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Originally published on XOJane and cross-posted here with permission.
As a straight white dude living a fairly middle-class existence, who is fortunate to have no firsthand experience with rape, it's been pretty easy for me to live my life without giving it much thought.
I spend almost no energy thinking about the safest route to take when walking home, or what might happen to my drink if I step away from it, or who I should or shouldn't accept a ride home with.
I'm not bragging, though. It turns out that even a guy like me is susceptible to some of the side-effects of living in a culture that treats every reported rape as a cause to throw two trials in the court of public opinion: One in which there's someone who may or may not be guilty of rape, and one in which there's someone who may or may not be guilty of lying.
That's how the story has shaken out in the case of Ryan Romo, an 18-year-old star baseball prospect from the ritzy Dallas neighborhood of Highland Park (where George W. and Laura Bush lived before W. farted into the Texas Governor's Mansion and then the White House).
Here's what we know for sure: After a Ghostland Observatory concert in Dallas a few weeks ago, Romo gave a girl — younger than seventeen — a ride home from the show; two days later, she filed charges for sexual assault.
Here's what else we know for sure: Shortly after those charges were filed, the Dallas edition of a Texas-based media site called CultureMap ran a story with the headline, "Is this Highland Park baseball star a rapist?"
In the story, the author — CultureMap Dallas' managing editor, Claire St. Amant — speculates that perhaps the girl in question is lying about what happened ("Kids are supposed to mess up. They lie. They cheat. They get caught. They grow up. But throw a sex act in the mix, and childish ways are all but left behind," she writes).
The story doesn't cite any details of the case that make questioning this girl's story a logical progression, nor does it explain what motive she might have to lie except that "kids are supposed to." It does end with the sentence, ""If it's a case of impulsive teenage decisions, remorse and guilt, then no one suffers more than 18-year-old Ryan Romo."
If that's not the case, of course — and we have no reason to suspect that this girl is lying — then we know one person who suffers more than Ryan Romo, for sure.
It's the one who was raped in the back of an SUV by an older boy and who subsequently watched as grown-ups with legitimate jobs in the press decided to speculate wildly on whether or not she was a liar.
I paid close attention to the way the case of Ryan Romo and the girl who accused him of raping her was reported by CultureMap because I've been a regular columnist, on a freelance basis, to the outlet's Austin and Houston editions since March 2011. I've worked with good people within the company during that time, and I'd never met or interacted with anyone at the Dallas edition. I was proud of the work I'd done — and until Claire St. Amant's editorial ran, I had been happy to have my name associated with CultureMap.
But the downside of having your name associated with someone else's is that your name is associated with the fucked up things that they do, too.
And speculating about whether a teenager who has filed rape charges is a liar, when you have no facts in the case to report, is a textbook example of a fucked up thing to do.
I don't give a whole lot of thought to whatever my "personal brand" as a writer is, but if I had to pinpoint it, "Guy with enough credibility to call out people who say or do fucked up things" would be a fair approximation of what I'm going for. At the time the post about Ryan Romo went live on CultureMap, my face was on the main page of the site, which meant that it'd be reasonable for people to associate me with that post –- unless I said something.
I keep a personal blog on Tumblr, and I posted a clarification explaining both that I had nothing to do with the post about Ryan Romo, and that I recognized it as a fucked-up thing.
When you're a dude who identifies as a feminist, it's really easy to be harsh when you're picking on an easy target –- to really lay into, like, Ben Roethlisberger or Chris Brown –- and to quietly fall back on your privilege when things are a little closer to home.
I didn't want to be that sort of guy, so it was important to me to make my post very clear, and use the same language I'd have used if we were talking about Todd Akin.
"I'm really disappointed in CultureMap's choice to publish such offensive — and stupid! — bullshit," I wrote.
That way, people who knew me from my work with CultureMap would not have to wonder if I was secretly cool with treating people who say they've been raped as probable liars, as long as the person saying it also wrote me checks.
After about a week, though, I got an email from my editors at the Austin edition of CultureMap. The Dallas higher-ups had found the post on Tumblr. They asked me to meet them for coffee, at which point they explained to me that the company wanted me to take the post down.
Like most writers, being told that I'm not allowed to say something is the quickest way to make me defend having said it, and I told them that I couldn't take it down. They told me that the company was upset, and they wouldn't be able to work with me if I didn't. I reached out to Claire St. Amant directly to discuss what both of us had written, didn't hear anything back, and wrote off my relationship with CultureMap.
Obviously, I'm not a victim here ("No one suffers more than freelance writer Dan Solomon!"), but this whole experience was eye opening for me. CultureMap is a not-insignificant player in Texas media, and the idea that a company would let go of someone they've worked with for a long time for saying, "Speculating about whether a girl who files rape charges is a liar without reporting any information that leads to that conclusion is irresponsible!" while so steadfastly defending the article that does the speculating was a surprise.
All I'm losing is a little bit of work, but that's mostly a function of the privileges that I enjoy as a dude who is rather unlikely to be raped.
No one accuses me of being too emotionally invested in this case to see it properly; no one suspects that I identify too strongly with the girl who filed the charges against Romo; no one can call me anything over this that can ruin my life or make me hate myself.
The girl in Highland Park who accepted the ride home from Ryan Romo, though? She doesn't have those privileges. I don't have any idea what happened in the back of Romo's SUV, but I also know that there are 96 comments on the CultureMap post, and a bunch of those people are pretty sure that they know: "The girl's a complete liar," one reads. "Her mother was probably livid at her for coming in so late at night and she claimed rape to get out of trouble."
I don't know if the person who posted that comment lives in Highland Park, but I do know that plenty of people who do live in the same community as Romo and the girl in question will have read that story on CultureMap.
And when they do –- when Romo's friends, or people invested in defending him and his family (his father is the CEO of the Dallas-based restaurant chain Eatzi's), or classmates of the girl who are inclined to treat her like a slut and a liar for whatever reason, read the unfounded, unsourced speculation on a seemingly-legitimate media outlet –- they'll feel completely validated in hurling accusations toward the girl every day.
I honestly can't imagine how unpleasant it's been for her in the hallways the past few weeks.
Given that CultureMap and Claire St. Amant never had any reason to speculate that this was "a case of impulsive teenage decisions, remorse, and guilt" except that it was theoretically possible to do so, it's pretty obvious that, of all the people who "no one suffers more than" as a result of her column, Ryan Romo isn't even on the list.
And making the point that people with jobs like mine and St. Amant's have no business speculating like that is well worth losing some steady work over.
Dan Solomon is but a simple boy from Texas. He writes pretty much all the time and his work has appeared in the Austin Chronicle, the Texas Observer, MTV Hive, Adult Swim, Spin, Parade, the A.V. Club, and more. He lives in Austin with his wife, Kat, and his dog, Dio. He keeps a blog at www.dansolomon.com.
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The people who run the province's town and cites are looking to get a new financial arrangement from the provincial government.
Last week, the municipalities federation held an emergency meeting to discuss recent developments:
"What we're asking government for today is very clear," said Rogers. "Short-term help in this 2012 budget and a commitment to participation in the development of a long-term, strategic plan for the municipal sector."
Sounds reasonable enough.
Odds are they won't get anything in the near term. Give a listen to what municipal affairs minister Kevin "Fairity" O'Brien said at the outset of an interview with On Point with David Cochrane this past weekend. O'Brien quickly started into a recitation of how much money the provincial government has spent since 2008 on municipal infrastructure and things like fire trucks. he finishes off with the warning that any new financial arrangement has to be sustainable for taxpayers.
Coming from a guy who has helped boost provincial government spending to irresponsible, unsustainable heights without a toss about such ideas, those words sound a bit like a lead bell.
O'Brien is using coded language.
What he really was telling municipalities president Churence Rogers is a simple "f*ck off". No one should be surprised if Rogers has heard something along those lines over the past few weeks, perhaps even from O'Brien himself. Maybe no one used the "f" word exactly, but language likely would have had the finger buried in it.
You see it all comes down to money, power and control.
Right now the provincial government has all of it.
And they will not give up any of it.
The provincial government isn't interested in changing municipal funding at all. Any change to funding would have to transfer some of the provincial cash or the ability to raise cash over to the towns and cities.
If the province doesn't have that cash, then it no longer has the power to control what goes on in the province. Fairity O'Brien may not have deliberately mentioned infrastructure and fire trucks, but there's no coincidence that he did. That money and those items are part of the old pattern of politics in this province: patronage.
And that's the money, power and control we are talking about.
None of that has anything to do with the very serious problem in many towns and cities in the province but frankly provincial politicians like O'Brien don't give a rat's backside about that.
Many parts of the province aren't really doing all that well, despite the reports you may have heard. They don't have the municipal tax base to come up with the sort of cash of their own they need to put into road work, water and sewer projects and other infrastructure.
Problems in the fishery, the loss of paper mills have all taken their toll. People may be working in Alberta and still living in Stephenville and Grand Falls-Windsor but it's local companies that pay the taxes that help to keep the street lights on, quite literally.
What's more, way too many of the towns on the island are full of retirees and not much else. People on fixed incomes don't have the ability to tax up the tax slack. Those towns also have problems finding people to volunteer for municipal services like firefighting.
There's a bit of a false impression of a boom in some places. People in Grand Falls-Windsor thinks everything is smurfy. Ditto Gander. But in both these towns the major economic engine is the provincial government and a level of spending that we know is unsustainable.
What's more, the provincial government doesn't pay taxes to municipalities. They do – however – collect taxes on every municipal purchase through the harmonised sales tax (HST). The effect is to claw back a portion of the money the province grants in the first place. Until the fictitious oil royalty claw back, though, this one actually reduces the amount of money the towns and cities in the province have available to actually spend on services to residents.
And then when towns and cities go looking for cash, politicians like Kevin O'Brien start coming up with all sorts of excuses for why things must remain as they are. The miserable, dark joke in all that shouldn't be lost. Towns and cities in the province are looking for a fair shake on provincial funding. Kevin O'Brien is the guy who told us all that the province just wanted "fairity in the nation."
David Cochrane exposed the fundamental bullshit of government's position. Cochrane asked why it was that O'Brien was talking about the impossibility of making commitments of funds for a few millions in the short term to towns and cities while government was prepared to forecast the price of oil for 55 years in order to justify Muskrat Falls. All O'Brien had was talking points.
O'Brien also couldn't explain or justify the four years that it has taken for O'Brien to start getting around to talking about a new financial arrangement for towns and cities. Municipal leaders have asked for predictable funding. All O'Brien has said is that he and his colleagues in government are willing to talk.
The real bottom line is that people like O'Brien who have politicized the purchase of bed pans and fire trucks simply want complete control over spending in the province for their own, pork-barrel, patronage reasons.
All municipal leaders want is fairity.
They aren't going to get it from Kevin O'Brien.
- srbp -

subset: commoncrawl


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Privacy Policy
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Politics created the biggest market headlines last week. Investors wrestled with the tone of the presidential debate and how it contributes to political uncertainty. Stimulus negotiations between the House and the Trump administration narrowed the gap between the two parties, but they were unable to produce a deal. The president contracting COVID-19 contributed to the sense of uncertainty.
Key Points for the Week
- Political uncertainty increased last week, fueled by an antagonistic presidential debate, stimulus negotiations, and the president contracting COVID-19.
- The U.S. economy created 661,000 jobs in September, indicating the economic recovery lost momentum.
- The slow recovery in many industries contributed to 345,000 unemployed workers reclassifying their unemployment as permanent.
In contrast to the political landscape, last week's economic data behaved about as expected. The U.S. economy created, or in many cases regained, 661,000 jobs. (See Figure 1.) While missing expectations of 858,000, it matched our core expectation the economic recovery will continue at a slowing pace. The job gains pushed unemployment down to 7.9%.
The job gains have reduced the number of temporarily unemployed from a peak of 18 million to just more than 4 million. Most of the reduction came from workers being rehired. But more than 2 million have reclassified their unemployment from temporary to permanent, meaning their former positions are lost and they face the more difficult task of finding new employment in a slowing recovery.
So, naturally, the S&P 500 gained 1.5% last week and evidenced the tenuous link between political and market performance. The MSCI ACWI index increased 1.7% as global stocks swung back to positive performance after a brief dip. The Bloomberg BarCap U.S. Aggregate Bond Index dropped 0.1%. For the month, the S&P 500 dropped 3.8% while soaring 8.9% in the third quarter.
Figure 1
Closing out the Year
The last six months have seen an incredible set of returns for the stock market. The S&P 500 is up 31.3% for the last two quarters. After the sharp downturn in the first quarter, such a sharp bounce back in the market was unexpected. At the time, investors were spending more time talking about a retest of the previous lows than a sharp run to all-time highs. This rally occurred despite coronavirus cases being more numerous and more damaging than most expected.
As we move into the fourth quarter, many people are turning their attention to presidential politics as the most important factor to watch. Last week provided plenty of political movement. The presidential debate was followed swiftly by the president announcing he was infected by COVID-19 and going to Walter Reed for treatment.
Given the surprising turn of events, we would expect to see several strong moves in the market. Instead, the S&P 500 only moved by 1% or more one day last week. That was Monday, prior to the debate and the president's diagnosis. The muted reaction suggests politics is not the most important factor moving markets.
These are the three factors we believe have the potential to move markets more than political issues.
- Progress on a vaccine: The most important results being shared in October and November are the effectiveness and side effects of the numerous vaccines being evaluated to prevent COVID-19 from continuing to spread. The recent surge of cases in the Midwest and Europe show how difficult COVID-19 will be to contain without additional medical advances. The ability to return to large gatherings and greater mobility is crucial to many businesses, and vaccines represent the best path toward a recovery.
- Avoiding monetary and fiscal policy mistakes will be crucial in the intervening months. The current stalemate over an additional stimulus bill worries markets because economic momentum is being lost. Policy mistakes can come from many parts of the world. China can continue to focus on its own growth and seek its own advantage rather than create policies designed to benefit the rest of the world. Great Britain and the European Union can fail to appreciate how a challenging Brexit can sap the minimal economic momentum in Western Europe.
- The economy can lose the contest to the virus. As we covered in previous months, one of the contests affecting markets is whether the economy can be safely reopened to allow economic activity to occur without spreading the virus too quickly. The recent upswing in cases shows those objectives are difficult to balance. Last month the economy produced 661,000 new jobs. Yet, as many celebrated returning to work, 345,000 more people classified their unemployment as permanent, rather than temporary. The slow job growth shown in Figure 1 points to an economy unable to expand in the face of a pandemic and declining government support.
So, enjoy the vice-presidential debate this week and stay glued to social media and cable news for updates on the campaign and the president's condition. Keep in mind, while these events may be very important to the long-term direction of many key issues, they may not affect your portfolio that much. Our focus will be on the issues above as the most important drivers to watch.
This newsletter was written and produced by CWM, LLC. Content in this material is for general information only and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. The views stated in this letter are not necessarily the opinion of any other named entity and should not be construed directly or indirectly as an offer to buy or sell any securities mentioned herein. Due to volatility within the markets mentioned, opinions are subject to change without notice. Information is based on sources believed to be reliable; however, their accuracy or completeness cannot be guaranteed. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index is a capitalization-weighted index of 500 stocks designed to measure performance of the broad domestic economy through changes in the aggregate market value of 500 stocks representing all major industries.
The MSCI ACWI captures large- and mid-cap representation across 23 developed markets (DM) and 23 emerging markets (EM) countries*. With 2,480 constituents, the index covers approximately 85% of the global investable equity opportunity set.
Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index
The Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index is an index of the U.S. investment-grade fixed-rate bond market, including both government and corporate bonds
Compliance Case: 00860690


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Dolphin E10 Robot Review
Here at Pool Partz, after selling thousands of Dolphin robotic pool cleaners by Maytronics over the past decade and assisting our customers with their pool cleaner selection, we understand their thoughts as they go through their Dolphin pool cleaner selection. Our review of the Dolphin Nautilus CC Plus pool robot provides all the information that you need to determine if this pool cleaner fits your needs. Due to the myriad of Dolphin pool cleaners that are available, there is a model for everyone that meets their swimming pool needs and budget.
For almost 40 years, Maytronics has been a global leader in the swimming pool industry by developing technologies and solutions for swimming pool maintenance. The Dolphin robotic pool cleaner line is one of those solutions, providing efficient and easy pool maintenance. One of the primary benefits of the Dolphin pool cleaners is that the units are not tied to the swimming pool filtering system but rather have their own filters along with efficient motor technology which provides for low cost maintenanace of your swimming pool from debris.
When reviewing the Dolphin E10 robotic pool cleaner, or any Dolphin pool robot, we have found the best way to educate our customers is by looking at the pool cleaner using the following sections:
- Dolphin standard features
- Dolphin E10 product description
- Dolphin E10 general features
- Dolphin E10 cleaning features
- Dolphin E10 other features
- Dolphin E10 optional accessories
Dolphin standard features
There are some standard capabilities that come with all Dolphin robotic pool cleaners regardless of the size of the pool that you have. For instance, all Dolphin pool cleaners come with a power supply, a cable that connects to the robot, and the robot itself. Because the robot has its own filtering system and uses efficient motors, the cost to run these units is minimal.
Plug and Play
Dolphin pool cleaners are extremely easy to use – simply drop the pool cleaner into the pool, plug the power supply into an electrical outlet, press the power button and the unit will begin the cleaning cycle.
Pool Mapping
Every Dolphin pool cleaner has electronics in it that provides sophisticated algorithms for mapping and cleaning the swimming pool. It is recommended that you drop the pool cleaner close to the center of the pool as it begins the cleaning process for optimal cleaning coverage.
Debris Filtering
Since every Dolphin pool cleaner has its own filtering capabilities, it is independent of any of the swimming pool equipment. The Dolphin collects the debris, you hose off the debris from the filters, and you are ready for the next cleaning!
Energy Saving
Dolphin robotic pool cleaners require very little power to clean your pool spotless every time it is used.
Customer Service
Whether dealing with Maytronics or Pool Partz customer service, both have a great reputation in the industry in providing exceptional customer service both pre-sales and post-sales. For over a decade, Pool Partz has been the exclusive resellers of Dolphin pool robots and have great knowledge of every Dolphin pool cleaner.
Product Description
Whenever we conduct a product review for a Dolphin pool cleaner, we always like referring to the manufacturer's product description which provides some insight to the capabilities that the product provides:
The Dolphin E10 is a performance above ground level model that cleans the floor for pools up to 30 feet in length.
- The easy way to a clean pool. The Dolphin E10 robotic pool vacuum cleaner was designed specifically for above-ground swimming pools, making it the perfect solution for pools up to 30 feet.
- Take back your free time. The Dolphin E10 will have your pool cleaned in a quick 1.5 hours. Just imagine how much you can get done with one less chore on your to-do list.
- Dolphin does all the hard work for you. The E10 was designed to clean your pool, effortlessly. With superior filtering and floor scrubbing capabilities, you can relax knowing your pool will be sparkling clean and free of debris.
- Save energy with every pool cleaning. The E10 does not require any additional pumps or hoses to get the job done. Dolphins are super energy efficient with an average operating cost of 5 cents per hour.
- With more than 35 years of cleaning the world's residential swimming pools, Dolphins provide pool owners with a hassle-free cleaning solution of unmatched performance and longevity. Get back to what really matters; spending time with family and friends.
Shipped product has everything you need to clean your pool spotless:
- Dolphin robot
- Power supply
- Brand new filters
General Features
When selecting a Dolphin robotic pool cleaner, there are two primary things that will narrow down the Dolphin model that will meet your needs. The first is the size of your pool and the second is you need to decide what areas of the pool you want the robot to clean. There are 3 areas in a swimming pool: the floor, the walls, and the waterline. When we refer to the "waterline", we are referring to the area around the pool where the tile meets the coping and it is synonymous with "waterline scrubbing". If a unit cleans the walls but does not scrub the waterline, the unit will move up to the waterline and then move down the walls.
When measuring the size of your swimming pool, simply use the longest dimension of the pool. For the majority of residential swimming pools, whether above-ground or in-ground, the size of the swimming pool is less than 50 feet which is why many of the Dolphin robotic pool cleaners are designed for pools up to 50 feet.
What pool area would you like the unit to clean? All Dolphin pool robots clean the floor and cove (the area between the floor and walls if that area is sloped) but the higher-end models can also clean the walls and waterline.
The Dolphin E10 pool robot is designed for pools up to 30 feet. The areas of the pool that the unit will clean are floor only.
Cleaning Features
When reviewing the various Dolphin pool cleaners that fit the size of your swimming pool, the unique cleaning features are the key differentiators between the various models.
Cleaning/cycle time – the amount of time that it takes a Dolphin pool cleaner to perform a regular cleaning cycle is referred to as the cycle time. Depending on the Dolphin model, some models have different cycle times that provide for a quick cleaning of the floor or a more lengthy cycle known as a deep scrub. Each model has an optimized cleaning cycle.
Depending on the Dolphin robotic pool cleaner model, they are capable of cleaning the floor (including the cove), the walls, and scrubbing the waterline. The Dolphin E10 pool cleaner will clean the floor only.
The Dolphin E10 comes with a set of fine filters.
Cycle time
Cycle time is the amount of time that the Dolphin pool robot will take to complete a cleaning cycle. The cycle time for the standard cleaning cycle is 1.5 hours. Since this model has different cycle times that you can select from, you can determine which one to use by which areas you would you like to clean and for how long. During the spring startup of the swimming pool or after periods of having larger amounts of debris in the pool, it may be necessary to run multiple cycles with the Dolphin robot.
The Dolphin E10 comes with a single brush for scrubbing and collecting debris.
Operational Features
Other Features
Cable length
The Dolphin E10 pool cleaner comes with a cable that has a length of 40 feet.
Unit weight
The weight of the Dolphin E10 pool robot unit is 14 pounds.
Optional Accessories
The purpose of the caddy is to hold the Dolphin pool cleaner and power supply in place while the unit is not in the swimming pool during its cleaning cycle.
Caddy cover
The caddy cover is used to protect the robot and power supply from the elements. If a caddy is purchased, the cover is highly recommended since it will protect the power supply when it rains. As a reminder, the power supply is splash-proof but not water-proof so it should not be exposed to rain.
Ultra fine filters
The Dolphin E10 pool cleaner comes with fine filters which is perfect during startup of the swimming pool and normal use. Additionally, the manufacturer sells ultra fine filters which are highly recommended during the peak times where the swimming pool is being used, allowing even the smallest amounts of debris to be captured in the filters.
Product Video
Product Recommendations
The Dolphin E10 continues to be a top-selling Dolphin year after year and Pool Partz highly recommends this model.
Interested in purchasing this Dolphin? For over a decade, Pool Partz has been the exclusive reseller of Maytronics certified refurbished Dolphin pool robots that come directly from the manufacturer in Georgia. These units sell out quickly because of their popularity in the cost savings that they provide and have the same quality standards as a new Dolphin pool robot.
To summarize, here is a list of features of the Dolphin E10 robotic pool cleaner by Maytronics.
Model | E10 | |
Price | $449.00 | |
Availability | IN STOCK | |
Buy Now | ||
Pool type | Above ground | |
Pool size | Up to 30 feet | |
Surfaces | Floor only | |
Filter access | Top loaded | |
Filtration | Fine | |
Cycle time(s) | 1.5 hours | |
Quick water release | Yes | |
Cable length | 40 feet | |
Unit weight | 14 pounds |
2024 Top Selling Dolphin Pool Robots
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Certified RefurbishedDolphin Above Ground Pool Robots, Dolphin In Ground Pool Robots
$499.00 View productAdd to cart - SAVE $150


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Tourists visit the statue of Mao Zedong ahead of his 120th birthday.The mood at the 120th anniversary of Chairman Mao Zedong's birthday is relatively muted, by Chinese standards, cnn reports.
No spectacular fireworks, no big parades, as would have been expected during Mao's three-decade rule. But the Chinese remembered Mao properly.
In Beijing, a big crowd solemnly gathered in the marble and granite mausoleum containing Mao's embalmed body.
Chinese president and Communist party chief Xi Jinping attended the 9 a.m. ceremony along with China's top leaders.
More elaborate rituals were conducted in Mao's hometown of Hunan province.
"There have been big meetings and academic symposiums discussing Chairman Mao's life and achievements," said a retired cadre in Hunan, who declined to be identified because he is not authorized to talk to the media. "In (Mao's birthplace) Shaoshan, they reopened the just refurbished Chairman Mao museum. Tourists from all over China are also flocking in to visit his birthplace. Chairman Mao's relatives are also in Shaoshan to take part."
Many Chinese still admire Mao and most of his policies. They are considered "leftists" or conservatives because they oppose liberal-thinkers and reformists who in China are deemed rightists.
Xiong Bao, 25, believes the celebration is necessary. "As the founding father, I think he deserves this, but I don't think it's necessary to make it too big," he said. "Nowadays, the whole nation is calling for thrift, so it's fine as long as it's low key."
Even though he was born after Mao's death, Xiong says he has read Mao's writings extensively. "I respect his thought. It was his advanced thoughts that enabled the Chinese to win the revolution," he said.
For decades, Mao had been revered as the infallible "Great Helmsman" and "Great Leader." But Mao's mystique had been fading since his death in September 1976 at the age of 82.
Over the years, through official pronouncements, books, and media accounts, Mao's human frailties and mistakes have been pointed out, casting aside the nurtured belief of his infallibility.
Many books have been published, in and out of China, criticizing Mao and his policies.
Officially, Mao is considered 70% correct and 30% wrong.
"He is credited for the Liberation (in 1949) and is blamed for the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution," said the retired cadre.
Yi Shunhan, 38, is not impressed with the Mao anniversary.
"I don't really care about it. It doesn't have much impact in my life. I personally think his faults outweigh his achievements," he said, citing the Cultural Revolution, famine, and lag in technology development as Mao's personal failures.
"The Great Leap Forward was one of his biggest failures," he added. "How many people died of that?"
The Great Leap Forward, launched by Mao in 1958, was intended to skip several stages in building a new communist China and catch up with Britain's economy in 15 years. But it led to economic recession, poor harvests and widespread famine in which tens of millions of people died.
The Mao-initiated Cultural Revolution swept China from 1966-76, pushing "class struggle" to get rid of old institutions and Mao's political enemies. The political movement careened out of control, led to massive political purges, deaths and destruction.
Chinese leaders who took power after Mao have reversed many of his policies. Instead of pursuing "class struggle," they are now pushing for modernization, reform and opening up.
Mao's pedestal may have been lowered. His once ubiquitous visage is now relegated as just one of the iconic images on T-shirts and posters, along with those of Che Guevarra, Hello Kitty and the Giant Panda.
Still, The Global Times, an official state newspaper, called attempts to negate Mao as "childish wishful thinking," citing that Chinese people today still live under the great impact of Mao.
Mao's fading image endures, because it remains a part of the glue that holds the Communist nation together.
"Hunan people still admire and respect Chairman Mao," said the retired cadre from Mao's birthplace.
Bai Yan, 28, sees a need to remember Mao. "It's an opportunity to learn about him and Chinese history. It's an opportunity for young people to learn about what took place in China in the past."


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Ingredients :
400 grm of grated Tapioca/cassava
100g Sugar
2 tbsp of corn starch
120 ml coconut milk
2 pandan leaves
Pinch Of Salt
1 cup fresh grated white Coconut + 1/4 tsp of salt
1. Steam grated white coconut with salt for about 5 minutes, then set aside to cool.
2. Squeeze any access liquid from the tapioca then mix the sugar, corn starch, coconut milk and a pinch of salt together. Mix well.
3. Grease a pan with some cooking oil, pour mixture in, lay the pandan leave on top and steam over medium heat for about 25 minutes or until its done.
4. Remove from heat, cool completely and remove the pandan leaves.
5. Cut to desire shape, coat with grated coconut and serve.


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March is Pet Poison Prevention Awareness Month.
Familiarize yourself with these signs of poisoning in dogs and cats so you know when to seek help.
Signs of poisoning in dogs and cats can range tremendously based on the underlying poison. If you think your dog or cat has been poisoned, call your veterinarian or Pet Poison Helpline at 855-764-7661 immediately for assistance! When it comes to poisoning, the sooner you treat your dog or cat, the better the outcome.
While this list is not exhaustive or complete, some common signs of poisoning generally include:
Gastrointestinal signs
- Vomiting
- Diarrhea
- Drooling/hypersalivating
- Inappetance
- Nausea
Internal bleeding
- Coughing of blood
- Vomiting blood
- Pale gums
- A racing heart rate
- Weakness or lethargy
- Collapse
Kidney failure
- Halitosis ("uremic" breath)
- Inappetance
- Vomiting
- Diarrhea
- Excessive thirst or urination
- Absence or decreased urination
Liver failure
- Jaundice/icterus/yellow discoloration to the gums
- Weakness or collapse secondary to a low blood sugar
- Dull mentation, acting abnormally
- Vomiting
- Diarrhea
- Black-tarry stool (melena)


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"Doorbell" has to be considered the favorite for the People's Choice Award. For those who may have missed it, we decided to add a final award to the Power Line Prize contest: $2,000 to our readers' favorite non-prize winner, based on a reader poll. There are eight nominees for the People's Choice Award, six of which have been posted over the last few days. Nominee number seven is "Doorbell."
"Doorbell" was the first PL Prize entry to go viral. Created by Don Brookins, an amateur filmmaker in Colorado, it stars Don's daughter and the granddaughter of a friend. The voice of the government man is Brookins himself. Something about "Doorbell" immediately struck a chord with those who saw it, and immediately it was bouncing around the country via email, as well as being posted on message boards and other web sites. So far, between Power Line and YouTube, "Doorbell" has been viewed more than 750,000 times. It will easily surpass 1,000,000 views and may make it to 2,000,000 or 3,000,000. If you haven't already done so, it wouldn't hurt to email it to your friends. Here it is, "Doorbell:"


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Original watercolor painting by Ellectra.
Size 14'' X 10'' INCHES / 35 X 25CM
Medium watercolor on fine art paper
Comes with certificate of authenticity.
Packed carefully in a postal tube.
14''x 10'' ORIGINAL WATERCOLOR ARTWORK BY ELLECTRA -159
£499,00 Vanlig pris
Refer to T&C
Dispatch time : 1-3 working days once the payment is cleared.
Delivery : UK Special Delivery (up to two working days)
USA Royal Mail International Tracked (USPS) 7-14 working days
Europe Royal Mail International Tracked 7-14 working days
Delivery time delay may occur around holidays or customs holding an item for longer period of time. In case of unusual delay, please don't hesitate to contact me using the contact form on the website and we will investigate right away.


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World No. 1 Lee Chong Wei has been grouped with Hu Yun (Hong Kong), Boonsak Ponsana (Thailand) and Du Pengyu (China) for the CR Land BWF World Superseries Finals.
The groups were announced after today's draw at the Shenzhen Bay Sports Centre where the tournament will take place, starting tomorrow at noon. In the Finals – part of the OSIM BWF World Superseries Premier tour – Malaysian Lee will be gunning for his fourth World Superseries Finals title after winning in 2008, 2009 and 2010. His principal rival, China's Chen Long, is in Group B with Kenichi Tago (Japan), Daren Liew (Malaysia) and Hans-Kristian Vittinghus (Denmark).
In Women's Singles, world No. 2 Li Xuerui of China finds herself alongside compatriot Wang Shixian, Sung Ji Hyun (Korea) and Eriko Hirose (Japan) in Group A. The other group has all the top non-Chinese contenders: Juliane Schenk (Germany), Saina Nehwal (India), Tine Baun (Denmark) and Ratchanok Intanon (Thailand).
Asked if the absence of Chinese opponents in her group will make it easier to qualify for the semi-finals, world No. 4 Schenk (featured image) smiled and joked that she was "a little unhappy (there are no Chinese in the group)…I don't know what went wrong".
Olympic champion Li Xuerui was modest about her superlative successes this year. "I think my progress this year is the result of all the preparation and hard work I've done in previous years," Li told the media.
"This is the first time I've qualified for the Finals and I will compete to the best of my ability."
The 'group of death' among all the categories is Group A of the Men's Doubles. The group has Olympic finalists Cai Yun/Fu Haifeng (China) and Mathias Boe/Carsten Mogensen (Denmark), Olympic semi-finalists Koo Kien Keat/Tan Boon Heong (Malaysia), and Asian champions Kim Ki Jung/Kim Sa Rang (Korea). Consequently, the teams of Group B can breathe a little easier.
Olympic gold medallists Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng were lucky to qualify after Japan's fourth-ranked pair Hirokatsu Hashimoto/Noriyasu Hirata withdrew from the event.
"I don't know why the Japanese are not playing, but we will try to do our best," said Fu Haifeng, while his partner Cai Yun stated that he was not worried about the draw. "I'm pretty satisfied with the draw. All draws are a bit of luck and we'll do our best," he said.
The four players at the press conference – Cai Yun, Fu Haifeng, Juliane Schenk and Li Xuerui – spoke glowingly of the venue and facilities. All said they expect a tough and intense competition to end the 2012 season.
Men's Singles:
Group A: Lee Chong Wei, Hu Yun, Boonsak Ponsana, Du Pengyu
Group B: Chen Long, Kenichi Tago, Daren Liew, Hans-Kristian Vittinghus
Women's Singles:
Group A: Li Xuerui, Wang Shixian, Sung Ji Hyun, Eriko Hirose
Group B: Juliane Schenk, Saina Nehwal, Tine Baun, Ratchanok Intanon
Men's Doubles:
Group A: Koo Kien Keat/Tan Boon Heong; Kim Ki Jung/Kim Sa Rang; Cai Yun/Fu Haifeng; Mathias Boe/Carsten Mogensen
Group B: Hiroyuki Endo/Kenichi Hayakawa; Hong Wei/Shen Ye; Bodin Issara/Maneepong Jongjit; Hoon Thien How/Tan Wee Kiong
Women's Doubles:
Group A: Shizuka Matsuo/Mami Naito; Tian Qing/Zhao Yunlei; Duanganong Aroonkesorn/Kunchala Voravichitchaikul; Poon Lok Yan/Tse Ying Suet
Group B: Eom Hye Won/Jang Ye Na; Wang Xiaoli/Yu Yang; Christinna Pedersen/Kamilla Rytter-Juhl; Misaki Matsutomo/Ayaka Takahashi
Mixed Doubles:
Group A: Xu Chen/Ma Jin; Tontowi Ahmad/Lilyana Natsir; Sudket Prapakamol/Saralee Thoungthongkam; Yoo Yeon Seong/Jang Ye Na
Group B: Chan Peng Soon/Goh Liu Ying; Zhang Nan/Zhao Yunlei; Joachim Fischer Nielsen/Christinna Pedersen; Muhammad Rijal/Debby Susanto
N.B. In each category, the winner of Group A will play the runner-up in Group B and vice versa in the semi-finals. The Finals start tomorrow at 12 noon.


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Why Did We Invent Pants?
These days, pants are our garment of choice. But for years, our ancestors draped themselves in tunics, robes, and gowns, until someone decided they were tired of having the wind up their skirt. So, what prompted the change? When, exactly, did two-legged trousers become a thing?
A recent archaeological discovery gives us a clue. Archaeologists Ulrike Beck and Mayke Wagner of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin excavated two ancient graves in a cemetery in Xinjiang, China and, among the remains, discovered two pairs of well-preserved woolen pants. Radiocarbon dating puts them at between 3000 and 3300 years old, making them the oldest-known pair of trousers ever discovered. This historical time period corresponds with the rise of "mobile pastoralism" in Central Asia—nomads began moving their herds across the land, and they did so on horseback. Tunics and robes weren't comfortable or conducive to long, bumpy rides—and battles—so these ancient people innovated. They created pants.
"The invention of bifurcated lower body garments is related to the new epoch of horseback riding, mounted warfare and greater mobility," Beck and Wagner write in a recent paper outlining their findings. They believe the pants, which are straight-fitting and have a wide crotch suitable for straddling, are predecessors to the riding trousers worn today. Along with the pants, the graves also contained horse-riding gear like bridles, whips, and horse tail.
Victor Mair, a professor of Chinese language and literature at the Center for East Asian Studies, believes the nomads of the Tarim Basin, located in the Xinjiang region where the pants were found, started riding horses about 3400 years ago. Mair himself helped identify what were previously thought to be the oldest pair of trousers, found on a 2600-year-old mummy in the same area.


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This article is more than 1 year old
Liberator: the untold story of the first British laptop part 1
Taking over the typing pool
Archaeologic In 1985, the UK home computer boom was over. Those computer manufacturers who had survived the sales wasteland that was Christmas 1984 quickly began to turn their attention away from the home users they had courted through the first half of the 1980s to the growing and potentially much more lucrative business market.
The IBM PC had been launched four years earlier, in 1981. The 5150 and the clones it had inspired at Compaq and other computing firms new and established were winning an increasing share of the market. Some British manufacturers were content to follow the American lead and offer clones of their own. Others, however, believed they could win with systems of their own design.
The Thorn EMI Liberator: the first British laptop
Time would show they were wrong, that what business wanted more than anything was standardisation and, more importantly, the cost savings that came with it. Other buyers wanted ultra-low cost computing. But in the mid-1980s many of Britain's computer companies had established themselves in a market where numerous, often incompatible home micros successfully co-existed, each with its own ecosystem of software and add-ons. They believed business buyers would be happy with this world too.
Perhaps the most famous example, Sinclair's Quantum Leap, or QL, flopped, and so did many, many others. Few are remembered today. Among the forgotten is the Thorn EMI Liberator, named not for the starship featured in the first three seasons of the then-popular BBC TV sci-fi show Blake's 7 but for its ability to free workers from their desks and allow them to work on the move.
Little known now - it doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry - the Liberator was the UK's first home-grown laptop computer.
Designed for civil servants
It wasn't the first portable computer, or even the first British mobile machine - Epson's HX-20 and the Grundy NewBrain claim those honours. It wasn't the first laptop: for that look to the US-made GRiD Compass. But the Liberator was the first notebook computer created in Britain that would be recognisable as such to users of today's portable PCs. It sported the now familiar clamshell design. Closing the lid put it to sleep; opening it not only brought back the power, but put the user back exactly where they had previously left off working.
And this major innovation in mobile computing was created for that most conservative of worker, the British civil servant.
The machine that was to become the Liberator was devised by a civil servant too. It was designed to solve a very particular problem: the delay imposed upon civil servants by the established workflow for written communications. In an era before email when all formal correspondence had to be in writing, civil servants who might, say, reach an agreement on a course of action during a phone call would nevertheless have to confirm the plan in a formal letter. They would jot down or dictate the gist of the message, which would then be sent off to the typing pool to be written up neatly. This took time, doubly so if a latter needed to go back to the typists for corrections or amendments. In the meantime, no one could proceed until they had all the right paperwork.
As a Principal Systems Analyst and Designer, Bernard Terry - called by some "Britain's father of the laptop" - realised that putting text editing tools into the hands of his colleagues could eliminate the delay. He also knew that many civil servants, especially the more senior ones, were highly resistant to new ways of working. These were men who relied upon secretaries to do the typing and filing for them. These knowledge workers didn't need a fancy new typewriter, something that they would perceive as a way to get them to do the work lower grades were employed for, but a device which would allow them to take charge of the creative process.
This device, then, would not be pitched as a 'word processor', at that time a term for an electronic typewriter with its own memory and storage, and a machine for secretaries and the typing pool. Nor would it be promoted as a 'computer', a device viewed as a tool for the mechanics in the IT department not civil service decision makers. Instead, it would be a 'portable text processor', a gadget on which the enterprising civil servant could create the drafts he or she would then pass on to others for printing and posting.
At the time, Terry was working for the CCTA, the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency, a body established to provide government departments with guidance on the use of information technology equipment.
The CCTA was formed in March 1972 by the then Conservative government as the Central Computer Agency. The Heath administration had accepted the findings of the Select Committee on Science and Technology, published in October 1971, that government needed a more joined-up approach to IT implementation. The CCA combined a number of government departments' IT operations: the Computer Procurement Division and the Central Computer Bureau of Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO), the government's office equipment supplier; the Technical Support Unit of the Department of Trade and Industry; and the Civil Service's own Management Services (Computers) Division, which was already managing a number of large IT projects on behalf of the Treasury.
The CCA became the CCTA in 1979. Two years later, the Treasury would take control of the CCTA, and it was here that Bernard Terry was given the go-ahead by the CCTA's Director, Reay Atkinson, to find just such a text processor as he had envisaged.


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Artwork Description
Hunt Slonem – Untitled, White Rabbits
Dimensions: 32 x 34″ framed / 27 x 29″ unframed
Year: 2019
Medium: oil on canvas
Hunt Slonem is an internationally recognized American painter, sculptor, and printmaker. His work has been exhibited in more than 350 galleries and museums worldwide, and is represented in over 100 museums, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Miro Foundation, and the New Orleans Museum of Art. He exhibits regularly at both public and private venues around the world, and has received numerous honors and awards, including a MacDowell Fellowship and National Endowment for the Arts grant. He lives in New York City and Louisiana, where he has notably restored two important plantations to their original states.
Inspired by nature and his sixty pet birds, Hunt Slonem is best known for his distinct Neo-Expressionist oil paintings of bunnies, butterflies, and the tropical birds in his personal aviary. His lavishly colored canvases are populated with birds rendered with thick brushstrokes. "I was influenced by Warhol's repetition of soup cans and Marilyn," Slonem says. "But I'm more interested in doing it in the sense of prayer, with repetition… It's really a form of worship." According to The New York Times art critic Roberta Smith, "This witty Formalist strategy meshes the creatures into the picture plane and sometimes nearly obliterates them as images, but it also suspends and shrouds them in a dim, atmospheric light that is quite beautiful." Hunt Slonem tends to embrace the ephemeral beauty of nature, a characteristic that brings a nurturing, spiritual effect to his creations.
Hunt Slonem has always had a strong connection to the subjects he represents in his work. As a child, Slonem first felt a connection to birds while living in Hawaii, which deepened further during his time in Central America where he was inspired by the people's devotion and spiritual fervor. The fascination continued into adulthood; not only does he admire the colorful animals from afar, but he also collects the exotic birds, which reside with him in his New York studio. The lush studio is a sanctuary for the animals and the artist. Slonem's constant companions flitter and chat around him all day helping him to capture his immediate surroundings with rhythm and style. The poet and art critic John Ashbery describes Slonem's depiction of these ephemeral creatures as, "dazzling explosions of the variable life around us that need only to be looked at in order to spring into being." Slonem creates beautiful, surprising scenes that offer a calming joy to those who encounter them.


text: Fully sublimated (except the solid black toe and heel portion), one size fits all (up to 12 men's) crew socks are comfortable, practical and beautiful. They are made from 75% polyester, 10% cotton, 10% chinlon and 5% spandex and they are mid-calf length. Care Instructions: Cold wash with similar colors and hang dry.


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- This event has passed.
Love Stings
June 27, 2022@7:30 pm-9:00 pm
|Recurring Event (See all)
An event every week that begins at 7:30 pm on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, repeating until August 26, 2022
While planning a lavish wedding on a 1960s Door County bee farm, Bill Zapper begins to wonder if he and his reluctant fiancée are truly right for each other. Will this outrageous wedding go off without a hitch — or is this the calm before the swarm? Join us for this honey of a show — it's sure to be all the buzz.


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The AeroTech Disposable Motor System DMS is a single-use motor in kit form that is assembled by the user. All of the Aerotech DMS motors use all-disposable components. The nozzle is already installed. Propellant needs to be installed. You will need to set the desired delay time using the Universal Delay Drilling Tool (UDDT), Not Included, and then pour in the ejection charge. The Universal Delay Drilling Tool (UDDT) is required to adjust to a shorter time delay on all DMS rocket motors and is available in the AeroTech Accessories section of this website.
The M1340W-PS is a Plugged/Smoke motor. Plugged reload kits do not utilize a motor-actuated ejection charge. Plugged motors must be used in conjunction with a timer, altimeter or radio-activated recovery system.
DMS motors feature a filament-wound fiberglass casing, a glass-reinforced composite phenolic nozzle, a machined aluminum bulkhead with a built-in 3/8-16 thread for a matching eye bolt and RCSs exclusive White Lightning™ aerospace grade composite propellant formulation, which produces a brilliant white flame with lots of dense white smoke and a throaty roar at lift-off.
This AeroTech motor pack comes with 1 rocket motor and 1 FirstFire™ Initiator. Requires HAZMAT shipping via UPS or FEDEX. The sale of this high power motor to persons under 18 years of age is currently prohibited by federal law. This is a High-Power motor requiring Level 3 High-Power certification through NAR or Tripoli to purchase. Orders containing this item will not be shipped until proof of age (such as a copy of a driver's license) and proof of Level 3 certification is received. Also, this motor requires U.S. State Department Licensing (SDL) for export (international shipments).
Certified by the Tripoli Rocketry Association (TRA), the National Association of Rocketry (NAR) and the Canadian Association of Rocketry (CAR).
Motor Diameter: 3.875 inches (98mm)
Casing Length: 21.90 inches (557mm)
Total Impulse: 7673 N-sec
Average Thrust: 1340 newtons
Peak Thrust: 1928 N-sec
Thrust Duration: 5.7 seconds
Delay Time: Plugged
Propellant Weight: 4036 grams
Motor Weight: 6998 grams
Maximum Liftoff Weight: Due to the variables involved, AeroTech/Quest currently does not list or post recommended maximum lift-off weights for their mid-power and high-power rocket motors. Instead, we recommend utilizing either the RockSim software available at www.apogeerockets.com or OpenRocket Simulator available at www.openrocket.info.


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3:13 am
Polly Temporal:
Let's take a day,
This one let's say
And mine the whole of last year.
Look far to the back,
Just there, a small crack!
We'll blast our nadir through here.
Stop this today!
That's enough! Go away!
Dear ones you're two naughty I fear.
They mean well, I think
(I'll say with a wink!)
But look out, their plans are severe.
Paulie Temporal
Enough with this day,
Kill it I say
We're making plans for next year.
Sly Uses, my love,
You're getting the shove,
We'll strip you to your brassiere.
Sly Uses:
They plan to betray?
Who are you? I should say,
And what are you doing in here?
I'm here every day
And Sly Uses shall stay,
But what is this crack that's appeared?


text:
A business may be able to claim a federal income tax deduction for a theft loss. But does embezzlement count as theft? In most cases it does but you'll have to substantiate the loss. A recent U.S. Tax Court decision illustrates how that's sometimes difficult to do.
Basic rules for theft losses
The tax code allows a deduction for losses sustained during the taxable year and not compensated by insurance or other means. The term "theft" is broadly defined to include larceny, embezzlement, and robbery. In general, a loss is regarded as arising from theft only if there's a criminal element to the appropriation of a taxpayer's property.
In order to claim a theft loss deduction, a taxpayer must prove:
- The amount of the loss,
- The date the loss was discovered, and
- That a theft occurred under the law of the jurisdiction where the alleged loss occurred.
Facts of the recent court case
Years ago, the taxpayer cofounded an S corporation with another shareholder. At the time of the alleged embezzlement, the other original shareholder was no longer a shareholder, and she wasn't supposed to be compensated by the business. However, according to court records, she continued to manage the S corporation's books and records.
The taxpayer suffered an illness that prevented him from working for most of the year in question. During this time, the former shareholder paid herself $166,494. Later, the taxpayer filed a civil suit in a California court alleging that the woman had misappropriated funds from the business.
On an amended tax return, the corporation reported a $166,494 theft loss due to the embezzlement. The IRS denied the deduction. After looking at the embezzlement definition under California state law, the Tax Court agreed with the IRS.
The Tax Court stated that the taxpayer didn't offer evidence that the former shareholder "acted with the intent to defraud," and the taxpayer didn't show that the corporation "experienced a theft meeting the elements of embezzlement under California law."
The IRS and the court also denied the taxpayer's alternate argument that the corporation should be allowed to claim a compensation deduction for the amount of money the former shareholder paid herself. The court stated that the taxpayer didn't provide evidence that the woman was entitled to be paid compensation from the corporation and therefore, the corporation wasn't entitled to a compensation deduction. (TC Memo 2021-66)
How to proceed if you're victimized
If your business is victimized by theft, embezzlement, or internal fraud, you may be able to claim a tax deduction for the loss. Keep in mind that a deductible loss can only be claimed for the year in which the loss is discovered, and that you must meet other tax-law requirements. Also, the deduction is postponed to the extent that, in the year of discovery, you had a reimbursement claim on which there was a reasonable prospect of recovery. Keep records to substantiate the claimed theft loss, including when you discovered the loss. If you receive an insurance payment or other reimbursement for the loss, that amount must be subtracted when computing the deductible loss for tax purposes.
If you have questions about theft loss deduction, leave a comment below, or feel free to reach out directly, I'm happy to help!


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Contact us with any questions about menu items, catering and other services we offer.
Catering available 7 days a week.
Kitchen hours:
Tuesday – Thursday 4:00pm – 9:00pm Friday – Saturday 4:00pm – 10:00pm
Restaurant lounge & patio hours: Tuesday – Saturday
4:00pm – 12 midnight
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Meriinovillane Kolmnurkne Sall Baktus
Mõõt: u. 165cm x 55 cm
Kaal: 100g
Materjal: 100% Meriinovill
Värv: violett. Küsi lisa!
This hand knitted triangular scarf shawl is perfect accessory to keep your neck beautiful and the same time warm.
Stylish triangular scarf in a pure merino wool will bring its wearer through every kind of weather. There's no lack of comfort and functionality here. Merino wool is soft and weightless, smooth to the touch.
For spring/autumn or simply to wear everyday.
Complete your look with a beanie or pumpkin hat.
Scarf measurements: appr. 165cm length and 55cm wide.
Weight: 100g
Materials: highest quality yarn from Italy (pure Merino wool).
Color: purple. Also available in other colors!
Care instruction: washing water temperature should not exceed 30 C. Dry cleaning recommended, iron on low heat through a cotton cloth, do not bleach or tumble dry.


text:
Synthetic Bible Studies
of the Books of the Old Testament
Containing an outline study of every book of the Bible
with suggestions for Sermons, Addresses and
Bible Expositions
James M. Gray, D.D.
Fleming H. Revell Company
Copyright © 1906
Fleming H. Revell, Westwood, New Jersey
edited for 3BSB by Baptist Bible Believer in the spirit of the Colportage Ministry of a century ago
~ out-of-print and in the public domain ~
No Evidence of a Current Copyright for the Printed Book Found
This book was originally published prior to 1924,
it is therefore in the public domain and free to be posted
in its entirety despite recent publication.
Please note: Below is the Introductory material of the book, however, if you wish to continue reading this fine book [and I truly hope you do!] download the chapter(s) from the document file (which is absolutely free). You will have the option to either simply open it or to save it as your own possession. GOD bless you from the Baptist Bible Believers website!Please tell all of your friends and Church about this website, pray for this ministry - and that will be payment enough!TABLE OF CONTENTS
Synthetic Bible Studies originally appeared as weekly lessons in a religious journal, and were so widely blessed to ministers and Bible students generally, that they were gathered together in this more permanent form; the matter still retaining however the personal and familiar style of a teacher addressing a class of other teachers, which had been adopted in the newspaper articles.
The design is not that readers should study this book, but study the Bible by its aid. To that end it was hoped to be found useful in the conduct of Bible classes in churches, Young People's Societies and Young Men and Young Women's Christian Associations, where people are hungering for the Word of GOD. As a matter of fact, however, pastors have borne witness to its value in their pulpit preparation, and in awakening an interest in Bible study that has told in the increase of church attendance, and the revival of the work of GOD in other lines. In some instances congregations have supplied themselves with copies for general study.
Comments of the press on the first edition of Synthetic Bible Studies: -
The Homiletic Review says the method of Bible study it exemplifies is "the best that has been presented to the public."
The Pittsburgh Christian Advocate: "We know of no other way in which one can so easily and satisfactorily get a comprehensive view of the Bible as in this way."
The Quarterly Review (United Brethren): "We know of nothing better of its kind for the use of higher classes in the Sunday School, and for Theological Seminary's Bible study in English, and for the minister's private study."
The Record of Christian Work: "It is many years since a Bible study help has been given to the world of which so many commendatory things may be said."
The Baltimore Methodist: "This is an age of Bible study, and the many 'helps' published to make this study interesting and profitable are numerous. We venture to affirm, however, that none equal the present method, both for practical and exegetical work. Dr. Gray has given us a book which every student, teacher and preacher of the Bible ought to possess. Such books cannot be measured by money value, but only by the impetus given to Bible study and the solid character built up thereby."
Watchword and Truth: "Anyone wishing help in scripture study can do no better than purchase this book. It is admirable, evangelical, accurate and helpful. No wonder the first edition is completely exhausted before the newspapers of the land have had a chance to review the book. We predict for it an enormous sale of many thousands."
Herald and Presbyter: "This is a very attractive book. Anyone who wishes to study the Bible systematically will find it invaluable. It would be an excellent guide for a series of Sabbath evening lectures. It gives a bird's-eye view of the whole Bible, and enables one to see it to be a beautiful whole. It should certainly be a very welcome book to every minister and Bible student."
Christian Endeavor World: "A study of the Bible by books so as to gain a definite, comprehensive knowledge of the special contents of each is something that many are seeking. Dr. James M. Gray has been doing much for the past few years in promoting systematic reading and study of the Bible, and has aroused great interest in the matter. His course, 'Synthetic Bible Studies,' will receive and deserve a hearty welcome as it now appears in a book form."
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Shampoo: What to Look For, What to Avoid
It's nice to feel clean. Stepping out of the shower is a moment refreshing not just to body, but also to mind and spirit. Getting clean, however, can be more of a journey than we think. Every day we are exposed to a litany of chemicals from every conceivable source, including what we put on… Read more »


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Welcome to Master Technology!
We are a technology solutions company that has been around for over 20 years with a wide range of skills from basic installation of home media and/or game servers to advanced mobile and computer development. From forensics to internet pen-testing. If it is a buzz-word that is related to technology; we know it. If you have any technical problem and are in need of a solution, let us bring the answers to you.


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The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) announced today that another milestone has been reached at 130 Liberty Street and that the final stages of work on the abatement and decontamination have commenced. Since the tragic fire of August 18, 2007, the LMDC has worked closely with federal, state and city agencies to enhance safety conditions for first responders, workers and residents and to make modifications to the plan for abating the building.
On February 7, 2008 the LMDC received approval from thirteen federal, state and city agencies for modifications to the plan for abating 130 Liberty, including the decision to completely abate the building prior to deconstructing it. Following that approval, LVI Environmental Services, Inc. has been working two shifts a day with approximately 150 to 200 workers in the building to prepare it for full abatement and clearance by environmental regulators. The work completed by LVI to date includes the restoration of building enclosures, the construction of two interior fire-rated stairwells for use by first responders, the creation of emergency scaffold egress for the New York City Fire Department, the installation of a remote negative air cutoff switch, the fire-hardening of decontamination chambers and existing vestibules, the building of new fire control systems within the decontamination chambers, the shoring of slabs compromised in the fire and the installation of additional sidewalk sheds. As a result of the work completed by LVI to date, the New York City Department of Buildings today lifted a stop work order that has been in place since the August 18 fire that will allow the final stages of cleaning and abatement to proceed with a full complement of over 300 trained asbestos workers working two shifts per day, six days a week. "Today we have taken another important step towards our goal of safely and expeditiously abating and deconstructing 130 Liberty Street," stated Avi Schick, Chairman of the LMDC. "For months we have had up to 200 workers in the building making significant progress, but today we have entered a new critical phase that will enable us to bring a hundred additional workers on to the building to finish abating it, taking us a step closer to completing this project and bringing closure to the residents of Lower Manhattan."
"Over the past months, City agencies have worked closely with our state and federal partners in an effort to make 130 Liberty Street the safest possible environment for the workers who will complete the abatement and demolition, for the first responders who may need to operate in the building, and for the surrounding community," said Deputy Mayor for Operations Edward Skyler. "As abatement restarts, the City will continue to have a strong and ongoing presence at the site through the Fire Department, the Buildings Department and the Department of Environmental Protection. We will assist in any way we can while enforcing the robust safety measures that have been put in place until the remainder of the building is abated and safely deconstructed."
"I'm pleased that the countless meetings I have held with community leaders and city, state, and federal regulatory agencies have helped create a concrete 2-stage plan to remediate and then deconstruct this building," said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. "This is a welcome announcement that will bring us one step closer to rebuilding and revitalizing downtown."


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I have posted the roundup in the order I rceived my entries..Enjoy the roundup!
Marija of Palachinka presents her exquisite Couscous stuffed eggplants.She peps up the dish with basil,thyme,Vegeta seasoning and few other interesting ingredients.She has presented the dish so beautifully..Check out her blog for more beautiful dishes!
Ning of Heart and Hearth from Phillippines makes a stew with fresh bamboo shoots from China..They are a rich source of Potassium and fiber..She says"After all, if a panda can grow as big as they are through eating bamboos alone, then it must truly be good food!"Check out interesting myths about bamboo in her post!
Maria of Organically cooked from Hania makes Lenten Kalitsounia for The forefeast of the transfiguration held in her community.She uses Vlita(amarnath leaves) in making this unique dish..She makes a vegan version of Kalitsounia especially for the feast..
Syrie of Taste Buddies from Canada presents a Smoked Salmon Pizza with caramelized onions topped with capers and dill weed flowers.She tells a story of how her friend started liking caramelized onions a thing which she hates the most..The pizza does look too appealing with the smoked salmon..Wish I had a slice right now!
TS and JS of Eating club from Vancouver presents a Cumin Cauliflower slaw. A great way to consume veggies in a natural way.She says she coveted this slaw recipe from her neighbour.She dresses the slaw using lime, honey, apple cider vinegar, extra virgin olive oil.
Wiffy of NoobCook sends in a lemon barley drink.Barley has cooling properties and it is a refreshing drink to have during this scorching summer.Winter melon sugar and Pandan leaves adds more flavor to the drink.
Dhivya of Culinary Bazaar from Calfornia makes this minty peas soup on an overcast day.She says this soup is rich not by way of calories but rich by way of taste.The soup looks creamy and rich.Check out her post for simple minty ideas..
Srivalli of Cooking for all Seasons from India gives us great information about the Sprouting Process..It gives us insight on which beans and berries can be sprouted.Check out her blog to know the nutritional information of sprouts.
Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen our host from Salt Lake City presents the recipe for Market Street Grill Creamy Cucumber-Dill Sauce for Fish..The sauce looks creamy and rich and made with dill,fat free mayo and fat free sour cream..Have a look at her south beach recipe suggestions..
Ivy of Kopiaste..to greek hospitality from Athens presents Okra Ladies Fingers-Mpamies.She makes a unique combo with okra,chicken and feta..Check out her mouth drooling pictures..
Christine of Kitschow from Canada makes Cucumber Ice using Japanese Cucumbers.This is a perfect treating during hot summer days.She also gives other aesthetic uses of cucumber..
Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with puppies makes oregano oil using the oregano cultivated from her garden.She makes an oregano marinade with it which can be used for poultry,fish,meat and vegetables.
Cham of Spice-Club from California makes Drumstick leaves and dhal.Drumstick trees are found in almost every backyard in South India..Check out her blog for the various superstitions and beliefs about drumstick trees!
Kamala of Mom's Recipe makes a fresh Swiss Chard Masiyal.She says she misses arai keerai masiyal she used to have back at home.This tastes best with sambhar and rice.
Nathan Lau of House of Annie from San Jose makes Steamed Shiitake Mushrooms with Bok Choy and Fatt Choy.Check out her blog for quick asian dishes.
Pam from Sidewalk Shoes makes a simple Tarragon Vinegar which pairs very well with any type of meal.This can be made in minutes..
Sherra from Our Taste of Life makes Tokwa't Baboy with Tausi ..She uses kinchay to pep up the dish..
Jennifer of Like to Cook makes Baba Ganoush with parseley..This dish is a simple one with a few ingredients..But tastes great as a dip with pita bread.
Priyanka from Asan Khana from Singapore makes a No Cook Spaghetti with basil..She gives great information about basil and also ways to preserve and store them.
Lakshmi from The Yum Blog bakes carrot coriander muffins.Savory muffins taste great when infused with herbs.And this carrot coriander combo sounds unique and appealing.Do check out her blog for some fascinating authentic south Indian recipes.
Beth from The Ex Patriate's kitchen makes a fresh thai summer salad with long beans and water spinach..The salad looks healthy and perfect for this weather.
Valentina from Trembom makes a crunchy cucumber and radish salad..She uses Lebanese cucumbers in the salad.The salad is full of goodiness and loaded with vitamins.
Katie from Thyme for cooking whips up a potato salad with pimento dressing. The salad looks colourful and is rich in vitamins and minerals and is a perfect substitute for all the vitamin and other supplements.
Jerry from Jerry's thoughts,musings and rants makes Asparagus wrapped in Pancetta with Citronette.She grills the asparagus and the citrionette gives a zing to the dish.
Haalo of Cook almost Anything atleast once from Australia makes Sautéed Broccolini with Garlic-infused breadcrumbs.Check out her blog for more details about Broccolini which belongs to the Brassica family.
Siri of Siri's Corner makes Bread Gnocchi flavores using rosemary.Check out her quicker version of bread gnocchi which can be made with a prep time of 15 minutes.
Erin of The Skinny Gourmet from Chicago makes Irish Chicken Salad Sandwich on Soda Bread.Check out her blog for useful information about caraway..
Jude of Apple Pie,Patis and Plate from Chicago makes a stir fry using Shanghai Bok Choy.This can be prepared in minutes and makes a whole meal in itself..
Cheryl of Gluten free Goodness makes a minty chicken for us with the chocolate mint from her garden.She also uses Stevia and marjoram leaves to flavor the chicken..Check out her blog for more gluten free recipes.
Finally, the entry by the guest host!Yes, that's me..My entry is cheese oregano straws made using puff pastry.The oregano gives an aromatic,warm and slightly bitter taste to the cheese straws and they serve as a great appetizer and tea-time snack..
Hope I have included all recipes in the roundup..Do let me know if I have missed any..It was fun hosting this event.Thanks to Kalyn..


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As Georgia's 2008 political campaign scene develops, the missed opportunity for state Democrats becomes increasingly clear. A recent poll showed competition in a Georgia presidential campaign for the first time since 1996.
The sorry mess made by Republicans nationally, African-American enthusiasm for Barack Obama's candidacy and former Cobb County Republican Congressman Bob Barr's nomination for president by Libertarians point to a perfect storm for Georgia Democrats to blow back into office. Some folks may cheer at this preview, but it is just not going to happen.
The local donkeys lack the get-up-and-go, not to mention the sound judgment, to join the comeback.
You can see red lights pop on all across the Georgia map, as Democrats miss one victory opportunity after another.
The latest disappointment came when state Sen. Joe Carter, R-Tifton, announced that he would forego re-election to the Legislature to run for a local Superior Court judgeship. When Carter qualifies to run for the seat on the bench, he must withdraw as a candidate for the Senate. Had Democrats qualified anyone at all against Carter before the primary deadline, they might have picked up another legislative seat by default. Instead, qualifying will be reopened, giving Republicans the opportunity to replace Carter on the ballot.
Republicans are also chortling about other potential bullets they did not have to bother to dodge, because the Democrats never fired them. For example, GOP insiders admit that state Rep. Gene Maddox, R-Cairo, would have been a goner in a Democratic tidal wave. He, too, is unopposed.
In DeKalb County, State Rep. Jill Chambers, R-Dunwoody, represents the only DeKalb legislative seat that was won by John Kerry in 2004. She seemed vulnerable in the coming counter attack. Finally, Democrats got busy to make sure she would soon be a goner. They recruited Cecilia Hailey to oppose her.
Unfortunately for Democrats, Hailey has a felony conviction for writing a bad check, and at the time she entered the race, she had an outstanding felony arrest warrant for writing another bad check last December. Hailey has been sued multiple times for failing to pay bills, has an outstanding lien against her for failure to pay state income taxes and recently lost her South DeKalb home to her mortgage lender. She has a primary opponent, but the state Democratic Party and Democratic legislative leaders have been strangely unwilling to say that a convicted felon is an unacceptable nominee in a district that is among their best (and few) opportunities to knock off a Republican legislator.
As a woman in a DeKalb County Democratic primary, Hailey has to be considered likely to win the nomination unless Democrats publicly intervene.
Moving up the ballot, things look no better. Rep. Jim Marshall, D-Macon, a perennial GOP target, is already facing an onslaught from Freedom's Watch, an advocacy group set up by former Bush White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. Grassroots Democrats appear petrified at the sight of the oncoming Republican mowing machine - even in a year when one would think the blades would be somewhat dull.
The U.S. Senate race is also troublesome for Democrats. Fearing the effect of their Senate nomination going to controversial DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones, Democrats recruited Jim Martin, the party's 2006 nominee for lieutenant governor, into the race. Martin was state commissioner of human resources and a longtime Atlanta state House member.
Democrats were enthused to have an experienced (if unsuccessful) statewide candidate, especially one with a substantial fund-raising base among affluent Atlanta liberals and lawyers.
Handwringing has replaced that enthusiasm as Democrats watch Martin's seemingly sluggish effort. Many now question whether his campaign is forceful enough to overcome Jones' African-American base in the primary.
Democrats might have been better off backing TV-guy Dale Cardwell, who is loaded with energy and ideas but has received little money or encouragement from Democratic organizers. They say Cardwell has too little experience at politics. That might be the case, but at least he has no experience as a loser.
The following anecdote may best place in a nutshell Georgia Democrats' ineptitude. When the party opened an Athens office, no one bothered to notify the media to celebrate and draw attention to its presence. As a result, there was no news coverage to spread word to the locals that the Democrats were in town. After the gala opening without reporters, a Democratic functionary found the media invitations still waiting to be mailed.
Tidal-wave elections come around once in a political generation. The Democrats might have one in 2008, but without good surfers in the water, Georgia Democrats look likely to miss their chance to catch it.
You can reach Bill Shipp at P.O. Box 2520, Kennesaw, GA 30156, e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com, or Web address: billshipponline.com.


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Lessons from Failure
Unsuccessful efforts to improve the status quo often have the richest silver linings.
Title: Reaching and Falling: Why Failure in Exploration Differs from Failure in Exploitation
Authors: J.P. Eggers (New York University) and Jung-Hyun Suh (New York University)
Publisher: NYU Working Paper Series
Date Published: January 2011
When failure strikes at a company, one of the most crucial questions is how to turn the negative outcome into a positive lesson. But not all failures are the same when it comes to teachable moments, this paper says, offering a reality check on what to expect when things go wrong.
The researchers focus on two broad types of corporate initiatives, using the mutual fund industry as a surrogate for companies in general. One type of initiative, which they call exploitation, involves the enhancement of the status quo through the refinement of existing routines and strategies or through increased investment in familiar markets. The second type, exploration, is the search for new areas of growth through experimentation, novel projects, or innovative technologies.
As one would expect, the researchers found that successful exploratory activities hold more worthwhile lessons for companies than failures do. In part, that's because of the very nature of exploration: Cutting-edge mistakes are hard to process and, because they don't involve the core of the business, easier to walk away from.
But when it comes to exploitation, firms sometimes have little to gain from massaging the status quo and much more to learn when they suffer setbacks. These mistakes do involve the core of the business and are taken seriously — and if studied well, they point to overlooked problem areas and untapped opportunities.
The researchers based their findings on an analysis of 40 years of data from the U.S. mutual fund industry. They used the University of Chicago's Center for Research in Security Prices database, which covers the history of almost all open-end equity, bond, and money market funds between 1962 and 2002 (in all, 853 mutual fund providers are in the sample). The researchers also used publicly available data to document the history of each mutual fund company, including mergers and acquisitions.
To evaluate firm performance, the authors relied on one of the industry's standard metrics: the net cash inflow into all new funds created by the mutual fund provider, a measure that is also closely correlated with firm profitability. The researchers deflated the cash flows to constant 1992 dollars. On average, the firms in the sample generated US$323 million of net new investment each year, had 17 years in the business, and managed $4.8 billion in assets.
All new funds created by a mutual fund company were classified by the researchers as either exploitative (meaning the fund was in a category in which the firm had prior experience) or exploratory (it was in a new investment category for the firm). Several mathematical models correlated the firms' successes and failures with their subsequent decisions, showing whether they learned from experience.
To chart success against failure, the researchers compared the amount of cash flowing to each new fund during its first full calendar year with the amount generated by all other funds in its category. (The authors used the categorization developed by the research and consulting firm Strategic Insight, which assigns mutual funds to 83 groups, such as Municipal High-Yield Bonds, Global Total Return, and Tax-Free Money Market.)
Funds generating cash inflows that were greater than the median of all other funds in their category were considered initially successful; all others were failures. This approach is consistent with firm behavioral theory, the researchers note, and the premise that new funds generally outperform existing ones. (Accordingly, firms in the study had more experience with successful than unsuccessful funds.)
After crunching the numbers, the researchers found that organizations achieving success in exploitative activities, which merely reinforce the value of existing beliefs and processes, don't learn much. Companies with above-average industry performance persisted with the same strategies, so that the routines that once afforded them success over their competitors constrained them in acquiring and developing new processes. Their performance faded over time.
The analysis also showed that firms learn valuable lessons from successful exploratory activities, because these ventures result in new knowledge that can be encoded and utilized by the firm.
But failures in exploratory activities are a costly waste when they don't result in new information that can be distilled and used by the firm. Even relatively modest exploratory failures cost each firm about $192 million a year in expected cash inflows, the researchers calculated, an amount that declines over time. (Mutual funds base their varying fees in part on the size of the portfolios they manage, and the smaller inflows imply a loss of millions of dollars in potential revenue.) And because exploratory failures are "less core" to the business's established identity, the authors argue, they can be more easily written off by managers, which limits the potential for drawing lessons.
But failure at exploitative activities can boost organizational learning and firm performance, the researchers also found, because the breakdown of established routines hits at the very heart of the business. Firms therefore react with more urgency to such problems and nip them in the bud. In the study, firms that failed at the familiar quickly turned things around: The authors write that each exploitation failure generated substantial new revenue for the firm going forward.
The findings apply less to extreme "disasters" than to more modest failures or near-misses, the researchers note. And there is a limit to what can be learned overall: Firms with the greatest diversity of experience — those that engaged in several different types of exploration and exploitation, to varying degrees of success and failure — actually performed much worse than others, the paper found. The researchers posit that too much tinkering in too many different areas can mean any knowledge gleaned is never fully incorporated and thus does not inform future projects. Instead, organizations need substantial experience in a given area to develop effective routines.
Bottom Line:
The effects of prior success and failure on future performance are linked to the nature of the experience — whether it involved breaking new ground or reinforcing the status quo. In exploring new territory, success is far more beneficial than whatever lessons can be learned from failure. But when it comes to established routines and processes, initiatives that end in failure can often provide more of a long-term boost to organizational learning and performance than those that are initially successful.


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The Quark Matter 2015 is the XXV international conference on ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. The aim of this conference is to unravel mystery of strongly interacting matter at extreme environments created in the ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions, in early universe, and in the central core of superdense stars. Both the theoretical and experimental physicists from all over the world get together for every 1.5 years to exchange information on the forefront researches in this field and related subjects.
Following the previous Quark Matter conference in Darmstadt, Germany in 2014, the current meeting will be held in Kobe, Fashion Mart, Japan on September 27th to October 3rd in 2015.
September 27 - October 3, 2015


text: Tomatoes exist in many different variations in the world, coloured green, yellow, purple, orange or red of all shades. Also in size, pattern, form and taste they differ, making the perception of these wonderful veggies a delightful experience. And the world of music affords the same moments of surprises, refreshing impressions and inspiring moments. It's the unexpected sounds and rhythms which make people crazy and cheering. For this purpose, Tomato Production presents passionate musicians and fascinating concerts to the world. We provide professional services in concert and tour booking, promotion using all media, universal management of artists and full-scale event organization.