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Well being News, Healthcare News, Biotech News, New Medicine & Medication News At WSJ.com
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Sarah Palin has insisted that a proper investigation into the "Troopergate" controversy in Alaska has exonerated her of "unlawful or unethical" exercise. The Republican vice-presidential choose has told critics to read the report by an investigator appointed by the State Legislative Council to determine whether or not she had abused her power as Alaska governor to push for the firing of a state trooper formerly married to her sister. However the report's finding that Palin breached the Alaska Government Department Ethics Act is very clear.
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Her attorneys have a much different objective (getting learn for the Labor Board inquiry). I pointed you there if you want to nitpick the legal conclusions to loss of life. My function is to take the Report at face value. The "context" I bought from studying the total Report was that the ethics "violation" was much ado about nothing, since it was a "correct and lawful" firing – now, I understand you think that's the entire focus of the Report and also you need to discount the rest – I simply disagree.
She used her workplace to fire Monegan because he wouldn't fireplace her ex-brother-in-legislation. She tried to make use of her office to cause her ex-brother-in regulation harm – and when that failed she fired the man who stood in the best way in an effort to place someone extra malleable in his place. Investigations of the complaints filed against Wooten resulted in a one week suspension with out pay, there was no credible evidence – solely the complaints of the Palins. The report also points out that the "first dude" performed a major function on this and had unprecedated access and energy. Is that this somebody you really wish to give more power to? She and first dude want to return to Alaska.


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NASHVILLE (BP) — The Home & Garden Television network has cancelled an upcoming reality show, and the program's stars believe the move came in response to a firestorm of controversy surrounding their traditional Christian views on abortion and gay marriage.
HGVT had slated for its fall lineup a show called "Flip It Forward," starring twin brothers David and Jason Benham. Each episode was to feature the brothers finding a "fixer-upper" house and remodeling it for a family with limited financial resources.
But following a report by the liberal website RightWingWatch.org that quoted one of the Benhams as opposing gay marriage and abortion and saying Christianity is superior to Islam, HGTV tweeted on May 7, "HGTV has decided not to move forward with the Benham Brothers' series."
The brothers told CNN they believe HGTV was pressured into its decision.
"I feel they got bullied," David Benham said of HGTV Friday (May 9). "There's an agenda that's out in America right now that demands silence, especially from men and women who profess Jesus Christ and hold to His standards."
The Benhams wrote in a statement on their website that they would choose their faith over a television show if those were the alternatives.
"We were saddened to hear HGTV's decision," they wrote. "With all of the grotesque things that can be seen and heard on television today you would think there would be room for two twin brothers who are faithful to our families, committed to biblical principles, and dedicated professionals. If our faith costs us a television show then so be it."
The Christian advocacy group Faith Driven Consumer launched a petition drive asking HGTV to reinstate "Flip It Forward" to its fall lineup. The petition, available at FlipThisDecison.com, garnered more than 8,500 signatures by May 9.
Among the Benhams' offenses, according to Right Wing Watch:
— David Benham led a prayer rally outside the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte and told a conservative radio host, "Eighty-seven percent of Americans are Christians and yet we have abortion on demand; we have no-fault divorce; we have pornography and perversion; we have a homosexuality and its agenda that is attacking the nation; we have adultery … we even have allowed demonic ideologies to take our universities and our public school systems while the church sits silent and just builds big churches.
"We are so complacent, we are so apathetic and we are very hypocritical in the church," he said. "That's why the Bible says judgment begins in the house of God."
— David Benham supported a state constitutional amendment in North Carolina defining marriage as only between a man and a woman.
— David Benham led protests outside abortion clinics and on at least one occasion praised fellow demonstrators for taking a stand at the "gates of hell" and confronting the "altars of Molech."
— David Benham said Muslims are the "enemy attacking" America and added, "The difference between Islam and Christianity: Islam takes life and enslaves it. Christianity lays its life down and sets you free."
The Right Wing Watch report does not mention Jason Benham other than to say he was scheduled to be costar of the HGTV program. The opening portion of the report focuses on the alleged offenses of the Benhams' father Flip Benham, an evangelical pastor.
Both Benham brothers are graduates of Liberty University, former minor league baseball players and owners of a business that flipped houses for profit for a decade.
David Benham said on CNN May 8 that he and his brother have never practiced discrimination.
"We love all people. I love homosexuals. I love Islam, Muslims, and my brother and I would never discriminate. Never have we — never would we," David Benham said.
"Never have I ever spoken against homosexuals, as individuals, and gone against them," he added. "I speak about an agenda. And that's really what the point of this is — that there is an agenda that is seeking to silence the voices of men and women of faith."
Jason Benham said HGTV vetted the brothers a year and a half ago, saw some of the material unearthed recently by Right Wing Watch and spoke with the twins about it.
"They got to know us a little better and then they made a judgment call, recognizing that David and I have no hate in our heart for anyone," Jason Benham told CNN. "We've been running a successful real estate company for the last 11 years and we help all people. There is no discrimination."
Evangelicals took to Twitter in defense of the Benhams.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said of HGTV's tweet announcing the cancelation, "That's a lot of cowardice packed into 140 characters."
R.C. Sproul Jr., a teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries, tweeted, "Unless the Lord build the house they labor in vain who build it. God bless you and stand strong @BenhamBrothers."
Trevin Wax, managing editor of LifeWay Christian Resources' "The Gospel Project" curriculum, said via Twitter, "Here we go again, folks. Express your religious views, lose your contract."
Owen Strachan, assistant professor of Christian theology and church history at Boyce College, tweeted, "The media is pummeling the Benham Brothers, Liberty grads, for being anti-gay."
The Benhams, in their statement, wrote that their chief aim is to follow Jesus.
"The first and last thought on our minds as we begin and end each day is: have we shined Christ's light today?" they wrote. "Our faith is the fundamental calling in our lives, and the centerpiece of who we are. As Christians we are called to love our fellow man. Anyone who suggests that we hate homosexuals or people of other faiths is either misinformed or lying.
"Over the last decade, we've sold thousands of homes with the guiding principle of producing value and breathing life into each family that has crossed our path, and we do not, nor will we ever discriminate against people who do not share our views."
David Roach is chief national correspondent for Baptist Press, the Southern Baptist Convention's news service. BP reports on missions, ministry and witness advanced through the Cooperative Program and on news related to Southern Baptists' concerns nationally and globally. Get Baptist Press headlines and breaking news on Twitter (@BaptistPress), Facebook (Facebook.com/BaptistPress) and in your email (baptistpress.com/SubscribeBP.asp).

subset: commoncrawl


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If you're wondering what's involved in self managed super and whether it's a good option for you, here are some things to consider.
There's a lot to consider when it comes to managing a self managed super fund (SMSF). Setting up a compliant fund and managing your investments takes time and can give you the freedom to have more control over your future.
Of course acting as a trustee of an SMSF comes with specific responsibilities. Your SMSF must remain compliant with the rules governing self managed super. There are administrative and reporting obligations, and stringent guidelines about what you can buy through your super fund, and how the assets can be used.
The practicalities
Some of the practical details you need to take care of when setting up your SMSF include:
1. Registering your fund—every SMSF must be registered with the tax office. You can do it yourself or we can do it for you.
2. Rolling over your super—we can help you set up a bank account for your SMSF so your accumulated super money can rollover.
3. Administering and reporting—there are a range of administration, compliance and reporting obligations your fund is required to meet. We can run through these with you.
4. Setting up a trust deed—every SMSF must have a trust deed which sets out rules for the way the fund must operate.
Structuring an SMSF
There are two ways you can set-up the structure of your SMSF. You can choose an individual trustee or a corporate trustee structure. Deciding on the type of trustee structure for your fund is an important decision that will affect the way the fund is managed and its costs.
Following the rules
There are several laws governing self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) in Australia—and strict penalties for trustees of funds in breach of them. We can help you understand the obligations your fund has and the responsibilities that would sit with you as a trustee.
Investing your super
Your SMSF's investment strategy must be documented and will determine how your fund invests its money. The investments of an SMSF generally include a mix of cash, term deposits, shares, managed funds and direct property. We can help you establish your fund's investment strategy.
There are stringent guidelines that determine how SMSF assets are used. From 1 July 2016, all assets considered as personal assets need to be compliant with new legislation. We can help you understand how assets like artwork, jewellery, wine and motor vehicles need to be managed.
As part of your investment strategy, you'll also need to consider the insurance needs of each member of your fund. We can help you consider life insurance, total and permanent disablement cover and income protection for each of your fund members.
Find out more
An SMSF isn't for everyone so come and chat with us and we will help you work out whether an SMSF is right for you.


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Faith's Checkbook 02/20
The Lord shall guide thee continually. (Isaiah 58:11) What aileth thee? Hast thou lost thy way? Art thou entangled in a dark wood and canst thou not find thy paths? Stand still, and see the salvation of God. He knows the way, and He will direct thee in it if thou cry unto Him. Every day brings its own perplexity. How sweet to feel that the guidance of the Lord is continual! If we choose our own way or consult with flesh and blood we cast ok the Lord's guidance; but if we abstain from self-will, then He will direct every step of our road, every hour of the day, and every day of the year, and every year of our life. If we will but be guided, we shall be guided. If we will commit our way unto the Lord, He will direct our course so that we shall not lose ourselves. But note to whom this promise is made. Read the previous verse: "If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry." We must feel for others and give them, not a few dry crusts, but such things as we ourselves would wish to receive. If we show a tender care for our fellow-creatures in the hour of their need, then will the Lord attend to our necessities and make Himself our continual Guide. Jesus is the Leader, not of misers, nor of those who oppress the poor, but of the kind and tenderhearted. Such persons are pilgrims who shall never miss their way.


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Originally published 12.28.09
by Emily Ratner
Report from Cairo, Egypt
Yesterday we joined the people of Gaza, the people of all of Palestine, and allies around the world in remembering the anniversary of the inhuman and illegal Israeli attacks that stole the lives of more than 1,400 mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons last December and January. And, in a manner far too appropriately suited to remembering an unfathomably vicious massacre and the preposterous silence of the American and Egyptian governments, we freedom marched in circles throughout the streets of Cairo.
The Egyptian government has revoked the contracts for the buses that would take us one step closer on our journey to Gaza and has forbidden us from leaving Cairo. Military police have torn down our small hand-written cards tied to the Kasr al Nil Bridge, following the Israelis' lead in trying to disappear the names and numbers of Gaza's martyrs. Candles meant to float along the Nile in remembrance are still in their boxes, their hundreds of distributors never permitted to board the feluccas (river boats) waiting just beyond overwhelming security forces. We regroup, circle again, and find another path to remembering and reminding, another way through the many checkpoints and the impossible border ahead.
The Egyptian government taunts us, encouraging us to enjoy the tourist attractions Cairo offers during our mandatory stay in the city. And some of us do. We even take Gaza with us: Yesterday, Abdullah Anar, a Turkish Muslim, and Max Geller, an American Jew, raced up the face of one of the pyramids to unveil a 12 meter by 6 meter Palestinian flag. For about three minutes one of the most resilient structures on earth proudly called the name of one of the world's most unbreakable people. We smuggle stories like this one through the tunnels connecting our hearts, exposing them in whispered reminders of the beauty and truth in this struggle, and the unending patience and flexibility we are slowly learning from our friends in Gaza.
We are more than 1,300 representing over 40 nations; we are scrappy, and we are undeterred. More than 330 French delegates camp out at their embassy, demanding the buses that never arrived there last night. They face an army of twenty-five military trucks, and a wall of police three bodies deep on all sides. 8 of us are held in Ismailia, a long way from our border destination. 30 more are detained in Al Arish, near the Rafah crossing. 2 keep a lonely vigil at a checkpoint just outside of Al Arish, refusing to turn back. And hundreds of us circle silently in the smoky haze of Cairo, evading the informants that infest our hostels and meeting spaces, planning, failing, and then planning again.
We do not forget that our frustrations here in Cairo are the smallest fraction of what our friends in Gaza suffer every day. We do not forget the passport privilege that has so far kept us from physical harm. We do not forget the shelter awarded by some of our embassies, and our friends and allies who make endless appeals to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry on our behalf. Yesterday was not a day of forgetting. December 27th is a day to remember.
We remember the more than 1,400 that were murdered. We remember the hundreds more who have died as a result of this horrific siege. We remember the tens of thousands who are still homeless, one full year later. And we remember our sisters and brothers on the other side of the Rafah border who have breathed life into this historic march every day for months, who have guided our feet to Cairo, and who light the shadowy path to Gaza. Most of all we remember that they will still be caged in Israel's massive open-air prison long after we've safely returned home.
And so we freedom march in circles, planning, dodging, regrouping, often failing, sometimes succeeding, and then circling again. Joining our friends in Gaza for the Freedom March on December 31st is possibly nothing more than a dream now, but in these long days we take lessons from our Palestinian mentors, who have walked far more treacherous circles than ours. And we march with them in Cairo and in dozens of cities across the globe as we demand that the Israeli, American, and Egyptian governments listen to the people of the world and set Gaza free.
Emily Ratner (firstname.lastname@example.com) is an organizer and mediamaker based in New Orleans. In June she traveled to Gaza with a New Orleans delegation. This month she will be joining thousands of Palestinians and internationals for the Gaza Freedom March on December 31st. Help us get there.
Related articles:


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- 100% Cabernet
- Available 2015 & 2016
- "…Pure Dark Fruit Delight
- Rich and structured wine,
- Long sumptuous finish
- Warm Mediterranean Sunshine…"- Ryan O'Connell –
How to find us
Domaine O'Vineyards, located in the North Arrondissement of Carcassonne, is just minutes from the Carcassonne train station, the Medieval City, and the Carcassonne Airport.
GPS coordinates: 43.259622, 2.340387
Wine, Dine, Relax at our Boutique Vineyard
Unique thing to do in Carcassonne
Wine Cellar. Winery Visits. Wine Tasting.
Wine & Food Pairing
North Arrondissement of Carcassonne
885 Avenue de la Montagne Noire
11620 Villemoustaussou, France
Tel: +33(0) 630 189 910
- Best by GPS.
Follow the signs to Mazamet/ Villemoustaussou using the D118. At the end of the last straight part of D118, you will come to a roundabout with the Dyneff gas station. - Take the exit towards Pennautier. Continue 500m to a small roundabout and go straight over.
- Look out for the second road on your right, Avenue des Cévennes which curves up hill (about 1km) to Avenue de la Montagne Noire on the left.
- At the last juction, bear left. the road sign "Ave de la Montagne Noire" (confusing as it seems to show a right turn)
- After another 500m you will see our red brick color building in the middle of the vines.


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Open Locked Safe | Safe Cracking, Maintenance and Repair
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Episode #33: Law of Attraction - Connecting Law of Attraction and Law of Connection with Michael Losier
Apr 20, 2014Another week on Hangout With Michael.
Michael has produced 268 Hangout With Michael Shows.
Michael lives in beautiful Victoria, BC, on Canada's west coast. He is the author of the bestselling book: Law of Attraction: The Science of Attracting More of What You Want and Less of What You Don't and Law of Connection: The Science of Using NLP to Create Ideal Personal and Business Relationships. Michael's upcoming 3rd book, Your Life's Purpose; Uncover What Really Fulfills You.
Michael was interviewed four times by Oprah Winfrey on her Soul Series show on Oprah Radio(TM) on SiriusXM satellite radio. Michael then went on to host his own show on Oprah Radio for one year.
Here is Michael's best offering to learn Law of Attraction on-line:
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Christoph Rumpel: GroupBy multiple levels in Laravel
In a post to his site Christoph Rumpel shows the Laravel (well, Eloquent) users out there how to use groupBy at multiple levels for customizing and sorting the results of your database queries.
Since Laravel v5.5.29 you can group collections by multiple levels. Let's see what this means and how this works.
The post starts with some of the current functionality, showing how the groupBy
could be used before with a simple collection to group student data by skill level. It then gets into the new functionality, modifying the example to group by both the skill level and by the "teacher" value. The result is a sorted set of results where the top level is the skill level and, inside of each, the teachers with students under that. The post finishes by "going crazy" and showing the grouping by event more criteria, adding "name" and "email" columns to the list.


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They call them "wet scrubbers" – the pollution control devices used by the phosphate industry to capture fluoride gases produced in the production of commercial fertilizer.
In the past, when the industry let these gases escape, vegetation became scorched, crops destroyed, and cattle crippled.
Today, with the development of sophisticated air-pollution control technology, less of the fluoride escapes into the atmosphere, and the type of pollution that threatened the survival of some communities in the 1950s and 60s, is but a thing of the past (at least in the US and other wealthy countries).
However, the impacts of the industry's fluoride emissions are still being felt, although more subtly, by millions of people – people who, for the most part, do not live anywhere near a phosphate plant.
That's because, after being captured in the scrubbers, the fluoride acid (hydrofluorosilicic acid), a classified hazardous waste, is barreled up and sold, unrefined, to communities across the country. Communities add hydrofluorosilicic acid to their water supplies as the primary fluoride chemical for water fluoridation.
Even if you don't live in a community where fluoride is added to water, you'll still be getting a dose of it through cereal, soda, juice, beer and any other processed food and drink manufactured with fluoridated water.
Meanwhile, if the phosphate industry has its way, it may soon be distributing another of its by-products to communities across the country. That waste product is radium, which may soon be added to a roadbed near you – if the EPA buckles and industry has its way.
2. Effects of Fluoride Pollution
Central Florida knows it well. So too does Garrison Montana, Cubatao Brazil, and any other community where phosphate industries have had inefficient, or non-existent, pollution control: Fluoride.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) called the phophate industry a "pandora's box." While the industry brought wealth to rural communities, it also brought ecological devastation. The CBC described the effects of one particular phosphate plant in Dunville, Ontario:
"Farmers noticed it first… Something mysterious burned the peppers, burned the fruit, dwarfed and shriveled the grains, damaged everything that grew. Something in the air destroyed the crops. Anyone could see it… They noticed it first in 1961. Again in '62. Worse each year. Plants that didn't burn, were dwarfed. Grain yields cut in half…Finally, a greater disaster revealed the source of the trouble. A plume from a silver stack, once the symbol of Dunville's progress, spreading for miles around poison – fluorine. It was identified by veterinarians. There was no doubt. What happened to the cattle was unmistakable, and it broke the farmer's hearts. Fluorosis – swollen joints, falling teeth, pain until cattle lie down and die. Hundreds of them. The cause – fluorine poisoning from the air."
Fluoride has been, and remains to this day, one of the largest environmental liabilities of the phosphate industry. The source of the problem lies in the fact that raw phosphate ore contains high concentrations of fluoride, usually between 20,000 to 40,000 parts per million (equivalent to 2 to 4% of the ore).
When this ore is processed into water-soluble phosphate (via the addition of sulfuric acid), the fluoride content of the ore is vaporized into the air, forming highly toxic gaseous compounds (hydrogen fluoride and silicon tetrafluoride).
A cow crawling on his front two legs as a result of crippling fluoride poisoning.
In the past, when the industry had little, if any, pollution control, the fluoride gases were frequently emitted in large volumes into surrounding communities, causing serious environmental damage.
In Polk County, Florida, the creation of multiple phosphate plants in the 1940s caused damage to nearly 25,000 acres of citrus groves and "mass fluoride poisoning" of cattle. It is estimated that, as a result of fluoride contamination, "the cattle population of Polk County dropped 30,000 head" between 1953 and 1960, and "an estimated 150,000 acres of cattle land were abandoned" (Linton 1970). According to the former president of the Polk County Cattlemen's Association:
"Around 1953 we noticed a change in our cattle… We watched our cattle become gaunt and starved, their legs became deformed; they lost their teeth. Reproduction fell off and when a cow did have a calf, it was also affected by this malady or was a stillborn."
In the 1960s, air pollution emitted by another phosphate plant in Garrison, Montana was severe enough to be branded "the worst in the nation" by a 1967 National Air Pollution Conference in Washington, D.C.
As in Polk County, and other communities downwind of fluoride emissions, the cattle in Garrison were poisoned by fluoride. As described in a 1969 article from Good Housekeeping:
"The blight had afflicted cattle too. Some lay in the pasture, barely able to move. Others limped and staggered on swollen legs, or painfully sank down and tried to graze on their knees… Ingested day after day, the excessive fluoride had caused tooth and bone disease in the cattle, so that they could not tolerate the anguish of standing or walking. Even eating or drinking was an agony. Their ultimate fate was dehydration, starvation – and death."
3. Litigation from Fluoride Damage
Damage to vegetation and livestock, caused by fluoride emissions from large industry, has resulted, as one might expect, in a great deal of expensive litigation. In 1983, Dr. Leonard Weinstein of Cornell University, stated that "certainly, there has been more litigation on alleged damage to agriculture by fluoride than all other pollutants combined" (Weinstein 1983). While Weinstein was referring to fluoride pollution in general, his comments give an indication of the problem facing the phosphate industry – one of the most notorious emitters of fluoride – in its early days.
So too does an estimate from Dr. Edward Groth, currently a Senior Scientist at Consumers Union. According to an article written by Groth, fluoride pollution between the years 1957 to 1968, "was responsible for more damage claims against industry than all twenty (nationally monitored air pollutants) combined."
The primary reason for the litigation against fluoride emitters was "the painful, economically disastrous, debilitating disease" that fluoride causes to livestock (Hodge & Smith 1977). As noted in a 1970 review by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA),
"Airborne fluorides have caused more worldwide damage to domestic animals than any other air pollutant" (Lillie 1970).
Another review on air pollution reached the same conclusion. According to Ender (1969):
"The most important problem concerning damage to animals by air pollution is, no doubt, the poisoning of domestic animals caused by fluorine in smoke, gas, or dust from various industries; industrial fluorosis in livestock is today a disorder well known by veterinarians in all industrialized countries."
According to a review discussing "Fluorine toxicosis and industry", Shupe noted that:
"Air pollution damage to agricultural production in the United States in 1967 was estimated at $500,000,000. Fluoride damage to livestock and vegetation was a substantial part of this amount" (Shupe 1970).
4. Scrubbing away the problem
Due to the inevitable liabilities that fluoride pollution presented, and to an increasingly stringent set of environmental regulations, the phosphate industry began cleaning up its act. As noted by Ervin Bellack, a chemist for the US Public Health Service:
"In the manufacture of super-phosphate fertilizer, phosphate rock is acidulated with sulfuric acid, and the fluoride content of the rock evolves as volatile silicofluorides. In the past, much of this volatile material was vented to the atmosphere, contributing heavily to pollution of the air and land surrounding the manufacturing site. As awareness of the pollution problem increased, scrubbers were added to strip particulate and gaseous components from the waste gas…" (Bellack 1970)
A 1979 review, published in the journal Phosphorous & Potassium, added:
"The fluorine compounds liberated during the acidulation of phosphate rock are now rightly regarded as a menace and the industry is now obliged to suppress emissions-containing vapors to within very low limits in most parts of the world… In the past, little attention was paid to the emission of gaseous fluorine compounds in the fertilizer industry. But today fluorine recovery is increasingly necessary because of stringent environmental restrictions which demand drastic reductions in the quantities of volatile and toxic fluorine compounds emitted into the waste gases. These compounds now have to be recovered and converted into harmless by-products for disposal or, more desirably, into marketable products" (Denzinger 1979).
5. A Missed Opportunity: Little Demand for Silicofluorides
Considering the great demand among big industry for fluoride chemicals as a material used in a wide variety of commercial products and industrial processes, the phosphate industry could have made quite a handsome profit selling its fluoride wastes to industry. This was indeed the hope among some industry analysts, including the authors of the review noted above (Denzinger 1979).
However, the US phosphate industry has thus far been unable to take advantage of this market. The principal reason for this failure stems from the fact that fluoride captured in the scrubbers is combined with silica. The resulting silicofluoride complex has, in turn, proved difficult for the industry to separate and purify in an economically-viable process.
As it now stands, silicofluoride complexes (hydrofluorosilicic acid & sodium silicofluoride) are of little use to industry. Thus, while US industry continues to satisfy its growing demand for high-grade fluoride chemicals by importing calcium fluoride from abroad (primarily from Mexico, China, and South Africa), the phosphate industry continues dumping large volumes of fluoride into the acidic wastewater ponds that lie at the top of the mountainous waste piles which surround the industry. In 1995, the Tampa Tribune summed up the situation as follows:
"The U.S. demand for fluorine, which was 400,000 tons, is expected to jump 25 percent by next year… Even though 600,000 tons of fluorine are contained in the 20 million tons of phosphate rock mined in Florida, the fluorine market has been inaccessible because the fluorine is tied up with silica, a hard, glassy material."
Of course, not all of the phosphate industry's fluoride waste is disposed of in the ponds. As noted earlier, the phosphate industry has found at least one regular consumer of its silicofluorides: municipal water-treatment facilities. According to recent estimates, the phosphate industry sells approximately 200,000 tons of silicofluorides (hydrofluorosilicic acid & sodium silicofluoride) to US communities each year for use as a water fluoridation agent (Coplan & Masters 2001).
6. Fluoridation: "An ideal solution to a long-standing problem"?
In 1983, Rebecca Hanmer, the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Water at the US Environmental Protection Agency, described the policy of using the phosphate industry's silicofluorides for fluoridation as follows:
"In regard to the use of fluosilicic acid as the source of fluoride for fluoridation, this agency regards such use as an ideal solution to a long standing problem. By recovering by-product fluosilicic acid from fertilizer manufacturing, water and air pollution are minimized, and water authorities have a low-cost source of fluoride available to them." (See letter)
Another EPA official, Dr. J. William Hirzy, the current Senior Vice-President of EPA Headquarters Union, recently expressed a different view on the matter. According to Hirzy:
"If this stuff gets out into the air, it's a pollutant; if it gets into the river, it's a pollutant; if it gets into the lake it's a pollutant; but if it goes right into your drinking water system, it's not a pollutant. That's amazing… There's got to be a better way to manage this stuff."
7. Recent Findings on Silicofluorides
Adding to Hirzy's, and the EPA Union's, concerns are three recent findings.
A tank of hydrofluosilicic acid (a form of silicofluoride) at water treatment plant.
First and foremost are two recent studies reporting a relationship between water treated with silicofluorides and elevated levels of lead in children's blood (Masters & Coplan 1999, 2000). The authors of these studies speculate that the silicofluoride complex may increase the uptake of lead (derived from other environmental sources, such as lead paint) into the bloodstream.
The second finding is the recent, and quite remarkable concession from the EPA, that despite 50 years of water fluoridation, the EPA has no chronic health studies on silicofluorides. All safety studies on fluoride to date have been conducted using pharmaceutical-grade sodium fluoride, not industrial-grade silicofluorides. A similar concession has also been obtained from the respective authorities in England.
The defense made by agencies promoting water fluoridation, such as the US Centers for Disease Control, to the lack of such studies, is that when the silicofluoride complex is diluted into water, it dissociates into free fluoride ions or other fluoride compounds (e.g. aluminum-fluoride), and thus the treated water, when consumed, will have no remaining silicofluoride residues (Urbansky & Schock, 2000).
This argument, while supported by a good deal of theoretical calculation is at odds with a recently obtained and translated PhD dissertation from a German chemist. (Westendorf 1975). According to the dissertation, not only do the silicofluorides not fully dissociate, the remaining silicofluoride complexes could be more potent inhibitors of cholinesterase, an enzyme vital to the functioning of the central nervous system.
The third finding is that the silicofluorides, as obtained from the scrubbers of the phosphate industry, contain a wide variety of impurities present in the process water – particularly arsenic and possibly radionuclides. While these impurities occur at low concentrations, especially after dilution into the water, their purposeful addition to water supplies directly violates EPA public health goals. For instance, the EPA's Maximum Contaminant Level Goal for arsenic, a known human carcinogen, is 0 parts per billion. However, according to the National Sanitation Foundation, the addition of silicofluorides to the water supply will add, on average, about 0.1 to 0.43 ppb, and as much as 1.6 ppb, arsenic to the water.
As noted by the Salt Lake Tribune,
"Those who had visions of sterile white laboratories when they voted for fluoride weren't thinking of fluorosilicic acid. Improbable as this sounds, much of it is recovered from the scrubbing solution that scours toxins from smokestacks at phosphate fertilizer plants."
8. Gypsum Stacks & 'Slime Ponds'
Fluoride-contaminated wastewater sitting on top of "gypsum stack."To make 1 pound of commercial fertilizer, the phosphate industry creates 5 pounds of contaminated phosphogypsum slurry (calcium sulfate). This slurry is piped from the processing facilities up into the acidic wastewater ponds that sit atop the mountainous waste piles known as gypsum stacks.
According to the EPA, 32 million tons of new gypsum waste is created each year by the phosphate industry in Central Florida alone. (Central Florida is the heart of the US phosphate industry). The EPA estimates that the current stockpile of waste in Central Florida's gypsum stacks has reached "nearly 1 billion metric tons." (The average gypsum stack takes up about 135 acres of surface area – equal to about 100 football fields – and can go as high as 200 feet.)
9. Radiation Hazard
It is sort of a misnomer, however, to call these stacks "gypsum" stacks. Indeed, if the stacks were simply gypsum, they probably wouldn't exist, as gypsum can be readily sold for various purposes (e.g. as a building material). What can't be readily sold, however, is radioactive gypsum, which is about the only type of gypsum the phosphate industry has to offer.
The source of the gypsum's radioactivity is the presence of uranium, and uranium's various decay products (i.e. radium), in raw, phosphate ore. As noted by the Sarasota Herald Tribune
"there is a natural and unavoidable connection between phosphate mining and radioactive material. It is because phosphate and uranium were laid down at the same time and in the same place by the same geological processes millions of years ago. They go together. Mine phosphate, you get uranium."
Phosphate ore can contain high concentrations of uranium, as evident by this sign at IMC Agrico's plant in Polk County.
While uranium, and its decay-products, naturally occur in phosphate ore, their concentrations in the gypsum waste, after the extraction of soluble phosphate, are up to 60 times greater.
The gypsum has therefore been classified as a "Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material", or NORM waste, although some, including the EPA, have questioned whether this classification understates the problem. According to the Tampa Tribune, the gypsum "is among the most concentrated radioactive waste that comes from natural materials."
It is so concentrated, in fact, that "it can't be dumped at the one landfill in the country licensed to take only NORM waste."
Thus, according to US News & World Report, the EPA is currently "weighing whether to classify the gypsum stacks as hazardous waste under federal statutes, which would force the industry to provide strict safeguards" (to nearly 1 billion tons of waste).
One of EPA's main concerns with gypsum stacks centers around the fact that radium-226 breaks down into radon gas. When radon gas is formed, it can become airborne, leading to potentially elevated exposures downwind of the stacks. Such airborne exposures are of particular concern to areas like Progress Village, Florida, where "a new gypsum stack is rising a few hundred yards from a grade school." According to US News & World Report, there is evidence to suggest cancer rates downwind of the stacks may be elevated:
"Some epidemiological studies suggest that lung cancer rates among nonsmoking men in the phosphate region are up to twice as high as the state average. Acute leukemia rates among adults are also double the average. An industry-sponsored study of male phosphate workers, however, found lung cancer rates no higher than the state average. There is no proof that mine wastes cause cancer, but the evidence is worrisome."
10. Will radioactive gypsum be added to roads?
Rail cars carrying sulfur to process phosphate rock, with giant gypsum stack looming in background.
With the growing realization that gypsum stacks represent a serious environmental threat to Central Florida, both now and for generations to come, the phosphate industry has been looking into ways of reducing the size of the stacks (and the size of their liability.)
In an interesting parallel to fluoride, the phosphate industry is looking to turn its gypsum waste into a marketable product: as a potential cover for landfills, as a soil conditioner, and as a base material for roads.
According to Robert Vanderslice, head of Phosphate Management for Florida's Department of Environmental Protection, the gypsum is a "good material to replace lime rock in roads. Lime rock will run out at some time, and we're still building a lot of roads. Building roads with phosphogypsum would consume quite a bit of gypsum."
In 1995, a "Phosphogypsum Fact-Finding Forum" organized by the Florida Institute of Phosphate Research, presented a "message aimed straight at Washington: Relax the rules on using gypsum and the mountains will gradually disappear."
As of yet, however, the EPA does not appear willing to relax its rules and lift its ban on commercial uses of gypsum. According to the Tampa Tribune, "EPA's limit for use is 10 picocuries of radium per gram, well below the levels usually found in the mounds."
A recent statement from the EPA reads:
"Only two uses (for the gypsum) are permitted: limited agricultural use and research. Other uses may be proposed, but otherwise the phosphogypsum must be returned to mines or stored in stacks."
11. Commercial Uranium Production
While the presence of uranium decay-products makes gypsum a tough sell for the phosphate industry, the uranium has, at various times, presented the industry with a business opportunity of its own.
One of the lesser-known-facts about the phosphate industry is that its processing facilities have produced and sold sizeable quantities of uranium.
In 1997, just two phosphate plants in Louisiana produced 950,000 pounds of commercial uranium, which amounted to roughly 16% of the domestically produced uranium in the US.
In 1998, the same two plants produced another 950,000 pounds, but due to declining market prices for uranium, both plants have since ceased production.
If market prices improve, however, 4 US phosphate plants (2 in Louisiana & 2 in Florida) would have the capacity to produce a combined 2.75 million pounds of uranium per year, according to the Department of Energy (DOE). The DOE has termed these 4 facilities "Nonconventional Uranium Plants."
12. Cold War Secrets & Worker Health
The Department of Energy has not always been so open about the uranium-making potential of the phosphate industry. During the Cold War, its predecessor institution, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), kept this fact closely under wraps – even to the workers who were, unknowingly, handling large quantities of the radioactive material.
In Joliet, Illinois, it has only recently come to light that the local phosphate plant had secretly produced some 2 million pounds of uranium for the US government in the years 1952 to 1962. According to local newspaper reports, the cancer rates of people who worked at the plant, especially "Building 55" where the uranium was processed, are unusually high.
"We used to kind of joke that if you worked for Blockson, you got cancer," quipped Vince Driscoll, the son of a cancer-stricken worker.
Today, with the Cold War over, it is becoming clear that workers in the phosphate industry need special protection. According to a report from the European Commission:
"Processing and waste handling in the phosphate industry is associated with radiation levels of concern for workers and the public. The level of protection for these groups should be more similar to the level of protection that is state of the art in other industries, particularly the nuclear industry."
13. Wastewater Issues
Sinkhole in gypsum stack. (AP Photo).
While the radioactivity of the gypsum stacks has probably been the key health concern of the EPA, it is not the only one.
Resting atop the phosphate industry's gypsum piles are highly-acidic wastewater ponds, littered with toxic contaminants, including fluoride, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, and the various decay-products of uranium. This combination of acidity and toxins makes for a poisonous, high-volume, cocktail, which, when leaked into the environment, wreaks havoc to waterways and fish populations. As noted by the St. Petersburg Times, "Spills from these stacks have periodically poisoned the Tampa Bay environs. "
One spill, in 1997, from a now-defunct gypsum stack in Florida, "killed more than a million fish."
"Strike the Alafia River off your list of fishing spots," wrote one journalist after the spill. "It's gone, dead as a sewer pipe, killed by the carelessness of yet another phosphate company."
Today, the same gypsum stack which caused this particular spill, is considered by Florida's Department of Environmental Protection to be "the most serious pollution threat in the state." That's because tropical rains over the past couple of years have brought the wastewater to the edge of the stack's walls.
As noted by the Tampa Tribune, "The gypsum mound is near capacity, and a wet spring or a tropical storm could cause a catastrophic spill."
To prevent such a spill, which was all but inevitable, the EPA recently agreed to let Florida pursue "Option Z": To load 500-600 million gallons of the wastewater onto barges and dump it directly into the Gulf of Mexico.
The dumping of the wastewater into the Gulf represents the latest in a series of high-profile embarrasments for Florida's phosphate industry; one of the most dramatic of which happened on June 15, 1994.
On that day, a massive, 15-story sinkhole appeared in the middle of an 80 million ton gypsum stack. The hole was so big that, according to US News & World Report, it
"could be as big as 2 million cubic feet, enough to swallow 400 railroad boxcars. Local wags call it Disney World's newest attraction — 'Journey to the Center of the Earth.'"
But, as US News noted,
"there's nothing amusing about it. The cave-in dumped 4 million to 6 million cubic feet of toxic and radioactive gypsum and waste water into the Floridan aquifer, which provides 90 percent of the state's drinking water."
And so it goes. As summarized by the Tampa Tribune:
"It's not like you can padlock the doors and walk away. The complexities of keeping a phosphate processing plant operating are becoming clear to government regulators now overseeing two of them. Ponds full of 1.5 billion gallons of acid and three mountains of radioactive waste mean you just can't shut off the machinery and turn out the lights. The state could be stuck with the plants for years. And taxpayers would be stuck with the tab."
Photographs of the Phosphate Industry
Photographs of the Photographs of the phosphate industry are available here.
Full-text copies of all newspaper articles cited in this article can be accessed by clicking on the links within the text. Additional newspaper articles on the phosphate industry can be accessed here. The references for the other cited documents in this article are as follows:
Bellack E, Baker RJ. (1970). Fluoridation chemicals – the supply picture. Journal of the American Water Works Association 62: 223-224.
Coplan MJ, Masters RD. (2001). Silicofluorides and fluoridation. Fluoride 34(3): 161-220.
Denzinger HF, et al. (1979). Fluorine recovery in the fertilizer industry – a review. Phosphorus & Potassium Sept/Oct: 33-39.
Ender F. (1969). "The effect of air pollution on animals." pp. 245-254. In: Air Pollution – Proceedings of the First European Congress on the Influence of Air Pollution on Plants and Animals, Wageningen, April 22 to 27, 1968. Centre for Agricultural Publishing & Documentation, Wageningen.
Hirzy JW. (2000). Video-taped interview with Dr. J. William Hirzy, Senior Vice President, EPA Headquarters Union. Interview by Michael Connett. July 3.
Hodge HC, Smith FA. (1977). Occupational fluoride exposure. Journal of Occupational Medicine 19: 12-39.
Lillie RJ. (1970). Air Pollutants Affecting the Performance of Domestic Animals: A Literature Review. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. Agricultural Handbook No. 380. Washington D.C.
Masters R, et al. (2000). Association of Silicofluoride Treated Water with Elevated Blood Lead. Neurotoxicology 21(6): 1091-1099.
Masters RD, Coplan M. (1999). Water treatment with Silicofluorides and Lead Toxicity. International Journal of Environmental Studies 56: 435-449.
Shupe JL. (1970). Fluorine toxicosis and industry. American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal 31: 240-247.
Urbansky ET, Schock MR. (2000). Can Fluoridation Affect Water Lead(II) Levels and Lead(II) Neurotoxicity? United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Research and Development, National Risk Management Research Laboratory, Water Supply and Water Resources Division, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Weinstein LH. (1983). "Effects of Fluorides on Plants and Plant Communities: An Overview." pp. 53-59. In: Shupe JL, Peterson HB, Leone NC, (Eds). Fluorides: Effects on Vegetation, Animals, and Humans. Paragon Press. Salt Lake City, Utah.
Westendorf J. (1975). The kinetics of acetylcholinesterase inhibition and the influence of fluoride and fluoride complexes on the permeability of erythrocyte membranes. Ph.D. Dissertation in Chemistry, University of Hamburg, Germany.


text:
By seeking the approval of Congress to bomb Syria, President Barack Obama may speed forward another conflict: the battle between the warring isolationist and interventionist factions of the Republican Party, as evidenced by statements from both sides in recent days.
Arizona Sen. John McCain and South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham have made clear that their vote on the measure is contingent on Obama committing to potentially broader military action than he has already proposed. "We have to have a plan. It has to be a strategy. It can't just be, in my view, pinprick cruise missiles," McCain said on Sunday, in an interview with CBS' Face the Nation.
On the other side, the isolationist wing sees the coming debate as a great soapbox to establish their power in Congress, and shift American policy overseas. "I think all of the bad things you can imagine are all more likely if we get involved in the Syrian civil war," said Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, in an interview with NBC's Meet The Press. "I think the line in the sand should be that America gets involved when American interests are threatened. I don't see American interests involved on either side of this Syrian war."
(MORE: White House Talks Strategy for Confronting Congress on Syria)
Democrats are just as divided as Republicans, with many doves expressing reservations about engaging in the conflict at all, or simply the open-ended nature of Obama's request. But for the GOP, the foreign policy battle has become somewhat existential—a threat to party cohesion on domestic issues as well.
The heat was turned up on the long-simmering conflict earlier this year when Paul held his long filibuster on the Senate floor against the Obama administration's drone policies. This summer, Paul and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made it a rolling boil with a two-week back and forth over the NSA's surveillance programs, a conflict that ended up becoming surprisingly personal.
In Democratic circles, after the initial frustration of Obama appearing to outsource part of his job to Congress, there is an element of glee at the choice facing the Republican Party. And while some in the White House are savoring the Republican predicament, White House Senior Advisor Dan Pfeiffer said the politics are irrelevant. "This issue is on a different level than the traditional fights we have with the GOP, so we don't view it in the context of our other fights," he told TIME. "This is a critical vote for the country and should be above political point scoring."
(MORE: Three Reasons Congress May Not Approve War in Syria)
But that won't stop the debate from roiling in the Republican Party, with some consultants warning Republicans not to take the bait. "The framing of 'how does this trap the GOP' coming from the WH, Democratic operatives and Obama's fanboys tells Republicans in Congress this is as much about bailing out Obama's failed policies as it is about stopping Assad," said Republican political consultant Rick Wilson. "Axelrod et al swiftly framed this as a battle against the one enemy with whom Barack Obama will wage unrestricted warfare: the GOP."
Others are seizing the moment. Dan Senor, the former chief spokesperson for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and an advisor to the Romney/Ryan presidential campaign, said the GOP's isolationist wing is a temporary fad, a byproduct of being out of power. "Even in a war as unpopular as Vietnam, McGovern's "Come Home, America" backfired badly," Senor said. "So has virtually every similar message since then. Tea Party critics of America's current military operations should look at how well served congressional Republicans were in the 1990s by opposing intervention in the Balkans. Is there any evidence that this opposition helped conservatives?"
For Republicans, this month's vote on Syria will be a test case for the new GOP. It remains unclear whether the divided Republican Party can agree to disagree without personal animosity taking over the debate, and potentially sewing further discord with the 2016 election fast approaching.


text:
StorCenter Installation
This document describes in depth how to prepare your Iomega StorCenter G2 for installing NetBSD/sandpoint. The three supported models are:
All models have 64 MB RAM and a PATA disk interface. Note that newer StorCenter models use an ARM CPU and are not supported. To install NetBSD/sandpoint you will have to open the case for getting access to the serial console. This is shown here for the Single Drive model. |
We need a serial console to get access to the firmware. That includes soldering a cable to the board and building (or buying) a serial adapter to convert from the StorCenter's TTL levels to RS232 levels.
The Single Drive model is somewhat tricky to open. Move the cover by applying some force into the direction away from the interface bezel. It will eventually snap open. Then remove the metal shielding. Again, there are no screws. It is held in place by some brackets. Just pull it upwards and you will see the hard disk. |
Do not try to access the screws, which are securing the disk drive, through the plastic vents. To be able to pull the metal case up we have to remove four screws at the bottom first, which are hidden behind a plastic plate. Pry open the plastic plate using a levering tool, like a screw driver. You will need some force to do that. |
Look out for an unpopulated 8-pin header, called J11
(marked red on the picture to the left). The leftmost four pins can
be used for the serial interface. The pin assignments are shown
in the table.
It is not recommended to solder a header onto |
The serial port on the StorCenter is using 3.3V TTL levels, which have to be converted into regular RS232 levels by a level shifter circuit. If you are not anxious using a soldering iron you find detailed instructions how to build such a converter here:
Make sure that the layout of the plug fits to the pinout of the StorCenter's serial header, as shown above.
Another option is to buy such a converter. There are solutions for a standard RS232 interface and for an USB interface. Look out for:
- RS232 level shifter / breakout board (MAX3232 based)
- USB to TLL serial level shifter / breakout board (FT232 based)
Provided the serial converter is installed and working correctly you should be able to connect to the firmware's serial console. Iomega is using U-Boot, the Universal Boot Loader.
Now you can connect with any terminal program to the StorCenter's
serial console. The easiest approach may be to use NetBSD's
command to make a direct console
connection at 115200bps.
# tip -115200 console
Note that when using a serial connection via USB you may have to
make an entry for /dev/ttyU0
Immediately after switching your StorCenter on it will display the following information (output is from a Single Drive model) and gives you one second to stop autobooting.
U-Boot 1.0.0 (Sep 2 2005 - 14:49:11) CPU: MPC8241 Revision 1.4 at 199.999 MHz: 16 kB I-Cache 16 kB D-Cache Board: StorCenter PICR1 is now 00141b98 PICR2 is now 00040605 AMBOR is now c1 DRAM: 64 MB FLASH: 8 MB In: serial Out: serial Err: serial Net: PCI device RTL8169#0: unknown chip version, assuming RTL-8169 PCI device: TxConfig = 0x0 RTL8169#0 Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0
The altboot(8)
utility functions as a bridge between
the Iomega firmware and the NetBSD kernel startup environment.
NAS firmware often provides no means to boot a kernel from disk or
from the network and doesn't initialize all hardware correctly.
We will also use it to pass a bootinfo list to the kernel.
The altboot
boot loader has to be loaded and started
using U-Boot. Usually there are three ways to invoke it:
- loadb to load a binary file via serial line in kermit mode
- tftpboot to load a binary file over the network with TFTP protocol
- start it from the flash memory
The last option is prefered once the installation is completed, but
obviously it is not possible for the first time boot.
Fortunately U-Boot has set up the network interface, which we can
use after configuring the ipaddr
and serverip
environment variables:
IOMEGA=> setenv ipaddr 192.168.0.105 IOMEGA=> setenv serverip 192.168.0.5 IOMEGA=> saveenv Saving Environment to Flash... Un-Protected 1 sectors Erasing Flash... . done Erased 1 sectors Writing to Flash... done Protected 1 sectors
Once you have set up TFTP and DHCP
(read below)
you can download altboot
like this:
IOMEGA=> tftp 1000000 altboot.bin
TFTP from server 192.168.0.5; our IP address is 192.168.0.105
Filename 'altboot.bin'.
Load address: 0x1000000
Loading: ###############
Bytes transferred = 74732 (123ec hex)
Now you can use altboot
to launch the
kernel for installing NetBSD.
You may choose to load it with TFTP or from NFS. For TFTP you have
to enable tftpd(8)
, and for NFS there is a
documentation at
The Network File System. But in both cases you
have to set up a DHCP server, which is explained in the
DHCP Howto
. An appropriate dhcpd.conf
entry could
look like this:
host storcenter { hardware ethernet 00:d0:b8:xx:xx:xx; fixed-address 192.168.0.105; next-server 192.168.0.5; option root-path "/export/storcenter/root"; }
The root-path
option is only needed when using NFS and
should match your exported NFS directory.
Uncompress netbsd-INSTALL.gz
from the
NetBSD/sandpoint distribution and copy it into the NFS or TFTP
Then start the DHCP, NFS or TFTP server and boot the installation kernel
from the firmware either with
IOMEGA=> go 1000000 tftp:netbsd-INSTALL
or from NFS:
IOMEGA=> go 1000000 nfs:netbsd-INSTALL
Our bootloader configures the hardware, determines the IP address, loads the kernel via network and launches it:
## Starting application at 0x01000000 ... >> NetBSD/sandpoint altboot, revision 1.8 (Wed Nov 23 21:51:40 CET 2011) >> IOMEGA StorCenter G2, cpu 200 MHz, bus 100 MHz, 64MB SDRAM channel 0 present wd0: <ST3300822A> DMA LBA LBA48 286168 MB wd0: no disklabel MAC address 00:d0:b8:xx:xx:xx 100Mbps-FDX Hit any key to enter interactive mode: 0 loading "netbsd-INSTALL" 5222228+112540=0x516b78 entry=0x90000, ssym=0x5a66f0, esym=0x5a6b78 Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. NetBSD 5.99.59 (INSTALL) #10: Fri Dec 30 18:53:09 CET 2011 email@example.com:/home/frank/netbsd/current/src/sys/arch/sandpoint/compile/obj/INSTALL Model: iomega total memory = 65536 KB avail memory = 57904 KB OpenPIC Version 1.2: Supports 1 CPUs and 26 interrupt sources. mainbus0 (root) cpu0 at mainbus0: 8245 (Revision 0.4), ID 0 (primary) cpu0: HID0 0x90c000<DOZE,DPM,ICE,DCE>, powersave: 1 eumb0 at mainbus0 com0 at eumb0 unit 0: ns16550a, working fifo com0: console com0: interrupting at irq 40 ociic0 at eumb0 iic0 at ociic0: I2C bus dsrtc0 at iic0 addr 0x68: DS1307 Real-time Clock/NVRAM satmgr0 at eumb0 unit 1: button manager (iomega) satmgr0: interrupting at irq 41 pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0 pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0 pchb0: vendor 0x1057 product 0x0006 (rev. 0x14) viaide0 at pci0 dev 13 function 0 viaide0: VIA Technologies VT6410 IDE controller viaide0: using irq 17 for native-PCI interrupt atabus0 at viaide0 channel 0 atabus1 at viaide0 channel 1 ohci0 at pci0 dev 14 function 0: vendor 0x1033 product 0x0035 (rev. 0x43) ohci0: interrupting at irq 18 ohci0: OHCI version 1.0 usb0 at ohci0: USB revision 1.0 ohci1 at pci0 dev 14 function 1: vendor 0x1033 product 0x0035 (rev. 0x43) ohci1: interrupting at irq 19 ohci1: OHCI version 1.0 usb1 at ohci1: USB revision 1.0 ehci0 at pci0 dev 14 function 2: vendor 0x1033 product 0x00e0 (rev. 0x04) ehci0: interrupting at irq 20 ehci0: companion controllers, 3 ports each: ohci0 ohci1 usb2 at ehci0: USB revision 2.0 re0 at pci0 dev 15 function 0: RealTek 8169/8110 Gigabit Ethernet (rev. 0x10) re0: interrupting at irq 16 re0: Ethernet address 00:d0:b8:xx:xx:xx rgephy0 at re0 phy 7: RTL8169S/8110S/8211 1000BASE-T media interface, rev. 3 rgephy0: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, 1000baseT, 1000baseT-FDX, auto biomask 1f000000 netmask 1f000000 ttymask 1f000000 uhub0 at usb0: vendor 0x1033 OHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1 uhub1 at usb1: vendor 0x1033 OHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1 uhub2 at usb2: vendor 0x1033 EHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 1 wd0 at atabus0 drive 0 wd0: <ST3300822A> wd0: 279 GB, 581421 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 586072368 sectors boot device: re0 root on md0a dumps on md0b root file system type: ffs WARNING: preposterous TOD clock time WARNING: using filesystem time WARNING: CHECK AND RESET THE DATE! erase ^H, werase ^W, kill ^U, intr ^C, status ^T Terminal type? [vt100]
Just follow the usual procedure to install a NetBSD system.
After a successful installation you want to make the system boot
standalone when switched on, without the need for a serial console.
So you have to modify the bootcmd
in U-Boot's environment
and write the altboot.bin
binary to the Flash ROM.
To find a suitable place in the Flash ROM you can use the
flinfo command and look out for empty sectors
. On my StorCenter I have chosen
. Replace that in all the following
commands if you have chosen a different address.
Load altboot.bin
into memory at
again, as explained above.
Then execute the following commands to write it to Flash ROM:
IOMEGA=> protect off ffe80000 ffe9ffff Un-Protected 2 sectors IOMEGA=> erase ffe80000 ffe9ffff . done Erased 2 sectors IOMEGA=> cp.b 1000000 ffe80000 18000 Copy to Flash... done IOMEGA=> protect on ffe80000 ffe9ffff Protected 2 sectors
Finally adapt the bootcmd
environment string to
autoboot altboot
and start the
kernel (which is the default name) from
on each reboot:
IOMEGA=> setenv bootcmd cp.b ffe80000 1000000 18000\; go 1000000 wd0: IOMEGA=> saveenv Saving Environment to Flash... Un-Protected 1 sectors Erasing Flash... . done Erased 1 sectors Writing to Flash... done Protected 1 sectors
The \
is important for setenv not to
misinterpret the ;
as the end of the command.
Have fun with your mini NetBSD server!
Back to NetBSD/sandpoint Port Page


text:
How do I delete a class roster?
Note: Permissions for adding or deleting rosters in a given site may vary depending on your system's institutional enrollment implementation. In most cases, adding rosters by class or section is subject to automated roster updates.
Go to Site Info.
Select the Site Info tool from the Tool Menu of your site.
Select roster to be deleted.
Place a check mark in the Remove column for the roster(s) you want to delete.
Click Remove Selected.
Click the Remove Selected button.


text:
RTW News
RTW TouchMonitor with Dante Wins 2019 NAB Show Product of the Year Award
The brand-new versions of TouchMonitor TM7 and TM9 with Dante connectivity awarded at NAB 2019.
(Cologne, Germany, 25 April 2019) RTW, a company that focuses on visualizing audio in order to let audio engineers take informed decisions in professional broadcast, production, post production and quality control, announced today that its TM-Dante is a Best New Audio Production, Processing and Networking Technology winner in the 2019 NAB Show Product of the Year Awards.
These are the first official awards that recognize innovative new products at NAB Show, the program recognizes the most significant and promising new products and technologies showcased by Exhibitors at the 2019 NAB Show in Las Vegas, NV.
"We are honored that our audio metering solution that taps directly into the networked audio world of Dante and AES67 has won this prestigious award, handed out by the NAB organization," says Andreas Tweitmann, CEO of RTW. "It is our mission to give all audio engineers the opportunity to keep their eyes on their audio at all times and thereby deliver the best-sounding results possible.
And since more and more broadcast and post production facilities are moving toward Dante / AES67 network infrastructure, it makes perfect sense to add this connectivity for the latest incarnation of the TM7 and TM9 units. Having NAB also recognizing the need for such a solution in modern broadcast just makes it even better."
NAB Show Product of the Year Award Winners were selected by a panel of industry experts in 16 categories and announced at an awards ceremony and cocktail reception at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort on April 10. To be eligible for an award, nominated products and technologies needed to be on display at the 2019 NAB Show for the first time and available for delivery in calendar year 2019.
"Nominees like RTW are revolutionizing the way people experience media and entertainment," adds NAB Executive Vice President of Conventions and Business Operations Chris Brown. "The 2019 NAB Show Product of the Year Awards highlight the best of what's new at the premier launchpad for breakthroughs at the intersection of media, entertainment and technology."
About TM7 and TM9 with Dante
A TouchMonitor with Dante connectivity is able to monitor up to 32 audio channels at sample rates up to 96 kHz. The selected sample rate does not affect the channel count, which means that users can always rely on keeping their eyes on up to 32 channels across the IP Audio Network at any given time.
Apart from measuring critical audio-related factors such as Loudness, True-Peak, Correlation, Frequency Distribution, etc., users now also get instant and visible feedback on the overall status of the audio network. This allows for quick troubleshooting and identification of potential problems that may cause critical downtime.
In broadcast, reliability is always paramount. Therefore, the new Dante-ready TM7 and TM9 units support redundant network connectivity to ensure that users are always able to get an overview of their audio at a glance. Quite simply, with a Dante-enabled TouchMonitor TM7 or TM9 hooked up to their Dante / AES67 network, broadcast engineers will never be forced to 'work in the dark'.
TouchMonitor TM7 and TM9 with Dante compatibility automatically detect and adapt to Dante channel names, which in turn makes routing a breeze when setting up the audio metering system on the network.
Finally, RTW has implemented uncompressed, multi-channel digital audio technology that results in near-zero latency and synchronization performance for obtaining the most reliable and consistent results possible.
About RTW
RTW, based in Cologne (Germany), has more than 50 years of experience designing, producing and marketing advanced recording-studio equipment, leading and innovating the market for high quality audio metering and monitoring tools. RTW operates a worldwide distribution and service network. For more information on RTW, visit www.rtw.com, www.facebook.com/rtwaudio or call +49 221 709130.
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For press inquiries please contact:
Kim Bang
Momentum PR & Marketing
+45 2083 4247


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2 pieces of this rustic looking Antler Wall Hook.
Cast Iron Antler Wall decor.
Shipping: Free US Domestic shipping!
Size: Approx: 5 3/4" x 12"
Color: Rustic brown.
Material: Cast Iron
We sell these in quantities of 1 - 10. Convo us if you would like more.
These are nice as is, but easily painted to your color preference.
These are hand cast and hand finished. No two are alike. These are filled with rustic charm.
Each piece may or may not be slightly different. The mounting holes may vary in placement from piece to piece.
Mounting holes are provided. No hardware is provided.
All packages are shipped within 48 business hours of purchase unless we notify you of a delay. (No postal service on weekends.)
Please be sure your address is correct in Etsy and PayPal, as we can no longer change addresses.
If your package is returned due to address issues or as undeliverable, we will automatically issue a refund less a restock fee of 20%. Thank you.
Thank you for your interest in We Peddle Metal. Check out our other sections filled with many different cast iron decor items to choose from.


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Sitting at my desk last week I decided to film a very quick video on my iPhone, a rant in response to various articles which I had read in the press that day.
George Monbiot doom-mongering about the state of the environment and Giles Coren's clickbait-esque headline about hating Jane Austen all feature, alongside the amount of calories people eat.
Watch the video on YouTube below or via this link.


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'The Batman' Gets Pushed Back For a Second Time
When Dune was pushed back from December of 2020 to October 1, 2021, that meant it was the start of the story, not the end of it — because Dune's distributor, Warner Bros, already had another enormous movie scheduled for release on October 1 of next year. That would be The Batman, Matt Reeves' reinvention of the Dark Knight starting Robert Pattinson as a young Bruce Wayne at the beginning of his crimefighting career. Surely they would not attempt to release to huge films on the same day? One would have to move.
That one would be The Batman. Word breaks now that The Batman is getting bumped back March of 2022. This is the second time the film has been delayed thus far; it was originally scheduled to debut in June of 2021 but that became impossible when production shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic. Since then, the film has encountered more problems, including Pattinson contracting Covid-19, prompting another shut down for a time.
Along with The Batman's delay, Warners announced several other changes of release dates to their upcoming superhero slate. The Flash will now open in theaters on November 4, 2022 instead of June 3, 2022. Shazam 2 was going to open on November 4, 2022; now it premieres on June 2, 2023. And Black Adam, which was going to open for Christmas in 2021, is now off the release calendar entirely.
In the grand scheme of things, six more months isn't that big of a deal, and it gives Reeves more time to finish things to his satisfaction. This, of course, assumes there are no additional delays, the virus is brought under control, and theaters are still in business in the spring of 2022. Some pretty big ifs! Here's what the Warner Bros. release calendar looks like after all the moves:
Gallery — More New Images From The Batman:


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When I entered the empty-nester chapter of life, I started focusing on factors leading to a healthier lifestyle. Books and articles about longevity and ways to avoid illness became a priority. The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened my quest to minimize risks for medical issues. … [Read more...]
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This is a great day to get the hard work done. You have the strength and determination of Kej attached to that which you work for. However, make sure you remember to make time to recharge with a connection to nature.
The nawal Kej brings strength and vitality which helps us to draw from the wilderness. It brings out our leadership from within us, helping to assure us of our decisions. Kej acts as a spiritual leader charging forward on behalf of its people. It is determined to bring out the best of the world for them, whether real or perceived. Kej represents the priest, with concern for more than just the physical well-being of the people it leads. It does what it does with a divine conviction, which can lead it to be a little overbearing.
Here we see it connected with the number 5 which is representative of work. As a consequence, this can be an exceptionally empowered work day as Kej comes through to bring you determination in whatever your chosen work is. However, this determination can lead to trampling over others in the drive to achieve a goal, which should be avoided. It may require a little reigning in of the pushy energy in order to avoid possible confrontation.
One way to balance the strength is through connection to the wilderness. This is a great day for working in the natural environment, the work will be blessed by Kej, helping you to tune in to what you are doing. It is likely that environmental work may take some effort to get going, but once it does you may be well rewarded. This may take some form of insight as the essence of the spiritual leader within is empowered through the natural world.
The Nawal Kej
Kej is possibly the strongest of the nawales, it is powerful, but in a different way to Kan. Kej is energetic, lively and determined. It is the nawal of nature, of the wilderness and it is this power that it draws on. The animal totem of Kej is the deer, but if you have fragile, new-born Bambi in mind, think again. This is the majestic stag, standing on the mountain surveying his domain. Whilst most nawales are not necessarily engendered, Kej is most definitely masculine. Both men and women that carry Kej as their nawal have great strength, although the men tend to hide their strength more. Kej women are particularly driven, resourceful and brave, sometimes to the point of being rather dominant. All radiate an aura of nobility, people tend to look to them to lead.
Kej is the nawal of the Mayan "religion", a day of spiritual leaders, of shaman and of priests. It is these leaders who understand how to read the messages from the natural world, who help to keep our existence in balance with nature. It is a day to connect with the wilderness and draw the power of the natural world into you, to harmonise and replenish.
The Number Five
The Sacred Mayan calendar is said to be a calendar of human life. It can be seen as a microcosm of the human body. The number five is one of these parts. It is representative of the hand with its five digits. It is with our hands that we work, and with what we earn we pay our debts. Five is also a number that relates to the sacred fire where we pay our debts with offerings and prayers. Five might be so busy working that it fails to remember what it is working for. It can also signify that what it is attached to becomes work, or is "hard work".


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[Murphy's_Lawyer] had some empty space on the wall in his kitchen, so he decided to fill it with a whirring Steampunk gizmo: an Arduino-driven steam gauge.
The build began as an old 10″ Ashcroft pressure gauge sourced from eBay, which [Murphy's_Lawyer] dissected to determine the state of its guts. Finding the gauge's Bourdon tube intact, he got to work constructing a method of generating motion without the need for actual steam. The solution was to mount a continuous rotation servo between the tube and the case. The servo lacked the strength to flex the tube on its own, so [Murphy's_Lawyer] fashioned a simple lever out of brass to help it along.
The electronics consist of an Arduino Uno and an accompanying homemade PCB. The code for the Uno generates random motion for twirling the servo, and three LEDs built into the face reflect values generated for speed, pause and run time. The final upgrade came in the form of a new dial face, which provides some updated text as well as a cutout square that lets you see the previously obscured gears in action. Check out the video below, then see another Steampunk overhaul: the Edwardian Laptop.


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Mark Kushner awarded the AVS Medard W. Welch Award
Kushner was recognized "for contributions to modeling and understanding of plasmas, especially those used in thin film etching, deposition and surface modification."
Prof. Mark Kushner, George I. Haddad Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Director of the Michigan Institute for Plasma Science and Engineering (MIPSE), was awarded the 2010 AVS Medard W. Welch Award, "for outstanding contributions to modeling and physical understanding of plasmas, especially those used in thin film etching, deposition and surface modification." He will be presented with the award October 20, 2010 at the AVS 57th International Symposium & Exhibition.
Prof. Kushner received the BS in Nuclear Engineering and the BA in Astronomy from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1976; and the MS and Ph.D. in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1977 and 1979.
He served on the Technical Staffs of Sandia National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory before joining Spectra Technology where he was Director of Electron, Atomic, and Molecular Physics. In 1986, Dr. Kushner joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he was the Founder Professor of Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering while serving in many administrative roles, including Assoc. and Asst. Dean in the College of Engineering and head of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Chemical Engineering. In January 2005, Dr. Kushner joined Iowa State University as Dean of Engineering and the James and Katherine Melsa Professor. At ISU, he established the Engineering Policy and Leadership Institute and initiated the 2050 Challenge to focus education, research and outreach on addressing the most pressing of societal issues.
Prof. Kushner joined the University of Michigan as founding director of MIPSE in September 2008. He also directs the Department of Energy Plasma Science Center on Control of Plasma Kinetics, a collaboration of 10 universities and national laboratories.
Prof. Kushner's research area is low temperature plasmas, their fundamental properties, their interaction with surfaces and their technological applications. His research group develops multi-scale computer models employing hybrid methods which combine different computational techniques which address different physical phenomena.
Prof. Kushner's research has addressed many areas of low temperature plasmas, including lasers, lighting sources and displays, pulsed power, materials processing, dusty plasmas, biological and environmental applications, and feature evolution in microelectronics fabrication. His research group has made significant advances in our understanding of the integration of plasma transport, chemistry and surface interactions. Their modeling platforms are widely used by industry and university collaborators.
Prof. Kushner has published more than 250 journal articles and delivered more than 240 invited symposia presentations on these topics. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, IEEE, Optical Society of America, AVS, Institute of Physics and International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. He has served on the editorial boards of several journals (JVST, Trans. Plasma Science, Plasma Processes Polymers, Plasma Chemistry Plasma Processing, J. Phys. D), is editor-in-chief of Plasma Sources Science and Technology and is a co-author of the recently published National Research Council Decadal Report on Plasma Science. His service roles include Chair of the AVS Plasma Science and Technology Division and chair of the Gaseous Electronics Conference.
Prof. Kushner has received the APS Allis Prize, Semiconductor Research Corp. Technical Excellence Award, the Tegal Thinker Award for Plasma Etch Technology, the AVS Plasma Science and Technology Award, IEEE Plasma Science and Applications Award and the Semiconductor Industry Association University Researcher Award.
The Medard W. Welch Award was established in 1969 to commemorate the pioneering efforts of M.W. Welch in founding and supporting AVS. It is presented to recognize and encourage outstanding research in the fields of interest to AVS. The award consists of a cash award, a struck gold medal, a certificate, and an honorary lectureship at a regular session of the International Symposium.
Posting taken from the AVS Announcement of Prof. Kushner's award


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One of the most disappointing things I face as a college professor is the lack of understanding most students have regarding capitalism. The simple fact is, despite its importance to our daily lives, relatively few people have a strong grasp of what causes economic growth and why markets are so central to continuously rising standards of living.
In my teaching, I have encountered several myths or misperceptions about capitalism from students as well as individuals outside the classroom. Dispelling these myths has become a focus of much of my teaching.
Myth #1: Capitalism Was "Created"
One of the most pervasive misunderstandings about capitalism is the idea that it was created by someone. Some of this can be attributed to the language used to describe Adam Smith's role in explaining the market process. The common reference to Smith as "the father of modern economics" can lead people to assume that he in some way created the market system. It is also not unreasonable to conclude that, since socialism is generally reliant on planning, many would assume that capitalism is as well.
However, as Friedrich Hayek explained, the market system is not really "created" as much as it is a system that evolves out of human interaction and discovery. Similar to language, the market economy was not created by a single individual or group but evolved over a long period based on the interactions of many people. The rules and institutions which support the market economy arose from these interactions.
This notion of a spontaneous order emerging out of the individual actions of millions of people, and the discovery of rules and institutions that will facilitate the continual progress of this order, may be the most important aspect of capitalism. It succeeds because it arises out of humanity itself.
Unlike socialism, which attempts to impose rules and institutions regardless of their conformity to human nature or desires, markets arise out of our human qualities. And the rules and institutions that facilitate the ability of markets to perform are discovered as we discover ourselves and in the way we interact with one another.
Myth #2: Capitalism Creates Poverty
This may be the most pernicious of all the misunderstandings I encounter regarding markets. The idea that absent market capitalism would create greater shared wealth within society continues to permeate the thinking of a great deal of people. This is despite mounting evidence that, as markets are used by more and more countries, global poverty is steadily decreasing.
Importantly, the evidence is clear that this decline in poverty has happened as countries have come to embrace market capitalism as the way forward – especially China and India. As other countries see the success of these two previously very poor countries and begin following their lead, we can expect to see poverty in the rest of the developing world significantly reduced as well.
In the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith explained how markets, by continuously expanding the range of goods and services to an ever-increasing number of people, would produce what he called "universal opulence." However, since Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels first launched their frontal assault on capitalism, many intellectuals, entertainers, and even politicians have embraced the idea that capitalism causes poverty, or at least prevents people from escaping it, and more disturbingly, that socialism leads to greater prosperity for the masses.
It's not surprising, then, that these ideas filter down to the public-at-large. But this idea that capitalism leads to poverty for the masses while socialism leads to their prosperity is exactly opposite to all the evidence we have.
All developed countries have market-based economies. Those developing countries seeing the greatest growth have adopted market principles. Contrast this with countries that have fully adopted socialism, such as Venezuela or North Korea. It is troubling that incoming students do not understand this.
Myth #3: Capitalism Is about Capital
The term "capitalism" was coined by Marx as a pejorative towards market-based economies. The term stuck and has led to some confusion about why markets actually work. As economic historian Deidre McCloskey has noted, people at all times have attempted to amass capital (land, resources, and money). But those collective attempts didn't lead to the type of society-wide economic growth we have seen since 1800.
The underlying foundation of capitalism is human freedom. As Adam Smith recognized, when individuals are permitted to pursue their self-interest through markets, they are amazingly good at finding ways of bettering not only themselves but society as well.
Equally important, as economist Joseph Schumpeter explained, out of this freedom arises a continuous process of improvement – what he called "creative destruction." It is this constant innovation – discovering and bringing to market new products and services, finding ways of improving existing products and services, and finding more efficient ways to create these products and services – that truly drives economic growth and increases standards of living.
The fact is, while the accumulation of capital is a feature of a market economy, it's certainly not exclusive to it. It is individual freedom and the innovation that arises from it that drives the engine of capitalism.
Myth #4: Capitalism Creates "Winners" and "Losers"
While it is true that some individuals and firms succeed while others do not in capitalism, this also is hardly an exclusive feature of markets. All economic systems have some individuals who succeed and others who fail in one form or another.
However, capitalism is different in this regard in two important ways. First, capitalism increases the number of "winners." Unlike other systems, capitalism reduces the barriers to entry into market activity for larger numbers of individuals. The resulting competition provides greater opportunities for success (both great and small) than in any other system.
Second, over the long run, society in its entirety benefits as a result of markets. This is because markets, as mentioned above, bring more goods and services within reach of more people than any other system.
Markets also produce products and services that improve our lives in ways that our ancestors could never have dreamed. Just consider all the things that exist today, that didn't a mere thirty years ago. The simple fact is that today even the poorest modern Americans have more goods and services at their disposal than kings and queens did just two hundred years ago.
So, although individual firms may fail, and individual people may not gain great wealth, the fact is that, over the long-run, we all win by enjoying better living standards than previous generations.
We Need Better Education
It is important that students are taught the basics of the economic system that has allowed them to experience Adam Smith's "universal opulence." Without this basic knowledge, they're easily led to believe the myths I've mentioned and to vote for politicians and policies that will ultimately undermine the very system that has made their lives significantly better than their ancestors, as well as better than most of their contemporaries across the globe.


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Rappers, Rappers, Rappers 12 for 10 Lyrics
(What I mean is basically there's no one
The hunt for an MC brings investigation)
This goes to all you ugly rappers, pretty rappers
Big city rappers, country rappers, greedy rappers
Itty-bitty rappers, witty rappers, two-for-fiddy rappers
Hello Kitty rappers, Frank Nitti rappers and [edited] rappers
All you dapper rappers, young whippersnapper rappers
Gun clapper rappers, fun rappers, Gamma Kappa rappers
Gum rappers, idiotic rappers, psychotic rappers
Melodic rappers and narcotic rappers
All you phoney rappers, baloney rappers
Me-and-my-homie rappers
Tony Toni rappers and all that, yeah
All you hood rappers, misunderstood rappers
Think-it's-all-good rappers
Let me tell y'all somethin
Look.. I just wanna work it all out
I just want everybody to do they thing and be cool
Be who they are, you know
First thing you should know is I'm not afraid
Every rapper has the potential to be laid
Down on his or her back
When I'm down on my luck I get down on the track
I clown on the rappers sort of like Barnum and Bailey's
My stardust-bust is bigger and brighter than Hailey's
Comet, I vomit up the astronomic on the daily
Peel the steel skin off the mic and do a scaley
The think rapper to shrink-rap that rapper
And sink that boat of his
My rap motor is a million mega-cycles
My rap folder is a megaton and higher than the Eiffel
Tower with sniper rifle power
To blow off your melon and it ain't no tellin
All you heard was rappers yellin
My lyrics start propellin
I get to wellin on em from the dome
After I trail em home
I like to catch em alone and STRANGLE em with the microphone
And drag em back to Project Blowed
Hold as many mics as I can possibly hold
And rip up the session after the last rapper flowed
I never fold, even though my pokerface is old
The world's cold, probably why I stay in battle mode
I would love to touch your ego
European, latin or negro
Rap Evil Knievel, but I ain't evil
It's all nice, especially with the mic device
When it's in my hand it's like throwin the trick dice
It's the worldwide underground heist
And what I'ma give back is more than suffice
Pour me over ice and drink to think
You're only as strong as your weakest -
I dwell amonst the deepest
As long as there's speakers I make songs for the peoples
I push the ink, who gives a f[edited] what they think
It's tight now, wait until I iron out the kinks
It's tied down, wait until I iron out the kinks
..Wait until I iron it all out, it's gon' be cool
But like I said I want everybody to be able to do they thing successfully
This goes out to all you shallow rappers
Bottom-of-the-bottle rappers
Spit-and-swallow rappers, hollow rappers
Love-to-follow rappers, Apollo rappers
And rah-rah rappers, yeah, all that, yeah
To all you Big Willie rappers, silly rappers
'My-mack-milli' rappers, smoke-a-Philly rappers
Illy-illy, killy-killy rappers
Not really rappers
Yeah, all you signed rappers
Blind-to-what's-goin-on-behind rappers
Crime rappers, 'I'm-in-my-prime' rappers
Part-time rappers, one of a kind rappers, too
Yeah, you wanna go around the world, but you got a half tank
You wanna paint a perfect picture but ain't got no paint
But I'm the painter with the brush and the easel
I like to rush em and I hit em with the ??fleezle??
I got a stick of dynamite, you got a stick of gum
He tried to chew it up before I blew it up, it's done
It's done, it's done, it's done...
(What I mean is basically there's no one
The hunt for an MC brings investigation)
Song Info
Submitted by
Submitted on
May 18, 2002


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Oh, Hi there.
It's the weekend, which means we can talk about whatever we like, with no pressure for life-changing articles. Whew.
I thought this would be a nice time to share a few bits of information on the state of this blog and of Mustachianism itself, with some speculation about the future as well.
1: Yay! 10,000 RSS Subscribers
At LAST, the semi-meaningless feedburner count (that orange logo on the right sidebar of the main page) has ticked above 10,000. Although it does not function as a count of how many people are reading the blog, it does at least correlate with the growth in readership. And I've always considered 10,000 to be a blog that had "really made it". So here we are.
Are you wondering what RSS even is? It stands for Really Simple Syndication, and it is a way that frequent website readers keep up with multiple blogs without having to visit the actual websites every day. If you use a personalized portal like iGoogle, you can arrange to have your Mr. Money Mustache articles appear aside your daily weather, news, stock updates, and other blogs feeds. RSS also makes reading on small-screen mobile devices convenient, if you use things like Feeddler for the iPhone or gReader for Android, or any number of thousands of other free options. If you ever need to, you can sign up for the MMM RSS feed at this link.
2: Whoa: 1.2 million Page Views per Month
Things have been getting crazy around here, with the site easily surpassing a million page views per month, and still growing due to crazy forwarding from users and media outlets. With numbers like that, anecdotal evidence suggests that this might soon become the biggest non-corporate-owned personal finance blog in the US. Or maybe not. But either way, it's worth celebrating all of those millions.
3. A plan for the future of Blog Moneymaking
As we've discussed in the past, people can make some real money off of these things. A blog with this traffic, appropriately spammified, could earn over $300,000 per year. Even with the current lower-key setup, I think the income has just hit $2000/month, matching the entirety of the MMM family's spending. So I thought it would be fun for us to make some plans together for this large and probably ever-growing amount of income.
- 3a) Mr. and Mrs. Money Mustache shall get paid for working on the blog, although the amount shall not exceed $2000 per month, no matter how big it gets. I'm not sure why, but we still find it motivating to get paid at least a small salary for our work. Especially since the size of this blog job has displaced much of our other hobby activities, some of which provided (technically unneeded) income. However, the cash will end up being saved and invested anyway, with the scope and creativity of investments increasing over time.
- 3b) The blog shall have a budget for paying for its own expenses (web hosting, science experiments, paying people to help with technical issues, any promotional/conference travel, etc.). Not to exceed $1000 per month except in extremely fun circumstances that you'll get to read about.
- 3c) 100% of all surplus income beyond this level shall go to a new charitable fund called the Money Mustache Foundation, that will try to do good in the world. Articles on the details are coming up this week, but it's based on some reading I've been doing on the Gates foundation, and the book called The Life You Can Save.
- 3d) To start out the Mustache Foundation, I've just transferred $10,000 of the blog's past earnings into a new investment account, where we can use it to generate some exciting returns, then use the proceeds for a series of ongoing donations. So we all get to learn about investing, AND efficient ways to donate surplus income over the coming months. If we're smart enough, we might even be able to figure out how to structure it as a trust or nonprofit in the longer-term.
It's an exciting next leg of this blog-writing journey, and I'm happy to have you along for the ride!