face. She was a complete stranger.” He says that he would return home and feel hopeless. He often wondered, “What is the point?”
Ethan was told that he should not be tested until he was 18. He hated the waiting and believed fully that he had the disease. As he moved through high school, his father had many talks with him about the disease and he kept up on the latest research. He was worried that Ethan was hiding out from life and not getting involved in school. Ethan was often alone and spent most of his free time at home with his dad. Father and son had many arguments that led nowhere. Ethan remembers yelling, “Why should I care? I’m just going to end up in a nursing home!” His father would reply, “But what if you don’t have it? You are wasting your life! You need to plan for a real future!”
Testing for Huntington’s Disease includes counseling, and it is always recommended that a person get involved with the HD community when the test results for the gene are positive. The outcome either way is life changing, and some doctors say that even a clean bill of health can be alarming. As Kathleen Shannon, a Chicago neurologist stated, “People have to change their whole attitude. It has been a cloud over their heads, and now that it is lifted they think, ‘so, now what do I do?’” There is even an identity crisis that can come from the good news. The potential for the diagnosis can be with a person so long that the absence of the disease is like the loss of a dark companion. This can also be said of a disease such as breast cancer, especially when a sibling or multiple family members suffer from the same disease. There can be anger and sometimes a sense of survivor’s guilt. The determination can seem so random, and one might wonder, “why does my sister have the disease and I don’t.”
Ethan waited until he was 25 years old to get tested. After a long internal struggle, he had decided that he wanted to complete college and law school before finding out what the future held. His father was a lawyer, and it meant a great deal to him to know that his son had an education on which to rely. Ethan’s mother passed away in 1999, and in November 2000, Ethan tested positive for Huntington’s Disease.
The result was “shocking but not surprising,” according to Ethan. He stated, “I guess I always knew, but I still felt dizzy and disoriented at first. My whole body went hot.” After time alone with his doctor and his father, Ethan went home to process the diagnosis. “I sat in a chair for hours just looking at the edge of the couch. It was the first time that I felt a real connection to my mother. My anger became focused on my dad for a time. Why did they have me? Why would you put your child through this? The first six hours were horrible.” When he slept, Ethan says his dreams were filled with vague, unformed thoughts of a slow-moving monster pursuing him through dark, winding streets. He says that oddly, a few days later, he got up and went to work feeling fine. Although the doctors had confirmed the diagnosis, he left the anxiety and uncertainty behind him, which he says was a huge relief in itself. Ethan has followed the advice of his counselors and decided to get on with his life.
Although Ethan long ago decided that he would not have children and potentially pass along the disease, this impacted his dating prospects. As Ethan laughingly said, “after how many dates do you tell somebody that you have this disease and explain what it is? Is it the third date when you tell a girl that you can’t have kids?” The knowledge of the disease he carried made it too complicated to simply fall in love. He felt that he owed these girls an explanation.
There were logistical issues to look at as well. Being a lawyer and in a position of trust and responsibility, Ethan needed to set up some safeguards for himself and his clients. He began by always making sure that the people closest to him knew the early signs of the disease. Initial symptoms can be somewhat confusing, and it is possible to be hyper-vigilant about any shaking or cognitive blips on the radar. He is fortunate that his father is a lawyer and in good health. They have made arrangements for him to have access to Ethan’s office and case files in the event that Ethan cannot manage on his own. They even have backup for the backup as Ethan’s uncle is also an attorney.
Another of my lawyer clients, “Carrie,” had tested positive for Huntington’s disease and was following the nutrition plan from her physician. She was already attending a bimonthly group but became discouraged by the lack of connection between members and the growing number of people demonstrating symptoms of the disease. Carrie was treating this problem with the same intensity with which she had attacked law school. She used clear-headed analysis and intellect and made great efforts to keep herself from thinking too far into the future. She had no real family support, having taken responsibility for the care of her mother after Carrie’s father divorced her. Her mother is now in a nursing facility and cannot recognize her. She has decided not to tell her friends or her employer about her positive test results. Carrie fears that an employer would shut her down completely or be overly critical of any emotional displays. She uses therapy to work through her fears and uncertainty because she chooses to keep her medical issues private. In her case, we discussed the importance of utilizing existing resources to create a backup plan for her clients and cases.
Creating a Backup Plan
As counsel for the Administrator of the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of Illinois, John Cesario has worked with families and attorneys who have had to close a law practice after a tragedy or emergency. The goal is a smooth transition to close the law practice in a manner that avoids harm to the clients and respects the dignity of the attorney who is confronting a difficult situation. “In these circumstances, I extend my condolences and offer to help in any way I can. Our approach is to protect the clients by focusing on any ongoing or pending matters that are time-sensitive and need prompt attention.”
Cesario suggests creating a list of all pending client matters and a list of names and addresses of those persons. This list could allow someone to identify and prepare a letter to inform clients of any decision to close the law practice. Next, the attorney should prepare instructions to family or support staff identifying the title, name of bank, and account number for any client trust account. The instructions should note where the monthly statements and account ledgers for the client trust account are maintained. A client trust account is important because the funds likely belong to a client or third party. Any contingency plan should have careful instructions about the account, and the instructions should assist any person attempting to close the practice to identify the rightful owner of any funds that might remain. Lastly, the attorney should leave directions about where closed files are stored and include instructions about how to quickly retrieve closed files. Once the decision is made to close the practice, the family or a designated lawyer could generate a notice list and write to former clients to say their file is available, and if the file is not claimed, the family may destroy the file after a period of time.
This duty to plan for succession or to have a preconceived directive to family or support staff is prudent but can be a source of fear and frustration for lawyers. It is an acknowledgment of a limitation or, to some, a weakness. Talking to a supportive friend or counselor can make this process much easier.
Seeking Help
Even minor, chronic medical conditions can have an impact on our mood. Chronic illness can make us feel out of control. This is not a familiar or comfortable position for a professional. Some professionals will seek ways to exert control over another aspect of life. It is important that these are positive choices. No matter how smart you are or how tough you are, you should talk to someone to help get through the worst of it.
None of us is invulnerable. Many of us are one serious medical problem away from financial ruin or general heartbreak. This means that we must look for help—and ask for it—even when doing so goes against all of our instincts. Whether it is a short-term emergency or a diagnosis that means a long-term struggle, there are moments that define our sense of self and our ability to thrive. The first step can be a phone call to test the waters. There are people who can help you connect to the right resources where you live. The HD Lighthouse has resources that can give hope and information on the complexities of Huntington’s Disease, including links to nonprofit support groups.
• About GPSolo magazine
• Subscriptions
• More Information
• Contact Us | <urn:uuid:976fb8ac-cea1-4156-aff6-ff117c7b4485> | http://www.americanbar.org/publications/gp_solo/2011/april_may/in_the_solution_attorneyscopingwithhuntingtonsdisease.html | en | 0.983238 | 0.048386 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
German Shepherd Dog Forums
German Shepherd Dog Forums (
- Stories (
- - Down stay to perfection-brag :) (
wyoung2153 06-17-2014 11:15 AM
Down stay to perfection-brag :)
So Titan and I have been working on solidifying his down stay. he's always been really good at wait.. but it was never 100% under heavy distraction. So we have been doing a lot of that.
Small back story: Back in December, my neighbors let their dogs roam the neighborhood without though. One afternoon we were out front and their dog charged Titan and bit him on the butt, luckily titan let me handle it and didn't escalate. After a talk to my neighbors about controling their dogs, they have been awesome about not letting their dogs roam anymore. So Titan and I started doing more out front again in the last couple weeks.
Well every morning after my work out I come home and grab Titan for some heavy fetch time.. gotta tucker him out before work. Location varies.. sometimes it's the dog park, sometimes it's at the school up the road, or my back yard or front yard. Well this morning is the front. We don't live on a busy road at all and Titan is perfect in the front yard, never had issues. Reason for front over the back is really that, oddly, we have more space to throw in the front. Also, it's so early when we play.. no one is out running about :) usually.. but still on the occassion of a passerby, he's focused on the ball and doesn't give a hoot, and I position myself properly when playing.
Well this morning, we were playing and were just about finished when I heard collar jingles that were not Titans and I heard them coming fast.. low and behold, my neighbor's dogs running toward us snarling, growling, etc. I placed myself between Titan and the dogs, and put Titan in a down stay. He was ready to go, but stayed. I was able to block and catch the dogs and get them back to their owner and we chatted for a minute, her apologizing profusely, that they slipped past her when she went outside. Now this is next door.. not houses down so I was within like 15 ft of Titan. BUT he didn't move at all. My neighbor was like "OMG he's so good, how'd you train him to do that??" That's when I realized he was still sitting there waiting for the release :rolleyes:
I know this is a little thing.. but it was very exciting for me because we have been working really hard on it. So yay for that!! I'm so proud of him!!
The end. :)
Shade 06-17-2014 11:17 AM
Good job Titan!! :D I love those little victories :)
Zeeva 06-17-2014 11:25 AM
Aw Whitney! That's not a little thing. That's HUGE!!! A down, stay under heavy distraction...honestly, IMO, that's like THE most important thing to conquer safety wise.
And good for you for not panicking...
wyoung2153 06-17-2014 11:35 AM
Thank youuu :) I was very excited!!! and even at myself for instinctively doing everything!
SEO by vBSEO 3.3.2 | <urn:uuid:d2ce5396-3396-426c-b8c5-bb3bf5b3d2b9> | http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum/stories/461290-down-stay-perfection-brag-print.html | en | 0.98096 | 0.027936 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Reviews: Anonymous
Very clean and comfortable beds. I liked that every bed had its own lamp and power outlets. The staff was very helpful. I arrived early and the room was not quite ready, but the clerk offered to hold my luggage in the meantime. When asked if there were any nearby places to eat, he was more than helpful in providing several options, of which, I chose the Spanish cafe just down the street (I highly recommend it!). The location felt safe; two blocks from beach, but a decent walk to main areas.
The Chocolate Hostel & Crew House
Fort Lauderdale, USA
The entire staff was extremely friendly and helpful. Very affordable rooms. There were some guys who looked homeless that were just sitting by the dumpster. I saw them several times during my 2-night stay; they didn't seem to be bothering anyone. The hostel was located close to the bus stop and several restaurants. | <urn:uuid:59000e81-9d2e-4239-9f21-44648f32cff4> | http://www.hostelworld.com/profile/14750102/reviews | en | 0.994068 | 0.02373 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
If you could see the place now, Adolf
William Cook visits Berchtesgaden, a resort with a dark past and a bright future
A model of the new resort hotel at Berchtesgaden, Hitler's former retreat
High in the Bavarian Alps, between Germany and Austria, those industrious Germans are busy building a spectacular hotel. With breathtaking views, plus its own spa, ski slope and golf course, the Berchtesgaden InterContinental Resort should be the perfect Alpine retreat. Only one problem - Berchtesgaden was once the holiday home of Adolf Hitler and, since then, this beautiful mountain retreat has had a potent association with the Third Reich.
It was in 1925 that Hitler first came to the Berchtesgaden area with its pretty town where the Bavarian royal family spent hunting holidays. He had just served a nine-month sentence for trying to overthrow the local government and moved to the region, where he finished writing Mein Kampf . When he became Chancellor in 1933, he bought and rebuilt the house he had rented, which he called the Berghof.
It was a bizarre blend of the grandiose and the mundane. Its huge windows provided panoramic views of the surrounding peaks, but its kitsch architecture was suburban, and although the decor was lavish, the overall effect was more bourgeois than palatial.
Hitler's Berghof lifestyle was similarly contradictory. He received Lloyd George and Mussolini here, plus the recently abdicated Edward VIII. 'Thank you for the lovely hours that we spent with you,' Edward wrote in a letter to Hitler. A year later, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain came here to sign away Czechoslovakia.
Yet between affairs of state, Hitler's Berghof days were a monotony of tedious meals and inane movies. This dull, empty routine was captured with unwitting accuracy by Eva Braun's home movies. Guests who craved an invitation often couldn't wait to leave.
However, it was the place where Nazi VIPs could toady to Hitler like they never could in busy Berlin. They confiscated dozens of farms, hotels and private houses to clear the area, their owners forced to leave. Hermann Goering, who enjoyed the hunting, built a house just around the corner. Martin Bormann, whose sycophancy knew no bounds, built his house between Goering's and Hitler's.
For Hitler's fiftieth birthday, Bormann built the Eagle's Nest, a futuristic folly, accessible only via a lift-shaft carved out of the mountain. Below was an SS barracks and a hotel for the thousands of pilgrims who flocked here every day, hoping for a glimpse of their beloved Führer.
Berchtesgaden escaped the war until 1945, when, wrongly informed that Hitler intended to stage a last stand here, it was flattened by Allied bombers. A few weeks later, the US army arrived. The beauty of the area seduced its transatlantic invaders, who moved in, adding a ski lift and a golf course. Hitler's guest-house became a ski and golf shop and architect Albert Speer's studio became a hostel for the US army, which didn't leave the area until 1996.
Today's Berchtesgaden is visited by tourists from all over the world, interested in seeing the detritus of the Nazi regime as well as a picturesque area that has a lot more to offer. In the town, quiet streets are lined with handsome old hotels and friendly, affordable restaurants. The highlight is the 800-year-old schloss, an exquisite mix of gothic castle and romanesque palace. Confiscated by the Nazis from Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, an outspoken opponent of Hitler, it was returned to the royal family after the war and has passed on to Rupprecht's grandson. Open to the public, it houses his collection of porcelain, tapestries and paintings.
Shops sell a broad selection of books about the region, many in English, reflecting the enduring Anglo-American fascination with this site. Unfortunately, most photographs taken during the Third Reich are propaganda pictures, published by the Nazis, but these books come to bury Hitler, not to praise him. 'In a time with Neo-Nazism on the rise, we feel that we have to inform you thoroughly about the Third Reich,' warns Obersalzberg & The Third Reich . 'The Nazi regime's might and power resulted in ferocious war, which cost millions of innocent lives.'
The Eagle's Nest has survived to become a homely restaurant. Although both Goering's and Bormann's houses were destroyed, most of the houses Bormann built for his Nazi lackeys remained unscathed. The majority are now private homes. The Hotel Turken, snatched by the Nazis from its owner and later bombed by Allied planes, has been restored by the original owner's daughter. Today, the hotel's cellars open up on to a vast network of wartime bunkers.
An overgrown mound of rubble is all that is left of the Berghof, where Hitler planned his conquests of Poland and France and his ruinous invasion of the Soviet Union. And where Hitler's guest-house once stood, a museum has been built, which tells the whole story of the area.
The decision to build the museum was taken by the Free State of Bavaria when the US forces finally left. In a comprehensive and harrowing display about the Holocaust, the museum mourns the lost lives during the Nazi regime.
'I think it's very important to show the history,' says the museum's organising director, Linda Pfnur, who was born in Berchtesgaden. Like the rest of the citizens, and in stark contrast to the conventional British stereotype, she is perfectly willing to mention the war. She says most visitors to the museum are German or Austrian; among them she has seen older visitors in tears, but their painful memories make her home town's determination to confront its Nazi past even more impressive.
To provide accommodation for visitors to the museum, Bavaria decided a high-quality hotel was needed. It is this hotel, still in the process of being built and due to open in 2005, that InterContinental will manage.
It's an idea that has generated support both from historians and members of the Jewish community. Rabbi Andreas Nachama, who was involved in the creation of the museum and is a former spokesperson for the Jewish Council of Berlin, said: 'It doesn't make sense to have a documentation centre in the wilderness. If there is a hotel there, people who come to the area to do sports and to see the nice landscape will discover it also has a history and that is the way people will find out about it.'
Those tourists will want to see other things too, not least the dramatic mountain scenery in the area, offering some of the best views in the Alps. Guests at the InterContinental will have access to the only Alpine national park in Germany where they can go skiing, ice-skating, hiking and climbing. The hotel will also have a private, nine-hole golf course with breathtaking views.
As well as seeing Berchtesgaden's Nazi past in the context of this scenic backdrop, it also needs to be viewed in the context of history; the Nazi regime lasted only a dozen years in an area that was earlier fashionable with romantic painters who couldn't get enough of the beautiful landscape. In the town's charming folk museum, there's a memorial to a local peddler, Anton Adner, who lived from 1705 until 1822. Adner, not Hitler, is the true hero of Berchtesgaden. Compared with his 117-year life, Hitler's 12-year Reich looks like a brief, awful aberration.
How to get there Lufthansa (0845 773 7747) flies daily to Munich from Birmingham, Manchester, Heathrow and London City from £95.50 with tax. Ryanair (0871 246 0000) flies daily to Salzburg from Stansted with special-offer fares this week from £18.98, including tax. Munich to Berchtesgaden by train takes two-and-a-half hours and costs £35. Salzburg to Berchtesgaden takes an hour and costs £10. Contact Deutsche Bahn (0870 243 5363).
Where to stay The Berchtesgaden InterContinental is due to open in 2005. For details of where to stay before that, log on to www.berchtesgaden.de or call the German National Tourist Office on 020 7317 0908. | <urn:uuid:03b099b1-39ad-4f1c-bef2-3512645bc951> | http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2002/nov/10/germany.observerescapesection | en | 0.96958 | 0.054379 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Stories Written (3)
Title Age Rating Reviews Chapters Complete Words
Luck Of The Irish Teen 0/5 0 1 No 865
“I don’t know why, and probably never will. But I left my home country and my coven. I came back here, after three years. But there is one thing I have to say; Luck of the Irish my ass!” Aww poor little Maggie, for being an Irish vampire that can tell if you are lying, or not. She sure does have some bad luck. Create your own banner at! (banner by me-lame I know)
Purple Eyes Adult 5/5 1 1 No 1900
(read story notes, they are very importent!)
When a young new born vampire girl is found by the pack, new things and problems come undone. The only reason they did not kill her is because her vampire eyes are not red like the ones that fest on humans and they are not gold like the Cullen’s. They are purple, and they wanted to know why, and that one simple answer is why the pack and the Cullen’s are in so much trouble.
(banner by me)
Butterfly Lies Adult 0/5 2 1 No 1205
It was never to happen but it did. Jasper whole web lies came undone. Bella’s true nature comes forth. Edwards becomes lost, Jacob is dead to everything around him and Alice is broken. Jasper used Alice; made her love him. Only so that he could get closer to Bella. Bella, that used Edward to get closer to Jasper. And it worked. She let Jasper turn her; he took her away, and now are running around free, feasting on human blood. Edward, heartbroken and lost moved to Italy. But Bella did not just break Edwards’s hart, but Jacob’s as well. But Jasper broke Alice in more was then one. Can these heartbroken characters find love again, and with each other? (banner by me)
Series Written (0)
Title Rating Reviews Stories | <urn:uuid:b3bc5ab0-5f11-4c3c-97f3-31619d198f22> | http://www.twilightarchives.com/users/12367 | en | 0.967816 | 0.030154 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Petition Closed
Palm oil production is the single biggest threat to South East Asian rainforests.
Every hour over 300 football fields of pristine, tropical rainforest is destroyed to make room for the establishment and expansion of palm oil plantations. Huge swaths of rainforest are burnt to the ground, leaving thousands of innocent animals, including the endangered Orangutan, helpless. Arnott's use palm oil in most (if not all) of there biscuits and other products.
Letter to
Arnott's ANZ
Arnotts Director Public Affairs Tony Jones
I urge Arnotts to Stop Using Palm Oil in it's products!
Palm Oil contributes to the destruction of some of the world's most bio-diverse rainforest, the near extinction of numerous animal species, threatens livelihoods and significantly contributes to climate change.
Rainforests hold the highest biodiversity in the world and palm oil plantations are rapidly diminishing this environment and as a result, hundreds of species are now in severe danger of becoming extinct. Palm oil also contains five different saturated fats and is therefore not a healthy oil option for members of the public to be consuming. Palm oil is leading to increased heart diseases in humans and the rapid decline of plant and animal rainforest species. When there are better substitutes like canola or other sustainable vegetable oils, why wouldn't you make the change?
Although your palm oil supplier may be a member of the RSPO, this in no way means that the palm oil is being produced sustainably.
I urge Arnotts to phase out palm oil. | <urn:uuid:cf96e430-8679-4304-a4a2-524c8d27d83f> | https://www.change.org/p/arnott-s-stop-using-palm-oil | en | 0.941191 | 0.204536 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
left right close
Stephen Harper
* Prime minister
> Canada > Politicians > Conservative Party of Canada > Stephen Harper
Stephen Harper is ready for your opinion, support and vote. Vote online NOW!
photo Stephen Harper
Stephen Harper - for
NO! Stephen Harper
Stephen Harper - against
Online election results for "Stephen Harper" in graph.
Graph online : Stephen Harper
Full functionality only if Javascript and Flash is enabled
> Stephen Harper >
Quick opinions
Stephen Harper - for
Stephen Harper - against
for3against CHANGER LE SENAT on a besoin des senateurs(rices) élu de chaque province avec un nombre equal de chaque province. Dans ce facon notre gouvernement sera vraiment democratique!, meghan
for3against What politicians in Canada have forgot is that the voting public are not stupid mindless sheep who believes everything that they are told. This isn't Jonestown., thomas
for2against Harper is Bilderberg; 9/11 is a fraud; banking system is a fraud; Harper & Co are complicit and guilty of crimes against humanity - even BBC TV doc shows AlQaedo does not exist., Greenprint
for2against Harper is the worst Cdn PM EVER. He is destroying our country by increments. WAKE UP Canada!, tgartner
for1against What interest does Canada have in Ukraine. What possible explanation can be given for sending the military police. Why does he condone the US policy of War with Russia?, nowhereman
for1against Hitler seemed to care more about his people than this vile corporate agenda driven monster., wakeup
for1against For dropping the ball on moral issues such as abortion... Conservatives are the lesser of the evils., stillthinkinggal
for0against He doesn't care about the people of Canada. He is only out for himself, Suzie
[-] ADD
magixl stephen harper, stephen harper crisis, stephen harper est le premier, pictures of steven harper and more...
load menu | <urn:uuid:30b082e6-db95-4c18-b0b5-a9306fb8c2a0> | http://electionsmeter.com/polls/stephen-harper?show=opinions&add=yes | en | 0.834746 | 0.26307 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Home About Us the Rabbis Contact Us
what's new on Revach
Kiddush on Shabbos: Forgetting the Wine During your Bracha Achrona
Parshas Naso: Kli Yakar - The Explosion of the Sotah's Stomach
Kli Yakar - Isn't Shavuos The Day of Kabalas HaTorah?
[view all questions in this category]
Section: Questions Category: Halacha
Halacha - Tznius
Submitted by anonymous Answered by Rav Peretz Moncharsh
Question: In the bedroom, at what level of getting undressed does one have to go under the covers?
Answer: According to the minimal requirements of Halacha it is not necessary to cover ones self other than when removing the underwear. However Shulchan Aruch writes that it is an worthy midas chassidus to always be covered as one would in presence of a king. Mishna Berura explains that one should not even remove the socks and be barefoot if this is not the common manner of dress in his location.
posted:2009-07-04 18:34:30
printable version email to a friend
Send Your Comments
Name optional
Display my name?
Yes No
EMAIL optional
Your email address is kept private.
COMMENTS required
Most Viewed Lists
1. "Zissen" Pesach
2. shaving body
3. Bracha for bANANAS
4. sprinkler on Shabbos clock
5. Obligation to stop giving?
Last Viewed
1. Tznius
2. wind up toys
3. Listerine Breath Strips
4. Tevilas Keilim
5. Tzoraas HaBatim Good or Bad | <urn:uuid:96cc53ca-2abf-4535-9f4e-6e4d111a8627> | http://revach.net/ask/article.php?id=1367 | en | 0.820507 | 0.078607 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Mona Charen
Are you ready because Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state was such a rousing success? As of this writing, Islamist forces are marching south from newly conquered Mosul and Tikrit in Iraq. Wasn't Clinton the chief architect of our foreign policy when we failed to negotiate a status-of-forces agreement with Iraq in 2011? Reviewing that history in September of 2012, The New York Times quoted an administration spokesman: "As we reviewed the 10,000 option, we came to the conclusion that achieving the goal of a security partnership was not dependent on the size of our footprint in-country, and that stability in Iraq did not depend on the presence of U.S. forces."
That worked out well.
When asked in April what she was most proud of in her term, she squirted a lot of ink about preventing another Great Depression and "stabilization" and "positive growth," adding: "I think we really restored American leadership in the best sense. That, once again -- people began to rely on us as setting the values, setting the standards."
With which country are relations better now than in 2009? Canada? Israel? Britain? We've rebuffed and insulted Canada by failing to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, bullied and alienated Israel, betrayed Poland and the Czech Republic on defensive missiles, and insulted Great Britain by, among other things, sending back Winston Churchill's bust.
Has the U.S. position improved vis-a-vis adversaries? Is Clinton proud of the Russia "reset"? It began with a gaffe when she, in a stunt that would have been puerile even if it had gone right, presented to the Russian foreign minister a button that was supposed to say "reset" in Russian. Instead, it said "overcharge." Since then the President Barack Obama/Clinton policy toward Russia has been marked by Vladimir Putin running rings around the U.S. while the president issues clueless rebukes to critics about the Cold War being over.
The surge in Afghanistan was unsuccessful and is now to be followed by unilateral withdrawal. Iraq's fragile peace is collapsing, even as a revived al-Qaida stands ready to dominate large swaths of Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. Libya is heading for civil war. Benghazi, Clinton admits, is a regret. China is throwing its weight around in Asia. America's global popularity declined steeply during her tenure.
Mona Charen
©Creators Syndicate | <urn:uuid:1fa891eb-be9e-4226-8ffe-6cb815b73277> | http://townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/2014/06/13/ready-for-hillary-n1850962 | en | 0.96428 | 0.020351 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Skip to main content
Mothers and Daughters
Mothers and Daughters
In MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS, Rae Meadows explores three women of one matriarchal line --- their relationships, their hidden lives, and their secrets. From outstanding descriptions of turn-of-the-century New York to present-day Sanibel Island, their individual stories are woven together in a pleasing format.
Violet is 12. She and her mother, Lilibeth, landed in New York after Lilibeth decided to leave Kentucky, the husband she doesn't love, and a hard-scrabble life she thought her looks would help her avoid. She is also running from the stillbirth of her son, whom she held for two days before allowing to be buried. They arrive in New York completely unprepared, but Lilibeth soon finds that by turning on her southern charm, she can eke out enough money from various men to support a newfound opium habit. Violet is left on her own for days at a time but falls in with a group of newsboys and other street urchins. They soon help her hone her skills at petty theft, but they do watch out for each other.
Lilibeth is incapable of caring for Violet; she is too full of grief over her lost child --- and a life she never had --- to fully focus on making the life she does have better and being a good mother to her daughter. When Lilibeth mentions taking Violet to "the home" again, Violet takes charge of her own destiny and suggests she board one of "the trains." She is speaking of the Orphan Trains, which were run by the Children's Aid Society from 1854 to 1929. New York was bursting to the seams with orphans --- some true orphans, others just impoverished and neglected. In order to try and get them to a better life, the Aid Society would gather them up and send them on trains out to the Midwest where hopefully they would find new families, parents and homes. This premise held true for the younger travelers, but unfortunately for many of the older children, what they found were people looking for servants and laborers. As the train goes from town to town, slowly unloading its baggage, our heart breaks for the older children whose dreams of a place to call home, and people to call mama and papa, are fading.
Violet is taken on as an apprentice baker for a private hospital in Wisconsin. She eventually marries a farmer, adjusting easily to the life of a farm wife. After several miscarriages, Iris is born. Mother and daughter have a warm relationship, but there always seems to be a disconnect. Violet constantly holds herself --- and the true story of her childhood --- back from her daughter. Iris knows her mother was an orphan, but has no idea that she was with her real mother for the first part of her life --- that it was her mother who signed her over to an Orphan Train. Violet clearly loves Iris, but somehow she does not seem to trust mother love enough to lower her walls and share her deepest feelings and secrets.
Iris turns out to be an independent young woman who loves her parents, but gets out of the country as fast as she can, setting up in Chicago. When she thinks it's time to marry, she does, and rather well. A son is born, followed almost 10 years later (and quite unexpectedly) by a daughter. Iris is now battling cancer alone in a condo in Sanibel, FL.
Sam is Iris's daughter, Violet's granddaughter, and mother to Ella, the baby who has rocked her world to the very core. She was --- and is --- an artist, a thrower of pots and firer of ceramics, but she has not touched clay since she was six months pregnant. Even a commissioned teapot for her tenure-seeking husband's boss is a task she cannot fathom to begin. Sam's portions of the book take place over the course of one day --- the first day she has left Ella with a babysitter. She literally has to drag herself away from her child, and then spends the rest of the day in an aimless orbit, a moon without its earth.
There was a baby before Ella --- a miscarriage to all outside of Sam and her husband. However, the secret of what happened to that first child --- a secret not even shared with her mother --- haunts Sam even after the birth of her beautiful daughter. To top it all off, she continues to silently grieve for her mother (pregnant with Ella, Sam was with Iris during her last days and even her final moments); her parents' marriage, which only ended several years prior; and the estranged relationship she has with her father and only surviving parent.
As we learn more about these three ladies and the events that made them the women they are/were, we are better able to understand their psyches. While several of the book's mysteries will remain mysteries to the characters themselves, as readers we have the luxury of knowing the answers to all the questions. For us, the secrets of these mothers and daughters are all revealed.
Reviewed by Jamie Layton on April 4, 2011
Mothers and Daughters
by Rae Meadows
• Publication Date: March 29, 2011
• Genres: Fiction
• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• ISBN-10: 0805093834
• ISBN-13: 9780805093834 | <urn:uuid:56bd6136-5cd9-442a-aaf1-a538e7de6876> | http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/mothers-and-daughters | en | 0.981144 | 0.029356 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Tragedy struck the family of late Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon again Sunday, when his son Captain Asaf Ramon was killed in a crash while flying an Israel Air Force F16-A.
Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut was one of seven crew members killed when the U.S. space shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry on February 1, 2003.
Asaf Ramon's aircraft crashed near the settlement of Bnei Haver, in the rugged terrain of the Hebron Hills. The Israel Defense Forces carried out an aerial and terrestrial search of the area for some 90 minutes before locating the crash site.
IAF Blackhawk ("Yanshuf") helicopters carrying soldiers from 669, the Air Force's elite search and rescue unit, were the first to locate the plane, and they retrieved the pilot's body.
At a press conference Sunday evening, a grim-faced Brigadier General Yochanan Locker of the Israel Air Force confirmed the circumstances of the crash.
"The plane crashed during a routine training flight," Locker said. "Helicopters, rescue forces from [elite unit] 669, grounds troops and rescue personnel were dispatched to the site.
"The remains of the plane were found after an extensive search. The Air Force commander has established a committee of inquiry headed by a colonel to investigate the incident," he said. "It is a difficult day for the Air Force [when there is] an accident like this, in which people are killed."
Asaf, 21, excelled in the IAF's grueling training course for pilots. In June he received a presidential honor and was given his pilot's wings by President Shimon Peres. He then joined the squadron in which the course's advanced training program is carried out.
The young pilot escaped another plane crash only half a year ago during a routine training flight.
The Air Force commander, Major General Ido Nehushtan, called an official inquiry and halted training in Israel's F-16 squadrons until further notice, the military said in a statement.
The IAF is investigating a number of possible causes and is looking into whether Ramon was suffering from any physiological problems, such as vertigo or a blackout, at the time of the crash.
The young captain had passed a physical exam and was not known to have any medical problems.
Ilan Ramon himself was a fighter pilot in the IAF, and the youngest to take part in Israel's 1981 air strike on Iraq's unfinished Osirak nuclear reactor. He was also the son and grandson of Holocaust survivors.
People in Israel had tracked Ramon's journey into space as a welcome distraction from the violence of the second intifada; they responded to his death with shock and grief.
Asaf, was the eldest of Ilan Ramon's four children. He was 15 when his father died; shortly afterward, he promised on a number of occasions that he would follow in his father's footsteps and serve as a pilot and possibly even as an astronaut in the future. He is survived by his mother, and his two brothers and sister.
Shortly before receiving his wings, Ramon told the IAF journal that, "It was important to me to mention my father and tell his stories, because I am proud of him and proud to be his son. But I also want people to know me as Asaf and not just as the son of the astronaut Ilan Ramon." | <urn:uuid:f65e00aa-055e-40bc-a407-f253b5cf4913> | http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/astronaut-ilan-ramon-s-son-dies-in-iaf-crash-1.7974?trailingPath=2.169%2C2.216%2C | en | 0.983133 | 0.026047 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
US VIEW: Jarryd Hayne got limited chances in his latest NFL outing - yet an explanation has been given that the Aussie can take as a major compliment.
A STREAM of expletives, bizarre accusations and cruel jibes about your appearance. And, it’s all part of the job.
SOCCEROOS star Massimo Luongo admits he’s still in shock at the sight of his name on the prestigious FIFA Ballon d’Or shortlist.
| <urn:uuid:2f703e40-28eb-43bf-95a9-7798937a26d7> | http://www.mcc.org.au/error.aspx?item=%2fnews%2flatest+news%2f2012%2fapril%2fanzac+day+veterans&user=extranet%5cAnonymous&site=mcc | en | 0.943865 | 0.072494 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
YOU ARE HERE: LAT HomeCollectionsBusiness
Power Gig puts realism in play
When Power Gig: Rise of the SixString rocks onto the scene, it will put an actual guitar into video gamers' hands.
March 10, 2010|By Randy Lewis >>>
• AX WOMAN: Beca Sizzle is a character in Seven45 Studios-designed game expected in the fall.
AX WOMAN: Beca Sizzle is a character in Seven45 Studios-designed game expected… (PowerGig )
Ask any musician what's wrong with video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band and you'll get some variation of this response: If gamers spent half as much time with a real instrument as they did pushing plastic buttons on a toy version, they could become musicians instead of just mimicking them.
That argument has been heard loud and clear at Seven45 Studios in Boston, where game designers have come up with Power Gig: Rise of the SixString, which puts a genuine electric guitar into players' hands, allowing them to unplug from the game, hook up to an amplifier and rock for real.
At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Seven45 officials on Tuesday demonstrated their version, which they boast has "the most sophisticated game controller ever invented." Power Gig is expected to hit the market this fall despite the sputtering sales of music-centric games.
"This is unique and different enough to give the industry the shot in the arm it needs," Seven45 Vice President of Marketing Jeff Walker said Monday. "We believe there's a sizable audience out there that is wanting to see the next natural evolution of where these music-based video games need to head."
Walker also noted that several prominent musicians and bands who have withheld their music from other games because of the lack of realism have agreed to license songs to Power Gig, but he wouldn't specify which acts.
The new game offers players a "beat-matching" mode in which strings are pressed on the guitar neck to score points. That parallels the experience of pressing multicolored buttons on the toy controllers in Guitar Hero and Rock Band. But Power Gig also has a more advanced "chording" mode in which playing notes correctly and forming basic guitar chords advances the game play.
That function, Walker said, "is only for that segment of the audience that says, 'I want to take the next step.' "
Makers of the existing games concede that their products aren't intended to create real-world guitar heroes. Alex Rigopulos, one of the creators of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, has often said his goal in developing those games was to give non-musicians a significant portion of the experience of being a musician without the endless hours of practice and dues-paying.
Seven45 officials take pains to say the game won't turn tone-deaf players into Eric Claptons and John Mayers. "This is not a learn-how-to-play game," Walker said.
Many, if not most, video-game players aren't interested anyway. "It's like people who like to play racing games -- they don't go out, get a car and then enter the Indy 500," said Guitar Player magazine associate editor Barry Cleveland.
"This sounds like a gateway instrument. It's really apples and oranges -- the motor skills needed to play these games are very different than the skills you need to play musical instruments. They're mostly discussed in terms of the psychological part: Is it something that's diverting people from becoming musicians, or is it expanding the number of people who are attracted to playing? . . . People have surprisingly strong opinions about this."
Still, the musically inclined can expect some benefit from gaming with a real instrument in hand.
"We call it the 'stealth learning' approach," said Walker, who, like 80% of Seven45's staff, also is a musician. "Tutorials can be boring," he said, noting nevertheless that the game does have a tutorial function. "But people will find that after they've played for hours and hours that they start to develop the basic fundamentals of finger-strength building, knowing how much pressure to apply to the strings, and how to form basic chords."
Power Gig will hit the market at a time when Guitar Hero and Rock Band have lost a lot of their luster. Sales of music-centric games tailed off nearly 50% last year compared to 2008, when they hit about $1.6 billion, according to Wedbush Securities research analyst Michael Pachter.
"This sounds like it will have lots of appeal if a person has an interest in learning to play guitar, and it will have pretty low appeal for those who don't," Pachter said. "The music-game genre is not dead at all. Sales are still strong, but they've dropped a lot. It's a niche market and it will be good for guitar players who also happen to be gamers, but it won't be for gamers, unless they want to learn to play guitar."
Consumers also may be increasingly confused as more peripherals for music games from third-party manufacturers arrive.
Cleveland said two prominent guitar manufacturers are working on more realistic-feeling controllers for Guitar Hero, and InspiredInstruments is about to introduce its You Rock Guitar, a hybrid guitar synthesizer-game controller that replaces the strum bar of the existing toy controllers with a short section of strings. But it stops short of being a fully functional guitar, using buttons on the fret board to generate synthesized sounds.
Seven45 has the advantage of being owned by the same people who own First Act, a line of affordable, introductory-level musical instruments and accessories sold at Wal-Mart, Target and other major retailers, potentially giving Power Gig a foot in the door to a mass audience.
Power Gig will be introduced initially for Xbox and Sony Playstation3 game systems, with plans for a Wii version. The guitar controller will be also sold separately and is "100% compatible" with existing games, for those who don't want the entire Power Gig software-hardware package. But its function will be limited to beat-matching if used with Rock Band, Guitar Hero or Band Hero.
Seven45 officials are banking on building an audience for Power Gig's story line, which also hasn't been fully detailed yet.
"It goes beyond starting out in a garage band and working your way up to playing arenas and stadiums," said company spokesman Brian Rubin. "It's a whole world of its own."
Los Angeles Times Articles | <urn:uuid:14f95306-65ef-4369-81fd-0a46c7de37b4> | http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/10/entertainment/la-et-musicgame10-2010mar10 | en | 0.964969 | 0.083247 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Sunday, November 11, 2012
333,000 Votes in 4 Swing States Would Have Given Romney the Presidency
Just so you know, you morons who stayed home because Romney wasn't "conservative enough" or you idiots who voted for Gary Johnson or Goode, or stayed home and didn't bother to take an active interest "in protest" have essentially handed the future of America over to the most viruently evil bunch of thugs in modern history.
Thank you very much, IDIOTS!!! The layoffs have already started. 5,000 people joined the unemployment rolls in the three days after the election. How do you feel now? I hope you were one of those who lost your job. Serves you right, Moron.
I don't blame Romney's campaign.
I blame Americans.
This is YOUR screw-up.
If you couldn't see the damage already done by Dear Leader's first term you don't deserve the right to vote anyway, IMAO. Enjoy the next 4 years while more people lose jobs and the rest of us pay more in taxes and higher energy costs. Prepare for 5 dollar a gallon gas.
333,000 Votes in 4 Swing States Would Have Given Romney the Presidency
On November 6, 2012, 3.2 million fewer Americans voted for Mitt Romney than President Obama. 61.8 million Americans voted for Obama, while only 58.6 million voted for Romney.
Romney lost Florida’s 29 electoral college votes by a margin of 73,858. Obama won with 4,236,032 to Romney's 4,162,174.
Romney improved his vote total's over McCain's by the slightest amount in three of these four states, but in Ohio, he actually had 81,000 fewer votes than McCain in 2008
Obama’s victory doesn’t constitute a mandate for his far left agenda to “transform America” into some nightmarish amalgam combining the worst features of a European socialist state with an Indonesian oligarchy.
This election was not about grand vision. It was about small details and focused pandering to specific demographic groups.
The Obama campaign performed its nationally divisive mission of small ball with excellence and focus. In contrast, the Romney campaign failed in the basic nuts and bolts of campaigning and lost focus on the four key states that mattered by diverting the candidate's time and the campaign's financial resources to states that didn't matter.
While Romney campaigned in Ohio on Election Day, his last campaign event took place in Pennsylvania, where he didn't have a chance. Romney had no election day campaign stops in Virginia or Florida, though he did have an election eve event in New Hampshire.
An even more critical error took place in the diversion of financial resources from Virginia, Florida, New Hampshire, Ohio to "expand the map" and buy expensive television ad time in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Pennsylvania. This grand strategy, developed by Karl Rove's Crossroads Group and influenced by senior campaign advisor Ed Gillespie, was a fatal error in crucial last weeks of the campaign.
Labels: , ,
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home | <urn:uuid:23c9e217-611c-473b-9900-8c36de3868cf> | http://unitedconservatives.blogspot.com/2012/11/333000-votes-in-4-swing-states-would.html | en | 0.96064 | 0.035166 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
GIO bike controller
No replies
Joined: 08/19/2011
Points: 3
I recently purchased a GIO scooter, and as is a reoccuring theme on these forums -- I want to go up hills. I saw the instructions for the "shunt mod" but honestly that just doesn't seem healthy for the batteries or the motor... and I suck at "man things" like soldering and such.
However, the article also mentioned just buying a replacement controller... that sounds like something up my limited skillset ally. However, I don't know what I should be looking for.
Also how bad is the shunt mod for your scooter? I mean if it doesn't make a marked reduction in life (vs getting a controller elsewhere) could I just take the instructions to my local computer shop or whatever, and say "here are the instructions, here is some cash, can you do this for me?" ?
Tl;dr what is the best method for a mechanically challenged guy to make his bike go up hills and get a little extra speed.
Who's new
• adoeps
• Spuddy
• Ray Ray Junoir
• Rosso
• huggs2
Customize This | <urn:uuid:67870c56-3cd0-4eb4-980d-d51ec050ec21> | http://visforvoltage.org/forum/11149-gio-bike-controller | en | 0.944962 | 0.272749 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
ASTRO satellite hooks spacecraft up with fuel whilst orbiting
Launching a few birds into space is quite a feat in its own right, but pumping hydrazine fuel into an orbiting counterpart autonomously is really something to be proud of. Just about a month after launching the two unmanned crafts into space, the ASTRO satellite "successfully pumped vital hydrazine fuel into its NextSat counterpart as part of Scenario 0-1, the first in a series of increasingly challenging tests." The machines are currently taking part in the series of Orbital Express missions, and apparently, things are on the up and up thus far. Future tests are slated to include "autonomous undocking, proximity operations and re-docking," as well as installing a battery on NextSat with its robotic arm. We can't wait to see what happens when one of the two gets testy about refueling after hours, but we sure hope the galactic battle is somehow caught on tape.
[Via Digg] | <urn:uuid:f7a5a8d4-4e90-44c2-822e-8b1a3d54394d> | http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/08/astro-satellite-hooks-spacecraft-up-with-fuel-whilst-orbiting/ | en | 0.970001 | 0.026909 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
The chairwoman of Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton's Broadband Task Force has echoed Republican criticism of a new state sales tax on telecommunications equipment.
Margaret Anderson Kelliher, a former Minnesota House speaker, said the tax could be an obstacle to new broadband infrastructure and lead to fewer jobs in that sector. She has written to Dayton about the tax and told Minnesota Public Radio News for a story Tuesday that the tax should be repealed.
Kelliher is a Democrat and currently directs the Minnesota High Tech Association. She argues the tax will make it harder to reach a state goal of having border-to-border broadband by 2015. The tax moves in the opposite direction of a task force recommendation to expand an exemption so it would cover more types of telecommunications equipment, such as fiber-optic cable.
"This I think is a case where being able to correct this and take it back and make it the way it had been for about a decade or more, makes a lot of sense," Kelliher said.
The tax is expected to generate $75 million over the next two years.
"She doesn't have to balance the budget," Dayton said Tuesday of Kelliher's concern. "We have to balance the budget and we have to do it honestly."
Dayton and legislative leaders are negotiating the agenda for the potential Sept. 9 special session.
He wants it limited to disaster relief to 18 counties hit hard by June storms and a farm machinery exemption to a new tax on business equipment repairs.
House Speaker Paul Thissen of Minneapolis and Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk of Cook contend there is enough money available to offset the $28 million needed for the farm exemption. But Bakk said he's not inclined to revisit other newly adopted taxes.
"Beyond that, things get awful expensive," Bakk said.
Senate Minority Leader David Hann, R-Eden Prairie, said lawmakers should be able to plug the holes if they look hard enough in the $38 billion budget. | <urn:uuid:4d4c8cd7-9dd8-4bc7-9741-706fbc1f2399> | http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_23899760/new-minnesota-telecom-tax-faces-bipartisan-criticism | en | 0.961055 | 0.06667 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
UFO Sighting
Sighting Basics
Case Number 57010
Log Number US-06122014-0010
Date Submitted 06/12/2014 05:41 UTC
Date of the Event 06/12/2014 01:53 UTC
Source MUFON
Disposition Unresolved
Summary fast moving object leaving heavy smoke trail, abruptly disappeared
Tags lights
Sighting Location
City Laguna Niguel
Region California
Country United States
Sighting Specifics
Viewing Distance Over One Mile
Sighting Duration Undisclosed
Object Features Unknown
Object Flight Path Straight-line path
Object Shape Bullet, Missile
Weather Factors Unknown
Sighting Details
My wife and I were returning to work from lunch in Laguna Niguel, CA, and we observed a very fast moving object leaving a very distinct smoke trail traveling accross our line of sight at about 60 degrees above the horizon. The speed the object moved caught our attention and we watched it and could see it reflect light at one point, but we could not see wings or any lights or markings. The reflection suggested the object was bullet shaped -we assumed it was a military jet or something similar because of the very fast speed it was moving - much faster than a passenger jet, which are extremely common in the skies above where we work. Just after the point it passed closest to us and began flying away from our point of reference, the object disappeared and the trail came to an abrupt end. Although the object was no longer visible and the smoke trail came to an abrupt halt, the remaining trail was still clearly visible and intact along the path the object had traveled prior to disappearing. I took 2 pictures with my cell phone which focus on the point the smoke trail ended. To clarify, there was not a "trailing off" of the smoke - it just stopped abruptly as if it had been severed, for lack of a better description. The object did not turn or land and the smoke trail remained in a perfectly straight line, from our vantage point. I would estimate the object to have been flying at about 20,000 feet. I am not able to load the pictures onto this computer, but the pictures are available and I can supply them upon request.
blog comments powered by Disqus
Return to the Map
Loading... Loading...
The location presented here is an approximation to protect the reporters identity
Images and Videos
No Images or Videos Provided | <urn:uuid:084ef4cb-02a8-4a13-885f-1d5b87446185> | http://www.ufostalker.com/ufostalker/UFO+Sighting+in+Laguna+Niguel+California+United+States+on+June+12th+2014/57010 | en | 0.938145 | 0.039366 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Edit Article
Instead of tossing away your old, unwanted belts, give them a new lease of life by recycling them into a bracelet, or more. These make excellent, stylish bracelets and they're perfect for giving away as gifts.
1. 1
Use an old belt. Wrap the belt around your wrist and measure it. Mark a line where you will cut it - it should be the size of your wrist plus some additional room. If making for a gift, guess as accurately as you can, or measure your friend's wrist.
2. 2
Cut the bracelet. Always cut more space rather than less, as you can always whittle it down if needed. Make sure you leave the buckle on.
3. 3
Poke a hole near the end of the belt at the opposite end of the buckle.
4. 4
Decorate with duct tape and/or pictures. Other decorative elements might include marker drawings, stamp prints, costume gems, etc. Printed out clip-art pictures of animals are a favorite. Try burning or laser-engraving into the belt to make cool effects.
5. 5
Use up the remaining parts of the belt. Although the rest of the belt lacks the buckle, you can make more bracelets and thread yarn or other strong threads through small holes to draw together the bracelet.
• you could extend it into a choker!
Things You'll Need
• Old belt
• Duct tape, pictures, printed-out cartoons or any decorative items, etc.
• Knife
• Leather hole punch if making extra bracelets, and yarn for threading
Article Info
Categories: Bracelet Projects
Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 10,256 times.
Did this article help you?
Yes No
an Author!
Write an Article | <urn:uuid:a4602595-c31a-42e8-892e-f18c890e5564> | http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Bracelet-from-an-Old-Belt | en | 0.925783 | 0.032092 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Personalised Number Plate Help -
FAQ & help guide to answer any questions you may have in relation to the purchase, transfer and sale of personalised reg number plates including historic reg number data and frequently asked questions.
If there is anything you need to discuss further, please contact the reg number experts in our admin department who will be happy to help.
Number Plate Buyers Guide
1. What happens to my present registration number?
2. Why are some prices subject to VAT?
3. Why have I seen the same number plate advertised in other places?
4. What happens if I change my mind before the transfer has been completed?
5. What payment methods are accepted?
6. I do not have a vehicle yet, can I still purchase a plate now?
7. What does DVLA, VRO and DOT stand for?
8. My V5C says non-transferable. Can I transfer a Cherished Number onto my vehicle?
9. Why are some transfers faster than others?
10. How can I find out about the status of my transfer?
11. Do Regplates provide the acrylic number plates?
12. Does the recipient vehicle need to be inspected?
13. Are there any restrictions to the transfer of a number with a year letter?
14. How long does a transfer take?
15. What happens if I need to tax or MOT my vehicle while the transfer being processed?
16. Is it possible to transfer a mark to a vehicle with a "Q" mark?
17. Do I have to keep the registration for a certain time before I can transfer it?
18. If the recipient already has a mark can I transfer both at the same time?
19. If my vehicle is new and not registered can I transfer a number onto it?
20. Can I ask Regplates to try and obtain an un-issued prefix combination?
21. Why is my registration number being offered for sale on the Regplates web site?
22. What do I get for my money when I buy a previously unissued mark?
23. What if my vehicle is stolen and not recovered?
24. What if my vehicle is "written off"?
25. What if my vehicle has been scrapped?
Number Plate History - How It All Began
A1 registration plate
A1 - The Ultimate Number Plate?
Number plates were first issued in 1903 when Earl Russell was assigned the highly prestigious mark A1 to his Napier motor car by London County Council.
Even in the early days, people recognised the significance and enjoyment brought by owning a prestigious or personalised number plate and often kept them within the family for many years. Their significance is often highly personalised to their owners. Some like to have a registration that originated in their local area, some are attracted to owning their own initials and others enjoy the fun of a word based registration mark.
Registrations that are car related always prove popular such as 45 TON on an Aston Martin DB6
Since their humble beginning in 1903, cherished numbers have continued to increase in popularity often adding the finishing touch to our prized possessions and very often prove to be a valuable investment.
Registration Number Plates Buyers Guide Links
Regplates Youtube guide on how to correctly fit number plates.
New Stock At Regplates
£ 3495
£ 3995
GAM 811A
£ 2495
£ 1495
£ 2995
62 MAX
£ 6995
£ 5995
692 MOU
£ 1195
SAM 444A
£ 2795
RY 6113
£ 1849
MOS 55
£ 5995
9 SA
£ 29995
£ 3995
F457 FER
£ 5995
BMW 300D
£ 1795
£ 3995
£ 1995
£ 3495
WYN 16
£ 3250
£ 7495
MYL 111E
£ 2795
£ 3495
£ 9495
£ 24995
£ 2250
£ 2995
£ 3995
£ 2499
£ 20000
£ 3995
£ 1495
PAT 311S
£ 4450
£ 1995
£ 2250
£ 2499
290 C
£ 8500
£ 7995
£ 1995
£ 2695
KHA 777S
£ 1995
£ 2450
£ 5995
£ 3995
KRY 571N
£ 1995
Customer Feedback
Latest Customer Feedback
Latest Reg Plate News
DVLA online Vehicle Registration Transfer System
In many cases, cars used in Britain have a UK registration plate that goes with them throughout their life; the plate can remain with the vehicle throughout any number of owners and relocations. However, car owners also have the opportunity to buy personalised number plates, and these can be transferred (as long as they adhere […]
Tue, 18 Aug 2015 16:51:37
Latest stock at – RY 6113
Latest stock at – RY 6113. This great dateless number plate is now available at just £1849 making it the cheapest available! Call us on 01482 627 628 or visit our website at now.
Thu, 02 Jul 2015 11:14:10
Private Number Plates can be a Good Investment
Choosing a suitable way to invest your money is increasingly difficult, with the interest rates on savings accounts going down and property being somewhat unreliable, in terms of value. Because many people currently have questions about the economy, they are looking for new and alternative ways to invest their money that are perhaps more creative […]
Fri, 19 Jun 2015 16:28:28
PCI DSS Compliant Site
PCI DSS Compliant
Certified Secure Ordering
Transfer of Registrations & Number Plate Information
Dateless Number Plates 1903 - 1963
Dateless Number Plates
The first series of number plates were issued in 1903 and ran until 1932, using the series A 1 to YY 9999. The letter or pair of letters indicated the local authority in whose area the vehicle was registered, for example A – London, B – Lancashire, C – West Riding of Yorkshire. In England and Wales the letter codes were initially allocated in order of population size (by the 1901 census) whilst Scotland and Ireland had their own sequences incorporating the letters "S" and "I" respectively, which were allocated alphabetically: IA = Antrim, IB = Armagh, etc. When a licensing authority reached 9999, it was allocated another two letter mark, but there was no pattern to these subsequent allocations as they were allocated on a first come first served basis. There are three interesting anomalies where a zero has been issued – The Lord Provost of Edinburgh has S 0 and his Glasgow counterpart has G 0 while the official car of the Lord Provost of Aberdeen has RG 0. In addition the Lord Mayor of London has the registration LB 0.
By 1932, the available numbers within this scheme were running out, and an extended scheme was introduced. This scheme consisted of three letters and up to three digits, taken from the series AAA 1 to YYY 999. The letters I, Q, and Z were never used, as they were considered too easy to mistake for other letters or numbers or were reserved for special use, such as the use of I and Z for Irish registrations and Q for temporary imports. (After independence, the Republic of Ireland continued to use this scheme until 1986, and Northern Ireland still uses it.)
The three-letter scheme preserved the area letter codes as the second pair of letters in the set of three, and the single letter area codes were deleted (since prefixing a single letter code would create a duplicate of a two-letter code). In some areas, the available numbers with this scheme started to run out in the 1950s, and in those areas, a reversed sequence was introduced, i.e. 1 AAA to 999 YYY. The ever-increasing popularity of the car can be gauged by noting that these sequences ran out within ten years, and by the beginning of the 1960s, a further change was made in very popular areas, introducing 4-number sequences with the one and two letter area codes, but in the reverse direction to the early scheme (i.e. 1 A to 9999 YY). Often number plates were on hinges, as petrol tank caps were located under the number plates on some cars.
Suffix Number Plates 1963 - 1982
Suffix Number Plates
In 1963, numbers were running out once again, and an attempt was made to create a national scheme to alleviate the problem. The three letter, up to three number system was kept, but a letter suffix was added, which changed every year. In this scheme, numbers were drawn from the range AAA 1A to YYY 999A for the first year, then AAA 1B to YYY 999B for the second year, and so on. Some areas did not adopt the year letter for the first two years, sticking to their own schemes, but in 1965 adding the year letter was made compulsory.
As well as yielding many more available numbers, it was a handy way for vehicle buyers to know the age of the vehicle immediately. At first the year letter changed on 1 January every year, but car retailers started to notice that buyers would tend to wait until the New Year for the new letter to be issued, so that they could get a "newer" car. This led to major peaks and troughs in sales over the year, and to help flatten this out somewhat the industry lobbied to get the month of registration changed from January to August. This was done in 1967, a year that had two letter changes: "E" came in January, and "F" came in August.
Prefix Number Plates 1983 - 2001
Prefix Number Plates
By 1982, the year suffixes had reached Y and so from 1983 onwards the sequence was reversed again, so that the year letter — starting again at "A" — preceded the numbers then the letters of the registration. The available range was then A21 AAA to Y999 YYY, the numbers 1–20 being held back for the government's proposed, and later implemented, DVLA select registration sales scheme. Towards the mid-1990s there was some discussion about introducing a unified scheme for Europe, which would also incorporate the country code of origin of the vehicle, but after much debate such a scheme was not adopted due to lack of countries willing to participate. The changes in 1983 also brought the letter Q into use – although on a very small and limited scale. It was used on vehicles of indeterminate age, such as those assembled from kits, substantial rebuilds, or imported vehicles where the documentation is insufficient to determine the age. There was a marked increase in the use of Q registrations in the late 1980s and early 1990s, fuelled by car crime. Many stolen vehicles had false identities given to them, and when this was discovered and the original identity could not be determined, a Q registration would be issued to that vehicle. It was seen as an aid to consumer protection.
It should be noted that the date denoted by a registration plate is the date a vehicle was first imported into the United Kingdom and registered with that registration system. For instance a vehicle manufactured in say 1991 and registered in Northern Ireland might have been given a 1993 registration letter when it was registered on the Swansea system. This also applies to vehicles imported from other countries. This is apparent by examining the registration document which will show a date of manufacture different from the date of first registration. The date of manufacture is notional, though, as vehicles may be manufactured and stored unused, for many years in some cases, and then registered as new when first registered into the system. This allows manufacturers to sell cars as new allowing for shipping, storing at dockyards etc.
In 1989 a lot of these stored old models were registered in advance of legislation that required all new vehicles registered on or after 1 January 1990 to have catalytic converters fitted. This included vehicles held in storage and out of production for several years, in some cases five years or more.
By the late 1990s, the range of available numbers was once again starting to run out, exacerbated by a move to biannual changes in registration letters (March and September) in 1999 to smooth out the bulge in registrations every August, so a new scheme needed to be adopted. It was decided to research a system that would be easier for crash or vehicle related crime witnesses to remember and clearer to read, yet still fit within a normal standard plate size.
Current Issue Number Plates 2001 on
Current Issue Number Plates
The current format of number plates started in September 2001 with the '51' number identifier as shown in the 'DE51YRE' example above. The idea was to make vehicles easily identifiable and to allow 2 changes per year instead of the traditional one issue per year. This took pressure away from car dealers and diluted the rush with registering all new vehicles at the same time. This new format created several million new combinations offering scope for specific unreleased numbers to be purchased.
Northern Ireland Transfers
The transfer of number plates to Northern Ireland forms part of the cherished transfer scheme with a couple of differences. A number plate that is on a UK mainland vehicle can be transferred at the normal rate (currently £80) to a NI vehicle and the same is true in reverse for NI to UK transfers. If a number plate is held on a retention certificate (V778 / V750) then it must first be assigned to a UK mainland vehicle and then transferred to NI. The same is true of NI retention certificates.
This adds extra fees and time to the transfer process. Regplates currently offer the Northern Ireland transfer service for £100 plus the extra £80 DVLA fee, total £180. This service is open to our customers only.
UK & Overseas Number Plate Information is a section devoted to number plate topics from every country that issues plates!
RNPS - The Register Of DVLA Approved Number Plate Suppliers
The Register of Number Plate Suppliers ( RNPS ) shows who is registered and approved by the DVLA to make road legal number plates.
If you purchase them through a non registered supplier, your car many not pass an MOT and the number plates may not be road legal.
As Regplates is a DVLA registered number plate supplier (license number 47727) we can physically supply road legal number plates in line with all DVLA & MOT regulations.
Regplates offers a fully independent and widely recognised Valuation Service for vehicle registration marks.
You will receive a certificate which is accepted for insurance, probate or evaluation purposes. Clients wishing to insure can obtain full details of insurance and a proposal form upon request. Ideal when selling your personalised number plate.
Current DVLA Reg number and number plate information shows all the latest legal updates from the DVLA and VOSA in relation to number plates and vehicles.
Car Reg Number Buyers Guide contains specific information for buyers of personalised car reg plates.
Number Plate Area Identifiers where each plate combination is issued
Acrylic Number Plates a guide to the perspex plates on your vehicle
Car Number Plates Age Identifiers - Year Letter Prefix / Suffix numberplate age restriction information and year letters
Cherished Number Plate cherished style plate help
Registration Plate reg plate news and updates
Car Registrations car reg information and regulations
Number Plates number plates style
Private Number Plates all the private plate info you could ever need!
Cherished Numbers why are they so sought after and valuable?
The Phonetic Alphabet make sure your numberplate purchase is correct!
DVLA Number Plates DVLA number plate information
Cherished Number Plates Cherished Number Plate Guide
Personalised Number Plates - Buyers Guide To Personalised Number Plates
Private Number Plates - The Current Private Number Plates Section
Reg Number Plate Local DVLA Offices DVLA Local Office addresses and closure information
Terms & Conditions , Privacy Policy , Terms of Use , Complaints Procedure | <urn:uuid:8847c6e4-29fa-4f4f-878c-cdbf1f6eb86b> | https://www.regplates.com/error.php | en | 0.946818 | 0.028445 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Pretend Play at Its Best
If you're looking for a toy that will take your children away from the computer games and television screens - consider giving them a toy the encourages pretend play.
Pretend play is very important for all children developmentally. It encourages them to use their imaginations and that is something many children don't get to do when the majority of their playtime is spent either watching DVDs or playing video games have base value as they do require skill and do develop some hand and eye coordination, but do not take the place of creative left brained thinking nor do they help develop social skills or expand imaginations.
In order for your children to develop to their full creative potential, they should be encouraged to participate in playtime activities that encourage pretend scenarios and other make-believe games. A great pretend play toy is a throwback to your own childhood that you may remember well.
No comments: | <urn:uuid:f667fce8-3bab-4212-babb-6807bd650140> | http://blog.sensoryedge.com/2006/07/pretend-play-at-its-best.html | en | 0.959246 | 0.023862 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
..spa_vote_start: 0
....spa_vote_end: 0
spa_listing_type: spa
..spa_award_year: 2016
.entry_start: 2015-05-29 00:00:00
...entry_end: 2016-05-30 00:00:00
listing_type: hotel
..award_year: 2016
..award_id: 222196
spa_listing_type: spa
..spa_award_year: 2016
..spa_award_id: 222195
hotel Awards 2016
Anantara Spa at Anantara Seminyak Bali Resort & Spa
Anantara Seminyak offers a Bali spa resort experience that soothes, pampers, rejuvenates and revitalizes in an inimitable, beautiful surrounding. Indulge in a wellness journey by trying the Balinese massage or soothing body treatments, scrubs, aromatherapy and beauty enhancing facials on offer exclusively at Anantara Spa Seminyak. Created with care and insight, the spa treatments aim to foster a sense of balance and serenity. Better yet, escape the limits of time, surrender to their discretion and allow them to tailor a program or package that is unique to the guests.
The elixirs and oils use the finest and freshest indigenous ingredients from Indonesia. Traditional beauty essences such as sandalwood, ylang ylang, patchouli, mandarin, lavender, lemongrass and more are harnessed to deliver radiance, relaxation and a sense of wellbeing in all their treatments, complimented by treatment rooms with iPod connection.
Awards this Property has won:
Editors choice
Situated in one of the leading luxury Bali resorts on the Seminyak coast of Indonesia, the Anantara Seminyak Bali Resort proudly features their luxurious Anantara Spa. With a magnificent surrounding scenery such as inland mountains, rivers and villages, this resort spa is the ideal breakaway destination to come and restore your senses away from the busy city life. They offer several traditional treatments such as Balinese massages, soothing body treatments, scrubs, aromatherapy and beauty enhancing facial experiences that is created with care and insight, to foster a sense of balance and serenity. Highly recommended comes their Anantara Signature Massage which is a blend of oils, combined with purpose-designed movements, that stimulates your blood circulation and promotes deep relaxation, whilst restoring the flow of energy, or prana along the meridian lines. Guests can enjoy these treatments in their 2 single or couple rooms, each including a terrazzo shower and wash basin. They offer various spa packages and programs that can be personalized to suit your daily needs. Escape the limits of time and surrender to the Anantara Spa’s discretion, as their treatments will awaken your senses and leave your body and spirit feeling renewed. | <urn:uuid:93cb64a6-b11b-4e7b-b819-475dd5665912> | http://luxuryhotelawards.com/listings/anantara-spa-anantara-seminyak-bali-resort-spa | en | 0.900773 | 0.049716 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
We begin with ash and end with fire!
Supertradmum said...
As a person with Montessori training, who had a Montessori school at one time, I can state that children learn from things, from nature, like the good Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas taught us. What we touch and smell creates knowledge. All the wonderful symbolism of the sacraments and sacramentals are based on reality. Thanks for this lovely post. A mini-reflection, indeed.
chris said...
Interesting article about the Church in England. Very nuanced.
Pablo the Mexican said...
Like the Navajo Indians here like to say:
"Pretty good, all right!"
Not For Me said...
Can anyone tell me when the instruction was given for lay people to place the ashes on the foreheads of the congregation? I know that we have Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, lay readers, and such like but I am not aware that permission has ever been granted for lay people to administer the ashes. First of all I cannot believe the arrogance of lay people solemnly telling the other members of the congregation to repent and believe in the Gospel (or whatever the wording is these days), and equally, I cannot understand why any lay person would queue up and accept this charade. What next, Extraordinary Ministers of Confession?
Someonewhocanread said...
" opposed to a little leaflet or those so protestant palm crosses,"
So is that why palm crosses are specifically mentioned in the Ceremonial of Bishops for the Usus Antiquior, Book 2, Chapter XXI, 2: parvis crucibus de palmarum foliis compositis?
Fr Ray Blake said...
"parvis crucibus de palmarum foliis compositis"
I am not sure what that means, pictures always show those in procession carrying branches rather than small crosses.
In Rome the custom is to weave the leaves of branches into small crosses rather than a single cross made out of a leaflet.
Incidently, congratulations on being able to read but do you understand what you are reading?
Gigi said...
Lovely post. Nice to see people out shopping and coming home from work with their foreheads still largely "crossed" yesterday evening.
(Shamefully, my own big sister, who also had a convent education, didn't know that the ash was from the previous year's burnt palms! She isn't a churchgoer now and says she doesn't remember being told at school. Sadly, I don't think it's limited to some of the little ones...)
gemoftheocean said...
In answer to 'Not for Me's' question. Apparently, depends on what diocese you are in. The priest must be the one to bless the ashes. In theory laymen/women can be called upon to assist, as long as it has been approved for that diocese. In the US, for instance, most diocese have that indult. It depends on what the country is using re: the book of blessings. See here for long answer given on the ewtn website. | <urn:uuid:b088f306-3ade-48cb-8d0c-9517f714d9f9> | http://marymagdalen.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/we-begin-with-ash-and-end-with-fire-or.html | en | 0.971622 | 0.243981 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 23:03:38 -0800 (PST) From: Nath Walbert Subject: Pike Island He parked the car and started walking toward the overlook. The view from the bluff was always relaxing, and the spot was so peaceful this time of year. In a couple of months the old fort, and the nature preserve around it, would be bustling with visitors but today it was tranquil. The biggest activity was the rapid melting of snow on this mild late morning. He leaned against the wall on the edge of the bluff and looked out over the river valley. He could see a gravel trail on the far side of the river. No one was on it. He turned and headed for the paved bike path that would take him down to the floodplain. The path contained a series of short flight of steps as it curved around the fort and at each he stopped and did some stretching. Once on the steep downhill portion, he picked up the pace and began jogging. He was not surprised that he encountered no one else. Bikers would be avoiding this route with the melting snow and slippery slope, the dog walkers tended to favor the far side of the river. He almost lost his balance at one curve, and just caught himself by grabbing a tree branch. He was beginning to feel comfortably warm, and thought about the five layers of clothing he was wearing, both above and below the waist, along with a knit cap. Well, maybe he had overdone it, but he had often heard it was a good idea to wear layers in this changeable climate. He sure liked to be prepared. He could easily take off his windbreaker, and the big loose camping pants could be pulled off right over his sneakers. He began jogging again, and then feeling confident, let the full force of gravity work with him and ran down the sloped path as fast as he could. It began to flatten out just as he crossed another path, and he slowed down in case there was any cross traffic. This made him feel the warmth from his burst of exertion, so he unzipped his windbreaker and let it flap freely behind him. At the trail crossing he first looked left and noticed the small kiosk with the park map and notices. Barely slowing down, he pulled his jacket completely off and tied it around his waist. Looking to the right, he a saw a big man wearing a hooded sweatshirt speed -walking toward him. No, dog, he thought, just out for some exercise all by himself just like me. His own downhill momentum had carried him right past the kiosk and he decided to turn around and take a look. In a few strides he was there, and as he looked at the map, he raised his left foot to rest on one of the wooden posts, pulled down his pants from the waist and slipped the pant leg off that foot. Then he quickly repeated this with the other foot, dropping his pants on the ground. That was better! He would be warm enough, with his long cotton sweatpants, as well as his knit cap pulled down over the ears, and his buttoned-up plaid flannel over-shirt. Just then, right up to the kiosk came the man in the hood. He pulled it off, showing a head of dark curly hair matching his full beard. He called out genially, "Great day for it, huh!" Then gesturing toward the pants on the ground, "starting to feel warm already, huh? "Yeah, it feels great, though" "Well, have a good one," and he started down the path again. He watched the bearded man go, and then, putting his foot back up on the post, took a minute to do some more stretches, and look at the map. That way led to a little humpback bridge over a narrow channel and then a long, narrow island with a big loop trail. That would be s satisfying walk and maybe the other guy had the same idea. He picked up his pants, tied them around his waist over his jacket and started walking and then broke into a jog. He was soon at the little bridge, and he liked the slight feeling of exertion as he ran up to its middle. At the top he began unbuttoning his flannel shirt and was just taking it off when he noticed the bearded man at the end of the bridge staring in his direction and putting his finger to his smiling lips. They both looked toward the water. There were two pelicans quietly sitting on a dead tree trunk in the channel, occasionally opening their huge wings. He smiled back and returned the "ssssh" gesture to show he understood. He walked slowly down the rest of the bridge and stopped a few yards beyond at a bush by a sign with some rules posted. The trail split just beyond the sign. As he stopped to glance at the rules, he started to really feel warm. There was no rule about dropping clothes, so he dropped his flannel shirt behind the bush, then undid his pants and jacket from his waist and dropped them too. After a moment's thought, he sat down, pushed his sweats down to his ankles and pulled them over his shoes, adding the sweats to the growing pile of clothes behind the bush. As he stood back up, he noticed the other man heading toward him. "Sorry about that, I just didn't want to scare off the birds," said the bearded man. "Oh, that's OK. They are amazing to watch, aren't they?" "Yeah. So you really got spring fever! Gonna go running in those gym shorts?" "Yeah. Well, I'll end up here after circling the island, so I thought I'd leave this other stuff here." "Where? Oh, behind the bush, well I wouldn't have noticed it if you hadn't said, so it should be safe there. Anyway that turtleneck should keep you more than warm enough, especially if you're running." "Come to think of it, I am more than warm enough," he replied, as he pulled his turtleneck over his head, and in one sweeping gesture added it and his knit cap to the pile behind the bush. "It's an island, but not quite a tropical island," laughed the other man, shaking his head, and heading down the left trail. He watched the bearded man go and started down the right- hand trail. He started jogging at a good pace and the mildly cool air pleasantly tickled his bare arms and exposed armpits. He was down to two layers on top, an old sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off and a tank top. Here the ground under his feet was somewhat soft and that was pleasant too. On his left was a narrow band of trees with the other trail visible beyond. On his right was a much bigger, deeper wood. The trails joined up again at the base of a small sandy hill, not anything more than a dune with a few bushes and a little grass. He ran up the hill and down again, and enjoying it, did that a few more times. On the fifth time reaching the top he stopped and clasped his hand behind his head, he turned around taking in the small but uplifting view. He could make out the river through the trees one way, and the other way he could see across most of the island through a clearing. Starting back down the hill, he could also see the bearded came coming up that other trail. Meeting at the base of hill, the other man spoke first. "Keep running into you." "Yeah, well there's no one else around." "Well you enjoy yourself running around the island with your bare armpits and your bare knees while there's still snow on the ground," but he had a warm smile as he said it. "I sure will." He headed up the hill again, but halfway he stopped and turned around. "Anyway, I don't really have bare knees." He pulled on the cuffs of his shorts, demonstrating that they did reach past his knees. The other man laughed. "OK, whatever you're comfortable with." He turned around and smiled back at the bearded man than completed his run up the hill backwards. He was thinking about how good the air felt on all the uncovered parts of his skin and the more he thought, the more that bare knees sounded like a good idea, too. So he did it. At the top of the hill he stepped into a small patch of tallgrass, pulled off his gym shorts and left them on the ground. The boxer briefs he had on underneath were shorter, but they were plain solid, no print, and looked a lot like biking or running shorts since his top was covering the waistband. He ran back down the hill, the other man was still there and spoke again. "What," he said, "what did you do now? Oh Ok, I see, you had another pair of shorts on underneath. Well these are shorter and now you do have bare knees to go with your bare arms, bare armpits, bare neck, and bare shins. Hey wait a minute." The bearded man reached over and pulled the sleeveless top to reveal a waistband with a well-known brand name of underwear printed on it. " I thought so. Well if you run into anyone else hopefully they won't notice that you're hanging out in your underwear!" Or maybe they won't care, I don't mind!" With that he playfully snapped at the elastic waistband, and stepped back. "Thanks," was the reply. " I guess I'm really ready for my run now. Probably run into you again." He took off, this time not up the hill but around it. He didn't stay on the main circular trail but took many side trails, zigzagging around. Although it was a little cool, he was surprisingly comfortable wearing as little as he was. He was even working up a little sweat all down his front. He pulled on his shirt at the belly absent-mindedly, as if to air it out. This made him think about how the bearded man had pulled up his shirt to look at his underpants. As he ran he tripped a couple of times on the ground made soft and squishy from the melting snow. At least he didn't get hurt, but he did get pretty muddy all over. He kept running, each step taking him farther away from the rest of his clean warm clothes, that pile discarded by the sign, and the pair of shorts on the hill. He thought about that as he looked down at his sweaty, muddy, half-undressed body and that felt so right. He went on for about half an hour and then at one point when he doubled back and joined the main circle trail he saw the man again a few yards ahead approaching a large tree. As the distance between them lessened, he watched as the bearded man wrapped his big arms and legs around the thick trunk and began to pull his way up. By the time he got to the tree, the big man was sitting on a large low bough, peering into the near distance. "Hey there what's up?" he called up, "besides you, that is!" He immediately regretted making a stupid pun. The man looked startled and then just laughed. "Oh, its just you. This must look funny, huh." "Not any funnier than I look I suppose." "Well, you are kind of a mess aren't you. You're not wearing much, and what you have is half-covered in mud now, just as well you stripped off all those other clothes earlier. You OK?" "Yeah, I'm fine, just fell in the dirt a couple of times, but otherwise I'm feeling great running around like this. What are YOU up to? Sorry, no pun intended this time, really." "Oh, I saw a nest up here and wanted to get a closer look at it. But it's too far out on this branch, this is as close as I'll get." "So you're some kind of nature lover dude huh?" "Yeah you could say so." "Can I come see?" "Sure, but there isn't much, its just an empty nest, I'm not sure what I was expecting, just curious I guess." The bearded man gestured to him to come up. He imitated they way the other man had hugged the tree and pulled himself up. When he reached the bough, he felt a strong arm help him up into a place to sit. "Wow, thanks, this is great." The woods did look different from up here. He normally didn't like to climb trees, and was a little afraid of being literally out on a limb, but was determined not to show it. It was comforting, though, to be wedged like this between that big man and the tree trunk. "Glad you like it, sometimes it's just my favorite thing, to climb a tree and sit sometimes. We should probably keep you moving though so you don't get cold." "I'm OK," he answered and then felt the man's hand on his neck and then the same handnrubbing his back briskly with a warm friction motion. "Thanks," he added. Just then they felt the bough sway. "Well, that decides it, we probably should get off, before something breaks," said the bearded man "OK, I better go first," he answered and shifted himself over to trunk. He found himself going on the opposite side of the tree, and got caught on several stumps and short branches on the way down. The bearded man was on the ground almost immediately after him. "Wow, you were fast." "Yeah, I've done this enough. Hey you look you got scratched a little on the way down." "Yeah, I came down bumpier side of the tree, you could say, and got snagged." "Hey, turn around, yeah like that. Yep, I thought so, you got a big rip in the back of your sweatshirt and a tear in those boxer briefs of yours, too." "Oh, OK, well there both old, and the sweatshirt is something that got ripped once before on the sleeves. That's how I ended up tearing them off. " "Well I think that sweatshirt is finished now. Sorry I got you into climbing that tree." He laughed. "That's all right, I'm enjoying myself." "Yeah, you look like you are, in your torn dirty clothes." "I'll be OK." He felt on his back for the tear; it was pretty big. He really felt calm about all this. He guessed it helped that the sun had really come out. He just didn't need that dirty, ripped up sweatshirt anymore. Before thinking any more about what he was doing he reached to his left side and pulled at the seam below his armpit, then repeated that on the right. "Yeah, that's a good idea," encouraged the bearded man, "that thing is finished so might as well make it more comfortable. Trying to get some more ventilation?" "Yeah," he ripped at each seam a little further, and then again, so now it was open all the way down to his waist with just a small width of fabric left at the bottom. His white tank top undershirt was visible underneath. They smiled at each other and starting walking the path together. "You sure are hard on your clothes." "Well, this thing's just a piece of trash now anyway." With that he grabbed the front of the shirt and ripped it down the middle as far as his belly. Then he gave it one more tug in front and ripped it open all the way. With that done, he felt uninhibited in ripping the last little fabric on the sides and then reached behind and tore it all the way down the back. He began jogging ahead of the other man a little bit and as he went he tore at the fabric on his shoulders, until his sweatshirt was completely dismembered into four pieces and just fell off his body as he went. He slowed down to let the other man catch up to him. "Yeah, that's it, just get rid of that crap. Who needs that dirty old shirt anyway? Although, dude, now you definitely look like your walking around in underwear. Especially now, with that thing, the ribbed white tank top, what to they call those, wifebeaters? And those boxer briefs? That tank top doesn't hide the waistband. Everyone will know what brand of underpants you've got!" They both laughed. "I'll just have to stay fifty feet away from anybody till I get back to my clothes. From that distance it should just look like I'm out in running clothes." "OK, I'll stick with you and keep an eye out, but it's been totally quiet around here so far today." "Thanks, do you mind if we go a little faster." "Fine," he replied, and they sped up. Then he added " I can't believe I'm going jogging with a guy in his underwear in the middle of the woods on an island in the river during the first big spring thaw." "Yeah, it's funny, well here were almost to the tip of the island." "That's good, once your past that you'll be heading back toward your clothes." "That's a good way to think of it, well in that case, at this point I'm about as far away as I can be from my clothes and all I've got on is underwear as you keep reminding me." "Torn and muddy underwear in fact." "Well my tank tap isn't torn, at least not yet." He wasn't sure what he thought of the grin the bearded man shot at him. He thought about the morning. He started out with five layers of clothing, top and bottom. He had taken off his windbreaker, flannel shirt, turtleneck, his camping pants, sweats and gym shorts, and now he had ripped up and destroyed that sweatshirt. What had come over him? He was down to just his tank top and boxer briefs with just a pair of bikini briefs under that. It all felt so good and natural though. Why shouldn't he run around in his underwear, the bearded man didn't mind. He looked back and returned the grin. "Nope, the tank top is fine, it got a little mud on it but not a tear. My boxers though are in bad shape." "Well since your running around in underpants outdoors, I don't think it matters much what shape they're in or what kind they are." "If you say so, that makes me feel better." They had come to the point where the trail started doubling back. "Do you want to go down to the point on the beach or double back now?" "Lets go down, boxer boy." "OK, dude. Sorry I can't think of a smart comeback since you're fully dressed." He looked at the bearded man in his sweatshirt and khakis. The only undressing he had done all morning was to pull down his hood earlier. "That's all right, I'm sure being tank top boy is distracting." "I think I liked being `boxer boy' better. Oh look. who left that?" There was a plastic trashcan sitting on the beach. "Doesn't look like one that the park puts out, they don't put any on this island anyway. Maybe somebody on a boat brought it here to use. The beach is pretty clean, so I guess it's a good idea, as long as somebody comes to get it sometime. Right, boxer boy?" "Yep, I'll be sure to use the trashcan if I have any litter. Now I feel bad about those shreds of fabric from my sweatshirt I left lying on the trail." Don't worry, I'm sure they're biodegradable, but we can go back and pick them up if you really want to, boxer boy." "That's it, I don't want to be boxer boy anymore, and anyway you said since I'm already down to my underwear it doesn't matter what kind of undershorts I'm wearing." When he finished saying that he felt a tingling go up and down his spine and felt very light-headed. He looked down at his torn and dirty boxer briefs and the next thing he did just felt like the most inevitable thing in the world. He pulled at the tear in the back and ripped it further open. Then he grabbed at the fly-front and pulled it apart until all the fabric in front started to tear. Then he found a little weakness in the seam of the waistband and pulled at that till he had a tear. He kept pulling until he had the waistband completely separated. It was still around his waist but the rest of what remained of his boxers was in his left hand. He started ripping it, then continued tearing it into smaller and smaller pieces as he stepped over to the trashcan and dropped them all in. Then he pulled the waistband up over his tummy and torso till it hung around his neck. He looked over at the bearded man., who just laughed and said "don't stop now!" "Aaaw-keeeh" He was trying to say OK, but barely coughed out a response. He as on some kind of adrenaline high and could barely talk. He reached to the front of his tank top with both hands and ripped it down the middle, just like he did before with the other shirt. He felt his navel and his nipples exposed to the air and this excited him. He completed ripped off the shirt and set about pulling it apart into small pieces of fabric. He tossed them in the trashcan like he had done with the underpants. "What are you doing?" The big man practically screamed at him. "You said don't stop now, so I kept going." "I meant to get that thing off from around your neck. Come here, you." "Oh." He reddened all over. He was now wearing nothing but a tiny bikini brief, that funny elastic around his neck and his sneakers and socks. He was a good forty minute walk back to his clothes. He saw the big man step closer, grab the elastic band and pull his head toward him. Then felt his big arms around him in a warm embrace. He rested his head on the shoulder of the big man, who then gently pulled the band over his head and tossed it in the trash. "Glad you didn't litter, so I won't litter either." They both laughed. Now they both looked at something they had been avoiding, Each man saw the other's swelling hard-on. The big man's was less obvious, hidden under his clothes, but was clearly there. There was no hiding the hard-on in the bikini brief. The shaft was setting up an obvious tenting. "I kind of liked that thing around your neck, though, to pull on, but I'll just have to improvise without it. " He pulled him closer by the chin and planted a big kiss on his lips. Then he unzipped his fly, reached in and pulled out his long firm shaft. Soon that shaft was getting sucked and then the big man gently pulled down the front of the brief and returned the favor. "Wow, this is making me so hot. that all I have left are these tiny briefs and I got a long walk back to my clothes, and I just couldn't help ripping them off and." The big man cut him off with another kiss. "You liked being pulled around by that elastic thing around your neck didn't you," he said almost hissing with passion. "Yeah, I liked ripping off my clothes and wearing shreds around my neck, till I'm almost naked out here on the end of the island. You've seen me go from five layers of clothes down to these skimpy briefs that leave most of my ass uncovered, and now my hard-on practically hanging out in the fresh air." As he said this, he felt a warm load come spurting out of the big man and spread over his belly. It began sliding and dripping down his shaft still pulsating and being barely held in those briefs. "Yeah, let me wear your man juice on me. That's all I need to wear, I don't care that I've ripped off and destroyed my clothes as long as I can wear your warm seed on my bare body." He felt the bearded man turning him around and he allowed himself to fall back, letting the big man hold him and kiss him from behind. He felt his nipples being tickled and teased, and big strong hands moving all over his body. The big man finally spoke. "Yeah, you need something around your neck again, so I can pull on you and hold you while you totally lose it and go over the edge. I know just where to get that." With that he reached down and ripped apart the bikini briefs from the front, continuing to rip down and around to the back. With them freed up now, he pulled the ragged remnants up over the belly, over the engorged nipples and up to the neck. He pulled back on it, bringing their two necks together "Oh yeah, that's it. Just strip me of my last shred of clothing, just turn it into a rag to hand around my neck and drag me around. Oh year, now I've got to walk all the back across the island with my bare ass and my bare nipples and my shaft and balls hanging out and your man juice drying on my belly. Oh yeah, that's good, just rub your own juice from my belly onto my shaft to get me all lubed. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah." A spasm went throughout his body and he felt rope after rope of his own hot seed come shooting out onto the quiet sand of the beach. The two of them walked down to the river and splashed some water to clean themselves off. The big man put back his equipment and zipped up. He smiled and said, "come on, we got a long walk ahead and I think you're going to need me! | <urn:uuid:0e8c3178-fd32-4d7b-869d-6c8253daffe9> | http://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/encounters/pike-island | en | 0.9925 | 0.069407 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
The Ultimate Six-Question Travel Quiz
Are you a savvy traveler? Of course, you are, or you wouldn't be reading this. But how much real insider info are you familiar with, and how much do you know about the nuttier nuances of air travel?
Let's find out. Take my quiz to see if you're an "On-Time Arrival" or a "Grounded Flight." I think it's safe to say that some of the answers will surprise you. You'll find them at the very end, along with the scoring key. Have fun!
1. Graduation time is here; from which university did Virgin Atlantic founder Sir Richard Branson get his degree?
A. Oxford
C. He didn't graduate from college
D. He didn't graduate from high school
2. The passengers of the January "Miracle on the Hudson" landing (thanks again, Capt. Sully) recently got back some of their belongings that were rescued from the water-logged cabin. What did many of these recipients say they failed to get back?
A. Paper money
B. Laptops
C. Coins
D. Car keys
3. Many summer travelers like to plan vacations around fun festivals; which of the festivals listed below is a fake?
A. Beach Blanket Bingo Days, dancing, games and who knows what
B. La Tomatino, participants hurl tomatoes at one another
C. Blobfest, a '50s sci-fi/horror movie extravaganza
D. Voodoo Fest, a festival about, well ... voodoo
E. They're all fake
F. They're all real
4. In the past couple of years, all sorts of creatures have made their way onboard airplanes; which of the following was not found in an aircraft?
A. Crocodiles
B. Snakes
C. Bed bugs
D. Ticks
5. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has introduced "body imaging" machines at several airports to better detect "metallic and non-metallic" threats. What do some critics of this screening technology call it?
A. "Virtual X-rays"
B. "Virtual nudity"
C. "Virtual strip search"
D. "Virtual pat down"
6. Once again, researchers at the University of Michigan (and others) put out their "American Customer Satisfaction Index," which ranks companies and industries in terms of the public's fondness for them or, in other words, their "satisfaction" with them. Which of the following ranked lower than the airlines?
A. The IRS
B. Pet food manufacturers
C. Personal grooming companies
D. Cable and satellite TV
E. All of the above
F. None of the above
Travel Quiz Answers
1) D. Richard Branson left school at 16 to start a mail-order record business. It eventually grew into Virgin Records and today the Virgin brand is attached to everything from wine, books, mobile phones and several airlines. The billionaire Brit is dyslexic, but does not believe that has hindered him in the business world.
2) A. According to the New York Times, several people noted that while coins were returned to them (along with favorite jeans, car keys, an Our Lady of Lourdes medallion and more), the cash they had onboard with them went missing.
3) F. Beach Blanket Bingo Days will be held in Southern California this summer; La Tomatino occurs during August in Bunol, Spain; Phoenixville, Pennsylvania is the place to go in July for Blobfest; and New Orleans' Voodoo Fest starts in late October, in time for Halloween.
4) A. Security officers detained a man at the airport in Cairo, Egypt, as he was about to get onboard with a bag loaded with 250 baby crocodiles. The snakes were discovered on a plane in Australia earlier this year (actor Samuel L. Jackson was nowhere in sight); last September, there was a bit of a bed bug infestation in the United Kingdom and, yes, they were discovered on planes (as well as trains and buses); and, in July, passengers complained about "three ticks" discovered on a United flight from Denver to Des Moines.
5) C. "Virtual strip search" is the phrase critics such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center are using, saying the images are too explicit. The TSA says that the images will not show passengers' faces (they will be blurred), and no cameras, cell phones or video will be allowed anywhere near the images.
6) D. This has to hurt but, yes, the IRS ranked higher than the airlines in terms of customer satisfaction (and it's not the first time). As for this list, only cable/satellite TV fared worse than the nation's carrier and, if you've ever had to wait for the cable guy to show up, you know why.
Scoring Key
Give yourself one point for each correct response and grade yourself accordingly:
"On-Time Arrival" -- Answered five to six correctly
"One-Hour Delay" -- Answered three to four correctly
"Stuck on the Tarmac" -- Answered 2 correctly
"Grounded Flight" -- Answered 1 correctly
"Goes to Airport to Watch the Airplanes" -- Answered 0 correctly
| <urn:uuid:e0db5484-e366-4cac-b0a7-c0ceda77c84c> | http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Vacation/story?id=7680191&page=1 | en | 0.955268 | 0.060634 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
ONJava.com -- The Independent Source for Enterprise Java
oreilly.comSafari Books Online.Conferences.
AddThis Social Bookmark Button
Weblog: The Right Term is Copyright Infringement
Subject: The bigger picture..
Date: 2005-01-24 09:55:35
From: GinEric
Response to: The bigger picture..
I haven't answered this thread since I started the whole thing some time ago.
Since then, I have been pretty much trolled by some geeks on dslreports.com, like Chuck Norris [yes, him], who has a hard time believing that I worked for AT&T and Merril Lynch on their websites. I've done a lot more than that and I don't care if someone who is only going to end where we all are believes it or not.
But while I'm here, I want to make a difference and leave my mark.
I'm different. I don't follow the paths of others, I blaze my own. I also don't let others risk their lives by jumping out of an airplane for me in my movies. I do my own stunts. So I can say "Yes, I did that and no one else did it for me."
Especially when the poor guy jumping out of the airplane is getting paid maybe $50,000.00 while I'm getting $13,000.000.00 per movie.
It's the same thing in Copyright. I've learned that no one else is going to defend your works and your right to earn a living from them. Especially not the big stars and hotshot producers in Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and New York City. They are uncreatives who live off the blood of the creators. Leeches and parasites, often becoming Parisites.
As for the encoding, I stood firmly against it because it was yet another attempt by the R.I.A.A. to increase the costs to the artist and prevent many from pressing CD's and DVD's. The Cost of encoding and the fact that encoding secret keys will make your CD or DVD "not play," which is what the movie and music industry want of independent projects. Thank God the bimboes in Hollywood turned down the All Oscar Taker "The Lord Of The Rings." Which really shows just how stupid these uncreative producers and directors are. They turn down great music every day, opting instead for the showing of teenage girls with less and less clothing, aka, Brittany and co.
Why? Because they own her.
How many times have you heard some singer/performer cry about being ripped off? They don't have the brains to write a song, then they get mad when they don't get paid for it. Either that, or, like Patsy Cline, they just steal the copyright from someone like Willie Nelson.
And Elmer Berstein is no exception. "Ghostbusters" theme was stolen from Huey Lewis, twice!
What makes anyone think that people like ASCAP's lawyer Koenigsberg, is anything less than a Copyright Infringer and a common crook? He authored the clauses that allow ASCAP to steal writers' royalties and had the gall to put it in the Berne Convention. This is fact, not myth or conjecture. ASCAP's lame rules, Section 2.8.3 allow for ASCAP to steal from any author. And they do it everyday. To the benefit, always, of the publisher members, aka, the R.I.A.A. who are the publishers.
Meanwhile, ASCAP's employees are off on multimillion dollar Hollywood and New York City parties, at the writers' expense, to hand out lame awards to the rich and famous, like Neil Young who no more needs an award than Bill Gates needs money.
Neil, by the way, is rich, pissed off at the world, a complete recluse, and consequently a donothinger, like nearly all the rich and famous stars. Their latest fiasco is to have taken over the Sundance Film Festival and, once again, blackballed the up and coming indpendent film makers, actors, actresses, directors, songwriters, cast and crew. These are the egomaniacs who own and control the R.I.A.A. and these are the very people who have ordered the R.I.A.A. to lock up 13 year olds who innocently download a song. Then, they extort $50,000.00 from the child's parents. They are a disgrace to the world or art and the biggest of anti-creator ego-tripping uncreatives.
I do remember how Neil, and Steven, and Graham, David, were so out of tune at Woodstock that they should have been booed off the stage.
But they had Billy Graham's R.I.A.A. and the music industry behind them, didn't they? It took them four more years to learn to play in key. By then, everyone had forgotten how horrible they were at Woodstock.
As far as some comments, the guy who wants "commissioned" artwork is straight out of Leninist and Stalinist Russia - a completely stupid communist idea. He probably doesn't even know he's towing the sickle and hammer line.
To the comment on how long for a copyright, it's the life of the author plus 70 years. And that is barely fair. We have children and grandchildren too, we'd like to help them get ahead in life. You don't holler about millionaire doctors and lawyers, stop hollering about the few songwriters who actually make money from their music.
On the encoding, again, the ISRC had a good idea, to tag every song with its own unique code for tracking all broadcasts, on all mediums, everywhere. This is a good idea and will cramp ASCAP and BMI's style of crooked sample surveys which they can, and have, slanted for their friends and other pets that walk the streets of New York and Hollywood. But the ISRC made a mistake of allowing the R.I.A.A. to issue these numbers. They should be independently issued, or better yet, issued only by the authors.
Talking about the Air Force, as a performer, I was trained by the United States Air Force, and the other branches, in hand to hand combat, like karate, jiu-jitsu, kung fu, and the like. I had to use every bit of this self defencse in getting out of many bars because either the owner didn't want to pay and was going to stab one of the performers, or some redneck thought you were singing to his wife "toothless."
We've had guns, knives, all sorts of tire irons and baseball bats pulled on us, usually by someone waiting outside the bar or nightclub who wanted to steal our pay and/or our equipment.
And that's why I get paid for the songs I write, I'm a veteran of the American Wars.
You know the line, "Out here in the fields, I fought for my meals, . . ." or did you think Daltry was singing about some fairy tale? David Bowie was jumped in London, early on, because he was a performer and some bonehead was jealous.
Chuck may have done a lot of nice karate chops in his movies, but like I said, I do my own work. I did my karate chops on the real streets, here and abroad. Perhaps that's why I take an attitude about all of this. Everyone was not out to admire us, enough were there to try and kill one of us that we really felt we earned our pay. So Copyright is a right earned by battle and warfare, not simply because someone puts a few notes and some words on a paper or disk. We write and sing about our lives, which reflect many others' lives, toil, tragedy, love, hate, all of the things that others find hard to express. Because expressing oneself is politically uncorrect today. But the true artist says what he fells and damn the torpedoes. Fakirs, like some songsharks we know, only say what people want to hear. They know who they are, no need to point out the fakes in the music business. And if we're willing to war over a performance payment, how much more are we willing to declare war and fight one for the very right to control our music?
The root of all freedom is the Freedom of Expression. Without this first freedom, all others fall. And the right granted by many wars and much bloodshed is the right to say "The R.I.A.A. are thieves, crooks, and Copyright Infringers and need to be investigated by the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Congress, and the F.B.I.
After all, how much of the funding of terrorist activities has come from publishers at ASCAP and BMI? | <urn:uuid:09144436-b85a-48e2-981f-36dc8be9b137> | http://archive.oreilly.com/cs/user/view/cs_msg/51027 | en | 0.975264 | 0.094091 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Three Dead as 46 Cars Crash in Horrific Snowy Pileup
Yesterday evening on highway I-94 in Michigan City, a 46-car pileup began after an unpredictable wave of lake-effect snow came onto the road, startling drivers and causing them to swerve into each other. The gust of precipitation, which is brother to the terrifying menace "thundersnow" and has been known to white out areas of the Midwest, fell onto the highway that connects Michigan to Montana. Three people have been pronounced dead.
The scene of the accident, which is still being cleaned up despite I-94's reopening this morning, was particularly horrorshow. Michigan County Coroner John Sullivan explained yesterday afternoon that firemen "are still making sure that there aren't any cars under the semis."
After the crash, it was tabulated that 46 vehicles in total were prey to the unpredictable weather conditions, 18 of which were 80,000-pound 18-wheelers. As firemen and rescue workers cleared the scene yesterday evening, the effort was punctuated by the desperate screams of victims within their cars.
Coolspring Township Fire Chief Mick Pawlik enlisted an Old Testament metaphor to describe what he witnessed: "There were people in cars that you couldn't even see. But when people are stuck in their cars, they look at you like we're Moses. 'Part the water. Save us.'" Given the frigid—and dropping—temperatures that day, reaching no higher than 21° F, the priority was in finding victims and keeping them warm. Chicago's Jerry Dalrymple and his dog Sparky, as well as Michigan couple Thomas and Marilyn Wolma of Grand Rapids, were pronounced dead at the scene. | <urn:uuid:e42c2a3f-71eb-4e85-b489-2b9ac030abd9> | http://gawker.com/1509055847/hey-stfu-ill-be-the-judge-on-where-it-sits-on-the-hor | en | 0.979602 | 0.414821 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Send your tips to gostips@gmail.com.
February 14, 2009
Find Interesting Places in Google Maps
When you search for the name of a city or an address, Google Maps lists interesting places from that location and illustrates them with excerpts from Wikipedia articles. To find other locations that have Wikipedia articles, click "More" on the map and select "Wikipedia".
But even if Google highlights very few data layers, you can add to the map many other layers from the directory. For example, you can add the Webcams Worldwide layer to find webcams, the Virtual Tourism layer to explore 400 locations using YouTube videos or find places of interest.
1. How do you remove them, though? I added a few to try out (thinking they'd appear as layers in the dropdown list where wikipedia, photos and videos layers are right now), but instead they all seemed to load at the same time... And visiting the directory again only shows the "add" buttons disabled, but no "remove" button/link!
2. Google calls them mapplets. They're added to "My Maps", where you can also create personalized maps. Next to each mapplet, there's a small "x" that lets you remove the mapplet from your list. Another option is to deactivate the mapplet by using the checkbox.
You can find a little bit more from Google's help center.
3. And at this url you can watch the best mapplet in internet:
6000 and plus youtube videos geotagged from the Videomap community
4. How do you remove the icons left behind on the Google Earth web page by the Spot Messenger?
5. why bother travelling at all any more :-)
6. Hi,
Google map is best tool for find visiting places in the world. And by using google map people can easily find good visiting places in their local area or world...........
7. dont work... i try this aplet nothing in the map... maybe a problem ???
i use firefox 3.6.6, i try in google chrome, dont work... | <urn:uuid:ba6131e4-4211-4d50-9cbd-46c478eabcc6> | http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/02/find-interesting-places-in-google-maps.html | en | 0.854474 | 0.141423 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
The Advantages and Disadvantages of a Long Penis
Be Sociable, Share!
Long Penis 400
It has been perceived in the history of mankind that being the proud owner of a long penis put any man in a privileged position. This prized possession has single-handedly built a sense of grandeur amongst men in our society. One could almost say this one attribute overshadows several social status indicators such as power, money, and materials which normally give men leverage over another. But, contrary to popular belief, there are advantages and disadvantage to having a long penis.
The Appeal Factor
Advantage: From a sexual perspective, there are many of you who favor the potential enjoyment of a long penis. There are many that will only engage in sexual intercourse with those that possess this desirable commodity. The shear look of a long penis is enough to make otherwise aggressive people submit to its every demand.
Disadvantage: There are also those of you who feel threated by the above average length of these male sexual organs. When you look at one or even think about one all you may imagine is an excruciatingly painful sexual experience. For anyone who knows the average sizes of the rectum or the vagina, they know that anything beyond the average penis length of around 6 in is excessive and unnecessary for modest sexual enjoyment.
The Girth Factor
Advantage: There are many of you who are able to be fully satisfied sexually with a longer than average penis. You all completely disband the potential enjoyment that would come from a penis with above average girth as opposed to length. But, in some instances, there are those men out there that have the best of both worlds with girth and length. This makes everyone who already craves the extended length very happy.
Disadvantage: Some of you just simply prefer girth alone. It has been found that the most pleasurable erogenous zones within the rectum and/or vagina are between 2.5 in – 4 in from the entrance of either. So, it would appear more enjoyable for a man to have a wide penis of average length than a long penis that will potentially lack the necessary girth.
The Performance Factor
Advantage: There are places inside the rectum and vagina that just simply can’t be reach with an average sized penis. You will sometimes hear people say things like “I want to feel his penis in my stomach” which alludes to the penis going very deep inside of them. Several people find euphoric pleasure through this sexual privilege.
Disadvantage: There are several fluent motions during sex that a man with a longer penis will be unable to perform. It is very dangerous and unhealthy for any man to attempt positions where the penis may be bent to extreme angles. This is especially true with a man with more length. Some like to feel the heat from the body of their partner during sex to heighten the experience. This is a luxury that a man with a longer penis may not be able to provide.
The Penetration Factor
Advantage: The recipients of these colossal penises have their rectum or vagina engorged with penis for ultimate pleasure. Whatever deep itch the recipient needs scratched by this penis, will get their wish. For those that indulge in the form of sexual gratification, this is probably the most beneficial aspect of dealing with a man with this sized male organ.
Disadvantage: The man with the long penis will very seldom get his entire penis satisfied during sexual intercourse. In most cases, the lower portion this organ will have to miss out on the action unless his partner decides to pleasure that portion in other ways. This is one of the huge benefits of having an average sized penis.
Depending on what a person wants from his or her sexual experiences, this penile variance can have either an advantage or a disadvantage. You decide.
Be Sociable, Share!
Speak Your Mind | <urn:uuid:ba1c6484-1193-471a-a4b0-4899ba5bdd5b> | http://normallengthofpenis.info/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-a-long-penis/ | en | 0.961335 | 0.032874 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Shop Mobile More Submit Join Login
The Protracted Struggle by RoyalPsycho The Protracted Struggle by RoyalPsycho
The Protraced Struggle:
Not my personal best but here is another Draka time-line. Credit goes to Goliath-Maps for the inspiration behind this concept. In this time-line the Domination suffered more during the Eurasian War and got bogged down in assimilating a Europe filled with militant Nazis and fanatical partisans as well as struggling to chew their way through China especially when facing the Japanese who turned out to be just as ruthless as the Draka and employed truly terrifying 'scorched earth' tactics and ultimately failed to keep portions of what they had conquered. A rebellion led by a surviving Taiping and surprisingly backed by Japan succeeded in breaking a chunk of China off whilst the Soviets continued to hold out East of the Urals and North of Outer Mongolia and eventually the rise of the Alliance for Democracy forced the Draka to end even their pretext of expansion and end their plans of invasions.
The Draka Imperium still known as the Domination went through series of reforms after the end of the Eurasian War and the beginning of the Protracted Struggle with the AoD. The Draka are still the same old slavers and oppressors that they have always been but there has been a change in attitude as of their near experience with destruction. By the end of the war the Draka population had been devastated by the losses of the Eurasian War and the uprisings that had characterised the Post-War period (and still do in certain areas). At one point the loyalty of the Janissaries had been called into question and the Domination was brought to the closest it ever would to destruction.
The Draka after a great struggle, have more or less returned to their perceived place in the world and still make plans to conquer and subjugate the entire world and human race under their rule. The Domination has begun a propaganda campaign to raise the population of Citizens again and several new (and in some cases unpopular) laws have been enacted. Laws forbidding serf concubines (until a certain age) and the imprisonment of women that are both unmarried and childless by a certain age are not popular but the government does see the necessity of keeping the population large and productive. New privilege systems for the serfs have also been enacted to maintain the loyalty/subservience of the serf populations. The Domination has reformed into a complex and more decentralised structure in the face of the pressures of ruling such a large and often subversive empire. Certain areas of the Domination have now been set aside as reservations for certain peoples that can be trusted whilst others are still under military occupation either as training regions or to keep order. However despite this the complete disregard of their subjects humanity and the militant lifestyle of the Draka has allowed them to keep order across their enormous Empire. The Draka's neo-paganism has been developed into a religion that they have begun to convert the entire population to worshipping as another means of keeping order (rewriting the Koran, Torah, Bible, etc can only get you so far).
Whilst the Domination of Draka has decentralised in the face of threats surprisingly the Alliance for Democracy has in fact centralised to the point where it is less of a union and more like a nation. The Alliance is definitely a multi-national state that isn't even democratic is several of its nations like Brazil and Japan but still functions despite the Byzantine complexity of the Alliance. The United States is still the symbolic leader of the Alliance but they are still outdone economically by the Japanese and the British-Indians. The USA is a majority Catholic nation from their Hispanic and Filipino citizens but English speakers still make up the majority. The USA is far more regulated than OTL and strict gun laws do exist with extensive federal and Alliance powers over the citizenry. Due to their expansionist history the USA has a different attitude towards imperialism than OTL and views itself as the Empire of Liberty. Expansion and centralisation through political and cultural assimilation is seen as the most viable model to forge the Alliance from a loose union into a cohesive super-nation.
Other major members of the Alliance are the British Federal Union and the Japanese Empire. After the true nature of the Domination was made more obvious than ever to the British people they focused on unifying what remained of their empire into a more coherent entity. The Domination's conquests during the Eurasian War finally completed the process of unification prior to the creation and centralisation of the Alliance. The Union is a federal construct with a system of political manoeuvres that have kept the Union from becoming simply an Indian entity but it does face issues concerning the extensive religious and ethnic tensions in South Asia. Japan is still an authoritarian regime but has mellowed down from the attitudes it held during the Eurasian War. They also run the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere which rules over much of South East Asia in a tight political, military and economic union. Whilst the USA is definitely the leader of the Alliance these two are overtaking them economically with the Japanese still remaining the richest economy in the Alliance.
The rest of the Alliance is made up of lesser powers and nations that managed to avoid the Domination. Several European nations hoped to avoid obligations to the Alliance by playing the Alliance and the Domination against one another much as the Thai played the Europeans against one another but found the Draka willing to call their bluffs. The subsequent conquests sent the remaining neutrals firmly into the Alliance's camp. Alliance control finally stabilised the ruling nations of South America. Imperial Brazil is the richest and most politically stable of the South American nations whilst the Siberian People's Republic is the most powerful of the lesser powers within the Alliance. The Alliance is a federal construct with several complex layers of administration keeping any one power from having too much control over the Alliance as a whole.
This world is far more advanced than ours due to the modernisation of the entire planet along with the far more intense Cold War and societies far more given to scientific advancement (though with an engineering mindset towards solving problems over pointless speculation). The world powers have now begun to look to space as a source of resources and colonisation in a world now firmly divided between two hostile powers. This world is one that still has fingers poised over the nuclear button but also has the buttons to extremely powerful orbital, chemical and biological weapons on standby as well. The Draka have finally begun to make progress in advanced genetic engineering and have created numerous GM products, some geneticists and politicians have begun to look into the new breakthroughs in the Human Genome Projects and discussions are being made on the possibility of engineering the Citizen population to make them something more than human.
Add a Comment:
coldblood11 Featured By Owner Oct 1, 2014
Why is Romania more uncivilised than Algeria, for example? Weren't Caucasians favoured by the Draka?
RoyalPsycho Featured By Owner Oct 1, 2014
Algeria has been settled for longer, especially since North Africa has a connection to the neo-classicalism the Draka like. Also the Romanian resistance took a long time to suppress which has affected the provinces status.
Goliath-Maps Featured By Owner Nov 6, 2012
Hey...In both the Official (Canon) Draka and my version the Draka aren't Pagans...they're Unofficial Atheists/Nihilists (though they're okay with religions if they can be warped to serve the state).
RoyalPsycho Featured By Owner Nov 7, 2012
Yeah but in this TL, that isn't working for them anymore so their neo-paganism is an attempt to control the populace through a religious ideal they already believe that doesn't contradict everything they believe in like the Abrahamic religions do.
Goliath-Maps Featured By Owner Nov 5, 2012
This is a pretty interesting map...I can tell where you based the things off my map rather than the official one. Good Job!
RvBOMally Featured By Owner Nov 5, 2012
Whoa, I like how you handled Draka-occupied territory. I've seen a lot of maps which just has it as a blob of orange; it's not very aesthetically pleasing.
Add a Comment:
• Photo
Download PNG 1492 × 973
Submitted on
November 5, 2012
Image Size
232 KB
Submitted with
6,124 (1 today)
41 (who?) | <urn:uuid:08268b31-69a1-46f2-be6c-de1b1d5d0789> | http://royalpsycho.deviantart.com/art/The-Protracted-Struggle-336193000 | en | 0.962696 | 0.230808 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Sign up ×
Has anyone managed to find or make a faster way to do character creation in Traveller? (original ed) I'd like to start a campaign but I don't want to spend most of a session just rolling up a character.
Edit, additional: A dozen rolls to create a character is too many for the group I'm playing with. I'd rather have a point-buy system or character templates. Anything to get the game off and running early in the first session.
Edit part two: this is for a one-off adventure between campaigns. I don't expect a lot of commitment from the players.
(p.s.: i know of at least three different ways to home-rule the "death" roll, so that isn't the issue)
share|improve this question
done, thanks for the suggestion – SteveED Nov 25 '12 at 17:27
Rolling a dozen dice is still 1000% faster than point buy. Is it really time that's the issue? – mxyzplk Nov 26 '12 at 19:27
4 Answers 4
up vote 7 down vote accepted
I agree with the comment that using pre-generated characters is your best bet. I've used them successfully on one-shot campaigns, and players enjoy trying to find the character that they can most easily identify with. If you do go with pre-gens, it might be worth writing up a quick paragraph to describe the character's capabilities if you're playing with players who are not familiar with UPPs and what skills mean. In my game, I gave them the adventure backgrounder, let them choose characters and then had them shop for themselves. In my case though, I was able to email the characters, background and equipment list so the players were ready before hand. That may not work for you.
You can also have them roll UPP stats, then give them a set number of skill levels to buy skills with. You can decide if you want older, more experienced characters or relatively unskilled ones, then give them 2 skill points per 4 years of age (which I'll call "terms" to keep things simple), which is about how things average out. To keep things balanced, you could cap skill levels at the number of terms, but that may not be necessary.
Have each player choose a profession and then just buy skills off of the generation tables as they see fit, respecting the EDU limits for advanced education.
At the end of this process, give them a list of relevant skills for the adventure, and let them each choose one. This will make sure that they have certain critical skills that your adventure is assuming they will have.
share|improve this answer
i'm probably going to create the characters myself based on the players' personalities. – SteveED Nov 27 '12 at 1:36
For the OP:
Method 1: point based from Mongoose Traveller
There is a point based Character Generation in Mongoose's edition. It's not in the current SRD, but is in the core rulebook. (If it were in the SRD, I'd simply quote it for you.)
Method 2: GM Generation
Give the players an overview of character types at the end of the session prior. Ask them which type of character they want.
Generate them on your own time, and hand them out at session.
You might consider generating 2-3 PC's matching the career chosen, and give the player the choice of which.
For later reference by others,
as the OP has already rejected the dice rolling modality...
Method 3: Automation
There are several levels of automation available, and literally dozens of programs.
Searching the web for Traveller Character Generation software will find plenty, for a variety of OS's, from Apple II to Mac and Windows current versions.
Method 4: Rolling in sets
Roll for survival, commission/position, promotion, and reenlistment in one swoop... using 4 pairs of different colored dice. My preference is red, white, blue, green (in that order), or blue, red, yellow, black (in that order).
Roll them all at once, then note received skill rolls. Pick tables, roll all rolls on the skill tables at once (use colors by which skill table).
Likewise, for benefits and cash, roll them all at once.
This can save a few minutes.
Method 5: Trust them
Let the players generate their characters on their own, and trust them to bring them to session complete, with shoppy-store already done.
share|improve this answer
The first question you need to ask yourself is: if your players aren't prepared to spend five or ten minutes setting up their characters, how committed are they going to be later on in the campaign? Original Traveller is the simplest character-generation I have ever seen, and has all the virtues and vices that would imply; point-buy systems take much longer to set up, precisely because the player has to think about what to spend the points on.
But if you do want to go ahead, somebody is going to have to do the work. As part of your GMs preparation, allocate half an hour beforehand to rolling up some characters. Even with deaths and unplayable characters, you will probably get eight or ten possibilities. Write each on a sheet, and let the players pick their favourites when you start. The remainder will be a useful pool of NPCs later on.
share|improve this answer
This is a one off adventure, which i will add to the description, so I don't expect a lot of commitment. In 35 years of gaming I've never seen a Traveller character created in less than 30-45 minutes. Multiply that by 6 people with only one set of books (I suppose i could pirate them into PDFs to make copies) and it will take a couple of hours. – SteveED Nov 25 '12 at 18:10
@SteveED Or use a photocopier. That doesn't involve any activity that's legally piratical (because it's personal, non-commercial use that does not reduce sales, and unlike PDF piracy there is no distribution or receiving of goods), if that is your sticking point. – SevenSidedDie Nov 25 '12 at 20:09
+1 for pregenerated characters. They're perfect for one-shots. – GMJoe Nov 26 '12 at 4:09
Quick Character Generation:
1. Determine homeworld and starting skill(s). Optional.
2. Roll the UPP.
3. Determine career (or roll for the draft).
4. Determine the number of terms. Roll 2d6 for a nice random curve.
5. Determine rank. Pick one, or roll 2d6 - 7 perhaps.
6. Select skills from that career, based on the skill award rate (1 or 2 per term) plus rank-related skills.
7. Apply aging effects.
8. Muster out. Optional.
share|improve this answer
Your Answer
| <urn:uuid:2db8f9a0-403a-47d2-805c-38af19a2fac8> | http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/18978/traveller-faster-character-creation/19009 | en | 0.952283 | 0.344161 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
goblin main
Odd Future's lyrics — particularly those of frontman Tyler, the Creator — aren't for the faint of heart. (Believe it or not, they're even worse than the fiery, president-killing rhetoric of hip-hop renegade and incorrigible cop-killing badboy Common!) They revel in all the worst stuff of life: murder and rape, homophobia and violent misogyny. With Tyler scoring major notice from his mainstream debut, Goblin, a backlash is starting to warm up.
For a while, the unease has been running parallel to the Odd Future hype; way back in November, the Village Voice ran a piece titled "On Odd Future, Rape and Murder, and Why We Sometimes Like the Things That Repel Us" (which nicely summarizes itself). More recently, The Guardian, in the throes of near-fatal UK Wolf Gang fever, has devoted two hefty posts to exploring Tyler's lyrics and persona, coming to the conclusions that: a) Tyler probably isn't homophobic, but he does say "faggot" an awful lot; b) Tyler is pretty great, despite the terrible rapey stuff, and here's hoping he outgrows all that.
This week, Sara Quin of Tegan and Sara upped the blogosphere ante with a post that drew the battle lines clearly: if you tolerate Tyler, the Creator, you're down with misogyny, homophobia, and rape culture. "While an artist who can barely get a sentence fragment out without using homophobic slurs is celebrated on the cover of every magazine, blog, and newspaper," wrote Quin, "I'm disheartened that any self-respecting human being could stand in support with a message so vile. . . . I think people don't actually want to go up against this particular bully because he's popular. Who sticks up for women and gay people now?"
It's strange to imply that enjoying (or even tolerating) morbid lyrics means endorsing their content. I don't think digging Clipse makes you gung-ho about selling coke, or liking "Brown Sugar" means you're down with slave sex. But, hey, shit is getting pretty real out there. Politicians are tampering with the actual definition of rape, and few people are in a mood to joke about it — anyone who wants to choose this moment defend the artistic merit of Tyler's grodier lyrics does so at their own considerable peril.
Quin drifts onto a slippery patch by claiming that critics are afraid to confront Tyler's lyrics for fear of being called racist: "In this case I don't think race or class actually has anything to do with his hateful message but has EVERYTHING to do with why everyone refuses to admonish him for that message." I'm not so sure. It seems to me like the debate is so far proceeding along approximately the same lines as the Eminem furor, and he was white and poor, while Tyler is black and, I don't know, upper-middle-classish. Plus, she'd be glad to know that Tyler is getting some pretty sharp admonishment indeed. More than a few reviews have trashed Goblin for leaning too hard on shock, and one or two have flatly condemned the lyrical content. Even the most glowing notices throw in a few obligatory lines of collar-tugging about the problematic lyrics.
1 | 2 | next >
Related: Photos: Tegan and Sara at the Ames Hotel, The Big Hurt: Bieber fever, The Big Hurt: Sex Pistols perfume, More more >
Topics: Big Hurt , Music, Tegan and Sara, The Big Hurt, More more >
| More
Most Popular
Share this entry with Delicious
• WHO CHARTED: SMOOTH JAZZ SONGS | March 12, 2013
See all articles by: DAVID THORPE | <urn:uuid:49775966-3433-4e8d-a038-9cc940e11c8a> | http://thephoenix.com/Boston/music/121371-big-hurt-getting-serious-about-tyler-the-cre/ | en | 0.94217 | 0.039715 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Three identical stars, at the vertices of an equilateral triangle, orbit about their common center of mass . Find the period of this orbital motion in terms of the orbital radius,r , and the mass of each star,m .Express your answer in terms of the variablesR,M, and appropriate constants.
Get this answer with Chegg Study | <urn:uuid:beaaa485-9b0a-4d82-868b-079a61d12031> | http://www.chegg.com/homework-help/questions-and-answers/three-identical-stars-vertices-equilateral-triangle-orbit-common-center-mass--find-period--q2610827 | en | 0.841775 | 0.999948 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
PALO ALTO, California - The living room of Eliane Karp Toledo's home is a perfect setting for her contradiction-filled life. Almost nothing in it matches anything else. A wooden armchair upholstered in blue fabric with white dots stands across from a metal armchair with heavy leather upholstery. A massive, dark brown grandfather clock, like the kind one finds in antique shops, looks down on a bouquet of bold-red tulips, and artistic photographs in black and white are hanging adjacent to abstract paintings done with thick brush strokes.
The design is just right for Eliane Karp - the daughter of Holocaust survivors who fell in love with the Indians of America, the former member of the left-wing Hashomer Hatzair youth movement who worked for the World Bank, the pale-skinned redhead who married an Inca Indian. However, she points out, the decor is not her doing. This is only a temporary home; her real home is still in Peru. This house, in Palo Alto, was rented from a professor at Stanford University, where she and her husband, Alejandro Toledo, have been teaching since the end of his term as president of Peru last summer. The couple has a daughter named Chantal, who is in her twenties.
Karp is 54, but looks younger. Slim, with the body of an adolescent and no makeup, she goes back and forth into the study and removes more and more books and pamphlets from the two suitcases she took with her from Peru, to show what she and her husband accomplished there during his five-year term: a photograph with prime minister Ariel Sharon, taken during a state visit to Israel by the presidential couple; various graphs of Peru's GNP and exports-imports; and innumerable photos of the "First Lady," la Primera Dama de la nacion, in traditional Indian garb in the remote Andes Mountains.
She misses Peru, especially the visits to those mountains and the special relations she forged over the years with the Indian tribes. What she misses less is the white elite of Lima, the capital, the politicians and the owners of capital, who, she claims, did all they could to make her and her husband's life miserable in the past seven years. In the end, life in the country she loves so much and where she lived for the past decade, became intolerable, and now she is living in a kind of voluntary exile.
"I did not run away," she says in the first interview she has given since she and her husband left Peru, "but I wanted to live like every normal person. I wanted to be able to walk on the street without anyone recognizing me. Here I can wander about freely without any journalist chasing me. I was not born into a rich family, and I worked all my life. Now, too, I have to work, and in Peru I cannot work anymore. People are afraid to employ me, for political reasons. The people who are now in power want all the Toledos to disappear or die, so no one will remember that they ever existed. Only recently we learned that a few cleaning people who worked in the presidential palace were fired because their surname is Toledo, even though they have no connection with my husband. They are not even from the same village."
Her political career began about 10 years ago. Before that she was a lecturer at Stanford and at the University of Lima, and worked for several international banks. In the early 1990s she lived in Israel and worked for Bank Leumi. When she returned to Peru in 1997 and joined her husband's presidential campaign, she was compared by some to Hillary Clinton and Eva Peron: to the former because of her decisive opinions and political involvement, and to the latter because of her strong ties with the people. But readers of the Peruvian press in recent years would gain the impression that she is more of a double of Imelda Marcos - an ambitious, manipulative woman who was pulling the strings and maneuvering her husband, while spending vast sums from the state coffers on dresses, dog food and liquor. A commission of inquiry established by the Peruvian parliament is now investigating Karp's activity during her husband's tenure, and a few members of Peru's Congress have called on the committee chairman to seek the aid of Interpol to call her in for questioning. Karp is wanted only to testify; it is her aides who are suspected of transferring the money.
Do you intend to go to Peru and testify?
Karp: "No. I have already said everything I had to say to the state comptroller there. He has it all written down. There is nothing new. This whole commission of inquiry is in the hands of the party that is in opposition to my husband (APRA). They have no verified information. They have nothing at all. They can make a lot of noise and shows in the media, but there is no truth in any of it. It is a political move against my husband and against me. He is the only president in the past twenty years who completed his term of office with a high percentage of public support. That is exactly what the current president, Alan Garcia, wants to erase from the public consciousness. He is wasting all his time on this affair and in inventing stories. There is no truth in any of the charges against me. There is not even one item of information that is correct. It is all invention. I am not a prostitute and I never was a prostitute, but how can I prove that? I have no way to prove it, if respected members of parliament come and say that. What can I do? How can I show the world that it is all made up, from A to Z?"
Are you concerned that Interpol will issue a warrant for your arrest?
"They can come and take me, you know. I am not hiding. It's ridiculous. I teach every day at Stanford. There is no such thing as an Interpol arrest warrant. In any case, I think that outside Peru, the legal authorities need at least some proof."
Members of Congress allege that during a four-month period in 2001-2002, you wasted $250,000 on clothes, visits to beauty salons and food.
"That is not true. They took all kinds of items that have nothing to do with me and put them together in order to create the impression that I spent that amount of money. Such as, for example, uniforms for all the members of the Presidential Guard for five years. That is one of the items included in the $250,000. Or, for example, food for the dogs that guard the palace. They also say I bought flowers. Yes, it's true, I did buy flowers. Not for a quarter-of-a-million dollars, but it's true that I bought flowers. Do you have any idea of the state the palace was in when we entered it in 2001? The previous president, Fujimori, did not live in the palace, but in the cellars of the head of his security service. The palace was in a frightful condition. There were cockroaches in the kitchen. Everything was filthy. In the first days we all got stomach poisoning. I may have bought flowers, but Fujimori bought drugs and weapons. That is the difference between us."
Fujimori's demise
A little background would be useful here. Alejandro Toledo was elected president of Peru in 2001, after two terms served by Alberto Fujimori in the 1990s. Peru was then without a doubt one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and the whole show was run by Fujimori himself and by his security chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, who was known as "Rasputin." The two turned Peru into a country where everything and everyone had a price ("$6,000 for an item on the front-page," Karp says), including judges, members of Congress and journalists. Before the elections in which Fujimori was defeated, thousands of video cassettes were found showing Montesinos' people threatening politicians and extracting from them a commitment to support the president. Some of the tapes contained embarrassing scenes, such as visits to prostitutes and the use of drugs.
That wasn't all. While Montesinos and Fujimori pretended to be cooperating with the U.S. authorities in the struggle against drug trafficking, the two actually played a central role in it in Peru. Peruvian mafiosi later related that Montesinos placed an airfield at their disposal, and on one occasion hundreds of kilograms of cocaine were discovered aboard Fujimori's private plane. The two also collaborated in money-laundering, in arms sales and in the transfer of weapons to the Colombian left-wing underground group FARC. In 2003, when the Montesinos trial opened, it turned out that over the years he had lined his pockets to the tune of $200 million.
Concurrently, the two turned Peru into a full-fledged dictatorship, in which the lives of their political opponents were threatened, serious restrictions were imposed on the press, and hit squads were commissioned to carry out assassinations. Karp recalls with emotion the period leading up to the elections that her husband won, noting that the two of them were a key target for attack by Montesinos. As a former member of the Hashomer Hatzair movement - and having learned from her father, who fought in the Resistance against the Nazis, the duty to fight repressive regimes everywhere - Karp asserts that she would take to the streets again to topple Fujimori.
It was a nerve-racking experience. During the campaign her husband received no fewer than 117 death threats from the Montesinos camp, and Karp still remembers the threatening phone calls, along the lines of, "You don't know who you're messing with, so get out while you can." At one of the numerous mass demonstrations in Peru in 2000 calling for Fujimori's ouster, Karp was injured by teargas at short range and was dragged from the site by her friends.
Fujimori's rule ended when, in an unprecedented act, he fled the country and submitted his resignation by fax from the plane. Toledo's ascension to power was perceived in Peru as the opening of a new chapter and an opportunity to restore a little order to the chaotic and utterly corrupt country. Neither he nor his wife was a professional politician. He came from a small Indian village, from a poor family of 16. He had spent most of his professional life in academia and at the World Bank. Thus there was no better candidate than Toledo, who had not been sullied by the degenerate local politics, to clean up the mess.
Indian origins
Toledo opened his term of office by launching a broad investigation into the corruption that had afflicted the Fujimori period. The commission that probed his predecessor's behavior listed no fewer than 1,400 senior figures as suspects in corruption, among them Supreme Court justices, members of the secret service, members of parliament, businessmen and owners of television stations. It was considered the most comprehensive investigation of its kind in the history of Latin America, a part of the world known for its corruption.
There was also another reason for the popular excitement: Toledo was the first president of Indian origin. It may sound obvious that in a country where more than 50 percent of the population is Indian, one of them should be elected president, but nevertheless nearly 200 years elapsed after Peru gained its independence before a member of the continent's indigenous peoples stood at the head of the executive branch. And Karp was the winning card by his side. Commentators in Peru and elsewhere agree that Toledo's election victory belongs to her in large measure as well.
"Without Eliane Karp," Hernan Chaparro Melo, a leading pollster, said in 2000, "Toledo could not have produced a solid image to become an alternative to Fujimori."
In this interview, too, Karp often uses the first person plural - as in "we accomplished" and "we were elected." The fact that she stood by his side constantly, her charisma and rhetorical skills, and above all her command of the native Peruvian Indian language Quechua - which she learned during her professional work as an anthropologist - generated momentum in support for Toledo and imbued the two with a revolutionary image, as being ready to serve the interests of the people and not of the elites. It is precisely this, his wife explains, that also brought down their wrath upon her.
"I chose to confront the most painful issue in Peruvian society," she explains, "namely the indigenous issue. This issue is highly sensitive for all of society, because it entails racism and the exclusion of more than half the population from everything democracy has to offer. It is simply untenable in the 21st century.
"I can understand the reaction of the elite and of the traditional parties," she continues. "They had been running this game all along and had never succeeded in fomenting any change; they had not even tried to foment any change. Suddenly they saw two people, relative outsiders, telling them what to do. Alejandro is not like 'one of the family' in the traditional society of Lima. He comes from the mountains, and all his social ties and his education do not exist in Lima. And Peru is a very centralistic state. Everything is concentrated in the capital - information, education, economy. So, suddenly someone comes from outside Lima, particularly someone like Alejandro, who came out of nowhere, who had never before lived in Lima, and pops up and becomes president. The elite did not take this too well. I am referring to businessmen, judges, media people, everyone. There's a certain number of families who think they control the country, and through the media succeed in controlling society.
"We told them that a major change needed to be carried out in society, that an attempt had to be made to integrate the indigenous people in a state of a new kind, one which would grant everyone the same benefits and make available equal opportunities for everyone. The traditional parties felt that it was all going to be done at their expense. There was a very strong counter-reaction, not by the indigenous people, but by the rest of society. Many people who do not belong to what is known as the opinion molders in society were delighted with these changes. I visited the villages all the time. I brought them vaccinations and I tried to establish schools and work on all kinds of projects. But I think everything that is different and arrives so with such force, is bound to create a very strong counter-reaction. Which is exactly what happened."
As befits an ambitious, opinionated woman, Karp did not make do with the ceremonial status of the president's wife. Toledo appointed her head of the National Commission on Andean, Amazon and Afro-Peruvian Communities. Her goal, she says, was to try to reduce the poverty among the indigenous people, revive Peru's cultural and linguistic heritage, and act as a type of coordinator of various projects in this sphere. She proposed several laws, including the need to obtain the agreement of indigenous tribes to make commercial or scientific use of their nature reserves, and granting protection to tribes wishing to continue to remain isolated in the Andes or in the Amazon region.
As in other countries in Latin America, in Peru there is a direct connection between poverty and ethnic origin. Being an Indian generally is synonymous with being poor and uneducated; being white usually means being an urban dweller of the middle class or higher. The statistics are astounding: More than half the Indians in Peru have no access to clean water, and the homes of nearly 80 percent are not hooked up to a proper sewage system. About two-thirds of the Indians do not receive professional medical care or orderly education from the state. In this state of affairs, the word "citizen" is all but meaningless.
Karp tried to better the Indians' condition in terms of education and health. She coordinated a visit by a number of Israeli physicians to operate on children with a split lip; she brought vaccinations against hepatitis and malaria to villages that had never seen a physician.
"We tried to bring to the center of the public discourse a subject which had never been addressed," she continues. "Peruvian society is extremely conservative and very fond of the status quo. It makes no difference that we had a solid case - that the Indians are a very large part of the population, who live in shameful poverty and that we as a society are obliged to cope with this. It was very difficult for the elite to cope with this. I went on television often and tried to explain the situation of the Indians. They live so far away - I myself sometimes reached them in army helicopters. In some cases I met people who had never before seen people from the city.
"As I continued to deal with this subject, some politicians said I was causing Peru's disintegration, that I was splitting the country into two, that I was stirring up old ghosts, as though they had ever been dormant. The problems that were generated by the Spanish conquest have never been resolved. The Spaniards came and took the best lands and the natural resources, and together with them the rights of the indigenous peoples. Since then, those peoples have simply been invisible. They do not exist, they have no opinion and no one asks them what they think. But if you say something is wrong, then other people are afraid that whatever else happens might be at their expense."
Few days of grace
The Peruvian press did not give Karp many days of grace. Numberless reports and articles dealt with the redheaded woman who was constantly at the president's side and with the gringa who had taken control of Peru. Newspaper cartoons portrayed her as a fat woman hunched over her husband, dictating his actions. Psychoanalysts were called upon to analyze her character and her past. Thousands of rumors circulated about her past and present lovers. ("I only wish I had had so many lovers," Karp says, laughing. "No, not really - that would only have caused more trouble.")
Karp believes that in addition to her and her husband's preoccupation with the Indians, there were certain elements in her character that sparked such great fury. "A woman in Peru has to be pretty and smiling. The first rule is 'Be pretty and shut up.' And I, as you must have noticed, am not exactly a 'good Jewish girl.' They expected that I would not express any opinions, that I would only be there. Maybe I was supposed to take part in tea parties and cocktail receptions. None of that happened, of course, and that was hard for them.
"It's hard to be a woman in Latin American society," she continues. "A member of Congress told me that a law should be passed to prevent me from expressing an opinion. People also complained often that I was a foreigner. But I am not a foreigner: I have Peruvian citizenship from my marriage to Alejandro. There were also people who told my husband that they would stop supporting him if I went on talking."
But you really are an outsider.
"Yes, but we were elected - 53 percent of the population voted for us. That was a clear mandate for change. We had a commitment to our voters. And if other people didn't like it - fine, that was their problem. That's the whole idea of democracy."
Was the opposition to you due to the fact that you are Jewish and white?
"I think that a woman who came from the outside, no matter what her color, would not have been accepted well. I think that what they didn't like was the role I played. It's not my name or the way I look. It's the type of woman I am. In Latin American society there is the ideal of the woman who sits quietly and waits to be subdued. The male establishment doesn't like aggressive women who have ideas of their own."
Do you consider yourself an aggressive woman?
"Intellectually, yes. Very much so. I also do martial arts, specifically Korean Taekwondo, though it goes without saying that I never used it outside the training arena. In Peruvian society I am perceived as aggressive. I think that in a society of this kind there is something very provocative in me."
The 'illegitimate child'
One of the episodes that weighed heavily on Toledo and Karp was that of the "illegitimate daughter." On the eve of the 2000 elections, a 13-year-old girl named Zarai stated on Peruvian television that her biological father, the presidential candidate Alejandro Toledo, was denying his paternity. The girl also demanded that they both do a DNA test to determine his paternity. It is now known that the hosts of the television program who gave Zarai a platform to state her case received a large payment from Montesinos, who at the time was still pulling the strings. The goal, of course, was to adversely affect Toledo's chances in the presidential race.
However, in 2002, Alejandro agreed to recognize his paternity. In the afternoon of October 17, 2002, Toledo met with Zarai and her mother in a Lima church, in the presence of lawyers from both sides. Toledo signed a document recognizing Zarai as his daughter and agreed to give her $100,000 and place at her disposal an apartment in Lima. "It was due to political pressure," Karp now says of the episode. "The Montesinos people wanted to use it as an instrument to topple him."
So she is not his daughter?
"We don't know. The woman in question is not exactly the Holy Virgin. We do not know whose girl this is. My husband decided to put an end to this matter. She wants a father? Fine. After all, what she wanted was for someone to pay for her. Her mother wanted someone to take care of her daughter. They claimed to have proof of the father's identity, but they never showed any proof. Obviously, if they had had some sort of proof, they would have shown it publicly. But that was their strategy - to set rumors in motion - and then, go prove that your sister is not a whore."
How badly did this episode hurt you?
"It is very hypocritical. The current president, Alan Garcia, was caught a few months ago in exactly the same story. He has a child by another woman, and it happened while he was married. My husband and I were not married during the period in question. We were living apart. Well, come on. This happens to almost everyone in Peru. It was also managed very sloppily. The girl was presented like a piece of merchandise, as though she were a product. She was driven in a truck across the country in order to make a campaign of her. The girl's privacy was not preserved. It was managed very badly, simply because it was a political matter. Today we know that Montesinos was behind it all. We have no doubt. It was a manipulation by Montesinos."
Did you support your husband's decision to admit his paternity?
"No. I would not have given in to the pressure. If I have a child, it is because I want a child. Maybe it was a smart move politically, but then they started to look for other things. I would not have given in to the pressure. Of course, I said that I was not involved, because in that period we were not living together, and the situation of a man in a case like this is not exactly the same as that of a woman. But I would have fought it. It was all a media show. Eighty percent of the men in Peru have this problem, including the current president. But Alejandro said, 'Enough, the hell with it. I have a country to run, let's be done with it. Okay, I recognize the girl.'"
According to Karp, it was Montesinos who was behind the tarnishing of her reputation in the first two or three years of her husband's term of office. But since 2003, when his trial began, the focus of tension shifted to her husband's main political rival, Garcia, who was elected president about half a year ago. One of his confidants is the Israeli-Peruvian businessman Baruch Ivcher, who owns a television station in Peru. Karp believes that Ivcher is mostly to blame for the wave of rumors and bad publicity to which she has been subjected recently. However, she does not want to go too deeply into this subject.
"Everything I will say about Ivcher will be translated in Peru and reverberate back to me 1,000 times," she says. "He is a very strong person in Peru and has already caused me a great deal of damage, and I am not interested in opening up the subject again."
The beginning looked far more promising. Ivcher, who arrived in Peru in the 1970s and opened a mattress factory, was one of Fujimori's greatest opponents. At one stage the former president prohibited him to own a television station, and Ivcher was compelled to leave Peru. The shared opposition to Fujimori made Ivcher and the Toledos partners. However, Karp says, after her husband was elected, Ivcher supported Garcia's candidacy, and their ways parted.
The tension between him and Alejandro reached its peak in an event that took place at the residence of the Israeli ambassador to Peru in April 2004. Karp, who was overwrought, went over to Ivcher and threatened to throw him into jail. She also called him a "son of a bitch" - in Hebrew, too.
"My husband saved Ivcher's life," Karp says. "Fujimori issued an Interpol arrest warrant for him, and Ivcher was arrested while he was visiting Poland. It was Alejandro who arranged his release. After he returned to Peru, his only goal was to topple Alejandro. I think we were very mistaken in our assessment of him. In the end, we became bitter enemies."
Why is he persecuting your husband?
"A great many things are going on there. I don't want to go into it."
He is not the only Israeli who is doing business in Peru. What are so many Israelis doing there?
"A great many Israelis collaborated with the Montesinos regime, particularly in arms sales. Israel should be very concerned about the fact that so many Israeli citizens are harming its image all over the world. They may be private individuals, but in the final analysis this is what local people remember. There is a great deal of opposition to these people in Peru."
What is Ivcher doing in Peru?
"He is in large measure a shadowy figure. Very much an outsider. The Peruvian elite will never accept a Jew into its ranks. I didn't see that he was received very well by the Jewish community, either. I never saw him attending synagogue, for example. He is busy making money."
From what?
"You have to ask him. He sells mattresses. I never in my life heard of anyone who became a millionaire from mattresses, but you have to ask him. You have to ask him what he is doing and why it is so interesting for him to live in Peru."
Ivcher's response: Baruch Ivcher stated in reaction to claims made in the article: "My problems with Eliane Karp began when it was revealed that Alejandro Toledo had an illegitimate daughter. A journalist of mine uncovered the episode, and Karp asked me to take his television program off the air. I said I had no intention of doing that. The peak occurred at an event in the residence of the Israeli ambassador, when she called me a 'son of a bitch' in front of the entire diplomatic community of Peru. Besides that, most of the affairs involving her were first reported on my television programs. I do not intervene in journalistic content, but insist that journalists who work for me cross-check all information.
"Regarding the claim that he saved my life, it is true that Toledo was with me at the airport and assisted me psychologically, but it was the U.S. State Department and former Argentine president Raul Alfonsin who helped me then. Toledo was with me there, but did not help.
"As for ... my business, I am perhaps the only person in Peru whose business is absolutely legitimate. Fujimori and Montesinos examined all my revenues to find improper dealings, but found nothing. I made money and I paid taxes. I never bribed anyone. I am in Peru because the Peruvians are a very nice people."
Wait and see
After the last few tempestuous years, Karp's new home in Palo Alto is also a place for reflection and soul-searching. There is perhaps no more suitable place than this house, with its quiet green garden in which a squirrel darts about in the trees.
"I learned that human nature can be quite ugly," she explains. "I used to have more faith in human nature. I don't think I believe in people anymore. I saw people changing their mind very quickly only because of their self-interests. One day they are smiling at you and the next day they are your enemy. Maybe Hashomer Hatzair wasn't the right place to be educated in. But I am much more realistic now. Politics is not what you think or who you really are. It is a virtual reality that is created around you. They could have transformed me into an angel and they could have transformed me into a witch. It has no relation to reality. It's not who I really am.
"I think that it also says something about democracy. I don't think that people are stupid, only that it is very easy to manipulate them. I came from a very ideological home, and I came to Peru and discovered people without values, who clash with one another very easily, who can be bought with nonsense. On the Montesinos cassettes we discovered that he bought people with $5,000. To buy someone's soul for $5,000? What in the world is that? What kind of person do you have to be in order to change your opinion for that amount of money?
"That is what I learned - that democracy is largely an illusion. What's really in control in democracy is money and power and big business, the media, the rich people. That's who's in control. I don't say that dictatorship is preferable. Of course not. I think that democracy has to come with a few other things - education, food, and medical care for everyone. Without that, the control of so much power by so few people can be dangerous."
Do you still have friends in Peru?
"Of course. My life is in Peru. I am certain that I will be welcomed there. Wait and see. I will return. I hope it will be soon."
Would you do it all again?
"Yes. Only this time I would be even more of a 'naughty girl.' I would be blunt. There are many things I wanted to say, but didn't. Wait and see."
What headline would you give your story?
"It depends who you talk to. If you talk to people who are not from the capital, and who saw what my husband and I did, they will tell you a completely different story. The only story you and everyone else heard about, and to which you have access, is the virtual story, which was invented by the media. But you will not succeed in hearing these people, because these people do not speak; no one asks them what they think. These people know a different person from the one that was portrayed in the media, or from what you can learn about me from Google.
"The Montesinos group was very successful in crushing us. But that is the history of power, the history of the human race. You come with a very strong ideology and you are not allowed to realize it. Human nature is always against change. My husband was alone many times, and he is a very strong person. In such a harsh society, the moment you begin to vacillate, you become the focal point of just one obsession - they want to kill you.
"Actually, it's a story about two outsiders who reached the status of leadership. It is very rare for two strangers to reach the very heart of the executive branch. It almost never happens. And a person from such a poor background, too. When something like that happens, that person will pay a very steep price." W | <urn:uuid:57127b7b-e679-4948-89b3-458eee6b7060> | http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/sobering-lessons-1.216995?trailingPath=2.169%2C2.212%2C2.213%2C | en | 0.989311 | 0.05776 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
« Return to this article
for people who care about the West
Wherever you go, there you are
I lived alone in Paris for six months when I was 20. Technically, I had a roommate, an 80-year-old Frenchwoman who'd helped her father smuggle Jews out of the city during the Nazi occupation. She took in boarders to help pay the rent on her Latin Quarter apartment, and I was just one in a long string of American students.
Most evenings I spent alone in my bedroom. I felt lonely and awkward because I hadn't made any French friends, and I was too cash-strapped to take advantage of the city's nightlife. Yet I never felt bored. I spent the evenings reading French novels, listening to French pop music and writing in my journal. During the day, I'd go to classes and then wander around, seeing words on billboards and in storefronts that I'd read in a novel or had heard on the radio. My thinking seemed clear and uncluttered; new ideas came easily and unexpectedly.
Only lately have I come to believe that that the feeling I had in Paris -- that my mind was completely alive -- was caused by more than just the stimulation of living in a foreign city. I think that my sense of mental clarity was made possible by my solitude. What I mistook for loneliness was actually aloneness: a period of reflection, heightened observation and, I'd like to believe, greater insight.
I started thinking about the difference between aloneness and loneliness while visiting my friend V, who works as a caretaker on a ramshackle ranch in northwestern Wyoming, more than 10 miles from the nearest paved road. The ranch consists of a cluster of 10 or so log cabins, with no plumbing or electricity. With the exception of a satellite telephone and a small solar panel, it could be a time capsule from the 1940s. I arrived with the spring thaw, just as three feet of snow began to soften.
Each morning during my stay, V cooked a breakfast of bacon, eggs and sourdough pancakes made with the ranch's 50-year-old sourdough starter. We spent the days chopping firewood, skiing, pitching loose hay from wooden cribs to the ranch's four horses, and talking. In the evenings, she made dinner on a cook stove that burned wood.
Her two-room cabin, built of lodgepole pine with wood chinking, smelled of wood smoke, leather and propane. Next to her bed, three homemade banjos hung above vats of brewing dandelion wine. Shelves along the walls held photo albums, Western songbooks and guides to veterinary medicine and medicinal herbs. Next to the bench sat a foot-operated sewing machine and a half-finished Decker packsaddle.
We had lots to talk about: grizzly bears, men, how to preserve elk meat, the nature of happiness and her 12 years on the ranch, half of it spent living alone. She said all that solitude had brought her both bliss and sorrow, inspired songs and designs for jewelry, and given her time to play music and make horse tack.
I didn't stay long enough to slow down, or even to get much beyond my initial contradictory reactions. The silence made me uneasy, as did the lack of schedule, yet I delighted in the novelty of the place. V has learned to live in peace with the ranch's resident mouse population, but I was disgusted by the ubiquitous droppings. Finally, I was ashamed of my wastefulness compared to my friend's careful calculations of energy and garbage.
Most of all, my stay made me aware of how I spend my time. I noticed that I stayed occupied to avoid the terrifying prospect that I'd be alone with myself. I know that my fear of being alone is a human trait, that for centuries we've used ostracism and solitary confinement as punishment. At the same time, don't we turn to solitude to achieve deeper spirituality and wisdom?
It wasn't until I remembered my time in Paris, and how turning inward had helped me understand the outside world and feel more aware, that I began to understand what my friend meant when she talked about needing long stretches of solitude.
"Most people aren't brave enough to try being alone," she said "Once you learn who you are, you find you can't run away from yourself."
Lissa James is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She writes from Lilliwaup, Washington, where she works for the family's oyster farm. | <urn:uuid:880ba3e1-34c0-42fa-8f64-dcfb72838dda> | http://www.hcn.org/wotr/wherever-you-go-there-you-are/print_view | en | 0.97968 | 0.050264 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
OAKLAND -- Anthony Sheppard stood in disbelief Thursday outside the cellular phone store where its well-known and highly respected owner was gunned down the night before during a robbery.
"I heard about it last night and I didn't want to believe it was him," said Sheppard, 30, as he stood near a small crowd outside the store that had been a fixture in East Oakland since 1996. "I was hoping it wasn't him and I got here and it was. He was a good man. Why they do him like that?"
Wilbur Bartley, 50, was found slain about 7:22 p.m. Wednesday inside Marcus Cellular, 9230 International Blvd., a Metro PCS outlet and Direct TV dealership.
Police said Bartley had named the business after his son and many of his customers and residents who knew him as "Mr. Marcus" were saddened and stunned by his death.
Bartley, who lived a few blocks away, apparently was in the process of closing for the evening when he was confronted by someone who robbed and shot him, police said.
Police would not disclose what was taken.
The killer fled before police arrived.
Sheppard, who said he bought his first pager at the store in the late '90s, expressed sorrow Thursday.
"He was a generous man. I was friends with his son," Sheppard said, his voice cracking. "This shouldn't have happened."
Police said Bartley was a hardworking businessman who was always willing to lend a hand to someone in need and who would give tickets to Oakland Raiders games to children.
Officer Robert Trevino, the lead investigator, said Bartley's death "is a tragic situation, not only for his family but for the community.
"We are doing everything we can to solve this case and we are confident that with the help of the community we can," he said.
Police Chief Howard Jordan dropped by Thursday afternoon to meet with the family, as officers urged residents to share any information that may help solve the crime.
"(There's) a lot of community outrage because this gentleman was so well-respected," Jordan's chief of staff, Sgt. Chris Bolton, wrote in an email. "The chief had met him a few times during walks in that neighborhood this past year."
Oakland police spokeswoman Johnna Watson said motorists are stopping in the street near the store, holding up traffic, to share their disbelief and plead with investigators on the scene to find the shooter.
"This is an outcry from the community I have not seen before," Watson said.
Many who visited Bartley's business to pay their respects appeared either angry or in shock.
About 11:30 a.m., an unidentified man walked past the business, shook his head, then kicked the side of the building and cursed.
"This has got to stop," the man said, then walked away from the closed business where flowers and candles lined the ground.
Just before noon, Patricia Boens, of Oakland, placed a white teddy bear on the ground beside a dozen red roses.
"He didn't deserve this," Boens said. "He was a nice man."
Shortly after, two women hung up a large white piece of paper to create a memorial wall for Bartley.
"RIP Marcus. The community won't be the same without you," one person wrote.
Bartley had been targeted in a robbery before, in January 2007, by someone who apparently followed him home from the store.
But the robbery was foiled outside the residence by Bartley's German shepherd, Buffy, who had been waiting for him and attacked the robber. The robber shot the dog in the leg before fleeing. The 7-year-old dog was treated, but died a month later.
Bartley's killing was the city's 107th homicide of the year.
Staff writer Kristin J. Bender contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:d494d19f-c892-4217-848a-6025501a8eeb> | http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_21903865/well-known-merchant-slain-east-oakland-cell-phone?source=most_viewed | en | 0.990433 | 0.063401 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
New Advent
Home Encyclopedia Summa Fathers Bible Library
Homily 50 on the Gospel of John
John 7:25-27
Then said some of them of Jerusalem, Is not this he, whom they seek to kill? But, lo, he speaks boldly, and they say nothing unto him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ? Howbeit we know this man whence he is.
1. Nothing is placed in the Holy Scriptures without a reason, for they were uttered by the Holy Ghost, therefore let us enquire exactly into every point. For it is possible from one expression to find out the entire meaning (of a passage), as in the case before us. Many of them of Jerusalem said, Is not this he, whom they seek to kill? But, lo, he speaks boldly, and they say nothing unto him. Now why is added, them of Jerusalem? The Evangelist by this shows, that they who had most enjoyed His mighty miracles were more pitiable than any; they who had beheld the greatest proof of His Godhead, and yet committed all to the judgment of their corrupt rulers. For was it not a great proof of it, that men furious and bent on murder, who went about and sought to kill Him, should be quiet of a sudden, when they had Him in their hands? Who could have effected this? Who thus quenched their absolute fury? Still after such proofs, observe the folly and the madness of the men. Is not this he, whom they seek to kill? See how they accuse themselves; whom, It says, they seek to kill, and yet they say nothing to him. And not only do they say nothing to Him, but nothing even when He speaks boldly. For one who spoke boldly and with all freedom would naturally have the more angered them; but they did nothing. Do they know indeed that this is the very Christ? What do you think? What opinion do you give? The contrary, It says. On which account they said, We know this man whence he is. What malice, what contradiction! They do not even follow the opinion of their rulers, but bring forward another, perverse, and worthy of their own folly; We know him whence he is.
But when Christ comes, no man knows whence He is. Matthew 2:4
Yet your rulers when asked replied, that He should be born in Bethlehem. And others again said, God spoke unto Moses, but as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is. John 9:29 We know whence he is, and we know not whence He is; observe the words of drunken men. And again, Does Christ come out of Galilee? John 7:41 Is He not of the town of Bethlehem? Do you see that theirs is the decision of madmen? We know, and, we know not; Christ comes from Bethlehem; When Christ comes, no man knows whence He is. What can be plainer than this contradiction? For they only looked to one thing, which was, not to believe. What then is Christ's reply?
John 7:28
You both know Me, and you know whence I am: and I am not come of Myself, but He that sent Me is true, whom you know not.
2. And again, If you had known Me, you should have known My Father also. John 8:19 How then says He, that they both know Him, and whence He is, and then, that they neither know Him, nor the Father? He does not contradict, (away with the thought,) but is very consistent with Himself. For He speaks of a different kind of knowledge, when He says, ye know not; as when He says, The sons of Eli were wicked sons, they knew not the Lord 1 Samuel 2:12; and again, Israel does not know Me. Isaiah 1:3 So also Paul says, They profess that they know God, but in works they deny Him. Titus 1:16 It is therefore possible, knowing, not to know. This then is what He says: If you know Me, you know that I am the Son of God. For the whence I am does not here denote place. As is clear from what follows, I am not come of Myself, but He that sent Me is true, whom you know not, referring here to the ignorance shown by their works. [As Paul says, They profess that they know God, but in works they deny Him.] For their fault came not merely of ignorance, but of wickedness, and an evil will; because even though they knew this, they chose to be ignorant. But what manner of connection is there here? How is it that He, reproving them, uses their own words? For when they say, We know this man whence he is, He adds, ye both know Me. Was their expression, We know him not? Nay, they said, We know him. But (observe), they by saying the, We know whence he is, declared nothing else than that He was of the earth, and that He was the carpenter's son; but He led them up to heaven, saying, You know whence I am, that is, not thence whence ye suppose, but from that place whence He that sent Me (has sent Me). For to say, I am not come of Myself, intimates to them, that they knew that He was sent by the Father, though they did not disclose it. So that He rebukes them in a twofold manner; first, what they said in secret He published aloud, so as to put them to shame; after that He revealed also what was in their hearts. As though He had said, I am not one of the abjects, nor of those who come for nothing, but He 'that sent Me is true, whom you know not.' What means, He that sent Me is true? If He be true, He has sent Me for the truth; if He be true, it is probable that He who is sent is true also. This also He proves in another way, vanquishing them with their own words. For whereas they had said, When Christ comes, no man knows whence He is, He proves from this that He Himself is the Christ. They used the words, No man knows, with reference to distinction of some definite locality; but from the same words He shows Himself to be the Christ, because He came from the Father; and everywhere He witnesses that He alone has the knowledge of the Father, saying, Not that any man has seen the Father, save He which is from the Father. John 6:46 And His words exasperated them; for to tell them, You know Him not, and to rebuke them because knowing they pretended to be ignorant, was sufficient to sting and annoy them.
John 7:30
Then they sought to take Him, and no man laid his hand upon Him, because His hour was not yet come.
Do you see that they are invisibly restrained, and their anger bridled? But wherefore says It not, that He had restrained them invisibly, but, Because His hour was not yet come? The Evangelist was minded to speak more humanly and in a lowlier strain, so that Christ might be deemed to be also Man. For because Christ everywhere speaks of sublime matters, he therefore intersperses expressions of this kind. And when Christ says, I am from Him, He speaks not as a Prophet who learns, but as seeing Him, and being with Him.
John 7:29
Do you see how He continually seeks to prove the, I am not come of Myself, and, He that sent Me is true, striving not to be thought an enemy of God? And observe how great is the profit of the humility of His words; for, it says, after this many said,
John 7:31
When Christ comes, will He do more miracles than these which this man has done?
How many were the miracles? In truth, there were three, that of the wine, that of the paralytic, and that of the nobleman's son; and the Evangelist has related no more. From which circumstance it is plain, as I have often said, that the writers pass by most of them, and discourse to us of those alone on account of which the rulers ill-treated Him. Then they sought to take Him, and kill Him. Who sought? Not the multitude, who had no desire of rule, nor could be made captives by malice; but the priests. For they of the multitude said, When Christ comes, will He do more miracles? Yet neither was this sound faith, but, as it were, the idea of a promiscuous crowd; for to say, When He comes, was not the expression of men firmly persuaded that He was the Christ. We may either understand the words thus, or that they were uttered by the multitudes when they came together. Since, they may have said, our rulers are taking every pains to prove that this man is not the Christ, let us suppose that he is not the Christ; will the Christ be better than he? For, as I ever repeat, men of the grosser sort are led in not by doctrine, nor by preaching, but by miracles.
John 7:32
The Pharisees heard the people murmuring, and sent servants to take Him.
Do you see that the violation of the Sabbath was a mere pretense? And that what most stung them was this murmuring? For here, though they had no fault to find with Him for anything said or done, they desired to take Him because of the multitude. They dared not do it themselves, suspecting danger, but sent their hired servants. Alas! For their tyranny and their madness, or rather, I should say, for their folly. After having often attempted themselves, and not prevailed, they committed the matter to servants, simply satisfying their anger. Yet He had spoken much at the pool John 5, and they had done nothing of the kind; they sought indeed occasion, but they attempted not, while here they can endure it no longer, when the multitude is about to run to Him. What then says Christ?
John 7:33
Yet a little while am I with you.
Having power to bow and terrify His hearers, He utters words full of humility. As though He had said, Why are you eager to persecute and kill Me? Wait a little while, and even though you should be eager to keep Me back, I shall not endure it. That no one should (as they did) suppose that the, Yet a little while am I with you, denoted a common death, that no one might suppose this, or that He wrought nothing after death, He added,
John 7:34
And where I am, there ye cannot come.
Now had He been about to continue in death, they might have gone to Him, for to that place we all depart. His words therefore bent the simpler portion of the multitude, terrified the bolder, made the more intelligent anxious to hear Him, since but little time was now left, and since it was not in their power always to enjoy this teaching. Nor did He merely say, I am here, but, I am with you, that is, Though you persecute, though ye drive Me away, yet for a little while I shall not cease dispensing what is for your good, saying and recommending the things that relate to your salvation.
John 7:33
And I go unto Him that sent Me.
This was enough to terrify and throw them into an agony. For that they should stand in need of Him, He declares also . . .
John 7:34
You shall seek Me, He says, (not only you shall not forget Me, but you shall even seek Me,) and shall not find Me.
3. And when did the Jews seek Him? Luke says that the women mourned over Him, and it is probable that many others, both at the time and when the city was taken, remembered Christ and His miracles, and sought His presence. Luke 23:49 Now all this He added, desiring to attract them. For the facts that the time left was short, that He should after His departure be regretfully desired by them, and that they should not then be able to find Him, were all together sufficient to persuade them to come to Him. For had it not been that His presence should with regret be desired by them, He would not have seemed to them to be saying any great thing; if, again, it was about to be desired, and they able to find Him, neither so would this have disturbed them. Again, had He been about to stay with them a long time, so also they would have been remiss. But now He in every way compels and terrifies them. And the, I go to Him that sent Me, is the expression of one declaring that no harm will happen to Him from their plotting, and that His Passion was voluntary. Wherefore now He uttered two predictions, that after a little while He should depart, and that they should not come to Him; a thing which belonged not to human intelligence, the foretelling His own death. Hear for instance, David saying, Lord, make me to know mine end and the number of my days, what it is, that I may know what time I have. Psalm 39:4 There is no man at all that knows this; and by one the other is confirmed. And I think that He speaks this covertly to the servants, and directs His discourse to them, thus specially attracting them, by showing them that He knew the cause of their arrival. As though He had said, Wait a little, and I shall depart.
John 7:35
Then said the Jews among themselves, Whither will he go?
Yet they who had wished to be rid of Him, who did all in their power not to see Him, ought not to have asked this question, but to have said, we are glad of it, when will the departure take place? but they were somewhat affected at His words, and with foolish suspicion question one another, whither will he go?
Will he go unto the dispersion of the Gentiles?
What is, the dispersion of the Gentiles? The Jews gave this name to other nations, because they were everywhere scattered and mingled fearlessly with one another. And this reproach they themselves afterwards endured, for they too were a dispersion. For of old all their nation was collected into one place, and you could not anywhere find a Jew, except in Palestine only; wherefore they called the Gentiles a dispersion, reproaching them, and boasting concerning themselves. What then means, Whither I go ye cannot come? For all nations at that time had intercourse with them, and there were Jews everywhere. He would not therefore, if He had meant the Gentiles, have said, Where ye cannot come. After saying, Will he go to the dispersion of the Gentiles? they did not add, and ruin, but, and teach them. To such a degree had they abated their anger, and believed His words; for they would not, had they not believed, have enquired among themselves what the saying was.
These words were spoken indeed to the Jews, but fear there is lest they be suited to us also, that where He is we cannot come on account of our life being full of sins. For concerning the disciples He says, I will that they also be with Me where I am John 17:24, but concerning ourselves, I dread lest the contrary be said, that, Where I am, you cannot come. For when we act contrary to the commandments, how can we go to that place? Even in the present life, if any soldier act unworthily towards his king, he will not be able to see the king, but being deprived of his authority will suffer the severest punishment; if therefore we steal, or covet, if we wrong or strike others, if we work not deeds of mercy, we shall not be able to go there, but shall suffer what happened to the virgins. For where He was, they were not able to enter in, but retired, their lamps having gone out, that is, grace having left them. For we can, if we will, increase the brightness of that flame which we received straightway by the grace of the Spirit; but if we will not do this, we shall lose it, and when that is quenched, there will be nothing else than darkness in our souls; since, as while a lamp is burning the light is strong, so when it is extinguished there is nothing but gloom. Wherefore the Apostle says, Quench not the Spirit. 1 Thessalonians 5:19 And It is quenched when It has not oil, when there is any violent gust of wind, when It is cramped and confined, (for so fire is quenched,) and It is cramped by worldly cares, and quenched by evil desires. In addition to the causes we have mentioned, nothing quenches It so much as inhumanity, cruelty, and rapine. For when, besides having no oil, we pour upon it cold water, (for covetousness is this, which chills with despondency the souls of those we wrong,) whence shall it be kindled again? We shall depart, therefore, carrying dust and ashes with us, and having much smoke to convict us of having had lamps and of having extinguished them; for where there is smoke, there needs must have been fire which has been quenched. May none of us ever hear that word, I know you not. Matthew 25:12 And whence shall we hear that word, but from this, if ever we see a poor man, and are as though we saw him not? If we will not know Christ when He is an hungered, He too will not know us when we entreat His mercy. And with justice; for how shall he who neglects the afflicted, and gives not of that which is his own, how shall he seek to receive of that which is not his own? Wherefore, I entreat you, let us do and contrive everything, so that oil fail not us, but that we may trim our lamps, and enter with the Bridegroom into the bride-chamber. To which may we all attain, through the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom and with whom, to the Father and the Holy Ghost be glory, now and ever and world without end. Amen.
About this page
| <urn:uuid:2259caaa-15d4-42f8-bb78-58c701a434dd> | http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/240150.htm | en | 0.981758 | 0.024277 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
PDB Tested: Ribz Pack
Published online: May 31, 2012 PDB Tested
Viewed 360 time(s)
Ever wish you had more hands? Especially on a pontoon or deck boat? We've all been there, trying to keep our tools, pliers, knife and other important fishing materials straight either by using pants pockets or arranging stuff on the seats. In both cases, either accessibility or stability suffer. Prepare for the next time with the RIBZ front pack, veritable cornucopia of storage solutions, all hands free.
I tested the pack on a fishing trip, and was very impressed with how lightweight it is. We filled it with all kinds of fishing necessities and I hardly felt it at all. The secret is in weight redistribution; trying to hold a 10-pound weight with only your pinky finger is pretty hard, but spread that 10 pounds over a box you're carrying with both hands and suddenly it's not so difficult. Wearing the RIBZ Pack allows the weight of everything you're carrying to be far less noticeable.
In addition, the pack allowed me to carry many things at once, even lighter things that wouldn't necessarily cause strain. The pockets are located on the upper body, making them more accessible compared to just putting a packet of sunflower seeds in your pants pocket. The makers say it can hold up to 600 cubic inches of gear, and the pack itself (unloaded) weighs only 11 ounces.
The pack is sturdy, fully-adjustable and I didn't ever worry about ripping or tearing it with the tools placed inside. Plus the material is stain-resistant. The pack is available for $64.96 at www.ribzwear.com. I find the price to be fairly reasonable, especially if it keeps me from dropping my favorite knife overboard one day.
| <urn:uuid:9e1841fd-eca1-42d5-aa15-765493fdb600> | http://www.pdbmagazine.com/2012/05/pdb-tested-ribz-pack | en | 0.942934 | 0.051198 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Find a page
Local Property Tax - Topics
Main page - Topics
1. Who received a letter from Revenue about paying LPT for 2015?
2. Why will some property owners not receive a letter from Revenue?
3. Which local authorities reduced the LPT rate for 2015?
4. How can I confirm which local authority has been assigned to my property?
5. How much LPT do I have to pay for 2015?
6. When do I have to pay and what options are available?
7. What should I do if I have lost my Property ID and PIN?
8. Key Dates for 2015
Where can I get RTÉ Aertel Digital?
| <urn:uuid:03e55452-47ff-40e2-9e03-1f6f3eee2c72> | http://www.rte.ie/aertel/desktopxhtml/593-1.html | en | 0.905267 | 0.97738 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Debate Preview: Take Two
US President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney share a laugh October 3, 2012 at the conclusion of the first presidential debate.
Mara Liasson, national political correspondent for NPR, previews tonight's "town hall-style" presidential debate.
What advice would you give Obama and Romney in advance of tonight's debates?
→ Watch the Debates With WNYC: Pre-Debate Special at 8pm Tonight | Video and Live Chat | Play Debate Bingo! | <urn:uuid:1afd644e-90e6-4917-9cff-f5be3abb9ebd> | http://www.wnyc.org/story/243840-debate-preview-take-two/ | en | 0.897818 | 0.034425 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Browse Dictionary by Letter
Dictionary Suite
facetious not serious; humorous or frivolous.
facial of or pertaining to the face. [2 definitions]
-facient making; causing; bringing about.
facilitate to make less difficult; help in progress.
facsimile an exact copy or duplicate, as of something printed or pictorial; reproduction. [2 definitions]
fact something that has reality, that exists, or that happened or is happening. [3 definitions]
fact checker someone whose job it is to verify the accuracy of facts in a text before publication.
fact-finding involved in the discovery and determination of the facts. [2 definitions] | <urn:uuid:9adea8a6-7d87-4017-85b9-07a4e6418af5> | http://www.wordsmyth.net/?mode=browse&start=faceoff+f+0+8+14620&back=0 | en | 0.832633 | 0.620791 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
CMDIChildWnd Class
Collapse the table of content
Expand the table of content
CMDIChildWnd Class
Provides the functionality of a Windows multiple document interface (MDI) child window, along with members for managing the window.
class CMDIChildWnd : public CFrameWnd
An MDI child window looks much like a typical frame window, except that the MDI child window appears inside an MDI frame window rather than on the desktop. An MDI child window does not have a menu bar of its own, but instead shares the menu of the MDI frame window. The framework automatically changes the MDI frame menu to represent the currently active MDI child window.
To create a useful MDI child window for your application, derive a class from CMDIChildWnd. Add member variables to the derived class to store data specific to your application. Implement message-handler member functions and a message map in the derived class to specify what happens when messages are directed to the window.
There are three ways to construct an MDI child window:
• Directly construct it using Create.
• Directly construct it using LoadFrame.
• Indirectly construct it through a document template.
Before you call Create or LoadFrame, you must construct the frame-window object on the heap using the C++ new operator. Before calling Create you can also register a window class with the AfxRegisterWndClass global function to set the icon and class styles for the frame.
Use the Create member function to pass the frame's creation parameters as immediate arguments.
LoadFrame requires fewer arguments than Create, and instead retrieves most of its default values from resources, including the frame's caption, icon, accelerator table, and menu. To be accessible by LoadFrame, all these resources must have the same resource ID (for example, IDR_MAINFRAME).
When a CMDIChildWnd object contains views and documents, they are created indirectly by the framework instead of directly by the programmer. The CDocTemplate object orchestrates the creation of the frame, the creation of the containing views, and the connection of the views to the appropriate document. The parameters of the CDocTemplate constructor specify the CRuntimeClass of the three classes involved (document, frame, and view). A CRuntimeClass object is used by the framework to dynamically create new frames when specified by the user (for example, by using the File New command or the MDI Window New command).
A frame-window class derived from CMDIChildWnd must be declared with DECLARE_DYNCREATE in order for the above RUNTIME_CLASS mechanism to work correctly.
The CMDIChildWnd class inherits much of its default implementation from CFrameWnd. For a detailed list of these features, please refer to the CFrameWnd class description. The CMDIChildWnd class has the following additional features:
• In conjunction with the CMultiDocTemplate class, multiple CMDIChildWnd objects from the same document template share the same menu, saving Windows system resources.
• The currently active MDI child window menu entirely replaces the MDI frame window's menu, and the caption of the currently active MDI child window is added to the MDI frame window's caption. For further examples of MDI child window functions that are implemented in conjunction with an MDI frame window, see the CMDIFrameWnd class description.
Do not use the C++ delete operator to destroy a frame window. Use CWnd::DestroyWindow instead. The CFrameWnd implementation of PostNcDestroy will delete the C++ object when the window is destroyed. When the user closes the frame window, the default OnClose handler will call DestroyWindow.
For more information on CMDIChildWnd, see Frame Windows.
Header: afxwin.h
This class is not supported in Smart Device projects.
© 2015 Microsoft | <urn:uuid:b6813871-e348-44a5-a126-ccb9954e6fe8> | https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/hw5095wc(v=vs.80).aspx | en | 0.79793 | 0.028364 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
WORLD FACTBOOK OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEMS JAPAN Tadashi Moriyama Takushoku University This country report is one of many prepared for the World Factbook of Criminal Justice Systems under Bureau of Justice Statistics grant No. 90-BJ-CX-0002 to the State University of New York at Albany. The project director was Graeme R. Newman, but responsibility for the accuracy of the information contained in each report is that of the individual author. The contents of these reports do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Bureau of Justice Statistics or the U. S. Department of Justice. GENERAL OVERVIEW 1. Political system. Although Japan has a federal system of government, it is largely centralized. One reason for centralization, in addition to racial homogeneity, is that it is considered very important for the formal agencies to administer the political and legal measures equally and on the same basis over the territory. In fact, apart from the district traditions and cultures, there is little difference, at least in the administration of laws, between the center of Japan, Tokyo, and the local areas. The government is fundamentally divided into executive, legislative, and judicial powers. There is also a parliamentary Cabinet system, making the Cabinet a little stronger than the other two powers. Development of the contemporary Japanese political system has been influenced by the remains of the pre-war political system which was based on the 19th-century German and British parliamentary models. The political system has also been influenced by the Constitution of Japan, which was largely authored by United States government advisers early in the post-World War II occupation. Thus, the substance of the present political system in Japan is a mixture of these sources and Japanese traditional factors. In 1947, a new Constitution, often called the Peaceful Constitution, was established. It completely bans any wars and has strongly influenced legislation passed in Japan during the post-war period. Constitutional Law moved most dramatically toward democracy in its dealings with the imperial family. 2. Legal system. The Japanese legal system has been historically influenced by the Continental Laws, namely, the German Criminal Law and the French Civil Law. However, after World War II, the influence of American Law models has become more dominant in all areas of jurisprudence because of the closer relationship between United States and Japan. Areas affected have especially been Constitutional Law and Criminal Procedure Law. Prior to 1868, when the Meiji Restoration brought the Western legal systems to Japan, the Japanese legal system had emulated Chinese laws. Western laws were introduced by the government during a period of enthusiasm over the abolition of treaties with Western countries that contained unfair provisions for Japan, such as those denying the right to impose custom duties. Laws that were imported to Japan were gradually reformed to adapt to the Japanese nation. Thus, the Japanese legal system is a blend of the Continental, Anglo-American and Oriental models. Japanese tradition tries to avoid disputes, particularly among community members. Even as the number of law suits has recently increased, informal resolution without going to court is still preferred. Stemming from this aversion toward legal formalities, the Japanese informal system is based on mediation and arbitration. In fact, the number of practicing lawyers totals 12,000 over the entire country. This number is comparatively small, for a rate of one per 10,000 population versus one per 450 in the United States. 3. History of the Criminal Justice System. Before the Meiji Era (1867-1912), the powers of imperial family members, or the judges they appointed, possessed a large amount of discretion, which often resulted in the abuse of power. Capital punishment was the main measure of dealing with offenders in the criminal justice system. Under feudalism, authorities frequently used the death penalty against political rivals. However, after the Meiji Era, as Western culture was introduced, the government established new laws reflecting a gradually modernizing Japanese society. In 1907, criminal law and prison law were passed in an effort to bring Japan into line with Western countries. However, the rights of offenders did not become a main issue in the criminal justice system until the post-war period. Based on the new Constitution, Criminal Procedure Law was radically changed toward the adoption of an adversarial system. Under this system, the roles of the police, the prosecutor, and the judge changed. Unfortunately, immediately following this innovation, a series of cases resulted in a miscarriage of justice partly because the police were not accustomed to the new system. Although a jury system came into force in 1939, it was practically never used because of inflexibility in the ongoing criminal justice system at that time. In addition, professional judges have always enjoyed a high level of trust in Japanese society. After the war, the police began to carry guns instead of sabers, according to the advice of the United States. Arguments were frequently made for reforming the main laws such as the Criminal Law (1907), the Juvenile Law (1947) and the Prisons Law (1907). However, plans for reform were controversial because they addressed delicate issues, such as the introduction of protective measures to Criminal Law, juvenile punishment, or the abolition of the practice of imprisoning defendants in police cells. Japanese society is relatively conservative in its approach to reforms and is generally inclined to oppose them. The government attempts to reform older laws by issuing a series of supplements. CRIME 1. Classification of Crime. *Legal classification. The three main categories of crime under the Japanese Criminal Law are crimes against the state, crimes against society and crimes against individuals. This law was passed under the old Constitution which had mainly focused on the power of the emperor and the state. As a result, crimes against the imperial family and the state were highly emphasized. While crimes against the imperial family were abolished after World War II, the fundamental structure of this law was little changed. Since there has been no complete revision of the law, the law remains fairly antiquated on the surface. The criminal justice system reflects the state's task of protecting individual interests in daily life. Crimes against life, person, and freedom include homicide, assault, bodily injury, forcible rape, indecent assault, and kidnapping. Crimes against property include theft, fraud, robbery, extortion, and embezzlement. The concept of theft has a very broad meaning and includes burglary, shoplifting, and stealing the goods in a car. Stealing bicycles from in front of railway stations is a typical theft according to criminal statistics. Crimes which significantly cause social disorder, like arson, indecent behavior in the public, and gambling, are usually placed in a category of crimes against society. Bribery is considered a crime against the state. Special laws include firearms and sword control law, laws for regulating business that affects public morals, anti-prostitution laws, anti-organized crime laws, and road traffic laws. There are a large number of traffic offenses, indicating serious problems on roads in Japan. Annually, there are 11,000 deaths caused by traffic accidents. After a controversy involving citizen's freedom of association in 1992, an anti-organized crime law was passed in 1992, which regulated the activity of Boryokudan crime organizations. *Age of criminal responsibility. Persons younger than 20 years of age are legally considered juveniles. According to the Juvenile Law, juvenile cases go to Family court. The court subsequently determines the need to subject the juvenile concerned to protective measures and the most beneficial treatment for the juvenile. Possible measures include placement under the supervision of probation officers, commitment to a child education or training home or a house for dependent children, and commitment to a juvenile training school. The Juvenile Law states that juvenile cases should be in principle separated from adult cases in terms of their future development. Although there are exceptions, juveniles are criminally prosecuted when the case involves a certain punishment in response to a very serious offense. *Drug offenses. There are special laws regulating cannabis, narcotics and psychotropics, stimulants and opium. Drug regulations cover punishment for the use, trade, possession, and production of drugs. In the 1990's a new drug regulation was introduced to conform to the standards of the United Nations. Toluene, thinner, and bonding substances are regulated by special law as well. Their abuse is a serious problem among the youth, partly because of their cheap price. Drug abuse in Japanese society largely stems from the use of amphetamine, which is largely imported from other Asian countries. Organized crime is involved in the handling and production of amphetamines and has become rich from this activity. 2. Crime statistics. Police, prosecution, court, correction and after-care divisions each publish their own statistics as a yearbook. The Ministry of Justice summarizes their statistics and publishes a book, White Paper on Crime. Because of the nationwide unitary system of these agencies, such a complete portrayal of the crime situation in Japan is possible. The number of reported crimes which follows is derived from the summary of the White Paper on Crime, for 1990. *Murder. In 1990, there were 1,238 cases of homicide reported to the police. *Rape. In 1990, there were 1,548 cases of rape reported to the police. *Larceny. In 1990, there were 1,444,067 cases of larceny reported to the police. *Serious drug offense. Information not obtained. *Crime regions. Information not obtained. VICTIMS 1. Groups most victimized by crime. There is very little data collected officially or privately about victims or victimization. By nature, victimization in Japan is generally not partial to a particular area, class, sex or age. However, according to a special survey, aged persons are victimized at a comparatively high rate by burglary, vandalism, and traffic offenses. (White Paper on Crime, 1991: 272-273). 2. Victims' assistance agencies. There are a few private organizations which financially assist victims. In light of the emphasis on family in the community, victims have tended to be assisted by their family members or relatives, or other community members. They are, at times, compensated by the offenders themselves or the offender's family. There are also organizations to help with psychological counseling for the victims of forcible rape, traffic accidents and child abuse. 3. Role of victim in prosecution and sentencing. Information not obtained. 4. Victims' rights legislation. In 1981, a victim-oriented law came into force, similar to the systems of New Zealand and Britain. This law provides that the state will financially assist the victim, or, in cases of violent crimes, the bereaved family. The amount of monetary benefit roughly ranges from 10,000 to 20,000 U.S. dollars, but, in 1990, although 42,000 violent crimes had occurred only 264 persons received this benefit. Thus, administration of this system seems problematic; few persons in the general public have knowledge about it. POLICE 1. Administration. The Police Law, enacted in 1945, in conforming with principles such as rule of law and local autonomy, aims at providing an efficient police structure on a democratic base. The police structure consists of the national police and the prefectural police. Formerly, most police agencies functioned as guards for the imperial family. Now, there is a mix of centralization and decentralization in that police administration is the responsibility of prefectural governments. The national level police organizations are the National Police Safety Commission (NPSC) and the National Police Agency (NPA). Since the NPSC makes basic policy and the NPA administers police affairs, the NPSC has control over the NPA. The NPSC is a governmental body responsible mainly for the administrative supervision of the police and coordination of police administration. It also oversees matters relating to police education, communication, criminal identification, criminal statistics and police equipment. To ensure its independence and neutrality, not even the Prime Minister is empowered to direct and give orders to the NPSC. The NPA, which is headed by a Director General, maintains Regional Police Bureaus as its local agencies throughout the country. There are seven bureaus in the major cities, excluding Tokyo and the northern island of Hokkaido. Police law stipulates that each prefectural government, which is a local entity, shall have its own Prefectural Police (PP). The PP is supervised by the Prefectural Public Safety Commission, which carries out all police duties within the boundaries of the prefecture. In practice, the PP forces are located in each of the 47 prefectures. The National Police Academy, the National Research Institute of Police Science and the Imperial Guard Headquarters are also organizations affiliated with the NPA. In addition, the Koban system provides local residents with safety and peace through daily contacts of police officers with residents in the area. Originally created by the Japanese police, this system has been recently adopted by countries such as Germany and Singapore. However, its success depends on the human relationship between the police officers and the community people. At times, there is an excess of intervention by police. The Koban system rests on approximately 15,000 police boxes (Hasshusho) and residential police boxes (Chuzaisho) located throughout the country. 2. Resources. *Expenditures. There are two types of police budgets: the national budget and the prefectural budget. The national police budget covers the expenditures of the NPA relevant to the execution of duties under its jurisdiction, including personnel costs, expenses incurred by the prefectural police which are shouldered by the state, and subsidies to the PP. Expenditures needed by the PP to carry out their duties are appropriated in the budget of each prefecture. In 1992, the NPA budget totalled 213,464 billion yen and the PP budget totalled 2,992,454 million yen (270 billion USD). The total National Police Agency Budget for the 1990 fiscal year was 198,420 billion yen, of which 41.5% (82,282 billion yen) went toward personnel expenses, 14.5% (28,870 billion yen) went toward equipment, communications, and facilities, 18.2% (36,149 billion yen) were allocated toward other expenses, and 25.8% (51,119 billion yen) went toward subsidies for Prefectural Police. In all, 74.2% of the total (147,301 billion yen) went toward NPA expenses. *Number of police. The NPA and the PP personnel forces are composed of police officers, officers of the Imperial Guard Headquarters, and civilian employees such as clerical workers and technical engineers. In 1990, there were about 258,800 authorized full-time police personnel. The ratio of police to population is about one officer to 556 citizens. The NPA is comprised of approximately 7,600 personnel, of whom 1,200 are police officers, 900 are Imperial Guards and 5,500 are civilian personnel. The 47 PP forces have a total strength of approximately 250,000, of whom 220,000 are police officers and 30,000 are civilians. There are approximately 4,200 female police officers (1.6%), whose role has been growing in importance. In addition, there are about 14,000 female civilians, of whom about 3,100 are traffic control personnel and juvenile guidance personnel engaged in on-the-street juvenile control. 3. Technology. *Availability of police automobiles. Motor vehicles are assigned to all police boxes throughout the country. Because of their mobility, they are useful in handling emergency cases, investigating criminal activity, and enforcing traffic control. As of 1994, there are approximately 26,000 police motor vehicles, including 5,000 patrol cars, 3,000 traffic police motorcycles, 5,000 vehicles employed for criminal investigation and 2,500 transport vehicles. In addition, about 200 police boats and 60 helicopters are assigned to each jurisdiction. *Electronic equipment. Network technology includes police telephone circuits, facsimile, an integrated system for police activities, a communication command system and mobile radio system, portable radio sets, a communication satellite, and multi-channel mobile telephone cars. *Weapons. After World War II, the United States advised Japanese police to require individual police officers to carry guns, whereas they used to carry only sabers. However, few guns are actually used. One problem is that offenders may initially attack police in order to obtain guns. 4. Training and Qualifications. Recruited police officers must immediately attend a three-part training course, consisting of preservice, on-the-job, and a comprehensive training course. Those recruited by the PP are enrolled in a 1-year preservice training course at their respective police academies. 5. Discretion. *Use of force. Information not obtained. *Stop/apprehend a suspect. Information not obtained. *Decision to arrest. Information not obtained. *Search and seizure. Information not obtained. *Confessions. Admissions of testimony in court may not include confessions made under compulsion, torture or threat, or after prolonged detention or confinement. Conviction or punishment cannot be permitted where the only proof against the defendant is his or her own confession. 6. Accountability. Information not obtained. PROSECUTORIAL AND JUDICIAL PROCESS 1. Rights of the accused. *Rights of the accused. The Constitution is the source of individual rights in the setting of criminal investigations and trial. Article 31 declares, "No person shall be derived of life or liberty, nor shall any other penalty be imposed, except according to procedure established by law," which is regarded as the principle of due process. Article 33 covers protection from illegal arrest: "no person shall be arrested except upon a warrant issued by a competent judicial official, which specifies the offense with which a person is charged...,". Article 34 protects persons from illegal confinement and Article 35 protects persons from illegal deprivation of residence and property. Provisions directly governing trial proceedings provide that admissions of testimony must be compelling. There are also rights guaranteeing a speedy and public trial, full opportunity to examine all witnesses, and legal counsel by lawyers employed by the state if the accused cannot afford a private lawyer. In addition, a person cannot incur criminal liability if the act was lawful at the time it was committed, and cannot be subject to conviction for the same crime twice (double jeopardy). *Assistance to the accused. The state must provide legal counsel if the defendant cannot afford a private lawyer. 2. Procedures. *Preparatory procedures for bringing a suspect to trial. Procedure in criminal prosecutions is uniform throughout Japan, and based primarily on the 1948 Code of Criminal Procedure and the 1949 Rules of Criminal Procedure under the Constitutional Law, reflecting Anglo-American legal concepts in contexts important to the protection of human rights. When police investigation is completed, police must refer the matter, including the evidentiary data, immediately to a public prosecutor. If the matter involves confining a suspect, they must refer the case to the public prosecutor within 48 hours of the suspect's arrest after which a determination is made concerning pre-trial detention. The jury system has, for all practical purposes, been suspended. There are no procedures equivalent to a guilty plea. That is, even if the defendant acknowledges guilt, the prosecutor must submit evidence to establish guilt. Further, since the Japanese procedural system does not include pre-sentence investigations and reports by probation officers, evidentiary data bearing on the sentencing must be presented by the parties to the case, to be supplemented by the court's own inquiries. In this context, the court is the exclusive trier of fact, which consists of the physical evidence and, when that is the case, the confession of the accused as well as any witnesses testimony. *Official who conducts prosecution. Only prosecutors are empowered to institute the prosecution of a criminal case and to direct the enforcement of criminal sentences. They have a large amount of discretion in controlling and directing criminal cases. (Japanese Criminal Procedure Code, Art.248). Accordingly, they have the power to suspend prosecution even when they can prove the offender committed a crime. They can also investigate all categories of criminal cases on their own initiative, without assistance from the police and other law enforcement agencies. Special cases, such as bribery involving highly placed government officials or corporate crimes involving a breach of trust by executives are often investigated by prosecutors. The increasing frequency of the occurrence of these special cases have emphasized the importance of the prosecutor's investigative powers. Under the Supreme Public Prosecution Office are 8 higher offices, 50 district offices and 810 local offices. As of 1990, there were about 1,100 prosecutors and 900 assistant public officers, who are all appointed by the central government. * Alternatives to trial. Information not obtained. *Proportion of prosecuted cases going to trial. Japan has a low rate of acquittals and high rate of convictions. In 1988, there were 57,790 accused persons tried in first-instance courts, of which only 50 (0.01%) were found not guilty. Defense lawyers generally prefer the introduction of mitigating circumstantial evidence rather than arguing with the prosecutor. In addition, both practicing lawyers and judges regard criminal cases as being less attractive than other types of cases. *Pre-trial incarceration conditions. If the public prosecutor believes that continued detention of the accused is needed, he or she must apply to a judge for a warrant of detention. This warrant must be applied for within 24 hours after police transfer to the prosecutor, or a maximum of 72 hours from the time of arrest. If reasonable grounds to detain a suspect exist, the judge must promptly issue a warrant or order of detention at a maximum of 10 days before prosecution is instituted. Reasonable grounds are determined by three criteria: 1) whether the suspect has a fixed dwelling, 2) whether the suspect might destroy evidence and; 3) whether he might flee the jurisdiction. *Bail Procedure. Information not obtained. *Proportion of pre-trial offenders incarcerated. Information not obtained. JUDICIAL SYSTEM 1. Administration. Supreme Court. The hierarchy of the court structure in Japan places the Supreme Court at the highest level, under which High courts and District courts are located in their own jurisdictions. The Supreme Court exercises appellate jurisdiction. The Grand Bench of the Supreme Court deals mainly with the constitutional affairs and the Petty Bench deals with the rest. High Courts. High courts are located in 8 major cities, with each court having jurisdiction over one of the 8 regions into which Japan is divided. As a rule, their jurisdiction extends to appeals rendered against the judgments of district courts, family courts and summary courts. District Courts. There are 50 district courts handling cases within a judicial district, or the geographical area which corresponds to a given prefecture. The courts are subdivided into 201 branches. District courts are generally primary courts of first-instance or original jurisdiction. They do not hear family court and summary court cases. Summary Courts. Summary courts are located in cities, towns and villages and have original jurisdiction in criminal cases involving offenses punishable by a fine or lesser punishment, and other minor offenses such as theft of bicycles. There are 452 Summary courts. 2. Special Courts. Family Courts. Family courts are established in each judicial district, and deal with cases of juvenile delinquency and family concerns, such as domestic affairs. 3. Judges. *Number of judges. The Supreme Court consists of the Chief Justice and 14 Justices, of which one is female. There are a total of about 280 High court judges. The District Courts are staffed by about 910 judges and 460 assistant judges. There are about 800 Summary court judges throughout the country. *Appointment and qualifications. The recruitment system in the Japanese judicial agencies is based on the National Judicial Examination. Candidates for judgeships, prosecutors, and practicing lawyers must pass this national level examination. The examination is so competitive that only 700 in 24,000 candidates pass yearly. The average age of the candidates is 29. After the candidates pass the exam, they train for their profession for two years at the Training Institute. PENALTIES AND SENTENCING 1. Sentencing Process. *Who determines the sentence? Information not obtained. *Is there a special sentencing hearing? Information not obtained. *Which persons have input into the sentencing process? Information not obtained. 2. Types of Penalties. *Range of penalties. Under Japanese Criminal Law, there are six main penalties: death, imprisonment with labor, imprisonment without labor, fines (more than 10,000 yen), penal detention (short imprisonment up to 30 days), and minor fines (less than 10,000 yen). There are also supplementary penalties, such as the forfeiture or confiscation of physical objects used in the commission of offenses or obtained as a result of the crime. *Death penalty. There are 14 categories of offenses punishable by the death penalty, but in practice only murder and robbery that results in the death of the victim, result in a death penalty. The Juvenile Law prohibits the death penalty from being imposed on anyone below 18 years old. The method of execution is hanging. In recent years, use of the death penalty has been controversial and there has been a movement toward its abolition. This movement has been powered in part by the United Nations' decision on abolition and a series of cases in which miscarriages of justice occurred. However, polls indicate that the general public approves of the death penalty. From 1988 to 1992, the number of defendants sentenced to capital punishment has decreased. Executions substantially depend on the will of the Minister of Justice. In the 3 years between 1990 and March 1993, there were no executions. Since March of 1993, seven prisoners have been executed. Presently, there are many in prison awaiting execution. The numbers of inmates sentenced to capital punishment in recent times are: 12 (1988), 5 (1989), 6 (1990), 5 (1991), and 5 (1992). PRISON 1. Description. *Number of prisons and type. In 1992, there were 59 prisons, 8 juvenile prisons, 3 medical prisons, 7 detention centers, 8 branch prisons, 2 medical branch prisons, and 107 branch detention centers throughout Japan. Juvenile correctional institutions include 54 juvenile training schools, 52 juvenile classification homes, and 1 branch juvenile classification home. There are 6 prisons for females. Not until 1969 were open prisons first established in Japan. When the United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Treatment of Offenders was held in Kyoto in 1970, the government planned to build the open prisons exclusively for offenders convicted of traffic offenses, which are considered serious offenses in Japan. In 1989, there were eight institutions for traffic offenders. For the other offenders, open-type "live in" camps serve as a form of intermediate prison for persons whose release is imminent. *Number of prison beds. As of the end of 1992, there were 63,773 prisoners, using 70.7% of prison bed capacity. Because of the shortage of prison cells for nonconvicted persons, the Prison Law police cells to be used even after persons are committed to a prosecuting agency. However, this situation threatens human rights in that the persons concerned cannot communicate with other persons from inside the police cell. Cases resulting in a miscarriage of justice have occurred involving police pressure to extract a confession. Due to financial reasons, the Ministry of Justice has emphasized the difficulty of constructing more prison cells. In light of the international criticism given to this situation (Daiyo-Kangoku), it is expected that the government will eventually decrease the use of police cells and construct more prison cells. *Number of annual admissions. In 1992, a total of 22,296 persons were newly admitted to penal institutions, of which 20,864 were newly sentenced prisoners. Also in 1992, 4,356 juvenile school trainees and 1,051 inmates of juvenile classification homes were admitted. *Average daily population/number of prisoners. In 1992, the average daily population of prisoners was 44,875, of which 37,522 were convicted inmates. *Actual or estimated proportions of inmates incarcerated. Information not obtained. 2. Administration. *Administration. All prisons are administered by the central government, that is, by the Correctional Bureau of the Ministry of Justice. There are no local or private prisons. *Number of prison guards. In 1989, penal institutions in Japan were staffed by about 17,000 officials and employees, which included 820 governors, 1,500 assistant governors, 12,000 guards and 1,200 specialists. Among the 2,500 staff members of juvenile training schools, there were 130 administrators, 2,000 instructors, 90 medical specialists, and 1,200 other staff members. Among the 1,200 staff members of juvenile classification homes, there were 120 administrative officers and 230 classification specialists and instructors. *Training and qualifications. Information not obtained. *Expenditure on prison system. Information not obtained. 3. Prison conditions. *Remissions. While probation procedures can be conducted by volunteer persons or groups, the situation of offender after-care is more formalized. The Rehabilitation Bureau of the Ministry of Justice officially administers the general practices of after-care, such as probation services, parole supervision and community-based treatment. However, in reality, many citizens cooperate with the officers in doing these tasks. In fact, the number of salaried probation officers is only 850 throughout all Japan. This is supplemented with a system of Volunteer Probation Officers (Hogoshi) which involves 48,000 volunteer probation officers who are appointed by the Ministry of Justice. The officers must be qualified, have a confidence and reputation in the community, enthusiasm, time, availability, financial stability and good health. In 1922, the government adopted the volunteer probation officer system for treatment of juvenile delinquency and extended the system's use to adult treatment after World War II. Nongovernmental bodies, authorized by the government organize rehabilitation aid hostels or halfway-houses which provide accommodation for offenders released from penal institutions. In 1992, the number of probationers and parolees totaled 90,419, of which juveniles comprised the majority of clients. *Work/education. In principle, treatment in Japan is based on rehabilitation of offenders, with the objective of individualized treatment of offenders to correct their criminal inclination and secure their reintegration into the community where they will live. A system of scientific classification of offenders has been adopted in order to individualize such treatment. However, this progressive system, in which an offender gradually obtains freedom in proportion to his or her efforts while serving the prison sentence, has become less useful for rehabilitation because it has come to be regarded as an absolute necessity for every prisoner. In general, most Japanese prisons own their own factory. Treatment of prisoners is mainly focused on work in the factory, usually for 8 hours a day. * Amenities/privileges. Information not obtained. EXTRADITION AND TREATIES *Extradition. Information not obtained. *Exchange and transfer of prisoners. Information not obtained. *Specified conditions. Information not obtained. SOURCES Moriyama T., "Citizen Associations and the Volunteer Probation Officer", UNICRI (ed.), (In)formal Mechanisms of Crime Control, 1988. Moriyama, T. "The Response to Delinquency by Formal Agencies in Japan", J. Hackler (ed.), Official responses to Problem Juveniles, the Onate International Institute, 1991. National Police Agency. The Police of Japan, 1991. Summary of the White Paper on Crime 1991 Research and Training Institute of Ministry of Justice. Shkita, M. and Tsuchiya, S., Crime and Criminal Policy in Japan. (Springer-Verlag), 1992. Tadashi Moriyana Associate Professor Takushoku University 3-4-14 Kohinata, Bunkyo Tokyo 112 Japan Fax: 81-424-72-9791 | <urn:uuid:94cca7a8-e4f6-48e1-9071-cf9f0c7d766a> | http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/WFBCJJAP.TXT | en | 0.961969 | 0.057834 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Smyths Toy Superstores opening near you soon
Are you looking for a fun filled career? Are you ambitious, hard working, energetic and reliable? If you are, SMYTHS TOY SUPERSTORES have the perfect position for you.
Smyths Toy Superstores are an established and rapidly expanding toy retailer specialising in toys, software and nursery products. | <urn:uuid:90a54a5e-9df4-45c9-aabd-01759cacc189> | http://candidatemanager.net/cm/micro/joblist.aspx?mid=YUUU&a=ep4rUsSOZaY%3D | en | 0.891828 | 0.055705 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Monday, 24 August 2009
Theoretical framework
This research is of clients’ relationships with consultants in public sector information technology (IT) projects. It will seek to identify and explain how the client engages with consultants and other suppliers in order to add value to a project.
The research question is:
How do public sector organisations engage with consultants in order to contribute to an effective IT project?
Sub questions include:
1. How does engagement contribute to an effective project?
2. How does engagement influence relationships?
3. How does the quality of relationships contribute to an effective project?
4. How does engagement vary over the life cycle of a project?
5. How does engagement help in adding value to a project?
Empirical answers to these questions could fill the gap on understanding engagement between clients and consultants. Insights could also contribute to public sector practical management of external consultants to reap value from their contribution to a project.
A review of the literature on consultancy has shown that client entities and relationships are complex. This and the literature on project management show that clients must engage with consultants for good project outcomes. A review of the literature on engagement focused on conceptualisations of engagement but also explored its various articulations. However, the literature has little to say on what client-consultant engagement might be. It is not clear how engagement manifests itself, what its factors might be or what sort of engagement leads to effective consultancy projects.
The literature on social capital allows a conceptualisation of the issue of engagement between consultants and clients on IT projects. The following sections will explain how social capital might be used as a framework for this exploration.
1 What is the problem?
Public sector IT projects often use external consultants, but are also notoriously expensive and often fail. A common cause of project failure is lack of effective engagement with stakeholders (OGC, 2002). In the public sector, engagement is “a critical element of a consulting project” (NAO, 2006a). The National Audit Office (NAO) exhorts clients and consultants to engage to ensure commitment, thus implying that engagement will improve performance and add value to a project. Public servants are advised to engage with consultants and consultants with their clients, but it is not clear how engagement happens or what a good quality of engagement is.
Czerniawska (Czerniawska, 2006) implies two meanings to the term ‘engagement’: the contractual engagement and the relationship. A contract of engagement may mean only initial seeking and selection but this research concerns the longer term relationship regardless of contractual arrangements. Unfortunately Czerniawska has little to say on the value of engagement as a longer term developed relationship, although she recognises that engagement as a relationship determines the success of consulting projects.
The NAO exhortation for engagement seems to be aiming at continued shared understanding; engagement must be mutual. The NAO considers from the findings of case studies that senior level engagement is crucial for successful delivery of IT enabled change (NAO, 2006c) because such engagement demonstrates senior management is committed to the change. This NAO report(NAO, 2006c) requires demonstration of commitment through engagement whilst the other NAO report (NAO, 2006a) requires ensuring commitment through engagement. There might be some confusion or inconsistency of understanding of what engagement means and does for an organisation.
So confusion and inconsistency suggest that it is a problem to understand engagement. Whether engagement is a knowable phenomenon is a moot point. Definitions of engagement are woolly and soft. Hence engagement is “a paradigm for change” (Axelrod, 2001), “the art of bringing people together” (Block, 2000), “a journey of sensing and learning” (Buckingham, 2005). It is also a two way relationship between employee and employer (Robinson D, 2004), a management philosophy (Smythe, 2007) and “a process of communication” (McMaster, 1996). Mutual engagement is a dimension of a community of practice that involves processes of community building (Wenger, 1998). In summary, engagement is a paradigm, a journey, a relationship, a philosophy, a process, an art and to the NAO “an element of a consulting project”. This variety of metaphors suggests engagement is a constructed phenomenon.
Since different constructions seem to conflate engagement with other phenomena like involvement, participation, commitment, collaboration or even motivation, I explored them in the hope of clarifying some concepts of engagement. Previous research on engagement seems to have focused on outcomes and products, being mainly surveys or quasi-experimental (Gable, 1996, Saks, 2006, Schaufeli et al., 2006) but the research question requires looking at the process of engagement and how connecting people builds trust and the commitment that the NAO wants to ensure. That process includes an ongoing negotiation of meaning (Wenger, 1998). Exploration of how meaning is negotiated might be possible using the concept of social capital. Adler and Kwon { 2002 } identify social capital as “as the good will that is engendered by the fabric of social relations and that can be mobilized to facilitate action". It may be possible to relate “the fabric of social relations” to the client-consultant relationship and the “mobilisation of goodwill to engagement”. Hence, the concept of social capital could help in exploring client-consultant engagement.
2 Why is this framework feasible?
Social capital theory can provide a way to explore engagement in relationships between clients and consultants. Its literature provides a framework for performing the specific investigation that is being proposed.
Social capital can be conceptualised as a stock of networks, norms and trust. People develop social capital in organisations. Organisations nurture social capital, which supports the development of intellectual capital because it comes though interaction of people sharing knowledge (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998). Sharing knowledge, norms, and establishing social capital through people coming together on a project, provides the organisation with an advantage.
Nahapiet & Ghoshal (1998) suggest three dimensions for creating intellectual capital through social capital:
• the structural dimension of network ties, configuration and appropriable organisation,
• the cognitive dimension of shared codes, language and narratives, and
• the relationship dimension of trust, established norms and obligations of how people behave.
Each dimension contributes in different combinations to create new intellectual capital. Combinations of the dimensions of social capital allow exchange of intellectual capital, and anticipation of value through that exchange. Value anticipated in an IT project may be other than an exchange of intellectual capital. Value may be gained from a project that delivers on time, to budget, and meets all or most of the objectives set for it. These project attributes are valuable to the parties involved. Delivery of such IT projects may be facilitated through a combination of the dimensions of social capital.
The social capital framework guides the interview questions, the three dimensions providing headings for asking questions of interviewees about relationships, concepts used and understanding.
The interview schedule relates the research question and sub questions through the social capital framework.
Questions are based round four headings:
1. background (of project and participant),
2. relationships,
3. knowledge (or learning), and
4. value.
Background is important because it provides the context. The questions may elicit structural dimensions of social capital.
Relationships matter. How do the relationships create value? The interview questions here concern social capital in the relationship and structural dimensions. Questions are to identify networks of relationships and the strength of ties between people. One question asks for a specific anecdote or story in an attempt to get more precise descriptions rather than general opinion. See {Kvale, 1996 }. These questions also aim to elicit lack of engagement in relationships, in order to reveal if the consultant and client have little in common, or need no more than a passing connection.
Knowledge: rather than directly asking about knowledge the questions are about learning and what people have learned from each other. How do they use that knowledge? This gives some idea of what value has developed from relationships.
Value: Building shared meanings is part of the cognitive dimension of social capital. There may be value gained through learning and sharing meaning. Sharing meaning may provide valuable non-financial, un-measurable qualitative gain.
Some interview questions elicit information in more than one dimension.
In summary, social capital theory offers enough complexity to provide a conceptual framework for the examination of issues of engagement between clients and consultants.
Is that completely clear? Will it be clear to my supervisors?
ADLER, P. S. & KWON, S.-W. (2002) SOCIAL CAPITAL: PROSPECTS FOR A NEW CONCEPT. Academy of Management Review, 27, 17-40.
AXELROD, R. H. (2001) Terms of engagement: changing the way we change organizations, San Francisco, Berrett-Koehler.
BLOCK, P. (2000) Flawless Consulting: a guide to getting your expertise used, Jossey-Bass/Fpeiffer.
BUCKINGHAM, M. (2005) Chapter FOUR: 'Buy-in', not by-pass: the rules of engagement. Leadership for Leaders. Thorogood Publishing Ltd.
CZERNIAWSKA, F. (2006) Ensuring sustainable value from consultants. MCA. Management Consultancy Association.
GABLE, G. G. (1996) A multidimensional model of client success when engaging external consultants. Management Science, 42, 1175-1198.
KVALE, S. (1996) InterViews : an introduction to qualitative research interviewing, Thousand Oaks, CA ; London, Sage.
MCMASTER, M. D. (1996) The Intelligence Advantage: organizing for complexity, Butterworth-Heinemann.
NAHAPIET, J. & GHOSHAL, S. (1998) Social capital, intellectual capital, and the organizational advantage. Academy of Management Review, 23, 242-266.
NAO (2006a) Central Government's use of consultants: Building client and consultant commitment. IN NATIONAL AUDIT OFFICE (Ed.). HMSO.
NAO (2006b) Delivering successful IT-enabled business change: Case studies of success. IN NATIONAL AUDIT OFFICE (Ed.). HMSO.
OGC (2002) Common Causes of Project Failure. National Audit Office and the Office of Government Commerce.
ROBINSON D, P. S., HAYDAY S (2004) The Drivers of Employee Engagement. Institute for Employment Studies.
SAKS, A. M. (2006) Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21, 600-619.
SCHAUFELI, W. B., BAKKER, A. B. & SALANOVA, M. (2006) The Measurement of Work Engagement With a Short Questionnaire: A Cross-National Study. Educational & Psychological Measurement, 66, 701-716.
SMYTHE, J. (2007) The CEO chief engagement officer: turning hierarchy upside down to drive performance, Gower.
WENGER, E. (1998) Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
No comments: | <urn:uuid:144229b0-6266-4266-8430-bfe10c40c0fc> | http://phd-ejh2.blogspot.com/2009/08/theoretical-framework_24.html | en | 0.890781 | 0.043148 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Geoffrey Colvin
Who Lost Super Bowl III?
Summer 1995
We can all recite the list: there was Woodstock and the 1968 Democratic Convention and Kent State and Hair. The King and Kennedy assassinations. Soul on Ice. Close to 30 years after the Great Change in America's culture, authors and filmmakers have pretty well settled on the defining moments of that era and iconized them as definitively as Mount Rushmore. But they've missed a big one. Maybe it seemed trivial in the grand sweep of world historical events. Certainly it was not overtly political or cultural at all. Indeed, it was only a game. But for millions of Americans this three-hour drama made the Great Cultural Change more real, more personal, vital, irrefutable—no joke—than any other. It was Super Bowl III, played on January 12, 1969.
Yes, you're right in recalling that this was one of the most famous football games ever, and it has received tons of media attention over the years. But what hasn't sufficiently been appreciated is the enormous load of symbolic freight it carried, quite accidentally, thanks to the events of the just-ended annus mirabilis of 1968. The game slammed many of its millions of viewers hard in the chest, left them dazed and disoriented, because it was an almost perfectly framed ritualized combat between the Old Culture and the New Culture then at war in the larger society. And the New Culture won.
It may seem audacious or just silly to assert that any football game could exert such an effect. It isn't. We all know—even those who haven't felt it have seen it—that for many people sports hold more immediacy and emotional reality than almost any other part of life. When the University of Nebraska won the national college football title this past January, Nebraskans drove hundreds of miles across the state and waited in sub-zero cold outside the college bookstore in Lincoln to buy Sports Illustrated's commemorative issue—at a rate of 10,000 copies an hour. Many people expend more time and passion debating a coach's strategy or a player's value than settling important family matters. Everyone has witnessed (or joined in) acts of craziness—all of them acts of profound, intense identification with a team—that sports fans routinely commit.
Sports reach into ancient parts of the psyche, especially the male psyche, that adore the pureness of the conflict, the formalized battle in which the two sides, symbolizing what ever the fan cares to see in them, fight it out to unambiguous victory and loss. While celebrating aggression, sports also contain it, codify it, give society a safe place to put it. Screaming for one group to beat the living daylights out of another is apparently something we're going to do no matter what. Asking citizens to do it en masse at an appointed hour and place on Sunday afternoon is not only less risky than letting them improvise; it also tells everyone, fans or not, that this form of theatrical violence as distinct from any other kind is something the whole community can legitimately participate in.
Deeply different communities provided part of the extra tension of Super Bowl III, when the Baltimore Colts confronted the New York Jets, teams whose very names evoked separate Americas. Baltimore was then a fairly grimy industrial city whose blue-collar Colts fans turned out in huge numbers to cheer players with whom they had at least this in common: they earned a living through punishing physical exertion. The Colts were a large enough part of the city's life that priests on Sunday morning would sometimes request divine assistance for the team that afternoon. No one ever, ever called Baltimore glamorous, and it's a safe bet that most of America almost never even thought of it.
New York, by contrast, was, well, the capital of the world, all flash and excitement, the bright, irresistible focus of most everything big. It made sense that plenty of New Yorkers would identify strongly with the Jets, a brash team in a vigorous young league out to make people notice. Johnny Carson loved to make fun of Mayor Lindsay for calling New York "fun city," but the whole nation laughed because New York was the center. It mattered. Hardly anyone said then that the basis of the U.S. economy was shifting from manufacturing to information and services, but it was—and as it did, no one could miss the sense that Baltimore felt like the past, New York like now.
On this day in January 1969, fans could not help but see a great deal at stake. It's hard now to recall the starkness of the conflict between the Old Culture and the New, or indeed much about the vanquished Old Culture at all. Begin by remembering that the Super Bowl was still a novel concept, and in early 1969 it resonated deeply with many of the turbulent events under way in the society. As a matter of bare facts, the Super Bowl represented simply a successful business being challenged by a promising startup: the National Football League had been around for decades, and in 1960 a few businessmen decided to finance some competition, calling it the American Football League. It became sufficiently popular that an interleague championship game made economic sense. Logical enough. But to the NFL's more numerous and more deeply invested fans, this felt like something more.
Identifying in a pre-rational way with their teams, like all sports fans, they saw the established order under assault.
This adrenaline-triggering situation loudly echoed others in the world at large. Cocky young people were speaking confidently about "the Revolution," and while this was obviously nonsense—surely, surely it was nonsense—there had nonetheless been those troubling events at the Democratic Convention in Chicago the previous August, when things had come just that close to getting out of hand. Also there had been similar problems in the streets of Paris the previous May, when the police had seemed by no means in control. Students at Columbia University had taken over the president's office in April; in a memorable photo, a long-haired, mustachioed rebel sat at the president's desk, wearing sunglasses, staring coolly ahead, smoking a cigar, looking just as if he were . . . in charge, For that matter, the North Vietnamese in January had startled the world with their Tet offensive, scoring advances so impressive that Walter Cronkite demanded, on the air: " What the hell is going on? I thought we were winning this war." Plenty of Americans felt the same way. All this had happened in just the previous 12 months. It was worrisome enough to make a person wonder about established orders and whether somehow they were all running out of luck at the same time.
Reading the numerous articles written about Super Bowl III in the weeks before it was played, one is struck by bow many of the writers insist, just a bit too confidently, that the AFL is a "minor league," a bunch of third- stringers who can forget about ever matching the NFL. One senses a strong wish to be convinced that the NFL's seemingly natural superiority would be eternal. You want proof? Just look at the first two Super Bowls in which Lombardi's Packers crushed the Kansas City Chiefs and the Oakland Raiders. (The Packers: in our New Culture world, where pro teams are named for sensory pleasures—the Jazz, the Heat, the Magic—it's difficult to summon an earlier age when an important team was christened after men who cut up beef carcasses and put the pieces in boxes.) Of course the Packers, now without Lombardi, wouldn't be playing in Super Bowl III, The Colts were the new league champions, by most accounts even better than the Packers, One could cling to a certain comfort in the NFL's established dominance, just as one could and many did—in the dominance of the police in Chicago and of the U.S. forces in Vietnam.
Even sharper than the symbolism of the established vs. insurgent leagues was that of the players, two players in particular. People naturally see all conflict as personal. Only in that way does it seize the imagination: Grant vs. Lee, the King vs. the Kaiser, Churchill vs. Hitler. The battle between the New Culture and the Old in the late sixties shaped up personally in several highly public arenas, gripping people according to their interests: Gene McCarthy vs. Lyndon Johnson, Abbie Hoffman vs. Mayor Daley, Gore Vidal vs. William Buckley. The most innocent and unlikely of these conflicts nonetheless packed huge emotive power in millions of American souls. It pitted Joe Namath against Johnny Unitas.
Namath was the quarterback for that year's presumed punching bag, the AFL champion Jets, and Unitas quarterback (though no longer a starter) for the Colts, Unitas, immovably established as true of the game's all-time greats, otherwise called little attention to himself. Namath was well on his way to greatness and was also a single young man from the sticks suddenly placed in New York City with a lot of money and notoriety. The press couldn't resist him. As a type, neither man was unusual. But the era made them symbols, and in casting an allegory of New Culture vs. Old Culture it would have been hard to do much better.
The largest point of difference between the two cultures was, of course, how they regarded deferral of gratification, which was either the foundation of civilization or a particularly priggish instrument of Establishment oppression. With this central value of the Old Culture under powerful siege, it was impossible not to see its fate being decided, single-combat-style, in this battle of one who embodied it vs. one who emphatically did not.
Unitas was married with four children and lived in a Baltimore suburb. His idea of a pleasant evening was having friends over for his wife's lasagna and coffee afterward. He went to bed early and got up early, partly so he could make it to Mass before practice or a game. His haircut, a flat-top, appeared to require about three minutes of the barber's time. Rejection and sacrifice were the themes of his story: growing up poor in Pittsburgh, he earned spending money shoveling coal for 75 cents a ton. His talent was apparent in high school, but Notre Dame and Indiana turned him down before the much less exalted University of Louisville took him on. After college the Pittsburgh Steelers drafted him, then never played him—not once. Dropped from the team, he signed with the semi-pro Bloomfield Rams for $6 a game. The Colts picked him up there in 1956, and 11 years later, his legend established, he signed a three-year contract at $100,000 a year. His view of the social revolution seemed broadly conventional. "Today they call 'em hippies," he said in 1968. " Ten years ago they were bums." Nearly everything about him was comforting, Eisenhower-era, likable, even admirable. He was one of the last players in football to wear the old high-top black cleats.
Namath lived in a penthouse in Manhattan's East Seventies. He liked staying up late, drinking, and women, and there is very little evidence that he denied himself any of these amusements. He certainly showed up hungover at some practices and probably at some games. He broke training, got into a fight in a bar. When he graduated from Alabama as one of the country's most celebrated college players, the new AFL teams competing with the NFL for talent were pushing salaries up. Namath confided to Alabama coach Bear Bryant that he hoped to get $100,000 a year. On Bryant's advice, he asked the NFL's St. Louis Cardinals for $200,000 and a Lincoln Continental ("I just always wanted one of those cars"). To his amazement, the Cardinals responded within a day: no problem. Thus began bidding that ended with the Cardinals and the Jets both offering an unheard-of $400,000; Namath decided he wanted to live in New York.
Unitas was perfectly clear on how he felt about this, and it was a picture of modesty and high-mindedness. "I've never been one to worry about what the other fellow had, like during the pro war, when some of those college kids were making the big bonuses," he told the Sporting News in 1967. "I was all for them getting whatever they could get. I never worried that I wasn't getting it. Some people in life, though, have a loaf of bread under one arm and are unhappy when they see another man who has two loaves of bread ." Could he really have been this serene? Maybe. In any case, it was the face he presented to the world.
It was far from what the world saw of Namath. Expressing the if-it-feels- good-do-it ethos then gaining strength, he told an interviewer, "As long as I like something and I feel I'm not hurting myself or somebody else, well, I try to do it." His hair was long; a goatee came and went; he grew a Fu Manchu mustache, then shaved it off when Schick paid him $10,000 to do so on camera. Unitas's tastes differed markedly. "Every boy can't have a lot of money to buy clothes, but at least he can be clean-shaven and neatly dressed," he told groups of high schoolers to whom he regularly spoke. "I can't stand kids with this long hair." Namath's vast wardrobe was urgently mod, and a friend reported he had more shoes than anyone had ever seen (Mrs. Marcos's closet having not yet opened to the public). He was the first player in football to wear white cleats.
If the Old Culture was valuable, if it worked—a matter that seemed suddenly, alarmingly in question throughout the society—then could there be any doubt which of these men would win?
In the NFL loyalist view there was simply no comparison. Unitas was not just the greatest quarterback of the age but also, said many, the greatest of all tinge. San Francisco 49er coach Jack Christiansen said, very much in the language of the Old Culture, "As long as the Colts have Unitas, they could play with nine or ten girls and still beat other teams." For the September 1968 issue of Esquire, the editors asked a friend and teammate of Namath's to write an article based on an interview with him. Then, apparently without telling Namath, they asked a sportswriter named Al Hirshberg to append comments, mostly biting, which were printed in the article's margins. Namath praised Jets coach Weeb Ewbank by noting that, even when angry, he never tried to demean Namath by comparing him unfavorably with other quarterbacks he had coached, including Unitas. To anyone who could distinguish the gods from the groundlings of football, this was breathtaking hubris. Hirshberg asked incredulously: "Is it possible that Joe Namath really believes that Weeb Ewbank ever compared him to Johnny Unitas?"
These two symbolized the cultural conflict of the era in other ways as well Don't trust anyone over 30? Unitas was 35, Namath 25. As the divorce rate began to rise and some thinkers even questioned the value of conventional families, who would prevail—the devoted family man or the swinging bachelor who said he "would rather go to Vietnam than get married"? Namath didn't go to Vietnam because his famously rickety knees got him classified 4-F; this didn't stop some from calling him a draft dodger. Unitas was too old to be drafted but visited Vietnam in 1967; on his return he reported, "I didn't see any long hair in Vietnam, but I met a lot of heroes."
Then there was deportment. Unitas conformed to the longstanding athletic ideal of an earnest, modest straightshooter: you said sir and ma'am, and as for the opponents, they're a fine team, and we'll certainly do our best against them. Spurred by some Namath remarks just before Super Bowl III, Bubba Smith, the Colts' enormous 23-year-old defensive end, responded with as fine a statement of the old ideal as one will ever hear: "A football player who's real good doesn't have to talk. The Green Bay Packers were real champions. They never talked. They never had to. This is the way I visualize all champions—solemn, dignified, humble. My father coached me at Charlton Pollard High School in Beaumont, Texas, and he taught us to be humble off the field. Inside, I've got to feel I'm the best, but if I tell you I'm the best, then I'm a fool."
Recalling this ideal takes effort. It's easy to believe that sportsmanship has always been a hazy concept among professionals, who after all don't pretend to be playing for anything but money. Yet standards of behavior have decidedly changed, mainly toward self-indulgence. By now we're accustomed to players spiking the ball after a touchdown, to linebackers doing little mid- field dances after tackles they're particularly proud of. This immodesty was unimaginable in 1969. We're also used to athletes announcing their own greatness, and while by 1969 Muhammad Ali had pioneered this practice, it remained sufficiently shocking to attract plenty of attention for Namath. He thought a lot of himself and said so, often. Someone asked him during the 1968 season if he ever thought about someday succeeding Unitas as the game's best quarterback. "No," he replied, laughing, "because I feel that way now." Worse, he openly disparaged the other side, saying the AFL had at least four quarterbacks who were better than the Colts' scheduled starter, Earl Morrall. Told the Colts were taking these insults seriously, he said, "If what I say upsets them, they must not be pros." And then, in the most famous quote of his life, he told a roomful of journalists a few days before Super Bowl III, with a double scotch in his hand, "We're going to win this game. I guarantee it."
He guaranteed it! Oddly, in retrospect, this remark may have raised more cumulative blood pressure among those who felt the old order threatened than did any other development before the game. One, you simply did not say things like that the old ideal forbade it and two, didn't he know the Colts were 17- point favorites? Like the era's many other suddenly energized insurgents, Namath seemed to be denying all rationality, expressing placid confidence that the world really could be turned upside down.
But how could it? Jimmy the Greek had explained in detail exactly how he had determined that point spread: four points because the Colts' offensive line was better than the Jets', four points because the Colts' linebackers were better, four points because their cornerbacks were better, two points for better running backs, and three points for "the NFL mystique and Don Shula's coaching." It was as clear and irrefutable as our superiority in Vietnam. Further, such reasoning worked: the point spread had accurately predicted the outcomes of the first two Super Bowls. This was the largest spread yet.
By kickoff time, bettors had pushed it to 19 1/2 points.
Skies were cloudy all day in Miami on January 12. These were the days when Super Bowls still began in mid-afternoon, Eastern time, forsaking extra TV viewers avail able in the evening; but on this occasion the sun wouldn't get in anybody's eyes. As planned, Namath started for the Jets, Earl Morrall for the Colts. Unitas had suffered tendonitis in his throwing arm for months, and Morrall, until that season a career second-string quarterback, had come into his own at age 34; sportswriters had voted him the NFL's most valuable player of the season. So while the game began as a clash of forces with plenty of symbolic power, the exquisitely pointed conflict of Namath vs. Unitas would have to wait.
The Jets won the toss and chose to receive. Lou Michaels of the Colts kicked off at 3:05 PM.
No one scored m the first quarter, which is not the way blowouts usually begin. A bit ominously, Morrall kept getting intercepted.
In the second quarter the Jets scored a touchdown when Namath handed off to fullback Matt Snell at the 4-yard line. The half ended: Jets 7, Colts 0.
The effect was disorienting. Still, things had plenty of time to return to their natural order. It was only halftime.
On the first play from scrimmage in the third quarter, Morrall fumbled at his own 33-yard line. The Jets recovered and after a few plays kicked a field goal. On the next series of downs, Morrall threw an incomplete pass, then threw a completion for no gain, then was sacked for a loss. The Colts punted. Namath then commanded a drive that included four complete passes and set up another Jets field goal. The Jets now led 13-0 with 3:58 left in the third quarter.
Suddenly, somehow, the situation had become desperate. The studied confidence of half time had vaporized. No Colts fan could any longer find a comforting thought.
After the Jets' field goal, Curley Johnson's kickoff hit the goal posts, so the ball was brought out to the 20. Then the Colts' offensive unit took the field. But Morrall stayed on the bench. Out trundled Unitas.
This was, of course, electrifying: the aging, injured legend now the last hope to retrieve a near-hopeless situation. But on this day, in this game, in early 1969, it was much more. Now America's millions would see which culture, Old or New, was ascendant.
On his first play Unitas hand ed off to running back Tom Matte for a five- yard gain. Then he completed a pass for no gain, then threw another pass—incomplete. The Colts punted and the Jets took over.
The Jets pushed forward and early in the fourth quarter kicked another field goal. The score was now 16-0, almost reversing Jimmy the Greek's wide point spread.
This was becoming incredible.
On the Colts' next series of downs, their runners moved the ball to the Jets' 25—a prime scoring opportunity. Unitas threw incomplete. Another pass—intercepted, heartbreakingly, in the end zone.
The Jets took over at their 20 but failed to score. On a fourth down punt, the ball went back to the Colts, who took over on their own 20.
Then Unitas began to do what he was famous for, putting together a rapid 80- yard drive that ended in a touchdown at last, with running back Jerry Hill going in from the 1.
With 3:19 remaining, the Colts tried an utterly predictable onside kick—and recovered. Hope dawned. Dear God, victory was actually possible—and far less improbable than anyone who didn't know Unitas would have assumed. This was just the sort of miraculous, waning—moments come back Unitas had spent a career pulling off. He had done it four times the previous season. In one of those games, against the formidable Packers, the Colts had trailed 10-0 with 6:22 remaining. Unitas had led a touchdown drive, followed by a recovered onside kick, and, with just 1:19 left, had added another touchdown for the victory. Some football writers said these dramatic finishes defined Unitas as a player. He was renowned for his "two-minute drill," a series of plays he would run in rapid succession, without huddles. When fans saw Unitas start the drill in a game's final minutes, they knew what was coming, and the excitement became almost unbearable.
They saw him starting it now. Everyone remembered why he was an immortal. For a flickering instant, the old order opened its eyes and resumed breathing.
Now Unitas needed another touchdown, fast.
Two completions moved the ball 20 yards for a first down.
It was happening.
On the ensuing series Unitas's first pass was complete for a five-yard gain.
Here we go.
His second pass was tipped away by a Jet defender. His third pass was too short.
Two and a half minutes remained.
Unitas's fourth-down pass, if complete, would keep hope alive. If incomplete, then all was lost.
Unitas fired at Jimmy Orr, an end. Jet linebacker Larry Grantham batted the ball away.
Orr never touched it.
At 5:49 PM the game ended. Namath loped off the field, head bowed, his index finger in the air wagging "Number 1." It's a piece of film every football fan has seen and will never forget.
The reasons for the upset are not especially dramatic. The Jets defense, which so effectively shut down the Colts offense, gets most of the credit. Namath actually played a fairly conservative game, passing less than usual. The failure of virtually anybody to predict the outcome, while remarkable, is easier to understand when one considers that the AFL and NFL played no interleague games during the season.
But what did any of that matter? The Jets popped champagne corks in their locker room, the Colts sat morose and silent in theirs.
The question had been decided.
If the millions of Americans who rose blinking from their seats sensed they had seen the beginnings of a new world, later events would confirm the feeling—though few could have seen what was coming. The triumph of the New Culture, the ascendance of self-gratification, the demise of the old sports ethic that Bubba Smith so eloquently expressed all were part of the cultural unraveling that has shaped the past three decades and that continues to be reflected in sports. With the ideal of an athlete no longer defined by an elevated character, or by much of anything other than the size of one's contract, sports began to lose the place of authority they had held in the culture. Slowly but ineluctably they have come to be regarded as another form of programming. Their richer meaning has mostly been drained away. Nothing expressed the trend better than last year's baseball strike, which most Americans regarded as two groups of whining millionaires having a spat, without the dimmest consciousness that anything larger might be at stake. When the game returned, late, for the 1995 season, fans shrugged. What was there here to stir the soul?
This emptiness, so characteristic of this age, is many years and many steps distant from January 12, 1969. But the road between the two is a straight one. Even at the time, Super Bowl III had the feel of a defining moment in the culture. In retrospect, its status is not in doubt.
respondrespondTEXT SIZE
If you enjoyed
this article,
why not subscribe | <urn:uuid:458bc71c-8e51-4cc3-996e-629f61e5449d> | http://www.city-journal.org/html/5_3_a3.html | en | 0.981034 | 0.049374 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Case Number 18958
Universal // 1960 // 197 Minutes // Rated PG-13
Reviewed by Judge Clark Douglas // May 24th, 2010
The Charge
Opening Statement
Facts of the Case
Spartacus (Kirk Douglas, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) has been a slave ever since his childhood. After he bites a Roman soldier, Spartacus is sentenced to death by starvation, but his life is saved by Lentulus Batiatus (Peter Ustinov, Lorenzo's Oil), a man looking for healthy slaves to participate in gladiatorial games. Spartacus spends many long, hard months training to enter the arena and battle to the death, though he dreads the prospect of actually having to kill one of his fellow slaves. During this time, he meets and befriends a female slave named Varinia (Jean Simmons, Great Expectations), though their interactions are understandably limited.
After being forced to participate in a brutal conflict for the entertainment of the powerful Crassus (Laurence Olivier, The Boys From Brazil), Spartacus determines to take action, leading the slaves in a violent uprising. The gladiators successfully escape from their captors, taking over various territories and gathering recruits as they continue their rebellion. Meanwhile, back in Rome, Senator Sempronius Gracchus (Charles Laughton, The Hunchback of Notre Dame) cunningly creates a plot that he hopes will simultaneously crush the rebellion and allow his friend Julius Caesar (John Gavin, Psycho) to come to power. Do Spartacus and his fellow former slaves stand a chance against the overwhelming might of the Roman army?
The Evidence
Spartacus wasn't the film that most involved wanted it to be. Blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo intended it to be a statement on the treatment of supposed Communist sympathizers in Hollywood. Director Stanley Kubrick thought the screenplay featured too much "stupid moralizing," but had no control over the script. Star Kirk Douglas had hoped the movie would parallel the historical struggles of the Jewish people. There were endless stories of conflict on the set, as rumors came out that some of the key actors (particularly Tony Curtis) were very unhappy while working on the film. Turmoil, conflict, and creative conflicts are often warning signs of a bad film, but somehow Spartacus survived the ordeal and emerged as a satisfying epic. I suspect that it might have been a stronger film if Kubrick had more creative control, but personally I find Spartacus every bit as satisfying as heralded epics like The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur (and even more mature in terms of the subject matter it deals with).
In fact, Douglas admitted that part of his motivation in making Spartacus was wanting to match the spectacle of Ben-Hur, as he had been turned down for the title role in that film. While Spartacus does indeed offer some pretty impressive scenes of epic grandeur, it's often correctly referred to as, "the thinking man's epic." For all the scenes of battle and violence, Spartacus is essentially a film of ideas. Though it's kind of interesting to consider the modern-day symbolism of the dialogue in the film (with its thinly-veiled references to then-controversial subjects like Communism and homosexuality), the film is most engaging on a surface level as a story about oppressed people seeking freedom and equality. The famous "I am Spartacus!" scene remains an iconic and genuinely moving moment, though this is a result of the hard work put into the hours of build-up to that scene.
Most period epics made during the '50s and '60s are badly dated to at least some extent, and this is the case once again in Spartacus (more on this in a moment). However, the strength of the performances goes a long way toward overcoming these problems. Kirk Douglas is a sturdy, steady lead throughout, blending his natural movie star charisma with an understated strength. Laurence Olivier and Charles Laughton seem right at home with this sort of material, turning in reliably convincing performances. However, the movie is nearly stolen by Peter Ustinov, whose deviously playful and inventive supporting turn is a constant source of entertainment (Ustinov deservedly won an Oscar for the part).
Now, most of you reading this review are probably curious to know about the transfer and the supplemental material. The film was restored by Robert Harris in 1991, which added in lost scenes and cleaned up the image a great deal. This restored version was given a magnificent release by the Criterion Collection a few years ago, which boasted a very strong standard-def transfer and an excellent batch of supplements that detailed the film's making and put certain elements into context quite nicely. This was followed by a widely panned HD-DVD release, which was largely criticized for its terrible transfer (I have not seen the HD-DVD release, though I have seen the Criterion version). From what I've read and heard from numerous sources, this Blu-ray release is an improvement on the HD-DVD, though that's not to say the disc is problem-free.
The coloring seems ever-so-slightly different on this disc (a bit more reddish at times), which is only troubling because Harris considers the Criterion release to be an accurate representation of what he intended. To my eyes, the film still looks quite natural and good. The biggest issue is the moderate use of DNR, which occasionally gives the characters a slightly plastic look and prevents detail from being as strong as it ought to be. While it's not the worst instance of DNR I've ever seen, I definitely would have preferred a more natural look. Things are stronger on the audio side of things, as Alex North's aggressive, strikingly modern score (employing far more atonal elements than, say, a Miklos Rozsa score would) comes through with strength and clarity. Most of the dialogue sounds pretty clean and clear, if sort of inconsistent when veering between dubbed and non-dubbed dialogue. The 5.1 mix tends to be pretty front-heavy, but I find it a generally satisfying mix.
The most disappointing factor is the thin supplemental package, a far cry from the awesome Criterion release. You get brief archival interviews with Peter Ustinov and Jean Simmons, a handful of re-edited scenes, a vintage "Behind the Scenes at Gladiator School" (5 minutes) featurette, and a few very short vintage newsreel clips. Finally, you get some image galleries and the disc is equipped with BD-Live. A very underwhelming package, I must say.
The Rebuttal Witnesses
In this post-Gladiator era, those super-short tunics sure do look awfully silly, don't they? The film falls prey to some of the pitfalls of the genre, at times insisting on making sure the actors look more like movie stars than like authentic citizens of ancient Rome. This is particularly problematic when it comes to Jean Simmons, whose radiant hair and make-up contrasts laughably with the tattered rags she wears. The film expects us to believe that she's a beaten-down woman who spends her night providing sexual pleasure to other slaves, but her appearance suggests class and elegance.
Closing Statement
Spartacus is a thoughtful, engaging epic that still holds up pretty will despite its dated elements. The Blu-ray release is kind of mediocre. I suppose it's an acceptable way to check out the film if you haven't seen it, but I can't recommend an upgrade if you own the Criterion release (in fact, there's a part of me that thinks the standard-def Criterion set is still the superior option). Here's hoping this title eventually gets the proper deluxe edition treatment it deserves.
The Verdict
The film is not guilty, but the disc is lacking the qualities this prestigious film demands.
Scales of Justice
Video: 77
Audio: 85
Extras: 40
Acting: 90
Story: 88
Judgment: 87
Perp Profile
Studio: Universal
Video Formats:
* 2.20:1 Non-Anamorphic (1080p)
Audio Formats:
* DTS HD 5.1 Master Audio (English)
* DTS 5.1 Surround (French)
* English
* French
* Spanish
Running Time: 197 Minutes
Release Year: 1960
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13
Distinguishing Marks
* Re-Edited Scenes
* Featurette
* Interviews
* Newsreels
* Photo Galleries
* BD-Live
* IMDb | <urn:uuid:88f50cf6-2c35-46ce-a35c-8845b54751f0> | http://www.dvdverdict.com/printer/spartacusbluray.php | en | 0.95487 | 0.110744 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Shaolin >
The Shaolin Temple (Chinese: 少林寺; pinyin: Shàolín Sì) is the birthplace of the Martial Arts and Chan approach to Buddhism. The original Shaolin temple is located in Mount Song (Simplified Chinese: 嵩山; Pinyin: Sōng Shān) - the central mountain of the "five sacred mountains" (simplified Chinese: 五岳; traditional Chinese: 五嶽; pinyin: Wǔyuè) of China, near Dengfeng (Chinese: 登封; pinyin: Dēngfēng), Henan (Chinese: 河南; pinyin: Hénán; Wade-Giles: Ho-nan) Province. The name "Shaolin" was inspired by the lush forest of the Shaoshi Mountain. Another story suggests that the temple was built on a piece of land that had recently been ravaged by fire, because the builders planted many new trees. The temple was thus named Shaolin ("Shao" meaning "young" or "new", and "Lin" meaning "forest").
This monastery played a prominent role in Chinese history. For many periods, it was considered to be an imperial temple where emperors of the ruling dynasty would ascend to pray on behalf of the people. However, its fame also brought with it many hardships. During periods of unrest, the temple often becomes a focus for the imperial wraith and retribution. The temple had been destroyed many times only to be rebuilt once again.
Historically, some of the best generals, ministers, poets and philosophers have passed through the gates of this monastery either as layman guests or following the Buddhist path. The Shaolin Temple can be considered to be both a focal point and an education center for some of China's elite. As such, the temple represents an important Chinese cultural landmark. The history of the Shaolin temple is long and controversial, but it is most important to acknowledge its impact on the Chinese population and the Martial Arts.
1. Bodhidharma
2. Ancient History
3. Modern History
4. Shaolin Now
The Shaolin temple was founded in the Northern Wei Dynasty (495 CE), Bodhidharma (Da Mo) arrived at the temple at 527 A.D and for the next thousand years contributed to Chinese civilization as well as struggle for its existence. The temple was destroyed several times only to be rebuilt again each time. According to the Shaolin Historical Records ( 少林寺志) and the Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks (AD 645) by Dàoxuān, the Shaolin Temple was built in the 19th year of the reign of Emperor Xiaowen (北魏孝文帝,Taihe) of Northern Wei Dynasty (北魏, pinyin: běi wèi, 386-534) in 495 AD for the eminent Indian monk, Bada (跋陀 Batuo, Moha, Pao Jaco) and his two Chinese disciples (Weiguang, Weineng). Bada was recognized as a Buddhist scholar in the Hinayana tradition-not as a martial artist. Any reference to the martial abilities of Bada, his students or the Shaolin temple at that time is conjecture at best. The Shaolin tradition recognized their contribution - the inscription '”Saint from the West”(西方圣人) is written on the signboard hung above the Thousand Buddha Hall in the Shaolin Temple.
Bodhidharma (DA MO, 达摩) is acknowledged as the First Patriarch of Chinese Chan Buddhism and is credited with providing the foundations for the Shaolin martial arts. Although his existence can always be questioned, the following information is generally accepted as historical fact. He was born to a Royal Family in Southern India around the year 440 CE. He studied under Prajnatara, the 27th Patriarch of Indian Buddhism. His teacher gave him the name Bodhidharma, past Mind Transmission on to him, and finally made him the 28th Patriarch. Prajnatara instructed him to transmit Dharma to China, and Bodhidharma traveled east to Guangzhou (Kwang Chou), Southern China, in 528 AD. He was initially honored and welcomed by the Chinese government and obtained an audience with Emperor Wu Di (梁武帝) of the Liang Dynasty (梁朝; Pinyin: Liáng cháo, 502-557). The emperor did not understand the teachings of Bodhidharma and did not retain his services.
Bodhidharma continued to travel north, crossed the Yangtzu River, and eventually arrived at the Shao Lin Temple. During his life he had very few disciples, only three of which have made it into the history books. Bodhidharma transmitted the patriarchy of his lineage to Huike (487-593) (Chinese:慧可; Chinese for short:慧可; pinyin: Huìkě; Wade-Giles: Hui-k’o; Japanese: Taiso Eka). Soon afterwards, Bodhidharma passed into Nirvana. He passed away at Longmen, (洛阳龙门, Luoyang) in 536 AD and was buried in Shon Er Shan (Bear Ear Mountain). A stupa was built for him in Pao Lin Temple. Later, the Tang dynasty Emperor, Dai Dzong, bestowed on Bodhidharma the name Yuen Che Grand Zen Master, and renamed his stupa Kong Kwan (Empty Visualization).
Many stories and legend have been told concerning the time that he spent at the Shaolin Temple:
• He entered the cave beneath the Wuru peak and sat before the cave wall for nine years. When the feat of cultivation, accomplished by facing the wall, was completed, his image incredibly appeared on the wall, hence the famous "wall-facing rock" which can still be seen today.
• When, during mediation he fell asleep, he was so angry with himself that he cut off his eyelids and flung them to the ground, where they became tea plants.
• He saw that many of the monks at the Shaolin temple were sick and weak and therefore could not perform their mediation. He introduced a set of exercises to improve their body and cultivate the spirit. Those sets of exercises are similar to the postures found in Yoga. They were recorded in two books: the Shi Sui Yin Gin Ching (洗髓易筋经, Marrow Washing Muscle Changing Exercises). This classic was first published and available to the public in 1624 and its authenticity has been strongly questioned.
• After his nine-year mediation, he introduced a new form of Buddhism - now known as Chan Buddhism, which appeals specifically to the Chinese mind.
• His student, Huike cut off his left arm and presented it to the First Patriarch as a token of his sincerity at which point Bodhidharma accepted him as a student and changed his name from Shenguang to Huike (“Wisdom and Capacity”).
• Few years after his death, a Chinese official reported encountering Bodhidharma in the mountains of Central Asia. Bodhidharma was reportedly carrying a staff from which hung a single sandal, and he told the official that he was on his way back to India. When this story reached his home, his fellow monks decided to open Bodhidharma's tomb. Inside there was nothing but a sandal. The sandal becomes a metaphor for Chan Buddhism.
Bodhidharma contributed to Chinese civilization in two different ways: the concept of Zen Buddhism changed Chinese philosophy, and the integration of mental training with physical training influenced the future of martial arts.
Ancient History (570 - 1911 CE)
Northern Zhou Dynasty (北周; 557 - 581 CE)
During the Northern Zhou Dynasty (Chinese:北周, 557 to 581 CE), the Imperial government was concerned with the spread of Buddhism. The authorities closed down the Shaolin Temple, and it remained closed for the next thirty years.
Tang Dynasty (唐朝; 618 - 907CE)
At the end of the Sui Dynasty (Chinese: 隋朝; pinyin: Suí cháo; 581-618 CE), Lǐ Shìmín (Chinese: 李世民) fought with the renegade general Wang Shichong (王世充). Legend recounts the story that Shaolin monks including Zhi Cao, Hui Yang, Tan Zong and ten other helped Li in his battles. After Lǐ Shìmín became the first emperor of the Tang Dynasty (Chinese: 唐朝; pinyin: Táng Cháo; 618 –907 CE), he rewarded his supporters according to their military merits and contributions. The Shaolin Temple was reopened and expands to 600 acres of land. The monks also received a royal dispensation that permitted them to train in martial arts in order to protect the property. This is often seen as the first government promotion of the martial culture within the temple. A new class of priest martial artists in the temple were created called Monk Soldiers (Chin.: sēngbīng 僧兵) and later as Warrior Monks (Chin.: Wǔsēng 武僧). Inside the Shaolin Monastery there is a stone tablet (Chin.: shíbēi 石碑) personally inscribed by second Tang emperor, Li Shimin, which honors the Shaolin monks for their aid in subduing the rebels. The 1979 movie, Shaolin Temple (少林寺) starring Jet Li is an account of this story.
Through the Tang dynasty, the fame of the Shaolin Temple grew through the insight of Chan thoughts as well as their expertise in the martial arts. Practitioners from all over China came to visit the temple both to understand the nature of Chan as well as experience the Shaolin martial arts. Not only the Monks but the laypersons that visited all contributed to the rich heritage of Shaolin.
Song Dynasty (宋朝; 960 - 1278 CE)
According to Shaolin history, during the Song Dynasty (Chinese: 宋朝; pinyin: Sòng Cháo; Wade-Giles: Sung Ch'ao; 960-1278 CE), Emperor Zhao Kuangyin (Chin.: Zhào Kuāngyìn 赵匡胤) studied at the temple. He also allowed his generals to contributed their knowledge and offer material to the Shaolin system. Emperor Zhao is created as the creator of the form called "Great Ancestral Long Boxing" (Chin.: Tàizǔ Chángquán 太祖长拳).The monk Jueyuan (Juéyuán Héshang 觉元和尚)) traveled on a pilgrimage across China to study the status of martial arts. During his travels, he encountered Li Sou (Chin.: Lǐ Sǒu 李叟), a famous martial artist from Lan Zhou, Li’s friend, Bai Yufeng (Chin.: Bái Yùfēng 白玉峰) and Bai's son. Jueyuan convinced the three martial artists to return and train at the Shaolin Temple. After ten years of study, Bai Yu-Feng entered the temple and took the name Qiu Yue Chan Shi. According to the book Shaolin Temple Record, Qiu Yue Chan Shi was described as an expert in bare-hand fighting and narrow-blade sword techniques. He was credited with the improvement of the 18 Buddha Hands techniques into 173 techniques. He also compiled the existing Shaolin techniques and wrote the book, The Essence of Five Fist. This book described the practice methods and applications of the Five Fist (Animal) Patterns. The five animals included: Dragon, Tiger, Snake, Panther, and Crane. Li Sou imparted his matching sets, named for the flowing characteristic of Shaolin, Small and Large Flood Boxing (Xiaohongquan & Dahongquan), as well as stick fighting (Chin.: gùnshù 棍术) and the art of joint-locking (Chin.: qínná 擒拿).
Yuan Dynasty (宋朝; 1960 - 1278 CE)
After the Mongol conquest of China and the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty (Chinese: 元朝; pinyin: Yuáncháo; Mongolian: Dai Ön Ulus/Дай Юан Улс, 1218-1368 CE), martial arts once again was suppressed and the activities of the Shaolin temple discouraged. The Shaolin temple continued to expand despite those repression. Shaolin Abbot Xueting Fuyu (Chin.: Xuětíng Fúyù 雪庭福裕, 1203-1275) personally invited many masters to train at the Temple. Near the end of this era, Shaolin Chan practice and martial arts training spread to Japan. In 1312 CE, Da Zhi (大智, 1290～1366), a Japanese monk, came to the Shaolin Temple to learn the nature of Chan. During the next 13 years, he also learned elements of the Shaolin martial arts (barehands and staff). In 1324 AD, he returned to Japan and became one of the founding members of Zen Buddhism. Dai Zhi’s visit was followed by Shao Yuan (邵元), another Japanese monk. He came to Shaolin in 1329 CE. During his stay, he mastered calligraphy, painting, Chan theory (i.e., known as Zen in Japan), and Shaolin martial arts. He returned to Japan in 1347 A.D. Shao Yuan is regard as a "Country Spirit" by the Japanese people.
Ming Dynasty (明朝; 1363 - 1644 CE)
Chinese society was in turmoil near the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang (Chinese: 朱元璋; Wade-Giles: Chu Yuan-chang) rebelled against the central authorities. Groups such as the Red Turban Army (Chinese: 紅巾軍) and the White Lotus society (白蓮教) turn arms against Mogol rule because of the high taxation and famine. Their eventual success in the establishment of the Ming Dynasty (Chinese: 明朝; pinyin: Míng Cháo, 1363-1644) re-established the glory of the Shaolin Temple. Both Zhu Yuanzhang and the rebel groups is Buddhist in philosophy, their military victories supported the martial arts background of the Shaolin temple. Like Lǐ Shìmín of the Tang Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang supported and encourages the spread of Buddhism and the growth of the Shaolin temple. Much of the legend surrounding the Shaolin Temple originated in this era. A famous episode accounts how 500 warrior monks responded to imperial decree to protect against the Japanese pirates (Chin.: wōkòu 倭寇), and over 1,000 more were reserve forces at the Shaolin Monastery. Famous monks as Yuekong (Chin.: Yuèkōng 月空) led the Sengbing against the Japanese pirates.
Ming Dynasty (清朝; 1644 - 1912 CE)
The Ming dynasty fell to a foreign power, the Manchus, a tribe in Northeastern China. The Qing Dynasty (Chinese: 清朝; pinyin: Qīng cháo; Wade-Giles: Ch'ing ch'ao; Manchu: Daicing gurun.png) was the last ruling dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912. Like the Yuan Dynasty, the Ching government banned the practice of martial arts for fear of rebellion. The Shaolin Temple suffered from their persecution. During this era, the Shaolin temple was thought to be destroyed by the central authorities only to be repaired. The martial art community including the Shaolin Temple rallied to the slogan "overthrow the Qing, restore the Ming" (Chin.: Fǎn Qīng fù Míng 反清复明), and thus the imperial court repeatedly issued edicts prohibiting Wugong training. According to legend, branches of the Shaolin Temple were secretly established in the South and offered refuge to many rebels. There were many stories of rebellion lead by formal members of the Shaolin Temple. The legend of the Five Elders of Southern Shaolin Kungfu fame is a popular example.
Modern History (1911 - Present)
The turn of the century marks the end of the Dynastic era of Chinese History. The new Republican government (1912-1945) actively encourages to strengthen the Chinese identity. Martial arts were considered to be one example of Chinese culture and this led to the popularization of the Shaolin story. One of the earliest references to "DaMo" or Bodhidharma was in a widely popular novel, "The Travels of Lao Ts'an" (The Travels of the Old Vagabond, 老残游记) by Liu E (simplified Chinese: 刘鹗; traditional Chinese: 劉鶚; pinyin: Liú è, 18 October 1857 — 23 August 1909). This was a satirically description of the rise of the Boxers in the countryside and a commentary on the absurdities of the Chinese government at that time. However, some of his fictitious accounts are now accepted as historical truths. Other stories followed, including: "Shaolin School Methods", in a Shanghai newspaper in 1910, and "Secrets of Shaolin Boxing" in 1919. These works of fiction contributed to some of the mystique and popular misconception of the art.
The Shaolin Temple itself could escape while China was in Turmoil during the Warlord Era (1916-1928). Abbot Shi Henglin (Chin.: Shì Hénglín 释恒林, 1865-1923) at that time led a small regiment of Sengbing to pacify the area. His actions brought him into conflict with the regional Warlord Shi Yousan (Chin.: Shí Yǒusān 石友三). In 1928, Shi You-San's razed the Shaolin Temple. The damage was extensive with the fire lasting for more than 40 days, and all the major buildings were destroyed.
When the People's Republic of China was established, all religion was outlawed. This also applied to the functions within the Shaolin walls. The treatment of the Shaolin legacy was even worst during the wide spread social and political upheaval of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (simplified Chinese: 无产阶级文化大革命; traditional Chinese: 無產階級文化大革命; pinyin: Wúchǎn Jiējí Wénhuà Dà Gémìng; literally "Proletarian Cultural Great Revolution"; or simply Cultural Revolution; abbreviated in Chinese as 文化大革命 or 文革) . The Red Guards (simplified Chinese: 红卫兵; traditional Chinese: 紅衛兵; pinyin: Hóng Wèi Bīng) who were composed mainly of students and other young people were mobilized by Mao Zedong to completely eradicate the 'Four Olds' of Chinese society (old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas). This political movement succeeded in destroying many of the most famous sites through out China and set back the intellectual development of China for more than a generation. The Shaolin Temple suffered tremendously during this period of madness. In 1966 and 1967, the Red Guards destroyed the remaining buildings, statues, and relics at the temple. Six monks out of fifty remained to protect temple and suffered as a result of the Red Guard's abuses. They were former abbot Shi Xingzheng (释行正 ; 1914-1987), Shi Wanheng, Shi Suxi (釋素喜), Shu Suyun, Shi Dechan (释德禅) and Shi Miaoxing. Those monks were shackled and forced to wear humiliating placards acknowledging their misdeeds. They were publicly flogged and paraded through streets in humiliation. After being beaten and jailed, the monks had to beg for food and hide in the mountains surrounding the temple. Despite their hardships, they tried to covertly affect what repairs they could on the few remaining buildings of Shaolin Temple.
The revival of the Shaolin Temple only began as Chinese society recovered from this period of unrest. By 1980, Deng Xiaoping (simplified Chinese: 邓小平; traditional Chinese: 鄧小平; pinyin: Dèng Xiǎopíng; Wade-Giles: Teng Hsiao-p'ing; 22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) finally became the leader of China. He advocated a new era of economic reforms and openness. This includes acknowledging the value of China’s cultural heritage. As part of this open policy, private enterprises and tourism was encouraged.
Shaolin Temple Today
The revival of the Shaolin temple can be attributed to the start of the production of the movie “The Shaolin Temple”. This movie was a Hong Kong production that for the first time included an all mainland Chinese cast as well as help from Japanese Shorinji Kempo association. In 1979, invited by the Chinese Government, So Doshin (Doshin So (宗道臣, 1911-1980), the founder of Shorinji Kempo (少林寺拳法, Shōrinji Kenpō) in Japan, visited the Shaolin Temple for the first time. He erected a stele on the temple grounds and played homage to the birth place of his martial arts. The movie Shaolin Temple finally released in 1982 starring five-time all-around national Wushu champion, Jet Li. It proved to be a resounding success and rekindled the public’s interest in Shaolin Martial Arts.
By the middle of the 1980’s, there were many martial arts schools teaching the Shaolin method to the public. The most notable of those schools are headed by Chen Tongshan (陈同山), Liang Yiquan (梁以全) and Liu Baoshan (刘宝山). Events were changing much slower within the Shaolin temple. In 1979, the Shaolin Monastery set up the Shaolin Wugong Team (Chin.: Shàolín Wǔgōngduì 少林武功队), to be the "dissemination team" (Chin.: xuānchuánduì 宣传队, later, changed to "Shaolin Monastery Warrior Monk Regiment" (Chin.: Shàolínsì Wǔsēngtuán 少林寺武僧团) for the temple- performing Wugong to create interest in the Shaolin Culture and spread the Dharma.
In 1984, a Chinese documentary of Hai Deng (Chinese: 海灯法师; pinyin: Hăi Dēng Făshī; Wade-Giles: Hai Têng Fa-shih; reportedly 1902–January 11, 1989) the 32nd abbot of Shaolin Temple made him one of the most famous modern monks in China. This paved the way for his visit to the USA in 1985. The world got to see a demonstration of his one figure Chan – a technique where he supported most of his body weight on one finger. It would be 1992 before a full contingent of Shaolin monks visited the United States.
Today there are approximated 300 ordained monks (Chin.: Héshang 和尚) at the Shaolin Temple of which only 100 or so know or study the martial arts. This is a reminded that at the root of Shaolin practice is Buddhism and that martial arts is only one technique to achieve those goals.The Shaolin Temple itself has been awarded the honor of being a UNESCO world heritage site and the area is a popular tourist destination. The Shaolin Temple organization are also establishing branch schools in other nations to promote the Shaolin practice. | <urn:uuid:5e8523ae-e06e-4f1a-875a-45066d54b376> | http://www.ottawakungfu.org/shaolin/shaolin-history | en | 0.96003 | 0.04005 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Critical views of science in the news
Did Sherlock Holmes Believe in God?
I've become, belatedly, a Sherlock Holmes groupie. I dig the BBC series Sherlock, starring the suddenly ubiquitous Benedict Cumberbatch, and the American series Elementary (which I prefer--Lucy Liu is the best Watson ever).
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Naval Treaty," suggests that a rose might be evidence of "the goodness of Providence."
I've also been plowing through "The Complete Sherlock Holmes" on my Kindle. The stories can get a little formulaic, but Arthur Conan Doyle has a knack for sticking oddities into his narratives to keep us on our toes. Take, for example, "The Naval Treaty," about diplomatic hugger-mugger. Interviewing a young diplomat, Holmes suddenly spots a rose decorating the man's apartment and exclaims, "What a lovely thing a rose is!"
Holmes, whose gargantuan intelligence focuses obsessively on solving crimes (he is interested in science only insofar as it furthers this goal), has never evinced "any keen interest in natural objects," Watson notes. Watson is even more startled when Holmes, after picking up the rose, delivers the following monologue:
Holmes is alluding to what I call the problem of beauty. As I have explained previously, the problem of evil prevents me from believing in God, or at least an all-powerful God who gives a damn about us. But the problem of beauty keeps me from being an adamant atheist. If reality results from sheer coincidence, why is it often so heartbreakingly lovely? As the great physicist Steven Weinberg, an atheist if ever there was one, once wrote, sometimes nature "seems more beautiful than strictly necessary."
My guess is that the hyper-empirical Holmes, if pressed, would say that he is an agnostic, because there is insufficient evidence for either belief or disbelief in a Creator. (Holmes is more rational than his own creator, Conan Doyle, who after the death of his wife and other loved ones consoled himself by believing in ghosts.)
I plan to raise the question of Holmes's religiosity when psychologist and New Yorker blogger Maria Konnikova visits my school this Wednesday, March 5. Konnikova is giving a talk (free and open to all) about her bestselling book Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. If anyone can solve "The Mystery of the Rose-Sniffing Rationalist," she can.
Illustration of Sherlock Holmes from "The Strand" magazine, 1914, via Toronto Public Library and Wikimedia Commons,,_2012.jpg.
Share this Article:
Email this Article | <urn:uuid:8921483a-9c25-404b-8d3c-a6329c5fc29e> | http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/did-sherlock-holmes-believe-in-god/ | en | 0.954131 | 0.085059 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Skip to content
need advice
bernadettebanks posted:
I have stage two kidney disease and have been on a diet so it does not get any worse, and have not had any alcohol. But this Saturday I had a few drinks, Sunday morning i woke up in pain, my right kidney, also had a huge bruise over the area also. It is now Monday and I'm still in pain. There is no blood in my urine, still alot of pain. Not sure what to do...should I see my doctor or wait to see if it goes away on it's own...
P.S. no i did not fall
john-skpt responded:
It's hard to conceive of chronic renal disease of any sort being the direct cause of bleeding or bruising.
What might be going on is that your hemoglobin and hematocrit are lowered due to renal disease, thus making the blood a bit "thinner" and making a bruise easier. Still, early renal disease does not generally affect hematocrit all that much.
So it is up to you whether to wait a bit or see the doc. But the bruising is unusual if you are absolutely certain that you didn't bump into something that might have caused the bruise. It probably is worth checking out in more detail.
Spotlight: Member Stories
I am experiencing pain in my left side after a grueling 12 hour drive. The car was not user friendly. Could this be a brusied kidney?
Helpful Tips
Was this Helpful?
0 of 0 found this helpful
Report Problems With Your Medications to the FDA
| <urn:uuid:296f27d3-5d90-457c-8d9a-32a43327172e> | http://forums.webmd.com/3/kidney-disorders-exchange/forum/1236/0 | en | 0.948673 | 0.047475 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Why You Shouldn't Be Too Quick to Cheer Self-Driving Cars
One of the clear automotive technology trends at CES this year is cars that drive themselves. From Audi to Lexus to Ford, the world's largest car companies are beginning to follow Google's lead in an effort to produce cars smart enough to drive themselves. The thought is that autonomous cars will reduce the number of traffic deaths—more than 100 people per day, currently—while simultaneously allowing car owners to do more productive things on their car trips, like work or read. All of this sounds magical, especially to a traffic-jammed Angeleno like myself, but let's get real: How soon do we actually think state and federal legislators are going to cotton to the idea of robot cars all over the roads?
To be sure, self-driving consumer cars will initially be prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of drivers (some guess costlier than a Ferrari), but if that price point comes down, expect them to be as prevalent as hybrids are today. The one thing standing in the way of that prevalence, of course, could be legal hang-ups.
Optimists will tell you that robot cars have already breezed into street-legality in Nevada, Florida, and California. And that's true—but in each case they did so conditionally, and with a whole lot of uncertainty still lingering over their futures. For instance, in all three states, a self-driving car must at all times be operated by an in-car driver, but how vigilant that driver should be is still a gray area. Under Nevada's law, anyone operating a "driverless" car is, unlike regular drivers, allowed to text. They are not allowed to drink alcohol, however, meaning that Nevada thinks self-driving cars should allow people freedom to not pay attention—but only to a certain point.
Further complicating things is who will be at fault in the likely event that autonomous cars are imperfect and get into accidents. Say a self-driving car on its way to pick up its owner were to blow through a red light—who would pay the ticket for that violation? The owner? The car manufacturer? The people who wrote the navigation software? This sort of query gets even thornier as the potential problems get more harmful: Who is liable if an autonomous car rear ends a standard car with a driver? Will the robot always be implicated? Worse still, what if a malfunctioning robot car veers momentarily onto a sidewalk and kills a kid? Who will pay for that tragedy?
Unfortunately, despite the huge number of very serious questions people have about what sort of laws will eventually govern autonomous cars, some politicians refuse to even acknowledge such issues exist. In October of last year, when California Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill paving the way for legal self-driving cars in California, a reporter posed the question of who would be held responsible if a robot car indeed ran a red light. The governor dismissed the question as being stupid and simple. "I don't know—whoever owns the car, I would think. But we will work that out," he said. "That will be the easiest thing to work out."
I don't know what kind of government bureaucracy Governor Brown is used to, but from what I've seen of the American political system, very few policy questions are "easy" anymore, especially not ones relating to emerging technologies and public safety. To be sure, cars that can drive themselves will be amazing, and I look forward to one day programming a Prius to come pick me up from the airport or a bar at last call. But it's probably best to hold off on celebrating the coming fleets of robot cars until we have a serious conversation about the rules and regulations that will almost surely slow their public adoption, if not halt it entirely for years. | <urn:uuid:12bcd703-2cb7-4601-b1a3-ef1504e19029> | http://gizmodo.com/5974608/why-you-shouldnt-be-too-quick-to-cheer-self-driving-cars | en | 0.970073 | 0.706706 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Was Ten wrong to tweet a dumb question about Gillard? Yes. Yes, it was
So Ten Late News did its bit to drag up the quality of political debate last night with this tweet:
ten late news tweet
It quickly turned into a meme, asking what Ten had been wrong about. Turns out it was quite a lot.
Meanwhile, the Daily Tonygraph used the tweet to launch a poll for dumbest tweet of the year so far.
Just to top off the social media disaster, the network then deleted the tweet. Happily, the internet was able to provide plenty of screen grabs…
1. Caitlin
3 Feb 13
8:35 am
2. Please tell me the use of ‘Daily Tonygraph’ was unapologetically deliberate. | <urn:uuid:dbf6580d-f24c-4227-b18a-0c9851e57aa5> | http://mumbrella.com.au/was-ten-wrong-to-tweet-a-dumb-question-about-gillard-yes-yes-it-was-136026 | en | 0.932949 | 0.763738 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Humidity: 45%
Pressure: 29.94 in
National & World
New Georgia law allows guns in bars, churches, schools
New Georgia law allows guns in bars, churches, schools
Jeff Anderson, right, from Pickens County was one of many attendees wearing a pistol Wednesday as Georgia Governor Nathan Deal visits Ellijay, Ga., for a signing ceremony for House Bill 60, legislation expanding where people with licenses to carry can bring their guns in Georgia. (AP Photo/Chattanooga Times Free Press, John Rawlston)
Show Caption
Following mass shootings in recent years, some states have pursued stronger limits on guns while others like Georgia have taken the opposite path, with advocates arguing that people should be allowed to carry weapons as an issue of public safety. Republicans control large majorities in the Georgia General Assembly, and the bill passed overwhelming despite objections from some religious leaders and local government officials.
A few hundred gun rights supporters gathered at an outdoor pavilion along a river in north Georgia in the town of Ellijay for the bill signing by Gov. Nathan Deal and a barbecue. Many sported "Stop Gun Control" buttons and several had weapons holstered at their side. House Speaker David Ralston offered a thinly veiled critique of those who might oppose the bill while describing the people of his district.
"This is the apple capital of Georgia. And, yes, it's a community where we cling to our religion and our guns," Ralston said, drawing big applause in referencing a past comment made by President Barack Obama.
The bill makes several changes to state law and takes effect July 1. Besides in bars without restrictions, guns could be brought into some government buildings that don't have certain security measures, such as metal detectors or security guards screening visitors. Religious leaders would have the final say as to whether guns can be carried into their place of worship.
And school districts would now be able, if they choose, to allow some employees to carry a firearm on school grounds under certain conditions.
"This bill is about the good guys, you guys," bill sponsor Rep. Rick Jasperse, R-Jasper, told the crowd. "Amid all the misinformation and emotions, one must remember that this bill isn't about irresponsibly arming the masses. This is a bill about safety and responsibility."
Opponents, however, include Americans for Responsible Solutions, a group co-founded by former Democratic Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who survived a shooting in 2011 and started a nationwide campaign on gun control. The group's executive director Pia Carusone on its website said, "the bill is extremism in action; it moves Georgia out of the mainstream."
The Georgia Municipal Association also was among those raising concerns, sending a letter to Deal arguing local governments couldn't afford to increase security. Deal, in his remarks, argued the bill empowers local decisions.
"House Bill 60 will protect law-abiding citizens by expanding the number of places that they can carry their guns without penalty, while at the same time this bill respects the rights of private property owners who still set the rules for their land and their buildings," Deal said.
That would include bar owners, who could post that firearms are not permitted in their establishments.
In Vienna, a city of about 4,000 residents south of Macon, it would cost $60,000 annually to increase security at city buildings, said Mayor Pro Tem Beth English. English, president of the Georgia Municipal Association, said she supports gun rights and has a carry permit but worries the added security costs will force the city to increase taxes.
"Do we raise taxes to provide the police protection or do we take the risk of potential injury to our public?" English said, noting emotions sometimes run high at city hall.
Some religious leaders also opposed the law, saying it will increase confusion. Under it, the assumption is still that guns aren't allowed unless otherwise noted. The law adds a provision, however, that those in violation cannot be arrested or fined more than $100 if they have a valid permit.
"This is the gun lobby foisting their agenda on churches, and I think it's a tragic violation of church and state," said the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock of Ebenezer Baptist Church.
It's unclear whether any school districts plan to take advantage of the new law, but proponents hope it will deter violence.
"Schools have been gun-free zones for some time and those have been where some of the biggest instances of violence have occurred," said Gary Holland, a retired firefighter from Dawsonville who attended the bill signing. "If I'm a criminal, I would select a target where I know guns are not allowed because it would make the pickings easier."
The bill passed largely along party lines in the House and Senate. The most prominent Democrat to back the bill was state Sen. Jason Carter, who is running for governor.
Carter, the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter, reiterated his support for the Second Amendment and noted he had worked to improve the bill to "ensure that places of worship have a real choice on whether to allow guns on their properties."
Hunter escapes attack by shoving arm down bear's throat Hunter escapes attack by shoving arm down bear's throat | <urn:uuid:357350b5-5482-44f4-864c-ccc1d098a73c> | http://www.bakersfieldnow.com/news/national/New-Georgia-law-allows-guns-in-bars-churches-schools-256446841.html?mobile=y | en | 0.971623 | 0.056125 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
School security
I have been wondering what solution I can come up with to prevent these murders at our schools.
I am an educator of 20 years, currently employed at an elementary school in New Mexico. I am also a member of the school's All-Hazard Team or Crisis Management Team.
We are trained in planning and implementing safety programs to deal with fires, hazardous waste, intruders on campus, etc. We are only trained in basically hiding out and waiting for help.
This approach just isn't feasible anymore.
As we all know, it is not feasible financially or manpower-wise to have a police officer or armed security guard at every school in America.
My idea is based on the concept of the air marshals. Why couldn't schools have teachers extensively trained in the use of firearms and the handling of these types of violent situations?
These teachers would have the right to conceal- carry on campus.
There should be a screening process. The prospective candidates would have to pass a psychological and possibly a physical exam.
It is possible many of the perpetrators of these crimes would think twice about attempting these sick and depraved acts.
If we don't do something, soon teachers and students are going to start bringing weapons to school for self- preservation.
Anthony Mitchell
Las Cruces
Biden control
The horrific and evil events at Sandy Hook demand our attention.
If this administration is serious and committed to assault- weapon reform, why did this president appoint his administration buffoon, Biden, to undertake this important and necessary effort?
Would it not seem more reasonable to have someone with a brain spearheading this?
Shirley Stowe
West El Paso
Socialism chosen
Socialism is the precursor for communism. The 2012 election was a plebiscite and a referendum on socialism.
The United States of America is taking its final steps toward socialism, an economic system based on state ownership of industry, capital and an authoritarian hierarchical government (as opposed to demo cracy or liberalism).
You cannot change the socio-political, socio-economic, and the entitlement mentality of the give-me generation.
"Liberty and freedom is only one generation away from extinction." This is that generation that gave up their freedoms for a welfare check.
The United States of America was a representative government of the people, by the people and for the people, but today, special-interest lobbyists, big labor unions and the total disregard for the founding principles of this nation are ringing its death knell.
The government no longer represents the will of the governed, but instead, their own special interests and political and philosophical ideologies.
We the people who created this great nation, and fought to keep it free from the tyranny of an oppressive government, have thrown it all away for a soft tyranny and empty promises for a utopian society.
Radames Rodriguez
East El Paso
Ronald Reagan in 1987 challenged Mr. Gorbachev to, "Tear down this wall!" After the fall of the Berlin Wall, three long sections of the wall remain, and 15 years after the fall, a private museum rebuilt a 656-foot section close to Checkpoint Charlie.
During an American Embassy, East Berlin (Russian Sector) assignment in 1981-84, my family and I witnessed from our 14th-floor apartment, located in East Berlin, three New Year's where firecrackers were thrown across the Berlin Wall by Germans in the divided city from 6 p.m. New Year Eve until 6 a.m. New Year's Day morning.
Both cities became one beautiful spectacle.
This was the only time of the year East Berliners and West Berliners were allowed to have any type of connection.
It was wonderful to see the Germans so festive and happy for one night beginning the New Year.
With all the killings in the Borderland, it would also be wonderful if the people of El Paso and Juárez began a tradition of throwing firecrackers between our sister cities across the "fence;" we would see happy cities beginning the New Year.
We have built an ugly fence and want to fell a historical smokestack, which is an engineering marvel. The Asarco smokestack would outlast any ugly wall.
Tony Perez
Horizon City | <urn:uuid:64e8b7e6-e0cc-449e-a7c6-50b9a552b863> | http://www.burlington-record.com/opinion/ci_22276589/letters-school-security?source=most_viewed | en | 0.958297 | 0.098553 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Is there still room in your carry-on for a travel guidebook? Both the recession and digital changes have cut into guidebook sales. The result: Google (GOOG) is reportedly pulling the plug on the print editions of Frommer's travel guides. The BBC has sold Lonely Planet. What do you rely on? Some Web-savvy travelers still wouldn't dream of heading out without advice in print. Others have gone all digital. Where do you stand? Are you a guidebook junkie or an app-only traveler? Take our survey below and add your thoughts. | <urn:uuid:622af0b0-bd5d-4766-9120-8f5dc40bfb5c> | http://www.mercurynews.com/travel-books/ci_22885042/travel-poll-are-travel-guidebooks-obsolete | en | 0.871038 | 0.027413 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
View Single Post
Old 11-16-2012, 03:01 PM #4 (permalink)
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2012
Posts: 169
That is absolute bullshit. What Israel are doing can be justified because Hamas fired a few shells into neighbouring 'Jewish' land?
Whats happening in Gaza is genocide and part of the worst war crimes committed since the world war. The land Hamas are firing on use to be Palestinian land until the peaceful people where shot tortuned and burned from their homes, everything bulldozed and these Jewish settlements were created.. All in the name of these Zionist Jews 'devine right' to own the land.
Now 1.5 million people live behind a wall guarded by Israeli military in appalling conditions. Back a group of people into a corner like that and you are eventually going to see them hit back.
"When Israelis in the occupied territories now claim that they have to defend themselves, they are defending themselves in the sense that any military occupier has to defend itself against the population they are crushing... You can't defend yourself when you're militarily occupying someone else's land. That's not defense. Call it what you like, it's not defense."
~ Noam Chomsky
Richie67 is offline | <urn:uuid:f8a36d1f-a90a-4a56-90ab-8e33597d39c9> | http://www.snowboardingforum.com/539982-post4.html | en | 0.939235 | 0.030881 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
View Single Post
Old October 25 2013, 06:31 PM #10
Christopher's Avatar
Re: Why was their not a navigation station?
I always figured NX-01 only needed the one station because it was a smaller ship with a less complicated propulsion system. Or something. Maybe they started out assuming only one pilot would be needed, then realized that put a lot of demands on one person and it'd be easier to make it a two-person job, but then eventually the automation got advanced enough that only one person was needed after all.
Written Worlds -- Christopher L. Bennett's blog and webpage
Christopher is offline Reply With Quote | <urn:uuid:dc98dd7e-ffd4-49a7-9ace-9265c70094f7> | http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=8813272&postcount=10 | en | 0.951536 | 0.05663 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Plant cells have strong walls, and inside the wall is a cell membrane, then a thin layer of cytoplasm with the nucleus and other organelles in it. The cytoplasm is pressed against the cell wall by the very large vacuole. In this picture the cell nuclei are dark-coloured.
Protoplasm is an old term, which means the living substance that makes up a cell. It is no longer much used. Biologists prefer to talk about the cytoplasm and the cell nucleus.
In plant cells, it is surrounded by a cell wall. In animal cells, the whole cell is made of protoplasm, surrounded by a cell membrane. Protoplasm in living beings is made up of about 75–80% water. However, this is rather misleading because the cytoplasm is full of structures called organelles, which do various tasks. The endoplasmic reticulum is the largest of these structures; there are many other organelles.
The word "protoplasm" was first used in 1846 by Hugo von Mohl to describe the substance in plant cells, apart from the cell wall, the cell nucleus and the vacuole. After the invention of the electron microscope it was clear that a living cell is much more complicated than von Mohl knew. | <urn:uuid:58f0f10f-86bd-4824-98cc-5b24b03d79dd> | https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protoplasm | en | 0.961729 | 0.379451 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Plugin Directory
Fanplayr Social Coupons
Add Fanplayr to your WP-eCommerce store to grow your email marketing list, create social referral traffic and increase sales.
What is the cost of using Fanplayr?
Fanplayr can be used with our free plan. For more information please see http://fanplayr.com
Can I use Fanplayr without this plugin?
Yes you can. The plugin does make it easier to integrate your WordPress / WP-eCommerce site with Fanplayr.
Can I use Fanplayr with WordPress, but without WP-eCommerce?
Yes you can. You will not get automatic addition of collected coupon codes to your users carts. We also may not be able to offer support for use with other non-WP-eCommerce stores.
Requires: 3.3 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.4.2
Last Updated: 2012-6-23
Active Installs: Less than 10
0 out of 5 stars
Got something to say? Need help?
Not enough data
0 people say it works.
0 people say it's broken. | <urn:uuid:60299419-73fc-4487-ae2c-6eac3e22c235> | https://wordpress.org/plugins/fanplayr-social-coupons/faq/ | en | 0.842086 | 0.215996 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - Jetstream Sam Review
Though Raiden's adventure may be over, Platinum Games and Konami are keeping Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance going with new downloadable content featuring some of his co-stars. The first add-on gives us a look at Desperado assassin Jetstream Sam, and tells the story of how he came to be a mercenary for hire. Unfortunately, it's not a very interesting tale.
Jetstream Sam's story picks up a short time before the beginning of Metal Gear Rising. Sam has decided to infiltrate World Marshal headquarters in Colorado as part of a training exercise/job interview. It's all very unclear why he's cutting down all these mercenaries employed by Desperado, when in fact he's thinking about joining up with the group. Usually Metal Gear games are over-explained to the point of tedium, but in this downloadable content the story is so bare bones, you wonder if anyone at Platinum or Kojima Productions actually knows Jetstream Sam's backstory and motivations. Part of what made the idea of this DLC so appealing was getting to live a few hours in the shoes of Rising's most compelling antagonist. Sadly, you get more substance from his few appearances in the main game than you do from the hour or so you'll spend with this add-on.
Just because there isn't much meat to Jetstream Sam's story doesn't mean the combat doesn't once again deliver. Sam plays quite differently from Raiden, and it will take some adjustment to get used to the new flavor his moveset brings to the game. His parrying window is shorter (almost to the point of frustration), his attacks are slower, and he doesn't get to use any primary weapons outside of his Muramasa blade. Sam is much quicker to evade, and has new charging attacks to use. This is a character about finesse and patience, whereas even the luckiest button-mashers could make decent progress with Raiden. Trying that same tactic with Sam will almost instantly lead to your obliteration at the hands of Desperado.
It certainly makes playing as Sam somewhat worthwhile, as you can tell a lot of time went into making him a fully realized combatant, even if the same couldn't be said for his character. There are few things as satisfying as completing a nice combo of attacks, and stunning your foes long enough to pull off one of Sam's charged slices. If you time your attacks well, you can absolutely demolish and destroy any enemy in your path with great ease. Miss a parry or two, and forget to dodge, and you'll be restarting checkpoint after checkpoint.
Along Sam's journey, you'll travel through some very similar areas, as the entire add-on is just retreads of Revengeance's levels at World Marshal HQ. Even the boss battles are set to wash, rinse, repeat. First you'll take on LQ-84i (aka Blade Wolf), then Metal Gear Ray, and it all culminates in a throwdown with the Senator. It really is a shame the only new ground uncovered is with Sam's combat, as at least one new fresh area or face could have made all the difference.
Considering how little new content there is in Jetstream Sam, it's tough to recommend this DLC to anyone that isn't an absolute die-hard completionist. It's moderately fun, but doesn't do anything drastically different from the core game, and almost makes Sam himself a bit of a disappointment. Even with a few new VR missions to unlock, there's just not enough here to be excited about.
This review is based on the PlayStation 3 version of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - Jetstream Sam. A code was provided to us by the publisher.
Leave A Comment
Around the Web
Recommended For You
Best of Arcade Sushi | <urn:uuid:d06b9612-1caf-4825-8319-f931caccd4f3> | http://arcadesushi.com/metal-gear-rising-revengeance-jetstream-sam-review/ | en | 0.970111 | 0.030219 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
As Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor shows, law is not science
on June 05, 2009 at 5:53 AM, updated March 31, 2010 at 5:35 PM
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor visiting lawmakers on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Law is not engineering. On an Engineering Supreme Court composed of nine qualified professional engineers, decisions would practically always be unanimous.
But in law we get a lot of 5-4 decisions -- because issues are not clear-cut, especially in cases that make it to the appellate courts.
And the decision-makers bring different backgrounds and ideologies into the mix.
That's what is so laughable about the opinions of right-wing spinmeisters who denounce Judge Sonia Sotomayor for suggesting that her life experience is relevant to deciding cases. She is not supposed to bring her own views into the case -- she's just supposed to decide cases "according to the law." As if legal principles could be reduced to algebraic formulas.
It was the iconic Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who once pronounced that "the life of the law is not logic, it is experience." So a judge's experience is clearly relevant to how she or he resolves complicated cases.
Let me personalize the discussion. As a young man, I was, pardon the expression, a community organizer in my native Baltimore, which back then was a totally segregated city. My comrades and I proselytized for integration -- in the parks, schools, recreation program, theaters, lunch counters.
We had little money and minimal resources. We spread our message by cranking out flyers on an old-fashioned mimeograph machine (this was before photocopiers) and distributing them door-to-door, on busy street corners or at large public gatherings. It was what is often referred to as grass-roots organizing.
Thus, when years later I became a lawyer and teacher of constitutional law, I had great sympathy for poorly financed public advocates who could not afford radio or television advertising or even mass mailings to communicate with their audience. My personal experience helped me to convince the New Jersey Supreme Court that in order to really protect freedom of speech, it was necessary to require privately owned shopping malls to allow leafleting and petitioning on their property, since they were among the few venues left where large numbers of people could be communicated with inexpensively.
Similarly, it made me a better advocate for environmental groups that wished to canvass door to door until 9 o'clock at night despite local ordinances which prohibited such activity. As I explained to the court, there were just not enough people at home to make daytime solicitations economically feasible. The United States Court of Appeals in Philadelphia accepted my free-speech argument in the face of an earlier opinion which had upheld identical ordinances in Pennsylvania.
I am sure that my personal experiences made me a much more convincing advocate on behalf of grass-roots organizations. And if I had ever become a judge, it would certainly have influenced my interpretation of constitutional provisions protecting freedom of speech. And that is precisely what Justice Holmes was talking about.
Which brings us back to Judge Sotomayor, whose job on the Supreme Court will be to give meaning to concepts such as equal protection of the laws and due process. Is her experience growing up in a Bronx housing project as the daughter of Puerto Rican parents likely to provide her with a different interpretation of such abstract ideals than a privileged white male who grew up in relative luxury? Of course it is.
Did Thurgood Marshall, who was denied admission to the University of Maryland Law School because he was black, bring a unique view of race and discrimination to our high court that informed his opinions? And did Justice Ruth Ginsburg, who was offered only secretarial jobs by law firms after graduating at the top of her classes at Harvard and Columbia law schools, bring a different view of gender roles to judicial deliberations? Obviously these are rhetorical questions.
Sonia Sotomayor can only bring a breath of fresh air -- and fresh viewpoints -- to the hallowed, but somewhat antiseptic, halls of the United States Supreme Court.
Frank Askin is professor of law and director of the Constitutional Litigation Clinic at Rutgers Law School/Newark. | <urn:uuid:e6ca551e-139b-4e35-97f9-e9189621becb> | http://blog.nj.com/njv_frank_askin/2009/06/as_supreme_court_nominee_sonia.html | en | 0.970703 | 0.023882 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Discuss as:
Congress: Something to agree on?
The AP: "President Barack Obama as well as Democratic liberals and moderates all found something to like Wednesday in an emerging compromise to expand the role of government in the nation's health care system, raising hopes inside the party that passage of overhaul legislation might be within reach after a struggle lasting decades. The same plan drew critics, though -- and the threat of more opponents once closely held details become widely known."
"Liberal and centrist senators at the center of the healthcare debate bought themselves more time Wednesday, saying they would decide how to vote after they saw the bill's final price tag," The Hill adds. "Centrist Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and other senators emphasized they are withholding any promises until they hear from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) about the cost of the new proposals."
The Washington Post: "Industry groups representing doctors and hospitals attacked one of the alternatives in the deal, designed to take the place of a proposed government-run insurance program, in the hours after Senate leaders announced it Tuesday night. They argued that a plan by liberal Democrats to allow uninsured individuals as young as 55 to buy into Medicare would be financially untenable and would jeopardize access to health-care services for millions of Americans."
The New York Daily News on the deal: For seniors, Medicare is a popular program… But those in the 55-64 age bracket would have to pay more -- a lot more -- especially if the program is launched in 2011, as the Democratic senators' plan envisions."
"A California congressman is dropping his effort to honor Tiger Woods with a Congressional Gold Medal," the AP says. "Democratic Rep. Joe Baca proposed legislation in March that called for the golfer to be recognized for promoting good sportsmanship and breaking down barriers in the sport." Whoops. So much for that.
The House Homeland Security Committee voted by a vote of 26-3 to subpoena the Salahis, the couple that crashed the state dinner. The subpoena mandates that they appear on Jan. 20, 2010, which happens to be the one-year anniversary of Barack Obama's inauguration. Mark your calendars. By the way, an amendment to subpoena White House social secretary Desiree Rogers, introduced by Rep. Peter King (R-NY), was defeated.
"The House voted Wednesday to slap higher taxes on Wall Street investment managers to help pay to extend $31 billion in tax breaks for Americans, including popular deductions for local and state sales and property taxes," the AP reports.
"Black lawmakers who have held their tongues during most of President Barack Obama's first year in office are stepping up their demands that the nation's first black president do more for minority communities hit hardest by the recession. While still careful about criticizing Obama publicly, they appear to be losing their patience after a year of watching him dedicate trillions of dollars to prop up banks and corporations and fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while double-digit unemployment among blacks crept even higher. | <urn:uuid:24ba4c05-45f5-49a4-b754-db085bdf0ef2> | http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2009/12/10/4427144-congress-something-to-agree-on | en | 0.962052 | 0.037854 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Step-by-step instructions for QT and KDE under Linux
WARNING --- This information is obsolete. Go here instead.
1- Introduction
This has been tested on Linux-x86 platforms with binutils >= 2.10.0.
The experimental PPC support is really experimental.
The dynamic loading speed is best measured using the LD_DEBUG=statistics option of the dynamic loader. For instance, the dynamical loading time of konqueror can be measured with the following command:
bash$ LD_DEBUG=statistics konqueror
26923: runtime linker statistics:
26923: total start-up time in dynamic loader: 358288994 clock cycles
26923: time needed for relocation: 355202059 clock cycles (99.1)
26923: number of relocations: 53651
26923: time needed to load objects: 2864849 clock cycles (.7)
The critical number is the number of relocations which counts the number of relocations that require a symbol lookup. The time measurements are very dependent on the content of the disk buffers. The most reliable measurements are obtained by repeating the command several times and ignoring the first measurement.
2- Compile objprelink
Download the lastest source code objprelink.c. Uncompress and compile with the following command:
$ gcc -o objprelink -O2 objprelink.c /usr/lib/libbfd.a /usr/lib/libiberty.a
Then place the binary somewhere in your path (e.g. /usr/local/bin). I suggest using the static libraries because some distributions provide a first package with the bfd shared library and a second package with the include files and the static libraries. These packages do not always match. Using the static libraries ensure that the include file is current with respect to the code.
Slackware 8.0 users can check Rob Kaper's post.
3- Rebuild QT
The following instructions apply to QT-2.3.1 under Linux.
Download the qt source tarball from the usual places. Patch file configs/linux-g++-shared using qt-configs.patch. Then run configure and make.
qt-2.3.1$ patch < ../qt-configs.patch
qt-2.3.1$ export QTDIR=`pwd`
qt-2.3.1$ configure -shared -xft -gif -system-jpeg -system-libpng
qt-2.3.1$ make src-moc sub-src
The shared libraries are then found in directory lib.
You can now compare the number of relocations in the installed version of qt (found in /usr/lib/qt-2.3.1/ on my machine) with the new one. This can be achieved with the countreloc shell script.
$ countreloc /usr/lib/qt-2.3.1/
16915 R_386_32
2690 R_386_GLOB_DAT
5040 R_386_JUMP_SLOT
4926 R_386_RELATIVE
$ countreloc ./lib/
4563 R_386_32
2690 R_386_GLOB_DAT
5039 R_386_JUMP_SLOT
21669 R_386_RELATIVE
These numbers depend on your versions of the qt library and on the options selected when doing configure. But the order of magnitude should be correct. Then you can carefully save the installed version and replace it with the new one (danger)
# mkdir /usr/SAVEDLIBS
# mv /usr/lib/qt-2.3.1/ /usr/SAVEDLIBS
# cp ./lib/ /usr/lib/qt-2.3.1/
# ldconfig
Then run some QT programs and check that everything is working properly. Complete the test by logging out from KDE and logging in again. Here is what you should see if redo the konqueror command:
bash$ LD_DEBUG=statistics konqueror
26927: runtime linker statistics:
26927: total startup time in dynamic loader: 292051810 clock cycles
26927: time needed for relocation: 288954243 clock cycles (98.9)
26927: number of relocations: 41299
26927: time needed to load objects: 2872779 clock cycles (.9)
This is a little bit better (but not much yet).
4- Rebuild KDE
It is then time to recompile the KDE packages. The most critical ones are kdelibs and kdebase. Both can be compiled using the following procedure. You must first obtain the KDE source code from the usual places. Read carefully the KDE compilation instructions and run the following commands:
$ make -f Makefile.cvs
$ configure --enable-objprelink <other-relevant-options>
$ make
The option --enable-objprelink hacks the libtool shell script. Versions of KDE older than 2.2.1 do not have this option. You should see the objprelink command run on every object files just before linking a library or an executable. You can then install the new package with the usual precautions. After recompiling kdelibs and kdebase you should obtain the following result:
bash$ LD_DEBUG=statistics konqueror
26891: runtime linker statistics:
26891: total startup time in dynamic loader: 171268316 clock cycles
26891: time needed for relocation: 168954584 clock cycles (98.6)
26891: number of relocations: 21143
26891: time needed to load objects: 2094340 clock cycles (1.2)
The dynamic loading time has been reduced by a factor of two. It is time to focus now on konqueror's other bottlenecks. | <urn:uuid:773b65a4-e9f5-4a28-a66f-62b675d813f3> | http://objprelink.sourceforge.net/howto-1.html | en | 0.773898 | 0.073485 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Jun 24, 2014
Why is Verizon refusing to honor the two years data service agreement for Chromebook Pixel?
The $1200 or so Chromebook Pixel came with 2 years of 100MB per month wireless service from Verizon included. I’m literally looking at the paperwork that says so right now. Now Verizon is telling me, nope, that never happened and we are shutting off your service now, after one year. What can be done about this? Verizon is not only telling me I am wrong about something when I am not, they are essentially saying, “Who are you going to believe, Verizon or your lying eyes?”
Chromebook Pixel owners get $150 after Verizon abruptly cuts off free LTE
"As it turns out, apparently Verizon and Google didn't quite see eye to eye on that, as Verizon recently stopped that service for Pixel owners who bought their Chromebook only a year ago -- it seems Verizon thought it was a one-year plan instead of two. Thankfully, Google has stepped up to take care of the error by offering a $150 Visa gift card to anyone who bought an LTE Pixel. A spokesperson gave us this statement: "While this particular issue is outside of our control, we appreciate that this issue has inconvenienced some of our users. We are offering gift cards to affected customers."
I’m not sure why Verizon pulled the rug out from under all the Chromebook Pixel owners aside from simply not caring about people who aren’t paying them an ongoing monthly fee. Seriously, what are people going to do? I’m sure there are “mediation only” clauses buried in the fine print of the contract, and what is the monetary value you could get even if you won? I’m guessing $100 or so after putting in all that time and effort. Class action? Probably not enough people and I’d also bet there is a clause in the contract that required you waive that right as part of the TOS. Basically Verizon can screw people over and laugh about it because consumer rights have become so limited in the US.
However, all is not lost. Google is offering a $150 credit to all affected Chromebook Pixel owners. You have to ask for it though. Give Google’s Chromebook customer service a call and ask about it, and they should hook you up. https://support.google.com/chromebook/#topic=3399709
Answer this | <urn:uuid:eb75abca-1a4e-4186-91f3-2be6fe9d12bf> | http://www.idganswers.com/question/11520/why-is-verizon-refusing-to-honor-the-two-years-data-service-agreement-for-chromebook-pixel | en | 0.960737 | 0.053494 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
The Official Site of the Philadelphia Eagles
Offensive Coordinator Marty Mornhinweg
Posted Nov 2, 2012
Opening Remarks: "A little wrap-up of the last game, (I'm) disappointed that we lost the ballgame. We did some things reasonably well. Certainly disappointed. We all are disappointed in several things. Some of the things we did well: the turnovers, the red zone. Two-for-three; we've been doing pretty good there. The third downs were reasonably good. We need a couple extra, especially early in that ballgame. There were several things (that we were) disappointed in; the main being the end of the game scenario. We hung in and hung in. Things weren't going our way; hung in, hung in, hung in and then we cut that thing to 13 (points) and we get the ball back with about five and half minutes (remaining). We didn't do some things the right way, and we have a chance. Now, odds were against us and all those things, (but) we've been there before and overcome those types of things. So we've got to play better there. The biggest reason we're disappointed is because we've been very good in those situations at the end of games and we failed to accomplish much at all. Now, some other things: (we had) second-and-one, two or three, several times, I believe three times and we gained zero or went backwards. We overcame it several times; we overcame it, but we must be able to pick up those second-and-short and mediums in the running game. And there's many other things that we've got to get better at.
"Now, let's move on to New Orleans. Man, I'm excited. I know our players are excited to go down there to New Orleans and play on Monday Night Football. We've got several things that we're working hard on the field and preparing hard to get better with before this ballgame kicks off Monday night. They've been struggling just a little bit, a little bit more than a little bit on defense and I'm sure they're working hard to get some of these things corrected."
On why the offense has struggled to get things going early in games: "Well, we've been working on that and, you know, our second drive there, we scored. That first drive; everyone's specifically individual depending on game or play. That was one of those third downs I thought we should have had. Well, there's no question if we simply execute the way we're supposed to. But, certainly, our staff has looked at that and we did score on the second drive so we're think that that'll be a little bit better as we move along. We've been excellent in the second and third quarters and then at the end of games, so we need to play at a higher level on more of a consistent basis."
On whether he is worried about how QB Michael Vick is looking to become less conservative on offense: "No, we've talked about that. You're exactly right. That's necessary. Our whole offensive team, you know our mentality. We've talked about that before. We want to be aggressive, aggressive, aggressive; unafraid to make a mistake. When we make a mistake, we admit it, we find a solution, we correct it and we move on and it's that simple. Now, there's reasons why these things occur. Excellence is all about attitude and a certain mentality and so, we've discussed that as a unit and that is important; that attitude and that certain mentality that you were talking about."
On whether he thought the aggressive attitude was missing during the past few games: "I thought at a certain point in that ballgame, I'm not sure it was missing, but we needed more of it. I'm talking about that certain mentality and that attitude. You understand, I'm disappointed because we hung in there and hung in there when things aren't going right and that's typically what you do. Then, you give yourselves a chance to win at the end and we didn't get that thing done. So, right there is where you need it. You need it all the time, but right there. I'm not talking just about me; we're all disappointed as an offensive unit about that."
On how he found the attitude that he thought was missing: "Well, some things are unexplainable, but we talked about it; it's a certain attitude that we are the baddest men on the field and that mentality that we're going to be aggressive, aggressive, aggressive and it's just that simple."
On whether there has been an emphasis on Vick running the ball more: "That's got to flow naturally though, where he moves and/or runs when he's forced. Otherwise, we'll stay with the play and we got away from that just a little bit that last ballgame. We had, certainly, some opportunities to be just a little bit more explosive and against certain teams, you're only going to get a certain amount of chances and we failed to do that."
On the trouble with players recognizing late safety blitzes: "Really, I believe we're in the top ten against the blitz as far as passing, as far as rating and all those type of things. You can figure it out a million different ways. However, at the end of that ballgame, these were a couple of things that we've seen time and time again and done it in the past and we didn't get it done. Very simple; it's a very simple adjustment there. So, we've already talked about that. That was one of the things I was disappointed in there. We've got to be able to catch the football, we've got to be able to do some simple adjustments to pick some safety-type blitzes and some delayed-type blitzes up. It's just that simple."
On whether he is surprised that the offense had trouble picking up the blitzes late in the game: "Well, we've seen it all the time. It's just very simple things. We talked about that just a minute ago about playing at a high level, because, look, we did some very good things. But we've got to do them each and every time and so we've got to play at that high level on a consistent basis."
On how a lack of success in the run game can affect how you call a game on offense: "I thought we were in a pretty good rhythm. Now, we've got to execute just a little bit better on a couple of those. We had some drives; I think we scored on the first three out of six possessions. We've got to be better than that and we've just got to play at a higher level on a consistent basis. As far as the (play calling), you like to pick it up on second-and-short and these type of things in the running game. We did some good things, but we we're down trying to get that thing back within two scores and then ultimately one score and then try to win the ballgame. So, we've got to run the ball on a more consistent high level."
On whether he sees the potential of T/G Dennis Kelly securing the right guard job: "Well, I know this, that he's got a bright future and I know this, that he's going to end up being a heck of a football player. And then we'll see when other men get healthy and these type of things."
On whether Kelly looks better at guard than he did at tackle: "I do know he's got the ability to play both. He certainly can play the guard position and I believe he's got enough athleticism, certainly, to play on the edge as well. Now, he's got a long way to go. He's busting in here, preparing and trying to get better and all those things. Now, people have got some film on him so that's a great challenge right there for him."
On how he would assess Vick at this point in the season: "There's some great things that he's done. He's led us to three late, fourth-quarter, come-from-behind victories and there was another game that he led us to a lead fairly late in the game. So, that part has been excellent and Mike simply needs to play at that high level on a consistent basis, play in and play out."
On whether he believes that the talk of replacing Vick has affected his play during practice or in meetings: "Well, I'm not going to get into the private conversations and we've had certainly a couple of them as of late. Mike was very honest and I think that was important and I believe he addressed that. I'm not sure, but secondhand, I heard he has addressed that. So my point is, for all of our players, we want to play at a high level on a consistent basis and we want to have that attitude and that certain mentality that we've always discussed and had here. We typically have it; we've gone through some hard times as a ballclub in the past and then have come out of it and played well down the stretch. Well, last year, it was too late when we put it all together. We've got put it together now. We've got to get going here."
On how much of a focus or distraction the Vick situation presents for him: "Very little. I will say this, that there are some players that can't play in this city. It's that simple, and then the tough guys, both physically and mentally, can thrive playing for the Philadelphia Eagles and this city. You know, I've been here a while now and I've grown to love and respect our fans. They are passionate. It's almost like, hey, they can say anything they want about their players, but no one else can. We understand that and it's just very simple that outside influences distract us zero. It's that simple and I've talked about that a little bit, generally, here with that certain attitude and that certain mentality."
On how Saints defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo's defensive philosophy has evolved: "Well, it has evolved, and that's a good point because he's had a different sort of players at every different spot. Now, it's very, very similar, his system. He's got the system, but what he does during a particular ballgame against a particular opponent may be very different because of the personnel that he has and he's got an awful lot of scheme. So, we're working hard to prepare for all of that and we have certainly some thoughts on how to attack his scheme."
On why the running game has been less impactful and whether he would like to get RB LeSean McCoy more involved: "Well, that was a misnomer back with (QB Jeff) Garcia; we threw the ball just as much as we did before. We just ran the ball just a little bit better when Jeff played or it was very, very close. It was like one run more a game, but we were leading in those games as well. But anyways, that's years ago and Jeff was a heck of a player. The running game is important. It's important to do in a physical manner and we've done some very good things in the running game. I think LeSean's over 500 yards and reasonably good yards per carry, all those things. We've got to do it at a high level on a more consistent basis and that will certainly calm some other things down."
On how the team can be more aggressive without creating more turnovers and allowing the quarterback to get hit more: "Every game is an individual specific. Now, we're always aggressive. I'm just talking about that aggressive mentality and that makes you just a little bit more dynamic. I know what you're saying; however, the last ballgame, I thought we were just a little bit too careful with our mentality and it's just that simple. We've got to play loose and free and we've talked about that. Just simply unafraid to make a mistake; if we make one, we correct it. It's that simple and certainly that mentality will help us just a little bit with some of our dynamic ability there."
Recent Articles
Broadcast Schedule
Event Filter
Date Event Description Location
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday | <urn:uuid:19e8ba88-7a62-4cb5-8e0e-2efe2a2b70b9> | http://www.philadelphiaeagles.com/news/article-1/Offensive-Coordinator-Marty-Mornhinweg/0799d9ca-1787-4185-a3b4-0d528dbb5b6c | en | 0.987952 | 0.046112 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Frequently Asked Questions About Ecstasy
6 Feb 2001
What is ecstasy?
Ecstasy (also known as XTC, X, Adam and MDMA) is a dangerous, illegal drug that has effects similar to those of amphetamines and hallucinogens.
How is the drug used?
MDMA is generally sold in 100- to 150-mg tablets, with the active dose ranging from 50 mg to as high as 300 mg. Although most users ingest MDMA, some users dissolve the pure powder and either inject it into their veins or insert it into their anus.
Is the drug addictive?
MDMA has a relatively low addiction potential. Reports of compulsive use and daily use have appeared in the medical literature. It is clear that the drug is addictive for some and can often take on great importance in people's lives. Because MDMA's desired effects decrease with its continued use, daily use is less common for MDMA than it is for other stimulants.
What are the effects of the drug, and how long do they last?
MDMA, which begins to take effect within 20 to 40 minutes, produces little rushes of exhilaration that can be accompanied by nausea. The user feels the peak effects 60 to 90 minutes after taking the drug and the effects typically last for 3 to 6 hours. At low to moderate dosages, users report that MDMA produces understanding and acceptance of others. Users feel as though barriers disappear, and they feel less emotionally and sexually inhibited. Psychological effects include confusion, depression, sleep problems, drug craving, severe anxiety and paranoia. Psychotic episodes have also been reported. These effects sometimes occur weeks after taking MDMA. Physical symptoms include muscle tension, involuntary teeth clenching, nausea, blurred vision, rapid eye movement, faintness and chills or sweating.
Is the drug really dangerous?
As with any drug, some people may be extremely sensitive to MDMA. For such people, even a single dose change personality or cause panic disorder and depression; at times a single dose can even cause death. Even users who are not extremely sensitive face a variety of risks. Increases in heart rate and blood pressure present a special risk for people with circulatory or heart disease. There is some concern that MDMA may cause kidney problems as a result of the toxic effects associated with an increase in body temperature. Also, there is real danger of permanent brain damage. Possible causes for deaths associated with MDMA including the body overheating, heatstroke and dehydration stemming from dancing all night in hot clubs.
Does the drug cause psychiatric problems?
MDMA use can either stimulate or intensify an existing psychiatric disorder. Both its use and withdrawal from use can cause psychiatric symptoms and mimic psychiatric syndromes. Psychiatric and MDMA disorders, however, don't have to be present together. They can exist independently of one another.
Does the drug have different effects on men and women?
Women who use MDMA seem to have more negative personality changes, sleep disturbances and depletion of dopamine and serotonin in the brain than do men. The drug also increases a woman's risk for miscarriage.
Published on All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:2b521cc3-1623-4326-8987-ad2bd356dc99> | http://www.psychcentral.com/library/sa_factsec.htm | en | 0.947615 | 0.431116 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Tuesday, October 06, 2015
Advertise with us
Hunters ready for start of upcoming dove, deer seasons
By Taylor Mitchell
Sept. 19, 2012 at 4:19 a.m.
Updated Sept. 20, 2012 at 4:20 a.m.
Hunting season is right around the corner for dove and white-tailed deer. While it's not exactly like waking up on Christmas morning, it's still pretty exciting for hunters in South Texas.
"Everybody gets excited for hunting season in South Texas," said Charles Lassmann of the Double L Ranch in Victoria. "At one time they would close schools because all of the kids would be out hunting."
Schools won't close for the opening of hunting season, but it's still a fun time for all.
Dove season opens for the south zone (which includes the areas south of I-10 and east of I-35) on Sept. 21, while white-tailed deer season opens Sept. 29 for bow hunters and the general season opens Nov. 3.
"I'm pretty excited for the season to open up," Brian Pnacek, owner of Blue Quail Taxidermy and an avid bow hunter, said. "The cool weather lately has helped cool things down. You can try and predict what will happen, but you never know. What I do know is that everybody in south Texas will be out hunting."
Sean Campbell, who holds a PhD in animal nutrition and works with roughly 15 ranches, says the deer population should be up from what he's seen.
"From what I've seen on camera and in surveys, there are a lot of twin fawns," Campbell said. "Over the spring and summer there has been enough native vegetation for the deer to grow solid horns."
The experienced hunter understands the impact weather has on the area, but the young, new hunters may not fully understand its importance.
Last year, the lack of rain hurt the hunting season, preventing the deer from becoming big and fat like hunters would like. This year, there hasn't been much rain, but more than a year ago.
"I've seen some good quality deer with better looking horns and such," Lassmann said. "The drought came after the spring which isn't as critical of a time. The deer won't be overly fat because at the time they needed vegetation they didn't have much."
Pnacek also said he's some good-quality deer in the area
"The white-tailed (deer) have looked pretty good," he said. "There have been decent rains locally, which have helped. I've also seen some trees start to grow acorns. We should see a good acorn crop this year."
Acorns are a good source of nutrition for deer because they are very high in fats and carbohydrates. Because they are also easily digested, deer can eat lots of them per day and provides them with the necessary protein content to be healthy. Through eating the acorns, by late October, the deer could have a thick slab of fat underneath the coat and along the inside of the paunch.
Not only will the rain, or lack thereof in some parts, have an affect on deer but also on the dove.
"It has been dry, so there aren't a whole lot of water sources for them," Campbell said. "There is plenty of dove weed around and people have been planting bird plots, but the limiting factors are with the water sources. However, with this cool front that has been coming through, hopefully, it will bring more birds.
"The second season can be really good, though. It all depends on the birds."
Dove are attracted to farm fields where the seed are plentiful, as well as watering holes. With the large amount of rain that has fallen in certain areas, they'll be headed to those areas and not others.
"Dove feed in the evening and then go to a watering hole before they roost," Lassmann explained. "So, they will be around the watering holes. Really, though, it's hit or miss the first few weekends of the season."
Quail hunting - which opens Oct. 27 - has always been one of the favorite birds to hunt in Texas. However, the population numbers of quail have decreased over the past five years. Several factors have played a role in the decrease, including the 2011 drought and the destruction of their habitats.
While the number of quail has increased over the year, the population total has yet to reach what it once was. In the Victoria area, however, Campbell said he has seen some good indicators for quail hunters.
"I've seen a lot of birds hatching and a lot of pairs of quails," Campbell said. "They probably hatched around three weeks ago and are now half-grown."
Overall, hunters can expect a good hunting season for whatever animal they decide to hunt for. As it always is, though, it's difficult for humans to predict what animals are going to do.
But that's where the fun in hunting comes from.
Powered By AdvocateDigitalMedia | <urn:uuid:481cfd2e-0865-447e-ad26-1bed42cb8a91> | http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2012/sep/19/tm_hunting_092012_188770/ | en | 0.981863 | 0.032985 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Sign up ×
So recently our commercial kitchen got some bunches of bananas with a curious feature. On the inside they were firm and delicious (no jokes, please), on the outside they looked incredibly sickly. Specifically, they had this grey/green/brownish yellow with lots of black spots, some of them with depth.
Situational details: these are Cavendish bananas, and a weekend of ripening in the open air did nothing for them.
This got us curious about the mechanisms of banana ripening - it's clearly not as closely related to how good the banana is to eat as we previously thought! Can someone explain it more?
share|improve this question
closed as too localized by terdon, MattDMo, Mad Scientist Feb 5 '13 at 12:43
Check the situational details I just added. – rsegal Feb 4 '13 at 19:45
Ah, not Canarian then. In any case, this question is not really on topic here as it has nothing to do with the underlying biology. I would suggest,however, that you have one half-opened banana, allowing your customers to see that the inside is fine despite the blemishes. If you place the peeled banana next to the others, your customers should see that they should never judge a banana from its peel! – terdon Feb 4 '13 at 19:49
I couldn't find a cooking/culinary/restaurant .SE, so I posted it here as the most relevant field. – rsegal Feb 4 '13 at 19:50
Yes, indeed, and you took pains to politely acknowledge the possibility of its not being on topic. My last comment was not a complaint. You could try your luck over at cooking.SE. – terdon Feb 4 '13 at 19:57
@rsegal (can I recommend you change this question completely to ask "what are the mechanisms which cause fruit to ripen?" or something along those lines) – rg255 Feb 4 '13 at 21:31
Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question. | <urn:uuid:47a8233d-a79f-43bc-93cb-ebbf4eb34839> | http://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/7060/what-are-the-mechanisms-that-cause-bananas-to-ripen-how-is-or-isnt-it-related?answertab=votes | en | 0.959929 | 0.074102 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Skip to main content
Part of complete coverage from
Toobin: Civilian courts likely to handle bomb case
• 23-year-old defendant in attempted plane bombing is being held by U.S. marshals
• Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin says the case is probably headed to civilian court
• Some Republicans want defendant tried by a military tribunal
• Airport security: What does Israel do that the U.S. does not? "AC360°," CNN tonight, 10 ET
Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab is being held by the U.S Marshals Service in an undisclosed location. He has been charged with attempting to destroy the plane and placing a destructive device on the aircraft, which carried 300 passengers.
"He is an ordinary criminal defendant at this point, and he is likely to remain that way," Toobin said. "There is no indication that his case will, or should, be treated any differently than that of Richard Reid, who was charged with a very similar crime."
Reid pleaded guilty seven years ago to trying to blow up a jetliner flying from Paris, France, to Miami, Florida, in December 2001 using explosives hidden in his shoes. He is serving life in prison at the high-security "Supermax" federal penitentiary in Florence, Colorado.
Several Republican members of Congress have called for prosecuting AbdulMutallab before a military tribunal rather than in civilian courts.
Tom Ridge, who served as Homeland Security secretary under President George W. Bush, said on "Larry King Live," "I take a look at this individual who has been charged criminally, does that mean he gets his Miranda warnings? The only information we get is if he volunteers it? He's not a citizen of this country. He's a terrorist, and I don't think he deserves the full range of protections of our criminal justice system embodied in the Constitution of the United States."
Toobin spoke with CNN on Tuesday:
CNN: What's in store for the defendant?
Jeffrey Toobin: He's entitled to a jury trial like any other criminal defendant.
CNN: Does it make a difference that he's not an American citizen?
Toobin: The fact that he's not a citizen makes no difference. He has the same rights as any other criminal defendant, citizen or non-citizen.
CNN: What happens if it's shown that he acted on behalf of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which claimed responsibility for the incident?
Toobin: The legal system has already proven that it can deal with cases involving al Qaeda. Zacarias Moussaoui was obviously connected to al Qaeda in some way, and he's already been sentenced.
I don't see any basis for treating this guy differently than Richard Reid, who was promptly and successfully prosecuted in a civilian court. Moving him into a military tribunal would add tremendous legal uncertainty, because there hasn't been a successful military tribunal, one which has been upheld by the courts, since World War II.
CNN: What impact could this case have on the effort to close the Guantanamo prison?
Toobin: If it's true that Yemen was involved, and if it's true that released Guantanamo prisoners played some part, then it will make it more difficult. I think you need to be very careful in making assumptions about who did what in this case. In addition, it is not a debatable proposition that Guantanamo has to close. The president says it has to close. The Supreme Court says people need to be charged or released. The timing is negotiable, the closing is not.
If there was an easy solution to Guantanamo, it would have been tried by now. The problem is that many of the detainees seem to be in a legal twilight where there is not enough evidence to bring a legal case against them, but there is too much evidence simply to release them -- or no country can be found that will accept them.
CNN: This case has led to new security restrictions at airports. Are there legal issues associated with increased surveillance and screening?
Toobin: The courts have never settled the issue of how much privacy airline travelers are entitled to, but it seems pretty clear the answer is not very much.
The TSA is going to be sensitive to the issue of making every traveler in the U.S. look naked on a video screen. Those more intrusive techniques raise all sorts of questions, not only about the original screening but about what happens to preserved images and whether they can be sold or illegally distributed. | <urn:uuid:8d415ab6-7baf-4998-963e-ba24049fbf84> | http://edition.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/12/29/toobin.plane.bomb.civilian.court/index.html | en | 0.977523 | 0.351943 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Seneca is a city in Oconee County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 7,652 at the 2000 census. It is the principal city of the Seneca Micropolitan Statistical Area (population 66,215 according to year 2000 estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau), an (MSA) which includes all of Oconee County and which is further included in the greater Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, South Carolina Combined Statistical Area (population 1,185,534 according to year 2005 U.S. Census Bureau estimates). The Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate for 2004, former United States Senator from North Carolina, John Edwards, was born in Seneca. The city is the current home of United States Senator Lindsey Graham. It was named for the nearby Cherokee town of Isunigu, known to the English as "Seneca Town".
Agriculture Law Lawyers In Seneca South Carolina
What is agriculture law?
| <urn:uuid:90a3190a-9e26-4471-a9de-8cd5f8ba0d85> | http://openjurist.org/law/agriculture-law/south-carolina/seneca | en | 0.942508 | 0.020493 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
The Seneca Park Zoo’s policies and rules are as follows:
Seneca Park Zoo Society does not offer refunds on admission, camps, classes, memberships or special event ticket purchases. As a non-profit organization, we will extend your membership or provide you with another complimentary service.
ZooShop purchases are refundable when the original receipt is presented within 15 business days of the purchase date.
The Seneca Park Zoo strives to create a safe and enjoyable experience for all of our visitors, as well as our animals. Please click here for a list of the rules to follow.
Chaperones are an integral part of a successful field trip. It is an important responsibility and can help make the group’s experience safe, fun and educational. The Zoo requires a minimum of one chaperone for every five students. Click here to view our Chaperone Tips. | <urn:uuid:1013aec6-eae2-4c1e-813d-31755001dbb7> | http://senecaparkzoo.org/page/refund-policy | en | 0.910012 | 0.07557 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Coming Out Swinging
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is often described, not entirely without reason, as a somewhat passive and non-confrontational leader — an accidental politician, with the real strings being pulled, behind the scenes, by Sonia Gandhi. (Manmohan may wear the Pagri, but Sonia wears the pants, as it were.)
However, in the speech he gave yesterday in the Indian Parliament before the Confidence Vote (which the UPA government won, by about 20 votes), Manmohan Singh showed no signs of meekness or passivity. Indeed, his take-down of BJP leader L.K. Advani is rhetorically ferocious. I was impressed:
“The Leader of Opposition, Shri L.K. Advani has chosen to use all manner of abusive objectives to describe my performance. He has described me as the weakest Prime Minister, a nikamma PM, and of having devalued the office of PM. To fulfill his ambitions, he has made at least three attempts to topple our government. But on each occasion his astrologers have misled him. This pattern, I am sure, will be repeated today. At his ripe old age, I do not expect Shri Advani to change his thinking. But for his sake and India’s sake, I urge him at least to change his astrologers so that he gets more accurate predictions of things to come.
As for Shri Advani’s various charges, I do not wish to waste the time of the House in rebutting them. All I can say is that before leveling charges of incompetence on others, Shri Advani should do some introspection. Can our nation forgive a Home Minister who slept when the terrorists were knocking at the doors of our Parliament? Can our nation forgive a person who single handedly provided the inspiration for the destruction of the Babri Masjid with all the terrible consequences that followed? To atone for his sins, he suddenly decided to visit Pakistan and there he discovered new virtues in Mr. Jinnah. Alas, his own party and his mentors in the RSS disowned him on this issue. Can our nation approve the conduct of a Home Minister who was sleeping while Gujarat was burning leading to the loss of thousands of innocent lives? Our friends in the Left Front should ponder over the company they are forced to keep because of miscalculations by their General Secretary. (link)
Unfortunately, I gather the din was too great for the speech to actually be heard. But hey, at least he tried to say it.
In terms of content, the only thing that seems off key here is the reference to Advani’s “ripe old age” — I’m not sure that a 75 year old man can really get away with that comment! (Advani, for reference, is even older — about 81.)
The rest of the speech (read it here in its entirety) is more focused on substantively defending the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal and the general policies of the current government. It is, by comparison to the above, a bit dull… but necessary.
In the interest of opposing dullness, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention the second remarkable thing that happened in the chaotic Parliamentary session yesterday:
bjp lok sabha.jpg
3 BJP MPs disrupted the session when they pulled wads of Rupees out of a bag, and claimed they had been paid to abstain from voting. (A video clip of the event can be seen here.)
The allegations are going to be investigated, of course, but my instinct is that it smells like a stunt. The three MPs say they met Amar Singh, who told them “we can’t give you very much money to abstain, because we have the votes to sustain the government.” That sounds like B.S. (why would the SP bother with bribes if the vote was already secure?). And the story of how they were actually physically given the money is also a bit questionable (see this report). Finally, they claim they have video proving the bribe took place — but where is that video? Why didn’t they leak that to the media as well?
Of course, if it comes out that there’s hard evidence supporting the claims of vote-buying, the currently fragile UPA government probably really will fall. And the government falls because they really did buy votes and abstentions this nakedly, I for one won’t be particularly sorry about it.
In the meanwhile, 8 BJP MPs have been expelled from the party for defying leadership, when they either abstained from voting or voted cross-party for the bill. And the Samajwadi Party has filed a procedural complaint (“breach of privilege”) against the 3 BJP MPs who pulled the stunt.
160 thoughts on “Coming Out Swinging
1. Addendum: I’m not trying to give blanket support for every Israeli action. The Jews who claim that Israel is being “victimized by savage Arabs” are usually the same ones who either ignore or are indifferent to civilians killed by the IDF. It’s clear that neither side has the moral high ground, and that neither care much about civilian casualties (a dead Arab is “collateral damage” or “possible terrorist” and a dead Jew is a “dead Zionist” or “future baby killer”), which is why comparing the situation to actual cases of atrocities is incorrect.
2. Its good to see so many desis here so animated about a debate so far away and so removed from their day to day life. Unless there are some nuclear engineers here who are going to gain from this. As we say in India this is “good time-pass” reading (and writing).
Amardeep, you have child-like innocence if you believe that there was no money exchanged here. Was it a stunt by BJP – absolutely. I think that was the objective. So you can have the stunt and at the same time it is also possible that Congress/SP managers were trapped by their own designs. As for the tape, there is one and it was submitted to the speaker by CNN-IBN. Will it show absolutely that a particular individual of a particular party was involved – i doubt it. It will however raise enough stink to show that the vote was not clean. Another point is about the journalistic ethics of the TV channel who refused to show it. You can google several articles on this aspect of why the channel failed to show the tape. I think finally whatever evidence is their will be selectively chosen by both sides to prove their point. And don’t wait for the investigation to be free of politics either. The investigation comm. has 4 MP of the govt. and 3 of the opposition (1 of BJP)
“‘we can’t give you very much money to abstain, because we have the votes to sustain the government.†That sounds like B.S. (why would the SP bother with bribes if the vote was already secure?).” Thats like a summary judgement by Justice Amardeep. You can offer less bribes for people to abstain and more to people to cross vote.
Kush – Cross voting before Anti-defection law was quite different than now. The old cases that you talk about (Indira, Chandra Shekhar etc.) could not invite disqalification from being an MP. Now legally, if a member goes against the party whip, then the party can expel the member(from the party) and then request the speaker for disqualification from the house as an MP. If the facts are found to be true – that in fact the member did act contrary to the whip, then the speaker has no choice but to disqualify a member. The only thing is that the speaker does not have a time limit for these findings. Also in case of very small parties, this can get messy as Speaker has to first determine who is the real party and what constitutes the party line – whip by its parlimentary members or directive of its constituted leadership (who are not neccessarily MPs).
Overall, most parties support the deal but this vote was not about the deal (except for left parties) but for political objectives of forthcoming election and alliances. Did anybody hear one speech which only dealt with Nuclear Deal? Many speeches did not even substantially address it. Most members likely can’t even explain it. Congress and its allies most likely did use its resources to mobilize defections. That does not mean that others did not in this case or do not do it in other situations (BJP also likely did it in Karnataka recently). Manmohan is probably not a clean bureaucrat anymore but that was not his objective. He obviously believes that this was in national interest. As for the BJP, they come out less shining post-trust vote not because of bundles of notes bandied about in the parliment but because they could not control their own stable.
3. Don’t worry, I am sure the poncy Pomona educated Manmohan loves Musharraf. And surely, you do too.
What does the mean? I don’t think Manmohan Singh went to Pomona College.
4. Coming in late to the discussion here, was traveling, and didn’t blog this week. However, I did blog some thoughts on the big picture as I see it, last week,
I’m glad the UPA did finally prevail, and if there was bribery that their side indulged in, that would not be anything new. However, the UPA operatives who carried it out would probably have done so without the direct knowledge of Manmohan Singh, who in any case does not get into party matters too much. So in this case he would have plausible deniability.
The reason Westminster-style parliamentary systems do not separately require treaties to be ratified by the Lower House is simple – the Governments themselves can function only with the confidence of that House. So if a minority government holds office by virtue of plurality in seats, then a confidence vote on a controversial (in this case needlessly so) treaty would be the way to demonstrate that confidence. Note that in the Presidential system as in the US, it is the Upper House that votes on ratification. Originally, and for a considerable time afterward, the Senate was indirectly elected, when it was elected at all (Governors could appoint Senators in some states initially, the rest were indirectly elected by State legislatures. Even today, when vacancies arise due to resignations or deaths etc, gubernatorial appointments can fill out the remainder of the term.) Thus the matter of treaty ratification was given over to the House that did not have to directly face the people, soon, or at all, presumably so that they could properly reflect the status quo in their actions, but at least so that they could deliberate at length and leisure, especially on important treaties. As a matter of constitutional systemic thinking, however, I agree with this. Nobody should have to decide on the ‘merits’ of a treaty of such import when there’s an election to be fought in a few months (where, ironically, everybody on all sides agreed that the treaty wouldn’t be an issue), leave alone when you’re serving time in a district jail somewhere for, among other things, murder.
As a result of this gaping constitutional-systemic contradiction, the vote itself was less on the merits of the deal itself than on matters of political (and supposed geopolitical) strategy. What was really depressing was the several head-spinning volte faces that took place; the sheer hypocrisy on both the Left and the Right, but especially from the BJP; and the advent and persistence of state-level, crass, opportunistic politics into the Centre. In my view, the debate (and voting) on the deal show, as nothing else so far has done quite so dramatically, the fact that India now has an unreconciled (and possibly irreconcilable) polity at the Central federal level, which the coalition politics it has had in one form or other for nearly 40 years simply cannot resolve, and moreover, for which its governance structures are terribly ill-suited.
I argue in a post on my blog that the time has come for India to seriously consider a system with separation of Executive and Legislative power, a more powerful Upper House, and many, many more states, so that: treaty ratification(s) never again become mixed up with confidence votes, and never again in a House the whole of which is so close to elections. One-third of the Rajya Sabha is up for (indirect) election (or appointment) every six years, this body, suitably reconstituted, should decide matters of ‘ratification’. The states can decide how their own constitutions should function, though the separation of powers makes sense even for them.
I also suggest that, with a PM who is not a member of the Lower House, and indeed is not a professional politician at all, and with the powerful Prime Minister’s Office being staffed with so many specialist non-bureaucrats, India is already experiencing a form of the Presidential system, which should be taken to its logical conclusion, an indirectly elected Chief Executive, as in the US.
A continent sized country-civilization, which is, moreover, looking to play a bigger role on the world stage, cannot and should not be ruled via a system evolved in a small island-nation. The Westminster-style system should depart into the sunset along with the (post)Westphalian nation-state. Discussion is welcome on my blog, and indeed, here as well, with Amardeep’s forebearance.
5. Jyotsana:
Indian parliamentary procedure does not provide for ratification of treaties
Jyotsana brings up a serious problem with the Indian Constitution– what kind of national parliament has no power to ratify treaties that the government enters into? Whose idea was that?
…That is done for a good reason – …. I think Guha goes into it, and discussion during the Constituent Assembly in his book “India after Gandhi” in the chapter on constitution….
The flow of thoughts here is appears to be wrong. Here is the relevant article from the constitution
“253. Legislation for giving effect to international agreements.—Notwithstanding anything in the foregoing provisions of this Chapter, Parliament has power to make any law for the whole or any part of the territory of India for implementing any treaty, agreement or convention with any other country or countries or any decision made at any international conference, association or other body.
And yes , the question of whether the PM is allowed to sign treaties, without parliaments explicit approval has been dealt with. An news column on the very subject is here
Relevant excepts “The attorney general therefore contended that no separate legislation was necessary to implement that Indo-Pakistan Agreement.
The Supreme Court opined to the contrary. And the necessary legislation was enacted to implement that Indo-Pak Agreement of 1959.”
“‘All treaties in India need legislation for implementation as, unlike the USA, there is no concept of self-executive treaties.’ (Indian Constitutional Law, Wadhwa & Company, Nagpur, Fourth Edition, Reprint 1994, pg. 291)”
Manmohan Singh says that he does not need parliments ratification. Seriously, did we really need the actual excerpts for the constitution provided above to guess that that was not true? As the old joke goes, how do you make out if MMS is lying ..easy his lips move :-)
6. DizzyDesi:
Manmohan Singh says that he does not need parliments ratification.
He’s right. And you, obviously, are not a student of political science. The Executive, viz. the Council of Ministers headed by the PM, serve at the confidence of the Parliament, and thus are assumed to have the legislative support necessary to govern and implement policies.
Ratification is required when there is a separation between the Executive and the Legislature, to avoid concentration of power into one hand. This is not a need in the Parliamentary system of democracy for there are other safeguards in place, like tabling and moving a motion of confidence/non-confidence. Or, later down the line, legislation required to implement the treaty/policy. Bills are introduced, passed or defeated. But this process cannot be called a ratification, for it is the process of legislation. Govts and PMs can fall during trust motions/legislations – take the budget fr’ex, if it doesn’t pass, the govt has fallen. But that doesn’t mean that a PM who says he doesn’t need his budget ratified is a liar – the PM needs his budget passed, not ratified.
7. Chachaji I looked at your blog briefly..I think the idea of more Indian states is worth considering…IF AND ONLY IF the new entities respect traditional regional identities/cultural-linguistic zones. For example in U.P you could further divide it into Braj, Awadh, etc. and in Bihar you could have new states of Mithila, Magadh, etc. In Punjab (already a tiny state which probably doesn’t need further subdivision) one could have Majha, Malwa, etc. Rajasthan could have the state of Marwar carved out of it. I’m pretty sure even Kerala has at least three historic regions with slightly differing dialects and customs, which could theoretically form political units. Respecting these traditional regions/former kingdoms or whatever would be fine and would still accomplish what you are talking about…BUT I would be firmly opposed to random boundaries that haphazardly throw disparate cultures and linguistic groups into new political entities which have no basis in culture, language or historical identity. That’s what France did when they reorganized quite some time internal boundaries which had no basis in traditional regions…this was done very deliberately to weaken regional identity (and languages) and promote a monolithic, monocultural France. And it worked…they lost a huge amount of their cultural diversity and cultural wealth by so doing. Now some regret it but it’s too late.
8. DizzyDesi: Manmohan Singh says that he does not need parliments ratification. He’s right.
The treaty does not become valid until parliament confirms it. This is close to the very definition of ratification. Most countries method of confirming treaties follows the same procedure as passing any other legislature. (The US with its 2/3 senate majority requirement, is an exception, which may lead to some confusion)
And you, obviously, are not a student of political science
True, but studying in a discipline which emphasized process, logic, getting to the details, and emphasizing digging down to fundamentals has its advantages at times. It might make me waste a ton of time ponder what is the precise meaning of a particular word at times, but it ensures that I usually know the definition and common meanings of something, like say, ratification, before I comment on it.
9. Kush @ 118 says:
However, in principle, in India, one cross votes against the party directive, those members get expelled by the party (Mind, they do not loose their MP seat). That is not because of any legal law
Wrong. Cross-voting was legal until the Anti Defection law was passed in 1985. While party-whips are traditionally not formal institutions of power in Westminister-style democracies, the 10th Schedule gives them some fangs, exercised judiciously with the consent of the Speaker of the House.
The 10th Schedule is surprisingly quite a complex and fascinating bit of legislation, raising some additional values-based questions; there are those who say that it has contributed to a decline in intra-party democracy (it’s now virtually impossible for party MP’s to not toe the party-line, and continue to remain in the party) That, of course, is an entirely different debate altogether. But to respond to your specific point, no, it is illegal for MP’s/MLA’s/MLC’s to vote against the party directive; they do risk losing their seats if they do so.
10. Finally, they claim they have video proving the bribe took place  but where is that video? Why didn’t they leak that to the media as well? Of course, if it comes out that there’s hard evidence supporting the claims of vote-buying, the currently fragile UPA government probably really will fall. And the government falls because they really did buy votes and abstentions this nakedly, I for one won’t be particularly sorry about it.
The videos are out. It looks very interesting.. The Samajwadi party MP convincing the BJP MPs on the amount. Watching it. So far it is exactly as I imagined.. I have seen this in movies negotiating the amount.. :-)–part-ii-of-show.html | <urn:uuid:a7308785-a5f4-41d3-874a-90940affd8fb> | http://sepiamutiny.com/blog/2008/07/23/coming_out_swin_1/ | en | 0.973538 | 0.05272 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Amanda Carpenter
Former GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson is pushing back hard against a CBS reporter’s editorial assessment of his remarks at a rally for John McCain and Sarah Palin earlier today.
“Seems as if, all of a sudden, some of my old buddies over at CBS have become very sensitive to what they consider to be hyperbole on the presidential campaign trail. Imagine that,” Thompson told Townhall. Listen to Senator Thompson's full statement here.
CBS Reporter John Bentley, who covered Thompson’s presidential campaign as an embed reporter, wrote a very negative analysis of the speech Thompson gave to introduce GOP vice presidential candidate Palin. “Some of Thompson’s statements about the politician he was introducing seemed to the stretch the limits of credulity,” Bentley “reported.”
Bentley quoted Thompson as saying, “Sarah Palin is the most remarkable success story in the history of American politics.” Bentley then surmised, “which would seem to put her ahead of George Washington (winning the Revolutionary War, becoming the country’s first president), Abraham Lincoln (overcoming poverty, ending slavery, holding the union together), and Franklin Roosevelt (overcoming polio, defeating the Nazis, being elected president four times).”
“I didn’t realize that the mainstream media considered winning the Revolutionary War and freeing the slaves to be political events,” Thompson told Townhall. “But, nevertheless, it just occurs to me that this woman went from the PTA to becoming the vice presidential nominee, and along the way became Governor; took on and defeated the entrenched powers, the big oil companies, her own state party chairman, [and] an incumbent Republican governor while reforming the energy policies for Alaska to the benefit of the entire country. If she’d been a liberal woman doing all this, CBS and the other networks would already be fighting over the rights to create a television series about her.”
The same day Bentley snarked about Thompson’s appearance, the CBS Network removed a web ad created by the McCain campaign from the Internet. The ad contained a clip of CBS Anchor Katie Couric deriding the prevalence of sexism in American politics, which CBS said was unacceptable to use.
"CBS News does not endorse any candidate in the presidential race,” the network said in a statement. “Any use of CBS personnel in political advertising that suggests the contrary is misleading.”
Amanda Carpenter
| <urn:uuid:fa1f908d-0676-4350-9394-14083dbd3780> | http://townhall.com/columnists/amandacarpenter/2008/09/10/fred_thompson_calls_out_cbs_on_bias | en | 0.954401 | 0.021843 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Let’s face it: you’re on this weight loss journey to… lose weight! But you’re not going to have much success without boosting your metabolism—and sometimes you just need a little help. Your metabolism is the rate in which your body burns calories for fuel and to sustain life. Your metabolism is working constantly—whether you are working out or whether you are resting.
Because your body needs energy all of the time, even while sleeping, skipping meals is not best way to lose weight (or more specifically, lose fat). The better solution is to find ways to boost your metabolism. There are many things that affect the rate you use energy and burn calories or fat including: lean muscle tissue, food choices, activity level, hormones and genetics, and most importantly—you guessed it—stress!
There are three major factors that affect your metabolism and slow it down:
● Loss of muscle tone due to lack of exercise or sedentary lifestyle.
● Your body tries to metabolize muscle when it needs energy, but, either you are eating too much and your body doesn’t get the opportunity to use up reserves of stored fat—or you’re on the other extreme, and skipping meals—which kicks your body in to “self-protect” mode—and both prevent weight loss.
● Your activity level decreases as you age.
These pages are filled with some great metabolism boosters. Read through these reviews carefully—you want to find something that helps you STOP the storage of new fat, and ATTACK the existing fat.
Best Metabolism Booster Reviews | <urn:uuid:01781246-17d4-46f3-b4f9-b221c502e6ed> | http://www.dietspotlight.com/metabolism-boosters/ | en | 0.943229 | 0.072793 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
I attended a lecture recently where the guest speaker gave a detailed overview on building Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) projects, and I learned a surprising thing: It’s not only about the green materials used for the construction, but also how things are built.
Many types of green-rated materials and specialty system designs contribute to a building’s proposed LEED certification rating. Sometimes, these materials and systems require more intricate installations that can carry a higher labor factor. However, in the electrical industry, we have been working with these installations for years—lighting controls, specialty lighting systems, etc. So there’s nothing new to worry about there.
However, LEED projects are, by nature and design, clean jobs. In order to be clean and green, additional labor may be required for daily cleanup: recycling, dust control, materials handling and sometimes protection of the existing site flora (and possibly even the fauna).
‘Hey, you! You can’t throw that away!’
Under the LEED system, a contractor can earn points for achieving specific goals on its job site, such as a high recycling rate or low water usage. This means the general contractor may monitor and mandate specific elements about how the construction project is built, how the site is managed, how the site is cleaned up, what happens to the trash, what gets recycled, how much water is used, and a whole slew of other things, which may not normally happen on a non-LEED construction site.
On a higher level LEED project, you might not be able to throw away anything. For example, the cardboard and Styrofoam lighting fixture packaging might need to be neatly organized and prepared for recycling. Who will do this? How long will it take? Does your estimate carry this labor? Will your competitors be carrying it? Can you exclude it?
A five-story building with, say, 300 light fixtures per floor comes to 1,500 boxes and related packaging your electricians may have to deal with. If each takes another three minutes to prepare and recycle, you need to cover the cost of 75 man-hours. At $50 per hour average labor, that’s $3,750. It adds up fast.
It takes labor to be clean and green
The lecturer showed photos of staging and recycling stations used on one of his recent platinum-level projects. It was very impressive and very clean. In fact, he said the air on the project actually was tested to be cleaner than the air off-site. That’s pretty dust-free.
A clean job site doesn’t happen naturally. It takes extra labor to maintain. Now, perhaps the general contractor will have laborers doing most of this, but you must make sure.
Also shown in the photos were cutting booths where all cutting of piping, drywall, wood, etc., occurred. Hopefully, these stations would be located efficiently throughout the job site, but that’s a perfect world. Chances are they won’t be. This means a labor factor could be needed for cutting and handling all your electrical metal tubing.
What if the building is a high-rise? You might assume they would locate staging areas on each floor. But assuming this could cost your company some serious money, especially if they are all located on the lower floors only.
As with any project you estimate, it is always good to review all Division 0 and Division 1 specifications, and any other special scope-of-work documents that may have been issued specifically for the project. These typically are added to the initial bid set by the controlling project management contractor or general contractor in charge of the project. These types of documents can take precedence over the initial project specifications, so never discount their impact on the electrical scope; you may not be able to exclude things you typically exclude.
There are four certification levels for new construction in the LEED rating system: certified, silver, gold and platinum. Each corresponds to the number of credits accrued in five green design categories: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality.
As electrical estimators begin to work more on LEED projects, they need to learn as much as they can about each LEED certification level and how they need to factor their installation labor to accommodate LEED projects.
The lecturer did casually state that his company has found most LEED projects are run more efficiently and are easier to build. He attributed this to the fact that the job sites are more organized and cleaner to work in. But, this also is where part of the difficulty factor really applies.
SHOOK is the president and chief estimator for his estimating company, TakeOff 16 Inc. He has worked in the electrical construction industry for more than 18 years. Reach him at 707.776.0800 and sfs@TakeOff16.com. | <urn:uuid:71c35ac3-6dba-4b27-b624-85e22b20ba6a> | http://www.ecmag.com/section/miscellaneous/not-easy-being-green?qt-issues_block=0 | en | 0.957735 | 0.059411 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Friday, February 29, 2008
Randi Weingarten
Randi Weingarten gave the keynote address at a conference on performance incentives here last night. If you're thinking that it's odd for the head of a large teacher's union to be addressing a roomful of education economists you are correct. She essentially walked into the lion's den, confronted the lions, and lived to tell the tale. Whether you agree or disagree with her politics, you have to be impressed with her moxy.
My previous experience with Randi was limited to newsclips of her leading rallies, so I was pleasantly surprised by both the mechanics and the substance of her speech. She focused on two issues: bridging ideological divides to focus on what helps children (which, depending on your ideology, is either highly ironic or very fitting for a union head to say) and incorporating teachers in all reforms. She argued that the start of a pilot incentives program has gone smoothly in NYC because teachers had a role in its creation and management and because they were being rewarded rather than demeaned.
I think the strongest argument she made was that it is virtually impossible for most reforms to succeed without teacher buy-in. She asked a rhetorical question to the effect of "why would any teacher implement a reform in which they do not believe in their classroom?" To me, this is something too easily forgotten.
More on Standardized Testing and Private Schools
This blurb in the Tennessean covers a bill recently introduced in the TN legislature that would require all school-age students (even if home schooled or attending private school) to take state tests. Two things that I find interesting:
1. The chief objection to this bill seems to be that taking these tests will narrow the curriculum. I wonder if these same people would put forth a similar argument against testing in public schools. On the one hand, it would seem unfair to argue that students in private and home schools should have broader curricula than students in public schools but, on the other, it seems logical to assume that schools run by the government should also be subject to more governmental regulation.
2. Despite the paucity of information in the blurb, the message board is out of control with anger from both sides. Whether or not any accountability would accompany the state tests is left up to the reader to infer -- and people do, passionately. It seems as though most of the opinions expressed are only relevant if the writer is correctly inferring the rest of the facts.
Must opinion on education policy salways be so reactionary and ideological?
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Convincing Schools to Change
I was forwarded an interesting piece that Robert Weisbuch, the new president of my alma mater, wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education the other day. He argues that universities, rather than looking down on, or simply ignoring, K-12 schools, should form a partnership that he calls the "third culture" with primary and secondary schools across the country.
If that third culture is to develop, college faculty members might stop coming on to their school counterparts like gods delivering grace to undeserving sinners. We need to acknowledge that a strong teacher in the schools knows a great deal more about pedagogy than we do. Even beyond the obvious fact that we share the same kids at different stages and the more emotionally compelling fact that professors have kids, too, it is well past time to shed our pretensions, share our status as intellectual leaders, and acknowledge both what school teachers bring to the party and the mutual benefit that accrues from a partnership between equals.
I'm not sure how much he's referencing higher education in general and how much he's directing his plea at education researchers, but I find his comments particularly relevant for researchers. It seems that every article I've read about effecting change in the way that schools are run (particularly regarding the way that teachers teach) basically asks one question: we know how to run schools/classrooms, how can we convince administrators/teachers to things the way we tell them to?
The flaw that I see in this question is that it's exceedingly arrogant, which is probably a large part of the reason that the question never seems to be answered. Yes, research is not effectively utilized in schools, but the fact is that people who work in schools know a great deal more about some things than researchers could ever hope to. The fact that (most) researchers are experts on something does not give them the right to treat teachers and other education officials as inferior beings. Perhaps the way to effect change in schools is to work with people instead of talking at them.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Vouchers or Accountability
A blurb in Ed Week today mentioned the results from the first year of a five-year study on vouchers in Milwaukee. Apparently the Governor and legislature cut a deal: more vouchers were authorized in exchange for making the private schools in which voucher recipients enroll administer the same state tests as public schools. As a result, students who remain in the Milwaukee public school system and students who receive vouchers and enroll in private schools are both taking the same exams (which makes comparing results awfully easy).
After the first year, the researchers could find no difference in performance between students who enrolled in private schools and students who remained in the public school system. Some of the people leading the investigation are clearly proponents of vouchers, but if these results hold up for the next four years they're going to have to scramble in order to spin them in their favor. And there's a good chance that they have a legitimate argument; private schools aren't accountable for their results on the state tests and, therefore, probably spend a great deal less time preparing students to take them. Here's where it gets interesting: generally speaking, people in favor of vouchers are also in favor of accountability (and, therefore, standardized tests) but, in this case, the only argument to support the effectiveness of vouchers may be that the standardized tests did not accurately represent what happened in the schools. In other words, the only logical argument that I can foresee is either that vouchers have shortcomings or standardized tests have shortcomings -- either way somebody is going to be put in an uncomfortable position when they present the findings. I love twists of fate. | <urn:uuid:3752ac6b-e744-4d3c-a9e3-7dcf56771baa> | http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/2008_02_01_archive.html | en | 0.977515 | 0.034083 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
English Monarchs
Scottish Monarchs
Genealogical Tables
House of York
Edmund, Duke
of York
Edward, Duke
of York
Richard, Earl
of Cambridge
Richard, Duke
of York
Cecily Neville
Edmund, Earl
of Rutland
The Wars of Roses
Mortimer Family
Edward IV
Elizabeth Woodville
Woodville Family
De la Pole Famiy Neville Family
The Kingmaker
George, Duke of
Edward V
Lady Anne Mowbray
Richard III
Richard III Continued
The Remains of Richard III
Anne Neville
Edward of
Richard III's
Illegitimate Children
Battle of Bosworth
A tour of Bosworth
Warwick Castle
Middleham Castle
Sheriff Hutton
Elizabeth of York
Edward, Earl of Warwick
Margaret, Countess of Salisbury
De la Pole Famiy
Native Princes
Of Wales
English Princes
of Wales
The Honours of Wales
Tudor Era
Stuart Era
Recent History
The Regalia
The Theft Of The Crown Jewels
Leeds Castle
Buckingham Palace
Windsor Castle
Holyrood House
Balmoral Castle
Sandringham House
Hampton Court Palace
Osborne House
St. George's Chapel
Westminster Abbey
Henry VII Chapel
Edward the
Confessor's Shrine
Carisbrooke Castle
and Charles I
Order of the Garter
Order of the Bath
Plantagenet Of York
Edward IV
Parentage and Early Life
England's first Yorkist King, Edward IV, was the eldest surviving son of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York and Cecily Neville and was born on 22nd April, 1442 at Rouen, whilst the Duke was stationed there.
His father, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, held a strong claim to the English throne. He was the son of Richard, Earl of Cambridge, who himself was the son of Edward III's fourth surviving son, Edmund of Langley, Duke of York. Richard of York's mother Anne Mortimer, was the great grandaughter and heiress of Phillipa Plantagenet, the only child of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, second surviving son of Edward III. Richard II had declared Anne's father, Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, as heir presumptive to the crown. Edward's mother, Cecily Neville, was the daughter of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, and Joan Beaufort, daughter of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster and his mistress, later wife, Katherine Swynford.
On the death of his father and brother, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, in contest for the throne, at Sandal Castle, Wakefield at Christmas, 1460, Edward inherited from his father the Yorkist claim to England's throne. He acquired the support of his powerful cousin, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, later to be known to history as 'Warwick the Kingmaker'. Edward proved to be an able general, defeating the Lancastrians at Mortimers Cross in February 1461 after which he was proclaimed king in London. He gained a further decisive victory over the Lancastrians at Towton in Yorkshire, on 29th March, Palm Sunday. Fought in a snowstorm, it was to be the bloodiest battle of the Wars of the Roses, with casualties reported to be in the region of 28,000. The victorious Edward made a state entry into London in June and was crowned King of England at Westminster.
Edward's appearance
King Edward IV was a tall man, at six feet four inches high and said to be extremely good looking.
Edward IV
Thomas More records of Edward:-
' He was a goodly personage and very princely to behold; of heart courageous, politic in counsel, in adversity nothing abashed, in prosperity rather joyful than proud, in peace just and merciful, in war sharp and fierce, in the field bold and hardy, and nevertheless no further than wisdom would, adventurous.
More goes on to add ' He was of visage lovely; of body mighty, strong and clean made; howbeit in his latter days, with over liberal diet, somewhat corpulent and burly but nevertheless noy uncomely. He was in youth greatly given to fleshy wantoness, from which health of body in great prosperity and fortune, without a special grace, hardly refrains.'
The extrovert Edward was popular with the people, especially the Londoners and the ladies. Inclined to be lazy and easy going, he could act with alacrity when necessary and was highly efficient, although possessed of the ruthless streak that was inherent in the House of York.
Edward IVElizabeth Woodville wife of Edward IVOn becoming king at nineteen years old, Edward met and secretly married Elizabeth Woodville, the widow of Sir John Grey, a Lancastrian knight and daughter of Sir Richard Woodville (later Earl Rivers) and Jacquetta of Luxembourg. She had come to petition him for the restoration of her son's estates, the King had wanted her to become his mistress, but she refused. Bewitched by her beauty, he finally proposed, they were married at the Manor of Grafton in Northamptonshire on 1 May 1464. Elizabeth had two sons from her first marriage, Thomas, later created Marquess of Dorset, and Richard Grey.
Elizabeth, who proved to be avaricious and grasping, quickly persuaded her besotted spouse to arrange advantageous marriages amongst the nobility for her large and needy family. This succeeded in alienating 'the over mighty subject' Warwick, turning him from Edward's supporter to his implacable enemy.
Edward's brother, George, Duke of Clarence also heartily disliked the new Queen. Warwick, who possessed influence over George and under whom he had been brought up, wished to arrange a marriage between him and his eldest daughter and co-heiress, Isabel. The King refused to sanction the match, in defiance of his brother, Clarence married Isabel at Calais.
Warwick 'The Kingmaker'
Further ill-feeling and suspicion being engendered on both sides culminated in Warwick and Clarence's open revolt, Edward's forces were defeated by them at the Battle of Edgecote Moor in 1469, and the king himself captured, Warwick attempted to rule England in Edward's name, but a counter rebellion forced the king's release.
Despite attempts at reconciliation on Edward's part and although pardoned, Warwick and Clarence incited a further rebellion in Lincolnshire under the leadership of Robert Welles, Viscount Welles, which was crushed by Edward at the Battle of Losecote Field. Warwick and Clarence promptly took ship for Calais with the countess of Warwick, and her daughters Anne Neville and the heavily pregnant Isabel, Duchess of Clarence, fleeing the country. Isabel's child was stillborn and buried at sea.
In exile in France, Warwick entered into an alliance with Margaret of Anjou agreeing to restore the deposed Henry VI in exchange for French support. This alliance was sealed by the marriage of Warwick's younger daughter, Anne Neville to Edward, the Lancastrian Prince of Wales. On their subsequent invasion, Warwick's powerful brother, John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu, also switched his allegiance to the Lancastrians. Edward, along with his younger brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was forced to flee to the continent, taking refuge in Burgundy and Henry VI was briefly restored to the throne in 1470, little more than the puppet of the ambitious Warwick.
St George's Chapel, WindsorDuring Henry VI's restoration, Queen Elizabeth took sanctuary at Westminster Abbey where she gave birth to the Yorkist Prince of Wales, Edward. Warwick and Clarence had parliament disinherit Edward IV and his heirs, they claimed the king was not the true son of the Duke of York, but the product of Duchess Cecily's liaison with an archer named Blackburn, who was in the employ of the Duke of York when he was stationed in France.
Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy Edward's brother-in-law, Charles, Duke of Burgundy, was initially unwilling to offer him support, however, a French declaration of war on the province forced his hand and Edward was equiped with a small army, in attempt to regain the throne.
Following the example of Henry of Bolingbroke some seventy years previously, Edward, a daring military commander, at first claimed he had returned to England merely to claim his duchy of York. The city of York, however, refused to admit him but supporters flocked to his banner as he proceeded to march south. When Clarence, Shakespeare's 'quicksand of deceit', demoted again to second in line to the throne, realised he had gained nothing from his abandonment of his brother, he promptly switched sides, rejoining Edward's forces at the Battle of Barnet. To ensure that he, Clarence, was on the winning side. The Lancastrian forces were defeated in the ensuing battle, which was fought in thick fog and the mighty Warwick himself slain whilst fleeing the battlefield.
The same day Margaret of Anjou and her seventeen year old son landed at Weymouth and began recruiting men to the Lancastrian cause. She made for Wales, hoping to join forces with her brother-in-law, Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke. Edward, marching his army hard on her heels caught up with her at Tewkesbury on 4th May, 1471. Edward, the Lancastrian Prince of Wales was slain, either during the battle or after and Margaret of Anjou taken prisoner. The Lancastrian cause had reached its nadir. King Henry VI, a prisoner in the Tower of London , met his death there a few days later, on the night of the Vigil of the Ascension, 21st - 22nd May, 1471. The demise of his son had sealed his fate. While Edward of Lancaster still lived, he rendered the removal of Henry pointless. The Yorkist version of his end, that he died of pure "melancholy and displeasure" on hearing on of his son's death was not much accepted, even at the time. An examination of Henry's skeleton in 1910 confirmed that he had died as a result of violence..
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the youngest of the Yorkist brothers, wanted to marry Warwick's younger daughter and co-heiress, Anne Neville, the widow of the Lancastrian Prince of Wales. Disputes arose with Clarence, who was married to Warwwick's elder daughter, as to the inheritance and division of Warwick's vast lands and property, despite the fact that his widow, who held these in her own right, was still alive. A notorious Act of Parliament decreeing that the Countess of Warwick should be treated as if she were legally dead, effectively solved the dispute.
Edward's Achievements as King
An able ruler, Edward IV made an admirable start on reforming royal administration and on improving the machinery of royal finance. Edward embarked on an extensive building scheme, St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, intended to be the mausoleum of the House of York. He patronised his rival King Henry VI's foundation of Eton College. William Caxton set up England's first printing press during the reign, and also received Edward's patronage.
Edward revived the ancient claim of English Kings to the throne of France and set sail for France in the summer of 1475 with an army of around 10, 000. He possessed a powerful ally in Charles, Duke of Burgundy, the husband of his sister Margaret. The Treaty of Picquigny in 1475 brought the King a pension from Louis XI along with diplomatic benefits. Several of the king's followers, which included his brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, considered the deal inglorious but Edward emerged with credit and had acquired a lucrative pension.
George, Duke of Clarence
George, Duke of ClarenceThe King's untrustworthy brother George, Duke of Clarence (pictured left) remained sullenly disatisfied, his wife Isabel Neville died shortly after giving birth in December, 1476, she was followed to the grave by her baby the following January. The death of women in or after childbirth was a common occurrence of the age, but Clarence, always inclined to be of a suspicious frame of mind and driven by a burning resentment of the Queen and her family, accused Ankarette Twynho, a woman who had waited on his wife, of poisoning her. A jury was bullied into deciding Ankarette guilty and the unfortunate woman was hung.
In retribution and as a warning, two of Clarence's men were executed on a charge of using magical arts against the King and his family. Frustrated but unable to strike directly at the Queen, he burst into the council chamber at Westminster and read aloud a declaration of their innocence. The Duke of Clarence had clearly gone too far.
A rising in Cambridgeshire was believed to have been incited by Clarence and Edward, whose patience had been tried to the limit, accused him of placing himself above the law when he tried and hung Ankarette Twynho. He was found guilty of high treason, attainted and the death sentence passed. At the request of his mother, Cecily Neville, Dowager Duchess of York, the execution was carried out privately in the Tower of London on 18th February, 1478. Rumour reported that he had been drowned in a butt of malmsey wine.
In his later years, due to over indulgence, Edward IV had put on much weight. He fell ill in March 1483 after catching a cold on a fishing trip on the Thames at Windsor, which is believed to have developed into pneumonia. On 9th April he died at Westminster and was buried in his foundation of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, his tomb lies close to that of his victim, the Lancastrian King Henry VI. The tomb of King Edward IV was later destroyed by the Roundheads. He was suceeded by his twelve year old son, Edward V.
The fate of Elizabeth Woodville
Elizabeth Woodville lived on to see further reversals of fortune. The throne of her son Edward V was usurped by her brother-in-law, the Duke of Gloucester, who became Richard III and her marriage to Edward IV declared invalid and her children bastards. Her two young sons, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, disappeared inside the grim walls of the Tower of London and were never again seen alive.
In attempt to regain her lost influence, she supported the Lancastrian Henry Tudor, promising him the hand of her eldest daughter, Elizabeth. After Henry's defeat of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, he married Elizabeth of York , Elizabeth was restored to her position as Dowager Queen and stood as godparent to the new Tudor heir to the throne, her grandson, Prince Arthur.
For reasons that remain unclear, Elizabeth quarreled with her new son-in-law and was confined to a nunnery at Bermondsey in 1487. She died there, penniless on 8th June, 1492 and was buried beside her husband, Edward IV, at Windsor.
The Ancestry of Edward IV
Edward IV Father:
Richard Plantagenet,
Duke of York
Paternal Grandfather:
Richard Plantagenet,
Earl ofCambridge
Paternal Great-grandfather:
Edmund Plantagenet
Duke of York
Paternal Great-grandmother:
Isabella of Castile
Paternal Grandmother:
Anne Mortimer
Paternal Great-grandfather:
Roger Mortimer,
4th Earl of March
Paternal Great-grandmother:
Eleanor Holland
Cecily Neville
Maternal Grandfather:
Ralph Neville,
1st Earl of Westmorland
Maternal Great-grandfather:
John Neville, 3rd Baron Neville de Raby
Maternal Great-grandmother:
Maud Percy
Maternal Grandmother:
Joan Beaufort
Maternal Great-grandfather:
John of Gaunt,
Duke of Lancaster
Maternal Great-grandmother:
Katherine Swynford
The children and grandchildren of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville
(1) Elizabeth of York (1466 - 1503) m. HENRY VII
(i) Arthur, Prince of Wales (b. 1486)
(ii) Margaret, Queen of Scotland (b.1489) m. (i)James IV King of Scots (ii)Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus
(iii) HENRY VIII (b. 1491) m. (i) Catherine of Aragon (ii) Anne Boleyn (iii) Jane Seymour (iv) Anne of Cleves (v) Catherine Howard (vi) Catherine Parr
(iv) Elizabeth Tudor (died in infancy)
(v) Mary Tudor (b. 1496) m. (i) Louis XII, King of France (ii) Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk
(vi) Edmund Tudor (died in infancy)
(vii) Catherine Tudor (died in infancy)
(2) Mary (1467- 1482)
(3) Cecily (1469 - 1507) m. (i) John, Viscount Welles (ii) William Kyme
(4) EDWARD V (1470 - ?1483)
(5) Margaret (b. & d. 1472)
(6) Richard, Duke of York and Norfolk, Earl of Nottingham (1473 - ?1483) m. Anne Mowbray
(7) Anne (1476 - 1511) m. Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk
(8) George, Duke of Bedford (1477 - 1479)
(9) Catherine (1479 - 1527) m.William Courtenay
(i) Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon (b. circa 1497 -executed 1539)
(ii) Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter (b. circa 1497- executed 1539) m. (i) Elizabeth Grey (ii) Gertrude Blount
(iii) Margaret Courtenay (circa 1499 - 1526) m. Henry Somerset Lord Herbert
(10) Bridget , a nun (1480 - 1537)
See also:-
The Wars of the Roses
Fotheringhay-Mausoleum of the House of York
The House of Neville | <urn:uuid:cdd31795-7a8a-487e-9768-c34921a8be3b> | http://www.englishmonarchs.co.uk/plantagenet_12.htm | en | 0.965844 | 0.018208 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Rush sets new scoring record
Prev 46 of 48 Next
Prev 46 of 48 Next
1973 Eighth league title secured
1973 Europe conquered as Reds land UEFA Cup
1974 FA Cup returns to Anfield
1974 Sensation as Shankly resigns
1974 Paisley takes over in the hot-seat
1974 Shoot-out glory lands Shield
1974 Rampant Reds net eleven
1976 Ninth title clinched at Molineux
1976 UEFA Cup won for second time
1976 Reds beat Saints to win Shield
1977 Ten titles for Reds after Hammers draw
1977 Reds conquer Rome to win European Cup
1977 Kenny arrives from Celtic
1977 Shield shared with Man United
1977 6-0 win secures Super Cup success
1978 League Cup replay agony for Reds
1978 Wembley glory as Reds beat Bruges
1979 Villa victory seals league triumph
Arsenal gunned down in Charity Shield
1980 Reds clinch twelfth title
1980 Charity Shield returns to Anfield
1981 League Cup bogey is buried
1981 Kennedy the hero as Reds beat Madrid
1982 Reds retain League Cup with Spurs win
1982 13th title heads to Anfield
1982 Charity Shield is won again
1983 Paisley lands League Cup with Man U victory
1983 Reds win 14th title as Paisley bows out
1984 Joy for Reds in first all-Merseyside final
1984 Fagan leads Reds to title glory
1984 Kennedy the spot kick hero in Rome
1985 Fagan steps down after Heysel tragedy
1986 Kenny leads Reds to double
1986 Shield shared with Everton
1988 17th title secured against Tottenham
1988 Agony for Aldo as Reds lose final
1988 Joy for Aldo as Shield is secured
1989 Hillsborough - Our darkest day
1989 Rush nets twice as Reds win Cup
1989 Last gasp Thomas breaks Liverpool hearts
1989 Reds beat Arsenal to win Charity Shield
1990 Reds clinch 18th league title
1990 Shield shared with Man United
1991 Kenny quits as Liverpool manager
1992 Thomas and Rush land fifth Cup
1992 Rush sets new scoring record
1994 Fans stand on Kop for final time
1995 Macca double lands League Cup | <urn:uuid:b24a178f-2ccd-434e-9fa5-e85d8108cf24> | http://www.liverpoolfc.com/history/timeline/1970-1995/rush-sets-new-scoring-record | en | 0.833303 | 0.027054 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |