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War of Words
Christine Jackman, The Weekend Australian, June 04, 2011
THIS much Nina Funnell knows about the man who held a box-cutter blade to her throat on an autumn's evening in May 2007.
She knows he had an olive complexion. She knows he had bushy eyebrows and a five o'clock shadow. She knows – although she cringes at the stereotype it encourages – that he spoke with a thick, Middle Eastern accent. He attacked from behind, she remembers that, and dragged her into a park opposite a girls' high school in an affluent Sydney suburb. She knows there was not just the threat of violence; this man was quite prepared to deliver it. He threw her to the ground, straddled her and punched her repeatedly in the face as he indecently assaulted her.
She knows the police have his DNA, captured in the shreds of skin she clawed from him as she fought him off in what she describes as "an adrenalin-fuelled fit". And she knows they have not caught him yet. Maybe they never will. This frustrates and saddens her, but she holds on to those tiny nuggets of certainty about that otherwise nightmare-ish blur of events.
As for what has happened since, this much Nina Funnell doesn't know. Why, after she wrote about the assault, would anonymous contributors to different websites attack her and threaten her? And why would that story, first told in a Sydney newspaper, prompt one website to run a public discussion, inviting guests to assess how "rape-able" she is? And why did one man read of her trauma and feel compelled to announce to the world: "what a conceited bitch for thinking she is even worthy of being raped. The guy just probably wanted to give her a good bashing in which case job well done."
She does not know why there are some who, years later, still monitor her words and turn up in online forums to spread rumours that she lied about her experience, and to demand she provide intimate details or release police photos of the injuries she suffered.
She does not know when they might strike again, for they seem to work around the clock, and she cannot know whether they target her – "She's so fugly, I wouldn't even bother raping her from behind with a box cutter" – from the next continent or the next cubicle. She does not know what they look like and she does not know why they do it, whether it is for fun or boredom, or to humiliate her and encourage others to do the same – or worse. She doesn't know how many people are doing this to her; trawling the web, looking for opportunities to strike. And she does not know when they will stop.
Which is precisely why Nina Funnell, who now works as an anti-violence campaigner and writes regularly about social issues and the media, believes passionately that there are some things we all need to know about communication in the modern age.
"The internet has absolutely changed the nature of public debate," Funnell, 27, says. "The anonymity and the immediacy it gives people who want to indulge in abuse and hate… I don't know if it actually makes it more or less dangerous [to have a public profile] but when you're seeing a whole heap of hate speech written about you in separate forums, targeting you via email or in comments, I do know that it has a profound impact on your sense of safety…
"I had tried to come to terms with the fact that there was a psycho out there who had tried to rape and kill me. But then I realised that it wasn't just one individual, that there was a whole subculture that found this amusing. It was sport for them."
Snail-mail to cyber-bile
Nutters and obsessives; lonely hearts and angry pensioners. For as long as there have been commentators in public forums, there have been belligerent hecklers and aggrieved critics shouting from the fringes. Back when the mail would be distributed twice a day around our newsroom by a junior pushing a creaking trolley, the opinion writers of our newspaper ran a weekly competition to determine who had received the craziest correspondence.
Envelopes flecked with grease spots or some other unidentifiable liquid – could it be spittle? – often disgorged one's own article, indignantly clipped with ragged scissors or torn wholesale in one enraged swipe, bearing contemptuous comments scrawled in capitals.
Of course, there were more sinister threats, particularly during the fevered days of gun control and Hansonism. The police were called when I received a particularly nasty letter detailing very specific plans for harm and some knowledge of where my family lived. Security guards were assigned to accompany me to my car each night for a few weeks, and I was told to take care when I arrived home. "Still, we have evidence," a young constable said as he tweezered the letter into a ziplock bag, "and in the majority of cases once they've sent a letter that's the last they ever think about it."
It was precious little comfort at the time. But after studying some of the cyber-bile sent to Nina Funnell, and after spending hours tracking the crazed logic and outright intimidation of her opponents down the shadowy rabbit holes of various internet forums, abuse that takes a day or two arrive, and then with a postcode neatly stamped upon it, seems almost quaint. Strange days, these, when it can appear almost polite to limit your slander to an audience of one – unless it is taken to the boss or the police – and your death threats to a flimsy page that can be sealed away in a plastic bag.
Cyber-bile takes many forms: from people posting pornography or sexually explicit comments on Facebook memorials to murdered children, to the person who set up a Facebook site which promised the return of abducted Queensland schoolboy Daniel Morcombe if the page attracted one million members. To most right-thinking people this sort of stuff is unbelievably cruel, surely the outpourings of a small number of sick minds. Hoaxers regularly hack into Facebook pages, defacing pictures or spreading rumours that can cause untold pain, panic and embarrassment. And then there's the constant background chatter that eats away at people – mostly women – in the public domain. It seems everyone has an opinion now, and they want to be heard. But when did they become so mean and, in some cases, downright terrifying?
Sydney newsreader Jacinta Tynan calls them the faceless brave. "When people want to give me a compliment, they tend to email me directly," says the journalist and author. "Those who want to say really horrible things will go online and do it anonymously. They're suddenly very brave when they don't have to attach their names or their faces to their comments."
"Brave" is a generous description of some of those who regularly post vitriolic opinions on the Sky News website, assessing Tynan's appearance and performance as a presenter:
News reader Jacinta tynon's [sic] latest botox shots have reduced her face to a skull and make here [sic] sound like daffy duck lmao how stupid is the woman to think botox makes her look professional. Anything but sweetie, you look and sound terrible.
What on earth has Jacinta Tynan done to her lips? She looks like she's been bitten by a swarm of wasps. The botox job is ok, but those lips!!!
"Public figures are easy targets," Tynan says, adding she has never had Botox or collagen injections, but suffered a surge in abuse from viewers as her body changed with her pregnancies. "I think they forget you're human… I do try to respond to all of them, and when I was pregnant I felt particularly protective, like I needed to point out that hey, there's a baby in here! But most of the time my efforts are wasted because they've used a fake email address…
"What you have to keep remembering, as my mother always says, is 'what they say says more about them than you'. If someone wants to take the time to get on a website and bitch about how you look, that's their problem."
All television presenters have to learn to live with brutal feedback about their looks, Tynan, 41, says. But the internet has made it much ¬easier for critics – and, occasionally, unhinged admirers – to torment celebrities and other public figures who catch their attention. In Tynan's case, this includes a woman who assumed her Facebook identity, creating a page in her name complete with an array of work and family "snapshots" copied from existing publicity pictures already posted on the Web. Fake Jacinta managed to "friend" many of Tynan's real friends, who were unaware of the ruse, and apparently even began a relationship online, before dying suddenly. The "tragedy" was announced on Facebook by her "sister", who thoughtfully posted a picture of her coffin. As unnerving as it sounds, Tynan says she was unruffled by the incident, "although it does show just how easy it is to create a false identity on Facebook."
Much closer to home – and therefore much more personally devastating – was the avalanche of hostility unleashed after she wrote a newspaper column revelling in the joys of caring for her first son, Jasper, in the months after he was born. "I honestly thought I was writing a positive story about motherhood that would uplift people on a Sunday," she says of the column, which attracted a record amount of feedback when blogger Mia Freedman reposted it on her popular website Mamamia and prompted vehement talkback sessions on radio around the country. "It was the first time I had been exposed to the level of anger and vitriol that is allowed to breed online through blogs and websites. All the really nasty stuff was personal and so vitriolic. There were people wishing illness on my child and infertility on me."
The internet's ability to amplify rumours and thus cement them into facts is what most shocked and, for a while, threatened to overwhelm Tynan. "I tried to keep my head above it, but when it was still going after a few months, it got a bit tough," she recalls. "It became a bit like a witch hunt. There were people getting whipped up into a frenzy and I realise many of them hadn't even read what I'd written. But they'd dedicate their own blog to [discussing] it and then people would read that…"
What continues to disturb her is how those malicious "facts" linger long after the debate has died. Google "Jacinta Tynan" and "nanny", for example, and the search engine takes 0.20 seconds to deliver links to several sites where readers are informed authoritatively that Tynan is unqualified to talk about motherhood because she has a full-time nanny. Tynan, now the mother of two, has never employed a nanny, but that may not be enough to sate anonymous critics.
The question remains: what drives this level of anger? Dr Stephen Harrington, who lectures in media and communication at QUT's Creative Industries Faculty, says much of the aggression comes from people's disappointment that the online world still appears to favour professionals and experts, rather than levelling the playing field of public opinion as anticipated.
"That gap between the promise [of the internet] and the reality has generated anger and resentment among some people, and they really let that anger fly when they are given even the most tiny chance to have their voice heard," Harrington says. "The comments section of a news article is a good example. I think some people use those forums to attack everyone who disagrees with them because they have been told that their opinion is equally valid to everyone else's, and they feel they have the right to say whatever they want to, no matter how tangential it is to the actual item under discussion."
But if the internet has been likened to the Wild West, a new frontier where law and order is regularly tested in the rush to stake a claim in the new world, then Harrington urges users to embrace the opportunities rather than freeze for fear of outlaws. "Whenever there is a debate about new communication technology, we tend to blame any downsides or negative uses on the technology itself, rather than the people using it," he observes. "When someone dies in a car accident, we generally don't blame the vehicle itself, or car companies. Fatal accidents only serve as a reminder that people should be careful on the roads. I think we should approach new media technologies in the same rational way."
Driven to despair
But what if a responsible commuter on the information superhighway is forced off the road by other reckless or aggressive drivers whose licence plates are obscured? Paul Tilley, 40, may have been one such fatality. On a bitterly cold night in February 2008, the father-of-two stepped out onto the roof of a swank hotel in downtown Chicago and jumped to his death. That a successful advertising executive for DDB Chicago would take his own life at the apparent peak of his career might pass as strange to industry outsiders. But within days of the news breaking – even before Chicago police had ruled the death a suicide – an online flame war had erupted about whether vicious industry gossip spread by anonymous bloggers had driven Tilley to this final act of despair. Regardless of the reasons it is testament to the power of the internet that much of the mud-slinging can still be tracked online by a stranger in Australia, three years later.
"Anyone who thinks this sort of stuff doesn't need to be taken seriously, that it doesn't have a serious impact, doesn't understand the nature of depression," says Sean Cummins, 49, a successful Australian ad exec, whose experiences at the hands of vindictive industry bloggers mirror Tilley's in chilling ways.
Now the head of Cummins Ross in Melbourne, his former agency Cummins Nitro was responsible for the internationally recognised "Best Job In The World" campaign for Tourism Queensland. "That was when the vitriol started pouring in, all anonymous, on industry blogs," Cummins says. "Everything from 'he's a bastard to work for' to suggestions that I hadn't done the work I'd claimed credit for, to jibes about my personal life and even my profile photo…
"It's a form of social terrorism. My kids were being taught at school not to cyber-bully and yet here were these professionals out trying to really hurt people by doing exactly that.
"It was such a personal and outrageous character assassination and the collateral damage was enormous. There was a knock-on effect: when you're not confident, your creative work suffers because you second-guess yourself. Then I dulled the pain by drinking. I was erratic and my mood swings were inexplicable to my wife and family. Then my wife went on the website and she was shattered.
"Unfortunately, I got to the point where I contemplated topping myself and the ways I might do it. What stopped me was knowing I would leave a lot of people I loved very lost."
Instead, Cummins has decided to fight back. This week, he will take aim at the "cowards" in his industry – many of whom he claims work for major agencies – in a presentation titled Cummins vs. Anonymous at the Mumbrella360 marketing and media conference in Sydney.
"There is this civil libertarians' view of the internet that says it promotes a wonderful, open exchange of ideas," he says. "But it's not open and it's not an exchange when someone is deriding someone else's work or reputation and you can't respond because you don't know where it's come from or who you're responding to."
Cummins will argue that all comments on industry blogs should be attributed by name – and that websites should be held accountable if they allow anonymous posters to defame or attack other people. He says ultimately, he is prepared to sue if he has to – and, given he reckons he could mount a case for lost business, when prospective clients are scared off by what they read on the internet, the damages could be enormous. "This is about shutting people down and I'm not going to be shut down," he declares. "And if I have to stand up before my peers and become the poster boy for good manners, then so be it."
Sub-intellectual sludge
Ping! One morning, as I am researching this story, an email lobs into my inbox shortly after I've logged on to my work computer. I open it to read: Shut the f*ck up you f*cking ugly OLD wowser c*nt. You need a good stiff c*ck shoved down your throat if you ask me. What's the matter? Were you the ugly fat flat chested girl at school? Why don't you shut you f*cking c*nt mouth? Live your own f*cking life, raise your own f*cking kids, nobody elected you the arbiter of morality… you're a do-gooder, a meddling c*nt, who needs to shut the f*ck up. I'm going to a brothel tonight, and I'll be selecting the whore who most looks your age. Remember c*nt, you're a wowser c*nt, who needs to shut the f*ck up.
The email has been forwarded to me from Julie Gale, founder of children's advocacy group Kids Free 2B Kids, who received it after she appeared on The 7pm Project to speak about the sexualisation of children, and particularly reports that increasing numbers of young teenagers were seeking Brazilian waxes.
Ping! Another email arrives. This one is from Melinda Tankard Reist, a Canberra-based author who campaigns on social issues and policy affecting women, most recently the expanding porn industry and "pornification" of pop culture. Bolz says: Melinda quite clearly doesn't have hot bangable ass…, like Pippa. Jealous much?
Tankard Reist, 48, recently wrote an article, posted on the News Limited website The Punch, decrying the appearance of the Pippa Middleton Arse Appreciation Society page on Facebook as little more than online sexual harassment of the sister of Prince William's bride, Catherine Middleton. In her article, she quoted comments from the freely accessible Facebook page – "She would need a wheel chair and straw when I'd be finished with it xxbig Matty chambers xxx" – as evidence of the sort of violent and misogynist commentary that flourishes as "fun" on the internet, only to attract the same sort of abuse herself.
Ping! Another one from Tankard Reist, this time a tweet she copied in March targeting News Limited columnist Miranda Devine. @Mighty-Chewbacca: Today screwed Miranda Devine, then penned blog on her soiled panties on bus home.
Ping! And then one from Nina Funnell, recalling the time she wrote about cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil, only to have the online discussion quickly devolve into a slanging match in which she was told she was probably "riddled with STDs" and "just needed a good d*ck up you".
Ping! Ping! Ping! The messages arrive by email, by text message and via Facebook, after hours and at home, a veritable 24/7 outpouring of sub-intellectual sludge that begins to feel overwhelming in its toxicity, even though I have specifically asked for it. How must it feel when you can't turn off the tap?
"As a comedy writer and performer, my default mechanism is to see the humour," says Gale, 48, who somehow juggles a career as a Melbourne-based comedian with her deadly serious Kids Free 2B Kids campaigns to tighten advertising codes for children and restrict their exposure to pornography. "The vitriol is always unexpected, and for a few beats I do have to process the information. But then I take a deep breath and send it straight to my "comedy" file. I know there's some fabulous material sitting there, and trust me, I intend to use it!"
But she also concedes: "Every now and then, I wonder whether I should be watching my back, but I just shake those thoughts off and get on with it. I've never discussed this issue publicly before, because I'm out there encouraging people to speak out – which is paramount to creating change. So I don't want to put anyone off."
And therein lies the Catch-22 for women in the cyber-firing line. On the one hand, they believe it is essential to expose the level of abuse and misogyny that has flourished on the largely unregulated new media. On the other, they fear the only effect that would have is to discourage women from participating in public debates.
Says Tankard Reist, who occasionally re-Tweets or posts particularly vile comments: "I want to expose these people so my followers [on Twitter or her website] can see the battle we have, the ingrained hatred and contempt these people have for women… But I already know of young women who say they won't write their own pieces or contribute to comments pages anymore because of the feedback they get."
Although she condemns the sort of abuse thrown at men like Cummins and controversial male commentators like News Limited journalist Andrew Bolt, Tankard Reist says it is hard to imagine any man being subjected to the levels of personal intimidation – particularly, threats of sexual violence – that are part of life in the new media age for outspoken women.
Of course, there are still a few things the old and new media have in common, including the truisms that sex sells and so does controversy. So if you build a site where there is heated, colourful debate, the hits will come. And in an era where the media and newsmakers are still grappling with how to build stable, profitable audiences online, few moderators or hosts are willing to shut that down.
"Sure, it drives more traffic to a site," Tankard Reist says of the sort of no-holds-barred slanging matches that often replace serious debate online. "But editors and moderators need to be more vigilant about not allowing their forums to become platforms for haters and trolls."
Funnell agrees: "There's a 'lighten up squad' out there where everyone says 'if it's too hot, get out of the kitchen'. But perhaps the kitchen shouldn't be so hot in the first place. This is not just about women. It's about any sort of hate speech that is systematically directed against any particular group, designed to intimidate them or shut them down. It's about freedom of speech versus speech that defames, threatens or intimidates."
Tankard Reist, who has an ear for popular culture, chimes in: "When you ask for moderation or regulation, the people who oppose it claim it's because they believe in free speech. But they want to shut my speech down. It reminds me of the chorus of that song Ode to Women [by Your Best Friend's Ex]. They all demand their right to freedom of speech, and yet guys like that are using it to sing: 'Bitch, shut your mouth'."


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My results were a little different. Pulling the +5V on the 20 module array didn't stop it - it just continued to run dimmer than before with the same aberrations. So I kept the wires connected from the Uno to the 20th module and just disconnected it from all the others, causing them to black out (including module 16 with the problem). I then reconnected the array and they stayed dark; pressed reset on the Arduino and the 20 module array was working perfectly without any corruptions showing.It ran for about 20minutes just now without anything unwanted displaying. I think we have a winner. Thanks again Mel! I'll make sure when this sign goes standalone to include that power cycle on startup.Incidentally, why use the transistor with the IRF9540 since it would appear logic level will be enough to switch that MOSFET on its own?ThanksGeoff
Some breaking news. Tayda Electronics (http://www.taydaelectronics.com) are starting a kit section in additon to their component store and will be carrying instructions for Parola on their kits website http://www.taydakits.com/instructions/parola-for-arduino.
I am guessing here that you are referring to the Parola modules and not Mel's clock project :-)
The video shows connections from a prototyping shield to connect the led matrices and the controls used to demonstrate the functionality of the software, but any of the usual connection methods will suffice.
Hmm, re-reading that seems like a buy a lot of stuff on eBay.

subset: commoncrawl


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Michael Cuddyer or Yasiel Puig: Who's more deserving all-star?
From opening day of the season, Colorado outfielder Michael Cuddyer has been the Rockies' most valuable player. But does Cuddyer deserve a spot on the National League all-star team ahead of Yasiel Puig, the rookie phenom from the Los Angeles Dodgers?
"Guys who make the All-Star Game are guys that have a great first half, not a great three weeks," San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy recently said. Well, that would be an advantage to Cuddyer. His batting average is .343, with 15 home runs and 52 runs batted in, which all adds up to an OPS of .991. In a month, however, Puig has batted .430, with eight homers and 19 RBIs to go with an OPS of 1.174 In addition, Puig has turned around a disappointing Dodgers' season.
I would rather see Puig than Cuddyer in the All-Star Game. Why? Because baseball is supposed to be fun, unless you are an old-school crank named Bochy. Peter Burns of Mile High Sports Radio, however, believes Cuddyer is more deserving of a spot on the National League's 34-man roster. Listen to us argue it out here:


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Olympic medalist figure skater Michelle Kwan and Rhode Island attorney and political activist Clay Pell are getting divorced.
Pell says in a statement issued Wednesday it's with "deep regret" the couple's four-year marriage is coming to an end.
Kwan is a five-time world figure skating champion and nine-time U.S. figure skating champion. She won Olympic medals in 1998 and 2002.
U.S. & World
Stories that affect your life across the U.S. and around the world.
Pell is the grandson of Rhode Island's late Democratic U.S. Sen. Claiborne Pell. He ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2014.
Pell and Kwan married in Providence in 2013.
Pell said it's "a sad and difficult turn of events." He says he loves Kwan and wishes her the best as her life takes her in a new direction.


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Plaster casts of a child patient's feet, Hampshire, England, 1967
These plaster casts were made from the feet of a boy called Kevin when he was at the Lord Mayor Treloar Orthopaedic Hospital in Alton, Hampshire, England. Plaster casts are made as a record of a patient's condition and also as a guide to fit any prostheses or special footwear that may be needed. Founded in 1908, the Lord Mayor Treloar Hospital specialised in treating children with orthopaedic conditions, such as those caused by rickets, polio and tuberculosis. The casts are shown here with a similar example (2002-345).
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Glossary: cast
Use for sculptural works or reproductions made by casting. In industrial and building trade contexts, prefer "castings."
Glossary: plaster cast
No description.
Glossary: rickets
A condition caused by a lack of vitamin D. Characterized by soft and deformed bones, which can lead to an increased number of injuries.
Glossary: tuberculosis
An infectious disease that is caused by a bacterium first identified by Robert Koch in 1882. The disease usually affects the lungs first, and is accompanied by a chronic cough.
Glossary: polio
An infectious disease affecting the central nervous system. Affected individuals can exhibit a range of symptoms if the polio virus enters the blood stream.


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EU policies on the cultivation and imports of GMOs07 November 2013
by eub2 -- last modified 07 November 2013
On the 26th September 2013, the General Court of the European Union delivered a ruling finding that the Commission failed to act on a GMO cultivation request which had been submitted twelve years ago in 2001. In line with this ruling, the Commission today acted by referring the cultivation request to the Council of Ministers. It is now up to the Ministers to take a position by qualified majority on this request. The European Food Safety Agency had already submitted a positive opinion on this request in 2005, 2006, 2008, 2011 and 2012, in all six positive opinions. This 2001 request falls under the "old" pre-Lisbon comitology procedure, which means that if the Council is not able to muster a qualified majority, either for or against the authorisation, then the Commission is obliged by law to grant the authorisation. In parallel, the Commission has requested a fresh debate in the Council of Ministers of its so-called "cultivation proposal" on which the European Parliament has already adopted its opinion which would allow Member States to restrict or prohibit cultivation of GMOs on their territory on grounds other than those relating to risks to health and the environment.
What is the current procedure for authorising the cultivation of GMOs?
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are authorised at EU level on a case-by-case basis following an application by a company. Applications for cultivation of GMOs can be submitted under Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 on Genetically Modified (GM) food and feed or under the Directive for the deliberate release of GMOs into the environment (Directive 2001/18/EC). In both cases, the Member States play a significant role, carrying out the initial risk assessment of the GMO for cultivation.
Further information on the authorisation procedures
Are any GMOs already cultivated in the EU?
Yes. There is one GM maize –MON 810– that is commercially cultivated in the EU. This product's genetic modification aims to protect the crop against a harmful pest – the European corn borer. It was authorised in 1998.
In 2012, MON 810 was cultivated mainly in Spain (116,306 hectares), Portugal (9,278 hectares), Czech Republic (3,052 hectares), Romania (217 hectares) and Slovakia (189 hectares) (1). It represents 1,35% of the 9,5 million hectares of maize cultivated in the EU, and 0,23% of the 55,1 million hectares of genetically modified maize cultivated worldwide (2).
In 2010, a GM starch potato, known as "Amflora" potato, was authorised for cultivation and industrial processing in the EU. It is no longer cultivated in the EU since 2011.
Have Member States already prohibited GMO cultivation?
Yes. Eight Member States (Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg and Poland) adopted safeguard measures and prohibited the cultivation of the GM maize MON810 on their territories. France also had a cultivation ban in place until August 2013, when it was annulled by the French Conseil d'Etat. Moreover, Austria, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg and Poland have notified to the Commission the prohibition of the cultivation of the "Amflora" potato. All safeguard clauses submitted to EFSA have been declared scientifically unfounded.
Why is the Commission sending today a draft decision of authorisation for the Pioneer 1507 maize to the Council?
In 2001, the company Pioneer lodged an application for the authorisation of the maize 1507 (confer resistance to specific harmful moth larvae for maize such as the European corn borer) for cultivation under Directive 2001/18/EC on the deliberate release of GMOs into the environment. In 2007, Pioneer initiated a first action for failure to act before the General Court of the European Union against the Commission for not having presented a decision of authorisation of that maize for vote to the Regulatory Committee. This action was closed by the Court following the proposal by the Commission, in February 2009, of a draft decision of authorisation to the Regulatory Committee, though which failed to deliver an opinion. In 2010, Pioneer launched a second action for failure to act (case T-164/10) against the Commission for not having, following that absence of opinion by the Regulatory Committee, referred the to the Council a proposal for an authorisation decision, in line with the comitology procedure applicable at the time (Council Decision 1999/468/EC).
On 26 September 2013, the General Court issued a judgment in relation to case T-164/10 by which it declared that the Commission failed to act under Directive 2001/18/EC by not submitting to the Council a proposal under Article 5(4) of the Council Decision 1999/468/EC.
In accordance with Article 266 TFUE, the Commission is therefore taking the necessary measures to comply with the ruling and put an end to the failure to act, and is submitting a draft decision of authorisation for the maize 1507 to the Council. To ensure a high level of protection of health and the environment, the draft decision of authorisation has been slightly amended in order to include recommendations made by EFSA in 2011 and 2012.
Does it mean that the European Commission is in favour of the cultivation of Pioneer 1507?
The Commission does not express an opinion in favour or against a particular GMO. The Commission is obliged as guardian of the Treaties to apply the existing legislation. It will be recalled that Directive 2001/18/EC which is the basic act for this authorisation was adopted by the Council and the Parliament in 2001 to reinforce the framework for authorisation of GMOs for cultivation. It will also be recalled that at the request of a number of Member States, the Commission proposed in July 2010 an amendment to the said legislation to allow MS freedom to restrict or prohibit the cultivation of GMOs on their territory.
Where are we on the legislative proposal tabled by the Commission in July 2010 to amend the legislation on cultivation of GMOs?
In response to a long standing request from several Member States, the Commission published in July 2010 a proposal for a Regulation revising Directive 2001/18/EC to provide legal basis to Member States in order to decide on GMO cultivation on grounds other than those based on a scientific assessment of health and environmental risks performed at European level. Thanks to this amendment Member States will be able to restrict or prohibit GMO cultivation in part or all of their territory without recourse to safeguard clauses which up to now have not been backed by EFSA.
The European Parliament adopted a first reading opinion on the proposal in July 2011. In Council, despite efforts of consecutive Presidencies, and most particularly of the Danish one in 2012, no agreement could be reached yet due to the blocking position of a minority of Member States. The Commission has never stopped making significant efforts to address the concerns of these blocking Member States while gaining the support of the large majority of Member States in favour of the proposal.
Why does the Commission expect the Member States to move forward on this legislative proposal on cultivation?
The Commission considers that the problems that triggered the legislative proposal on cultivation in 2010 remain unsettled and insistent, as illustrated today with the submission to the Council of a draft decision of authorisation for the maize 1507 following the ruling of the General Court of the European Union on the case T-164/10.
Having also in mind the constructive elements arising from the European Parliament's first reading opinion, and the persistent calls from the majority of supporting Member States to be allowed to ban or restrict GMO cultivation on their territory along the approach set in the Cultivation proposal, the Commission believes it is critical and foreseeable to instigate a new political momentum so that significant progresses on the file with the Council and the Parliament are reached in the coming months.
What are the GM plants that are authorised in the EU for feed and/or food uses?
Besides cultivation, the placing on the EU market of GMOs and the use of their derived products in the food and feed chain is subject to an EU authorisation, conditioned by the demonstration of absence of risk for human and animal health and for the environment following a thorough assessment by the European Food Safety Authority.
As of today, the list of 49 authorised GMOs for food and feed use includes 27 maizes, 8 cottons, 7 soybeans, 3 oilseed rapes, 1 sugar beet, 1 potato, 2 microorganisms.
The list of authorised GM plants and the precise scope of their authorisation is available in the EU register of GM food and feed
Further information
1 : Source: Annual monitoring report on the cultivation of MON 810 in 2012 in the EU
submitted by Monsanto.2 : ISAAA Brief 44-2012: Executive Summary


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Remember the financial crisis of 1873? The result of the speculation surrounding the boom of the railroads and its subsequent collapse was the start of the Long Depression (I had to look that one up too).
The only way for Isabella Bird to escape the consequences of her frozen funding was to head into the mountains, where her former landlord Evans owed her $200. There she thought she could survive the embarrassment of being a lady without funding.
She found herself the only woman in the valley with a group of men who had been planning to "batch it" through the winter. But they filled another mattress with hay and accommodated her as best they could.
Letter XIII
The blight of mining–Green Lake–Golden City–Benighted–Vertigo–Boulder Canyon–Financial straits–A hard ride–The last cent–A bachelor's home–"Mountain Jim"–A surprise–A night arrival–Making the best of it–Scanty fare.
BOULDER, November.
The answer regarding a horse (at the end of my former letter) was given to the landlord outside the hotel, and presently he came in and asked my name and if I were the lady who had crossed from Link's to South Park by Tarryall Creek; so news travels fast. In five minutes the horse was at the door, with a clumsy two-horned side-saddle, and I started at once for the upper regions. It was an exciting ride, much spiced with apprehension. The evening shadows had darkened over Georgetown, and I had 2,000 feet to climb, or give up Green Lake. I shall forget many things, but never the awfulness and hugeness of the scenery. I went up a steep track by Clear Creek, then a succession of frozen waterfalls in a widened and then narrowed valley, whose frozen sides looked 5,000 feet high. That is the region of enormous mineral wealth in silver. There are the "Terrible" and other mines whose shares you can see quoted daily in the share lists in the Times, sometimes at cent per cent premium, and then down to 25 discount.
These mines, with their prolonged subterranean workings, their stamping and crushing mills, and the smelting works which have been established near them, fill the district with noise, hubbub, and smoke by night and day; but I had turned altogether aside from them into a still region, where each miner in solitude was grubbing for himself, and confiding to none his finds or disappointments. Agriculture restores and beautifies, mining destroys and devastates, turning the earth inside out, making it hideous, and blighting every green thing, as it usually blights man's heart and soul. There was mining everywhere along that grand road, with all its destruction and devastation, its digging, burrowing, gulching, and sluicing; and up all along the seemingly inaccessible heights were holes with their roofs log supported, in which solitary and patient men were selling their lives for treasure. Down by the stream, all among the icicles, men were sluicing and washing, and everywhere along the heights were the scars of hardly-passable trails, too steep even for pack-jacks, leading to the holes, and down which the miner packs the ore on his back. Many a heart has been broken for the few finds which have been made along those hill sides. All the ledges are covered with charred stumps, a picture of desolation, where nature had made everything grand and fair. But even from all this I turned. The last miner I saw gave me explicit directions, and I left the track and struck upwards into the icy solitudes–sheets of ice at first, then snow, over a foot deep, pure and powdery, then a very difficult ascent through a pine forest, where it was nearly dark, the horse tumbling about in deep snowdrifts. But the goal was reached, and none too soon.
At a height of nearly 12,000 feet I halted on a steep declivity, and below me, completely girdled by dense forests of pines, with mountains red and glorified in the sunset rising above them, was Green Lake, looking like water, but in reality a sheet of ice two feet thick. From the gloom and chill below I had come up into the pure air and sunset light, and the glory of the unprofaned works of God. It brought to my mind the verse, "The darkness is past, and the true light now shineth"; and, as if in commentary upon it, were the hundreds and thousands of men delving in dark holes in the gloom of the twilight below.
O earth, so full of dreary noises!
O men, with wailing in your voices,
O delved gold, the wailer's heap,
God strikes a silence through you all,
He giveth His beloved sleep.
It was something to reach that height and see the far off glory of the sunset, and by it to be reminded that neither God nor His sun had yet deserted the world. But the sun was fast going down, and even as I gazed upon the wonderful vision the glory vanished, and the peaks became sad and grey. It was strange to be the only human being at that glacial altitude, and to descend again through a foot of untrodden snow and over sloping sheets of ice into the darkness, and to see the hill sides like a firmament of stars, each showing the place where a solitary man in his hole was delving for silver. The view, as long as I could see it, was quite awful. It looked as if one could not reach Georgetown without tumbling down a precipice. Precipices there were in plenty along the road, skirted with ice to their verge. It was the only ride which required nerve that I have taken in Colorado, and it was long after dark when I returned from my exploit.
I left Georgetown at eight the next morning on the Idaho stage, in glorious cold. In this dry air it is quite warm if there are only a few degrees of frost. The sun does not rise in Georgetown till eleven now; I doubt if it rises there at all in the winter! After four hours' fearful bouncing, the baggage car again received us, but this time the conductor, remarking that he supposed I was just traveling to see the country, gave me his chair and put it on the platform, so that I had an excellent view of that truly sublime canyon. For economy I dined in a restaurant in Golden City, and at three remounted my trusty Birdie, intending to arrive here that night. The adventure I met with is almost too silly to tell.
When I left Golden City it was a brilliant summer afternoon, and not too hot. They could not give any directions at the stable, and told me to go out on the Denver track till I met some one who could direct me, which started me off wrong from the first. After riding about two miles I met a man who told me I was all wrong, and directed me across the prairie till I met another, who gave me so many directions that I forgot them, and was irretrievably lost. The afterglow, seen to perfection on the open plain, was wonderful. Just as it grew dark I rode after a teamster who said I was then four miles farther from Boulder than when I left Golden, and directed me to a house seven miles off. I suppose he thought I should know, for he told me to cross the prairie till I came to a place where three tracks are seen, and there to take the best-traveled one, steering all the time by the north star. His directions did bring me to tracks, but it was then so dark that I could see nothing, and soon became so dark that I could not even see Birdie's ears, and was lost and benighted. I rode on, hour after hour, in the darkness and solitude, the prairie all round and a firmament of frosty stars overhead. The prairie wolf howled now and then, and occasionally the lowing of cattle gave me hope of human proximity. But there was nothing but the lone wild plain. You can hardly imagine the longing to see a light, to hear a voice, the intensely eerie feeling of being alone in that vast solitude. It was freezing very sharply and was very cold, and I was making up my mind to steer all night for the pole-star, much fearing that I should be brought up by one of the affluents of the Platte, or that Birdie would tire, when I heard the undertoned bellowing of a bull, which, from the snorting rooting up of earth, seemed to be disputing the right of way, and the pony was afraid to pass. While she was scuffling about, I heard a dog bark and a man swear; then I saw a light, and in another minute found myself at a large house, where I knew the people, only eleven miles from Denver! It was nearly midnight, and light, warmth, and a good bed were truly welcome.
You can form no idea of what the glory on the Plains is just before sunrise. Like the afterglow, for a great height above the horizon there is a shaded band of the most intense and glowing orange, while the mountains which reflect the yet unrisen sun have the purple light of amethysts. I left early, but soon lost the track and was lost; but knowing that a sublime gash in the mountains was Bear Canyon, quite near Boulder, I struck across the prairie for it, and then found the Boulder track. "The best-laid schemes of men and mice gang aft agley," and my exploits came to an untimely end to-day. On arriving here, instead of going into the mountains, I was obliged to go to bed in consequence of vertigo, headache, and faintness, produced by the intense heat of the sun. In all that weary land there was no "shadow of a great rock" under which to rest. The gravelly, baked soil reflected the fiery sun, and it was nearly maddening to look up at the cool blue of the mountains, with their stretches of pines and their deep indigo shadows. Boulder is a hideous collection of frame houses on the burning plain, but it aspires to be a "city" in virtue of being a "distributing point" for the settlements up the Boulder Canyon, and of the discovery of a coal seam.
LONGMOUNT, November.
I got up very early this morning, and on a hired horse went nine miles up the Boulder Canyon, which is much extolled, but I was greatly disappointed with everything except its superb wagon road, and much disgusted with the laziness of the horse. A ride of fifteen miles across the prairie brought me here early in the afternoon, but of the budget of letters which I expected there is not one. Birdie looks in such capital condition that my host here can hardly believe that she has traveled over 500 miles. I am feeling "the pinch of poverty" rather severely. When I have paid my bill here I shall have exactly twenty-six cents left. Evans was quite unable to pay the hundred dollars which he owed me, and, to save themselves, the Denver banks, though they remain open, have suspended payment, and would not cash my circular notes. The financial straits are very serious, and the unreasoning panic which has set in makes them worse. The present state of matters is–nobody has any money, so nothing is worth anything. The result to me is that, nolens volens, I must go up to Estes Park, where I can live without ready money, and remain there till things change for the better. It does not seem a very hard fate! Long's Peak rises in purple gloom, and I long for the cool air and unfettered life of the solitary blue hollow at its base.
ESTES PARK, November 20.
Would that three notes of admiration were all I need give to my grand, solitary, uplifted, sublime, remote, beast-haunted lair, which seems more indescribable than ever; but you will wish to know how I have sped, and I wish you to know my present singular circumstances. I left Longmount at eight on Saturday morning, rather heavily loaded, for in addition to my own luggage I was asked to carry the mail-bag, which was heavy with newspapers. Edwards, with his wife and family, were still believed to be here. A heavy snow-storm was expected, and all the sky–that vast dome which spans the Plains–was overcast; but over the mountains it was a deep, still, sad blue, into which snowy peaks rose sunlighted. It was a lonely, mournful-looking morning, but when I reached the beautiful canyon of the St. Vrain, the sad blue became brilliant, and the sun warm and scintillating. Ah, how beautiful and incomparable the ride up here is, infinitely more beautiful than the much-vaunted parts I have seen elsewhere.
There is, first, this beautiful hill-girdled valley of fair savannas, through which the bright St. Vrain curves in and out amidst a tangle of cotton-wood and withered clematis and Virginia creeper, which two months ago made the valley gay with their scarlet and gold. Then the canyon, with its fantastically-stained walls; then the long ascent through sweeping foot hills to the gates of rock at a height of 9,000 feet; then the wildest and most wonderful scenery for twenty miles, in which you cross thirteen ranges from 9,000 to 11,000 feet high, pass through countless canyons and gulches, cross thirteen dark fords, and finally descend, through M'Ginn's Gulch, upon this, the gem of the Rocky Mountains. It was a weird ride. I got on very slowly. The road is a hard one for any horse, specially for a heavily-loaded one, and at the end of several weeks of severe travel. When I had ridden fifteen miles I stopped at the ranch where people usually get food, but it was empty, and the next was also deserted. So I was compelled to go to the last house, where two young men are "baching."
There I had to decide between getting a meal for myself or a feed for the pony; but the young man, on hearing of my sore poverty, trusted me "till next time." His house, for order and neatness, and a sort of sprightliness of cleanliness–the comfort of cleanliness without its severity–is a pattern to all women, while the clear eyes and manly self-respect which the habit of total abstinence gives in this country are a pattern to all men. He cooked me a splendid dinner, with good tea. After dinner I opened the mail-bag, and was delighted to find an accumulation of letters from you; but I sat much too long there, forgetting that I had twenty miles to ride, which could hardly be done in less than six hours. It was then brilliant. I had not realized the magnificence of that ride when I took it before, but the pony was tired, and I could not hurry her, and the distance seemed interminable, as after every range I crossed another range. Then came a region of deep, dark, densely-wooded gulches, only a few feet wide, and many fords, and from their cold depths I saw the last sunlight fade from the brows of precipices 4,000 feet high. It was eerie, as darkness came on, to wind in and out in the pine-shadowed gloom, sometimes on ice, sometimes in snow, at the bottom of these tremendous chasms. Wolves howled in all directions. This is said to denote the approach of a storm. During this twenty-mile ride I met a hunter with an elk packed on his horse, and he told me not only that the Edwardses were at the cabin yesterday, but that they were going to remain for two weeks longer, no matter how uncongenial. The ride did seem endless after darkness came on. Finally the last huge range was conquered, the last deep chasm passed, and with an eeriness which craved for human companionship, I rode up to "Mountain Jim's" den, but no light shone through the chinks, and all was silent. So I rode tediously down M'Ginn's Gulch, which was full of crackings and other strange mountain noises, and was pitch dark, though the stars were bright overhead.
Soon I heard the welcome sound of a barking dog. I supposed it to denote strange hunters, but calling "Ring" at a venture, the noble dog's large paws and grand head were in a moment on my saddle, and he greeted me with all those inarticulate but perfectly comprehensible noises with which dogs welcome their human friends. Of the two men on horses who accompanied him, one was his master, as I knew by the musical voice and grace of manner, but it was too dark to see anyone, though he struck a light to show me the valuable furs with which one of the horses was loaded. The desperado was heartily glad to see me, and sending the man and fur-laden horse on to his cabin, he turned with me to Evans's; and as the cold was very severe, and Birdie was very tired, we dismounted and walked the remaining three miles. All my visions of a comfortable reception and good meal after my long ride vanished with his first words. The Edwardses had left for the winter on the previous morning, but had not passed through Longmount; the cabin was dismantled, the stores were low, and two young men, Mr. Kavan, a miner, and Mr. Buchan, whom I was slightly acquainted with before, were "baching" there to look after the stock until Evans, who was daily expected, returned. The other settler and his wife had left the park, so there was not a woman within twenty-five miles. A fierce wind had arisen, and the cold was awful, which seemed to make matters darker. I did not care in the least about myself. I could rough it, and enjoy doing so, but I was very sorry for the young men, who, I knew, would be much embarrassed by the sudden appearance of a lady for an indefinite time. But the difficulty had to be faced, and I walked in and took them by surprise as they were sitting smoking by the fire in the living room, which was dismantled, unswept, and wretched looking.
The young men did not show any annoyance, but exerted themselves to prepare a meal, and courteously made Jim share it. After he had gone, I boldly confessed my impecunious circumstances, and told them that I must stay there till things changed, that I hoped not to inconvenience them in any way, and that by dividing the work among us they would be free to be out hunting. So we agreed to make the best of it. (Our arrangements, which we supposed would last only two or three days, extended over nearly a month. Nothing could exceed the courtesy and good feeling which these young men showed. It was a very pleasant time on the whole and when we separated they told me that though they were much "taken aback" at first, they felt at last that we could get on in the same way for a year, in which I cordially agreed.) Sundry practical difficulties had to be faced and overcome. There was one of the common spring mattresses of the country in the little room which opened from the living room, but nothing upon it. This was remedied by making a large bag and filling it with hay. Then there were neither sheets, towels, nor table-clothes. This was irremediable, and I never missed the first or last. Candles were another loss, and we had only one paraffin lamp. I slept all night in spite of a gale which blew all Sunday and into Monday afternoon, threatening to lift the cabin from the ground, and actually removing part of the roof from the little room between the kitchen and living room, in which we used to dine. Sunday was brilliant, but nearly a hurricane, and I dared not stir outside the cabin. The parlor was two inches deep in the mud from the roof. We nominally divide the cooking. Mr. Kavan makes the best bread I ever ate; they bring in wood and water, and wash the supper things, and I "do" my room and the parlor, wash the breakfast things, and number of etceteras. My room is easily "done," but the parlor is a never-ending business. I have swept shovelfuls of mud out of it three times to-day. There is nothing to dust it with but a buffalo's tail, and every now and then a gust descends the open chimney and drives the wood ashes all over the room. However, I have found an old shawl which answers for a table-cloth, and have made our "parlor" look a little more habitable. Jim came in yesterday in a silent mood, and sat looking vacantly into the fire. The young men said that this mood was the usual precursor of an "ugly fit."
Food is a great difficulty. Of thirty milch cows only one is left, and she does not give milk enough for us to drink. The only meat is some pickled pork, very salt and hard, which I cannot eat, and the hens lay less than one egg a day. Yesterday morning I made some rolls, and made the last bread into a bread-and-butter pudding, which we all enjoyed. To-day I found part of a leg of beef hanging in the wagon shed, and we were elated with the prospect of fresh meat, but on cutting into it we found it green and uneatable. Had it not been for some tea which was bestowed upon me at the inn at Longmount we should have had none. In this superb air and physically active life I can eat everything but pickled pork. We breakfast about nine, dine at two, and have supper at seven, but our MENU never varies.
To-day I have been all alone in the park, as the men left to hunt elk after breakfast, after bringing in wood and water. The sky is brilliant and the light intense, or else the solitude would be oppressive. I keep two horses in the corral so as to be able to explore, but except Birdie, who is turned out, none of the animals are worth much now from want of shoes, and tender feet.


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Amid spectacular scenery, study the behaviors and needs of arctic whales and dolphins.
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Join an international research team in the spectacular Norwegian Arctic to investigate the behaviors and needs of whales and dolphins.
In the Norwegian Atlantic, whales and dolphins abound. Every day, it is possible to observe large male sperm whales in the deep waters of an underwater canyon near shore. In the winter, the fjords are a feeding area for these mammals. Although Norwegian commercial whaling for minke whales is still a reality, there is increasing interest in whale watching—an activity that attracts tourists from around the world. You'll join a group of researchers in the town of Andenes on the island of Andøya, where you'll study whales and dolphins, focusing on migration, behavior, and the interactions of sperm, humpback, and killer whales with whale-watching boats. When the weather doesn't cooperate, you'll help with critical research tasks indoors, such as identifing individual animals using photographs and recording data.
Northern Norway is an extraordinarily beautiful place, and you can spend your off hours exploring its natural wonders. During the summer, you'll enjoy a boat trip to a nearby island when tens of thousands of puffins spend much of the year. You may also hike the island in search of foxes, elk, and otters, or enjoy a barbecue on a white sandy beach. You'll meet local fishermen and whale-watch captains, and throughout the project, the researchers will share their findings and interests with you.
Through this work, you'll help contribute to more sustainable environmental policies that will benefit cetaceans and people alike.
Your research will help in the development of guidelines to protect whales and dolphins in northern Norway.
Cetaceans—whales and dolphins—play key roles in marine ecosystems. Their population status indicates the oceans´ health; in other words, studying them gives us a window into how other species and the habitat as a whole are faring.
Interactions between humans and marine mammals in the Norwegian Arctic have been steadily increasing. The oil, gas, and fishing industries—the most important industries in the country—present risks for marine communities, and cetaceans in particular, if not properly managed. Exploring the seabed to look for oil produces loud sounds that can affect the whales' prey, their feeding success, and their ability to communicate. The high number of fishing boats in the winter, traveling in the dark, increases the possibility of collisions with whales. And as more tourists participate in whale watching, more boats encroach on whale habitat.
Observe killer whales and other cetaceans.
On this expedition, you'll observe and record how sperm, humpback, and killer whales interact with human activities. Through this work, you'll help contribute to more sustainable environmental policies that will benefit cetaceans and people alike.
Andenes is located on Andøya Island in the Vesterålen region, and is part of an archipelago in the northern Norwegian Atlantic. The area is spectacularly beautiful, featuring steep mountains plunging into the sea, numerous fjords and lakes, and—depending upon the time of year and the weather—the famous midnight sun or the northern lights. Thanks to the warm current of the Gulf Stream, Vesterålen has relatively mild winters and moderately warm summers.
You'll find a wealth of natural and historic attractions and activities, ranging from hiking trails, berry picking, and fossil hunting to gallery browsing, shopping, and visiting museums. A few of the opportunities you may have during your stay in Andenes include participating in reindeer herding and spending the night in a Sami tent, enjoying a dip in Arctic hot pools followed by a swim in the Arctic Ocean, and learning about research on the northern lights and climate change.
This is a summary:
Spend your days on land and at sea, where you'll:
Note: Field conditions and research needs can lead to changes in the itinerary and activities. Because of this project's location deep in the polar circle, high winds and other weather conditions often disrupt outdoor field work. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding.
From land, a team member scans the ocean for whales.
Join Iva Kovacic in the Norwegian Arctic.
Earthwatch researcher Iva Kovacic leads expeditions to investigate human impacts on whales and dolphins in the waters of northern Norway.
Stay in a historic house, complete with some of the original restored furniture, near the town bakery, the research station, and the whale observation platforms. The house has four bedrooms, a big kitchen, a dining room with a fireplace, and a garden where team members can sit and enjoy coffee and the midnight sun (depending on the season). It also has a washer and dryer.
Meals will be prepared in a common kitchen. In the summer, the evening meal is the heartiest, and you'll usually pack a lunch to take with you into the field. In winter, lunch is the main meal and will be cooked fresh and hot. Try some typical Norwegian food, including fresh fish and potatoes. Fruits and vegetables are also always available from local supermarkets.
Stay in Arresten Guesthouse, a historic house in town.
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Have you been on this expedition?
Elizabeth Phillips | Monday, November 17, 2014
This expedition is based in Andenes, which is supporting a growing whale watching industry. I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to be in the iconic northern Norwegian fjordlands and to see several varieties of whale.
I was part of a small team of volunteers scheduled to watch for and record details of whales and harbour porpoise spotted from the local ferry, town lighthouse and whale watching boats. The data helps to see how tourism impacts marine animal behaviour.
Unfortunately, due to strong winds both of the boat trips I was scheduled to be on were cancelled. Although, on one day, boats did go out when the weather improved (and several whales were in the area) we were not rescheduled to take advantage of the changed conditions.
Nor did we spot anything on the ferry or from the lighthouse.
A good part of our days was spent doing data entry or helping with educational presentations. Important, yes, but disappointing when it is all you have to do and it isn't your own data you are working on.
Our consolation was an unscheduled trip to the breathtaking lofoton region to do a 24-hr watch on a minke whale in a sheltered harbour. It was exhausting but very rewarding. We were very lucky that this opportunity arose, but it is not a normal part of what this expedition offers and we paid our own way to do it.
More collaboration between the researchers and the whale-watching industry might help future volunteers to do the job they came to do.
Those whales are out there!
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Climb aboard a motorboat and sail a tropical "inner sea" in search of endangered dolphins and whales in Costa Rica.
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Adapted from the manhwa of the same name, "Kid Gang" is about the once most powerful crime organization in Korea known as the Tuesday Gang. The gang received an assignment to take care of a baby just before their court sentence ends in six months. Son Chang Min plays their leader, Ku Bong, while Lee Jong Soo and Lee Ki Woo portray the gang members, Hong Ku and Kal Nal. The drama focuses on the trials faced by the gang members who have never taken care of babies before.
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Rhubarb vanilla drink
If you don't know what to do with rhubarbs? Or if you have already had your share of rhubarb pies and crumbles this season, well how about turning the red stalks into an amazing and cooling drink? Rhubarb Vanilla Syrup 1 … Continue reading


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In this image, pulled from a video shot by a family friend, Jack Jablonski crawled with help from Courage Center therapists during a rehab session.
With help from therapists, Jack Jablonski crawled and experienced other "significant events," his family said Monday.
In a Caringbridge.org posting that includes a video of the session last week, the paralyzed Benilde-St. Margaret's High School hockey player crawled with help from three therapists while at the Courage Center rehabilitation facility in Golden Valley.
"That was awesome!" one of the high schooler's helpers said as Jablonski's right leg moved forward.
"Was that me?" he asked.
"Yes, that was you," came the response.
Jablonski is a patient in Courage Center's two-year-old ABLE program, where people with spinal cord injuries work through various exercises with the help of therapists and trainers. In the crawling exercise, therapists provide support to the patients on their hands and knees, wait for the patient's muscle to contract, then help guide the motion, said Rachel Kath-Dvorak, who supervises the program.
Therapists aren't sure how much patients might be able to improve in the ABLE program, she said.
"We've seen some really amazing things from all of our clients," she said. "We're very optimistic... We don't know what it all means, but we know it's all positive."
Jablonski was paralyzed in late December during a junior varsity hockey game. Doctors said he would not walk again.
In late May, Jablonski told his Twitter followers that he had slightly moved his left leg, ankle and finger. His mother, Leslie, also posted on CaringBridge about that time that Jack was strapped into a harness and worked on a treadmill.
The recent CaringBridge journal entry, written by Jablonski's mother, said that "ever so slowly, Jack moved his legs and crawled. And crawled and crawled. Three times back and forth on the mat. He didn't want to stop! Certainly a stunning moment for all."
Leslie Jablonski said she and her husband, Mike, missed the moment but were thrilled to see it on film.
"It just gives us a lot of optimism," she said in an interview. "Something good is going on."
Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482


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Antique Silver Cast Iron Starfish Decorative Tealight Holder 4.5"
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Eva Mendes was riding in a cab through New York's SoHo in May when it stopped at a red light on Houston Street. Looking out, she saw herself splashed 50 feet wide across a billboard, writhing in a white tee and skinny Calvins. "There I was," she says, "all greased up, my head thrown back, and I thought, Who are you? Are you kidding me?" Later that day the curvy beauty, now ensconced in a banquette at the Carlyle hotel restaurant, laughs as she recounts how disconnected the sighting made her feel. "There's that little surreal moment," Mendes says. "I'm proud of it, absolutely, because why not? I can access that side quite easily, and I enjoy it, but certainly how boring if that was all I had to offer. The goal is to explore all sides."
Coming from an actress who has posed nude for the cover of Maxim, provoked a controversy with her bare nipple in a 2008 TV ad for Calvin Klein perfume and spotlighted her shapely breasts in countless photo shoots—in Italian Vogue, they were smushed upward by an unseen woman's feet—this may strike you at first as disingenuous. But spend a little time in Mendes's company and you begin to see that her most substantial assets are not just the ones on perennial display.
"Can I get something out of the way really quickly?" she asks as she scans the menu, holding up her slender hands to show me her crazy long fuchsia nails. "Not me! These are fake nails for a photo shoot, and they won't come off. I was looking at my hands and thinking, Ugh! What are these?"
Talons aside, Mendes, 35, is surprisingly delicate and unadorned in person, with a quick wit and the kind of boundless optimism that reveals itself in the way she says "aMAZing!" when asked to describe an experience. Tonight she's wearing a white gauzy summer dress with a plunging V-neck, and her hair is loosely piled atop her head. She has willowy arms, a forehead that furrows and slightly buck teeth, as she calls them, that lend her generous smile its warmth.
"It's very hard for me to be seen as funny, and the truth is, that's where I'm most comfortable," she says when talk turns to her latest film, The Other Guys, which opens in August and also stars Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. Mendes plays über woman Sheila Gamble, a Knicks dancer–turned–doctor married to a dunderhead of a forensics cop (Ferrell) who doesn't realize what a babe his wife is. "These are the two comments I get from people when they meet me," says Mendes, who lives in Los Angeles but is in New York for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute gala. "'You seem a lot taller on film,' and 'You're funny.' If people hang out with me, they see I'm a ham."
Ferrell and longtime cowriter Adam McKay, the film's director, had written Gamble expressly for "someone like Eva Mendes, who is instantly recognizable as one of the most beautiful women in the world," says Ferrell, without knowing if she'd actually go for their brand of goofball absurdism. And then McKay had lunch with her, "and it's kind of shocking how funny and cool she is," he says. "She's very quick and honest and isn't afraid to make fun of herself. So within two seconds, she isn't like a beautiful Hollywood actress anymore, she's Eva and game for anything."
In the past 12 years, Mendes has appeared in 24 movies, though it's safe to say that despite some memorable performances, none have propelled her to the top of Hollywood's A-list. She's longing to stretch, she says, having been cast more typically for her looks, so redolent of the full-bodied Sixties Italian sirens Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida, than for her acting cred. Among her best-known roles: Denzel Washington's mistress in the 2001 police drama Training Day; Joaquin Phoenix's sexy squeeze in the compelling 2007 cop thriller We Own the Night; and the canny, fast-talking gossip columnist Sara Melas in Hitch, the 2005 blockbuster romantic comedy that costarred Will Smith as the dating coach she falls for. Though Mendes was singled out for praise, it was the heavyweights Washington, Phoenix and Smith who got the lion's share of critical attention.
With The Other Guys, however, Mendes may well give her co-stars a run for their money. "It was completely liberating," she says of the opportunity to play in another key. "Never have I had so much fun with a character and felt so natural at it. Had I done this movie three years ago, I wouldn't have had the confidence to throw it back at Will, and now, if anything, I was overly confident. I didn't know when to stop!"
Mendes, Ferrell recalls, was nimble on her feet and always knew where the joke lay. His and McKay's method is nonstop improvisation, a working style they've honed in such films as Anchorman and Talladega Nights, but one that was new to Mendes. Asked to sing a little ditty they'd composed called "Pimps Don't Cry," Mendes "made up this funny, weird, touching moment where she's caressing my face and singing this song like a lullaby, completely seriously," says Ferrell. "It was odd and insane and funny all at the same time."
No stranger to being the lone female in a testosterone-fueled ensemble, Mendes happily jumped into her next project, tentatively titled Last Night, because it allowed her to work alongside Keira Knightley and to inhabit a buttoned-down, understated character for the first time. The film, which does not yet have a release date, features Knightley and Sam Worthington as a married couple tempted to stray. Mendes plays the husband's alluring business associate, and though she's the other woman, "she is not seen as overtly sexy as she's been in other films," says freshman director Massy Tadjedin. "There's a softness and subtlety in her performance that makes it a very real depiction of a woman."
While waiting for her Monster, the indie movie that turned Charlize Theron from babe into Oscar-winning actress, Mendes has tried to be savvy about the roles she accepts. Her winning turn as Nicolas Cage's prostitute girlfriend in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) may have been overshadowed by Cage's deliriously whacked-out performance, but the chance to be directed by Werner Herzog, she says, was reason enough to sign on. She initially turned down director James Gray when he approached her about We Own the Night because she wanted a more complex, sensual character than was written. Only after Phoenix joined the roster and Gray promised to allow her greater input did she go forward. "She's now trying to avoid 'sultry, hot' Eva Mendes," says the director. "She'll say, 'Can you please write me a part?' She has a very deep commitment to the craft of acting in a way that most actors of her generation simply do not."
Mendes did not grow up with any ambition to become an actress. The summer before her senior year at California State University, Northridge, where she was dabbling in communications without much focus, her neighbor, a photographer, happened to snap a few pictures of her, which caught the eye of an agent. Soon she was booked for an Aerosmith video ("Hole in My Soul") and won her first film role, as a screamer in the straight-to-video horror flick Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998). Her utter lack of experience led Mendes to seek out L.A. acting coach Ivana Chubbuck, with whom she still regularly takes class.
Her big break came three years later in Training Day, and though the script didn't call for it, she suggested to director Antoine Fuqua that she appear fully nude in her first scene. She and the character played by Washington had just made love, she reasoned, so why was she topless but wearing her underwear? "I've never had a problem with nudity, but I don't put it out there without a reason," says Mendes. "I'm not an exhibitionist. But, honestly, for my art I'll do anything, almost. I'll go there."
She certainly went there in We Own the Night—in the opening scene, Mendes masturbates in her underwear. "I remember calling my acting coach after seeing that first scene and telling her how embarrassed I felt, and she said, 'It means you bared your soul.' I was like, 'Right,'" she says in agreement, adding earnestly, "I'd never felt that before."
When asked whether all the nudity makes her feel objectified, Mendes doesn't flinch. "I know I walk a fine line between being a respected actor and being what they call a sex symbol," she says. "It's a hard one to walk if you want to be known as a real, credible actor. But I've never felt objectified. Nothing you see me do is an accident. I might act like it's an accident, but the opposite is true. I'm incredibly calculated when it comes to my career."
And she's not shy about using her celebrity to open doors. After admiring a gallery show by Francesco Vezzoli while she was in Rome last year, she arranged to meet the Italian artist and suggested they do something together. Soon after, Vezzoli, known for his clever use of celebrities, cast her in a new project at the Jeu de Paume in Paris. The work took the form of an ad campaign for a fake museum show, and included a video that evoked Fellini's La Dolce Vita, in which Mendes channeled Anita Ekberg as she promoted the museum. Also included were photographs of Mendes re-creating famous sculptures of women, all of them, in the artist's eyes, icons of carnal desire.
For all her steamy allure, Mendes has, in fact, led an exceedingly sheltered life. The youngest by more than 10 years of four children, she grew up in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles in a tight-knit, rambunctious household. Her Cuban-émigré parents divorced when she was about 10, and Mendes was raised by her tough-minded mother, whom Eva regularly accompanied on weekends to Grauman's Chinese Theatre, where her mom, Eva senior, worked in the gift shop and the box office. Afterward, they'd see a movie together. She still remembers the way her voluptuous mother dressed for work (in a "long geisha gown—gorgeous!") and always had her hair done, even off duty. Money was forever tight, and Mendes recalls the anxiety she felt whenever the phone or the electricity was cut off.
But they always had meat on the table, courtesy of her father, a meat distributor, who occasionally took five-year-old Eva on his rounds to the slaughterhouse. "I loved my dad so much and wanted to go to work with him," she says. "He'd put me in a room to draw. I couldn't see what was going on, but then my dad would come out, full of blood. So now I don't eat anything from a slaughterhouse."
A member of the drill team in high school, Mendes ran through a variety of odd jobs, including one at Hot Dog on a Stick. She was fired after she gave what she thought was an amusing secret Santa gift—comprised of personal-care products she'd bought at a drugstore—to a fellow employee. "The girl I gave it to didn't have a sense of humor," she remembers, and in an instant she's back there. "In your face, Marcelle!" Still, she was, by her own admission, "a late bloomer." She shared a bed with her mother until she was 17, and didn't leave home until she was already working as an actress. "I've never really lived on my own," says Mendes. "I didn't dorm anywhere or have those experiences that a lot of my friends had."
She met her current love, music producer George Augusto, shortly after high school, and the two now own a midcentury house in the Hollywood Hills. To hear Mendes tell it, her idea of a fun night is staying home with her dog, Hugo, a Belgian Malinois, to watch the episodes of 60 Minutes she Tivo'ed. Lately she has been listening to recordings of Maria Callas, whom Mendes says she'd love to play onscreen. "You can catch me at a very dark hour listening to an aria from Norma and crying my f---in' eyes out," she says. "I love doing that."
She's also fascinated by the diva's decision to abandon her career for shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. "She gave it all up in the name of love, only to be left because she gave it up," says Mendes, who is developing a project based on a Callas biography by Nicholas Gage. She admits that the story has become something of an obsession for her, seeing in it, perhaps, resonances with her own dual passions. "I'm a modern woman in the sense of I take care of myself, I'm fiercely independent and I'm really ambitious," she says. "Yet I have these old-school thoughts ingrained in my mind. I do like to belong to a man. I love having a man in my life and being his woman at the end of the day. I know it's a dichotomy."
Motherhood is another role Mendes has yet to fully resolve. "I've never had a longing to have children," she says. "I've been thinking about it lately because it's like, Oh, God, am I going to do this? I don't know is the answer."
Despite her candor about most issues, she refuses to discuss her 2008 stint in rehab at Utah's Cirque Lodge—for what her reps then vaguely called "professional support" for "personal issues"—professing that audiences know too much about actors. But she does go to therapy weekly, she allows, and "loves" self-help, pointing out that she regularly listens to audiobooks by self-help gurus Wayne Dyer and Eckhart Tolle. "It's really interesting," she says of Tolle's The Power of Now, "especially because Eckhart has such a comforting voice. It's great to fall asleep to that and just have that sit in my subconscious."
The next time we meet, it's the day after the Met ball, and Mendes has her hand stuck in a glass of ice at the St. Regis hotel. The diamond-studded ring she'd borrowed to wear the night before with her Dolce & Gabbana strapless floral gown is still on her finger. The jewelers had shown up that morning to retrieve it, she tells me, but try as she might, she couldn't yank it off. So now she's soaking her swollen finger, hoping to remove the ring before her afternoon flight to L.A.
The theme of this year's Costume Institute show is "American Woman," and as Mendes describes the opening, she orders a Red Bull and recounts how she spent just 14 minutes at the after-party so that she could head back to her hotel room to watch movies. When the conversation turns to her own, I ask if she feels that her ethnicity has limited her choice of roles. "I'm sure it has," she offers, "but I just want to see the positive. I don't consider myself a Latin American actress. I was born and raised here, and I have Cuban parents, but for me, I am the new American girl. It's not only Drew Barrymore and the blond Midwestern girl. This," she says, extracting her finger from the ice to point to her face, "this is also what we look like now."
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WebGUI Content Managers Guide 7.3
Paperback, 295 Pages
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This book was written with the Content Manager in mind. It doesn't contain a lot of HTML or any other programming language; its written for the average person managing content in WebGUI. The book starts with the basics: the location of items on the page and adding simple content. All assets are represented within these pages and tips are included to help you gain insight into some of WebGUI's "hidden" potential. While there are some assets explained in this book that require more technical knowledge than others (SQL Report and SQL Form come to mind), most assets require the same level of familiarity with the WebGUI user interface. As you work in WebGUI and become acquainted with its operations and appearance adding content will become intuitive. You will become more comfortable and experimental with your use of assets, and hopefully your creativity will result in new and innovative uses of WebGUI. This version is intended for use with WebGUI 7.3.
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James & Mary Murray Murdoch Family
Welcome to the James and Mary Murray Family Web Page. It is designed to bring their descendants closer together and be a means of communicating important family information to all of their family.
This web page is sponsored by the Brigham and Thomas Todd Murdoch Families as a service to this great family.
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Website Covers Coil-Packaging and Lifting Equipment
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Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Avon Engineering, Waterdown, Ontario, Canada, a division of Bushman Equipment, Inc., has introduced a redesigned website featuring custom-designed slit-coil-packaging lines and heavy-duty below-the-hook material-handling equipment. The site, www.avonengineering.com, offers downloadable product information in .pdf format, photos and online quote-request forms.
See also: Bushman Equipment, Inc.
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2013 is quickly approaching. So it is time for our Question evolution! campaign to chart out our group's vision for the coming year. 2012 was a very bad year in the history of Darwinism - just like predicted! See our article 2012 has been a very BAD year for Darwinism and atheism just like we predicted!
As a result, we want to keep the momentum going! We want to make 2013 the worst year in the history of evolutionary belief, atheism and agnosticism!
Other Christians may slow down during the upcoming holiday season! We are pouring it on! Would the Apostle Paul be bogged down with turkey, gravy, holiday hams and excessive consumerism? No! And neither will we!
"Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win." - Apostle Paul
2012 was a BAD year for evolutionism, atheism and agnosticism
5 things our Question Evolution! Campaign blog covered in 2012:
1. How biblical Christianity and belief in biblical creation are rapidly expanding around the world even in places like secular France. Christianity and belief in biblical creation is exploding in adherents For example, even in secular France evangelicalism is the fastest growing religion. See: European creationism
Global decline of atheism/agnosticism and the rise of Christianity and Decline of internet atheism
3. Why evolutionism is an intellectual wasteland based on gut feelings and rebellion to biblical authority. See: 15 questions for evolutionists and Evolutionary gut feelings, "Belief in Evolution Boils Down to a Gut Feeling" and Why is evolution pushed by dogmatic evolutionists?
4. Our Question Evolution! Campaign group's activities, strategies and goals (see: Our group's plan, strategy and tactics for advancing the Question Evolution! Campaign).
5. The activities of Creation Ministries International and other Christian/creationist organizations.
Making 2013 be the WORST year in the history of evolutionism, atheism and agnosticism
A few reasons why 2013 will be the worst year in the history of Darwinism. atheism and evolutionism: First, there are already a lot of trends which are adverse to Darwinism, atheism and agnosticism. See: Trends against Darwinism, atheism and agnosticism
So how many alliances and internet alliances can Creation Ministries International create through engaging in internet evangelism, creation evangelism and promoting the Question Evolution! Campaign via its 15 questions for evolutionists web page and other resources which are developed.
In our 12 point plan for accelerating the growth of Christianity and the decline of global atheism, agnosticism and evolutionism we wrote:
Work with Christian groups, such as Christian ministries which have some focus on Christian evangelism, the evolution/atheism issue, defending Christianity, Christian maturity, etc. and co-develop initiatives to spread Christianity faster and help cause evolutionism/atheism to decline faster.I did some quick research on this matter today and found how many websites are citing various popular Christian websites which have a biblical Christianity outlook via linking to their websites. Christians helping each other spread our various messages is important as various ministries have different focuses/specialties.
In addition, establish mutually beneficial relationships where we distribute each others material. For example, linking to each other websites, emails, etc. Through teamwork and creating synergistic initiatives many times a lot more can be accomplished.
30 Popular Bible believing websites by how many websites are linking to their websites
Christian websites - Other websites referring people to their websites
1. Biblegateway.com 225,000 websites
2. Crosswalk.com 100,000 websites
3. Christianpost.com 90,000 websites
4. Christiananswers.net 81,000 websites
5. Ccel.org 72,000 websites
6. Answersingenesis.org 62,000 websites
7. Blueletterbible.org 48,000 websites
8. Ag.org 42,000 websites
9. Carm.org 40,000 websites
10. Biola.edu 40,000 websites
11. Gotquestions.org 35,000 websites
12. Christianity.com 34,000 websites
13. Lcms.org 32,000 websites
14. Icr.org 30,000 websites
15. Liberty.edu 30,000 websites
16. Sbc.net 29,000 websites
17. Rbc.org 28,000 websites
18. Wels.net 22,500 websites
19. Gospel.com 22,500 websites
20. Gty.org 21,000 websites
21. Sermonaudio.com 20,000 websites
22. Allaboutgod.com 17,500 websites
23. Albertmohler.com 16,000 websites
24. Biblestudytools.com 15,000 websites
25. Probe.org 15,000 websites
26. Ligonier.org 14,500 websites
27. Tektonics.org 14,000 websites
28. Str.org 14,000 websites
29. Rzim.org 12,000 websites
30. Odb.org 7,000 websites
Below is the web traffic figures of the top 5 websites above according to Compete.com:
1. Biblegateway - 3,550, 000 unique visitors a month
2. Crosswalk.com - 420, 000 unique visitors a month
3. Christianpost.com - 2,000,000 unique visitors a month
4. Christiananswers.net - 290,000 unique visitors a month
5. Ccel.org - 160,000 unique visitors a month
In addition, some Christian organizations such as internet evangelism organizations own multiple websites.
In June of 2011, the internet evangelism organization Global Media Outreach reported:
Worldwide:In the last 5 years, Christians have been a lot more active on the internet. Websites like Biblegateway.com and Christianpost.com have done an outstanding job of creating useful content and aggressively promoting their websites among Christendom. They are seeing millions of visitors a month to their websites.
• Shared the Gospel with more than 150 million people
• Saw 19,287,789 indicate that they prayed in faith to receive Jesus Christ
• With 2,550,732 requesting follow-up from one of our 7,588 trained volunteer online missionaries
• 4,507,155 discipleship visits
• All 195 countries
It is time for believers in biblical creation to aggressively get their message out within Christendom and throughout the world! The author John Noe said "High achievers make no small plans". Creationist must have big plans if we are going to extinguish evolutionary belief in the quickest manner possible. Biblegateway.com had big plans and creationist should have big plans too. Biblical creationist definitely need as many Christians and Christian websites helping them to enthusiastically spread their message. Imagine the power of many Christians sharing the Question Evolution! Campaign with others.
Our Question Evolution! Campaign is definitely going to tell a lot of Christians and Christians website owners about the ministry of Creation Ministries International and its various initiatives including the 15 questions for evolutionists. One effective way to defeat Darwinism is to inoculate Christian young people against evolutionary indoctrination.
In addition, we want to help Creation Ministries International with their internet evangelism efforts. See: Internet evangelism is powerful especially when it is combined with creation evangelism
"If we dedicate ourselves over and over again to the goal of climbing one peak to the next…resisting the urge to become discouraged by the task-every one of us can become a high achiever." - John R. Noe
Making 2013 the worst year in the history of evolutionism, atheism, agnosticism - Part 2
For part 2 of this series about the year 2013 see:
Making 2013 be the WORST year in the history of evolutionism, atheism and agnostiism - Part 2
Creating a powerful biblical creation spreading and Darwinism destroying machine in 2013
My favorite coach of all time is Coach Herb Brooks who coached the 1980 United States Olympics Hockey team which prevailed over the Soviet team. Sports Illustrated said of the game: "It may just be the single most indelible moment in all of U.S. sports history". Brooks was innovative, shrewd, hard working and very mental tough. The movie Miracle is a very inspiring movie.
My favorite lines of Coach Brooks in the movie Miracle, which were based on interviews with people who knew Herb Brooks were:
"We also need to change the way we play the game. My plan is to adopt a new style.
A hybrid of the Soviet school and the Canadian school. A combination that requires the highest level of conditioning, speed, creativity, and most of all, team chemistry." - Coach Herb Brooks in the movie Miracle
Concerning playing against the Soviet Team: "But I also know there is a way to stay with this team. You don't defend them. You attack them! You take their game and you shove it right back in their face. The team that is finally willing to do this is the team that has a chance to take them down. The NHL won't change their game, we will. The rest of the world is afraid of them. Boys, we won't be. No one has ever worked hard enough to skate with the Soviet team an entire game. Gentlemen, we are going to work hard enough." - Coach Herb Brooks in the movie Miracle
"Lets be idealistic, but lets also be practical." - Coach Herb Brooks in the movie Miracle "You can't be common, the common man goes nowhere; you have to be uncommon."- Coach Herb Brooks in the movie Miracle
"Great moments are born from great opportunities."- Coach Herb Brooks in the movie Miracle
"You want to make sacrifices for the unknown"- Coach Herb Brooks in the movie Miracle
" Win, lose or tie. You are going to play like champions." - Coach Herb Brooks in the movie Miracle Believers in biblical creation are going to have to innovative, hardworking and mental tough if we want to end Darwinism in the quickest manner possible. We are going to have make sacrifices.
Christianity has conquered many false religions and ideologies in its history. We know that Darwinism, atheism and agnosticism are weak ideologies and their influence is growing weaker. 2012 was a very BAD year for Darwinism and atheism. We also know that these secular ideologies are expected to shrink at an accelerated rate. So let's pour the pressure on by promoting Christianity and biblical creation.
Take action today!
12 point for accelerating the growth of Christianity and the decline of global atheism, agnosticism and evolutionism
Our group's plan, strategy and tactics for advancing the Question Evolution! Campaign
Making 2013 be the WORST year in the history of evolutionism, atheism and agnostiism - Part 2
Get involved in the Question Evolution! Campaign and spread its 15 questions for evolutionists. Tell people about Creation Ministries International. An exciting ministry which engages in internet evangelism, creation apologetics, Christian apologetics (general defenses Christianity) is being born.
Related articles on our blog
Making 2012 the worst year in the history of Darwinism
Global decline of atheism and the rise of global creationism. Information on the Question Evolution! Campaign!
Creation Ministries International is inoculating young people against Darwinism. Let's break the back of Darwinism!
Other resources
Question Evolution! Campaign
15 questions for evolutionists
Responses to the 15 Questions: part 1 - Questions 1-3
Responses to the 15 Questions: part 2 - Questions 4–8
Responses to the 15 Questions: part 2 - Questions 9-15
Refuting evolution
Evidence for Christianity
Additional Evidence for Christianity
Photo and graphic credits:
1. All graphics are from http://www.clker.com/. For example, 2013 calendar at http://www.clker.com/clipart-january-2013-desk-calendar.html
2. Statue
English: Enchoen in Yurihama, Tottori prefecture, Japan
|27 September 2008
|License: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.