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Francis Ford Coppola On Art, Copying And File Sharing: We Want You To Take From Us
from the first-step deptPaul Tamm points us to a really wonderful interview with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, which touches on a whole variety of different topics, but a couple of quotes are likely to be interesting to folks around here. For example, he's asked about copying works of other filmmakers and whether or not he tries to "veer away" from the masters of the craft to create his own style, and he responds brilliantly:
I once found a little excerpt from Balzac. He speaks about a young writer who stole some of his prose. The thing that almost made me weep, he said, "I was so happy when this young person took from me." Because that's what we want. We want you to take from us. We want you, at first, to steal from us, because you can't steal. You will take what we give you and you will put it in your own voice and that's how you will find your voice.While (of course), I always dislike the incorrect use of the term "stealing," I found this to be quite an insightful answer from someone who is certainly in a position to pretend otherwise. However, throughout history we've heard similar (if much less eloquent) claims from others. Ray Charles famously made similar points about copying his music (shamelessly) from others to create his own unique sound (and invent soul music in the process).
And that's how you begin. And then one day someone will steal from you. And Balzac said that in his book: It makes me so happy because it makes me immortal because I know that 200 years from now there will be people doing things that somehow I am part of. So the answer to your question is: Don't worry about whether it's appropriate to borrow or to take or do something like someone you admire because that's only the first step and you have to take the first step.
Immediately after this, he's asked about business models, and he notes:
This idea of Metallica or some rock n' roll singer being rich, that's not necessarily going to happen anymore. Because, as we enter into a new age, maybe art will be free. Maybe the students are right. They should be able to download music and movies. I'm going to be shot for saying this. But who said art has to cost money? And therefore, who says artists have to make money?While some will misinterpret this to mean that artists shouldn't make money, that's not what he's saying at all. He's saying it shouldn't be presumed that they automatically must make money -- or that if they are to make money, that it needs to come from the film directly.
In the old days, 200 years ago, if you were a composer, the only way you could make money was to travel with the orchestra and be the conductor, because then you'd be paid as a musician. There was no recording. There were no record royalties. So I would say, "Try to disconnect the idea of cinema with the idea of making a living and money." Because there are ways around it.
Filed Under: art, copying, francis ford coppola, free, sharing


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So the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was ruled constitutional today, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, who sided with the libs on the bench. I mean, even wishy-washy Kennedy voted to strike down the individual mandate.
I was sleeping in a little this morning, because it's summer and also because I stayed up too late watching Doctor Who on my ipad last night, when Leif came over and nudged me awake before he set off for work. He was so awesome and sweet and told me I was pretty and that he loved me. Then I realized what day it was. Obamacare Decision Day.
"Oh no! You know, don't you?"
"Yeah." He stroked my hair.
"It's not good, is it?"
"Nope." He gazed lovingly at me.
"Give it to me straight."
"Constitutional. Roberts wrote the majority opinion."
"I know. They're calling it a tax, and therefore Congress has the power to levy it."
So then I did what any chick that works in social media does and took to Twitter to voice my thoughts. Because do opinions matter if they're not posted on a social networking site? Didn't think so.
Here are my original tweets, with commentary added in the parentheses:
Ok. Reaction. 1-I feel like throwing up. Apparently it's Constitutional to tax me for breathing. (It's possible I was slightly hung over. But I did feel punched in the gut.)
2- WTF, Justice Roberts?? You are no longer my 3rd favorite. (Favorite is Scalia. Second is Thomas. Third is now up for grabs. Probably Alito.)
3- Roberts is a VERY smart man. What's he playing? (Seriously, Justice Roberts – WTF?)
4- I think I'm going to be sick. (Again, possibly from that last glass of wine last night, but this Obamacare standing thing wasn't helping.)
5- Well, this pretty much guarantees a President Romney, huh? (Le sigh.)
6- Aaaaaand I'm back to being sick. (Can I vote for Ann instead? I like her better. Sorry, Mitt.)
7- I'm going back to bed. *Pulls covers over her head*
Then I realized I had to get up and write and comment because if I don't, I don't get paid, and health care costs are about to skyrocket. And you know, personal responsibility and all that jazz.
So I officially turned in my two cents to The Stir, where I'm sure commenters will call me a racity racist for agreeing with the black man on the bench (Clarence Thomas, Second Favorite). I'm not quite sure how that works, but it seems that whenever the haters disagree with me about something I get called a racist. Get some better insults, people! Racist is so 2009.
Anyway, my friend Matt Cover (say Co-ver, not like the blanket) pointed out, "Roberts DOES NOT say that anything that looks like a tax is ok, only that this provision is a tax, and therefore ok." Ok … I can see that. I still don't like it.
I also read this from Erick Erickson (no relation), wherein he makes the case that, "While Roberts has expanded the taxation power, which I don't really think is a massive expansion from what it was, Roberts has curtailed the commerce clause as an avenue for Congressional overreach. In so doing, he has affirmed the Democrats are massive taxers."
They are massive taxers. And Obama ran on that whole "no tax increases for the middle class" thing. Not looking good for him this November. Or for other politicians that supported this behemoth of a bill without even reading the frickin' thing.
Go donate to the Romney campaign. Seriously, use that link, because I get some sort of credit for referring you. Maybe I can win a stuffed seal like I did that time I sold 200 boxes of Girl Scout cookies in third grade!
And watch Ben Howe's latest video featuring a compilation of Obama clips insisting that this is not a tax.

subset: commoncrawl


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Forio is located on the west coast of Ischia Island in the Gulf of Naples, Italy. It boasts beautiful views of Ventotene and Ponza islands, sandy beaches and a wonderful town centre. Forio is nearby many of the best Thermal spas, namely Negombo and Poseidon, the natural hot springs and the La Mortella Gardens of Sir William Walton.
Hotel Poggio del Sole is in prime position with views of the sea and mountain. Up on the hill, a mere 2,5kms from the port and town centre, the Poggio allows you to escape the bustle and retire to the serenity of the hotel to admire the views and sunset.
We provide a complimentary pick-up and drop-off from the port of Forio. Please advise us at your earliest convenience of your anticipated arrival time in Forio and we will be there to fetch you. Alternatively, keep our contact details handy and call us on arrival.
By Plane From Naples Airport Capodichino, it is possible to reach the main port of Naples Beverello by taxi (approx. euro 20) or by Alibus, a shuttle bus that connects the airport to the port (euro 3). Tickets on board.
By train Napoli Centrale (Garibaldi) is close to Beverello (around 2km) and can be reached by taxi (approx. euro 10) or bus R 2 or Tram #1 (euro 1.20). Tickets can be bought at the train station.
Take a hydrofoil to Ischia from Molo Beverello in Naples. You can arrive at Ischia Porto, Casamiccola or Forio Porto. It takes 1 hour on the hydrofoil. Or take the Ferry from Porta di Massa which will take 1 hour 25 minutes. (Note: The ferry from Naples runs approximately every hour from 6.30am-11.30pm in the months of June - August)
If you arrive in Ischia, get off the Ferry, go to the bus station (approx. 100 metres) take the #1, #2, or CS bus to Forio. Get off at the Port of Forio.
Ask us for a free pick-up from Forio when you make your reservation.


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Monday, January 20 for Martin Luther King Day. *The Martin Luther King Branch ONLY will be open 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
These photographs are from the Port of Milwaukee, Milwaukee Public Library Historic Photo Collection, and the Great Lakes Marine Collection of Milwaukee Public Library and the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society.…
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Some things just go together -- and the obvious accompaniment to food is drink. Welcome to Booze52, in which we explore all manner of libations, from A to Z, that do much more than just wash down a meal.
Today: Gin -- with a squeeze of lime -- becomes much more sippable than you once thought.
If drinks were college coeds, from cardigan-wearing scotch-and-sodas to sorority row cognacs, then the gimlet would be "everyone's girl." It's classic, straightforward, and always agreeable. Though using gin is the way to go for purists, the Gimlet Girl is totally fine with you using vodka. Or sake, for that matter.
Still, the gimlet is cocktail for the playbooks -- it's a great classic to know cold, and once you do, you can adapt it from there. A quick confession: I was one of those scaredy-cat cocktail drinkers who avoided gin for many, many years, and I can proudly say that a well-made gimlet officially ended my phobia.
I like to think of the gimlet as medicinal and in fact, many a "limey" sailor drank what roughly constitutes a gimlet ancestor as a ward against scurvy. (The cocktail is supposedly named after Sir Thomas Gimlette, a British Navy doctor in the late 19th century who came up with the mix.) Whether you swab decks for a living or not, it's still an extremely refreshing drink. I went for the oldest-school, most hands-on experience for this simple recipe:
2 ounces gin 3/4 ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice 3/4 ounce simple syrup Ice Lime (reserve a slice before juicing it, for garnish)
Pour ingredients into shaker filled halfway with ice. Shake or stir until cold and serve in chilled coupe. Garnish with lime wheel.
Save and print this recipe here.
Stock Your Liquor Cabinet:
• For an affordable, drinkable gin, try Junipero. And you can never go wrong with Hendrick's—a little subtler in flavor but smooth and tasty with a hint of cucumber.
• You can make your own simple syrup with your eyes closed, and that's what I did here. Fresh lime juice will make a big difference, too, but I will note it's a great debate in the cocktail world: some say that a gimlet isn't a gimlet unless it has Rose's cordial. (Try for a 2:1 ratio of Rose's to gin if that's your speed.) Which do you use? Tell us in the comments below!
Gimlets with a Twist:
• For a kick, add a pungent dash of ginger juice. If you don't have a juicer, use The Ginger People's Organic Ginger Juice and a very light hand—a drop or two is all you need.
• For those who cannot decide between gin and vodka—have a little of both! Combine your gin with something like Hangar One's Kaffir Lime (3:1 gin to vodka) or better yet, infuse your own with Kaffir lime zest or lime leaves. Add a dash of vermouth and/or orange bitters for an extra layer of flavor.
See what other Food52 readers are saying.


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Call for Positions Test
As previously announced in ANR's Update (January 24, 2012), ANR is soliciting proposals for CE advisor and specialist positions. This supplemental call aims to address programmatic gaps that were not previously identified or that have arisen since last year's process.
The online submittal system will be open from February 1 – May 18 to allow as much time as possible for internal consultation and external input from ANR stakeholders in all program areas. We also expect and strongly encourage you to engage with external stakeholders, including commodity groups, cooperating programs, agency partners, community groups and others to explicitly discuss priority needs for positions.
Click here to view entire call and access documents
This 2012 CE Supplemental Call for Positions (http://ucanr.edu/callforpositions) is available to ANR and to the public. Below are displayed all of the positions that were submitted last year and not released/selected for recruitment. To view the list of positions that have already been released, please locate the document at the bottom of this text. The webpage also displays new proposals as people initiate their work. This online database has been created as a searchable tool to encourage collaboration, rather than submitting duplicates of the same proposals. Submissions will be accepted from the following groups:
- Program Team Leaders
- Workgroup Chairs
- Strategic Initiative Leaders
- Department Chairs from the Colleges/School & Executive Associate Deans
- County and MCP Directors
If you do not hold one of the above titles/roles, we encourage you to communicate with persons that are able to submit positions and work collaboratively with them in these efforts.
During this cycle, the position submission system will be open for both new submissions and for revision and resubmission of earlier proposals that were not selected for recruitment. The online system will give you access to previously submitted positions in the format you submitted them.
Please note that we are only able to provide you with the proposal you submitted last fall, if you uploaded a pdf document, then you will have access to the same type of file during this cycle. If you are planning on editing and re-submitting proposals that were submitted as pdfs, we encourage you to locate your last word version, make the changes and upload it in word. Or, you can download the new template from the system, fill out all required sections and re-submit.
As mentioned, Program Council members have requested additional information for previously submitted position proposals, which must address the justification section found in this year's template. Both revised and new proposals are required to complete the justification section to identify critical issues that the position will address and explain how a proposed ANR position will address those issues.
To begin, please search through the positions that are currently in the queue and contact the submitter if you are interested in collaborating. If you are eligible to submit a new proposal, click "Login Now" and then you can click on "Create New Proposal." You will be re-directed to the Universal Review System (URS) found in your ANR Portal.
If you choose to locate the 2012 submission system directly, you must log into your ANR Portal. Under URS, you will have access to your previous submissions located under "Your Proposals." If you wish to create a new proposal click on "2012 Call for Supplemental Positions" found under "Open Systems."
If you have any questions, you may contact Vanessa Gomez at (510) 987-0377 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Search Position Proposals
Limited Functionality
If you are an ANR employee, you can access the collaborative options and create a proposal on this page by logging into the ANR Portal.
Please use the search tool to filter the list of proposals and view collaboration opportunities.
You can also submit suggestions for new positions.
Showing 107 Proposals
Click position to view more information and discussion.


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Saturday, January 11, 2020
With rising suicide rates and increasing disaffection among returning American war veterans of America's barbaric wars upon Muslims in several disguises that spans the gamut of imperial uniforms, from soldiers in official stars and stripes to proxy service providers in "militant Islam" pirate's uniforms and sharp-shooter contractors in civvies and spies in disguises, America continues to search for palliatives for their discarded soldiers of economic conscription who have killed millions in the Muslim lands and now cannot sleep at night for the want of a dead conscience.
Their PTSD is a blessing in disguise.... their soul is still human. When murderers and butchers of mankind experience pangs of guilt, they should be glad. For they are not sociopaths who cannot experience remorse (see The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout, and Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes by Andrew M. Lobaczewski).
I am dusting out an old Letter to Editor from about a decade ago... bottom line, stop crying afterwards... don't become killers in the first place.
Refuse primacy.
Refuse to be in service for American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives.
Refuse to be in service for Jewish Lebensraum.
The ubermensch god's chosen people have no conscience. They sleep quite well at night after killing goy, and getting goy to kill goy. It is the Christian goyem who ex post facto experiences the sporadic pangs of humanity after killing Muslims under false machismo, which he then tries to unsuccessfully dull with drugs and alcohol, and ultimately, murder and suicide.
The chosen peoples shall fight for Eretz Yisrael and control of the world government in the making to the last Christian goy fantasizing his war machine dickery.
For the life of me, I don't understand why the dumb Christian goy cannot see it. Indeed, why does he and she not see the obvious? For the same reason that the dumb Muslim goys don't see the obvious. Many among them are as much part of this murder and plunder of fellow Muslims under the sound of trumpet as the heralded and oft glorified aiders and abettors of America's war machine. How? By licking its boots; by falling in prostration before the American dollars, the pursuit of American dream, and under the threat of American bombs; for the want of an iota of dignity and self-respect.
Instead, be in service for justice.
Be in the service for self-defence of your own lands and not by invading others twenty-thousand miles from home.
Be in service for all humanity with the riches and resources plundered from the untermensch not just during the yesteryears of colonialism, but in the ongoing plunder with inflicted "democracy" using stooges and neo-colonialism under American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives.
Those suffering PTSD are the fortunate ones. But instead of smoking dope to assuage your guilt, here is a humble prescription – for what it's worth – it is, after all, only from an ordinary Muslim whose co-religionists, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, moms and dads, children of all ages, you have killed and maimed and raped and plundered in large numbers to the sound of trumpet in the name of saving American lives.
For, indeed, American lives are far more precious than others. These must be saved at all cost.
Well, here is my evergreen two-bit saving the still humans among the criminals who would all hang, or be put into Western internment camps and starved to death like Eisenhower did million(s) of German soldiers and others of the Third Reich, under even an objective victor's justice seeking eye for an eye. That, of course, is quite impossible. How can one punish and seek compensation for millions of death, starvation, refugees, homelessness, innocence lost, nations plundered and destroyed? Well, we shall try!
Fear that day. For it shall come, if not from the untermensch victims of today, then from the ubermensch victors of tomorrow of the greater Lebensraum for whom the muscular Christian soldier (of all skin colors and races) carrying the white man's burden is still just the brain-washed white trash to be used as condoms and discarded. There is surely a karma of cosmic proportions at play, one way or another. Those making dead monkeys of us are laughing their way to the bank!
By Zahir Ebrahim | Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
Saturday, December 18, 2010 | Updated Dec. 22, 2010
The two American websites, Veterans Today and Salem News, run by two former US Military veterans, contain some of the most outstanding RealitySpeak writings by both civilians and America's war veterans, presumably, all mostly being eagerly ingested by other American war veterans. In full disclosure, these websites also reprint my two cents every now and then. The Editors in chief of both websites whom I have never met but communicate with occasionally, very generously invited me to become Staff Writer on their respective panels, and I politely declined in each case. I prefer my lonely voice to stay independent – for it allows me to explore my own confusions as no one else can.
So, exercising that independence of thought, if I may be permitted to ask the next logical question to great penmanship and reportage by recovering war veterans, does such RealitySpeak affect a change in status quo?
Does all this verbiage ameliorate the suffering of the bemedaled American war hero who brought my fellow Muslim men, women, and children of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, perhaps Iran next, the 'liberation' depicted in the images?
Do the oft maligned liberators of truth from the sharp jaws of deceit, ever impact the inflexion of hegemonic power with mere moral words and intellectual theses which unravel the never ending lies of the hectoring hegemons du jour?
For, if words alone could make appreciable difference to the calculus of hegemony, then, the Ten Commandments would have surely eased mankind's journey over the past hundred years of successive world wars and vile deprecation of humanity. As the noted essayist and novelist Aldous Huxley had once observed when responding to the question "What does one do?":
'Well this is the real problem. Nothing is easier than to formulate high ideals, but few things are more difficult than to discover the means for by those ideals might be implemented, and the categorical imperatives which spring from them can be a pain. This is the real problem. I mean one has to dream, but one has to dream in a pragmatic way to consider how... Merely preaching to people doesn't have much effect, people have been preaching for an awefully long time and we are still pretty much where we were.' (Herman Harvey: Sum and Substance with Aldous Huxley, co-produced with University of S. California, KNXT Public Affairs. http://www.huxley.net/ah/huxley-interview.html )
The undeniable practical fact of the matter remains, that unless moral prescriptions and copious intelligent analyses appearing on these websites get translated into direct activism, into building organizations, into building movements, and into creating a powerful national chorus collectively saying NO to the murdersome hectoring hegemons now bringing vile indignities to the American people right here at home, elegant moral words on paper, wonderful prose bringing exposes to the intelligent, is only self-entertaining the armchair internet warriors.
In all honesty, haven't we, the narrators du jour, merely substituted the mind numbing television, America's favorite sedative, with a new type of cognitive programming for a minuscule sub-minority who indulges in study, but which remains as impotent in mobilizing the conscience to act in order to affect change, as the former medium was effective in amusing us to death? The "history's actors" in fact even brazenly noted that this is all we shall be able to do. The New York Times quoted a senior White House Advisor during the Bush Administration while explaining how fait accompli enacted by "history's actors" actually worked for "imperial mobilization":
'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.' — Senior Bush Advisor, The New York Times, October 17, 2004 (see Convince People of Absurdities and get them Acquiescing to Atrocities: The Enduring Power of Machiavellian Political Science )
I say, bullshit! Let's grasp the bull by the horns and turn the tables on its head for the criminals who, with cold chutzpah and flushed with hubris, openly proclaim themselves 'Hectoring Hegemons' working on ending national-sovereignty through successive hegelian mind-fcks!
But in order to do so, one must first have the courage to spell bullshit as B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T, without dropping any letters to pass our delicate sensibilities which can shatter the tabula rasa of civilian populations 20,000 miles from home, but can't handle seeing RealitySpeak in print. This, in case it isn't already obvious, is merely a metaphor for first being able to face reality without syntactic sugaring. What follows is plain RealitySpeak – no bullshit. While you don't have to agree with anything here, there is no Newspeak in it. For, only in straight plain talk without bowing to political correctness, is there a way out of being mere narrators of the murderous shit continually being left behind by 'history's actors'.
I believe that the brave veterans of America's wars upon the 'untermensch' 20,000 miles away, the principal audience of both these websites I imagine, can actually play a leading role in helping to change that dismal state of affairs.
By rising to protect their own nation's peoples for a change, where, while they were busy bringing 'democracy' and 'liberation' to my 'barbarian' peoples in exotic faraway lands, their own land of the free was being turned into a police-state.
Instead of the increasing number of war veterans being perpetually trapped in PTSD and seeking palliatives to assuage their guilty conscience, 'VA says PTSD claims up 125%' Veterans Today, December 18, 2010, undertaking principled moral acts with discipline to safeguard the decent peoples in their own nation, may prove to be far more therapeutic than the Marijuana being pitched by experts like Dr. Phil Leveque, as in 'You Can't Go Back and You Can't Come Back', Salem News, December 13, 2010.
The 1978 Hollywood movie, The Deer Hunter, graphically brought home to civilians a vicarious touch of what soldiers of patriotism, fortune, and economic conscription, can experience in horrendous modern wars that are principally illegitimate, whose principal victims are civilians, cultures, and civilizations. Those creating the victims often end up with the guilt complex which modern soulless medicine, unable to comprehend the delicate connection between mind-body-spirit and the damage which wars cause to man's essence, calls its symptomatic display PTSD. The psycho-babble of the learned, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, in the case of wars, is primarily symptomatic of the injury to the conscience, to the soul, which perpetually remains un-amenable to brain surgery, to palliatives, to sedatives, to psycho-therapy, and to modern medicine. The Deer Hunter's main focus, if the reader will recall, was primarily to demonstrate the consequences of the horrendous dysfunctionalism of modern warfare causing maladjustment back into normalcy for both victims and victimizers, the latter becoming war's second victims. Therefore, for them to not astutely comprehend that modern warfare by superpowers moving pawns around on the Grand Chessboard is itself a monumental crime, a racket, and those participating in it as soldiers and technicians under waving flags and blaring trumpets, themselves commit crimes against humanity, is to miss the point of it all.
Call the suffering of the conscience from that backlash PTSD if you will, but being able to separate cause from effect, symptoms from disease, doesn't seem to be a forte of Veterans Hospitals. And while that symptom is captured most precisely, most elegantly, almost poetically, in the aforementioned article title by Phil Leveque, "You Can't Go Back and You Can't Come Back", it does nothing to focus attention on the primary cause of it: the injury to the 'self', the essence of man, what, for the lack of a better terminology, we variously refer to as conscience, soul, superego, all elements which remain elusive to modern medicine. Ask any AMA approved medical doctor for any alternative to big-Pharma led prescriptions, and they will only give you the same standard response they have actually been taught to give in medical school in order to pass their AMA certification – I don't know anything about alternatives not recommended by the FDA.
But just as the Hollywood movie had left its audience hanging, had offered no real solutions for the returning veterans, nor for preventing the creation of future maladjusted veterans, neither does Phil Leveque with his prescriptive conclusion in bold: "WHY CAN'T THE VA USE THE BEST DRUG – MARIJUANA?" When the illness is misdiagnosed, the cure can at best only be a placebo.
Please permit me to lend some Eastern Zen here – for, Western experts have sufficiently ruined this nation, and the world, to warrant any faith in their diagnosis and their prescriptions.
First, let's try to understand how the war veteran got to the stage of PTSD in the first place.
For the reader's orientation, please permit me to coldly state that I am that 'untermensch' upon whose civilizations the proud, the brave, the bold veterans of America and its Allies waged their boundless courage 20,000 miles away from their own home, in whose homes they slaughtered our children calling it collateral damage just as the CIA's hit team started arriving in Afghanistan courageously proclaiming: "We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of our great nation." (Bob Woodward in Bush at War).
You, dear veteran, could have shown a different kind of courage too at that time and avoided the injury to your soul altogether. Instead of signing up to bravely rain Daisy Cutters and cruise missiles upon barefooted children, upon cities, upon civilian infrastructures, upon wedding parties, upon defenseless men, women, and children, and continually be fearing that hypothetical day when a future Nuremberg might administer you the same victor's justice as your nation routinely administers to the vanquished, you could have signed up to say NO to immoral conquests of your ruling elite. You could have signed up to say NO to economic conscription and found other ways to fund your college education, other ways to earn your livelihood. And you could have used the tiny gray matter to see through the facade of false patriotism, of inculcated false beliefs, of false flag operations, of false enemies, of falsely identified culprits, of "imperial mobilization" disguised as "war on terror".
Just like one among you had done, not too long ago, sparing himself the moral scar tissue you find yourselves saddled with today as its new victims. This is what this courageous fellow had found the nerve to state then:
'Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I'm not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn't have to draft me, I'd join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I'll go to jail, so what? We've been in jail for 400 years.' (Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties (1999) by Mike Marqusee, quoted from Wikipedia page on Muhammad Ali)
You could have done the same thing, no?
Yet, you didn't.
You took that uncourageous path of accepting to shoot at my 'untermensch' peoples because your leaders ordered you to do so. Your blind deeds borne of "I was just following orders" have made you your own victims. Don't think that only you know in the privacy of your anguish how horrendous some of these crimes were. The victims know too, both the dead ones for whom the war and misery has ended, and the living for whom it is never ending. You think your suffering from PTSD is painful? Ask those whose tabula rasa you have shattered while "following orders". And though silently and apathetically spectating, the world spectators aren't blind either. The veterans suffers only in a glass cage that appears opaque to them in the hell of their private shame. But it is only a one-way mirror, entirely transparent from the other side.
Unless you can squarely face up to that grotesque fact without self-delusions and false justifications, that you have monumentally wronged the 'lesser peoples' while slumbering under your patriotic zeal and implanted false beliefs, the redemption will remain illusive. Just like this Winter Soldier squarely faced up to his crimes against humanity without making excuses:
'And I tried hard to be proud of my service but all I could feel was shame. These were peoples, these were human beings. I have since been plagued by guilt. I feel guilt anytime I see a mother with her children. I feel guilt anytime I see a young girl. We are told we are fighting terrorists; the real terrorist was me and the real terrorism is this occupation. Those who send us to war do not have to pull a trigger or land a mortar round. They don't have to fight the war, they merely have to sell the war. They need a public who is willing to send their soldiers in a harms way. They need soldiers who are willing to kill and be killed without question. They can spend millions on a single bomb, but that bomb only becomes a weapon when the ranks of the military are willing to follow orders to use it. Our enemy is not 5000 miles away, they are right here at home. If we organize and fight with our sisters and brothers, we can stop this war, we can stop this government, and we can create a better world.' (Iraq war veteran Mike Prysner admits his shame and guilt after the fact, and suggests the only remedy possible for preventing future shame – had he only paid attention to what Muhammad Ali had done before the fact, March 15, 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jGmMbQPJTU )
But that private suffering, I believe, is also a mercy upon man – for within it also lies the only seed of positive redemption. This aspect is very important to comprehend fully. It is not theological gibberish of religious salvation which I expound here (I leave that to the priests), but empirical psych-physiology of what makes us a human being. In its clarity, lies the practicable solution-space. Both for suffering veterans of today, and for preventing future suffering veterans of tomorrow.
So please permit me to explain at length, for indeed, no leader glibly sending America's kids off to perpetual wars, no MD serving in empire's own imperial institutions under AMA and FDA guidelines to stick to their officially mandated medical protocols or lose the license to practice medicine, and no priest carrying empire's renewed white man's burden to bring us 'untermenschen' their 'Jesus' (watch video http://youtube.com/watch?v=hVGmbzDLq5c ) will explain the following commonsense.
Only if man has a conscience, a soul, that he naturally suffers when he indulges in horrendous crimes, what modern soulless medicine calls PTSD. Just think, if we had no conscience, there would be no mental anguish, and thus no psychological traumas!
The proof of this straightforward observation is to simply ask the empirical question: do we ever observe the mighty generals and noble presidents, who, under orders from their own task-masters, destroy entire nations and civilizations before being awarded Nobel Peace Prizes for their peace-making, suffering from PTSD? No. They are never known to walk the night lamenting: "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand", and die rather "holily in their beds." (MacBeth). That is because they have no conscience, they have no 'soul'. This pathology, more aptly termed pathocracy, is not just Zen-babble or Shakespearean theater. It is now even clinically coming to the surface. See the book Political Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes by Andrew M. Lobaczewski ( http://ponerology.com ).
While the rest of us may suffer from the "banality of evil" whose only known cure is moral courage and moral redemption, the psychopath is observed to be suffering from some yet to be precisely identified structural abnormality which makes him and her completely impervious to feeling empathy. He and she is evidently either born without a conscience (or, some how had it killed off in unrecoverable ways in rituals and rites peculiar to the elite who send ordinary men and women to the slaughter without batting an eye). This creature appears as normal person to us, lives and moves among us as a normal person, but inevitably always seems to rather uncannily end up in ranking leadership positions where it easily makes immoral decisions for narrow interests without compunction and remorse. He and she experiences no more cognitive dissonance ordering an atomic bomb dropped, than ordering a rendition flight, or sentencing a frail Aafia Siddiqui to 86 years in jail. Whereas, the evil normal people face, both you and I, was aptly captured by Hannah Arendt by that term "Banality of Evil" when trying to comprehend how the Good German was created in Nazi Germany.
Hannah Arendt arrived at the conclusion that it was a combination of lack of moral courage, easily succumbing to authority figures by one's nature, through sustained indoctrinations to obey authority, and due to the blind allegiance to discharging one's duties without reflecting upon the consequences of those duties. The 'banality', ordinariness of individual evils, added up suddenly becomes extraordinary in its proportion and consequences. This is the exact same description of how the Good American has been created today for which, you are now paying the price of PTSD due to all that red blood of my peoples upon your hands.
No? Yes! Read it here to see it from the eyes of one upon whose Muslim civilizations, your patriotic munificence was so courageously unleashed by the cumulative "banality of evil".
We, the ordinary peoples, who often become canon fodder for pathocrats, have a conscience, we are not psychopaths. We may however become so if we continue to suffer and continue to inflict suffering upon others to the point that physiological changes in our bodies irreversibly kill off those brain structures where empathy springs from, where conscience resides, where, in Freudian terms, the superego keeps our id and ego in check. But short of becoming a psychopath, there is a moral path of redemption available to all of us which isn't available to the pathocrats who send us to our death smiling. Who never suffer from PTSD.
So, what is the cure for this tortuous scarring of the moral psyche of normal persons which modern medicine calls PTSD? What is the path of redemption? Permit me to share our Eastern wisdom, our ancient medicine, our redemptive therapy, something that adventurers coming to bomb and rob us somehow conveniently fail to carry back with them to their own civilization along with their plunder and their mental scars. The cure is not in physical therapy, it is not in confessionals in priest boxes, and it is not on a psychiatrist's couch, nor in going back into childhood to find and kill-off old demons, real and imagined. The damage caused to the spiritual essence of man for enduring horrendous moral crimes, only the spiritual resurgence can cure. That is what modern medicine cannot give you because there is no profit in it for big-Pharma. Nor is it in the interest of the war-mongers to have their VA hospitals advocate spiritual resurgence – the kind I describe below – for they must have a continuous supply of new recruits of patriotic and economic conscriptions as canon fodder to fight their perpetual wars.
Moral or spiritual redemption is only possible in undertaking moral acts, not in mere words, but in courageous endeavors which go beyond the normal existence, just as the cataclysms which created PTSD went beyond the normal existence. Acts which border on heroism, and which permit us to rise to our better-selves primarily in the service of those whom we have injured by both commissions, and omissions. Only such redemptive acts can assuage our guilt sufficiently to enable atoning for our earlier moral lapses. In certain societies, perhaps still today, judges would sometimes award the guilty a punishment of such a type, to go humbly serve the family of those whom they have injured, whose bread-winners they killed. When implemented properly, it helped heal both the victim, and most interestingly, also the victimizer. Not too profound when one thinks about it, is it? Even Hollywood learns – as they evidently did in what may have been the topical sequel to the Deer Hunter, Tom Cruise's 2003 movie, The Last Samurai! The Metanoia experienced by the American soldier Nathan Algren, beckons today's PTSD villains. The Greek term for 'afterthought repentance', metanoia, denotes a change of mind, a reorientation, an awakening, a fundamental transformation of outlook, a spiritual conversion, walking the path of moral redemption and penitence in consequence.
Those who have undertaken such strivings, ask them their experiences. I imagine that asking Ken O'Keefe for instance, the man who is off in Gaza braving bullets whizzing by his head, bullets which he once himself inflicted upon the 'untermensch' in whose defense he now braves it with empty hands, might be an interesting exercise for America's veterans.
Not only can the veterans help heal themselves with such courageous efforts undertaken with direct moral acts in their own nation, but they can even help prevent future veterans from coming into existence by leading conscientious objector movements across their nation, teaching and warning the youngsters often enlisting as victims of economic conscription and state propaganda, the very words and analyses available on these stellar websites.
If each suffering veteran of America can prevent just one new future suffering veteran from being created, the healing efficacy of their moral strivings will be nothing short of miraculous! Just imagine when they can prevent ten?
If the suffering veterans of America can forge a movement to loudly say NO to the vile indignities being heaped upon us right here at home in the land of the free, they can make a difference to their own healing.
Here is the most recent grotesque example of what we all face: Boy Asks TSA 'Why Pat Down Mom And Not Me?', TSA Replies "You Don't Have Boobs".
Saying NO to invasive body scans at airports, and saying NO to humiliating patdowns as well, and drawing media and public attention to those bold NOs can even galvanize the public to do the same, and to join forces with you to reclaim your nation from the rapidly closing jaws of a police-state. If servicemen remain unaware of the real agenda behind these vile physical gropings of America's men, women, and children, as is amply evidenced by the blind compliance of the active duty American soldier going through an American airport in uniform carrying an automatic weapon – a narrative which appeared in Veterans Today and which drove me up the wall that someone can so courageously shoot at barefooted people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, but can't say NO to absurdities in his own country – see my article 'Body-scan Alert - Not Suffering Indignities at Airports'. Will that soldier also only acquire his moralsense under PTSD once he is a veteran? Isn't there something grotesquely wrong with that picture?
A single dose of resonating moral NOs across the land of the free will prove to be far more therapeutic to the veterans of America than a 1000 psychedelic joints of Dr. Phil Leveque's prescription which he simultaneously avers: "My subject matter is that whatever the degree of PTSD/TBI the condition is almost permanent." And thus, by his own admission, asserts all ingestive medicines being ineffective.
Can you, the veterans of America who have finally woken up, kindly give an active think to this prescription? As Ray McGovern lamented in Washington DC at a war veterans' march upon the White House, December 16, 2010, which was only a hundred veteran strong instead of one to two million:
'[quoting Daniel Berrigan] Those who say let us have peace, often tack on: but let us risk nothing, let our lives stand intact, let us know neither prison, not ill repute, nor ridicule from friends, nor disruption of ties. There is no peace, says Berrigan, because the making of peace is just as costly as the making of war. At least as liable to bring disgrace and prison. So, we accept our responsibility here. We are going to do all we can to stop the violence being perpetrated in our name. And so, if the making of peace means prison, that's where you are gonna find us!' (watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WK5--Us7v0 )
And where were all the tens of thousands of war veterans suffering from guilty consciences?
They were, and still are too busy reading websites like this one to bother striving for real redemption – they'd rather just talk about it while collecting their minuscule pecuniary compensation from the Veterans Administration!
You don't need any more knowledge my friends. You don't need any more study. You don't need to read any more websites to learn what has happened to you. All that these words do for you is to turn you into even more armchair wallowers caught between diligent study and PTSD. But no redemption. Knowledge does not lead to acts of redemption. Only metanoia does! And that comes from within – not by reading more websites!
How can you, the equally discarded victims of America's wars of hegemony, elevate your metanoia, your new found awareness of how you were sent off to fight for the narrow interests of an elite hell-bent on destroying your own nation – all amply demonstrated by the stellar writings and beautiful words appearing on Veterans Today and Salem News for those who really don't already know – into principled coordinated moral acts which can reverse the grotesque police-state transpiring in your own nation right now? And by so doing, help avert a global catastrophe, a planned Armageddon upon the remaining 'untermenschen'! That is an unparalleled self-healing path, unmatched by modern medicine as well as natural sedatives.
If I, a mere civilian mouse, a foreigner in the United States pursuing his 'American Dream' like everyone else, can say NO to state tyranny – read it here – and I scare just as easily as any other mouse, have a family, have aspirations, have passions, have no history of maladjustment except by choice since 911 when I consciously chose to become a malcontent (in H. G. Wells' words) and maladjusted (in Martin Luther King Jr.'s words) because there was simply no other choice (read it here and here); if this disabled wheelchair bound young man protesting state tyranny in the streets of London can say NO – watch it at http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZL4eL0sLzKU – and he is suffering from cerebral palsy; is there some very good reason why the hurly-burly American veterans of wars' brutalities should continue to comply with tyrannical absurdities which are destroying their own nation-state? I believe this is where the certificate of everlasting virtue from the Veterans Administration comes in handy. But, if the war veteran, you, boldly rise beyond such certificates, if you rise beyond the mere psychedelic words you read on paper which always look good in print and in speeches, if you instead stand alongside the very 'untermensch' whom you once oppressed, serve the victim families from Afghanistan to Iraq whose bread-winners you once destroyed with a humility you were never acquainted with as a US marine, stand-up for your own nation's peoples suffering under the jackboots of the same tyrants who caused you to suffer PTSD in immoral imperial mobilizations deceptively sold to you as preemptive war on terror in defense of your nation, your yesterday becomes a mere prologue, the rest of your life, finally your own.
Thank you.
Zahir Ebrahim | Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
California, United States
Source URL: http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2010/12/letter-american-war-veteran-ptsd-cure.html
Source PDF: https://sites.google.com/site/humanbeingsfirst/download-pdf/letter-american-war-veteran-ptsd-cure-by-zahirebrahim-dec222010.pdf
The author, an ordinary researcher and writer on contemporary geopolitics, a minor justice activist, grew up in Pakistan, studied EECS at MIT, engineered for a while in high-tech Silicon Valley (patents here), and retired early to pursue other responsible interests. His maiden 2003 book was rejected by six publishers and can be read on the web at http://PrisonersoftheCave.org. He may be reached at http://Humanbeingsfirst.org. Verbatim reproduction license at http://humanbeingsfirst.org/#Copyright.
12/22/2010 12:00:07 4950
Links fixed July 16, 2016
Republished with new Preamble on January 11, 2020
New Source URL: https://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2020/01/americas-war-veterans-ptsd-hypocrites.html
New Homepage URL: https://humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2020/01/americas-war-veterans-ptsd-hypocrites.html
America's War Veterans: PTSD and its Cure – Letter to Editor By Zahir Ebrahim 13/13


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British Trees & Shrubs
British Trees And Shrubs
As a rule of thumb the longer a tree or shrub has been here, the more species are dependent on it - which is why native British trees are so important in supporting biodiversity in the UK.
Until recently we thought that before early Iron Age clearances the dominant habitat here was dense wildwood. In all likelihood it probably actually looked much like it did around 1200; a patchwork of open woodland and scrub, and grazed areas with individual trees. This "wood pasture" was sympathetically managed throughout the Middle Ages and to us would have looked a familiar rural landscape.
Over more recent history different native British trees have become threatened as ancient woodland and hedgerows continue to come under pressure from development, changes in land use and disease. The consequent fragmentation of habitat is a common narrative behind the decline of some of our most charismatic animal species.
Although we've suggested what grows best where, look around your area to see which trees and shrubs in hedges are growing well before buying - practice often contradicts theory.
The Plants We Sell
We sell all native British trees and shrubs, which are listed below. You'll find the odd "archaeophyte" too - brought here before 1500. In addition to smaller sized trees we also offer many species as standards. They are all British grown by specialist nurseries from British stock - in other words, they have UK origin and provenance.
Many of the plants here are ideal for hedges. We've listed these separately in our hedges section as well, which also includes some mixes to make things easier and more economic for you.
You will find our section on tree sizes and how to plant your tree or shrub whips helpful as well as our FAQs, in addition to the resources below.
Tree and Shrub Advice & Guides
Thoughts on tree planting
Some does and don'ts about planting new woodland and plantations
What sort of hedge should I plant, and how should I do it?
Why and how to grow a native hedge
Annual hedge management
Managing your hedge for wildlife
Planting bare root trees (Video)
Our video guide on how to plant your new bare root tree and shrub plants
Bird Cherry (Prunus padus)Starting at £1.15
Broom (Cytisus scoparius)Starting at £2.50
Dog Rose (Rosa canina)Starting at £0.80
Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea)Starting at £0.80
Field Rose (Rosa arvensis)Starting at £2.00
Gorse (Ulex europaeus)Starting at £2.50
Guelder Rose (Viburnum opulus)Starting at £3.00
Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna)Starting at £1.10
Holly (Ilex aquifolium)Starting at £3.60
Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia)Starting at £1.00
Sea-Buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides)Starting at £1.00
Wild Cherry (Prunus avium)Starting at £0.90


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Drive Medical
Drive Medical manufactures a complete line of durable medical equipment including mobility products, beds, bariatric products, wheelchairs, sleep surfaces and pressure prevention products, respiratory equipment, self-assist products, power wheelchairs, power scooters, rehabilitation products, pediatric products, patient room equipment, personal care products and electrotherapy devices.The Company markets and distributes its products to customers located throughout North America, Europe, Central America, South America, the Middle East and Asia.
Manual wheelchairs are among the most commonly used mobility devices thanks to their versatility, functionality, ease of transport, and low maintenance. Drive Medical offers a huge variety of models sure to enhance your ability to easily take part in daily activities around the home or around town.
Pressure Prevention
Feel the difference with mattresses and cushions that add comfort while protecting delicate skin from heat, moisture, and abrasion. Pressure prevention products from Drive Medical provide excellent surfaces and positioning to help you achieve the best care outcomes.
Bathroom Safety
The bathroom can be a hazardous place for those with mobility, dexterity, or balance issues. That's why Drive Medical offers an extensive line of high-quality, durable, and easy-to-use bathroom safety products that are designed to prevent injury, improve comfort, and give you peace of mind.
Canes & Crutches
Walk safely and confidently with one of Drive Medical's convenient aids to daily mobility—from stylish canes to durable crutches. These simple, durable products effectively enhance your lifestyle by making it easier to get around anywhere you want to go.
Enjoy the convenience and peace of mind that come with a homecare commode from Drive Medical. Easy to use, easy to care for, and built to meet your needs safely and comfortably, our commodes enhance your quality of life with durability and value.
Experience the safe, effective relief that electrotherapy can provide by decreasing pain, stimulating muscle fibers and muscle growth, and increasing blood flow. Drive Medical's products are specifically designed to foster quicker recovery and assist all areas of your rehabilitation.
Hospital Beds
Bring home the superior care quality found in hospitals with beds from Drive Medical. Out beds excel in safety, comfort, and size, offering a variety of types and options that allow you to choose the ideal option to suit your needs.
Patient Room Products
Drive Medical offers an extensive lineup of items for your room that make life easier, safer, and more convenient. Meet your long-term care needs with everything from typical items found in hospital rooms to furniture and accessories.
Pediatric Rehab
More than just "kid's versions" of adult products, Drive Medical's pediatric rehab products are specially engineered to meet the needs of young users. Our line appeals to kids with bright colors and fun designs while helping them achieve a safe and comfortable lifestyle.
Personal Care
Drive Medical offers a huge variety of personal care products designed to aid nearly every aspect of your daily life, from dressing and eating to grooming and exercising. Enjoy greater independence and an enhanced quality of life with these creative solutions to everyday challenges.
Power Mobility
Don't miss a moment of all life has to offer with a power mobility product from Drive Medical. Whether you're seeking a lightweight power wheelchair for use around the house or a luxury scooter for the great outdoors, Drive Medical has the ideal powered option for getting you out and about.
Breathe easier with Drive Medical's extensive selection of respiratory products geared to meet your specific needs. Our products are lighter, quieter, and more transportable than ever before, allowing you maximum freedom and ease of use.
If you're seeking a safe, convenient aid to improving your daily mobility—and quality of life—a Rollator from Drive Medical is an excellent solution. Wheels allow you to walk with an easy, smooth gait and the built-in seat ensures you'll always have a convenient and comfortable place to rest.
Transport Chairs
Drive Medical's transport wheelchairs are a great mobility option for patients who require an aid to daily mobility but can't propel a chair on their own. Our transport chairs provide easily accessible mobility to help you maintain an independent lifestyle.
The support offered by a walker makes it an excellent mobility aid. Drive Medical offers a variety of high-quality walkers that are tailored to meet your mobility needs, whether you're seeking superior mobility indoors, outdoors, or both.


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Our cheese is made from rBST free raw cow's milk. Only three other ingredients are added. The AmaBlu® blue cheese recipe was created here at the caves in 1936 by Felix Frederiksen. It is the first blue cheese made and marketed nationally from the first site of American made blue cheese.
Today we faithfully follow the original recipe, carefully making cheese by hand in traditional open vats. There are no artificial additives or flavor enzymes – only Grade A milk, traditional starter culture (cheese ripening bacteria), salt and Penicillium rocquefortii (to create the blue veining) are added. The cheese are hand salted then cured and aged to their full potential.
In 1854 a German immigrant named Gottfried Fleckenstein began using the natural sandstone caves along the Straight River for brewing and storing beer. The largest natural cave (still in use today) was enlarged in 1936, then entirely new caves were hand hewn from the sandstone rock beginning in 1938.
St. Peter sandstone has four unique properties: 1) as the beach sand washed out by the last glaciers, it is remarkably pure (99.9% pure quartzite; 2) water can freely move vertically and horizontally, so cave ceilings never drip; 3) it is self supporting in a Gothic arch, so no internal supports are normally needed; and 4) it is slightly acidic.


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Welcome to Eye Wear Savings-Theyedoctor.com!
With tens of thousands of frames available to order, you have never had so many choices of frames.
Bring it into focus with new prescription lenses.
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You have never seen so many eyeglass options! We offer you the best selling eyeglasses from quality manufacturers and designers--all available in your prescription--all at a substantial savings. These are the same brand new comfortable eyeglasses found at your doctor's office, backed by manufacturers guarantee.
You will find a tremendous selection of eyeglasses in our online catalog. If there is a specific frame that you are looking for and do not find on our site, feel free to contact us to obtain availability and pricing. We can provide you with nearly any brand new frame from any best selling manufacturer
Shop the name brand sunglasses from top manufacturers at amazing prices. If you desire prescription sunglasses, we can provide you with impressive brand name sunglasses in your prescription or have your prescription made in polarized sun lenses in any frame offered, to protect your eyes from harmful UV light and keep them healthy.
Keep your eyes healthy with clean contact lenses.Order a fresh supply of contact lenses and get reliable delivery with effortless ordering. Clean and disinfected contact lenses are the key to long term wearing success with your contact lenses
Best selling eyeglasses from quality designers and manufacturers.
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Welcome to the 1980s. From the decade of big hair, excess and pastel suits comes a story of one man's rise to the top of the criminal pile. Vice City is a huge urban sprawl ranging from the beach to the swamps and the glitz to the ghetto, and is the most varied, complete and alive digital city ever created. Combining non-linear gameplay with a character driven narrative, you arrive in a town brimming with delights and degradation and are given the opportunity to take it over as you choose.
So Another MVL Conversion Since I Was Bored,So Yep,The Panto is a Reliable Russian-Serbian 4 Door Sedan Manufactured by Benefactor
Only registered members can share their thoughts. So come on! Join the community today (totally free - or sign in with your social account on the right) and join in the conversation.


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This guy decided to stick a GoPro camera on the roof of his Chevy Camaro while he was in a drag race. Sounds sensible, right? He should've made sure his T-Top was securely fastened to his car.
YouTube user MCPhoto FL has the story from Palm Beach International Raceway:
I attached my GoPro to my friends T-Top on the inside of his 4th Gen Camaro for a race. About 1/8th mile down the strip (approx. 100mph) the T-Top came flying off unexpectedly with the GoPro attached! I'd say the T-Top went at least 30ft up in the air before coming down and shattering.
Everything looks fine until about 1:18 into the video when the inevitable happens and things go splat.
And the time? 1/4 mile in 11.3 seconds, he says. Obviously due to weight loss.


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Fancy Dress, 70s and 80s Clothing
BFPO orders welcome
How to talk like a Pirate
70's Fashion
Fancy Dress Ideas
All goods purchased from Dees Trading may be returned for refund, exchange or replacement within 7 working days from receipt of delivery[*].
Before sending the parcel back to us, please contact us for a Returns Number that must be enclosed with the original delivery note. You will be asked for the reason for the return including whether you will prefer a refund or exchange plus whether the item has been used. In addition, you will need to confirm your name, order number and postcode, so please have these available if you telephone. You will need to include this with your parcel back to us as failure to do so may result in delay of any refund. May we please ask you to additionally note:
1. You must take care of our goods whilst they are in your possession and any item for return must be received back in its original shipped condition and original packing. Any Item returned without our tags in place will be deamed to be used and as such not suitable for exchange or refund. The item must be without damage or use and in a suitable condition for resale. All original packaging should accompany any returned item. We cannot accept returns for exchange or refund if such items have been opened from a sealed package (Costumes do not typically come in sealed packages and you can try them on). Wigs cannot be returned once the packaging has been opened for health and safety reasons. All items will be inspected on their return to our warehouse.
We are not a manufacturer, so the whole product and packaging must be returned as the same condition as you would have received it and how you may expect to receive it. If the product or packaging is in any way missing or damaged, we cannot refund. If we can repackage the goods to a satisfactory condition to enable us to resell the goods a repagaging fee of 7.50 will be deducted from any refund.
2. That you or your carrier are responsible for any returned goods until they reach our warehouse. Cost and Risk of return will be at your expense and we strongly recommend that you receive proof of posting or use Royal Mails "Recorded Signed" service. You may like to opt for Royal Mails "Special Delivery" service if a valuable item.
3. We regret that outbound shipping, packing and insurance cannot be refunded.
4. We try to make refunds within one week of receipt back to us though promise to make all refunds within 30 calendar days from receipt of goods to our premises. Please note that we will not be held liable for any interest payment that you may incur because any refund was made outside of your credit/debit card timescales.
5. Any returned goods that we receive which are outside of this Returns Policy will be defined as In Dispute. Such In Dispute items will not be refunded or exchanged. A reason for this decision will be provided. We are happy to re-ship such In Dispute items back to you, otherwise they will be destroyed within 91 calendar days from their receipt back to us.
6. We are sorry but due to false promises in the past, we are unable to replace or exchange an item until the original is returned Dees Fancy Dress. If you need an item in a hurry, we suggest you place a second order for the new item and send the original back at a later date.
8. Sometimes and especially if goods are purchased in advance for a present or delivered while on holiday, aforementioned 7 day response timescales can be missed. Therefore, without prejudice and as a gesture of goodwill, we are happy to consider the following remedy on a case by case basis:
[*] "7 working days from receipt of delivery" shall be defined as the date from when your shipment is received by you, being the date of signature that the package is received by you.All published prices act as a guide only and may change between the order being placed and delivery.
All of our products come with our 30 day guarantee where you may return faulty goods for exchange or refund of original purchase price. This does not effect your Statutory Rights.
Should a product be faulty, you should let us know immediately as we will happily refund or exchange it for you. You should let us know as soon as possible via email (or telephone first) within 7 calendar days from the date of delivery or, where this was not apparent on reasonable inspection, within 7 calendar days after discovery or 30 calendar days after receipt by you, whichever is the earlier.
Before sending the parcel back to us, please contact us for a Returns Number and Authorisation. You will be asked for the reason for the return.
1. We shall be under no liability in respect of any defect arising from fair wear and tear, wilful damage, negligence, abnormal working conditions, misuse or alteration or repair of the ordered goods without our approval.
2. Please return the goods to the address on the top of your receipt/invoice. Any returned items not including such information will have actions delayed.
7. Any returned goods that we receive which are outside of this Returns Policy will be defined as In Dispute. Such In Dispute items will not be refunded or exchanged. A reason for this decision will be provided. We are happy to re-ship such In Dispute items back to you, otherwise they will be destroyed within 91 calendar days from their receipt back to us.
We are sorry but due to false promises in the past, we are unable to replace a faulty item until the original is returned to Dees Trading.
All the prices in the store are shown inclusive and exclusive of VAT where applicable at the prevailing rates. We sell in UK Pounds Sterling although different payment currency options are available at checkout.
Payment and Title
Payment terms - all major credit and debit cards are accepted as well as cash, postal orders, bank draft, cheque, or direct bank transfer.
NOTE: Cheques must be supported by a valid cheque guarantee card or where the cheque exceeds the cheque guarantee card limit they must be cleared before the goods can be taken away or delivered.
Ownership and title in all goods taken from or delivered by Dees Trading shall pass to the customer when full payment has been received and cleared to Dees Tradings bank account. However, responsibility for the risk or safety of the said goods shall be that of the customer from the time possession is effected. In the case of goods not being paid for as agreed Dees Trading reserve the right to take possession of the goods concerned, with the co-operation and at the expense of the customer.
Whenever monies are overdue to Dees Trading, interest shall be chargeable at the rate of 2.5% per calendar month from the date payment was due.
Dees Trading will not be held liable for any loss of earnings or third party claims due to late delivery or failure of the product supplied. The customer shall be responsible for ensuring adequate backup facilities are available should a product fail at any time.
Dees Trading will not be held liable for damage or injury caused by products supplied by Dees Trading which are misused or incorrectly installed.
Your statutory rights are not affected in any way by the terms and conditions stated or implied.


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A Young Family's West Hollywood Home
A young L.A. couple infuse sophistication, style, and plenty of art into their introductory home redo
When Sara and Trevor Smith began their quest to leave an apartment for bigger digs in 2012, they expected that their search would result in a speedy transition to Home Sweet Home. But the mission turned out to be more Let the Games Begin.
The young couple was suitably equipped for the ready-set-go pace of the competitive West Hollywood real estate market. But even with game faces on, they were still left without a new place to live after offers on four properties were turned down. Time to get aggressive. A promising new online listing pushed Trevor into hustle mode, and he called the broker. Before other potential buyers even had a chance for a look-see, the Smiths made their offer.
And this time, they came out winners.
"I was pregnant with our daughter, Ellie, when we found our home," says Sara of the house, built in 1926. "The main criterion was a location that was walkable to restaurants and shops where we would meet other families along the way with our new baby."
With the transaction finalized, Sara and husband Trevor were far from the finish line. The house had undergone a series of piecemeal remodels and was in desperate need of a cohesive new one. While researching on Houzz, they discovered the work of famed Los Angeles architect William Hefner. Sara and Trevor assumed Hefner would not consider taking on a small-scale project such as theirs, but they called him anyway, hoping he might give them a solid recommendation for another talent. Lesson learned. Don't assume.
Sara and Trevor's A-frame home, built in 1926, is in the West Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles. "We laid out a list of goals that the renovation needed to achieve," says Trevor. "We added three fireplaces throughout the house to give it a cozy feeling. And to take advantage of the southern light, we opted for transom windows and skylights so the spaces were always bright and happy."
Photography: Victoria Pearson
Architect: William Hefner, Studio William Hefner, 5820 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036; 323/931-1365, williamhefner.com.
Interior designer: Michael Ostrow, Grace Home Furnishings, 11632 Barrington court, Los Angeles, CA 90049; 310/476-7176, and 1001 N. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs, CA 92262; 760/904-6337, gracehomefurnishings.com.
Living Room
The Smiths formed an instant connection with Hefner, who, coincidentally, once lived in the same apartment building where they were residing. And the house bought by this soon-to-be family of three (Mason, born in 2015, has since joined the clan) reminded Hefner of the first home he bought with his own wife. So he agreed to accept the renovation project.
Sara and Trevor didn't start the design process without doing their homework. The organized and prepared couple laid out a list of goals for each professional they hired. Their agenda for Hefner included a great room addition and a reconfiguration and expansion of existing spaces to make a dining room and walkway.
For the decorative vibe, the Smiths turned to Michael Ostrow, Brentwood designer and co-founder of the interiors emporium Grace Home Furnishings. His challenge was to fashion a warm but neutral environment that would highlight the artwork Sara and Trevor planned to acquire.
"The living room has a good balance of interesting pieces," says Ostrow. "But not everything in a room has to be important and play a starring role. The eye needs a rest, too, and we worked hard to create those calm moments in the room."
Century's "Belle" cocktail table, a mirror from Made Goods, and a slatted wood settee play into the mélange of materials.
Pair of chairs ('Trevor Chair"); sofa facing mantel ("Clark Sofa"): Grace Home Collection, gracehomefurnishings.com.
Chair fabric ("Maya"/Pewter #152103): Vanguard Furniture, vanguardfurniture.com.
Wall and ceiling paint ("White Dove" #OC-17): Benjamin Moore, benjaminmoore.com.
Hanging lantern ("19th Century English Openwork Pendant"): Restoration Hardware, rh.com.
Area rug (hand-stitched leather hide, #9761 in Silver): Exquisite Rugs, exquisiterugs.com.
Drapery ("Katana"/Ivory, Ebony #GWF-2812.168, by Kelly Wearstler): Lee Jofa, leejofa.com.
Settee opposite chairs (discontinued): Caracole, caracole.com.
Settee cushion ("Kaili Strie"/Indigo): Beacon Hill, beaconhilldesign.com.
Pillows at end of settee ("Zelva"/Gunmetal #7650/01, by Black Edition); striped pillows ("Viridis"/Storm #7661/02, by Black Edition): Romo, romo.com.
Coffee table ("Belle Round Cocktail Table" #MN5574): Century Furniture, centuryfurniture.com.
Side table to right of chairs: owner's collection.
Mirror over mantel ("Claude"/Cool Gray Faux Shagreen): Made Goods, madegoods.com.
Fireplace screen ("Tulun" #425013): Interlude Home, interludehome.com.
Bar cart ("Terrace Bar Cart"/Polished Nickel): West Elm, westelm.com.
Spiky sculptures on bar cart ("Urchin-Bright Silver," large #D8.80089, and small, #D8.80090): Global Views, globalviews.com.
Splash of Color
The Smiths' relationship with Ostrow and his business partner, Roger Stoker, actually has deep roots. When Sara and Trevor were students at Brentwood High School, they often walked past the retail village where the team's business is located. Remembering it years later, they returned to select furniture for their first home. "Our intention was to buy one sofa and that was it," Trevor says. "But then it was another piece and then another piece, and before you knew it, we wanted their design expertise and developed a friendship with them that remains to this day."
Homeowners naturally use words such as "cozy" and "comfortable" when setting down their design aspirations. But Sara and Trevor emphasized that this before-and-after needed to achieve those goals while incorporating their penchant for simple style, free of overwhelming colors or decorative elements. A fresh white color scheme enhanced by the southern light that floods the home replaced the previously dark, heavy tones. With the neutral backdrop in place, Sara focused on artwork to dress up the clean palette. As a creative person with her own fine jewelry line, Smith+Mara, artwork was high on her list of priorities.
In the living room, random splashes of color in a painting by Secundino Hernández contrast with the geometric pattern on matching armchairs.
Art (Untitled, by Secundino Hernández): through art advisor Mia Romanik, miaromanik.com.
Great Room
Remember how the Smiths wanted a neighborhood where they could walk to a range of businesses (rare in many areas of auto-dependent Los Angeles)? That foresight paid off. A casual stroll resulted in a chance meeting between Sara and art adviser Mia Romanik, who turned out to be their neighbor too. The Smiths worked with her to find pieces painted by emerging artists of diverse geographical backgrounds, from California to Spain and Germany.
"For a while, we visited galleries to familiarize ourselves with what was out there and tried to figure out how to go about collecting that way," says Sara. "We had an affinity for contemporary abstracts. It was fortuitous that we met Mia; otherwise it's an intimidating process. She filtered out a lot of the visual 'noise' for us."
The largest addition to the house was the great room, an extension off the kitchen where the focal point is a large contemporary painting by German artist Max Frintrop. Shiny metal tables in the great room balance the khaki sofa and highlight the adjoining kitchen's Calacatta marble.
Wall paint ("White Dove" #OC-17): Benjamin Moore, benjaminmoore.com.
Cabinetry: custom.
Countertop: Calacatta marble.
Backsplash behind range (glass tile): Ann Sacks, annsacks.com.
Cabinetry hardware ("Lugarno"/Polished Nickel): lights over island ("Clemson Classic Single Pendant"/Polished Nickel); bar stool ("Madeleine Armless Fabric Stool"); sectional sofa: Restoration Hardware, rh.com.
Art (Untitled, by Max Frintrop): through art advisor Mia Romanik, miaromanik.com.
With substantial framed canvases in mind as the primary accessories for the interiors, large walls were important. The new great room addition, in particular, provided plenty of uninterrupted surfaces for display. During the renovation, the great room was added on to the kitchen, where a flat dropped ceiling had hidden that room's A-frame architecture. In the redo, the ceiling above the kitchen was knocked out to expose the vaulted space, but it was scaled down to a flat surface over the seating area.
Above the credenza painted in a dark cream neutral hangs Knaul, a contemporary painting by German artist Jan-Ole Schiemann.
Credenza ("Spencer Entertainment Console"): Redford House, redfordhouse.com.
Art behind credenza (Knaul, by Jan-Ole Schiemann): through art advisor Mia Romanik, miaromanik.com.
Breakfast Nook
"For us, the great room and kitchen as one unit was the most important component of the house," Trevor says. "The challenge was how to orient the two spaces so they were separate but connected." Sara notes this communal area allows family members to interact and participate in what's going on yet claim their own spaces too—and that includes her young children. "I love watching them play underneath the banquette," she says. "I like how they have designated it as their own little spot."
A tufted banquette, designed by Ostrow for the Grace Home collection, was covered with a kid-friendly indigo-and-white striped vinyl fabric from Duralee.
Wall paint ("White Dove" #OC-17): Benjamin Moore, benjaminmoore.com.
Hanging lantern ("Small Cornice Hanging Lantern" #SL5871): Circa Lighting, circalighting.com.
Dining chairs ("Madeleine Armless Fabric Side Chair"): Restoration Hardware, rh.com.
Banquette; dining table: Grace Home Collection, gracehomecollection.com.
Banquette fabric (#42384-193 in Indigo): Duralee, duralee.com.
Credenza ("Spencer Entertainment Console"): Redford House, redfordhouse.com.
Dining Room
Throughout the great room and the rest of the house, Ostrow helped refine the Smiths' preferences. The curved living room sofa, the piece that drew Sara and Trevor to Grace Home Furnishings in the first place, prompted an assemblage of equally sculptural pieces that could stand on their own against the new French doors and tongue-and-groove wood on the ceiling.
The dining room boasts modern, glamorous furniture in shiny nickel finishes, but Ostrow added coordinating textural fabrics, grass cloth on the walls, and a warm, mirrored chandelier, making the room anything but cold.
Dining Room
"It's about layering to create warmth," says designer Michael Ostrow of the dining room, where a hammered metal table from Julian Chichester, stainless-steel chairs from Vanguard, and a Mr. Brown mirrored chandelier offer a sleek and glamorous touch. A black abstract on paper was a gift from Ostrow and partner Roger Stoker.
Wallcovering in dining room and hallway ("Haiku Sisal"/Charcoal #5006864): Schumacher, fschumacher.com.
Paint below chair rail ("Super White" #OC-152): Benjamin Moore, benjaminmoore.com.
Chandelier ("Galaxy Chandelier"): Mr. Brown, mrbrownhome.com.
Area rug (custom, faux sisal): Grace Home Furnishings, gracehomefurnishings.com.
Dining table ("Dakota"): Julian Chichester, julianchichester.com.
Dining arm chair ("Boswell" #W745A); side chairs ("Boswell" #W745S); side-chair fabric ("Riptide"/Grey #152357): Vanguard Furniture, vanguardfurniture.com.
Armchair fabric ("Amour 260" by Dekortex): available through Interior Decorating, fabric-textiles.com.
Art ("Abstract Papers, Large: Black"): Natural Curiosities, naturalcuriosities.com.
Spiky sculpture on table ("Urchin-Bright Silver-Large" #D8.80089): Global Views, globalviews.com.
Master Bedroom
A tufted pouf from Lee Industries and a shapely "Leon" side table from Made Goods sit between a pair of lounge chairs covered in "Nantucket Zig-Zag" by Mark Alexander through Romo. Drapes and sheers are from Grace Home Furnishings' Grace Home collection. The polished nickel rod is from Houlès.
Wall paint ("Balboa Mist" #OC-27); ceiling paint ("Super White" #OC-152): Benjamin Moore, benjaminmoore.com.
Drapery ("Jack"/Grey); drapery sheers: Grace Home Furnishings, gracehomefurnishings.com.
Drapery hardware: Houlès, houles.com.
Area rug; upholstered bed: Restoration Hardware, rh.com.
Mirrored bedside chest ("Hastings Chest"); lounge chairs ("Simon Swivel Chair"): Grace Home Furnishings, gracehomefurnishing.com.
Lounge-chair fabric ("Nantucket Zig-Zag"/Dove #M249/05, by Mark Alexander): Romo, romo.com.
Table between lounge chairs ("Leon Side Table"): Made Goods, madegoods.com.
Tufted ottoman (#9309-10): Lee Industries, leeindustries.com.
White rug (Australian sheepskin): Overland Sheepskin Co., overland.com.
Cover Photo—
Table ("Leon Side Table"): Made Goods madegoods.com.
Jewelry: Smith + Mara, smithandmara.com
Watch: 1968 Rolex
Desk Area
The addition of son Mason meant that Sara needed to find new digs for work. A space in a corner of the master bedroom featuring the "Audrey" desk by Made Goods and a Lucite chair covered in Zinc Textile through Romo "Baxter" fabric provides a spot for Sara to use her computer.
Desk ("Audrey"): Made Goods, madegoods.com.
Art on desk (Material Evidence (Bucket), by Melissa Gordon): through art advisor Mia Romank, miaromanik.com.
Chair ("Verona"): H Studio, hstudio.com.
Chair-seat fabric ("Baxter Jet" #Z342/01, embossed faux fur, by Zinc Textile): Romo, romo.com.
Drapery ("Jack"/Grey): Grace Home Furnishings, gracehomefurnishings.com.
Master Bathroom
Statuary marble creates interest and pattern in the master bathroom, eliminating clutter.
Wall paint ("White Dove" #OC-17): Benjamin Moore, benjaminmoore.com.
Cabinetry: custom.
Cabinetry hardware ("Lugarno Pull"); wall sconces ('Lugarno Single Sconce"); mirror on vanity ("Essex Vanity Mirror"); bath accessories ("Asbury"): Restoration Hardware, rh.com.
Countertops and door frame: statuary marble.
Sink: American Standard, americanstandard.com.
Faucets: Waterworks, waterworks.com.
Mirrors (custom): Grace Home Furnishings, gracehomefurnishings.com.
Ellie's Room
Painted in a calming mint green, daughter Ellie's room is anchored by a black-and-white striped teepee from Land of Nod.
Wall paint ("Lido Green" #617): Benjamin Moore, benjaminmoore.com.
Valance on window; window-seat cushion: Grace Home Furnishings, gracehomefurnishings.com.
Black pillow: Target, target.com.
White pillow ("Mongolian Lamb Pillow Cover"/Stone White); dresser ("Mid-Century 3-Drawer Dresser"/White): West Elm, westelm.com.
Area rug ("Union Rug"/Navy): Pattern Society, patternsociety.com.
Sheepskin rug: Overland Sheepskin Co., overland.com.
Tent ("A Teepee To Call Your Own"): Land of Nod, landofnod.com.
Mason's Room
Whether they are recapping the day in the serene master bedroom or saying good night to Ellie and Mason in their stylish kid quarters, the Smiths retire each night overjoyed with their home.
The back patio was outfitted with furniture from Koverton's Parkview collection to accommodate outdoor gatherings and a spot for Trevor and Sara to watch their children play.
Sofa and chairs (Parkview Knest Collection); fabric; pillows: Koverton, koverton.com.
Cocktail table: owner's collection.
Happy at Home
"We love this house and the fact that it's something we've created together," says Sara, noting that she and her husband are both homebodies. "It's funny, we go on vacation to stay in nice hotels, but find we really just want to come home. We are very happy here."
Smith Family
Sara and Trevor Smith with children Mason, 1, and Ellie, 3. "Our taste is overall pretty simple," says Sara. "For instance, when you walk through the hallway, you look and see this moment of glamour in the dining room. There's plenty of shine, but it's not over the top."


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SAN FRANCISCO — While the U.S. government reaps billions of dollars in royalties each year from fossil fuels extracted from federal lands and waters, it does not collect any such royalties from gold, copper, uranium or other metals mined from the same places, congressional auditors reported Wednesday.
The federal government doesn't even know how much these so-called "hard rock" mines produce from federal public lands in the 12 western states where most of the mining occurs, the Government Accountability Office report found.
And there is no federal law requiring the disclosure of production figures from individual mines.
Two Democratic lawmakers are hoping public concerns over the economy and the looming "fiscal cliff" will reinvigorate a movement on Capitol Hill to reform the General Mining Act of 1872, which exempted mining companies from paying royalties for profiting from U.S. public lands.
They want miners to pay the same 12.5 percent in royalties as oil companies, a move that could bring hundreds of millions of dollars in new annual revenue.
The 1872 law "was designed to perpetuate the 'go west, young man' idea to bring people, commerce and industry to the West. But that's done, it's the new West now," said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., who along with Sen. Tom Udall, D-New Mexico, requested the GAO study.
The U.S. Department of the Interior collected $11.3 billion in 2010 and $11.4 billion in 2011 from oil, coal and natural gas royalties and leases, the report found.
The mining industry, which has fought to kill similar reform bills, said it already pays billions in taxes involving mines located on state and private lands.
"In 2008, there were $20 billion in sales in U.S. metals, and we paid about $8.3 billion in various taxes on that," said Carol Raulston, a spokeswoman for the National Mining Association. She said the industry supports fair compensation for the government but not a royalty comparable to what is paid by the oil industry.
Grijalva and Udall said they plan to make their case in the next session of Congress. Grijalva said he intends to introduce a bill calling for royalties on the mining of metals on public land.
"We can't ignore these potential revenues any longer — not when the American people are counting on us to solve our economic challenges," Udall said in a statement. "Hard rock mining reform should be part of that discussion."
The new revenue — which Grijalva said could total as much as $2 billion annually depending on production — might be used for cleaning up abandoned mines, national parks and public lands. The bill would also require companies to disclose production levels on federal lands.
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"The mining industry is a very powerful lobby, and they've basically kept the hands-off attitude," Grijalva said, explaining previous failed attempts at reform.
The GAO estimated the value of hard rock minerals mined on federal lands in 2011 was about $6.4 billion. If the industry paid royalties comparable to oil companies, the federal government would have received $800 million in royalties from those mines.
The mining industry opposed a similar bill that passed the House in 2008 but died in the Senate the following year.
Other Democrats in Congress do not agree on mining reform.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada — home to most of the country's gold mining — has been outspoken against past approaches to reform. However, his office said he remains open-minded on the royalty issue.
"He's willing to consider any proposal for mining reform that shares revenues with the state, protects the mining industry and doesn't kill jobs," said Kristen Orthman, Reid's spokeswoman.
The mining association's Raulston said the industry is not opposed to royalties in theory but believes charging a rate comparable to oil, coal and natural gas is unfair.
"Metals are not immediately sellable products — there are processes and refining needed to get out the impurities," she said. "So, there are added costs in metals mining that you don't see in other natural resources like timber, gas and coal."
Supporters of royalties such as Grijalva say reform is overdue and multinational mining companies that profit from U.S. public lands should be paying.
"We're not dealing with a grub stake or prospector going out there, but multinational companies that end up exporting most of the minerals they take out," Grijalva said. "And we're getting nothing back for taxpayers to maintain parks, offset the deficit and to clean up abandon mines all over the West."
Jason Dearen can be reached at — http://www.twitter.com/JHDearen


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Advances in Stroke Care
FERGUSON: Ah, beautiful. Okay.
FERGUSON: (sounds of scrolling…) So the eyeballs, the nose, the mouth, the jawbone, the neck, the sternum, collarbones here, muscles of the neck, and then we get into the blood vessels.
Dr. Robert Ferguson, an interventional neuroradiologist at MetroHealth, looks at black and white images like this one, taken from a CAT scanner, day in and day out. They let him peek inside the body without having to wield a knife or thread a tube.
FERGUSON: So blood vessels in the brain are sort of like meandering rivers. They curve right to left and zigzag back and forth.
FERGUSON: So here are the carotid arteries going up into the neck. And then we can actually see the blood vessels inside the head very nicely.
Ferguson takes a closer look.
FERGUSON: We see a nice squiggly line on one side that represents a normal filling blood vessel and on the other side, we see that the line abruptly ends, it doesn't continue
This--this is the problem--a big problem. A 74 billion dollar a year, life and death and permanent disability kind of problem. Stroke. The most common kind--called ischemic stroke--happens when a blood vessel in the brain gets plugged, like a dam in a river, cutting off oxygen and nutrients from needy brain cells.
FERGUSON: The blood clot plugs the blood vessels and stops any flow beyond that plug, depriving the brain of oxygen and putting those brain cells downstream at risk for death.
So what can be done? The answer to that question is drastically different today than a couple decades ago--thanks to a synergy of new drugs, new tools, and, the foundation of it all, crystal clear, lightning fast imaging. Pictures of the inside of your head, giving doc's a roadmap for treating stroke. Techniques like CAT scans have improved dramatically--we're talking a difference of 25 minutes for a grainy image, versus, just 5 seconds for a perfect picture. Now, says Ferguson:
FERGUSON: We know exactly what we're dealing with and we know where we're going and we can do it much more quickly.
And speed matters--the quicker the plug can be opened, the more tissue can be saved. Time is brain, stroke doctors say.
Ferguson recounts his first night on the job, several decades ago:
FERGUSON: And I remember that vividly. It was a person who came in, the diagnosis of stroke was made, and I remember distinctly that patient being wheeled into a quiet area of the department and a curtain being drawn around them because there was nothing to do.
But now, that's all changed.
FERGUSON: Fast-forward, yesterday afternoon, we had two patients come in at the same time with blood clots plugging the arteries in the brain…simultaneously we treated both patients…today they're moving, talking and 30 years ago that just didn't happen. We didn't have any methodology, we didn't have any techniques, technologies or medicine to accomplish that type of outcome.
In the past decade alone, the annual rate of death from stroke decreased by 34%, and nowadays, 50-70% of stroke survivors will regain functional independence after their stroke.
Chris Duncan, a patient of Dr. Ferguson's at MetroHealth, owes his life to these advances in stroke care.
I met up with Duncan and his family at a café. Duncan is 39, fit, soft-spoken, works at Valley Ford Truck, and this summer he's been watching his nine year old son Seth light up the ice at hockey camp.
On the morning of his stroke, Duncan thought at first that he was just being clumsy, and was waiting for the caffeine to kick in.
DUNCAN: I woke up for work normal like any other day…Only difference on this morning when I went to get my coffee I dropped my coffee cup and it just seemed like I was half asleep.
But things got worse--dropping his cell phone, knocking over the microwave stand--and his wife made him go to the ER.
Acting swiftly, Dr. Ferguson imaged Duncan's brain, found the plug, and went in, delivering a clot-busting drug right at the blockage.
Duncan was awake during this whole procedure, and Ferguson says that he even called out the answer to some music trivia in the OR:
FERGUSON: To my shock Christopher, who had not been able to speak, yelled out the name of a singer. It happened to be the wrong singer, but he was on the right track--he guessed the Eagles and it was Joe Walsh.
The fact that he could speak again so quickly--this was a very good sign.
With quick action, Duncan benefited profoundly from the advances we've made in stroke care. When I asked him the difficult question of…What if the outcome had been different? What if they couldn't have helped him?.. He paused for a long moment.
DUNCAN: Wow that's tough. That's probably something I don't like to think about. That would've been really difficult for us. It would have been hard not having an income. I am pretty sure disability doesn't pay all that much.
Sitting on his dad's knee, Seth chimes in:
SETH DUNCAN: Yeah I was really sad that he had a stroke. I didn't even know how it happened.
Seth fights to keep his voice level, and his dad, holding him close, starts tearing up as well:
SETH DUNCAN: That was pretty sad.
DUNCAN: Don't you start, now. You're going to get me going.
SETH DUNCAN: I mean, whooh.
FERGUSON: I've been fortunate you could say in that my career has spanned almost the entire history of stroke treatment. And it is an interesting aspect to a career when you're able to see that much progress, that much of a change in one lifetime where we've gone from being essentially impotent to help, to seeing people fully recover from what would have otherwise, 30 years before, been an incurable devastating disease.
FERGUSON: The message is that we can help those people now.