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The video above features the "Super Guitar Licks Rock Star Jacket," the brainchild of Karen O's stylist Christian Joy (skip to 3:06 to watch it in action). She wanted to create a piece of wearable tech that drew its inspiration from the heralded denim jackets of the 80's that were so often customized with patches, spikes, and studs.
The resulting apparel has several LED PCBs sewn into it that are controlled by a piece of software written for Intel's Ultrabook laptop. This was a project spawned by a challenge from Intel to propose and complete a project in 28 days. Christian had friends in the music and tech world bring the idea to fruition.
The lights on the jacket are responding to specific frequencies being played on a guitar, so that different parts of the jacket light up at different times and with varying frequency. The LEDs look super-bright– sure to add enough sparkle and shine to any guitar solo.
Images by Intel UK
[via The Creators Project]
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Hydroelectric sources of power dwarf other forms of renewable energy, but wind power has been a dominant second for years, and continues to show "hockey stick" growth moving forward. According to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), global cumulative installed wind capacity — the total amount of wind power available — has grown 50-fold in less than two decades, from just 6,100 megawatts (MW) in 1996 to 318,137 MW in 2013. And the future looks brighter still. Analysts from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) predict that wind will account for the largest share — 30 percent — of new renewables added to the global power grid by 2030. That new renewables are expected to account for as much as 70 percent of all new power sources over the next 20 years means that wind is poised to become a major player on the global energy scene.
Here in the U.S., energy generated by domestic wind farms has nearly tripled in just the past four years, despite a brief hiccup due to a lapse in the Production Tax Credit, a renewable energy production incentive that effectively subsidizes the creation of more wind farms. But even despite this, wind represented about a third of all new power added to the U.S. grid over the past five years. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a leading environmental non-profit and wind power advocate, forecasts that the U.S. will derive some 20 percent of its total electricity production from wind by 2030.
"The U.S. industry has many reasons for favorable long-term prospects," reports the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), a non-profit trade group representing the wind industry. "In addition to the record activity at the end of 2013, wind energy helped keep the lights on and insulate against temporary price spikes during the recent 'polar vortex' cold weather snap, demonstrating the value of wind power in a balanced energy portfolio." AWEA also points out recent reports showing how incorporation of wind energy lowers costs for electric consumers. "And critical to some parts of the country facing continuing drought, wind energy uses no water in its production, as well as releasing no emissions," adds the group.
The fact that wind energy in the U.S. avoids some 100 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually is also good news. AWEA adds that that number will grow as wind energy scales up to 20 percent of the grid and beyond "making the addition of more wind power one of the fastest, cheapest, and largest-scale ways for states to meet the Administration's new goals for reducing carbon pollution from power plants."
While wind continues to grow fast, solar may finally be catching up. According to BNEF, some 36.7 gigawatts (GW) of new solar photovoltaic capacity were added worldwide in 2013 compared with 35.5 GW worth of new wind power installations. BNEF adds that global demand for wind turbines may actually shrink in 2014 (by 5 percent), representing the first such decline since 2004. But Justin Wu, head of wind analysis for BNEF, says it's just a temporary blip: "Falling technology costs, new markets and the growth of the offshore industry will ensure wind remains a leading renewable energy technology."
EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E — The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: firstname.lastname@example.com.

subset: commoncrawl


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The history of the Turnbulls has been closely interwoven with that of the Scottish/English Borders since they settled in the region as part of the Boernician race in 400 A.D. The Turnbulls are a scion of the Rule family of Roxburghshire where they lived on the lands through which flowed the River Rule in the parish of Hobkirk.
William de Rule became the first Turnbull when he saved the life of King Robert the Bruce at Stirling Park from a charging bull injured by the king while hunting. William, a large strong man, jumped in between the king and the angry bull, turning its head and breaking its neck. The gratified king dubbed his savior William Turn-E-Bull and gave him the first barony of the Bedrule area, held today by Wally Turnbull.
The Turnbulls became a notorious Border Reiver clan seated at Bedrule Castle situated a few yards north east of the current Bedrule Kirk, at Fatlips Castle atop Minto Crags, and at Barnhill Castle at the base of the same crags. History records that the Turnbulls could quickly put 500 reivers into the saddle for one of their forays. In 1513, following success at Flodden, Lord Dacre led an English army of 5,400 north through the Rule Valley for further assault on a stricken nation. George Turnbull quickly rallied 700 Turnbulls, Kerrs, Douglases, and Scotts and defeated the invaders in the battle of Sclaterford.
When the crowns of Scotland and England became one under James VI of Scotland in 1603, many members of the Border Clans were dispersed to England, northern Ireland and the colonies. In Ireland the Turnbulls settled in county Donegal under the name Rule, in Antrim under the name Trimble and in Ulster under the name Turnbull. Amongst the first Turnbull pioneers to the Americas were Thomas and William Turnbull who settled in New Jersey in 1685; John in Annapolis, Maryland in 1753; William in Bonavista, Newfoundland in 1765; and William in St John's, Newfoundland in 1794. These pioneers became the nucleus of the first Turnbull settlements which spread from Nova Scotia through the Blue Ridge Mountains south to Florida and west to California.
The name Turnbull, occurs in many references throughout history and has been spelled Thrumbald, Thrumball, Tourneboeuf, Trambell, Tremblay, Tremble, Trembley, Trembley, Trimbil, Trimbill, Trimble, Trimbole, Trombe, Trombi, Trombil, Tromboul, Trumbald, Trumbel, Trumbil, Trumbly, Trumbo, Trumbold, Trumboli, Trumbul, Trumbulle, Trummell, Trunball, Trymbille, Trymbulle, Turnball, Turnbaugh, Turnbeaugh, Turnbell, Turnbill, Turnboll, Turnbough, Turnboul, Turnbow, Turnebu, Turnbull, and Turnebulle.


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Take the comfort of your living room outdoors with Resort Central's outdoor lounge set. This complete set combines style and comfort with its combination of well cushioned sofas and wide seats that's perfect for relaxing and enjoying the fresh air!
The body is made from a UV- and weather-resistant resin wicker (rattan PE), and the cushions from water resistant fabric. We use aluminum on our sofa set frames that does not corrode even with ocean side placement, meaning the furniture set is able to withstand harsh elements and retain a brand-new look even after years of weathering.
Our modern designs are the same quality and styles available in the European, North American, and Australian markets so you can be sure you're getting an amazing product!
Minimum Order 2 Sets
6-Piece Outdoor Lounge Set
- Body made of UV- and weather-resistant resin wicker (rattan PE)
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- Cushions made of water resistant fabric
- Choose from our pictured design or customize into one of our wide variety of cushion and pillow colors
- Customized rattan PE colors also available
Set Includes (L x W x H cm)
- 4 x Round Chair 65*65*80
- 1 x Coffee Table 80*42
- 1 x Plant Stand
Pictured Cushions and Pillows
Minimum Order 2 Sets


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- Still Life
- >
- Tea
per item
Plate 10x15 cm on Hahnemuehle paper ( 21x29 cm- A4).
Edition of 20
Mezzotint is my favourite printmaking technique these days, as it allows me to work in a purely tonal way. It's also labour intensive and each print takes many hours of work. I work on a copper plate which is prepared with a special tool ( a rocker) that pokes the surface with thousands of small holes and makes it rough like sandpaper. I transfer the drawing (often from one of my paintings) onto the plate and start scraping out with a blade what will turn out to be the lightest parts. Working from dark to light, the image slowly appears.
Once I am satisfied with the plate, I edition it on my printing press. I only produce small editions.


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I'm using MLCAD to design and polish some Heroica maps. As I go I've made various LDraw files for the common map components (6x6 tiles with 4 spaces, 4x1 hallways, etc.) as well as some aliases for simple objects in particular colors (e.g. the gold pickups).
Am I duplicating work someone else has already done? If no one answers this in a few days I'll probably answer with my own archive.
Note that this is not a request for the Heroica sets in LDraw format - I've got manuals for that. I'm more interested in getting parts files that can be used to rapidly build my own levels.)


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If your company sells or produces any products, then this is the page where you describe your product range. Replace this text with your actual content.
Please replace this text with your own. Text can be formatted and you can insert links, images, videos, Google maps, tables and other elements.


text: Having flawless-looking skin is not only a result of high-performing facial makeup that delivers exceptional coverage; it also really starts with clear, healthy skin. That's why it comes as no surprise that sales of facial cleansers and acne treatments are still on the rise.According to data from SymphonyIRI Group, sales of facial cleansers rose about 4%, as sales of acne treatments rose 3.4% at food, drug and mass (excluding Walmart) during the 12 weeks ended Nov. 27. The article above is part of the DSN Category Review Series. For the complete Skin Care Sell-Through Report, including extensive charts, data and more analysis, click here.


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So, she's never been a monster and a cat (at the same time) that I'm aware of, but I know she could because I know how talented she is. I went to high school with her. She's one of my favorite people. She's the girl behind 2FabMakeUp4U. I'm almost positive that she's used her name before on her channel, but for the sake of anonymity I will refer to her as "Stephanie". |
I've honestly been such a terrible friend. I never call her anymore, but that's more because I'm terrible with human connection then anything else. She's perfect.
My fondest memory of us, is when we went out, the moment the stores opened to buy LG4, otherwise known as ARTPOP. We walked right over to the display, all glitzed up and got our Lady Gaga fix. As a gay and a little monster do. It was quite scandalous for me at the time. It had an explicit label. |
Now I swear like a drunken sailor and if I haven't said "fuck" at some point during the day I feel like I haven't lived.
So, not only is Stephanie sexy as hell, she's a truly amazing makeup artist. This is some Jeffree Star shit. I'm sitting there watching her videos, like I can't even put my black lipstick on straight and this bitch is painting Iron Man's suit on her face. She's that kind of talented. It's fucking insane. |


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Billboard Advertising - https://www.b2b-lead-generation.co.uk/traditional/billboards/
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We would be happy to offer you more information on vehicle advertising if necessary. Simply fill out the contact box provided and we will get back to you at the earliest opportunity.


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Any Canadian listening to the news these days might well conclude that the Republican extremists or some associated evangelical group has occupied Ottawa.
And they'd be righter than Job, I believe.
Almost daily, more evidence surfaces that Canada's government is guided by tribalists averse to scientific reason in favour of Biblical fundamentalism -- or what some call "evangelical religious skepticism."
First came Canada's pull-out of the Kyoto agreement without any rational or achievable national plan to battle carbon pollution.
Next came the hysterical and unprecedented letter by Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver, an investment banker. It branded local environmentalists and First Nations as foreign radicals because they dared to question the economic and environmental impacts of a Chinese-funded pipeline.
At the same time federal security types declared Greenpeace, a civil organization originally started by Canadian journalists, to be a "multi-issue extremist group."
After quietly gutting the Navigable Waters Protection Act, the Harper government now proposes to dismantle the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act as well as the Fisheries Act, Canada's strongest and last remaining water safeguard.
While government and industry PR folk spin fabrications about Canada's environmental record, Scott Vaughan, Federal Environment Commissioner in the office of the Auditor General, reports that there are only 12 water quality stations for Canada's 3,000 First Nations communities and just one federal water monitoring station operating downstream from the oil sands. Until last year it was calibrated only to detect pulp mill pollution.
The data-antagonistic Harper government has so muzzled federal scientists that an editorial in the prestigious Nature magazine demanded that it was "time for the Canadian government to set its scientists free."
And now Tory senators are threatening to revoke the charitable status of any group that dares to criticize the government's environmental performance or its subsidies for fossil fuels.
From where does the government's extreme animus towards journalists, environmental groups, First Nations and science (and I've put together but a partial list of victims here) arise? The moment demands we take a close look at Stephen Harper's evangelical beliefs.
Harper's creed
Unknown to most Canadians, the prime minister belongs to the Christian and Missionary Alliance, an evangelical Protestant church with two million members. Alberta, a petro state, is one of its great strongholds on the continent. The church believes that the free market is divinely inspired and that non-believers are "lost."
Now let's be clear: I am a Christian and a social conservative and a long time advocate of rural landowners and an unabashed conservationist. I have spent many pleasant hours in a variety of evangelical churches and fundamentalist communities. Faith is not the concern here.
But transparency and full disclosure has become the issue of paramount importance. To date, Harper has refused to answer media questions about his beliefs or which groups inform them. If he answered media queries about his minority creed (and fewer than 10 per cent of Canadians would call themselves evangelicals) he'd have to admit that he openly sympathizes if not endorses what's known as "evangelical climate skepticism."
No one knows this fossil fuel friendly ideology better than Dr. David Gushee, a distinguished professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University and a Holocaust scholar. The evangelical Christian is also one of the drafters of the 2006 Evangelical Climate Initiative. It declared climate change a serious threat to Creation that demands an ethical Christian response.
But that's not the wing of the evangelical movement that Harper listens to. Given his government's pointed attacks on environmentalists and science of any kind, Harper would seem to take his advice from the Cornwall Alliance, a coalition of right-wing scholars, economists and evangelicals. The Alliance questions mainstream science, doubts climate change, views environmentalist as a "native evil," champions fossil fuels and supports libertarian economics.
'Resisting the Green Dragon'
A recent declaration on climate change by the Cornwall Alliance denies that carbon dioxide "is a pollutant" and adds that "there is no convincing scientific evidence that human contribution to greenhouse gases is causing dangerous global warming." Moreover any reduction in emissions would "greatly increase the price of energy and harm economies."
A separate Cornwall declaration describes environmental regulation as an impediment to God's will:
"We aspire to a world in which liberty as a condition of moral action is preferred over government-initiated management of the environment as a means to common goals."
A book published by the Alliance called Resisting the Green Dragon: Dominion not Death even portrays environmental groups as "one of the greatest threats to society and the church today."
One passage reads that, "The Green Dragon must die... [There] is no excuse to become befuddled by the noxious Green odors and doctrines emanating from the foul beast..."
The Cornwall Alliance also believes that renewable forms of energy such as wind and solar are only good enough for poor or rural peoples until nuclear and fossil fuel facilities "meet the needs of large, sustained economic development."
Beware 'the new hypocrite'
In a 2010 interview, Gushee, a brilliant and passionate Christian, detailed the basic tenets of "evangelical climate skepticism." He said there were seven main points and argued that they had poisoned the Republican Party. These tenets not only explain startling developments in Canada but should raise the hair on the neck of every thinking citizen regardless of their faith:
1. Disdain for the environmental movement
2. Distrust of mainstream science in general
3. Distrust of the mainstream media
4. Loyalty to the party
5. Libertarian economics as God's will (God is opposed to government regulation or taxation
6. Misunderstanding of divine sovereignty (God won't allow us to ruin creation)
7. Unreconstructed Dominion theology (God calls on humans to subdue and rule creation)
In the end of the interview, Gushee summarized the purpose of this new evangelical Republicanism: "God is sovereign over creation and therefore humans can do no permanent damage... God established government for limited purposes and government should not intervene much in the workings of a free market economy... The media is overplaying climate change worries... The environmental movement is secular/pagan and has always been a threat to American liberties...
"Nice worldview, huh? I disagree with just about every word of it."
But that Republican religious tribalism is now Ottawa's worldview.
Readers looking for a thoughtful analysis on Harper and the rise of libertarian religious tribalism in Canada should pick up Marci McDonald's The Armageddon Factor.
Another touchstone might be G.K. Chesterton, a radical Catholic, who regularly questioned the wealth and power of big government and business decades ago.
He would have advised us to get to the bottom of whether our prime minister is pretending to be just a wonkish politician while pursuing an extreme Republican evangelical agenda.
"The old hypocrite was a man whose aims were really worldly and practical, while he pretended that they were religious," the radical Catholic once observed. "The new hypocrite is one whose aims are really religious, while he pretends that they are worldly and practical."
Canada needs to have an open conversation about the virtues of democracy over theocracy.
[Tags: Politics.]
Read more: Politics


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Oh noes. This Collection is empty! The VGCollect Collection is a great way to keep track of items that you are looking to add to your Collection. If there is an item you need add it to the Wish List. We allow you to keep details notes and you can even assign a Priority level to help filter the most important items to the top.
In most cases an entry to the item already exists in VGCollect.
If you found an item that doesn't exists in VGCollect you may create a new record.
Oh noes. Your Collection is empty! The Collection is a great way to keep track of items that are in your collection.


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What is the BTC Bank Mobile Banking app?
The BTC Bank Mobile Banking app lets you manage your bank account, bill pay account and credit card accounts all right from your mobile device. That means you can pay bills, deposit checks, view transactions
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Yogis Unite To Open New Studio in Brookline
Boston may be known as a runner's city but it should be no surprise that we are a "yoga city" too. Forbes recently ranked Boston the 7th biggest yoga city, saying that city residents are 26 percent more likely to practice yoga than the general population.
Under normal circumstances, the opening of a new yoga studio in Boston, while amazing, wouldn't exactly be big news. But in the case of the new Down Under Yoga in Brookline (Down Under already has a studio in Newton), the news is pretty huge. That's because four master teachers are coming together to create the new studio.
One of those teachers, Patricia Walden, was named "one of the leading teachers in the world" by Time magazine. She's an Iyengar yoga teacher who studied under B.K.S. Iyengar himself for more than 25 years. She is also one of only two senior Iyengar instructors in the U.S. and says that yoga is a lattice of relationships woven over many years between senior teachers, trainees, assistants, and practitioners. "A lineage is a tradition of teachings and practices that are passed down from generation to generation. If you want to climb Mt. Everest, would you figure it out yourself, read a book, or talk to some one who had reached the summit? The benefit of being part of a lineage is that you know someone else has walked the path successfully," Walden says. "Teachers in a lineage teach from experience and by example. Because they know the path, they know the pitfalls, the obstacles, what happens when you doubt your ability, or have lost your way, and what's necessary to get to the top. You feel supported by the past even as you are seated in the present."
The new studio will feature three generations of teacher-to-student lineage with all of the major yoga traditions, and Down Under's signature and powerful anti-commercial platform. That means, if you're looking for yoga set to hip-hop or a studio that uses blacklights, Down Under is not the place for you. The studio is unique in its commitment to returning yoga back to its traditional Indian roots in terms of philosophy and practice, so you won't find any celebrity endorsements, branded accessories, or $100 yoga pants (which studio director Justine Wiltshire Cohen says is the exact opposite of the whole point of yoga practice). In fact, the studio promises students that it will never sell products or make deals with clothing companies.
Another unique feature of Down Under is that yoga journals and magazines from around the world ask Cohen for yoga photography images, which the studio and its instructors and students produce (see all the gorgeous images below).
In addition to Ms. Walden and Iyengar, Down Under's Vinyasa program will be led by Barbara Benagh, who Yoga Journal calls "one of yoga's most compelling and distinctive voices." Ashtanga practitioners will be led by Kate O'Donnell, who like Walden travels annually to India to study. Master Baptiste teacher Coeli Marsh will also teach classes at Down Under.
The grand opening weekend starts Thursday, October 3rd. The new studio is located at 1052 Beacon Street in Brookline.


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Army Corps to recommend $1-billion L.A. River project
Federal officials gave a major boost Wednesday to the city's plans to turn the Los Angeles River into an urban oasis for recreation and an inviting locale for new commercial and residential development.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it has decided to recommend approval of an ambitious, $1-billion proposal to restore habitat, widen the river, create wetlands and provide access points and bike trails along an 11-mile stretch north of downtown through Elysian Park.
May 29, 2:29 p.m.: A shareline on an earlier version of this article said the Army Corps plan would revamp all 51 miles of the L.A. River. It affects 11 miles of the river.
The city sees those 11 miles as the starting point for a project that will eventually revitalize all 51 miles of the river, from the San Fernando Valley to Long Beach.
The decision, made by Assistant Army Secretary for Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy, opens the way for Congress to give its approval and work to begin to transform the unsightly concrete corridor into something resembling the river's natural state.
The Army Corps initially declined to approve the plan in favor of a less ambitious, $453-million alternative. The city responded with an intense lobbying campaign.
"I was tenacious about this — it's a big win for the city," Mayor Eric Garcetti said. "As I argued in the White House over and over, it's the right thing for the ecology, it's the right thing for the economy and for kids growing up being separated from downtown by a concrete flood control channel."
A few weeks ago, Garcetti said, President Obama told him: "I think we're on track for the L.A. River."
Under terms of the proposal, the $1.08-billion cost would be shared equally by the federal government and city and state sources.
The bulk of the federal money would come from the Army Corps, with the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency "looking to aggressively bring money to the table as well," Garcetti said. "The rest of the money will come from local and state sources."
If all goes according to plan, he said, "we might begin to see some funding allocated for this effort next year, and jackhammers on concrete not long after that."
City officials estimate that revamping the entire river could create recreational opportunities — kayaking, fishing, bicycling — and attract more than $5 billion in investment over the next 10 to 15 years, generating up to 18,000 jobs. Communities along the river south of Los Angeles to Long Beach have already begun putting in riverside parks and wetlands.
Only a month ago, the corps informed the mayor's office it intended to recommend a $453-million plan that would restore 588 acres of habitat and widen the river by 300 feet to form marshlands near Glassell Park, but leave much of the river's banks steep and hard to reach.
Advocacy groups and elected officials led by Garcetti stepped up their campaign for the broader proposal, also known as Alternative 20. It would restore 719 acres, tear out three miles of concrete and widen the river to provide terracing along its eastern banks.
It would also connect the river to Los Angeles State Historic Park near Chinatown and restore its confluence with the Verdugo Wash, near the junction of the 5 and 134 freeways.
On Tuesday, Darcy telephoned Garcetti with the news. "She said, 'We are supporting Alt. 20 on the merits — you made your case. It's a once-in-a-generation chance,' " Garcetti said. Darcy could not be reached for comment.
The Los Angeles River has changed course many times over the last 150 years. First it was the burgeoning city's main source of water. In the late 1930s it was transformed into a flood control channel. In 2007, it was named an amenity of the city's master plan.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said the decision is a major step toward bringing "the L.A. River back to life and promises much greater opportunity for economic and recreational development, providing thousands of additional jobs and billions of dollars of increased investment in the local economy."
L.A. poet Lewis MacAdams, co-founder and president of Friends of the Los Angeles River, praised Garcetti's work on the river.
"How often do you see a mayor travel to Washington again and again to push for an environment project?" MacAdams said. "He did that, and the result could be Los Angeles becoming a place with parks and river running through it again, at last."
Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge, whose district includes miles of river channel, said the Army Corps' recommendation resulted from "hard work that began in 1988, in the conference room of then-Mayor Tom Bradley. The subject was the L.A. River, and faraway dreams of creating a place of green and wildlife and peaceful surroundings.
"Now, the river channel best known as a drainage for urban runoff and a location site for scary science fiction movies has a chance to transform the city for the better," LaBonge said.
City officials see a 42-acre Union Pacific Railroad property as the starting point. They are in negotiations to buy Taylor Yard north of downtown and transform it into a park and wetlands featuring river tributaries.
However, environmentalists and communities along the river, many of them working-class, have raised concerns that development interests will take over the process. They fear that public access and environmental concerns will be subsumed beneath a desire to give wealthier Angelenos pleasant places to live, work and shop.
Low-income residents of Elysian Park have voiced fears that they will be forced to relocate because they will not be able to afford rising rents and home prices.
The median price of a house in Elysian Valley rose 21% over the last year to $443,400, according to Zillow.com, an online real estate database. Countywide, median house prices rose 16% over the same period.
Garcetti has said the city will strive to balance all interests as the project moves ahead, saying, "everyone wants the good gentrification and not the bad."


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View our collection of Prefinished 4 1/4" Red Oak Hardwood Flooring. We offer prefinished solid Red Oak hardwood flooring in a variety of widths and colors. All of our solid prefinished hardwood flooring is 3/4" thick, kiln dried and NWFA certified or better for your peace of mind. Our flooring is coated with the industry leading UV cured Aluminum Oxide finish which provides superior scratch resistance and hardness with simple cleaning and maintenance.
No matter what type of 4 1/4" Prefinished Red Oak wood flooring you are looking for, Hurst Hardwoods has it at a wholesale price. No more waiting, we offer cheap and fast delivery directly to your home. Need something you don't see online, call us for a quote today. Our knowledgeable team is ready to help.
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HELLO!!!! WELCOME!!! The new MAGIC AND MARTIAL ARTS GUIDE is almost ready to be published, we are even now working on the last of the art work and then its off to the publisher... If you have been pleased with what you have already seen, you will be thrilled with the new book.... I hope to chat with you more in the up coming months. Please stay tuned for more information and feel free to join in any of the other threads!


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System for plagiarism detection and analysis
This system provides an easy and efficient way of detecting documents that contain plagiarised parts from already published and presented documents. The system's goal is to provide an easy and intuitive interface for uploading documents. The students and researchers/scientists can easily upload their homework, bachelor's thesis, master's thesis, doctoral thesis (dissertation) and other published papers and documents. The system also provides a mechanism for comparing the uploaded documents with all the other documents that are already present in the system and to measure their originality, i.e. to detect if any of the content is already published.


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Chocolate Truffles
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From the kitchen of Amy Owen
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Recipe Details
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about 30 - 35 candies Gluten‑free, Good for parties/potlucks, Kid friendly |
125g/4 ounces butter
3 teaspoons cocoa powder
250g icing sugar/powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon flavored essence e.g.: vanilla, raspberry, mint, strawberry
own choice chopped: nuts, dried fruit - sultanas, raisins, apricots, ginger, chocolate chips
2 cups finely shredded coconut - for rolling balls in
3 cups chocolate drops for dipping
Cream the butter with the essence, till pale in color.
Beat in cocoa powder, adding a little more if you want the mixture a darker color.
Add the icing sugar/powdered sugar, a 1/4 of a cup at a time until you get the mixture to the stiffness that you like. Then add what ever fruit and nut combination you want.
Taste for flavor and add more essence if needed.
Roll into teaspoon size balls, in the coconut and leave to get firm.
To coat the truffles in chocolate, freeze the coconut covered balls and then dip them in chocolate.
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Machine gun
A machine gun is an automatic weapon that is capable of a rapid rate of sustained fire.
The predecessor to the modern machine gun was developed in 1718, by James Puckle, an Englishman. This gun, known as the "Puckle gun", could fire around nine bullets per minute. However, the Puckle gun was a flintlock weapon, and cannot be considered a machine gun in the modern sense of the word.
With the development of preloaded cartridges auto-repeating guns were quickly developed. The first modern machine gun was the Gatling gun, a crank-operated weapon capable of firing over a hundred rounds per minute. It was invented for use in the American Civil War. Though relatively easy to use, the barrels would soon overheat with successive volleys and the mechanism jammed. This type of machine gun used a magazine that could hold 20 to 50 rounds of ammunition.
The first automatic machine gun was the Maxim gun, invented by Hiram Maxim. The Maxim gun used the recoil energy of the round fired to operate the reloading mechanism. The Maxim gun also saw the first use of a coolant system, in the form of a water jacket; the barrel of the gun was surrounded by a "jacket", or sheath filled with water. In addition, the ammunition was fed into the block mechanism by means of a continuous metal belt, several of these belts could be linked together to enable a sustained rate of continuous fire. These improvements greatly increased the sustained fire time of the gun. Maxim was an American inventor who lost some patent battles with Thomas Edison on the light bulb and other inventions, and was persuaded to move to Europe and make improvements to weaponry there.
The gas-operated machine gun, which uses gas pressure vented from the barrel during firing to operate the reloading mechanism, was invented several years later by American inventor John Browning. Browning introduced this new principle in the Model 1895 Browning 'potato digger' machine gun.


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WISE Waterproof Cork Flooring - Wood Look (TREEHOUSE)
Waterproof Cork Flooring
Realistic Wood Visuals - 20 Wood Looks Available
Prefinished with SRT Finish - Superior Resistance Technology
Wide Plank Floating Floor Solution
Healthy + Sustainable: PVC-Free, Carbon Negative Footprint
7.48" x 48.23" (0.28" or 7 mm thick)
Enter SQUARE FEET in the box below to automatically calculate
Amorim WISE Waterproof Cork Flooring - Wood Look
A Sustainable Waterproof Floating Floor that Combines the Beauty of Wood with the Performance of Cork.
Get the best of both worlds with Amorim WISE Wood - hyper-realistic visuals of hardwood flooring with all of the cork benefits. WISE Wood is durable, comfortable and healthy cork flooring with a gorgeous wood look layer that's 100% waterproof. It's the cork flooring with no limits - an ideal solution for ALL THE ROOMS, including bathrooms, kitchens, mudrooms and laundry rooms. The engineered multilayer structure with an integrated cork underlay provides walking comfort, year round optimal temperature, noise reduction, and reinforced dimensional stability.
With the Amorim WISE Wood line, you'll find a cork floor created for those who want a sustainable and healthy waterproof floor with the beauty of wood. Now you don't need to choose between a great looking floor or a resilient and comfortable floor, with Amorim WISE Wood flooring you can have both!
Beautiful to See, Comfortable to Walk On.
Cork Rigid Core with Built-In Underlayment
The WISE line features an enhanced, strong PVC-FREE CORK RIGID CORE that provides dimensional stabilty without toxic chemicals. You won't find any volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or PVC in WISE cork flooring, unlike most Luxury Vinyl Flooring with rigid or composite cores. The layered construction of WISE also includes a Cork Underlayment for extra performance.Healthy, Low Maintenance Protective SRT Finish
WISE Wood is prefinished with a non-toxic, low maintenance Superior Resistance Technology (SRT) wear layer. No more refinishing like urethane finished cork floors! It provides the floor with a PVC FREE + ZERO-VOC resistance without harmful additives that's even suitable for heavy commercial projects (so you know it will hold up to the busiest of homes). The eco-friendly finish has an impressive long life span with a residential Lifetime Warranty (covers Structural / Wear / Waterproof) and a 10 Year Commercial Warranty.Plus, WISE cork flooring products are certified under several strict indoor air quality programs such as Greenguard GOLD certification. The certification ensures low chemical emissions in products that are acceptable for use in sensitive environments like schools and healthcare facilities.
Glueless Floating Floor Installation (DIY Install)
The universal 2G locking system requires no glue, which makes installing their cork floors easier than ever and provides extra strong locking performance. If you're looking for a simple DIY installation, the glueless "click" floating cork floor is a perfect fit.
DOWNLOAD INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS or view our Amorim WISE 2G installation video below.
Amorim WISE Wood Engineered Layers - 100% Waterproof, Naturally Comfortable, Resistant and Durable
Amorim's Cork Rigid Core (CRC) technology combined with the unique natural properties of cork, provides a flooring that's a great choice for any room in your home.
WISE consists of an engineered multilayer structure which starts with an insulated cork underlay that reinforces cork's natural thermal and acoustic properties, resulting in a quieter environment and all-important energy cost savings. The compressed (or agglomerated) cork layer provides extra comfort, noise reduction, optimal floor temperature all year round and walking comfort. The wood veneer, or decorative wood layer is available in a variety of colors and textures, is protected by the highly resistant finish.
Climate Positive, Carbon Negative
As a world leader of cork flooring, Amorim feels a responsibility and a mission to not only create sustainable products, but to do so while preserving and protecting the cork oak forests as well as the environment as a whole. SUSTAINABILITY isn't just a buzzword - it's at the core of everything they do. Amorim has reached a CO2 negative footprint, meaning that more carbon is removed from the atmosphere than is added during the production of WISE.
Here are some of the ways they're able to help reduce the global warming potential:
- DURING HARVEST - No trees are cut down or damaged during cork harvesting. Once the cork bark is carefully removed from the trees without harming them, they actually retain 5 times more CO2 from the atmosphere than before the bark was removed.
- DURING PRODUCTION - Any cork waste that occurs from the production of cork bottle stoppers is collected, granulated and compressed to make other products, like cork flooring! And the cork dust is collected and burned to generate energy for the production facilities.
- DURING WISE LIFETIME - Amorim WISE Cork Flooring is produced without PVC and several national and international independent third-party certifications ensure that no harmful particles are present (ZERO VOCs).
WISE Wood Benefits - 100% Waterproof Cork Flooring
Why Cork?
Cork flooring is an incredibly sustainable product. Cork floors are the result of a circular economy model that turns production waste from the cork stopper industry into valuable and sustainable flooring products.
Cork is a natural raw material that comes from the bark of the cork oak tree. It's harvested by hand when the tree is 25 years old and every 9 years from then on. No cork trees are damaged or cut during harvesting and the bark regenerates itself after each extraction, making it a near-perfect example of a renewable resource. Cork is also biodegradable and recyclable.
Why Amorim?
INDOOR AIR QUALITY and ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Besides its performance factors, Amorim WISE is the Best in Class in indoor air quality, ensuring that no harmful particles are present in their flooring products. This status is confirmed by international certifications such as Greenguard Gold, TUV, LEED, BREEAM and the A+ label (French content rating and VOC emission level). In order to achieve these certifications, Amorim WISE products went through rigorous tests on more than 2000 potential chemicals. They also make sure that their processes and products reflect the highest standards in environmental protection and performance:
WISE Waterproof Cork Flooring Installation and Maintenance
How to Install your WISE Wood Flooring
The WISE 2G Universal Installation floating floor system makes installing WISE flooring easy.
Here are some other things to know about installing WISE Wood or Cork Floors:
- BE SURE TO ACCLIMATE - packaged planks should be acclimated at the job site in a dry, well-ventilated area for a minimum of 24 hours at a temperature between 65º F and 82º F.
- MINIMAL SUBFLOOR PREP - WISE Wood can be installed on top of existing hard surfaces, avoiding the need to remove the existing floor (never install WISE on top of carpet, carpet tiles, or other soft floors).
- DIMENSIONALLY STABLE - the Cork Rigid Core provides reinforced dimensional stability so that it can be installed in very large areas (up to 3,200 square feet) without the need for transition strips.
- An INTEGRATED CORK UNDERLAYMENT is included for extra comfort
- VERY LITTLE VISUAL REPETITION - The WISE Wood look pattern repeats every 9 planks, but then the pattern is offset when it's repeated. So you're not going to notice it as you do with other resilient "wood look" flooring.
DOWNLOAD WISE WOOD INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS (AS FLOATING) or view our Amorim WISE 2G installation video below.
How to Maintain Your WISE Wood Flooring
Amorim WISE Wood floors are a cinch to maintain. Simply sweep up any debris or loose dirt with a broom or a vacuum before wiping the floor with a mop. For general spills, you can also use a broom handle with a cloth at the end. For deeper cleaning, use a mild pH-neutral cleaner.
How to Repair Your Amorim WISE 2G Floating Floor
You have a couple of options here. You can repair the floor by removing only the damaged plank or you can choose to uninstall all the planks until you reach the damaged one.
DOWNLOAD THE REPAIR INSTRUCTIONS for both methods or view the Amorim WISE "How to Repair" video.
- WATERPROOF - WISE resilient flooring features a waterproof Cork Rigid Core so you can confidently install it in any interior space, including bathrooms, kitchens, mudrooms, and laundry rooms without worry.
- SUSTAINABLE - from cork harvest to the green production process, WISE is Climate Positive with a Carbon Negative Footprint.
- HEALTHY - PVC FREE Rigid Core + Numerous Indoor Air Quality standards certify that no harmfull particles are present.
- QUIET - Cork is an excellent sound absorber and reduces walking sound up to 53%.
- OPTIMAL TEMPERATURE - The natural thermal insulation inherent in cork provides an optimal floor temperature for a more comfortable environment all year round.
- WALKING COMFORT - Cork is the most comfortable flooring to walk on, especially in bare feet. Softer than wood, yet harder than carpet, cork also relieves leg and back stress.
- IMPACT RESISTANCE - The natural properties of cork include elasticity and compressibility, for the highest shock absorbing performance of any floor.
- DIY "CLICK" INSTALL - Universal Installation System allows for an easy DIY installation as a click (or glue down for a more permanent installation).
- PLANK DIMENSIONS: 7 31/64" x 48 15/64" Planks | 9/32" (7mm) thickness | 20.04 sf/carton
- DURABLE, RESISTANT FINISH - SRT - Superior Resistance Technology, low maintenance finish provides high mechanical strength and stain resistance. Suitable for kids and pets in a family home, or the high traffic of a commercial space.
- NO NEED TO REFINISH - No more refinishing like urethane finished cork floors
- DIMENSIONALLY STABLE - the Cork Rigid Core adds reinforced dimensional stability so installation in large areas (up to 3,200 square feet) is possible without the need for transition strips.
- SEAMLESS VISUAL - No expansion joints in between rooms
- INTEGRATED CORK UNDERLAY - for extra cork benefits and performance
- EASY TO CLEAN (MOP FRIENDLY) - simply vacuum or sweep up debris or feel free to use a mop for deeper cleaning.
- SUITABLE FOR ALL ROOMS: Kitchen, family room, bedroom, basement, dining room, playroom, hallway, office, bathroom, laundry, mudrooms
Warranty 10 Year Commercial Warranty


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Achilles 175/60R15 Tires
- ACHILLES®122122 Tires by ACHILLES®. Season: Summer. Type: Fuel Efficient. This 122 tire by Achilles is ready to accompany your traveling journeys on major highways, providing both driving stability and maximum comfort. Being supported by...$56.46Size: 175/60R15$225.84
- ACHILLES®ATR SPORTATR SPORT Tires by ACHILLES®. Season: Summer. Type: Performance. ATR Sport tire from Achilles offers superior performance and high fraction to give you exciting experience when driving on wet tracks, dry tracks, or even when drifting....$55.23Size: 175/60R15$110.46
Established by ITOCHU Corporation known worldwide as a global trading and investment company with more than 150 years of history, Achilles was introduced to the American market in 2007 and quickly gained a strong reputation as an innovative manufacturer of premium tires. In only 8 years, the company was able to find its niche in the global tire market. Today Achilles is known as a leader and trend setter in the tire industry. With its full lineup of High Performance, Ultra High Performance, Light Truck, SUV, Van and Winter tires, the company keeps earning followers across the globe.
Achilles innovated many technologies to provide their customers with tires that are in their own league when it comes to quality, durability, and performance. Manufactured using dB Silent Technology, Achilles tires offer reduced noise for a quieter ride. ATR GEN.2 (Advanced Technology Radial 2nd Generation) ensures superb radial construction, while a°Technology improves cornering performance and assists in water channeling and self cleaning.
Achilles tires also offer a number of smart features such as four wide circumferencial grooves that greatly improve wet traction and reduce hydroplaning, solid center rib that provides straight line stability for improved handling, interlocking thread block that enhances both directional stability and cornering performance, and directional thread design that ensures excellent traction for wet and dry road conditions. Utilizing the latest technologies, the company provides drivers with innovative tires such as Achilles ATR Sport that fit the highest driving needs. Achilles never rests on its laurels continuously expanding its lineup to offer the latest in technological advances in the industry. This company maintains the highest quality standards to provide you with tires you can trust.


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Please Stop Reminding Me That Football Season Is Just Around The Corner
LatestEvery year, it starts about late May, first with a whisper, a singular Facebook status update, a Tweet, as passing small talk reference by that coworker who insists on talking to me while I pee in the work bathroom. Only 100 days away!
At first it's easy to ignore; after all, I've got the whole summer ahead of me. There's Memorial Day and the month of June, which I'll spend going to people's weddings and putting off doing summery things until I have a weekend to sit home and rest, and then the Fourth of July, when I drink beer and watch other people blow shit up and then have a moment of ennui followed by panic that summer's winding down and I haven't done anything except wear tasteful semi-formal dresses and scrape the frosting off the top of cake while a jazz ensemble plays "The Way You Look Tonight."
The whispers grow louder as summer marches onward- 50 days!– and I keep telling myself that I'm going to do something beachy or go camping or go to a free movie in the park one of these evenings, and suddenly it's the middle of July, and my friendly nightly baseball roundup is interrupted by a desk of comically large ex football players-cum- announcers looking awkward in custom made suits and loud ties going on and on about college football media days. Oh my god. College football season is just around the corner? Impossible! I haven't even yet begun to enjoy summer yet!
For a few weeks after that jolt of reality, I remain in blissful denial over the fact that summer's slipping away and I haven't taken advantage of it the way I swore I would. And suddenly special college football issues of sports magazines spring up on newsstands like a sudden case of hives, and suddenly no one in my office can talk about anything but the Buckeyes, Badgers, Gators, Ducks, or Fightin' Irish. "Your team sucks!" "No it doesn't, your team does!" The top 25 teams have already been ranked. The college football speculation machine hums to life. And this is when I realize that I've spent an entire summer around at least one asshole who won't shut up for one goddamn second about college football.
I understand why we count down to, say, baseball season. Baseball happens during the spring, and its return marks the end of the Midwestern winters I've endured on 26 different occasions. It signifies the beginning of drinking outside season, the banishing of the oppression of pants. Football, however, is another animal. I understand that it's fun to watch games and that tailgating is awesome and everyone likes winning, but oval shaped Christ through the uprights, keep the excitement for the end of precious warm season under your hat. I beg of you, stop reminding me that football season, and by extension, fall, is just around the corner. Wait until at least mid-August. Let me have my willful ignorance of the turning of the seasons.
When you're in the northern half of the country, spending a summer going on and on about college football is like spending the entirety of a relationship reminding your partner that one day they're going to die and leave you a bunch of insurance money. Or pausing during the middle of a delicious spicy meal and reminding everyone that it's going to feel weird to poop it out. Can't we just enjoy the summer while it's happening? I enjoy a good kickoff return as much as the next person raised on Big Ten football, but must we be ever-hyped for summer to end?
Furthermore, football season is never really what it's cracked up to be. Don't you remember last football season? That team you like made you feel really crappy a bunch of times. That player you really like didn't play as well as you wanted him to play! You lost a game to that team with fans that make you angry! Why are you so excited to be sad and let down? Remember when you went to that game and you lost feeling in your fingers and then got caught in a traffic jam for two hours as you tried to drive out of town with everyone else? Remember how all of the students at your alma mater now look like they're about 12 years old?
Or maybe now's the time for me to let go of summer, accept that back sweat isn't all that awesome, and break out my officially licensed college sports team memorabilia so that I at least blend in with all the eager enthusiasts who have been clamoring for this since before Memorial Day.
Image via David Lee/Shutterstock


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I tried this recipe with good results.
So I decided to make plain vanilla muffins using the same recipe except for adding blueberries. However, the texture was not the same - I am guessing this is because of the reduced moisture content from the missing blueberries.
Can someone please guide me as to what I should modify to make up for the reduced moisture (assuming that is the cause)?
Many thanks


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The Inside Scoop: Ice Cream Week on Cooking Channel
You like ice cream, you say? What a coincidence, we do too! So before you chase down the nearest ice cream truck, tune into Ice Cream Week on Cooking Channel for a brain-freezing journey with our favorite frozen treat.
Start this Sunday, July 14 with Ice Cream Nation, a coast to coast celebration of America's iconic cones and ice cream shops. Then catch an episode of Unique Eats for ice cream cravings beyond the ordinary. Chocolate Ice Cream S'mores Pie, anyone? Yes.
On Wednesday July 17, tune into more cold and creamy programming with Giada's take on an Italian Hot Fudge Sundae and Kelsey Nixon's inventive and unexpected Curried Butternut Squash Ice Cream. Then watch the ultimate Ice Cream Sundae Throwdown, as Bobby Flay goes up against the famous Banana Bucket Sundae, an amalgam of caramelized apples, bananas, ice cream, chocolate syrup and wet walnuts.
But if you're an ice cream purest, on Friday, July 19, take a look at Alton Brown's Serious Vanilla Ice Cream that's anything but … well, vanilla. Whether you prefer soft serve, frozen dip custards or sought-after sundaes, get the inside scoop on all things ice cream this week on Cooking Channel.
Hungry yet? Don't forget to check out our best Ice Cream Dessert Recipes.


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Saturday, December 24, 2016
A Happy and Blessed Christmas
A Happy and Blessed Christmas to you all and sincere thanks for your prayer for my return to health.
Thursday, December 08, 2016
What does the Immaculate Conception say about Amoris Laetitia
Some say that Amoris Laetitia says God tolerates sin, that is impossible.
The Feast of the Immaculate Conception says God demands holiness. Mary the 'All Holy', 'the Full of Grace' reminds us that God loves sinners but is totally intolerant of sin.
Her 'yes' to God, is a 'no' to sin.
Every dogma says no to sin!
Tuesday, December 06, 2016
If there were no God, we would still have Saint Nicholas
"If there were no God, we would still have Saint Nicholas", or so the Russians used to say. The ancient parish church of Brighton is dedicated to him. East and West there are thousands of ancient coastal churches dedicated to him, a mark of past devotion. There are legends but of him we know very little, or nothing.
The reason for such devotion to him is that prayer to him seems to worked. It is his post-mortem intercession that is important that matters. I suspect that is the reason the great Roman Canon contains its own list, canon, of saints is that 'they worked'.
Nowadays saints seem to be 'made' for political or factional reasons, when they were a rarer commodity, they emerged from the faithful's prayer and pilgrimage, from experience.
Behind the Amoris Laetiia controversy seems to be a sense of a loss of as search for holiness, Even the major protagonists seem to have lost this sense.
I suspect this is one of the reason Cardinal Sarah is calling for a return to 'ad Orientem' worship.
A Church that has lost that sense of Holiness has lost its reason to existence.
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The Lord's descent into the underworld
At Matins/the Office of Readings on Holy Saturday the Church gives us this 'ancient homily', I find it incredibly moving, it is abou...
A French newspaper has reported Pope Francis, once Benedict dies, will abrogate Summorum Pontificum and handover Old Rite's celebrat...
I was at the Verona Opera Festival when Summorum Pontificum was published but it wasn't until All Souls Day that I first attempted to s...
In a conversation with our bishop recently, I thought he said that some parishes in the diocese were already using the new ICEL translations...


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After the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, many people are asking themselves what they should do if Nazis rally in their city. Should they put their bodies on the line in counterdemonstrations? Some say yes.
History says no. Take it from me: I study the original Nazis.
We have an ethical obligation to stand against fascism and racism. But we also have an ethical obligation to do so in a way that doesn't help the fascists and racists more than it hurts them.
History repeats itself
Charlottesville was right out of the Nazi playbook. In the 1920s, the Nazi Party was just one political party among many in a democratic system, running for seats in Germany's Parliament. For most of that time, it was a small, marginal group. In 1933, riding a wave of popular support, it seized power and set up a dictatorship. The rest is well-known.
It was in 1927, while still on the political fringes, that the Nazi Party scheduled a rally in a decidedly hostile location – the Berlin district of Wedding. Wedding was so left-of-center that the neighborhood had the nickname "Red Wedding," red being the color of the Communist Party. The Nazis often held rallies right where their enemies lived, to provoke them.
The people of Wedding were determined to fight back against fascism in their neighborhood. On the day of the rally, hundreds of Nazis descended on Wedding. Hundreds of their opponents showed up too, organized by the local Communist Party. The antifascists tried to disrupt the rally, heckling the speakers. Nazi thugs retaliated. There was a massive brawl. Almost 100 people were injured.
I imagine the people of Wedding felt they had won that day. They had courageously sent a message: Fascism was not welcome.
But historians believe events like the rally in Wedding helped the Nazis build a dictatorship. Yes, the brawl got them media attention. But what was far, far more important was how it fed an escalating spiral of street violence. That violence helped the fascists enormously.
Violent confrontations with antifascists gave the Nazis a chance to paint themselves as the victims of a pugnacious, lawless left. They seized it.
It worked. We know now that many Germans supported the fascists because they were terrified of leftist violence in the streets. Germans opened their morning newspapers and saw reports of clashes like the one in Wedding. It looked like a bloody tide of civil war was rising in their cities. Voters and opposition politicians alike came to believe the government needed special police powers to stop violent leftists. Dictatorship grew attractive. The fact that the Nazis themselves were fomenting the violence didn't seem to matter.
One of Hitler's biggest steps to dictatorial power was to gain emergency police powers, which he claimed he needed to suppress leftist violence.
Thousands of Nazi storm troops demonstrate in a Communist neighborhood in Berlin on
Jan. 22, 1933. Thirty-five Nazis, Communists and police were injured during clashes. AP Photo
The left takes the heat
In the court of public opinion, accusations of mayhem and chaos in the streets will, as a rule, tend to stick against the left, not the right.
This was true in Germany in the 1920s. It was true even when opponents of fascism acted in self-defense or tried to use relatively mild tactics, such as heckling. It is true in the United States today, where even peaceful rallies against racist violence are branded riots in the making.
Today, right extremists are going around the country staging rallies just like the one in 1927 in Wedding. According to the civil rights advocacy organization the Southern Poverty Law Center, they pick places where they know antifascists are present, like university campuses. They come spoiling for physical confrontation. Then they and their allies spin it to their advantage.
A demonstration on the University of Washington campus where far-right commentator
Milo Yiannopoulos was giving a speech on Friday, Jan. 20, 2017. AP Photo/Ted S. Warren
I watched this very thing happen steps from my office on the University of Washington campus. Last year, a right extremist speaker came. He was met by a counterprotest. One of his supporters shot a counterprotester. On stage, in the moments after the shooting, the right extremist speaker claimed that his opponents had sought to stop him from speaking "by killing people." The fact that it was one of the speaker's supporters, a right extremist and Trump backer, who engaged in what prosecutors now claim was an unprovoked and premeditated act of violence, has never made national news.
We saw this play out after Charlottesville, too. President Donald Trump said there was violence "on both sides." It was an incredible claim. Heyer, a peaceful protester, and 19 other people were intentionally hit by a neo-Nazi driving a car. He seemed to portray Charlottesville as another example of what he has referred to elsewhere as "violence in our streets and chaos in our communities," including, it seems, Black Lives Matter, which is a nonviolent movement against violence. He stirred up fear. Trump recently said that police are too constrained by existing law.
President Trump tried it again during the largely peaceful protests in Boston – he called the tens of thousands who gathered there to protest racism and Nazism "anti-police agitators," though later, in a characteristic about-face, he praised them.
President Trump's claims are hitting their mark. A CBS News poll found that a majority of Republicans thought his description of who was to blame for the violence in Charlottesville was "accurate."
This violence, and the rhetoric about it coming from the administration, are echoes – faint but nevertheless frightening echoes – of a well-documented pattern, a pathway by which democracies devolve into dictatorships.
The Antifa
There's an additional wrinkle: the antifa. When Nazis and white supremacists rally, the antifa are likely to show up, too.
"Antifa" is short for antifascists, though the name by no means includes everyone who opposes fascism. The antifa is a relatively small movement of the far left, with ties to anarchism. It arose in Europe's punk scene in the 1980s to fight neo-Nazism.
The antifa says that because Nazism and white supremacy are violent, we must use any means necessary to stop them. This includes physical means, like what they did on my campus: forming a crowd to block ticket-holders from entering a venue to hear a right extremist speak.
The antifa's tactics often backfire, just like those of Germany's communist opposition to Nazism did in the 1920s. Confrontations escalate. Public opinion often blames the left no matter the circumstances.
What to do?
One solution: Hold a counterevent that doesn't involve physical proximity to the right extremists. The Southern Poverty Law Center has published a helpful guide. Among its recommendations: If the alt-right rallies, "organize a joyful protest" well away from them. Ask people they have targeted to speak. But "as hard as it may be to resist yelling at alt-right speakers, do not confront them."
This does not mean ignoring Nazis. It means standing up to them in a way that denies them a chance for bloodshed.
The cause Heather Heyer died for is best defended by avoiding the physical confrontation that the people who are responsible for her death want.
Laurie Marhoefer is Assistant Professor of History, University of Washington


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Jan Kowal, CFP®, CEO & President2023-03-10T19:00:51+00:00December 14, 2022|
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Orangutan gives birth then breastfeeds her baby.
This amazing footage of an orangutan giving birth, then breastfeeding the little baby. This is camera 2 of the birth. It's wider and less grainy than the first camera. It's the only film of this type of behaviour anywhere in the world. Filmed at the Perth Zoo in Western Australia … Continue reading


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Ultra Bookshelf - Piano - Outlet - 1290
Ultra Bookshelf - Piano - Outlet - 1290
The SVS Ultra Bookshelf speakers are the rare speaker design that deliver effortless full-range sound and an expansive soundstage with pitch-perfect accuracy and pinpoint imaging. A true reference quality speaker, critics and music lovers celebrate the absolute transparency while home theater speaker fans laud the room-energizing dynamics and palpable bass output. It's an amazingly balanced speaker that radiates acoustic power while rendering the finest details with precision and refinement.
Every design element of the SVS Ultra Bookshelf speakers was scrutinized to achieve cost-no-object audio performance and build quality to create a groundbreaking bookshelf loudspeaker. Countless design innovations and world-class build materials result in reference sound quality and stunning dynamics normally reserved for the world's most expensive speakers.
Whether handling the warm and engaging sound of vinyl or the demanding, multi-layered soundtrack of an action movie, the Ultra Bookshelf speakers deliver a powerful and convincing audio experience and are among the top audio investments available at any price.
Frequency Response / Acoustic Data:
- Rated bandwidth: 45 Hz-32 kHz (+/-3 dB).
- Nominal impedance: 8 ohms.
- Sensitivity: 87 dB (2.83V @ 1 meter full-space, 300-3kHz)
- Recommended amplifier power: 20-150 watts.
Speaker Specs:
- Bookshelf Loudspeaker
- Real black oak veneer and piano gloss black finish options
- Dual gold-plated 5-way binding posts
- 1.7" wide-flared rear-firing port
- Cloth grille with pin/cup retention system
- Elastomer stick-on bumper feet (adds 3mm to height)
- Cabinet Dimensions: 15" (H) x 8.5" (W) x 10.6" (D) (without grille)
- Overall Dimensions: 15" (H) x 8.5" W x 10.9" (D) (with grille)
- Shipped Dimensions: 24" (H) x 20" (W) x 14" (D)
- Weight: 19 pounds
- Shipped Weight: 42 pounds
Driver Specs:
1" Aluminum Dome Tweeter:
- FEA-optimized diffuser for airy and unveiled presentation
- Aluminum dome delivers exceptional transient response and exceptional stiffness/mass ratio
6.5" Woofers:
- Composite glass-fiber cone with excellent stiffness/mass ratio for high sensitivity and pistonic behavior beyond pass band.
- Aluminum shorting rings to reduce gap inductance and lower distortion
- Long stroke motor and suspension for high output
- Vented voice coil formers to minimize air compression artifacts at high drive levels
Crossover & Cabinet Specs:
- 2-way crossover with premium-grade capacitors, air-core inductors and heavy-trace printed circuit boards
- Crossover frequency and slopes optimized for excellent off-axis polar response, outstanding phase coherency, and total radiated sound power
- Tweeter-to-woofer crossover: 2 kHz
- Acoustically transparent and FEA optimized grilles, wedge-shaped front baffle and flush-mounted drivers all contribute to reduced edge diffraction and improved on-axis high frequency response
- FEA-optimized bracing reduces cabinet resonances
The Ultra Bookshelf speakers represent an uncompromising approach to loudspeaker design. From the drivers and crossover to the build materials and cabinet design, every element is painstakingly engineered and tested to achieve reference sound quality.
Ultra Driver & Tweeter Design
A commanding presence in any home audio system, the 6.5-inch mid-bass drivers feature composite glass-fiber cones that yield excellent stiffness to mass ratio for enhanced sensitivity and voicing that's transparent and completely faithful to the source material. These capable drivers render an accurate tonal balance with effortless authority and dynamics. Whether conveying the varied nuances of musical instruments and dialogue or the sonic impact of sound effects and movie scores, the Ultra drivers deliver pinpoint accuracy with precise imaging and a massive soundstage.
Elevating high frequency performance, the Ultra Bookshelf speaker's aluminum dome tweeter is pristinely neutral and revealing. Light, efficient, rigid and impervious to distortion, even at high sound pressure levels, the tweeter's airy' presentation of vocals and unveiled highs compare with the best tower and bookshelf speakers in the world. The FEA-optimized diffuser ensures broad dispersion for an incredibly wide and convincing soundstage and perfect on- and off-axis frequency response so everyone in your room experiences the same stunning clarity.
Innovative SoundMatch Crossover Design
No expense was spared with the innovative SVS SoundMatch two-way crossover. The unique topology creates a broad, yet focused and precise soundstage, with accurate frequency response and imaging at all listening positions. The precise tuning of the SoundMatch Crossover also ensures balanced output from sparkling highs to the crystal clear and commanding midrange, down to visceral and authoritative bass.
Performance Driven Cabinet Design and Geometry
Every feature on the Ultra Bookshelf speaker cabinet is designed with a sonic purpose in mind. Tapered edges on the cabinet's front baffle, known as chamfers, minimize edge diffraction for clear and precise soundstaging. Internally, each cabinet employs separate sub-enclosures of the mid-bass driver and tweeter to optimize performance and minimize interaction between drive units.
Meticulous, Innovative Design Process
All SVS speakers, regardless of price or form factor, are crafted in the same painstaking fashion. Call it a marriage of exacting science and a passionate expression of technique and love of great sound.
Before a model is ever constructed, drivers and cabinets are theoretically designed by our acoustic engineers using sophisticated computer-aided design (CAD) processes . Then prototypes are carefully measured and optimized in an anechoic environment to achieve pitch-perfect frequency response. After the ideal theoretical frequency response is attained, exhaustive listening and measurement is done in listening rooms calibrated to closely resemble typical home-like room environments.
The result is a speaker that measures well with near-perfect real world frequency response, but also optimized to sound amazing on a human level through listening tests with real music and cinematic content, in a real world listening environment like your home.
Press Reviews
User Reviews
You May Also Like...
Ultra Center is no longer in stock. The Ultra Evolution Series is the new flagship SVS speaker line and represents a bold step forward in design and performance. Learn more about them here.
You can also browse the SVS Outlet store for the best prices you'll find on original SVS Ultra Series speakers and all other products.


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5 Ways to Teach Your Kids to Become Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs often credit their upbringing for their success or drive to own their own business. Sometimes, it's that their parents had amazing work ethics; others, that they were simply encouraged from a young age to pursue their dreams.
For me, entrepreneurship was largely taught. I grew up in a home with two parents who owned their own business, and it's not a big surprise to anyone that I wound up starting my own successful wedding brand, Rustic Wedding Chic and The Rustic Wedding Guide.
Related: How to Raise Entrepreneurial Kids
Now that I'm a mom myself, I look back on my upbringing and give it the same credit that many other entrepreneurs do -- and I hope to pass the same qualities along to my son. From an early age, I was given the tools to build my own business. These are gifts you can pass on to your child whether you're an entrepreneur or not.
1. Model business behavior. Just like we try to censor our language or model kindness to our kids, it's important to show our kids how to behave in business by inviting them into our lives. I love making my 3-year-old son a part of my business. When bookkeeping time comes each month, he's great at stacking up receipts, grabbing bank statements from the printer or just sitting with me. I get the chance to show him what I'm doing and talk to him about the numbers as I work.
2. Encourage creativity. In my first business, "Maggie's Shell Shop," I hand picked shells from the beach and sold passersby my collections. I was 5. Thanks to a generous set of relatives, I was hooked on becoming an entrepreneur and experienced success early on. Whether it's play or a real small business, give your child the chance to experience success and see how rewarding it is to operate a company they've created. Start by giving kids play money and set up a store in your living room -- it's a great way for them to play and learn at the same time.
Related: Richard Branson on Business Lessons From Parenting
3. Foster curiosity. Every great entrepreneur knows that usually the first step in creating a business is to be curious about something: How is it made? Why does it need to be on the market? Who could it help? How can I make it better? The questions start from kids at an early age, and it's important to help them explore and feel free to be curious. Eventually, they'll start making something of their own. I love to watch my 3 year old take apart a toy or create new rules for a board game that he thinks work better. All of this "investigative work," as he calls it, is helping to expand this thinking and curiosity.
4. Embrace failure. Grown-up entrepreneurs know that failure is part of the game -- it's why the rewards are so sweet. But even small failures can be devastating for a child. Help your child to understand that failure is not a bad thing and explain that often, our greatest lessons as business owners come out the failures. Help your child see that there is always a version 2.0 -- which, as we know, is always better than the first one!
5. Make it fun. Everyday activities can become a little lesson in how to become an entrepreneur, even when they're not business related. My niece and nephew are big into helping with dinner thanks to shows such as "Chopped" and "Cupcake Wars." These 8- and 6-year-olds now pretend they are on one of these shows as they help with dinner prep. Instead of asking for help setting the table, tell the kids they're the chefs for the night. Develop a menu, tell them to create a "vibe" and turn the kitchen into a restaurant. Allowing them to create something and see it through will not only help make mundane tasks more fun, it will give them a huge sense of accomplishment.
Raising kids with an entrepreneurial spirit doesn't necessarily take a lot of time or money -- it just takes a different perspective on your everyday life and the willingness to let your kids into what you do and why you love it.
Related: The Naptime Entrepreneur: Pursuing Your Business in 'Off Hours'
This post originally appeared at Entrepreneur. Copyright 2014.
Maggie Lord is the founder of Rustic Wedding Chic and The Rustic Wedding Guide and the author of The Rustic Wedding Handbook (Gibbs Smith, 2014). She lives in Fairfield, Conn., where she balances life with her 3-year-old son Jack and running the top online destination for couples planning rustic and country weddings.


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Further evidence that acting like an extravert can boost wellbeing
Researchers have long known that people who are more extraverted tend to be happier, leading some to suggest that encouraging extraverted behaviour could improve wellbeing.
29 August 2019
Last year we reported on the first trial of such an intervention, which found that acting like an extravert for a week led to an increase in positive emotions in certain people. Now a second study appears to have replicated that result — and shown that behaving like an introvert may also reduce wellbeing.
In the new study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Seth Margolis and Sonja Lyubomirsky at the University of California, Riverside, asked 131 participants to alter their behaviour over a two week period to be more extraverted or introverted.
For one week, participants were encouraged to act as "talkative", "assertive" and "spontaneous" as possible; for the other, they were told to act "deliberate", "quiet" and "reserved" (all participants completed both weeks, but half began with the extraverted week while the others began with with the introverted week).
To encourage the participants to actually alter their behaviour, the researchers asked them to list five specific changes they planned on making, and then sent them periodic reminders of their task throughout the study.
At various points across the two weeks, the participants completed scales measuring their experience of positive and negative emotions and others aspects of wellbeing, as well as their personality traits.
Compared to baseline levels at the start of the study, participants experienced more positive emotions during the extraverted week — and also showed reduced positive emotions during the introverted week.
Some other measures of wellbeing, such as feelings of connectedness and flow (the experience of being immersed in — and enjoying — an activity) were also boosted by acting extraverted and reduced by acting introverted.
However, these results didn't hold for all measures of wellbeing. For instance, participants seemed to have reduced negative emotions compared to baseline during both interventions (although the exact pattern of results differed depending on whether participants began with the extraverted or introverted week).
The results add to the small, albeit growing, body of evidence that acting like an extravert can improve certain aspects of wellbeing — particularly measures of positive emotion. But the authors suggest that their biggest contribution is to show that acting like an introvert can also have an effect.
"Given that introversion is generally not regarded as desirable or advantageous in U.S. culture … we believe our most compelling results are those showing that well-being decreases can be substantial when people act more introverted than usual," they write.
Still, it seems too soon to suggest that we should we all begin behaving like extraverts.
The study the Digest reported on last year found that people who had high trait levels of introversion didn't report the same benefits of acting like an extravert as the rest of the participants, and actually became more fatigued and experienced more negative emotions.
On the other hand, the new paper found that baseline levels of extraversion and introversion didn't affect the results – but it's still clear that researchers need a better understanding of how individual differences could influence the effectiveness of the intervention.
And it will also be important to figure out which behaviours are actually causing the increases or decreases in wellbeing reported in these studies.
It's not yet clear whether it was being more "talkative", "assertive", or "spontaneous" that resulted in an increase in wellbeing in the extraverted week, for instance, and the researchers suggest examining changes in a more specific sub-set of extraverted behaviours in the future.
"We hope that research from our and others' laboratories encourages future investigators to test the potential of behavioral interventions to spur both personality change and well-being gains," they conclude.
Further reading
– Experimental manipulation of extraverted and introverted behavior and its effects on well-being
About the author
Matthew Warren (@MattbWarren) is Editor of BPS Research Digest.


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