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Database structure modeling, generation and modification focused on PostgreSQL
Database Designer for PostgreSQL makes the process of database creation clear and simplifies maintenance of the databases. All the operations performed in a fast, handy and intuitive interface. The product designed for popular PostgreSQL database server and takes into account all its features including:
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In the end, you'll get a Physical Entity Relationship Model (ER Model) that can be exported in SQL script, or directly executed on working PostgreSQL database server. After making changes to a diagram, you can synchronize existing PostgreSQL database with it by using Database Modification tool.
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If you have recently dealt with an injury or disease that affected your oral health, there are options available to recover the smile you once had. You may even be able to achieve a better smile than the one you had. Dental implants make it possible to renew your smile if you have lost some teeth. There
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subset: commoncrawl


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Not so long ago I wrote about the Pen y Cymoedd wind farm project, and developer Vattenfall's use of bribery to win over or silence the local populace. (Click here and scroll down to the section Vattenfall of Money.) Well now I know the route by which the turbines for Pen y Cymoedd will be arriving . . . from China. Yes, China.
Because despite what it says on the Pen y Cymoedd website about, "Siemens, our turbine supplier", they were not made in Germany, or anywhere else in Europe. We have here a Swedish nationalised industry with a German partner importing wind turbines from China! A journey of some 10,000 nautical miles by the quickest route and taking 22 days at 20 knots. Twenty-two days of a huge ship belching smoke, spilling oil, 'accidentally' emptying the bilges, and all manner of things falling overboard.
Though in fairness, it is suggested that these turbines, each in three sections (plus blades and spindle), will be shipped from China to Immingham (the major container port just south of Hull) in one consignment, before being broken down into smaller cargoes for trans-shipping to Swansea. The distance from Immingham to Swansea is 606 nautical miles so if, as suggested, coastal vessels are used, each carrying the component parts of a single turbine, this adds up to a further 92,000 nautical miles (counting return trips)!
With its turbines shipped in from China to Immingham and then shipped on to Swansea, with a total distance covered of some 102,000 nautical miles (plus 532 return lorry trips between Swansea docks and Rhigos), the Pen y Cymoedd wind farm project has the environmental credentials of a dozen coal-fired power stations, each run by a thousand spectacularly flatulent cows. Perhaps we might get a comment on this from La Bartolotti or those competing to succeed her as regional mouthpiece for the Green Party of Englandandwales.
Consider this, also . . . The European steel industry is suffering from Chinese steel being 'dumped' on the global market at prices with which European producers cannot compete. These Chinese-made turbines for Pen y Cymoedd will be landed in Lincolnshire, yet just a few months ago, and not far south of Immingham, it was announced that steel production will cease at Redcar with the loss of 1,700 jobs, and there are to be more redundancies at Scunthorpe. On top of which, the turbines are to be landed at Swansea docks, within sight of Port Talbot steelworks! Insult upon injury.
The turbines for Pen y Cymoedd are built in a country where environmental considerations are laughed at, then lugged across oceans, around coasts, and up steep gradients, before each of them is implanted in a concrete base the size of a football pitch in what had previously been virgin moorland. These turbines will provide no permanent jobs in Wales and the profits they generate will go to Sweden or Germany. All we shall see is the annual bribe, the pretty beads paid to the backward natives while their land is raped, again.
Let's face it, 'Green energy' is a massive con. And few projects are proving to be a bigger, or a more insulting con, than Pen y Cymoedd. The turbines there will probably have to run for about 300 years just to pay off the 'debt' to the environment incurred by making and transporting the bloody things.
UPDATE 21:00: On Friday the 4th, a few days before posting this, I sent an e-mail to Vattenfall at Pen y Cymoedd asking where the turbines for the site were made. This afternoon I received a 'phone call from Emily Faull of Vattenfall, a charming young lady who was able to give me a few more facts.
First, she confirmed that the turbine towers were made in China, but the blades and the spindles were made in Denmark and Germany. When I asked whether the turbines had come in through Immingham Ms Faull said no, and that on November 22nd she was at Swansea docks to see "64 sections" arrive on the good ship Amethyst from China. Though if this is the right ship, then it does not appear to have docked in Swansea on November 22nd, though at that time it was en route from Spain to the Netherlands.
Whatever, 64 sections represents 16 turbines (they come in 4 sections, not 3 as I thought), so there would still need to be another four similar voyages to bring the rest of them from China. Though Ms Faull was able to confirm that the transformers were landed at Immingham, and moved by road to Pen y Cymoedd. I'm not sure where the blades and spindles were landed, or how they reached Pen y Cymoedd if they weren't landed at Swansea.
In a part of the conversation I had some difficulty following, Ms Faull said that it had been hoped to build the turbines at the Mabey Bridge works in Chepstow, but Mabey Bridge felt it was not worth taking on workers only to lay them off again after the Pen y Cymoedd contract was completed. There was also mention of the 'Welsh' Government, but what role those clowns played I have no idea.
I have sent Ms Faull another e-mail (07.12.2015) to clarify the remaining details.
UPDATE 18.12.2016: I received the reply today from Ms Faull. It reads:
"Many thanks for your email and apologies for the delay in responding.
Amesthyst landed on 22nd November and I visited the ship on 24th November. The attached photo was taken at Swansea Docks on 23rd November and 64 tower sections were on board. The remaining tower sections will also come via this route. As I said on the call Mabey Bridge were lined up for the tower manufacture, but subsequently withdrew from the bidding process.
The ship came from China and the only stops required would have been for refuelling and personnel changes.
The blades have not yet been shipped, but 192 of these will come from Denmark, with 26 coming from Canada and will again be off-loaded at Swansea Docks.
The size of the wind farm means that means that the operations and maintenance team of around 30 individuals will be based on-site and early next year the team will make a special effort to recruit skilled individuals locally.
With regards to the transformers, these were manufactured at ABB in Bad Honnef, Germany, each of which weigh in at around 125,000 kg and are around 6 metres wide and 8 metres long."
So in addition to China, Denmark and Germany, we now have components for Pen y Cymoedd also coming from Canada. The environmental credentials of this project, never good, are now compromised beyond redemption. The jobs referred to "early next year", for which it is hoped to recruit some locals, is not a "maintenance team" at all, this team is on site solely for the erection and installation of the turbines. Once that's done there will probably be no jobs at Pen y Cymoedd.
The Pen y Cymoedd wind farm is all about money, it's not about the environment, or even about the generation of electricity. The hundreds of thousands of miles taken up in transporting the components from around the world, by sea and by land, means that the project's contribution to the environment is entirely negative even if it were to run at optimum output for centuries. Pen y Cymoedd is the most blatant 'green energy' rip-off I have ever encountered.
Some of you may recall reading about five or so years ago that there was a terrible shortage of student accommodation in Aberystwyth, the poor dabs were dossing on the promenade, or else the lack of accommodation had driven them to outlandish places such as Corris where, it was rumoured, locals stared at strangers. Here's one tale from the BBC in August 2011, and another from Aber Student Media a month later.
To answer this shortage of accommodation there seem to have been three separate responses. One was the university itself embarking on a building programme of 'student villages'. The second response was that of investors buying up more large properties in the town for student lodgings. Third, local housing associations got in on the act – using public money, of course.
But now I hear that the bubble has burst, leaving the university with under-occupied 'student villages' that make 1960s East German architecture look attractive; private investors with Houses of Multiple Occupation suffering a dearth of multiple occupants; and overstretched housing associations . . . for example, the word on the street is that Tai Cantref is already docked up Shit Creek with its crew roistering in local taverns.
What had once been attractive and easy-going Aberystwyth University, three years by the seaside for an undemanding 2:2, started slipping down the league tables a few years ago. In July 2014 the decline was being reported in the Times Higher Education Supplement and by October even the students were getting worried. The continuing decline was reported in May 2015. Inevitably, this resulted in a drop in the numbers of students applying to Aber' – at the same time as there was more accommodation for them than ever. What to do?
I suggest one doesn't need to be a soothsayer to predict that with so many properties now available in a Welsh seaside town, properties almost all of which are designed to house single people, it's only a matter of time before the problems start arriving from over the border. (Thank God there's still a railway line from Birmingham to Aberystwyth.) I'm thinking now of the drug addicts and the petty criminals, and of course those recently released from prison, because some of the bigger properties in the town will be ideal as 'halfway houses' and bail hostels. (See 'Tragedy in Pontypridd' below.)
All this results from Wales having a higher education sector that is too big, a higher education sector that has been encouraged to grow irresponsibly, with no reference to the effects of this unwarranted growth on host communities. While the universities willingly played along, adopting a 'stack 'em high' philosophy dictated by business models and profit margins that inevitably resulted in falling standards. Leaving Aberystwyth caught in a vicious circle, a refuge for third-rate academics and students who can't gain admission elsewhere, with this inevitably deterring those who can read walls.
And now there may be a heavy price to pay. Which would be sad, because like most people, I'm very fond of Aberystwyth, I've had some good times there, drunk and sober. But if Aber' is on its way to becoming the Rhyl of Cardigan Bay, in order to protect the investments of local big shots and housing associations, who will dare challenge this development?
It's been a while since this blog visited Cardigan Castle, but Lady Tucker and friends have been busy, and the results will take the project even further from the trust's stated objectives of preserving the place "for the benefit of the people of Cardigan and the nation".
The main contractors, Andrew Scott Ltd, have long since departed with their loot, leaving a very long snagging list of botched jobs behind them. A professional painter and decorator who visited recently commented that it was hard to believe from the state of some of the paint and plasterwork that the site had been handed over little more than six months ago.
But the departure of Andrew Scott has not meant that building work has ceased. Tucked away behind the main house and a small cottage is an outbuilding which was renovated by Andrew Scott Ltd to serve as a garage for guests staying in the 5 star self-catering East Wing. This is now being converted into accommodation for disabled visitors, and when it is finished early next year, it will join the three B&B rooms above the usually empty restaurant, the East Wing (sleeps six) and the Gardener's Cottage (sleeps two).
And there are more exciting developments on the drawing board.
The old stable block which was restored from its ruined state at huge expense to serve educational purposes has been ear-marked by Lady Tucker for conversion into yet more tourist accommodation. This will not come cheap, and expect building work to continue well into 2017.
Also offering exciting potential for reconversion into tourist accommodation is a small house over on the eastern fringe of the castle complex.
Converting these buildings will mean ejecting the current occupants, including a popular cynghanedd class, and the removal of the only locally based groups still using the site to be re-housed well away from the castle by mid-2016.
No longer will well-heeled paying guests have to face the awful prospect of mingling with scruffy locals speaking gibberish, and the Cadwgan Trust can get down to the serious business of marketing the place as luxury tourist accommodation and a venue for weddings and corporate jollies. Or what we locals call a posh hotel.
Paving the way for this is a Wedding Fayre on 6 December, a time of the year when all but the most self-obsessed brides and their mothers will have other things on their mind.
Cultural heritage
The cultural bit will be confined to a few events (Gilbert and Sullivan, Shakespeare, etc.) in the summer, while as a sideline, non-resident visitors willing to part with a fiver will be allowed in to gawp at the large expanse of lawn and spend a few minutes in the couple of rooms containing exhibitions of old tat. "Look Jeremy, a smashed up old 1940s typewriter which once belonged to the old girl who used to live here!"
After an injection of £12 million plus, including all the funds raised locally and countless thousands of hours of unpaid voluntary work, the people of Cardigan will find that just a year after opening, the castle will to all intents and purposes have reverted to being a private fiefdom, this time run by Lady T and her friends from Aberporth.
Spin cycle
Other recent developments include a parting of ways with Equinox, the Cardiff-based firm which tried to steer the castle through the PR catastrophes which dominated much of 2015.
PR is now being handled in-house by Sue Lewis whose portfolio of responsibilities also includes "facilities".
When not working for Cadwgan, Sue moonlights for the dire Cambrian News, which also employs her hubby to report on local news.
Not long after it ran its notorious "Incomers are Nazis says Plaid candidate" headline, the Cambrian News was at it again with a piece which suggested that Hefin Wyn, the respected local author, journalist and prominent critic of the Cadwgan Trust, had run a campaign of harassment and "virtual persecution" against Glen Johnson, who has resigned from Cadwgan's board and various committees more often than most of us have had hot dinners.
It subsequently turned out that the newspaper had published these very serious accusations, including a claim that Mr Johnson was having to resign to protect his family, without actually checking the facts or asking the castle's history man for evidence to back up his claims.
The paper has refused to disclose who wrote the offending article or to hand over to IPSO, the press complaints body, what it says are e-mails citing persecution and harassment it received from Glen Johnson some weeks later.
Whoever wrote the offending article, Sue has clearly been reading a copy of "Teach Yourself PR", including Lesson One: The Importance of Creating a Narrative because it is now being put about that she feels threatened in Cardigan, and is reluctant even to drive in from Aberporth on her own.
The narrative is that critics of Cadwgan Trust are a bunch of dangerous bigots and fanatics who, we are asked to believe, are lurking behind every lamp post and municipal litter bin between Pendre and Pwllhai in this small market town.
If it's not the wicked Hefin Wyn and the snipers Cyfeillion Rhys ap Gruffydd have posted above Siop y Cardi, it's the stiletto-wielding assassins of Cymdeithas y Chwiorydd and the suicide bombers of Merched y Wawr.
We'll probably be able to read all about it soon in "Wales' biggest selling weekly newspaper".
Some of you will have read accounts from the trial of two men recently convicted of murder in Pontypridd. One of the killers, and the victim, were residents at the Morning Star Inn, on Llantrisant Road. (The second killer was said to be of no fixed abode, but I suspect he too has a connection with the Morning Star.) As you might expect, I got to wondering about the Morning Star, and it's quite a story.
The Morning Star was, until closed after the murder on February 28th, run as both a pub and a bail hostel or halfway house for released criminals. Owned and / or run by "former Egyptian police officer Saad Taha". Here's a report from July 2013 of a public meeting organised so that various authorities and local politicians could hear locals voice their concerns about the Morning Star. They relate things they have witnessed first-hand only to be met with a wall of denials and evasions.
According to DePlod despite reports of knife-carrying, discarded needles and bad behaviour in and around the Morning Star "there is little evidence this came directly from the Morning Star". Of course not, it was pure coincidence. The incredulity increased when I read that Taha wants us to believe that even though these ex-cons are living above a pub, they are not allowed to drink in the pub! I battled through this storm of bullshit and made further enquiries.
In July 2007 there was a planning application (07/1389/10) for a "raised patio / bar extension – beer garden", and in March 2008 (08/0393/10) for a "rear balcony". The first application was submitted in the name of a Mr D Watkins and the second in the name of Saad Taha, so is it reasonable to assume that the Morning Star was still being run as a pub in 2007 but the premises changed hands some time in late 2008 or early 2009 and was then run as both a pub and a halfway house? Both applications were withdrawn.
Next, on September 20th 2011, Taha made an application (11/1140/10) for "Conversion of existing bar areas into bedrooms (Change of use).- amended plan received 25/11/11 – reduction in total number of bedrooms from 17 to 16 – amended location plan received on 26/01/12." With the first floor already being used to house ex-convicts it appears Taha now sought to convert the ground floor (pub) area and even the basement (cellar). This plan was very wisely turned down by RCT council.
But then, on December 14th, 2012, another application (12/1293/09) was lodged, "Application for a Lawful Development Certificate for an Existing use as a public house and hostel." Which I take to mean that Taha was now asking for retrospective planning consent for a building already being used – without permission – as a hostel. Planning permission was refused.
I find it significant, and rather confusing, that in his rejected planning applications of September 2011 and December 2012 Taha is asking for a "change of use". Also confusing, is that the earlier of those applications states that there are already 16 bedrooms at the Morning Star, yet according to the WalesOnline report of the July 2013 public meeting the place only has only "seven beds". Which is right?
So here's the question. Seeing as retrospective planning permission for a change of use to a hostel was refused in 2011 and 2012, why was the Morning Star allowed to operate as a hostel? Everybody in the area knew what the building was being used for, including the police and the council, so was it somehow allowed to operate as a hostel without the required planning permissions? If not, then perhaps someone at RCT council can direct me to the approval for the Morning Star to be used as a halfway house for criminals.
Another teaser is, who owns the Morning Star? Having checked on the Land Registry website using the correct post code I can find nothing under Morning Star or 59 Llantrisant Road. So we can't be sure if Taha actually owns the property (as he claims) or if he's merely an agent for someone else. Presumably Rhondda Cynon Taf council knows who owns this place, and if it is Saad Taha, why doesn't he register his ownership with the Land Registry? He's had long enough.
There's something odd about the Morning Star saga. Not least, how does a former Egyptian copper end up running a halfway house in Ponty? And what checks were done into his background? Where do his 'clients' come from? And who supplies them?
Anyway, undeterred by the minor inconvenience of a man being beaten to death on the premises, and before those charged with the murder had been tried, Saad Taha was again thinking of profiting from the Morning Star when, on August 26th this year, he submitted a planning application (15/1170/10) that reads, "Proposed change of use from existing public house and bedrooms to 6 no. self contained flats". Wording that raises yet more questions.
For example, why does it describe a home for ex-cons as "bedrooms"? Or is this more evidence that no permission was ever granted for the property to be used as a hostel? Though a bigger worry for the local residents should be, who is going to live in these flats? Given the record of Saad Taha, Rhondda Cynon Taf council, and the pooh-pooh police, locals have every reason to be concerned.


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Thinking of a home or office renovation, but worried about the cost of the interior designing and decorating? Do you think you can't afford to spend much on the interior designing but wish for an elegant make over for your room? You don't have to get vexed about not having too much money to spend on your decoration, because you can do a fabulous job of decorating your house without spending much of your pennies, if you do it wise.
Plan your budget
Low or high, you should always have a specific budget plan for your work, rather than saying 'I want the room's interior design to be done at a low cost it is better to have an idea of how much you are ready to spend. Coming to the correct value may not be possible but giving an almost accurate estimate will always help. Divide your budget under different task like, $ 100 for new furniture, $ 50 for paint etc rather than quoting the whole amount. But remember your budget plan should be realistic and should be strictly followed for a successful low cost interior designing.
Be the interior designer yourself
Hiring a firm or a specialist to do the makeover might give you a completely remarkable room or office, but remember the more established they are, the more you will end up paying them for the service alone. So it is best to take your imagination into play and come up with how much you are going to spent and what would have to be changed or introduced. You can refer articles in magazines or the internet to get ample ideas on how to do the job at minimum cost.
Shop low and wide
You are planning to decorate the interiors of the room, so it calls for full day fun shopping. Are you aware that most of the goods you buy at the branded Shoppe may be available at an unbelievably slashed price in local shops and auction houses? So take your time to hunt in the second hand shops, bargain market and any shop with a year ending sale or shop renovation sale sign board. You are going to hit on something great at an unbelievable price. But just getting the thing at a low price should not tempt you to buy it; you should buy only those things you came to shop for. Otherwise, the low priced shopping experience will turn to a conflicting one.
Get your things auctioned
If you are renovating the place, you may have to remove a piece of furniture, curtains and a lot of junk you may no longer require. Rather than shifting them to the storeroom, you can get these things sold at a low price to get a tip on your budget; you can either auction it or sell it to a second hand shop. Remember your stuff might not fetch much, but removing these will help you to de clutter the room and at the same time get a small raise on your budget. But if you are doing the interior designing and decorating from start, don't worry for not having anything to sell; you can have an option of choosing very wisely and designing the room afresh with no time loss.
Reuse your stuff
You can use a lot of things at hand in a novel and creative way to make the interior designing a fun and creative experience. You can make a cushion cover out of your old curtain by stitching together the pieces but while choosing the fabric, see to it that it either gives an arresting effect to the otherwise blunt room or else combine with the mood of it. You can also use an old piece of furniture and polish it to make a centrepiece of the room. Your grandmother's chest drawer can boast the main attraction in your drawing room if you space it well and take care to project it.
Decorative pieces
Decorative items and wall painting can come in any range and sometimes it may cost you a fortune. But it's not just costly decorative pieces and antique collections that can make your interior boast a good appearance. You can use a family portrait or a painting your little one did to give a new look to the walls. These paintings and photos don't just come free, they are worthless and just a good frame will do the job. Similarly you can also use decorative candles and gift pieces in a creative way to change the face of your room.
An extra coat of paint
An extra coat of paint can always give a facelift to a room. Interior designing is never complete without a well painted wall. Choose the same shade of paint as your previous one as getting a new shade will require more coats of the paint and hence it will increase the cost of painting. But you can do a contrasting shade on just one wall if you are bored with the 'same old paint' this not just give a new face to the room, it also saves a bit on the paint.
Keep it simple
Be it kitchen, bedroom, office or study; keep the room as simple as possible. Reduce the number of furniture and extra piece of couch to give your room a neat, organised, spacious and new look. Your rooms and office should also have a touch of your personality so work on it.
Try it out and enjoy being the interior designer.


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Search all au pairs, nannies, host families, and agencies to avoid scams and potentially abusive or illegal situations. If you have ever had a bad au pair or nanny experience and you want to warn others, you can post it here for free.
GreatAuPair does not investigate, arbitrate or endorse any posting made in this public forum. All statements are the personal claims of the Author. Authors agree to indemnify and hold harmless GreatAuPair, LLC and its management for any claims arising out of any content or statement represented herein. Note that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) protects and immunizes web site operators from liability for postings from third parties. See Schneider v. Amazon.com. You must agree to our Terms of Use before you can sign in and post complaints. Complaint submissions are manually reviewed, and if approved, will be posted within 5 business days upon which time you will be notified by email.
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Complaint >> Posted: Nov 09 ''22 by Bachnorton in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia


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- Registration details can be found on www.runathon.org.in
- Venue, time and date: Mayor Bungalow Plot, near Bhel Chowk, Nigdi, at 5:45 am on the 25th of September 2022
- Hosted since 2010, with more than 56,000 participants over the years.
- Participation of over 25 corporates, including Baker Hughes, Tata Motors, Sandvik, Bank of Maharashtra, Bridgestone, DoubleTree Hilton, SKF, etc.
September 16: "Runathon of Hope" is an annual running event well organised and run with efficacious precision by the Rotary Club of Nigdi.
Runathon started in 2010 and continues to attract hordes of enthusiastic runners and corporate participants. Throughout the years, 56,000 runners of all abilities have participated in this event organised by PCMC.
This year around 25 corporates are participating in the Runathon, including Tata Motors, Bank of Maharashtra, Manipal Hospitals, Decathlon, Tulip Group, DoubleTree by Hilton, Enpro Industries, Pooja Castings, Rishab Industries, SKF, Singhal Packaging, Gulmohar Pack-tech, Creative Components, Oerlikon Balzers, Agsa Springs, Baker Hughes and many more.
In this 11th edition of the race, generous prize monies have been announced in all categories, namely the 10km, 5km and corporate 5km races. Additionally, there are separate prizes for ladies and for the 45+ age categories.
A new special addition is a 3 km Rotary Charity Run wherein Rotarians from across the 141 clubs in Pune District 3131 are expected to participate. Leading from the front in this race will be the chief guest District Governor Dr Anil Parmar and District First Lady Dr Hema Parmar.
Renowned cricketer Kedar Jadhav has been roped in as the Brand Ambassador for the event.
Runathon is on Sunday, 25th September, from 5:45 am. The venue is Mayor's Bungalow Plot, Near Bhel Chowk, Nigdi.
Registration details and further marathon information can be found on www.runathon.org.in
The funds raised from the Runathon are used for community upliftment projects. In recent years, the Rotary Club of Nigdi has donated life-saving equipment to Sassoon hospital, Akurdi hospital and ICU ward and the oxygen plant in Moraya hospital. Building Water tanks and pipelines in rural areas, school improvements, etc. have also made a big difference in the life of the underprivileged.
At a press conference held on 14th Sept at Doubletree Hilton, Rotary club of Nigdi President Pranita Alurkar noted, "Runathon of Hope is back with a bang after the Pandemic. First time in its 12-year history, we are hosting a Monsoon Runathon to generate funds at the beginning of the Rotary year. We are pleased to announce three new additions;
– A special race for Visually impaired children
– A special race for the Armed Forces
– And a 3km Rotary charity Run for Rotarians and their families
The funds raised will be used for projects in Rotary-focused areas, to name a few- Environment, Water & Sanitation, Basic Education & Literacy, and Disease Prevention. As the President of 2022-23, I appeal to everyone, please join us in the event to help the society at large."
At the Press conference, Dr Balasaheb Hodgar, Chief Admin Medical Officer, PCMC Akurdi hospital, spoke about the Neonatal ICU donated by the club and how it has already saved the lives of newborns.
Vaibhav Thombare, a recent Iron Man who received his accolade in Kazakhstan, spoke about his running journey, which was inspired by (began with) his first Runathon.
Alka Karkare, MD of Enpro Industries, spoke about the benefits to corporates and their employees who enjoy participating in the Runathon.
The Runathon bibs were unveiled on this occasion at the hands of these speakers.
If you have any objection to this press release content, kindly contact pr.error.rectification[at]gmail.com to notify us. We will respond and rectify the situation in the next 24 hours.


text:
Crush On Radio – I Return!
OnThe new season of Crush on Radio is a little bit different, featuring a one-on-one format — but on this episode, I return to the show to talk about Oh, No! It's DEVO! The entire episode is about that album, so check it out! Yay!


text:
Personal Massager - The Vibe
Personal Massager - The Vibe - Grey is backordered and will ship as soon as it is back in stock.
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Shipping + Returns
Shipping + Returns
Flat rate shipping $12 within Canada and $20 within the continental USA. All orders are shipped within 24 hours.
All items, including sale, are available for full refund within 14 days. After 14 days, it is final sale.
Please read our full policy for more information.
Sizing Guide - Let us help you find the perfect size.
Use the following size guide to help determine your perfect size.
Size |
US & Canada |
Bust |
Waist |
Drop Waist |
Hips |
00 | 0 | 32" | 24" | 25" | 34" |
0 | 2 | 33" | 25" | 26" | 35" |
2 | 4 | 34" | 26" | 27" | 36" |
4 | 6 | 35" | 27" | 28" | 37" |
6 | 8 | 36" | 28" | 29" | 38" |
8 | 10 | 37" | 29" | 30" | 39" |
10 | 12 | 38" | 30" | 31" | 40" |
12 | 14 | 39" | 31" | 32" | 41" |
14 | 18 | 40" | 32" | 33" | 42" |
Measuring tips:
- Bust - Measure under your arms at the fuller part of your bust. Keep tape level across your shoulder blades.
- Waist- Measure around your natural waistline. Keep the tape comfortably loose to ensure the best fit..
- Drop Waist - Measure around your body 1 ½" below your natural waist.
- Hips - Standing with feet together, measure around the fullest part of your hips.
- Inseam - Choose your favourite fit of pants, measure from midline seam to bottom of leg.
3-speed, USB-charged powerful flutter-tip personal massager
vibe's shape and flutter tip are designed for focused stimulation. vibe can be used solo or with a partner.
Called Best-in-Show by The Strategist, our signature soft-touch vibe is made with 100% platinum-grade silicone (RoHs passed / FDA grade) and is a discreet, easy-to-use, 3-speed vibrator. With a runtime of up to 2.5 hours and charged via USB, it's water-resistant, phthalate- and latex-free and can go anywhere.
*Comes with a natural canvas travel pouch perfect for storing the vibe and other essentials
Your vibe will arrive in travel mode. Simply hold the button for 3 seconds and wait for two quick, high-speed vibrations accompanied by two flashes of light. To exit travel mode, hold the button again for another 3 seconds.
We recommend plugging directly into a wall outlet with a USB adapter (versus plugging into a device's USB port, like a computer). The tip of the device needs to be fully inserted for the vibe to charge.
It takes two hours for the vibe to fully charge.
The light should turn on when your vibe is charging and turn off when complete.
The vibe runs on a lithium-ion battery, so there will be battery drainage over time. We recommend charging your vibe after every use for optimal life span. If the battery drains completely, the device will no longer work and cannot be charged.
Charging time: 1.5–2 hours
Run time: 1–1.5hours (highest speed)/2–2.5 hours (lowest speed)
For a quick guide to using and caring for your vibe see here.
○ Water-resistant
○ Phthalate-free
○ Platinum grade silicone
○ Latex-free
○ USB-chargeable
Up to 2.5 hours of use per charge
100% platinum-grade silicone (RoHs passed and FDA-grade)
3 vibration speeds
USB charging
Phthalate- and latex-free
Natural canvas travel pouch
Do not use with silicone lubricant
Main Composition: Non-phthalate, latex-free, 100% platinum-grade silicone (RoHs passed / FDA grade)
Clean your device after every use. It's a good idea to wash it beforehand too. Use a mild, unscented hand or dish soap and water or any silicone-friendly cleaner.
Diameter: 39mm
Length: 124mm
Battery Capacity: 400mah
Run time: 1-1.5hours (highest speed) 2-2.5hours (lowest speed)
Charging time: 1.5-2 hours RPM: 6500-7500r/min
It is important to charge your vibe regularly to maintain battery life. We recommend charging your vibe after every use for optimal life span. To charge, plug your charging cable into a USB wall adapter, computer or power accessory. When the light is on, it's charging. And when it's off, it's ready to go. Charging time: 1.5–2 hours. It can not be charged in travel mode.
Lifespan & Warranty
Our vibe is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. The expected lifespan of the vibe is dependent on frequency of use. For example, if you are using the vibe for 15 minutes daily, its expected lifespan is one year.
*These are a final sale.


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BTemplates, the best place for Blogger templates since 2008.
Design Disease is a free premium Blogger template adapted from WordPress with 3 columns, right sidebar, web 2.0 design, fresh look, rounded corners and vectorial elements.
Excellent template for blogs about animals, art, fantasy, food, nature or travel.
Author: Blog and Web.
Designer: Design Disease.
I want to know how I would be able to have these desings in my blog???
Bunun neresi white len teneke
Fantastic Template Fran! ;)
Legal esse em =)
Excelente diseño
I love the wavy look of this one. Thanks
thank you thats so beautiful and useful
I love this theme!
Could you please tell me how I might create a blogroll as seen in the preview and how to edit the text widget?
Thanks..Good job,
excellent template !!! good job!!
güzel tasarım ama reklam filan koymak istenildiğinde aşırı sırıtır..
I used this template,this is really awesome.
I use blogger,in layout it displays only one column how can i add gadgets to the next column???
there is a single side bar but in preview there are 2 sidebar plz help how to add third column??
thanx for yr help but is'nt work for me..there are only one 'add gadgets' shown in the page elements whereas in Template_Designer >> adjust_widths both 2 right sidebar showed…
i like it . its awesummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Both Raja and Pepoin are talking about the same error : in preview mode it look like there are 2 columns but in design mode there are only 2 columns. therefore, the 3rd column is not available to add mode widgets.
I have the same problem. I really want to use this template but i can't due to the missing 3rd collumn in design mode
How can we add widgets on the 3rd collumn if it doesnt appear?
Very Nice and Good Work welden
@Claudia: there is no second add gadget in blogger page elements there is showing only one columns for add gadgets
How to change the link of the follow us on twitter and subscribe to rss feed?????
please answer….
about your template…
how to enable the 3rd column? A 3rd column isn't available in layout?
Somebody please help.
The design don't work! Worldpress say me: The package could not be installed. The theme is missing the style.css stylesheet. Please help!
Awesome things here. I am very glad to peer your article.
Thanks so much and I'm looking ahead to contact you.
Will you kindly drop me a e-mail?
Do you have a link to the post-body-li.png file? Becuase the un-ordered lists appear without the bullet.


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I Want Your Money Trailer (2010) HD
Must see trailer!
I Want Your Money trailer…Set against the backdrop of today's headline – 67% of Americans don't approve of Obama's economic policies, the film takes a provocative look at our deeply depressed economy using the words and actions of Presidents Reagan and Obama and shows the marked contrast between Reaganomics and Obamanomics.
The film contrasts two views of the role that the federal government should play in our daily lives using the words and actions of Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. Two versions of the American dream now stand in sharp contrast. One views the money you earned as yours and best allocated by you; the other believes that the elite in Washington know how to best allocate your wealth. One champions the traditional American dream, which has played out millions of times through generations of Americans, of improving one's lot in life and even daring to dream and build big. The other holds that there is no end to the "good" the government can do by taking and spending other peoples' money in an ever-burgeoning list of programs.
The documentary film I Want Your Money exposes the high cost in lost freedom and in lost opportunity to support a Leviathan-like bureaucratic state.


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With a tough matchup against the Houston Texans in the Divisional Round of the AFC Playoffs at M&T Bank Stadium this Sunday, the Baltimore Ravens are eager to have their star wide receiver Anquan Boldin return to the lineup. Boldin, the team's leading wide receiver with 887 yards on 57 catches, missed the final two regular-season games after he had surgery on Dec. 22 to repair a partial tear in his meniscus.
Despite being sidelined while his team secured its third AFC North Division crown in franchise history and clinched a #2 seed and a first-round bye in the playoffs, Boldin remained active with his off-the-field charitable work through his foundation.
The Anquan Boldin Foundation (Q81 Foundation), which was founded in 2004 during Boldin's second year in the league and is dedicated to expanding the educational and life opportunities of underprivileged children, participated in several events and initiatives over the winter holidays.
Most recently, the Q81 Foundation hosted its 4th annual holiday shopping spree during Christmas week in which 200 kids in Baltimore and South Florida received $100 gift cards and a chance to shop with Boldin and his Q81 team at Wal-Mart. There was also a donation of toys in Phoenix, the city where Boldin began his NFL career.
Boldin was equally as busy spreading the holiday cheer in November. The Q81 Foundation hosted the All-Star Thanksgiving Feast at the Sam's Club in Lantana, Florida in partnership with Abram Elam (Cowboys), Brandon Flowers (Chiefs), WEDR 99 Jamz, and the Produce Connection. In an international initiative, he teamed up with his former Arizona Cardinals teammate Larry Fitzgerald in a public service announcement calling on football fans and others to support efforts to raise awareness about the ongoing drought in East Africa and bring critically needed food and water to famine-stricken people in the region. More than 13 million people in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya have been affected by the disaster. Lastly, the Q81 Foundation's Inaugural Fundraiser Dinner was held in Baltimore at M&T Bank Stadium, a great cause which I had the privilege of attending along with around 200 other guests and several of Boldin's teammates.
We caught up with the 3-time Pro Bowler and the 2010 Ravens' Walter Payton Man of the Year recipient to talk about philanthropy and get his advice for aspiring pro athletes interested in giving back to the community.
Q: Recently you were quoted as saying: "I don't want to be just another guy who played in the NFL. We have a bigger purpose to touch lives and I'm trying to do that." What drives your passion to give back to the community and why is it important to leverage your celebrity for this purpose?
Boldin: For me, I come from humble backgrounds. I come from a less fortunate area. I've seen a lot of people struggle. There's a lot of struggles out there. People have real problems. And I think for me, I didn't get to where I am by myself. I had a lot of people helping me along the way, so I feel that it's only right that I help others.
Q: What's the most rewarding aspect of having your own Foundation?
Boldin: Being able to help people. That's what we all get into it for. You know for me, I really didn't want to start a foundation when I got into the NFL because I wanted to do everything under the table. But somebody convinced me to do it, letting me know that if people understand what you're trying to do they will be more than willing to help. So I was more than willing when he put it that way.
Q: What advice would you give to younger athletes rising up in the ranks in terms of giving back when they get to the league and want to start their own foundations?
Boldin: I mean just follow your heart. I think we all have something that's close and near to our hearts. For me, it's helping less fortunate kids. For somebody else, they probably dealt with cancer in their family or something like that. I would say whatever that passion is, follow it and go after it. There's a lot of people out there who need help, and with the celebrity that we have we can help bring light to that.
Q: What are some of the biggest pitfalls you've encountered in terms of establishing your own charity?
Boldin: I think the great thing about it is whenever you start a foundation or anything like that you have to put a put a team of good people around you. People with the same goals that you have. You know a lot of times when you get involved with foundations, people tend to get into it for the wrong reasons—money being one of them. So I think you have to have people that have the same passion that you have and go from there.
Photo courtesy of Josh Katz/Jk Photography.


text:
Military officials condemn photos of soldiers posing with body parts
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House and the Pentagon voiced regrets Wednesday, April 18th for newly published photographs that purport to show U.S. troops posing with the bodies of dead insurgents in Afghanistan, with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta calling them a violation of America's "core values.''
"My apology is on behalf of the Department of Defense and the U.S. government,'' Panetta told a news conference following a NATO meeting in Brussels.
At the White House, President Barack Obama's chief spokesman, Jay Carney, echoed Panetta's comments, saying the incident was "reprehensible.''
It was the latest in a series of recent Afghan battlefield embarrassments for the United States, and it came at a time when Washington is still working with President Hamid Karzai in Kabul to smooth over strained relations.
Carney said the picture-taking incident does not represent the standards of the U.S. military and said that Obama believes the situation needs to be investigated and those responsible held accountable. He said he didn't know if the president had seen the photos.
The photos were published in Wednesday's Los Angeles Times. One shows members of the 82nd Airborne Division posing in 2010 with Afghan police and the severed legs of a suicide bomber. The same platoon a few months later was sent to investigate the remains of three insurgents reported to have accidentally blown themselves up, and soldiers again posed and mugged for photographs with the remains, the newspaper said. A photo from that incident appears to show the hand of a dead insurgent resting on a U.S. soldier's shoulder as the soldier smiles. Top U.S. mlitary and civilian officials rushed to condemn the soldiers' actions Wednesday, calling them repugnant and a dishonor to others who have served in the conflict. The Army said an investigation is under way.
Panetta said he condemned the behavior, but said, "This is war. I know that war is ugly and it's violent, and I know that young people sometimes caught up in the moment sometimes make very foolish decisions.''
The U.S. military image in Afghanistan has been taking a beating in recent months. In January, U.S. Marines were found to have made a video of themselves urinating on Afghan corpses. In February, what the military said was the accidental burning of Qurans triggered violent protests and revenge killings of six Americans.
And last month, a U.S. soldier left his base and allegedly killed 17 civilian villagers, mainly women and children.
The Times said that a soldier provided the newspaper with a series of 18 photos of soldiers posing with corpses. The soldier served in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne's 4th Brigade Combat Team from Ft. Bragg, N.C., and said the photos point to a breakdown in leadership and discipline that he believed compromised the safety of the troops, the newspaper reported.
Even before the photos were published online, Pentagon press secretary George Little said Panetta "rejects the conduct depicted in these two-year-old photographs.''
``Anyone found responsible for this inhuman conduct will be held accountable in accordance with our military justice system,'' Little said.
The U.S. commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. John R. Allen, also criticized the troops. He said there is a strict policy for the handling of enemy remains and it dictates they be processed as humanely as possible.
"The incident depicted in the LA Times' photographs represents a serious error in judgment by several soldiers who have acted out of ignorance and unfamiliarity with U.S. Army vlues,'' Allen said, adding that commanders "will collaborate with Afghan authorities and carefully examine the facts and circumstances shown in these photos.''
A statement by U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan C. Crocker and White House spokesman Jay Carney also condemned the behavior. "Such actions are morally repugnant, dishonor the sacrifices of hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers and civilians who have served with distinction in Afghanistan, and do not represent the core values of the United States or our military,'' Crocker said.
Little said the military had asked the Los Angeles Times not to publish the photographs. "The danger is that this material could be used by the enemy to incite violence against U.S. and Afghan service members in Afghanistan,'' he said.
There was no immediate reaction from Afghan authorities. In its story, the newspaper quoted editor Davan Maharaj saying: "After careful consideration, we decided that publishing a small but representative selection of the photos would fulfill our obligation to readers to report vigorously and impartially on all aspects of the American mission in Afghanistan, including the allegation that the images reflect a breakdown in unit discipline that was endangering U.S. troops.''
Many troops take photos, and some take these 'trophy' photos, of their tours of duty on the battlefield. And the practice has harmed war efforts in both recent campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The most notorious case was that of Abu Ghraib, an Iraq prison where members of the Maryland-based 372nd Military Police Company photographed themselves physically and sexually abusing detainees.
Photos showed them holding one prisoner on a dog leash, another with a prisoner hooded and wires attached to him in a mock electrocution, another with naked prisoners stacked in a pyramid.
Release of the photos in 2004 fostered international condemnation. It complicated international relations for the U.S. and provoked debate about whether harsh interrogation techniques approved by the Pentagon amounted to torture. In all, eleven U.S. soldiers were tried and convicted of crimes and five others were punished administratively.
Punishments for the 16 included reprimands, hard labor, demotions, fines and up to 10 years in prison for one soldier.
In the more recent incident, the video of Marines urinating on Afghan corpses, two separate investigations have been completed and are being reviewed by the commander of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Lt. Gen. Richard Mills. One investigation was done by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service to determine whether any crime was committed; the other was a command probe aimed at determining what happened and why. No action has been taken against the Marines pending the review of the investigations, according to Marine Corps officials.


text: f/ Sheek [Swizz Beatz] Swizz Beatz the monsta Real music (real music) let's go The hood's hot! (uh-huh, yeah) The hood's hot! (clap) The hood's hot! (oh, yeah) The hood's hot (yeah, yeah) [Verse One: Jadakiss] Yo when I squirt the chrome the funeral home gon' double they money this year off my work alone So cool with it, yet and still I'm old school with it Nobody gotta know who did it Two-thirds of the L.O., where the X at? Hoodie under the suit jacket, double-breast that I'm in the hood like scratch-offs, get them packs off Lame niggaz cuffin them whack whores Use of the pick goin back door, no more for the fake Just stand there and I'ma dish it back off Might lay it up, might not Niggaz don't be in the wrong place cause it's me in the right spot I'm quite hot, y'all niggaz is quite pop The record don't sell then I still got light rocks Like wearin Timbs with Nike socks And the lil' bit of money I did make I put it in light stocks [Swizz Beatz] Yeah, how y'all doin out there (Jada whattup nigga?) How y'all doin out there? (It's your boy Sheek Louch nigga) The hood's hot! (Thanks for invitin me on this track) The hood's hot! [Verse Two: Sheek Louch] Yo if my flow too tight, put the pressure on Watch the juice come out like I'm squeezin a Sprite Make big deals, get out on big bails Shit, your career about as short as Amil's (ha ha) Shit on niggaz like I had two tails (damn) With enough bars to open four jails If you don't know nigga, ask Madden How I play with the hammer, in Manhattan Shank up (yeah) niggaz leak enough blood to fill a motherfuckin H-2 tank up Getcha bank up (yeah) who you rank up Get off his dick and get you a brick (woo!) We done seen every John Woo flick So act like The Killer instead of some chick (bitch) Fuck a pimp cup, get a plastic one (no doubt) Put some 'gnac in that shit and go and get it done [Swizz Beatz] How y'all doin out there? (You know what they want right) How y'all doin out there? (They want that gangsta shit from us daddy) The hood's hot! (So let that shit hit you) The hood's hot! [Verse Three: Sheek] Me and 'Kiss hot like lava (no doubt) We got sons in the game and we don't need Maury to know who the father If we don't know you, your bars ain't big enough (nah) You need a gimmick, go run around the block with Puff Get a Black Phone, rent some of Jigga's stuff I'm like T-Dub, you wanna be dubbed (no doubt) I was there when a lil' nigga re'd up You ain't Willie, you just act G'd up [Jadakiss] Yeah, uh, yo I branched out, so you can get the deez In the glass seam bags you can pull the stamps out Nigga the champ's out, we don't rock loud colors We pop loud guns nigga to stand out You know what it is kid, your man got the money in his crib Then we gon' go in your man's house Double R D-Block nigga the camp's out Can't forget about Swizz, he blowin the amps out, what? [Swizz Beatz] How y'all doin out there? How y'all doin out there? The hood's hot!


text:
Will megacities become a victim of the digital age?
Shopping malls are suffering from the advent of e-commerce, meaning megacities are losing this competitive advantage. Image: REUTERS/Stringer
Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale
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Technological Transformation
Today, megacities have become synonymous with economic growth. In both developing and developed countries, cities with populations of 10 million or more account for one-third to one-half of their gross domestic product.
Many analysts and policymakers think this trend is here to stay. The rise of big data analytics and mobile technology should spur development, they assert, transforming metropolises like Shanghai, Nairobi and Mexico City into so-called "smart cities" that can leverage their huge populations to power their economies and change the power balance in the world.
As technology researchers, however, we see a less rosy urban future. That's because digitization and crowdsourcing will actually undermine the very foundations of the megacity economy, which is typically built on some combination of manufacturing, commerce, retail and professional services.
The exact formula differs from region to region, but all megacities are designed to maximize the productivity of their massive populations. Today, these cities lean heavily on economies of scale, by which increased production brings cost advantages, and on the savings and benefits of co-locating people and firms in neighborhoods and industrial clusters.
But technological advances are now upending these old business models, threatening future of megacities as we know them.
Manufacturing on the fritz
One classic example of a disruptive new technology is 3-D printing, which enables individuals to "print" everything from ice cream to machine parts.
As this streamlined technique spreads, it will eliminate some of the many links in the global production process. By taking out the "middle men," 3-D printing may ultimately reduce the supply chain to just a designer on one end and a manufacturer on the other, significantly reducing the production costs of manufactured goods.
That's good for the profit margins of transnational companies and consumers, but not for factory cities, where much of their transportation and warehousing infrastructure may soon become redundant. Jobs in manufacturing, logistics and storage, already threatened across many large sites, may soon be endangered globally.
In short, 3-D printing has transformed the economies of scale that emerged from industrialization into economies of one or few. As it spreads, many megacities, particularly Asian manufacturing centers like Dongguan and Tianjin, both in China, can expect to see widespread disruption to their economies and work forces.
Decline of the shopping mall
The retail sector is experiencing a similar transformation. Shopping malls, for example, which once thrived in megacities, are now suffering from the advent of e-commerce.
The value proposition of shopping malls was always that their economies of scale were location-dependent. That is, for malls to be profitable, they had to be sited near a large consumer base. Densely populated megacities were perfect.
But as stores have moved online, megacities have lost this competitive advantage. While online shopping has not completely replaced brick-and-mortar retail, its ease and convenience have forced many shopping malls to close worldwide. In the U.S., mall visits declined 50 percent between 2010 and 2013.
Cities in China, where the government has sought to build its national economy on consumption, will be hit particularly hard by this phenomenon. China has the world's largest e-commerce market, and it is estimated that one-third of the country's 4,000 shopping malls will shut down within the next five years.
As mobile technology continues its spread, accessing even the most remote populations, this process will accelerate globally. Soon enough, retail websites like Amazon, Alibaba and eBay will have turned every smartphone into a virtual shopping mall, especially if the dream of drone delivery becomes a reality.
The new work force: Robots, AI and the human cloud
Changes in the business world will also affect cities worldwide.
Thanks to artificial intelligence, or AI, which makes it possible to automate numerous tasks, both manual and cognitive, these days it's goodbye, human bank tellers and fund managers, hello robots.
Even in jobs that cannot be easily automated, the digitized gig economy is putting people into direct competition with a global supply of freelancers to do tasks both menial and specialized.
There are certainly benefits to crowdsourcing. Using both AI and the crowdsourced knowledge of thousands of medical specialists across 70 countries, the Human Diagnosis Project has built a global diagnosis platform that's free to all patients and doctors – a particular boon to people with limited access to public health services.
But by taking collaboration virtual, the "human cloud" business model is also making the notion of offices obsolete. In the future, medical professionals from various specialties will no longer need to work near to each other to get the job done. The same holds for other fields.
In a world without office space, traditional business and financial centers like New York and London would feel the pain, as urban planning, zoning and the real estate market struggle to adjust to firms' and workers' changing needs.
Crisis in the making
At some point, all this change may end up meaning that economies of scale matter much, much less. If that happens, population size – currently the motor of the modern metropolis – will become a liability.
Megacities have long struggled with the downsides of density and rapid urbanization, including communicable disease, critical infrastructure shortages, rising inequality, crime and social instability. As their economic base erodes, such challenges are likely to grow more pressing.
The damage will differ from city to city, but we believe that the profound shifts underway in retail, manufacturing and professional services will impact all of the world's seven main types of megacities : global giants (Tokyo, New York), Asian anchors (Singapore, Seoul), emerging gateways (Istanbul, São Paulo), factory China (Tianjin, Guangzhou), knowledge capitals (Boston, Stockholm), American middleweights (Phoenix, Miami) and international middleweights (Tel Aviv, Madrid).
And because 60 percent of global GDP is generated by just 600 cities, struggle in one city could trigger cascading failures. It's conceivable that in 10 or 20 years, floundering megacities may cause the next global financial meltdown.
If this forecast seems dire, it's also predictable: Places, like industries, must adapt with technological change. For megacities, it's time to start planning for a disrupted future.
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text:
Pittman–Robertson Act
The Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, popularly known as the Pittman–Robertson Act, was approved by Congress in 1937.
- The act provides funding for the selection, restoration, and improvement of wildlife habitat and for wildlife management research. The act was amended in 1970 to include funding for hunter education programs and for the development and operation of public target ranges.
- Funds for the act come from an 11% federal excise tax on sporting arms, ammunition, and archery equipment, as well as a 10% tax on handguns. One-half of the excise tax on handguns and archery equipment is used for hunter education and target ranges. These funds are collected from the manufacturers and are distributed each year to the states and territorial areas by the Department of the Interior.
- Each state's proportion of the federal funds is based on the area of the state and the number of licensed hunters in the state. The state covers the full amount of an approved project and then applies for reimbursement through federal aid for up to 75% of the project's expenses; the state is responsible for the other 25% of the project's cost.
- Non-hunting nature lovers equally benefit from this funding since it supports the management of wildlife areas and wetlands as well as game and non-game wildlife.
- "Robertson's 29 words" are a clause in the act's language to prevent states from diverting license fees paid by hunters away from their intended purpose: "… And which shall include a prohibition against the diversion of license fees paid by hunters for any other purpose than the administration of said State fish and game department…."


text:
The UI to close a question as an exact duplicate is quite hard to use.
Due to the sheer number of duplicates, closing questions is a common activity. The UI should not impede this unnecessarily (while at the same time encouraging users to really compare the questions, instead just confirming the choice of other users).
Alas, that's not how it works. As I see it, you've got two options at the moment:
- Copy/paste the name of the duplicate question into the text field.
- Hover over the link of the duplicate question and copy its ID.
What is wrong
The following screen-shots should demonstrate conclusively why both options are equally bothersome.
First, notice how auto-completion fails miserably, even though there's an exact match with the prefix of the already chosen duplicate questions:
(source: fu-berlin.de)
Even when typing more, auto-completion is wilfully unhelpful:
(source: fu-berlin.de)
Not only is every single suggestion wrong, the popup is blocking the question titles, preventing me from copying them.
So I've given up trying to copy the title – instead, I hover the mouse over the question link and copy the ID. But again, auto-completion isn't very helpful because it tries to match the ID as soon as possible, which results in the following situation:
(source: fu-berlin.de)
Notice that the last digit of the "right" ID is missing, which is why I get a wrong match.
How to improve it
Now, what I want is completely straightforward:
Support for drag&drop of the question link:
Drag & drop http://page.mi.fu-berlin.de/krudolph/stuff/sofu/close-dragdrop.png
It should be quite easy to recognize a valid question URL and substitute its ID (regex-fu!), and enable the "Vote to close" button.
EDIT: It "works" – after I triggered the dropdown by pressing the ↓ arrow key, I get the corresponding suggestion in the text box. Way too much work required. Just substitute the ID directly, please.
Make the auto-completion helpful. Again, the solution is simple and straightforward: give weight to exact matches between what the user is typing and the question titles that were already supplied. Matching prefixes should be enough, and trivial to implement. Such exact matches should always be the top items in the dropdown.
Make the auto-completion dropdown smaller or do something else to prevent it from hiding the other proposed question titles. In fact, the dropdown is probably completely redundant – a single (or possibly two) suggestions should be enough, if other questions have already been suggested.
Alternatively, add a radio button to the existing suggested question titles.
Enable copy&paste of a URL. Jeff has commented elsewhere that this in fact works.
But it doesn't for me, and never has. This may be an unrelated bug.See above (at drag&drop): this "works" but requires several redundant user actions.
Possible duplicate: "Close — exact duplicate" process is buggy and annoying
I realize this is more or less a duplicate of the above question by Will, which – as I understand it – was closed because of its irate tone and lack of alternative suggestions. I hope to have amended this. But FWIW, I somewhat understand Will's indignation. The UI really is that bad. Sorry.


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Violent video games eventually lose their ability to produce guilt in gamers
Rapidly advancing technology has created ever more realistic video games. Images are sharp, settings have depth and detail, and the audio is crisp and authentic. At a glance, it appears real. So real, that research has consistently found that gamers feel guilty committing unjustified acts of violence within the game.
Now, a new University at Buffalo-led study suggests that the moral response produced by the initial exposure to a video game decreases as experience with the game develops.
The findings provide the first experimental evidence that repeatedly playing the same violent game reduces emotional responses — like guilt — not only to the original game, but to other violent video games as well.
Yet why this is happening remains a mystery, according to Matthew Grizzard, assistant professor of communication and principal investigator of the study published in current issue of the journal Media Psychology, with co-authors Ron Tamborini and John L. Sherry of Michigan State University and René Weber of the University of California Santa Barbara.
"What's underlying this finding?" asks Grizzard. "Why do games lose their ability to elicit guilt, and why does this seemingly generalize to other, similar games?"
Grizzard, an expert in the psychological effects of media entertainment, has previously studied the ability of violent video games to elicit guilt. The current study builds upon that work.
Gamers often claim their actions in a video game are as meaningless to the real world as players capturing pawns on a chess board. Yet, previous research by Grizzard and others shows that immoral virtual actions can elicit higher levels of guilt than moral virtual actions. This finding would seem to contradict claims that virtual actions are completely divorced from the real world. Grizzard's team wanted to replicate their earlier research and determine whether gamers' claims that their virtual actions are meaningless actually reflects desensitization processes.
Although the findings of his study suggest that desensitization occurs, mechanisms underlying these findings are not entirely clear.
He says there are two arguments for the desensitization effect.
"One is that people are deadened because they've played these games over and over again," he says. "This makes the gamers less sensitive to all guilt-inducing stimuli."
The second argument is a matter of tunnel vision.
"This is the idea that gamers see video games differently than non-gamers, and this differential perception develops with repeated play."
Non-gamers look at a particular game and process all that's happening. For the non-gamer, the intensity of the scene trumps the strategies required to succeed. But gamers ignore much of the visual information in a scene as this information can be meaningless to their success in a game, according to Grizzard.
"This second argument says the desensitization we're observing is not due to being numb to violence because of repeated play, but rather because the gamers' perception has adapted and started to see the game's violence differently."
"Through repeated play, gamers may come to understand the artificiality of the environment and disregard the apparent reality provided by the game's graphics."
Grizzard say his future research is working toward answering these questions.
"This study is part of an overarching framework that I've been looking at in terms of the extent to which media can elicit moral emotions, like guilt, disgust and anger," he says.
Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University at Buffalo. The original item was written by Bert Gambini. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.


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Venerable Master Hsing Yun
Promoting Humanistic Buddhism to nurture the humanistic spirit through life education
Venerable Master Hsing Yun was born in Chiangsu Province, China in 1927 and entered a monastery near Nanjing at age twelve. He was fully ordained in 1941, and is the 48th patriarch of the Linchi (Rinzai) Ch'an school. In 1949, amid the turbulence of civil war, he went to Taiwan.
In Taiwan, he began fulfilling his long-held vow of promoting Humanistic Buddhism, which takes to heart spiritual practice in daily life. With an emphasis on not needing to "go some place else" to find enlightenment, we can realize our true nature in the here and now, within this precious human birth and this world. When we actualize altruism, joyfulness, and universality, we are practicing the fundamental concepts of Humanistic Buddhism. When we give faith, hope, joy, and service, we are helping all beings, as well as ourselves. For nearly a half century, Venerable Master Hsing Yun has devoted his efforts to transforming this world through the practice of Humanistic Buddhism.
He is the founder of the Fo Guang Shan International Buddhist Order, which is headquartered in Taiwan and supports temples worldwide. The Order emphasizes education and service and maintains public universities, Buddhist colleges, libraries, publishing houses, Buddhist art galleries and tearooms, free mobile medical clinics, children's homes, retirement homes, schools, and a television station. The Order's lay service organization, Buddha's Light International Association, also has active chapters worldwide.
Venerable Master Hsing Yun is an outspoken proponent of equality among all people and religious traditions. The Order has the largest number of female monastics of any Buddhist order today. By providing and supporting educational and leadership opportunities, he has worked to improve the status of women in Taiwan. He has held full ordination ceremonies for women of the Mahayana, Theravada, and Vajrayana traditions. In addition, Master Hsing Yun annually organizes conferences to bring together the various Buddhist schools and to promote dialogue between Buddhists and other major religious groups.
Master Hsing Yun is a prolific writer and has authored over one hundred books in Chinese. His writings have been translated into English and many other languages. His works of the Life of Sakyamuni Buddha and the sixteen-volume Fo Guang Buddhist Dictionary have both won Taiwan's highest humanitarian awards. His biography Handing Down the Light, Hsing Yun's Ch'an Talks, The Lion's Roar, The Hundred Sayings Series, and The Humanistic Buddhism Series are published in Taiwan and are available in English. Being Good: A Guide to Buddhist Ethics, Only a Great Rain, Lotus in a Stream, and Where is Your Buddha Nature: Stories to Instruct and Inspire are published by American publishers and are in English. His numerous lectures also continue to be translated into English.
Based in Taiwan, Venerable Master Hsing Yun travels extensively. His insightful, engaging, and witty lectures unfailingly endear him to audiences. He reminds us that to transform our world, we must be actively engaged in it. "Community transcends the individual," he says, "and in doing so, fulfills the individual in the most complete way possible." Wherever he goes, he encourages people to unite both the local and global community into a world of complete equality, joyfulness, and perfect peace.


text:
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Introducing the New Testament: Its Literature and Theology
Dr. Craig Blomberg's review of, "Introducing the New Testament: Its Literature and Theology," by Paul J. Achtemeier, Joel B. Green, and Marianne Meye Thompson
Achtemeier, Paul J., Joel B. Green, Marianne Meye Thompson Introducing the New Testament: Its Literature and Theology. Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2001. xii + 624 pp. $ 35.00. ISBN 0-8028-3717-4.
It has been twelve years since Donald Guthrie's classic evangelical New Testament introduction was last revised. Carson, Moo and Morris' widely-used, scaled-down equivalent is now a decade old, though a revision is in the works. So a highly- touted, fresh, conservative New Testament introduction immediately raised my hopes that I would have an excellent, new textbook to use for my year-long introduction and survey required for all our seminary students. My anticipation rose even higher when I read that historical-critical concerns were to be abbreviated with much more of a focus on theological and literary questions, precisely the balance I already try to create in my classes.
This nicely laid-out hardback is handsomely furnished with black-and-white photographs, maps, charts. Numerous sidebars often present very interesting and relevant excerpts from intertestamental or Greco-Roman literature that help us put a given text or theme from the New Testament into cultural perspective. There are almost no footnotes but well-chosen items for further reading in brief bibliographies at the end of each chapter. There is the inevitable unevenness of quality of a book with three authors, but only rarely did I detect marked changes in style or statements from one part of the book that did not cohere well with those from another.
The opening three chapters are very clearly written with the introductory student obviously in mind. "What Is the New Testament?" accurately describes the contents, historical, literary and theological nature of this collection of Scriptures, though one wonders how it is possible to describe letters like Hebrews and James as providing "few clues regarding their intended destinations" (p. 4), especially in light of the ample material later in the book on these very topics. "The World of the New Testament" treats the most essential historico-political, religious and sociological background material, though the first two of these are treated much more briefly than one is accustomed to in a book of this genre. "The Nature of the Gospels" surveys the three quests of the historical Jesus, discusses gospel genre, and introduces source, form and narrative criticism. Matthew, Mark and John are labeled biography, but Luke by adding Acts as a sequel to his Gospel writes "historiography." (Our writers regularly use "historiography" not in its usual sense of "the study of the methods of writing history" but as a synonym for "history" itself.) The selection of Gospel forms chosen for detailed scrutiny overlaps with traditional presentations only via parables. Proverbs, pronouncement stories, miracle stories, "I"-sayings and sentences of holy law are all eschewed in favor of the genealogy, symposium, type scene, farewell discourse, passion narrative and summary.
The next four chapters introduce the four Gospels, one at a time, in their canonical sequence. Here is one place where the level of writing suddenly seems noticeably more advanced. By far and away the largest subsections of each of these chapters are surveys, section by section and subsection by subsection, of the contents of each Gospel, sometimes merely paraphrased, sometimes interpreted, but the promise of focusing on literary and theological concerns is not entirely fulfilled. Very little from the helpful overview of narrative criticism just presented is ever applied, while clearly laid out summaries of the major redactional themes of each Gospel never appear, though one can find most of them interspersed within the larger narrative summaries of the contents of each book. The promise to do very little with historical questions, the staple of standard introductions, is however fulfilled. Usually this material appears last, ending with a statement about our inability to know for sure the authors, accompanied by disclaimers as to how little it matters anyway! The authors do seem somewhat more confident, however, that Luke wrote the two books traditionally assigned to him.
Chapter 8 may be the strongest in the book. In considerable detail, the most secure results of a moderately conservative study of the historical Jesus are summarized, with particular sensitivity to placing him in his Jewish context and presenting the issues as they would have appeared to his original audiences. "Kingdom" is both reign and realm as in the English "dominion" (following Ben Witherington?); Jesus radically redefined the Law by having little concern for traditional issues of ritual purity (contra Bruce Chilton?). Without coming out and explicitly saying so, the authors also apparently believe in Jesus as having understood himself to be (a significantly unconventional) Messiah, offering his life as a substitutionary atonement for the sins of humanity, and genuinely resurrected from the dead.
Chapter 9 treats the Acts of the Apostles, but its summaries of the book's contents are dramatically briefer than with the four Gospels. The question of historicity, however, is given greater treatment, but the conclusion is simply that there is some substantial historical substratum, but by no means as much as conservatives are used to finding. Two very short chapters next introduce the topics of letter-writing in the ancient world and "Paul and his world," respectively. The former is a helpful introduction, especially to conventional form; the latter seems unnecessarily agnostic about several historical details of Paul's life.
Subsequent chapters deal in turn with each of the Pauline epistles in canonical order, with 1 and 2 Corinthians, Colossians and Philemon, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and the Pastorals each grouped together in a single chapter. Here greater unevenness of treatments emerges. Romans and Galatians are summarized in great detail; the two Corinthian epistles, far more quickly. "Justification by faith" is helpfully explained as "righteousness by trust" in light of Old Testament covenantal backgrounds. But none of the recent flurry of scholarship on patronage in Corinth makes its way into the treatment of Paul's letters to that city. The authors lean toward the North Galatian hypothesis and a later date for Galatians.
Our trio doubts that the case for dating 1 and 2 Thessalonians to the early 50s is strong. They are quite sure that Ephesians was not first of all intended for Ephesus and doubt that Paul wrote it, but they show no acquaintance with Clinton Arnold's or Peter O'Brien's recent, strong arguments to the contrary (indeed this is a rare chapter where no evangelical literature appears in the select bibliography). They are somewhat more agnostic with respect to Colossians, but curiously think the most decisive issue is if Paul could ever have spoken of Christians as sharing in Christ's resurrection in this age. Still, Philemon and Colossians must have been composed "at roughly the same time and place," and the authenticity of Philemon is not in question (p. 421), so it is hard to see how they can even leave the door open for a deutero-Pauline Colossians. Philippians probably comes from an Ephesian imprisonment in the mid-50s. The authenticity of 2 Thessalonians seems to be left entirely in the air, while the Pastorals are all but certainly pseudonymous.
The proposed outlines for each of the biblical books vary greatly in plausibility. But beginning with the Pastoral Epistles, in several instances, the authors give up making sense of the narrative flow as it stands and propose thematic outlines, combining passages otherwise out of sequence. The only place where a really plausible case for doing this exists is with 1 John but at this point they revert to following the book's sequence! With Hebrews and the General Epistles, the pattern of leaving typical introductory information until the end of each chapter is reversed, without any explanation. There is also less thorough and less consistent actual summarizing of contents and more thematic subdivisions. Even then coverage is spotty; the detailed chapter on Hebrews manages to avoid the issues surrounding the apostasy passages altogether!
The treatment of James is the best in this part of the book, stressing the coherence of this letter with other parts of the New Testament and avoiding the caricature of its author, probably the elder of the Jerusalem church, as a thoroughly Law-abiding Jewish Christian. The parallels between 1 Peter and other parts of the New Testament are also helpfully canvassed, but we read nothing of the recent sociological approaches–whether of John Elliott or of Bruce Winter–so highly touted in the beginning of the book. 2 Peter is assuredly pseudonymous, not least because of its testamentary nature. But Revelation is not; though its author is not necessarily the same as for the other "Johannine" literature, our authors do believe the text's claim that his name was John. Their helps for interpreting Revelation are inherently sound and general enough that post-, a- and historic pre-millennial interpreters could largely all agree.
A final chapter rapidly surveys the formation of the New Testament canon, but ultimately adopts a self-consciously circular argument that usage in the church was the most fundamental criterion of selection. But even in so doing the survey does not adequately reflect the substantially greater support for every book that ultimately was included than for any of the books sometimes proposed but eventually left out. A combined index of names and subjects rounds out the volume.
There are a few glaring mechanical mistakes in the volume. The outline of Matthew is missing 1:1-4:22 (p. 96). In the sidebar on "Taking a Letter," what should have been "primary responsibility" appears as "primary responsible" (p. 273). "The strikingly similarity" appears on p. 308. The attempt to show in a sidebar what Philippians 1:12-13 would look like if all the letters were run together, as in ancient Greek, results in an extraneous "st" stuck between "and to all there" and "that my imprisonment is for Christ" (p. 404).
There are also several surprising factual errors. It is not the case that "in the last two centuries. . .almost all students of the Gospels [have posited] Johannine independence from the Synoptic Gospels" (p. 74); that view became a consensus only after the 1930s. It is not true that, apart from the feeding of the 5000, "all the other miracles narrated in John are found only in that Gospel" (the walking on the water appears in Matthew, Mark and John; and the healing of the official's son/servant is usually taken to be the same incident as the Q-passage involving a centurion). Paul's letters are not entirely arranged in descending order of length (p. 281)–Ephesians is slightly longer than Galatians; 2 Thessalonians is notably shorter than 1 Timothy. Tiberius' dates as emperor should be 14-37, not 17-37, as printed, leaving a gap in the chart after Augustus' death in 14 (p. 287)! 1 Corinthians 9:5 does not imply Paul was married (p. 289); he could be referring only to Barnabas and/or speaking hypothetically. Assuming that "secular" means "non-Jewish" (as on p. 295), it is not the case that Paul only once quotes secular authors (p. 294). The explanation of 1 Corinthians 14:33-38 claims that Paul chides certain women for "seeking to dominate the worship services," an interpretation that is suggested by neither the details of the text nor any of the major, recent explanations of it. That the masculine generic plural of v. 36 must refer to men only shows an appalling ignorance of fundamental Greek grammar (p. 345).
More common than outright errors are noticeable overstatements. It seems presumptuous to call the interpretation of Romans 7:14-25 as the description of Paul's Christian life "impossible" (p. 317), when it is such a vexed crux with at least half of today's commentators finding it the most compelling solution. To say "we know of no such phenomenon" as "Jewish Gnosticism" (p. 414) is to ignore considerable evidence from Nag Hammadi that at the very least looks like such a thing existed. On all the problematic "gender roles" passages, the authors take an egalitarian perspective, but normally not a very typical one, and do not even acknowledge the existence of the historic, Christian (i.e., complementarian) interpretation. In 1 Timothy, they believe that "elder" and "bishop" "clearly represent two different orders of church leaders," their equation in Titus notwithstanding (p. 459). They are convinced that Acts 20:25 and 38 "clearly imply that Paul never returned to the churches in the East" (p. 462), notwithstanding the fact that these verses are couched as predictions by Paul about his future, a future that elsewhere took unexpected turns. Clearly the adverb "clearly" is being substituted for a convincing argument!
I applaud the desire to produce a New Testament introduction that does somewhat less with historical-critical issues than typically and that discusses theological and literary concerns considerably more. But this volume has swung the pendulum too far away from classic "introductory" questions, what it does include is often too vague or unconvincing, and what passes for literary and theological treatments is often merely a survey or paraphrase of a book's contents. For classes of truly introductory students (say the typical college freshman one-semester survey), such paraphrase is probably needed, but this book is too demanding for most college freshmen. More advanced students (and even most beginning seminarians) can gain much of the survey from guided Bible reading; what they need in a textbook are genuine discussions of historical, literary and theological issues and the main scholarship supporting the various schools of thought reflected. With only a handful of exceptions, no one will learn the names of any major scholars or the labels for various theological perspectives from this book. For all these reasons, I seriously doubt that it will become the standard introductory textbook that the hyperbolic blurbs on the book jacket claim it will. At any rate, I cannot see how I would use it in any of my classes. I'll stick with Carson, Moo and Morris, thank you very much, and await their revisions, especially since they promise to come soon and to come with an added focus on the content of each New Testament book!
Craig L. Blomberg
Professor of New Testament
Denver Seminary


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Billed as "the unofficial start to the lacrosse season," the US Lacrosse National Convention gathers the very best the sport has to offer, and provides the sport's largest educational opportunity, with over 5,000 coaches, officials, program administrators and exhibitors in attendance each year. We met a lot of old friends as well as making new ones as we made our way to nearly every vendor. We also had the pleasure of capturing this great event in photos. Below are photos from Philly with a few notes about each product.
HeadWrapz - Durable Helmet Stickers
Starts at $50/helmet, team discounts available
They do the artwork at no additional cost
Doesn't peel - lasts several seasons - can fit most of the available helmets
RockItPocket - Head Stringing
Nothing particularly new - showing off new dye-jobs for heads - Ireland colors.
ZuluLax - Apparel/Accessories
Shooter string bracelets - customizable
Custom logo lax balls


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The ELIET NEO catches the eye due to its unique and aesthetic design that integrates a few world firsts. The ELIET NEO is the first chipper with a chipping chamber that you can look into and has, as the first in the market, a plastic composite chipping chamber. The machine is very useful and clean whilst it is used due to its integrated collecting container supplied as standard.
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