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Kimono Obi Belt Short Dress-Silky White
Sale price
Regular price
Unit price
Made from a vintage silk kimono in a silky bright orange shade, a defined silhouette is created by a belted waist and pointed sleeves. Style with ballet flats in a matching hue for effortless chic.
Product detail
- Crew Neck in front / V neck at back
- Wrap Belt
- Regular Fit
- Free size
- Length:95cm /Bust110cm/ waist 108cm/ Shoulder 65cm/ Sleeve26cm
Model's height: 170cm(5'7")
We recommend taking your Kimono to a dry cleaner to ensure it is receiving the proper care. Check if your Kimono has gold embroidery as you would need to mention that to a dry cleaner.
Silk can get wrinkled if it is left folded for a longer period, and therefore the item may have some wrinkles when you receive it. You can however easily remove these with ironing. Make sure to set the iron to a low temperature and press it down on the fabric from the backside with a piece of thin cotton in between to prevent direct heat on the silk.
*The colors might vary slightly depending on your browser.
*Please read before purchasing
EDYA 1929 products are made with beautiful vintage kimonos, however it is old. Vintage kimonos were worn and loved by someone so many years ago.
It has color fade out and little damage due to the passed years, however we see them as history of each Kimono.
Hope for your understanding before purchasing.
We offer free shipping in the Philippines for all other domestic orders. International shipping will be calculated at checkout.
International Orders
You are responsible for any additional taxes and duties. We cannot pre-determine customs fees and EDYA1929 Fashion Design is not responsible for any fees charged by customs.
Click here if you have any questions


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Are you looking to buy a flat, either for your own use as a home or as a buy-to-let investment?
Flats including apartments and maisonettes are generally sold on a leasehold basis, and the length of the remaining lease has a big impact on the property value. The price of a short lease property, therefore, may be appealing. However, before you go ahead with the purchase of a short lease flat, it is highly recommended that you do your homework to fully understand the legal and financial implications you are taking on.
Here is our guide to buying a flat on a short lease:
What constitutes a short lease?
Residential leasehold properties usually have an initial lease term of 99 years or more. 125 years and even 999 years are also relatively common. However, properties with less than 70-80 years left to run are generally regarded as having a short lease. Of course, this doesn't prevent these types of flats from being sold. In fact, properties with leases of as little as five years or less remaining still happily change hands.
That being said, a leasehold property is, by definition, a depreciating asset. This means that ownership of the property will revert to the freeholder once the lease term has expired unless the lease is extended in time.
How to extend a short lease
The good news is that leasehold owners have a statutory right to extend the lease of their property under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993.
To qualify for a statutory lease extension, the original lease term must have been at least 21 years, and the leaseholder must have owned the property for at least two years. Of course, this is of little use to a prospective buyer, but all is not lost. If the seller fulfils the eligibility criteria, you can request that they initiate a statutory lease extension as a condition of purchase. This benefit can then be assigned to you on completion of the sale.
Outside of the statutory framework, there is nothing to stop the leaseholder from approaching the freeholder with an informal request for a lease extension. In this scenario, there is no need to wait two years and any private agreement reached between leaseholder and freeholder will be perfectly valid in law, albeit without statutory protection.
Should you let the lease run down?
A lease extension is not always the right course of action. In fact, there are certain circumstances where it might make sense to let the lease run down.
Short lease flats may be an attractive option for retirees and homebuyers who have nobody to leave their estate to after death, meaning they don't need to worry about protecting the value of their property asset.
Short lease properties can also make very attractive buy-to-let investments. The profit made from renting out the flat for the remainder of the lease term can amount to a multiple of the initial purchase price. Once the lease is up, the property reverts back to the freeholder.
That said, short lease flats are often in a poor state of repair and may require extensive (and expensive) refurbishments before they become a viable rental property, while service charges and ground rent may be considerable. Make sure you know exactly what you are buying.
Can you get a mortgage for a short lease flat?
Unfortunately, it is rather difficult to obtain a mortgage for a flat with a short lease. Lenders typically refer to the years remaining on the lease as the 'minimum expired lease term' and the shortest term acceptable will vary between mortgage companies. The majority of lenders consider a short lease to be one that has fewer than 75-85 years remaining. "You may be able to find a provider willing to lend on a 65-year lease, but this is very rare," advises one mortgage comparison website.
Speak to an experienced mortgage broker to investigate all possibilities including specialist lenders and shorter mortgage terms and be prepared to pay much higher mortgage interest rates to cover the lender's additional risk.
What are your options?
Given the difficulties of securing a mortgage, short lease flats tend to be sold at auction rather than through the traditional estate agent route. Auction buys can be financially attractive and if you are able to pay cash for the flat, it could make the property a good investment.
However, don't forget to factor in the cost of having to extend the lease yourself, which can be substantial. The shorter the remaining term, the higher the cost of a lease extension. If you include lawyers' and surveyors' fees, the cost can run into £10,000s for a property with 60-70 years left, rising steeply for shorter leases. Here's a handy calculator to help you do the initial sums.
Your best option would be to ask the seller to initiate statutory lease extension proceedings before the completion of sale and come to an agreement regarding cost-sharing.
Contact us
Are you looking for a new home for 2021? Contact your local Guild Member today to start your journey.

subset: commoncrawl


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Abuse of prescription drugs has become a more serious problem than most street drugs. Painkillers, tranquilizers, antidepressants, sleeping pills and stimulants may appear "safe" due to being prescribed by doctors, but they can be just as addictive and potent as the heroin or cocaine sold on the street. The painkiller OxyContin, for example, is as powerful as heroin and affects the body in the same way. Continued use of painkillers, depressants ("downers"), stimulants ("uppers") or antidepressants can lead to addiction—and painful withdrawal symptoms for those who try to quit.
Just a few of the effects of these drugs are given here.
Painkillers: OxyContin, Fentanyl, morphine, Percodan, Demerol are a few of a long list of painkillers. Effects can include slowed breathing, nausea and unconsciousness. Abuse can lead to addiction.
Depressants: These drugs, which slow down your brain and nervous system functions, include Xanax, Zyprexa, Amytal, Seconal, Valium and many others. Effects can include heart problems, weight gain, fatigue1 and slurred speech. Continued use can lead to addiction.
Stimulants: These drugs speed up your heart rate and breathing, similar to "speed" or cocaine. They include Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta and drugs known as "bennies." Effects include increased blood pressure and heartbeat, hostility and paranoia.
Antidepressants: Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and Celexa are some of the commonly used antidepressants. Effects can include irregular heartbeat, paranoid reactions, violent or suicidal thoughts and hallucinations. Long-term use can lead to addiction.
Painkillers, depressants and antidepressants are responsible for more overdose deaths in the United States than cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and amphetamines combined.


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Our Mission Statement
We are committed to helping you manage the risks that arise in everyday life. If the unexpected strikes, we will do everything we can to help you recover your quality of life as soon as possible. We are guided by highest standards of integrity and professionalism so you can be sure that our recommendations will help you obtain the best insurance coverage for your unique circumstances, in the right amount and at a price that fits your budget.


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Car Dealer Auto Shipping
Let Auto Transporters Online deliver a new car to your customer with AutoTransportersonline.com
You have spent the time selling your customer their new car. If you are ready to go, please fill out our quote form to receive a quote for your move. Let us at Auto Transporters Online help you give the customer a great experience from start to finish. In most cases, the customer wants their new car right away. If the car takes three to four weeks or is damaged upon arrival this will put a bad taste in your customers mouth. Let us walk you through our auto shipping process that will make the difference.
Our transporters are the most professional auto shipping companies in the industry. Our Drivers will give you a 24-hour notice of their arrival. When our car transporters show up at your dealership, they will be clean, professional, and on time. Your dealer has a professional image and the company servicing you should protect that!
Are driver understands that your customer wants the car right away, and he will do everything in his power to get the car delivered as fast as legally possible without damaging your vehicle.
Our drivers will give your customer a 24 hour notice before delivery of their vehicle. They are flexible and courteous to your customer. They understand that when they deliver your car to the customer they represent you and your dealership. At Auto Transporters Online, quality is uncompromised every single time.
Dealer Trades
We at Auto Transporters Online service over 600 auto dealers across the nation, so we truly understand your needs. We know that when a dealer does a trade with another dealer he needs the car back on is lot A.S.A.P. In most cases, we will have the trades pick up at the same time and delivered at the same time. This allows the dealer to get the car fast and cuts down on transit time!
We're Safe and Secure
Your vehicle will be transport by the best. Many car dealerships trust us to transport their new cars worth over $100,000 every day.
It's Affordable
Because of todays competitive market, we're able to give you a fair and affordable rate. Unlike, most other auto transport companies.
Protected & Insured
Every car shipping is insured up to the Blue Book Value of your vehicle. This insurance is rarely needed because your vehicle is well protected during transport.
Fast carriers
The entire process is fast! Most companies talk weeks, we talk days!
Tested and Trusted
Our testimonials speak for themselves. We have helped many people just like you transport their vehicles at a great rate. We at Auto Transporters Online take a great deal of pride in every vehicle that we move safely and securely each day. At Auto Transporters Online, we offer auto dealers a comprehensive solution to their car transport needs. With our years of experience in the auto transport industry, we understand car dealer's unique and extensive auto shipping needs. We know what you need when it comes to auto shipping to and from auctions, dealer swap meets, trade shows, and everything in between. We have the experience of working with dealerships all across the nation and have a reputation for quickly fulfilling their car transport needs. We have spent years refining our proven methods that work. We promise that our communication and state of the art time management techniques will provide auto dealerships with the special services you require.
We at Auto Transporters Online do offer discounted rates on full loads. We understand that there are times that automobile dealers need to move smaller numbers of automobiles. This is why we provide reasonable auto shipping rates and relocation services for individual units and full loads.
Are you an Auto Dealer going to an automobile auction soon? Need to move a full load? Arranging a dealer trade? Like you, our auto transport business relies on moving your vehicles quickly and in a safe manner. Fill out our simple form and give us a call.
A+ rated with BBB & on Angie's listed
1 (866)556-6468
Call today or go online for a quick quote. Multiple car discounts available.


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By Lindy Smith and Mark Puente
[Printer Friendly] | [ Email us about these papers]Title: Morris and Barnard Young Music Business Records, 1832-1988
Primary Creator: Young, Morris N. (1909)
Extent: 50.25 cubic feet
Arrangement: Organized in seven series.
Date Acquired: 00/00/1995
Subjects: Music business, Music Publishers
Formats/Genres: Broadsides, Financial Records, Sheet music
Languages: English
The Morris and Barnard Young Business Records consists of financial records, correspondence, royalty statements, songsters and broadsides, radio logs, legal documents, periodicals, music manuscripts, and memorabilia (fliers, brochures, playbills, etc.) that were compiled by Morris N. Young, as part owner of several music publishing, marketing, producing, and artist representation enterprises owned and operated by the brothers between ca. 1934 and 1972. The collection contains legal reports and supporting documentation from key litigation cases that were filed by Barney Young in the 1950s and 1960s against Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) et. al., and the Walt Disney Corporation. The collection also includes periodicals and publications both generated by companies owned by one or both of the Young brothers and those that they collected. The final three series are publications and manuscripts, both musical and prose, created by associates of the Youngs.
See also record series number 35/3/68.
Morris N. Young -- opthalmologist, author, and collector of books and artifacts on magic, mnemonics, and old sheet music -- was born July 20, 1909 in Lawrence, Massachusetts and died November 13, 2002 in Norwich, Connecticut at the aged of ninety-three. In addition to his vocational and avocational involvements, Young served as president of or was heavily involved with many music publishing companies and performer organizations such as Bomart Music Company, Ferris Records, National Juke Box Records, Godell Music, International Songwriters Association, and the Denton & Haskins Music Corporation which he and his brother, Bernard Young, purchased.
Repository: The Sousa Archives and Center for American Music
Acquisition Method:
The UIUC Music Library purchased a related collection, the Morris Young Music Library of Early American Popular Music, in 1986 from rare book broker, J. Lubrano in New York. The business records were acquired in a subsequent gift from the collector's estate ca. 1995.
Box 127 transferred from MPAL: 4/12/2017


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Name Team/Club
Name of Team and Tour
Dates, 2020
A+ rating Better Business Bureau
Partner of U.S. Youth Soccer
Sanctioned by the United Soccer Coaches (formerly NSCAA)
International travel partner of US Club Soccer
Before you book:
Your Tour Proposal (Download)
General (Cancellation) Conditions and General Information (Download) We strongly advise all participants to read these conditions to avoid any misunderstandings.
After you have booked:
Your Tour Confirmation
After your group has booked with Premier International Tours we will post here a detailed tour confirmation with all important information such as accommodation addresses, flight information, excursion options, etc. We will e-mail your manager and/or coach when this confirmation is available online.
The tour costs are based on the exchange rate of the US$ and CAD$ towards the Euro and British Pound. Fluctuations of the exchange rates of all involved currencies can affect the tour costs. In addition to this, we reserve the right to increase the participant prices in case of an increase in airport (security) taxes and/or fuel surcharges for the airlines.
Your payment schedule
Together with your manager and/or coach we will make a payment schedule for your group. This schedule will be posted here after your group has booked.
Important information regarding your payment
In our proposals, we offer to help to manage and administrate all payments. To avoid any misunderstandings, we have created some guidelines for payments including the options we can offer.
Travelers have two options to pay: by check or by credit card.
By check:
Travelers can mail the checks to Premier International Tours, 17838 E. Easter Place, Foxfield, CO 80016. Please have each person include the name of the group and the name of the travelers with/on the check. Please make sure the check will be received on or before the payment date. We will send the group's main contact (coach and/or manager) an updated financial review/invoice after receipt of these checks. We will not send any individual payment receipt confirmations to the travelers.
By credit card - automatic:
Travelers have the option to complete a credit card authorization form with payments (a minimum of $250.00 per transaction) as per the payment schedule agreed upon with the coach and/or manager. We will only accept a c.c. authorization form from people who commit to have their card charged for the complete payment schedule. We will forward a credit card authorization to your coach and/or manager which you can complete and return to your coach or team manager. Your coach or team manager will then send in these forms to us which will be processed for the payments. We will charge the credit cards on the dates as per authorization form (maybe 1-2 days before or after).
By credit card – one-time credit card payments:
If you would like to make an on-time credit card authorization please process your credit card payment. This is a secure website.
A lot of people have a daily limit on their c.c. please tell them that they need to inform their bank before we charge the card. Every credit card transaction will be confirmed to the owner of the c.c. by sending them a receipt per e-mail. We will send the group's main contact (coach and/or manager) an updated financial review/invoice after processing these credit cards.
The fact that we offer credit card payments is a service for the coach and/or manager of the team because processing these types of payments are time consuming
Please notice that our primary focus and goal is to organize a perfect tour for your group. Therefore, we must set some rules for the payments to avoid that we will be spending more time managing individual payment requirements than the group's tour arrangements. We hope you understand.
Communication Structure
We encourage that your group assigns one person (manager or coach) who will be the main contact of Premier International Tours. This person should always be copied in on all communications with Premier International Tours.
We strongly encourage your participants to purchase travel and cancellation interruption insurance. Please click here to get detailed information about the policy of Travel Insured. Follow the instructions as per PDF file. Your coach or team manager will check with all travelers if they want to purchase insurance. Please click here for the student policy enrollment form and please click here for the adult policy enrollment form.
Day by Day Itinerary
Between 2-4 weeks before departure Premier International Tours will post the final itinerary on this page. We will e-mail your manager and/or coach when this itinerary is available online. We will first post a provisional itinerary and between 2-4 weeks before departure the final itinerary.
Emergency contacts
At each destination and/or tournament, Premier International Tours has (its own) tournament or local staff available to assist you.
A special phone line will be available for airline issues. The number will be shared with your team manager later on.
Lastly, Premier International Tours is available as well 7 days a week (from 7:30AM - 10:30PM Mountain Standard Time) (720) 607-0783.
Important Deadlines
110 days before departure:
1. We encourage you to start working on your passport. Passports need to be valid 6 months from your return date. More information about passports and visas can be found at our Tour Preparation Guide - click here.
2. If you need a deviation (earlier flight departure than the group or later flight return than the group) you need to do this within the next week. We will not accept any deviations within 90 days from departure. The airlines charge a standard deviation fee of $150.00 per person (group rates are subject to availability) plus a possible increase in fare on the requested deviation. All deviation requests are subject to availability of flights. Please notice that airlines allow only a maximum of 10-20% of the group to deviate (percentage depends on the specific airline) and the deviations must be done with the same airline as the group. Deviations can be done for either the return flight only or outbound flight only (depends on the specific airline) but not both. Only a select few airlines allow routing changes on deviations so routing changes are also subject to the conditions of the specific airline used for the group flights. Most of the times you cannot upgrade group tickets to business or first class.
3. Premier International Tours has a Tour Preparation Guide available. Please click here for all information you need to know.
100 days before departure:
Youth teams traveling internationally are requested to get a Soccer Federation Permission to Travel. If you have not started the process, please do so now. More information about this can be found on our website - click here
90 days before departure:
This is one of the most important deadlines for your tour. By this date we cannot accept 1. any additional people 2. any deviation requests. By this date we need to know as well special meal requests like vegetarian, gluten free, etc.
We will contact the coach and/or manager to reconfirm the number of people traveling, to get the official names (as per your passport or birth certificate including middle names) and DOB plus special seating requests. We will ask your manager and/or coach as well to fill out a so called Team Profile Form (for friendly games tours only) and to create a rooming list.
80 days before departure:
1. Premier International Tours will offer all travelers (players, coaches and parents) a NIKE travel t-shirt. We will ask your coach and/or manager for the sizes of all travelers. We encourage you to take some group pictures in front of sites wearing our tees for the Premier International Tours annual photo contest. The winning picture get a $ 500.00 NIKE gift certificate.
2. Please make sure you read the ground transportation inclusions and the role of your guide - see Your Tour Confirmation above.
70 days before departure:
1. We have informed your coach and/or manager about possible excursions (not available for some of tournaments) your group can prebook. Now is a good time to get this finalized.
2. If your team participates at a tournament, please familiarize yourself with the tournament rules listed on each tournament website.
3. Did you think about a gift for the opposing team(s)? We encourage your group to have team pennants for the opposing teams. Any other gift will be appreciated as well.
60 days before departure:
We need to have all signed waivers e-mailed back to us. Please click here to access our waiver forms.


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Many you also must be play online or live casino games get their start with slots. It's no surprise that this should be a case, as slots are some of the easiest game to learn and know precisely.
Non-progressive casino wars offer you higher chances of winning huge jackpots than progressive items. However, jackpots in former are usually smaller than the latter. But, still justifiable to win small jackpots than losing an online game.
In playing, you should always watch your bankroll. Before playing it is set aside a specific quantity of dollars spent. This amount of this bankroll should only end up being the amount that you will be willing get rid of. It is natural in gambling to have an overabundance of loss than wins. So, betting money that designed for bills payments and groceries isn't something that you might want to definitely.
A player just downloads the game and clicks the 'tournament' button their lobby within the online land based casino. There are instructions to follow and the guitarist follows regarding. First, he registers and after that, he know how far he is the web design manager. The entrance fee costs as Pg slot low as $2 to $5 each and every day.
There are surely no hard and fast rules to win these slot games anyone can obviously increase your chances of winning. Before playing several slot games, you must set your win and loss limits in order to play safe. This must be performed as will help you you to spend less from your bankroll. Win limit may be the particular amount that a gamer is prepared lose just in case if he loses sport. The player must immediately stop playing as soon as he meets this limit. On the other hand side, if a player is satisfied with quantity he has won to date can stop playing the sport. However, it is extremely important to follow these limits in order to improve your bankroll any kind of future games.
ABADI126 of craps Gambling is that everyone will win at some point and everybody will lose at factor. Yes, no matter how much you think you suck, you will win much more more Gambling bets. That is how the overall game is aimed. Why? The money bet at craps is distributed between the players, that's not a problem casino in case you haven't small percentage from political election and losers. That is the big picture, never lose sight of it.
Are you scrolling by your e-mail Inbox like you spin a Roulette steering wheel? Hoping you'll land on your favorite e-mail you want? Will you understand that its? Will you not? Understands.?
3: Pray often tough "Lord keep me from temptation" (This is component of the Lord's Prayer from the Bible). Pray about why you gamble. Has it been for greed? Then pray a lot with that because the Bible says that the greedy will not inherit the dominion of paradise poker. Is it for excitement? Then pray about which alternatives to do to find excitement.


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"After researching asset protection and cost of attorney's to help with this I could not believe that Nevada Corporation Services could do all they said for the prices they were quoting. You know the "if it is to good too be true" line. So I got on a plane flew to Reno, rented a car, and spent a few days in Lake Tahoe, NV just to take a look. I am happy to report I was very impressed with the complete operation. The staff is professional, knowledgeable and very helpful. I have been a happy customer ever since and look forward to a long relationship."
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Though I was wildly emotional in my youth, with age has come at least a smidgen of wisdom, and I've learned that a dash of Zen detachment can go quite a long way towards keeping yourself sane and your life on a relatively steady course. Being diagnosed with MS has certainly put my studied grasp on my own emotions to the test, but practiced discipline has helped me to make the many mindbending decisions that are thrust upon patients with chronically debilitating diseases.
Still, there is much about having MS that just plain pisses me off. And not just the fact that I have the disease, which all by itself is a real kick in the ass. But there is a veritable potpourri of reasons to be angry that come parceled with the disease, some of which become apparent only after the blinding smoke from the explosive burst of the initial diagnosis clears, and you get down to the business of day-to-day life with your new and unwanted companion.
Let me start with a favorite target of most MS patients, and one that often seems to go out of its way to earn the bile of those it's supposed to be helping: the medical research establishment in general, and more specifically, the entities that fuel and profit from this woefully dysfunctional beast, the big pharmaceutical companies. To cut directly to the chase, why the hell is so much time and money being spent developing drugs and compounds that do nothing to address the still mysterious cause of MS, but in reality only treat what is essentially a symptom of the disease, a broken immune system. Can we throw a few dollars at finding the cause of this freaking monster? The hideously expensive solutions presented to MS patients don't even have the decency to try to pretend that they're fixing the abnormal immune response that is most likely not the primary culprit behind our creeping paralysis. No, the "Disease Modifying Drugs" modulate naughty immune cells, or suppress them, like a perturbed parent swatting a misbehaving child on the backside and then sending them to stand in the corner.
For the privilege of taking these drugs, the best of which only work in about 65% of those using them, MS patients must overlook the long list of side effects that go with them, starting at the benign end with flulike symptoms, and ending more ominously with the possibility of terrifying brain infections and deadly cancers. Yes, these drugs can improve the quality of life of the percentage of patients they do happen to work on, but that's about as good as it gets. They do absolutely nothing, squat, zippo, to actually cure anything. Instead, they turn the patients into pharmaceutical company clients for life, even if those lives may be shortened by the above-mentioned side effects. What these drugs have been spectacularly successful at doing is enriching the pharmaceutical companies that make them, to the tune of billions of dollars a year. Why cure, when you can treat, and mint money at the same time?
When it comes to medical research, our society has its collective head up its ass. We have extensively trained and credentialed brilliant minds working on cures for baldness and erectile dysfunction while cancer patients are dying, MS patients are becoming crippled, Parkinson's patients are losing control of their bodies, diabetics are going blind and losing limbs, and Alzheimer's patients are watching the very essence of who they are slip away. Granted, being chrome domed and limp schlonged may indeed be upsetting, but sorry, Buster, get to the back of the line. Oh, but wait, I keep forgetting that making money is the goal here, and aging men will go deep into hock for a head full of wavy hair and a phallus that will spring to life at the drop of a pill. Let us not forget, there's also the little fact that most of the occupants of the executive offices of the companies funding our medical research machine can count themselves among the chrome domed and limp schlonged. At least we with serious illnesses can rest assured, secure in the knowledge that those in power have their priorities straight. Making money? Check! Growing hair? Check! Stiffening schlongs? Check! Curing horrible illnesses? Well, that one will have to wait ...
I'm also getting increasingly pissed off at MS neurologists these days. I remain convinced that almost all of them genuinely have the best interests of their patients at heart. They're almost unique in the world of medicine as doctors who have never once cured any of their patients. I've been lucky enough to have met and been treated (unsuccessfully) by some of the best in the business, many of whom are quite literally obsessed with finding some way, any way, to find relief for their patients, but nevertheless they somehow can't stop themselves from denigrating the new kid on the block, CCSVI, and actively stand in the way of research that could confirm or disprove this new vascular theory of MS.
Fine, neurologists have reasons to seriously doubt the validity of the hypothesis, some of which even make sense. There certainly are aspects of the CCSVI hypothesis that contradict known MS Pathology. All the more reason, I should think, for the neurologic community to get fully behind CCSVI research. It seems to me that the quickest way to disprove a theory that they're so sure is completely wrong would be to eagerly team up with vascular physicians to design and put into motion quick and effective trials of CCSVI, thereby settling the question once and for all. By obstinately objecting to such trials, neurologists are not only forcing their desperate patients to seek treatment behind their backs, but they're actually perpetuating the life of a treatment modality that they say has no possible chance of having anything to do with Multiple Sclerosis. No chance? Really? Then prove it.
There are scads of willing MS patients and waiting Interventional Radiologists ready to start large-scale treatment trials that would put all questions to bed. If the trials prove that CCSVI is a crock, the neurologists can pat themselves on the back and do a touchdown dance. If, though, trials prove that CCSVI at least plays some part in the MS disease process and treating it can help patients, then they could also do their touchdown dance, because they'd finally have a radical new way to relieve the suffering of those they treat. Believe me, even should CCSVI prove to be THE cause of MS, there will be plenty of us with nervous systems damaged beyond the ability of CCSVI to help to keep neurologists in business for a long, long time.
I've talked to many of the pioneering CCSVI doctors, and almost every one tells me that they've reached out to the neurologic community to find willing partners, only to be rebuffed at every turn. Hey, neurologists, it's time to put on your big boy pants and step up to the plate. Your patients are demanding it.
As my disease has progressed, and I have become increasingly disabled, I've been handed yet more reasons to be angry. Unlike many other wheelchair users, I haven't encountered too many people who have been discourteous or rude, but here the streets are plagued with zombiefied pedestrians completely consumed with their smart phones and PDAs, to the point where they actually walk right into me and my wheelchair.
Now, this is New York City, and most pedestrians aren't going for arduous, time-consuming, miles long hikes. If they're traveling any significant distance at all, they're very likely either getting into a cab, bus, or subway. Those walking the streets are usually going for quick jaunts of no more than 20 minutes, during which time it seems that it's impossible for them to not stay constantly connected to somebody someplace. What on earth could be so important that they can't actually watch where they're going, join the rest of the world for a few minutes, and wait until they've reached their destinations to reconnect? Instead they are compelled to keep talking and texting while blindly placing one foot in front of the other, oblivious to everything around them. I wonder, do they text, "I JUST WALKED INTO A GUY IN A WHEELCHAIR?" If this doesn't stop soon, some of them are going to need to dial 911 and text, "OMG! SOME LUNATIC IN A WHEELCHAIR JUST SHATTERED BOTH OF MY SHIN BONES."
I'm also peeved at all the shops and restaurants in the city that would be wheelchair accessible if not for the single 1 foot step they have in front of their entryways. Can they not replace these little steps with little ramps, so that I could spend some time and money in their establishments? It wouldn't cost much, and my money is just as green as that of the guy with fully functional legs who just walked into me.
So, what to do with all this anger, bitterness, and resentment that can arise not only from Multiple Sclerosis itself but from the frustrations that go along with it? Well, you can let your anger just sit and fester, like the flesh of a pedestrian stuck to the chassis of my wheelchair, or you can turn it into the energy that it takes to fight this damned disease each and every day. Way back when I was a teenager, The Clash sang, "Let fury have the hour, Anger can be power, You know that you can use it." And use it you can, to educate yourself and become your own best advocate, to power the resolve that this disease will not define you, and to not ever give way to despair. Anger is an energy, and turned inward anger can only do damage to those feeling it, but channeled outward and targeted correctly, anger can be the motivation to annoy the bejeezus out of some people who could really use some annoying…


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In the wake of Trump's false analogy between the behavior of the neo-Nazis and the antifa counter-protesters in Charlottesville, there has been a good bit of criticism of the point. However, the term used in criticism has consistently been that he 'equivocated' the two. Here's the headline at the Daily Beast:
Other outlets have used the term 'equivocation' for the error, too. CNN has consistently termed the error an 'equivocation.'  Today:
… the moral equivalency and equivocation President Trump has offered …
…Trump's equivocation earlier this week between white supremacists and those who were protesting them in Charlottesville.
… his initial equivocation, saying there was "blame on both sides."
…the president of the United States equivocated.
Even at the venerable Economist:
Mr Trump's equivocation on Saturday thrilled the Daily Stormer…
And so on. In a follow up post, perhaps Friday, I'll talk about the problems with the slippery slope argument Trump made defending the monuments, so there is a lot of bad reasoning and falsity to criticize. But, my point today is just something small. It's just this: if people are going to use the vocabulary of fallacy appraisal, it should be used correctly. Here's the big point: so much power is wielded by that vocabulary. Think of the big-word points scored by folks who use that word — and notice the force it has when you're criticizing someone. It's the fallacy-spotting game, and throwing a fallacy name out there shifts the course of conversation. So using fallacy vocabulary (especially when it's composed of Latinisms), means you're claiming a kind of informed position on the debate — like pausing and making a point of order.
That's the reason why you've got to be competent when using the vocabulary. In this case, we've got a fallacy, and what's being criticized, again is something just as simple as a false analogy (or false equivalence). There may be an element of two wrongs to the reasoning, too (since T also implicated that because the antifa folks were violent, too, they bear blame, too).
Regardless, what he did not do is equivocate. Here's why. Equivocation is an error of term-confusion. It happens when you've got two meanings for a term, and you reason along only looking at the similarity of the term, but miss the dissimilarity of the meanings in the reasoning. Here's an example:
Students attend school to improve their faculties.
Their faculties are their teachers
So students go to school to improve their teachers.
Funny? Yeah, and fallacious! It's because faculty in the two instances meant different things, and so the syllogism looks valid, it's because the term faculty appears as the middle term, but there's two different things denoted by those two instances of the term. (In the first, it means the mental functions, in the second, it means teachers.)
Here is a lesson about fallacy-charges. They come with a burden of proof. When I charge you with begging the question, I need to show either (i) how your conclusion is one of your premises or (ii) how one of your premises is, given the argument, more controversial than your conclusion. When I charge you with straw man, I need to show how you've distorted my view to look worse than it is. And so on. When you charge equivocation, you have to show (i) that there are two instances of a term in some reasoning, and (ii) show that those two instances of the same term nevertheless mean different things in the two cases.
So what's the upshot? Journalists don't use the vocabulary of logic accurately. For the most part, that's not much of a surprise, but it's disappointing to a college prof who tries to make it so that the names of things helps us keep them straight, not just that knowing lots of names for things makes it so that you can use them as you like.
Here's another shot, perhaps a bit more of a sympathetic view on the use of the term. When one says a speaker had an 'unequivocal' statement, that means that the statement was clear about its meaning. So unequivocal statements are unambiguous, at least on the level of terms. So perhaps the view is that in being unclear about whether T was really rejecting the commitments of Nazis or their behavior, T equivocated.  However, I'm not entirely moved by this line of thought, since many of the cases are those of 'equivocating between' not 'equivocating about'. So, perhaps, there are different kinds of misuse of this term.


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text:
Transaction Log Truncation
If log records were never deleted from the transaction log, it would eventually fill all the disk space that is available to the physical log files. Log truncation automatically frees space in the logical log for reuse by the transaction log.
Except when delayed for some reason, log truncation occurs automatically as follows:
Under the simple recovery model, after a checkpoint.
Under the full recovery model or bulk-logged recovery model, after a log backup, if a checkpoint has occurred since the previous backup. For more information, see "Log truncation under the full and bulk-logged recovery models," later in this topic.
Although automatic, log truncation can be delayed by a variety of factors. For information about what can delay log truncation, see Factors That Can Delay Log Truncation.
In the event of a long delay in log truncation, the transaction log can fill up. For information about how to deal with a full transaction log, see Troubleshooting a Full Transaction Log (Error 9002).
For architectural information about log truncation, see "How Log Truncation Works," later in this topic.
Log truncation under the full and bulk-logged recovery models
Under the full recovery model or bulk-logged recovery model, the inactive part of the log cannot be truncated until all its log records have been captured in a log backup. This is needed to maintain the log chain—a series of log records having an unbroken sequence of log sequence numbers (LSNs). The log is truncated when you back up the transaction log, assuming the following conditions exist:
A checkpoint has occurred since the log was last backed up. A checkpoint is essential but not sufficient for truncating the log under the full recovery model or bulk-logged recovery model. After a checkpoint, the log remains intact at least until the next transaction log backup.
For more information, see Checkpoints and the Active Portion of the Log.
No other factor is preventing log transaction.
Generally, with regular backups, log space is regularly freed for future use. However, various factors, such as a long-running transaction, can temporarily prevent log truncation. For more information, see Factors That Can Delay Log Truncation.
The BACKUP LOG statement does not specify WITH COPY_ONLY.
To backup the transaction log
How Log Truncation Works
Truncation does not reduce the size of a physical log file. Reducing the physical size of a log file requires shrinking the file. For information about shrinking the size of the physical log file, see Shrinking the Transaction Log.
The transaction log is a wrap-around file. When the database is created, the logical log file begins at the start of the physical log file. New log records are added at the end of the logical log and expand toward the end of the physical log. The transaction log in a database maps over one or more physical files. The SQL Server Database Engine divides each physical log file internally into a number of virtual log files. Log truncation frees space in the logical log by deleting inactive virtual log files form the start of the logical log. For in-depth information about transaction log architecture, see Transaction Log Logical Architecture and Transaction Log Physical Architecture.
Virtual log files are the unit of space that can be reused. Only virtual log files that contain just inactive log records can be truncated. The active portion of the transaction log, the active log, cannot be truncated, because the active log is required to recover the database. The most recent checkpoint defines the active log. The log can be truncated up to that checkpoint.
For information about how virtual log files function, see Transaction Log Physical Architecture.
When the checkpoint is performed, the inactive portion of the transaction log is marked as reusable. Thereafter, the inactive portion can be freed by log truncation. Truncation frees the inactive virtual log files for reuse. Eventually, when a new record is written to a freed virtual log, that virtual log file becomes active again.
One piece of information recorded in a checkpoint is the log sequence number (LSN) of the first log record that must be present for a successful database-wide rollback. This LSN is called the minimum recovery LSN (MinLSN). The start of the active portion of the log is the virtual log that contains the MinLSN. When a transaction log is truncated, only the log records in front of this virtual log file are freed for reuse.
The following illustrations show a transaction log before and after truncation. The first illustration shows a transaction log that has never been truncated. Currently, four virtual log files are in use by the logical log. The logical log starts at the front of the first virtual log file and ends at virtual log 4. The MinLSN record is in virtual log 3. Virtual log 1 and virtual log 2 contain only inactive log records. These records can be truncated. Virtual log 5 is still unused and is not part of the current logical log.
The second illustration shows how the log appears after being truncated. Virtual log 1 and virtual log 2 have been freed for reuse. The logical log now starts at the beginning of virtual log 3. Virtual log 5 is still unused, and it is not part of the current logical log.


text: Dr. Seuss presents three modern fables in the rhyming favorite Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories. The collection features tales about greed ("Yertle the Turtle"), vanity ("Gertrude McFuzz"), and pride ("The Big Brag"). In no other book does a small burp have such political importance! Yet again, Dr. Seuss proves that he and classic picture books go hand in hand.


text:
Author: Cathryn H. Clayton is Assistant Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii.
Harvard East Asian Monographs 324
About the Book
How have conceptions and practices of sovereignty shaped how Chineseness is imagined? This ethnography addresses this question through the example of Macau, a southern Chinese city that was a Portuguese colony from the 1550s until 1999. As the Portuguese administration prepared to transfer Macau to Chinese control, it mounted a campaign to convince the city's residents, 95 percent of whom identified as Chinese, that they possessed a "unique cultural identity" that made them different from other Chinese, and that resulted from the existence of a Portuguese state on Chinese soil.
This attempt sparked reflections on the meaning of Portuguese governance that challenged not only conventional definitions of sovereignty but also conventional notions of Chineseness as a subjectivity common to all Chinese people around the world. Various stories about sovereignty and Chineseness and their interrelationship were told in Macau in the 1990s. This book is about those stories and how they informed the lives of Macau residents in ways that allowed different relationships among sovereignty, subjectivity, and culture to become thinkable, while also providing a sense of why, at times, it may not be desirable to think them.


text:
These pages outline the chart configuration options, and the methods and properties of Highcharts objects.
Feel free to search this API through the search bar or the navigation tree in the sidebar.
Specific tick interval in axis units for the minor ticks. On a linear
axis, if "auto"
, the minor tick interval is calculated as a fifth
of the tickInterval. If undefined
, minor ticks are not shown.
On logarithmic axes, the unit is the power of the value. For example, setting the minorTickInterval to 1 puts one tick on each of 0.1, 1, 10, 100 etc. Setting the minorTickInterval to 0.1 produces 9 ticks between 1 and 10, 10 and 100 etc.
If user settings dictate minor ticks to become too dense, they don't make sense, and will be ignored to prevent performance problems.


text:
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: Clinton and Black Americans: Soul Brother?
Posted on Monday, December 09 @ 12:59:08 UTC
by Kevin Alexander Gray, Dec. 7, 2002
"... he [Clinton] has always wanted our love and wanted to share his love with us," "It is not about the skin. It is about the spirit and the soul of this soul brother."
Former Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater
I was mildly amused, a bit disgusted but not surprised when former President Bill Clinton was named to the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of gullibility when it comes to the relationship between blacks and the man from Hope. Towards the end of his term, he was viewed favorably by a staggering 83 percent of African Americans. Now Clinton has been named honorary chairman of the planned $37 million national Museum of African American History expected to open in Charleston in 2007.
Besides just having a big name draw to raise money, it should be obvious what's going on. Clinton is reworking his image by creating a phony civil rights legacy. Forced to resign because of Watergate, Richard Nixon attempted to reshape his image into that of a foreign policy expert before his death. Jimmy Carter left office a failure with hostages in Iran and an economy in crisis. He was still able to remake himself into a statesman and international peace advocate. Should Clinton get his way, memories of his real race record will fade as he transmogrifies himself into a racial healer. And he is getting plenty of help, as always, from black people.
Charles King the hall of fame's executive director said the former president deserved induction "to show him our appreciation not only for what he did as president but for his lifelong association with us. He came to us. We were responsible for him being governor, and president. He held on to that. And we held on to that."
Clinton is now the only white person among the hall's 62 members, who include poet Maya Angelou, John Johnson, founder of Jet and Ebony magazines, and former Clinton administration surgeon general Joycelyn Elders. Remember Elders? Clinton fired her because she said it wasn't a bad idea to talk about masturbation in sex education classes.
The evening of the induction Clinton shared the dais with soul-turned-gospel singer/preacher Al Green. The two have so much in common that it's a wonder Clinton hasn't had a pot of hot grits flung at him. Point being - their commonalty has more to do with them being doggish, busted males than some twisted sense of racial or cultural empathy.
Since leaving office, Clinton's been working his 'ghetto pass' overtime. When complaints arose about the cost of his office space in Midtown Manhattan what did he do? He moved to 125th Street in Harlem, historically, the intellectual capital of black America. And the community that nurtured Malcolm X, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Jessie Fauset, W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Adam Powell and a host of others ate it up. Harlem was Clinton's second choice and for that he got a hero's welcome.
At present, the only national political figure the Democratic Party has black or white - that blacks identify with is Clinton. In 1998 the party's black get out the vote effort consisted of mailing out postcards with Clinton posing beside black families. In the 2002 elections black households once again got their postcards with Clinton's picture followed up an automated phone message from their good buddy Bill.
No other president in United States history has managed to get so much black support for giving so little. But what makes Clinton's race act so successful is that black America never asked him to do much to begin with. In the 1980s, Clinton was the first white candidate for governor to reach out to Arkansas's black voters, to eat on their porches, pray in their churches, invite them into the governor's office. For 12 years before Clinton, Ronald Reagan and George Bush insulted and ignored black people. Consequently, when Clinton wooed African Americans, most were just happy someone was finally paying attention. To some degree, black support of Clinton is also acknowledgement of the black community's need for white acceptance.
Some argue that Clinton deserves support because his economic policies were a boon for African Americans. During his administration median income reached an all-time high, and poverty among blacks dipped thanks in large part to his increases in the minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit. But on the other side of the economic coin the black-white wealth disparity remained fixed and the gap between the rich and poor expanded under his administration.
Others point to the record number of African Americans in the Clinton cabinet and the picture of racial diversity it projected. At times Clinton talked the social justice talk generously invoking the name of Martin Luther King. While touring Africa he even gave a half-hearted apology for America's part in European colonization and enslavement. A black man, Vernon Jordan, was his best friend. A black woman, Betty Currie, was his personal secretary. It's debatable whether the blacks around Clinton had any real power, but real or not, his mostly symbolic gestures were much more than black people had ever seen from a white person in power. And those gestures have carried Clinton a long way.
The joke that refuses to go away has Clinton as America's first black president a sentiment enthusiastically affirmed by black celebrities, elites and quasi-intellectuals. In his bit, comedian Chris Rock used Clinton's "persecution over a $300 haircut" to support the claim. Former Southern Christian Leadership Conference head Joseph Lowery said that blacks like Clinton because "he plays the saxophone." Harvard professor Alvin Poussaint joked, Clinton "must have black ancestry." Back in1998 during the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, writer Toni Morrison said, "black skin notwithstanding: this is our first black President" citing his dysfunctional upbringing as commonality with black males. But the joke's an insult. The punchline is that Clinton is decadent and promiscuous, got rhythm, got caught and got over -- so he's black!
The notion of Clinton as a great friend of the black community or defender of civil rights is just as crazy. Clinton co-opted civil rights themes and figures and distorted their meaning for his political advancement and survival. Whether it's his telling blacks how disappointed "Dr. King would be [in them] if he were alive today," because of black on black crime or his attorney comparing him to Abraham Lincoln during the impeachment hearings Clinton was an expert at playing the race card. All the while, his policies and attitude on due process, equal protection and equal treatment, or civil rights (rights guaranteed to all), were horrible. A couple examples of his racial hypocrisy come to mind. One was his initiative requiring citizens, mostly black, in public housing to surrender their Fourth Amendment or privacy rights. Another was the "one strike and you're out" policy under which public housing residents convicted of a crime, along with anyone who lives with them, are evicted without consideration of their due process rights. But while the Rehnquest Court upheld these assaults on the rights of the poor, Jeb Bush (via his daughter Nicole) and Clinton (still on the public dole) all remain exempt from the laws they promote.
Southern politician Clinton has always played the race-crime game to perfection. In his first presidential race Governor Clinton ran for office supporting the death penalty at a time when the country was split almost down the middle on the issue. Then for good measure, he rushed back to Arkansas to oversee the execution of convicted killer Ricky Ray Rector, a brain-damaged black man. For years after his 1st election, I kept a picture of Clinton and then-Georgia Senator Sam Nunn posing in front of a phalanx of black inmates in white prison suits taken at Stone Mountain, Georgia. Historians generally give Pulaski, Tennessee the dubious honor as the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan. But Stone Mountain is hailed as the Klan 2nd home. The picture appeared in newspapers all across the south the day of the southern primaries in 1992. That picture is what Clinton has always represented to me.
So, the fact that Clinton left behind a larger -- mostly black -- prison population than when he took office should come as no surprise. Black incarceration rates during the Clinton years surpassed Ronald Reagan's eight years. The incarceration rates for blacks increased from around 3,000 per 100,000 to 3,620 per 100,000 people during his administration. That he did nothing about mandatory minimum sentences no surprise. That he did nothing to change the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine that disproportionately affects African Americans no surprise. That he successfully stumped for "three strikes and you're out in the crime bill, for restrictions on the right of habeas corpus and expansion of the federal death penalty no surprise. When he came into office one in four black men were involved in the criminal justice system in some way; when he left it was one in three. In many states ex-felons are denied the right to vote, a factor that had a direct impact on the 2000 presidential vote in Florida. Again, no surprise.
Shortly after leaving office, Clinton published a piece, "Erasing America's Color Lines," in the New York Times. He wrote that "America was now at a point where, we can write a new preamble to the 21st century, in which color differences are not the problem, but the promise, of America." He outlined a path that would allow the Bush administration to reduce systemic racism. The list included a ban on racial profiling, an examination of mandatory minimum sentencing and a presidential commission on voter reform.
But Clinton's suggestions were another bit of hypocrisy given that he refused to implement them while he had the chance. And his knowledge that George Bush will never take any of his suggestions made the whole exercise just another piece of grotesque symbolism, typical of his relationship with the black community. The commentary was a perfect postscript to Clinton's marriage with Black America, a relationship that is characterized by the James Brown song "Talking loud and saying nothing."
On the night Clinton was inducted into the Arkansas hall of fame, Charles King must have lost his memory. He forgot that, as Governor, his guest of honor refused to sign a civil rights bill. In Charleston, the people behind the civil rights museum forgot that Clinton dumped his friend Lani Guinier from consideration for the Justice Department's office of civil rights over her advocacy of cumulative voting - the next frontier for civil rights which would break down voting by race and party.
Maybe Clinton's name and service on the board in Charleston will help lure the money needed to make the project a reality. Maybe now blacks will get to use him and maybe get something in return for a change. But he shouldn't be allowed simply to fundraise himself into a legacy or assume a legacy he doesn't deserve. A legacy should be more that just showing up. As for being a soul brother? He's got a very, very long way to go.
Kevin Alexander Gray
is a civil rights organizer in South Carolina. He can be reached at: email@example.com
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By Nicola Nasser – The West Bank
In view of a world consensus on a two-state solution for the Arab-Israeli conflict, most political analysts and commentators have concluded that the Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, who still refuses to affirm his commitment thereto, was to come face to face with his "moment of truth" during his recent meetings earlier this month with visiting U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and her "presidential" envoy for peace in the Middle East, George Mitchell, but the outcome of Clinton's first regional tour as secretary of state and Mitchell's second tour in the region has proved vice versa:
The new democratic administration of Barak Obama seems to fail its own moment of truth on its failure to pass the only test which could make or break the two–state "vision" as a viable solution that would render Obama's "aggressive" approach credible enough to make a difference between U.S. words and deeds, namely to remove the major obstacle of the Israeli colonial settlement enterprise that has brought U.S.– sponsored peace making to its current impasse since the internationally recognized "legitimate and sole representative of the Palestinian people," i.e. the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), adopted the two-state approach in 1988.
Ironically, but also instructively, the Israeli settlement watchdog, "Peace Now," welcomed Clinton and Mitchell one day ahead of their visit by a startling report on March 2. The Israeli ministry of housing has finalized plans to "double" the number of the illegal Jewish colonial settlers in the Israeli–occupied West Bank, where the two-state solution envisions the creation of a Palestinian state, to more than (600) thousands by expanding more than (120) settlers' colonies with the construction of more than (73, 302) housing units, of which (15, 156) units have already been approved and (58, 000) units are pending approval. The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reported in 2008 that approximately (290, 000) settlers live in (120) colonies officially "authorized" and more than (100) outposts that were not authorized, in addition to (200,000) settlers living in fifteen colonies in eastern Jerusalem over forty one years. Peace Now reported that the settlement expansion in the West Bank increased by 60 percent in 2008 compared to the previous year. Not a single outpost was evacuated in 2008, the organization added; on the contrary, the settlers expanded the construction in these outposts taking special advantage of the war Israel launched on the Gaza Strip on December 27.
According to the report's findings, the planned construction would double the size of the colonial settlement blocs of Maale Adumim, Givat Ze'ev, Efrat, Geva Benyamin and Ariel. While the first four colonies would extend the outer layer of "defense" settlements protecting the Israeli Metropolitan (Greater) Jerusalem to the shores of the Dead Sea, which is a natural barrier with Jordan in the east, to drive a wedge of concrete, steel and Jewish demography between the northern and southern West Bank, the fifth colony, Ariel, extends twenty five kilometers deep in the northern West Bank to slice it into two Palestinian "bantustans."
Negating Two-State Vision in Jerusalem
Historically, whoever rules Jerusalem would also dominate its Arab and Muslim geopolitical depth. The Zionist movement learned the lesson early enough to spearhead its colonial settlement enterprise in Jerusalem where war and peace are made and where the survival of both Israel and the promised Palestinian state will be determined. The current ongoing Judaization process of the Holy City in the eastern part is the second part of Judaizing its western part.
More recently, since the inauguration of the Obama administration, expansion of Israeli colonial settlement has accelerated particularly in Jerusalem. On February 17, The Washington Post reported that the Israeli occupation authorities confiscated some more (1700) dunams of Palestinian land to expand the colonial settlement of Efrat by 423 acres to enable the increase in its settlers from (9000) to (30,000) as part of Gush Etzion settlement bloc, "just east of a cluster of Palestinian towns and villages, with biblical Bethlehem at the center," to close the only left Palestinian outlet on the south western outreach to Jerusalem.
On February 25, the Palestinian presidency invited accredited foreign consuls in Jerusalem to a tour to see first hand the Israeli "E1" settlement plans to connect Maale Adumim to more than fifteen colonies in eastern Jerusalem, which in turn connect it to western Jerusalem, which was Judaizied after the 1948 war and where seventy five percent of property is privately owned by Palestinians according to the documents of the Orient House, closed together with other Palestinian institutions eight years ago. Being the only left geographical connection between Jerusalem and the West Bank, "the E1 plan would separate the northern and southern West Bank from East Jerusalem, which would prevent the establishment of Palestinian state," presidential chief of staff, Rafiq Husseini, told the diplomats.
Earlier this month the occupation authorities handed eviction orders to Palestinian owners of eighty houses in the al-Bustan neighborhood of Silwan town, the last Palestinian demographic community adjacent to the south eastern walls of Islam's third holiest site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, threatening to displace (1500) Palestinian Jerusalemites, but more importantly to complete the Jewish demographic siege of Al-Haram al-Sharif and old Jerusalem.
"It is not only the Muslim and Christian holy sites that are threatened, but also the very human existence of non-Jewish population in Jerusalem," Mahdi Abdul Hadi, a prominent Palestinian Jerusalemite and founder of The Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, warned on March 2, speaking to the Qatar-based al- Jazeera satellite TV station. Late February Israel cut off more than (60,000) Palestinian Jerusalemites form access to the city by closing the only "gate in the wall" between al – Ram and Dahiyat al-Barid neighborhoods. Earlier this month 55 Palestinian houses received orders to be demolished on March 5 in Ras Khamis in the Shufat refugee camp. Demographic ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the city continues unabated.
Accelerated colonial settlement facts on the ground in Jerusalem, where the two-state vision promises a capital for the Palestinian people, leaves nothing to speculation that the Israeli military occupation is about to render the final status issue of Jerusalem "non-negotiable," the vision itself a non-starter, whatever "peace process" is revived a waste of time for the Palestinians as much as it wins more time for Israel to complete the Jewish metropolitan region around Jerusalem that will completely wall in an area covering (100) square miles by the more than 700 kilometer long wall the Israeli military is building "in" the West Bank, thus torpedoing the very foundations that would make the vision come true.
Detailed data on Jewish colonial settlements in Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 is mostly dealt with as a "state secret." Most of the information is normally made available by non-governmental organizations like Peace Now and usually dismissed as not "official" by governmental authorities.
However on January 30 Haaretz broke the news that for the last four years the Israeli government was compiling the "Spiegel Settlement Database," named after the Israeli general who led the effort. The Israeli daily quoted Spiegel's report as saying that in "about 75 percent" of the settlements "construction, sometimes on a large scale, has been carried out without the appropriate permits or contrary to the permits that were issued." The database also shows "that, in more than 30 settlements, extensive construction of buildings and infrastructure (roads, schools, synagogues, yeshivas and even police stations) has been carried out on private lands belonging to Palestinian West Bank residents."
Nonetheless the whole colonial enterprise could not have developed from ZERO in 1967 to its current status had it not been for the one hundred percent governmental authorization, financing and military protection.
Counterproductive U.S. Policy
The modus operandi of U.S. foreign policy persists. The so – called peace process is sustained by Washington as crisis management diplomacy for one merit only, i.e. to reign in violent Palestinian reaction to the sixty-year old dispossession and displacement and the forty-one year old Israeli occupation. The two-state solution vision is pursued by the White House more to help Israel survive a demographic threat and live on as a purely Jewish ghetto in an ocean of ethnic, national, cultural and religious pluralistic societies coexisting in a globalized world than to solve a one hundred year old conflict on the basis of ending military occupation, colonial settlement and territorial expansion.
Nowhere international law and United Nations legitimacy are more violated and challenged for so long, and nowhere this violation and challenge was protected by the U.S., than in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, where Washington continues to rule out any role for the world community and where it insists on disarming the Palestinian victims even of stone throwing while at the same time it uses American tax payers money lavishly to arm the Israeli occupying power to teeth to be unequivocally the regional military and nuclear super power.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) is accordingly sustained as long as it fits in and doesn't disrupt this strategic context; when it was perceived as doing exactly that it was twice unmercifully militarily attacked, once in Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 and the second time in Operation Cast Lead six years later. The first was a war on the PA in the West Bank, which culminated in a three –year siege imposed on Israel's peace partner, late Yasser Arafat, that ended only with his death and the ongoing change of his regime. The second war failed to change the regime of Hamas in Gaza Strip and therefore it is still an open – ended Israeli mission. Former U.S. President George W. Bush set on record the change of Arafat regime as a precondition to deliver on his two-state vision. On record also the successor administration of Obama set the change of the current regime in Gaza as its prerequisite to deliver.
Neither Clinton nor Mitchell, or as a matter of fact their president or their predecessors , was so far lucky enough to find in the rich English dictionary the key words of "occupation" and 'settlement," which could make or break peace-making, to add to their flow of rhetorical terminology, thus leaving no space for any doubt that they might collectively come up in the foreseeable future with new ideas to indicate a breakthrough in the sixty year old U.S. foreign policy vis-à-vis the Arab – Israeli conflict that would refute Arab accusations of U.S.-Israeli collusion and partnership.
Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright stated in March 1994: "We simply do not support the description of the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 War as occupied Palestinian territory." Successive administrations have committed to her interpretation ever since. This trend was culminated in Bush's letter of guarantees to the comatose former Israeli premier Ariel Sharon on April 14, 2004, whereby Bush pledged no-return to June 4, 1967 borders, no right of return for Palestinian refugees, deemed dismantling of colonial settlements "unrealistic" and supported their annexation to Israel. The occupied territories have become ever since "disputed" land. The Obama administration has yet to prove otherwise.
Ironically the shift in the U.S. policy from dealing with the Palestinian territory as "occupied" land to dealing with it as "disputed" whose fate should be determined by only bilateral negotiations between an armed-to-the-teeth occupying power and the unarmed civilian victims of the occupation coincided with the launch of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process one year after signing the Declaration of Principles in Washington in 1993.
The key for the current impasse, the failure of the signed Oslo accords and the deadlocked peace process as well as a breakthrough in the conflict should all be sought in this shift, the outcome of which has been totally counterproductive.
The Israeli military occupation has developed into full – fledged colonization process. Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's declared willingness to "evacuate" (60,000) settlers from the West Bank is only a redeployment maneuver that changes nothing in the evolving process. Buying the idea that the autonomous Palestinian Authority rules ninety percent of its people is merely playing in the hands of an Israeli misleading propaganda ploy.
Without the umbrella of the so – called "peace process" Israeli colonial settlement enterprise could not have prospered to its present state. Since Mitchell led his U.S. fact – finding mission in 2001 more than (95,000) Jewish settlers joined the process. Of the more than 120 settlement outposts in the West Bank, 58 were established after March 2001; only three have been dismantled, but rebuilt, since the Annapolis process began on November 27, 2007. Since the 'settlement freeze" agreed upon in Annapolis tenders for settlement building in 2008 increased by (550) percent from the previous year and actual construction increased by (30) percent, (38) percent of which was in Jerusalem. The settler population has grown consistently between (4-6%) per year over the last two decades "of peace," a much higher rate of growth than Israeli society as a whole (1.5%).
More instructive on the counterproductive results of the peace process for the Palestinians is the fact that the history of the Israeli colonial settlement enterprise did begin full – fledged with the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in 1979 as the first Arab-Israeli peace breakthrough.
While world attention has been focused for the last twenty years with much fanfare on the viability of the so-called two-state solution and the sustainability of the so-called peace process, as well as on the inter-Palestinian and inter-Israeli political wrangling over ruling coalitions which could or would contribute thereto, another solution was being pursued on the ground by the Israeli occupation power and another process was being nurtured by the self- proclaimed and self-imposed U.S. sponsor of peace in the Middle East, away from the spotlights, to preempt any successful conclusion of the twenty-year old endeavor since the PLO adopted the two-state solution for the Arab-Israeli conflict in Algiers in 1988, and consequently for all practical reasons paved the way for the current impasse in the one hundred-year old conflict.
Instead of creating a viable Palestinian state on the land conquered and still occupied by Israel since 1967, an expanding autonomous mini state was established for the colonial Jewish settlers on more than forty percent of the area of the West Bank. Allegra Pacheco of the United Nations' Humanitarian Office in the Palestinian Territories told BBC on March 3 that the "Israeli settlers occupy 60% of the land.
Consequently an Apartheid system was created there, financed by Israeli successive governments, protected by the occupying army and demarcated by a more than 700km – long wall being constructed by the Israeli military instead of creating a status quo conducive to the peaceful coexistence sought by the advocates of the two-state solution, thus creating the ideal incubator for terrorist Jewish undergrounds and by reaction for violent Palestinian resistance movements as well, thus providing for all the necessary ingredients for an inevitable prolonged conflict and unavoidable violent confrontation, which would unsettle whatever is left for a political settlement.
Obama's Test
Obama's "swift" appointment of a "fully empowered" presidential envoy, who reportedly plans a permanent office in Jerusalem, and making his first Oval office phone call to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, without a change of substance in the terms of reference of U.S. policy vis-a-vis the conflict, creates only an illusion of the "change" he promised during his election campaign and promises only more of the same. Such "positive" indicators were swiftly offset by Clinton's statements during her first regional tour.
One day ahead of her visit, Washington announced that it was boycotting a United Nations-sponsored conference (Durban II) against racism because the draft of its final document criticizes Israeli occupation and practices. Israel has every right to defend itself, Clinton said, adding: it "cannot stand idly by while its territory and people are subjected to rocket attacks." The U.S. "emphasizes" its "unrelenting commitment to Israel's security." Palestinians have to commit to the three Israeli preconditions adopted by the international quartet of diplomatic mediators. Washington will continue its divisive Palestinian policy by pledging to bolster Abbas and shun Hamas. Palestinians have to "break the cycle of rejection and resistance." The U.S. top diplomat sounded only as if vindicating Arab accusations of U.S.-Israeli collusion and partnership and indicates only that her administration is about to fail its test of change in the Middle East.
It might sound ungrateful not to mention the billions of U.S. and European dollars invested in the PA. U.S.-led donors pledged more than (7.7) billion dollars in Paris in December 2007. Five billion more were pledged in the international donors' conference on Gaza Strip in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh on March 2. Most of this investment was either bulldozed by Israeli tanks in 2002, bombed to rubble by Israelis in Gaza early this year, or siphoned into corruption over the years. It has been and will continue to be a pre-doomed investment as long as it is intended to sustain a U.S.-tailored Palestinian autonomy under prolonged Israeli occupation as the end game.
If there is no "political settlement" to the decades-old conflict all similar investment would be "inadequate," Abbas told donors in Sharm al-Sheikh. He was right. It is a waste of tax payers' money that yielded only an "activity totally inconsistent with the prospect of an emergence of an independent, viable Palestinian state of which the West Bank including East Jerusalem would form an integral component, that prospect diminished even more. That situation is clearly not sustainable from our point of view," Abbas' caretaker premier Salam Fayyadh told the Media Line on February 23.
It is an investment that is only relieving the Israeli occupying power from its obligations under international law, "moderate" Palestinians say; others who are more critical say that U.S. donations are merely part of the compensation Washington should pay for its failed policies that preempted peace and an earlier end to the Israeli occupation for too long.
For the last eight years, there has been neither "peace" nor "process." The former U.S. administration's last-minute effort at peacemaking, known as the "Annapolis process," has already collapsed; building on its failure promises more failure only.
Real peace-making seems yet to penetrate the moral consciousness of the U.S. leadership. Obama's administration, if it doesn't intend to change course, would do peace and history a great favor by disengagement from the conflict to pave the way for a more balanced international involvement that would base a political settlement thereof on the resolutions of the United Nations legitimacy, if not on justice.
The moment of truth has come not only for the United States, but also for whatever Palestinian leadership might yet discern a glimpse of hope coming from the White House even after it was occupied by a black chief. In historical perspective, this is the strategic context of the current status quo, which is neither sustainable nor conducive to political settlement, let alone the viability of a two-state vision.
– Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Bir Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli – occupied Palestinian territories. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.


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Horrible Surgeon Gives Woman a Uniboob
Back in the olden days a person could go under the knife for a boob job and feel reasonably confident that they would wake up with two enhanced breasts. Well, those days are over. Now there are rogue plastic surgeons running around disfiguring people! Apparently in recent years, as health care in this country has gotten increasingly whack, some doctors have decided to start making extra money by dabbling in plastic surgery that they're not properly trained or certified to be doing. "No big deal. They're still doctors. They probably know what they're doing," you might find yourself thinking. Actually, for one woman it turned out to be a very big deal:
"After going into surgery for a simple repair of her breast implants, Dinora Rodriguez, 40, awoke from the procedure to find that her plastic surgeon had left her with conjoined breasts – a uniboob, essentially. Without her knowledge or permission, the surgeon had also nip/tucked her eyelids, leaving Rodriguez with eyes that to this day cannot close all the way."
Conjoined breasts?! Whoa, whoa, whoa—go back for just a second… The doctor gave her an eye job WITHOUT HER PERMISSION? Ahhhh!!! Oops, it gets even worse:
"After a year of pain and disfigurement, Rodriguez sued her doctor for malpractice and says she found out that the corrective surgery on her breasts was not even necessary in the first place. 'She told me that she needed to replace the implants because they were leaking and I believed her. She gave me a good price on the surgery and I said yes,' she said."
Oh my God, this poor woman! Seems like in this way plastic surgery is a little bit like sushi: you never want to buy it at a discount. So why is she even sharing her incredibly terrifying tale of surgery gone wrong? To make sure it never happens to you, of course!
Please let Ms. Rodriguez's pain be a lesson to you. Take a little time to do some research on your prospective surgeon, and make sure the person is a board certified plastic surgeon. Start by checking the doctor out here, and then maybe ask to talk to a few of their patients who've had similar procedures. Sure, this is a little bit of a pain, but you know what's even more of a pain? Not being able to close your eyes all the way and having to take medicine for the rest of your life to keep your eyes moist! Also: uniboobs!
American Society of Plastic Surgeons Urges Patients to Check Up on Their Surgeons for Their Safety [ABC News]


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LulzSec has adopted a pirate logo and theme for its running commentary about its hack attacks.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Hacking groups Lulz Security and Anonymous have teamed up to target governments around the globe in what they're calling "Operation Anti-Security."
LulzSec unveiled its new partnership in a blog post declaring "immediate and unremitting war." The revolution will be tweeted: #AntiSec lit up Monday with comments about the campaign.
"Top priority is to steal and leak any classified government information, including e-mail spools and documentation," LulzSec declared in its post. "Prime targets are banks and other high-ranking establishments."
The group first targeted the U.K.-based Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA), crashing the site Monday afternoon.
"The Lulz Boat Tango down - soca.gov.uk - in the name of #AntiSec," LulzSec tweeted regarding the attack.
The onslaught that crashed SOCA is called a "distributed denial of service" (DDoS) attack. It's an unsophisticated but effective way of knocking a website offline by directing a firehose of traffic at the site.
DDoS attacks are a favorite tool of Anonymous, a decentralized global group of "hacktivists" that use a linked network of PCs to crash the websites of those they deem enemies. The group has used such attacks to take down websites including Mastercard and Visa.
LulzSec is a previously unknown hacking collective that burst onto the scene last month with a series of attacks against high-profile sites. Its hacks -- which so far have hit targets include Sony (SNE), PBS, and the U.S. Senate -- typically involve actually breaking into targeted sites and grabbing internal data from their servers. A DDoS attack, in contrast, doesn't compromise a website's security defenses -- it simply overwhelms its servers.
LuzSec itself seemed to recognize that a DDoS attack wasn't a very threatening start to what it claims will be an historic cyberwar.
"DDoS is of course our least powerful and most abundant ammunition," the group tweeted Monday. "Government hacking is taking place right now behind the scenes. #AntiSec"


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Welcome to Sign Language Assessment
This site provides an overview on existing sign language tests that have been developed so far for different sign languages. These tests fall into one of these four categories.
1. Tests of L1 development
2. Tests of L2 learning
3. Tests of linguistic research
4. Tests of cognitive development


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We facilitate your holiday by arranging all the services making up your trip. However, be sure to pack all that you will need before leaving your home!
Packing Checklist – Be sure to check them all
+ Travel documents (passport, visas, travel insurance certificate, air tickets, tour voucher)
+ Money (cash, credit card, debit card, traveler's cheques and money pouch)
+ Day pack for your personal needs during the day
+ Camera and extra memory cards and batteries
+ Cell phone and cell phone charger
+ Laptop charger (if you are bringing your laptop)
+ Travel plug/international adapter
+ Medication (including a doctor's letter if you are carrying a large amount of medication)
+ Prescription glasses / contacts and if necessary, contact lens solution
Best to bring along
+ First aid kit
+ Toiletries
+ Sunscreen
+ Insect repellent
+ Refillable water bottle with filter
+ Comfortable walking shoes
+ Comfortable clothing, either light or heavy options, depending on the season you are travelling
+ Clothes suitable for visiting temples (long pants / skirts, long sleeved tops)
+ Waterproof jacket / raincoat / umbrella
+ Hat & sunglasses
+ Bathing suit
Optional comforts
+ Ear plugs & eye mask
+ Sleep sheet for home stays / trains
+ Lightweight travel towel
+ Local language phrasebook
Here are some considerations to ensure that your adventure sets off with a great start:
- Please read our guidelines on responsible tourism so that your trip is beneficial both for you and the communities you visit.
- What interests you? eg. weavings, archaeology, religious art, jewelry, mountain biking, kayaking, etc. Let us know so we can steer you in the right direction.
- Read up a bit about Vietnam before you leave. You guide will give you a general understanding of the places you visit, but feel free to ask for specifics.
- Learn a little Vietnamese before your trip. The more you know, the more fun you will have.
- Ask your cellphone provider for an international data plan if you will need coverage whilst travelling.
- No data? No problem! Bring a book, journal, postcards, or playing cards with you to occupy yourself when waiting.
- "Take only photos, leave only footprints", but nonetheless try to be sensitive with the photos and footprints.
- Try to support locally owned businesses, hotels, restaurants and traditional artisans.
- Let us know at once if you encounter any problems. Don't wait until the trip is over. Our drivers, operators, guides and hotel staff are there to help you.
- Most of all, relax, be patient, and keep an open mind. Bring your sense of humor and adventure and discover the magic of Vietnam.


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Where did you grow up?In the hinterland between a dull North London suburb called East Finchley and a rather tonier one called the Hampstead Garden Suburb. I also had a year in Ithaca, upstate New York.
Where do you live and why?I live in Stockwell, a rather edgier inner-city district of South London. Why? Because it's central—I can walk to the West End or Soho in 40 minutes. And also because it was the most house we could get for our money—we have four children.
Describe your ideal day.Any more or less ordinary day is fine by me—I like to walk, so if I have the opportunity to write in the morning and walk in the afternoon it's a good day; then some family time in the evening. I get up, service whatever children there are in the house, and then write. I prefer to write first drafts as soon as possible after waking, so that the oneiric inscape is still present to me. On a manual typewriter. I aim for 800 to 1,200 words. Once I'm nearing the end of the first draft I begin the second (which involves re-keying the text into a computer), so I'm working on the beginning and the end of the book simultaneously. Then I'll do the same with the third and fourth drafts. [Then] I watch a bit of TV. The astonishing burgeoning of quality U.S. drama series has been a great boon in the past decade or so. The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad—these are the comédie humaine of the modern era.
How do you conceive of a book?I keep notes—sometimes for four or five years while something gestates. Then at a certain point the notes reach a fissionable mass.
Is there anything distinctive or unusual about your work space? Besides the obvious, what do you keep on your desk? What is the view from your favorite work space?It's pretty strange. There are images of it on my website.
What is a distinctive habit or affectation of yours?The use of the word "oneiric."
Of which of your books or projects are you most proud?The next one—all the others are lost to me, so many Elvises who have left the building.
Please recommend three books (not your own) to your readers.The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst by Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self by Claire Tomalin, Solaris by Stanislaw Lem.
What do you consider the main differences between American and English literature?The main differences between contemporary English and American literature is that the baleful pseudo-professionalism imparted by all those crap MFA writing programs has yet to settle like a miasma of standardization on the English literary scene. But it's beginning to happen.
What is your favorite item of clothing?A Day-Glo orange jump suit—such as the ones worn by the Guantanamo inmates—across the shoulders of mine. It reads: "24 HOUR EMERGENCY WRITER."
Do you have a writer friend who helps and inspires you?I regarded the late J. G. Ballard as a friend and mentor. Since he famously remarked that, "For a writer, death is always a career move," I like to think his new job is simply to be my friend and mentor.
What do you do when you are stuck or have temporary writer's block?This never happens.
What is guaranteed to make you laugh?My children.
What is guaranteed to make you cry?Anything happening to them.
Do you have any superstitions?I don't not believe in God.
What is something you always carry with you?Cigarettes. I smoke unusual and very strong black tobaccos that I hand roll - so I always have to have my own with me.
If you could bring back to life one deceased person, who would it be and why?J. G. Ballard. I think he'd be hugely surprised.
What is your favorite snack?My favorite smack is definitely heroin—but nowadays, as Robert Stone once said, I admire it from afar.
What phrase do you overuse?"Fuck off."
What is the story behind the publication of your first book?I had a girlfriend who was working at a publisher's—Bloomsbury. She gave it to Stephen Amidon, the novelist, who was reading for them at the time. He recommended that they publish. The rest is "herstory."
Was there a specific moment when you felt you had "made it" as an author?When the first book was accepted for publication—it's been all downhill since then.
Tell us a funny story related to a book tour or book event.A very beautiful young woman once asked me to sign her breasts. That was back when I was a hip young thing—it's been all downhill since then.
Tell us something about yourself that is largely unknown and perhaps surprising.I have a vestigial third buttock (although I don't, as many people imagine, have two anuses).
What would you do for work, if you were not a writer?I wanted to be an academic. I was planning a thesis on the connections between the epistemology of Marx and Wittgenstein, then there were some trifling drug offences and it blew that one away. Now I have a professorship at Brunel University in contemporary thought, so I suppose if I weren't writing fiction I'd devote all my energies to that.
What advice would you give to an aspiring author?Consider whether you're prepared to spend at least 20 years of your life in solitary confinement. If not, don't bother.
What would you like carved onto your tombstone?"Investigative Reporter of the Year."
What is your next project?A novel called Shark.


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