text:
Trump's New Executive Order Makes It Easier to Buy Insurance Outside of Obamacare
Trump's order reveals how Obamacare functions as a trap for policymakers.
There is something clever, almost cunning, about Obamacare's policy scheme: It requires unequivocal political support from an administration in order to avoid accusations that the law is being undermined. It is a kind of joint political-policy trap, in which the only solution to the law's failings is to bail it out.
This is evident in the reaction to the executive order on health care President Trump signed today. Trump's order is light on specifics, but it is intended to facilitate the expansion of association health plans, which would let trade groups and small businesses band together to purchase health insurance like large employers. These plans would be exempt from some of Obamacare's rules.
This idea has been floating around Congress for decades. The House passed legislation aimed at expanding association health plans in March of this year, though it was never taken up in the Senate. Over the last several years, it has been championed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who spent months working with Trump on the plan. In addition, the order eases restrictions on short-term health plans, which are exempt from many of Obamacare's mandates.
Trump's order is intended to create less regulated, less expensive alternatives to Obamacare. It is not an attempt to unwind the law so much as to work around it, providing options that do not exist under the current scheme, which has resulted in steady and significant increases in health insurance premiums and limited health insurance choices in many parts of the country. The order is less a direct attack on Obamacare and more of an attempt to escape its failings.
Yet the reaction from defenders of Obamacare has been to accuse the president of undermining the health law. By creating a parallel insurance scheme, with less expensive plans that offer less robust coverage, they warn, it will lure healthy people away from Obamacare's insurance markets, and in the process will cause the insurance pool to become smaller and sicker, which inevitably means more expensive. It will exacerbate Obamacare's problems.
On the policy merits, this criticism is not wrong. Obamacare's government-created marketplaces were expensive and unstable before Trump took office, thanks in large part to the effect of its rules governing how insurers must cover preexisting conditions. But Trump's order won't ease that instability, and may well exacerbate it.
This would be true, however, of practically any effort to create more insurance options outside of its regulatory scheme. The law effectively requires total buy in, from market participants and from political overseers, in order to function. The result is situation in which the only way to avoid undermining the law is to prop it up. Obamacare is built to allow no alternative and no escape.
For various reasons, Trump's order may not work as well as intended. The order is short on details and will take time to work through the system and is unlikely to have a substantial immediate effect. It instructs the Department of Labor and Health and Human Services to consider finding ways to expand association health plans, and offers some broad suggests about how this might be accomplished but little in the way of specifics. As a result, the effort to spur the expansion of association health plans may produce limited results, with few new options coming online.
In addition, the executive order may create short-term confusion, since few if any new plans are likely to be available this year. The decision to expand these options by executive order leaves any newly created plans susceptible to undoing by a future administration that is more hostile to the idea. The idea is also virtually certain to spark legal challenge; exempting select plans from Obamacare's rules while leaving the overall regulatory infrastructure in place may not hold up in court.
There is also the possibility that Trump's plan will work too well, luring enough relatively healthy people out of Obamacare's insurance markets and producing a political backlash as premiums continue to rise and choices continue to decline. This is a plan that leaves many questions unanswered, and comes with substantial risks.
But in the meantime, it is also a plan that reveals the bind in which policymakers who wish to address frustrations with Obamacare now find themselves: It is an inherently flawed system that is made even more dysfunctional by attempts to work outside of it.
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time. Report abuses.
" it will lure healthy people away from Obamacare's insurance markets,"
How do you lure people from something which they are not participating?
And weren't the exchanges supposed to be a backstop for a functioning insurance market? What ever happened to that?
Well, they screwed the mostly functioning insurance industry and regulated it into a national single payer system managed by half a dozen corporate entities. It's not like any of the other claims made regarding the ACA turned out to be true, so why should this one?
It's like putting people on welfare during a recession and then complaining that startup businesses are taking people off of the welfare rolls, and so banning them.
Basically, it's pretty ludicrous but then again the ACA was always a terrible idea.
Yet the reaction from defenders of Obamacare has been to accuse the president of undermining the health law.
Secretly: "Single payer, here we come!"
Single payer will never happen. There is no money for it. The Democrats had their chance at single payer in 93. They couldn't get single payer in 09 when they had 60 votes in the Senate. They can't get single payer in California for God's sake.
Single-payer = price fixing and single-denier.
Basically turning health care into a Maduro-like economy.
As long as you are able to pay for your healthcare and health insurance out of pocket, it is not single payer and it won't be a Maduro economy. The whole point of single payer is to make it illegal to pay for anything out of pocket. If it can't do that, it can't prevent new markets from arising outside of the government created ones.
My understanding is, Italy has a government health system and citizens have the option of paying privately for private treatment. This comes from anecdotes about relatives living there. Do I have this wrong?
In Germany, as "single payer" nation, people with provable means can opt out of the mandatory health insurance scheme, certifying that they will not access the government subisided healthcare facilities. And entire network of private health clinic exists that value these customers.
Britain also has a two tier health system. NHS for long waits, limited options and mediocre care, becuase anyone with cash goes to a private clinic. Britian even has insurance companies that sell plans for folk to access private clinics. They chose to pay for insurance PLUS pay the taxes that support socialized care.
Not having the money for something hasn't stopped the FedGov before, why would it stop them now?
They couldn't get it in socialist Vermont or crazy California.
States can't print money, which is why they want it to be Federal.
"On the policy merits, this criticism is not wrong."
In other words, the "defenders of Obamacare" are right. The only meaningful conservative alternative to Obamacare is to replace it entirely, an approach that received exactly one vote in the Senate.
Undermining it and letting it collapse on it's own stupidity is also a meaningful alternative.
Replacing one giant, unconstitutional federal program with another giant, unconstitutional federal program is not a conservative alternative.
There is also the possibility that Trump's plan will work too well, luring enough relatively healthy people out of Obamacare's insurance markets and producing a political backlash as premiums continue to rise and choices continue to decline.
The premiums will only rise in the regulated sector. Meanwhile, the rest of us proles will have the option not to get wallet raped for the rest of our lives. This is clearly a problem - everyone must suffer equally.
It instructs the Department of Labor and Health and Human Services to consider finding ways to expand association health plans, and offers some broad suggests about how this might be accomplished but little in the way of specifics.
So it's more of an executive suggestion?
" . . . more of a guideline, actually . . "
There is also the possibility that Trump's plan will work too well, luring enough relatively healthy people out of Obamacare's insurance markets and producing a political backlash as premiums continue to rise and choices continue to decline.
That doesn't make any sense. Let's say Trump's plan allows some number of people to get better health insurance. This leaves some people behind making their insurance worse. Okay, any backlash from those people is necessarily going to be mitigated or more likely overcome by the positive reaction of the people who are getting better and more affordable health insurance.
The bottom line is that the EO will allow millions of people to escape the hell that is Obamacare. I really can't see how doing that is in any way politically risky.
It won't be offset by any positive press if the current ,artist news media has anything to say about it.
Is Suderman this naive or is he just pretending for tgthe story?
Of course that is how the drafters of the ACA intended it. They wanted to shut the door on any alternative that did not include more political control over health care. Their caterwauling is utterly predictable.
The whole thing only works if you have a mandate. If you don't have or enforce the mandate, the people in those exchanges just stop buying insurance and they die. Trump is no longer enforcing the mandate. What is going to happen is the exchanges are going to die. That would be a problem except that it looks like with this order all but the small number of people who are uninsurable will just buy insurance elsewhere or not buy it at all because they never wanted to buy it in the first place.
Sudderman is pretending that the exchanges dying is some kind grave downside. No, them dying is just Obamacare dying and being replaced by people buying insurance based on need and ability.
I'd prefer a quick death of ObamaCare by Congress to a lingering death, but it's a good thing that Trump is taking it off life support.
Me too. But the Republicans in Congress seem incapable of doing anything.
Indeed. If Ryan and McConnel have ever had a mandate to take a wrecking ball to the ACA, it's now. And they still can't get the shit repealed. Assuming they really even want to. Those two assholes, and most of the leadership, need to go.
Actually, with the premium tax credit (for those at a low enough income), the Exchange plans become a means-priced Medicare Advantage.
Trump to sign order to eliminate ACA insurance rules, undermine marketplaces
Actual WaPo headline. Burdening people with the responsibility of deciding for themselves undermines the government's attempts to grant them the freedom to do as they're told.
It undermines government created and utterly artificial "markets". These things would not exist if not for the government forcing people to join them and taking away other alternatives. The writers at the Post believe in the magic power of words. They honestly believe that because the magic word "market" is attached to these things, that makes them actual markets.
I always knew that the Dems would blame the failure of Obamacare on "sabotage". It's the old "kulaks, hoarders, and wreckers" trope Socialists have been using since the early days of the USSR.
It is sabotage and the evil Republican's unwillingness to fix it. Obamacare was the greatest thing ever. Yet somehow the Republicans are evil for not "fixing it".
It's been sabotaged since the very beginning. No Democrat has ever said the law is perfect. And no Republican seems to give a shit about healthcare policy except using it as bait for their moron cousinfucking voters.
I can' believe you're not fixing the mess I made!
I know I'm not perfect and went into debt paying for stuff I didn't need and you warned me about but this is not the time to point fingers. I have kids and they will end up in the streets if you don't help me.
How dare you even consider not helping me?
Because I am an angry old white man, and you are on my lawn.
Are you serious? Are you serious?
Jon Gruber was talking about you, not me.
Jon Gruber was talking about you, not me.
I forget - is he an ObamaCare architect this week, or just some guy who wasn't really involved? It can be hard to keep up.
The little creep was involved if memory serves me right.
And then the cocky twit let the mask slip.
Considering that they didn't need Republican votes to pass this, why didn't the Democrats just do the job correctly back then? The fact that they didn't is their own fucking problem. It's not "sabotage" if they couldn't stop you from shooting yourselves in the foot.
It's true. Moderate Democrats sabotaged the health law (from Tony's perspective). Republicans had absolutely nothing to do with it.
It ended up being less efficient than planned because Joe Lieberman is a dickhole. There are fixes to it, but first you have to care about Americans having access to healthcare more than jerking off Rush Limbaugh.
Right... It's all Joe's fault. It couldn't be the fact that the whole mess was a pack of lies from the get-go, as Gruber admitted.
Tony, there are no fixes for it. The whole thing was going to implode from day one. It was obvious to just about everyone but you and other idiot communists. That's even with prices skyrocketing far faster than they ever did before. In 2013 I was paying $3k per year for my own private policy for mediocre coverage I could live with. Now a 'platinum' policy, inferior to the one i used to have, is $10k per year.
All so trannys can get their cocks cut off for free, illegals can get free healthcare, and cunts like that Sandra Fluke can get $3k per year in high priced contraception for no particular reason than her cuntish sense of entitlement.
So fuck you Tony, and your goddamned ACA bullshit.
Lest we forget, several versions of the bill were cobbled together into a whole less than 72 hours before the vote. Hence Pelosi's famous dictum "you have to pass the bill to find out what's in it". That insult to the intelligence of every Senator and Congressman on the Hill passed without comment, so why would anyone have expected the Dems to do the job correctly?
Tony, this is all your fault. Period.
It's a start, but I'm not going to get too excited until something is enacted that can't be rescinded by the next president's EO.
A start toward what?
The end of the ACA
The free market.
But then! Prices will drop like a rock and quality will improve, a la Lasik eye surgery. Then health care will become available to the masses, and that would be the worst outcome possible. Right Tony?
No, no. In Tonyland free markets don't lead to lower prices. Only government monopolies do.
I'll admit, just reading this made me laugh.
I also noticed the word "efficient" in his last post, referring to a government program. Lots to laugh about with that one.
Take another econ class.
Allow me to suggest, on behalf of the group, that you take a first one, and then come back and criticize people.
Follow your own advice, pinhead.
Tony, as one who holds degrees in finance and accounting, has significant background in economics, and decades of experience in various areas of finance, I can say with confidence that you are an ignorant shitbag when it comes to business and economics. You are also generally stupid and boorish.
And a general asshole, besides.
Thank you. I missed that one.
The order is short on details and will take time to work through the system and is unlikely to have a substantial immediate effect.
Just the way I like it.
I support Trunp because he's a fighter!
No, Trump is Hitler with no respect for the law. Or is that on Monday Wednesdays and Fridays?
Only after sundown
Yes, and because he built the wall and made Mexico pay for it
God damn it, I don't like dictates from the crown even if they're ostensibly good measures. That isn't how this is supposed to work.
As currently described, it is less a dictate from the crown than undoing with regulation what was started with regulation. No law has changed, and short of eliminating some federal agencies, no changes would have occurred from a regulatory standpoint without direction- if congress abrogates its responsibility to directly create law, it falls to agency heads or the executive.
My history of it is a little hazy, but my understanding is that you had care organizations back in the day that had options to purchase things like insurance, which were ultimately regulated out of existence.
This is seemingly a return to what was, so you can now purchase health insurance through AARP or whatever (and have them negotiate the price).
Hopefully this helps end employer sponsored health insurance as well.
Obamacare made marks of the few million people who are 1) healthy, 2) have incomes above the subsidy threshold, and 3) don't have employer sponsored insurance. Those people are getting hammered with gigantic premiums for lousy insurance to pay for the healthcare costs of several million really sick people. The rest of the population got off relatively scott-free with Obamacare (although there are some special taxes like the Medicare payroll surcharge). They obviously don't like being marks, and there's no logical reason that they should be targeted as the main funding source for sick people's healthcare costs. Anything that lets them get avoid being the marks is going to "undermine" Obamacare.
As someone with employer sponsored insurance, I disagree with the suggestion that I was somehow immune to this. The premiums that I pay increased significantly. The amount that my company pays on my behalf also increased significantly. That's money that would have gone to my account instead of my insurer's.
Correlation doesn't equal causation. My employer insurance has increased very little. Your increases could have been caused by changes in your employer's risk pool, its choice of plans, local medical costs, etc. Obamacare made very few changes to employer provided insurance, so I don't see how it could have caused your premium increases. If you've got a theory, I'm all ears.
The fact you're arguing about the scale of the increase should be indicative.
My premiums went up every year before obamacare too. National statistics show employer provided insurance premiums have been growing more slowly since aca than before it.
"National statistics show employer provided insurance premiums have been growing more slowly since aca than before it."
I too call bullshit on that statement.
I too call bullshit on that statement.
Keep eating it, you moron
There are certainly some direct effects of ObamaCare (e.g., child coverage to age 26, substance abuse coverage, contraceptive coverage, etc.) and likely are some secondary effects that increase the cost of employer plans.
However, it adds up to chump change compared to what ObamaCare victims (i.e., the people who meet the three criteria you list above) pay.
BTW: There is another small segment of ObamaCare beneficiaries: Geezers under 65 in New York State. ObamaCare premiums in New York State are constant regardless of age.
Obamacare made very few changes to employer provided insurance, so I don't see how it could have caused your premium increases. If you've got a theory, I'm all ears.
Because it's not just about direct impact. It's about the impact of the law as a whole on the insurance industry as a whole. Just because your law says "squeeze the balloon over here" and doesn't explicitly say "let it expand over there," that doesn't mean the squeezing isn't causing the expansion.
If your premium only went up a little, you are the exception in my experience.
Does it seem like an awful coincidence that so many changes to so many company risk pools happened right along side ObamaCare implementation?
Same with my employer sponsored insurance. Each year, my company had to renegotiate an switch insurance plans or companies, due to significant premium increases. In addition, over the course of 3 years, my deductible went from $1K, to 1.5, to 3, to $5K. My out of pocket each year increased dramatically, along with my employer's contributions.
Garbage coverage as the result of a garbage law.
People with employer-sponsored insurance are taking it in the shorts, as well, although it's more concealed.
I've had Kaiser for years, so I haven't felt the pain as badly - my employer is paying more, and my monthly premium is higher, but the people on the Preferred Provider plan have been royally fucked over the last two years, and what they have seems to only be pretending to be insurance. I don't see how it's sustainable.
Adam330: You got that straight. I'm paying about $14K for a $13K deductible policy. It's basically worthless unless my wife or I get into a serious car crash.
To get the $8K subsidy, I've decided to take the rest of the year off. (25% income tax + 15% self-employment tax + $8K: no thanks.) That, coupled with some deductions for capital expenditures and a maxing out the 401k and wife's IRA, should do it.
In the age of a car crash, your or possibly another party's auto coverage would take care of the tab. The most likely use of catastrophic coverage would be cancer treatment or something in that direction.
I've decided to retire "very early" and live on a lifestyle that I term "college poverty plus", which has an income that is low enough to get bennies like ObamaRomneyHeritageCare and low-cost internet. (SNAP is a harder nut to crack, but sometimes I can even get that.) YouTube philosopher Aaron Clarey calls it "enjoying the decline".
This is why I suggested harvesting the organs of progressives to pay for things like this. Progtards love compulsory govt. programs, and the redistributive nature should make it win-win for them. Tony should be endorsing my idea.
Trump will now somehow be blamed for the inevitable failure of Obamacare.
That would have happened regardless. He doesn't have anything to lose here.
This. It was always in the play book if a Republican won.
So, this was done from the goodness of his heart. Taking the blame for the black guy's monstrosity.
That too was a given.
THIS is why I will vote Bannon/Paul 20/20.
THIS is why you'll remain an idiot
National Transport Furniture Company
RE: Trump's New Executive Order Makes It Easier to Buy Insurance Outside of Obamacare
Trump's order reveals how Obamacare functions as a trap for policymakers.
What's the difference between an "executive order" and a dictator's order again?
Less and less each year...
The former is when a white supremacist decrees it to undo what the black guy did when he was a dictator.
On the other hand, if you build and offer attractive alternatives, people will flock to them and you can make Obamacare disappear without actually voting against it.
For various reasons, Drumpf's order may not work as well as intended. The order is short on details and will take time to work through the system and is unlikely to have a substantial immediate effect.
Way to CYA, reason.com. You know, in case this has no effect, or worse, is a disaster.
There is a simple way to repeal and replace Obamacare. Offer something better.
How about a confession that govt. has no business in business? How about a repeal of all laws? Oh, wait, that would expose the federal sham and start a questioning of the state sham. Can't have that. Politicians would have to make an honest living.
"Offer something better."
Been done, lefty idiot.
Hey Drumpf cocksucker, offer something better. As in pass the law, you moron.
The content of this edict corrects the harm of another edict. It's "official", i.e., the new "due process". We can send Congress home, which is fine with me, and let the executive branch take over fully. This will be more honest politics. It won't be any better or worse, just make it harder to sell the lie that everybody's rights are protected. It will be more direct mob rule, democracy.
Let the power struggles continue, more openly, without that myth that a constitution "limits" anyone in power.
The process is moving in the right direction. Give citizens what they need now. Set up a proper parallel health care system while leaving the ACA untouched. Let it fall of its own weight.
It should include HSA's, PATmOS, national insurance sold across state lines, limited liability for pain & suffering, nationally mandated & subsidized major medical umbrella policies, total transparency of prices and service levels, cafeteria benefits plans, etc. etc. No commissars, gatekeepers, or bureaucrats.
Equalize tax treatment of health expenses for employers and individuals. Get employers and insurers out of the mix. (No more exploitation!) As the great economist Milton Friedman said, "We don't get our food from our employees or our fuel from the government. Why should we get health care from either?"
Any persons with pre-existing conditions should be pooled and managed. But those subjected to "forced re-entry" because of terminated employer plans, job changes, or other discontinuities that were not their faults.
Veterinarians provide similar services without government involvement, at high levels and modest cost. Auto insurere provide effective and affordable insurance without government meddling.
"Trump's order may not work as well as intended."? You meant as well as sold by his PR?
The intention of all of Trump's work is to sell Trump, i.e., make him politically stronger. He is running for a 2nd term.
All politicians rep themselves.
Wife won't let you say "death spiral" eh Suderweigel?
Short on details?
The temporary plans that were allowed in Obamacare for 364 days have been restored from Obama's administrative reduction to 90 days. (Too many people were buying the "poor" plans that were affordable and met the individual's needs instead of the bloated plans in Obama's dream exchanges.)
Regular people can now form groups and avoid lots of Obamacare grief, just like the federal legislators.
What details are missing?
Take off and nuke the plan from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Simply apply the same rules to health insurance as are used for automobile insurance.
For Christ sake, just get out of the way and let people buy insurance from any association that wants to offer it. AARP, Farmers, Musicians....Get the F**k out the the way you government assholes!
providing options that do not exist under the current scheme, which has resulted in steady and significant increases in health insurance premiums
"Florida regulators said most of the average rate hike — 31 percentage points — came from standard plans sold on the ACA exchange at healthcare.gov. Insurers raised rates for those plans due to the political uncertainty that has plagued the healthcare debate, specifically whether the Drumpf administration will stop paying subsidies that lower out-of-pocket costs for low-income Americans."
Many catastrophic high-deductable individual insurance plans offered pre-Ocare were pretty much a scam. Paying for 10 or 20% of a heart attack or serious accident is going to be un-affordable for poor or working class people, especially when they have to pay $5000 or so first before any coverage kicks in. You'll be in medical bankruptcy anyway. Those kinds of plans are best used along with an HSA, which poor people can't afford. If you're middle class, young and healthy you can get these kinds of plans from your employer. Just put plenty of money in your HSA (if you can afford to) or don't have a car accident.
Auto accident injuries are usually covered through someone's liability insurance.
The harpoon of entitlements go in easy, comes out hard. And sometimes to do the least damage you have to push it straight through.
LET obamacare spiral out of control. Then in an "emergency" act, kill it, even if it takes a year of blanket subsidies for transition, and the replacement of RINOs, especially McCain.
(The alternative is to FEED a parasite because it may be painful to expel it.)
As a partisan toady once said, never let a crisis go to waste.
Yknow what else goes in easy but comes out hard?
The only way to measure the success of something like obamacare is by averages, which kind of by definition screws minorities. I imagine that's a legacy Obama will be proud of.
Trump's plan makes it easier for healthy people to buy cheap insurance that doesn't actually cover anything. If you're already sick, or get sick, you're screwed.
That's what they said about the individual health plan the democrats made illegal for my own good. Now I get to lay over 300% of what that plan cost for coverage that is inferior in every way. And that's for their 'platinum' plan. Which is funny they call it that. As my Assurant plan was very mediocre.
Of course, the minority President's plan is light on details; his plans always are. The braggart in chief now offers cheaper insurance which does not cover anything but supposedly offers people "peace of mind" until they get sick and need insurance. Insurance companies are not eager to set up networks in different states. It is costly and complicated. Also it is often difficult to convince doctors and hospitals to join in their program. But, of course, the light on details President never considered these problems, much less found a way to around them or any way to expedite the process. What happens when his proposal is enacted and the plans aren't there for people to join?


text:
Large Format Printing in North Cave
Large format printing is an advertising medium which has been increasing in popularity for some time. The main purpose of a large format printer is to print signage on a large scale, supporting maximum print role width. We use this system to create anything which needs to printed rapidly on a larger than normal scale. Using complex machinery which handles sizes not printable on readily available sized printers. Sometimes referred to as wide format printing or grand format printing, large format printing requires the use of speciality equipment.
Whatever your large format printing or visual graphics requirements are, we can assist. We have been providing organisations and businesses, including some of the largest in the UK, with large format printing solutions, for many years. We pride ourselves on providing an excellent service, with great customer focus as well as a finished product which is second to none.
Our Printing Studio
We have a large format printing studio based in Yorkshire and from here we design and create the finished product. Large format printing can include things like posters, exhibition graphics, billboards, banners, signs, window graphics, floor stickers, point of sale signage, wall paper, photo prints and much more.
As you can see, large format printing has many uses, can be used to gain attention from far away, quick reference, large visual benefits in a classroom or teaching setting and many promotional settings.
All of our large formatting print products are always finished in high quality print on durable material. Contact us for further information and to discuss your individual requirements.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Getting My sydney traffic accident To WorkAfter decades of debate, Australia's infrastructure adviser states the government finally ought to choose quick motion on a large-velocity rail linking Melbourne and Sydney.
The mothers and fathers of Stuart Kelly, whose brother was killed in the one-punch assault, say he was "damaged" immediately after sixteen hours in a Sydney Uni university.
Join nowadays and you will very easily save your favorite content, join in the conversation and comment, furthermore decide on which news your want immediate to your inbox.
seventeen August 1896 United kingdom – Bridget Driscoll is the first person to die in a petrol-engined car accident, and the primary pedestrian target of an automobile accident in the uk.
This white Mazda is the main target of a look for by law enforcement, planning to find it in connection with the capturing of Brayden Dillon
A NSW Ambulance spokeswoman claimed a person was taken to hospital which has a suspected fractured leg, immediately after coming off the bike.
Iran has congratulated Iraq on its declared victory more than the Islamic Condition jihadist group in Mosul and supplied its enable to rebuild the devastated nation.
The bus was coming back from a Chilean soccer league 2nd division match; 35 individuals were being killed within the crash.[citation desired]
Pace boundaries in Melbourne's CBD could possibly be capped at 30km/h, less than a radical proposal to help keep cyclists Safe and sound.
This really is an ordinary security test that we use to forestall spammers from click creating fake accounts and spamming end users.
A Brisbane butcher qualified by vegans and animal activists for his store's name, The Squealing site Pig, has become confused url by help from his buyers.
Have you ever been being attentive to the earth of Activity in the last 7 days? Enable your sporting understanding do the chatting and have a shot at our weekly quiz.
May possibly 21 — A truck in addition to a bus are involved in a crash during the city of San Luis Province. killing 21 people. There were 4 survivors. ThIs the worst disaster in the history from the province.


text:
Tour Day 5
Our first full day in Florence starts with coffee, yogurt, and fruit at the hotel. We gather as a group, and cross the Arno River. We meet our local tour guide at the Palazzo Davanzati. This palace, built in the 14th century, serves as a museum of Renaissance life. The furnishings, while not original, create a picture of how Florentines lived, and are representative of the era. The ornate wall decorations and frescoes are especially beautiful.
After the Palazzo, we regroup on the Ponte Santa Trinita, a perfect vantage point to photograph the famous Ponte Vecchio. Patricia revives our spirits with samples of local breads. Yum. We troop over to the Piazza Santo Spirito, for espresso at Caffe Ricchi. The walls of the charming cafe are lined with drawings of the Duomo. The piazza features a fresh fruit and vegetable market, one of many we see in Italy.
We wait by the fountain in the middle of the square. When everyone has gathered, we proceed to the Basilica di Santo Spirito. I have recently finished reading Irving Stone's The Agony and The Ecstasy, so the story of Michelangelo's connection to Santo Spirito is known to me. I have taken Rick Steves' advice to heart: if you want to have an A+ trip, you have to be an A+ planner. Before the trip, I read a dozen novels that take place in Italy, several non-fiction books, and of course, all the relevant Rick Steves' travel guides. I like to read. My traveling companion has prepared for the trip by downloading movies to his iPad to watch on the plane. Priorities.
See My Reading List
The basilica is austere on the outside, but the inside is a masterpiece of Renaissance design. No photography is allowed. We contemplate the many side chapels filled with works of art. On this site, Michelangelo was permitted by Augustinian monks to study the anatomy of corpses in the hospital. In thanksgiving, the seventeen-year old sculptor carved a wooden Crucifix to hang over the high altar. The Crucifix was lost, misplaced, or stored away until 1962. Now it hangs in its own chapel in the basilica.
On the day we visit, the chapel is closed. A group of professionals in suits and heels are gathered near the chapel, accompanied by photographers. Patricia works her magic with the officials. We are permitted five minutes to view the piece. We enter the space in reverent silence. The crucifix is suspended in a pool of ethereal light. We are fortunate to have this truly moving experience.
We leave the sacred space, and return to the 21st Century. Outside, we are startled by the contrast bright modern scooters make against the Renaissance architecture in Florence. We marvel at what it must be like to work and live in a city that is a living museum.
Time for a hands-on Italian cooking class at In Tavola. In the spotless demonstration kitchen, we split into groups. We mix egg into flour to make fresh pasta dough, then set it aside to rest. We chop mushrooms, and cook them in a big pan with olive oil, garlic, and wine. While the sauce simmers, we prepare tiramisu for dessert by layering coffee and brandy dipped biscuits with a mixture of eggs and Marscapone cheese. Each cup is finished with a dusting of cocoa powder.
For Pollo alla Contadina, we flour chunks of chicken, then saute in butter and olive oil. We add onion strips, roasted red peppers, balsamic vinegar, rosemary, and spices, and let it simmer for half an hour. This gives us time to cut the pasta. We roll out the dough, and run it several times through a pasta machine to make tagliarelle noodles. We are surprised at how easy it is to make pasta. Finally, we prepare a chopped tomato and basil mixture to serve atop toasted Tuscan bread that has been rubbed with garlic.
We gather together to eat our creation in the brick-walled cellar at In Tavola. The food is molto delizioso.
Are stomachs are groaning after lunch, and we need to walk. The afternoon is free to spend how we choose. My traveling companion wants to climb the Duomo, or maybe the Campanile. The line to purchase tickets is long. One of us is not good at waiting. We inch closer to the desk to pay. A sign lights up, announcing that all tickets for the Duomo are sold for the next two days. We wade through the crowd to head for the Campanile. The line stretches down the block. Now what?
I have a list of five or six places to visit. We try the Bargello Sculpture Museum, but it is closed. What museum closes at 2 o'clock in the afternoon? We learn the Medici Chapel also closed early. Hmm. We walk around, looking at leather goods. We consider buying something, but he looks like a dork in a leather hat, and I don't need a purse, and it becomes overwhelming to look at so much leather. We give up on that idea. Now we face the largest crowd yet, and cross the Ponte Vecchio.
This medieval stone bridge was the only bridge in Florence to survive World War II. The bridge has always been lined with shops–butchers in the past, gold merchants and jewelers today. A passageway, commissioned by Cosimo I de'Medici to connect the town hall with his residence across the river, tops the stores. The bridge is jammed with tourists. We gawk at the enormous selection of jewelry.
Eternally optimistic, we head to the Bardini Garden. We trudge up the massive hill that is Via di Belvedere behind our hotel. One of us has to stop several times to rest. We find the entrance, and see grass behind a closed gate, but the garden has just closed for the day.
We continue our walk down the narrow street, hoping we are heading in the right direction. My traveling companion is looking peckish. We walk through an area where Florentines live, and admire several small artisan shops. At the bottom of the hill, we see good omens: first, a wine bar, and second, a woman walking a chubby pug, its tail curled jauntily up in the air. We are very near to our hotel.
We find a café on the street behind the hotel, and sit outside. At Osteria San Niccolo, we eat a delicious meal of Tuscan soup, salad, and local unsalted bread. The house white wine is light and refreshing. We see a couple from our group, and greet them like old friends.
More and more fellow tour members pass by. We recommend the soup, and many sit down at the café. They share their experiences of the busy afternoon with us. My traveling companion and I marvel that we have already seen more people we know at this little sidewalk café in Florence than we would see at a cafe in our hometown. So this is not a terrible day. But we have only one more day in Florence, and we realize we will not be able to see everything we want to see.
Patricia has posted the next day's itinerary at the hotel. Tomorrow we start early!


text:
Sebenernya gw nggak tau mau nulis apa. Yang jelas sih maunya nulis aja. Hii aneh benge yah, pinginnya kok nulis? Makan kek, baca kek, ngapain kek.. Yah beginilah nasib banyak pengen tapi waktunya sedikit. Kalo dipikir-pikir bukan waktunya yang sedikit, gw nya aja yang bingung mau mulai darimana. YAELAH! Same old story, so little time so much to do! I didn't really care about my job today. I was trying to do it properly and getting things done the way they should. Since I have plans for next month, I stay focused on what I have to do. Sempet-sempetnya pas lagi kerja, gw sambilan browsing. I didn't know what to browse exactly. Blogwalking? Khatam! Semua list bloggers favorit udah gw baca. Blogging? Yakalik bisa ngeblog sementara satu tangannya lagi megang gagang tilpun. Kepo-in orang? Done with this bad side of me since months ago. Wasting time, indeed. Trus ngapain dong? Bengong? Tiba-tiba gw kepikiran sesuatu berbau art atau seni. What? Art? Are you sure? Yeah. Kepikiran tentang seni. Belom lama gw nulis tentang The Art of Stress, terinspirasi dari ketidakstabilan emosi akibat stres. And suddenly I was thinking about The Art of Being Jobless. Am I going to be? Hmm, I don't know..
Dan ternyata banyak sekali artikel yang membahas tentang The Art of Being Jobless or Unemployed as people said. Stephen L. Adams, Jackie's Never-Ending Story, Michelle Lopes, Kimpassionate's Weblog tell it all. Beberapa teman pun sudah mewanti-wanti sebelumnya, "Are you ready for this kind of phase? There's a fine line between stress before you get the job and stress after you quit your job. So be careful!". I got a lot to think about and these articles finally shined my brain's darkest side. It's about being busy and content, and taking your mind off from any bad influences. The most inspiring lines are coming from Stephen L. Adams's notes about The Art of Being Unemployment:
Take a moment to examine how much of each day you spend thinking you're headed down a slippery road toward a brick wall. Preoccupation with repeating the same dead-end thinking, is robbing you of constructive "brain time". Now check how much of the day you spend thinking about how this is going to affect your ability to retire, and pay for elder care and medical expenses. The opportunities for this kind of critical examination and disaster modelling are as plentiful as your imagination is wild. You're stuck in the "War Room" most of each day, yet nothing constructive results from burning all that mental energy; except you feel even more like an unwanted failure at life.
So, why make this a personal failure? Because we are trained to believe that we reap what we sow. You may not know what you sown that justified this reap, but the axiom must be right. Like so many aspects of life, the truth is found in the mirror image of now. This moment in time is yours to use in ways you may never have explored before. Your hands may feel tied getting hired for the work you've always done. And you may feel that you cannot do anything but what you've always done. But these assumptions are just that — assumptions. And they're not the truth.
You are capable of vastly more than you're given yourself credit for. But to see these amazing abilities, you must first quiet the emotional noise in you're head. Then let your mind wander through all of the things in life that engage your imagination and cause you to feel joy. Here then, is the essential you. Pick up some small implement and examine it. What is it called? Is it heavy? What is it used for? Is it dangerous? Where else can you find one? What does it cost? These questions shift the brain's mode of processing to the reality of the moment. It is simply answering questions about an object in front of you. You are processing a task. Then, in the moment that follows, note how you feel. You should have a clear mind at rest and unemotional. This is the natural state associated with peace that allows you to draw upon any part of your cognitive ability for tasks that are part of your moment.
With practice, you can train yourself to remain longer in the state of now, or get it back to it with a simple mental exercise. Eventually, you come to know now as being normal, and negatively emotional as abnormal. The past is no longer ours because we gave it up to history. The future is also not ours, because it has not yet arrived. Your task is to discover this universal truth and to make every effort to remain centered in the present as much of your day as possible. With all of your cognitive abilities available to you, it is now possible to ponder ways that you can strike a new balance in your life. Some of your day will be spent doing something you've always wanted to get to, and some of your day will be spent looking for new ways to create an income. Never devote even a large part of your day to a job search, watching TV, or playing computer games. Meet friends and former co-workers for coffee and conversation. But make a pact that only a positive attitude is present. Kick around ideas on other kinds of work you might do. Encourage others to explore gifts you know they have but they may have forgotten. Network, and provide encouragement in your meetings. This keeps you sensing your value to others as a person, and it could lead to a new idea or awareness. A good conversation should keep you centered in the moment, and able to enjoy yourself in a circle of mutual respect.
Life is a long series of moments we know as now. If you were laid-off or dismissed, that's in the past. Your past is to create a new era of living in the present and creatively looking for ways in which to express yourself in the future. And finally, consider this: if you're doing something you love, time passes without your knowing it. Suddenly you discover hours have passed and it feels like only a few minutes. This is the indication you are in the "sweet spot" of your life; your passion. Your passion is powerful, timeless expression of your innate nature. It is a conduit for your life force, and with it comes the truth for which we all silently seek. Your survival is assured. Whether you flourish is up to you. Rise above the past and into the moment. Then use this moment to find the truth with which to ignite your future.
Kepanjangan yah? Tapi itu kalimat-kalimat saktinya nyentil banget. Dan bagian yang paling gw suka adalah ketika kita menyibukkan diri dengan berbagai kegiatan non-monoton untuk mencari passion. Tetep yah nggak jauh-jauh dari passion. Dan selagi jobless, jauhkan otak ini dari pikiran-pikiran negatif yang bisa menghambat diri. What a great thought!! Selama baca artikel ini mata gw berbinar-binar. Suka banget sama kata-katanya!! 😀
I had a fine dinner today: early dinner with Bapak Ibu and then second dinner with friends. Berhubung jobless word ini lagi hits banget di dalem otak gw, dengan beberapa teman ini gw membicarakan tentang The Art of Being Jobless I found on the internet. We have the same problem here with our current jobs and we need a problem solving. I hope we find the best problem solving soon yah guys 😀 And another random happy news today, I won a free ticket to opening party of Brightspot Market at Plaza Senayan tomorrow. YEAY! I never won anything before since premiere film Dealova waktu gw SMA duluk. Ini sih iseng-iseng berhadiah aja. I just had a feeling I'd win this. Dan ternyata benar, alhamdulillah.. Ihiyyy, now I'm excited to get my work done tomorrow. Omagah I'm rushing to bed now 😯


text:
AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND – SEPTEMBER 29: Brooke Henderson of Canada tees off during day two of the New Zealand Women's Open at Windross Farm on September 29, 2017 in Auckland, New Zealand. (Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
By Keely Levins
NAPLES, Fla. — As Brooke Henderson gets ready to play this week's CME Group Tour Championship, the stats say she's basically the same golfer she was last year. But she doesn't think so.
By most measures, it's been a successful season for the 20-year-old from Canada. Henderson, who's currently No. 5 on the CME points list, won twice during a season when only seven other players have won more than once. And take a look at these nearly identical numbers, which if anything, give a slight edge to 2017.
What's interesting is that Henderson describes this year as a bit rocky, while she talks about last year as being phenomenal.


text:
If you didn't get a confirmation message from OIT about your new cPanel account, check your Gmail spam folder. Google thinks the confirmation is spam in some cases.
By the end of this lab, you will be able to:
In this lab and the next you will be given a lot of information. You don't have to memorize anything but you should become comfortable enough with the ideas that you could look up the details and work with them.
This lab can be done on any computer anywhere.
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: HTML Framework
Part 3: Text
Part 4: Links
Part 5: Lists
Part 6: Graphics and Sound
Part 7: Making Your Page Visible with cPanel
Part 8: Submitting your work
Checklist for submission
List of HTML tags and attributes
Barebones Guide to HTML
W3Schools web development tutorials and reference
|In this lab, we will highlight instructions for what you have to submit in a yellow box like this one.
A web page is a text document similar to lab1.txt but with two important differences. First, a web page is stored in a specific folder where it is visible on the web. Second, whereas lab1.txt is written so that it's easy for a person to read, a web page is written so that a browser can format it the way you want.
A web page is a text file written in HTML ("HyperText Markup Language"); it contains a mixture of content to be displayed and information about how to display it. As in the first lab you must use an editor like TextEdit or Notepad, this time to make a simple page by writing the text and markup directly. Web designers use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to ensure that all pages have a uniform appearance, and Javascript for dynamic effects. Both of these are beyond the scope of this lab, which focuses on what's really going on underneath.
You can use any browser. For the most part, browsers display straightforward HTML pages in the same way, but there are annoying differences in how various browsers treat complicated pages. Whether these differences arise from bugs or failure to follow standards, web designers must work around the differences, usually by sticking to things that work the same in all browsers.
Your first web page will be stored in a file called index.html. The name index.html is special: it is the default file that browsers use if you don't name a specific file.
HTML files are plain text files. Don't use Word. You can use Notepad or Textpad on Windows, or TextEdit on a Mac. If the latter, you must tell TextEdit to use plain text format. Do this by opening a new text file, then select "make plain text" from the Format menu, or set "Plain text" in Preferences. When you do this, the ruler at the top of the window should disappear. You should also check "Ignore rich text commands in HTML files" under Preferences | Open and Save in TextEdit to allow you to reopen lab1.html as a text file if you have saved and closed it. From now on, we will use "editor" to mean "Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on MacOSX or any equivalent program."
[Some lab assistants recommend TextWrangler as a good editor for Macs. You might give it a try. You could also use pico, via the Terminal window.]
You will develop the contents of the web page on your own computer, then upload the final result to an OIT computer that will make it visible to other people. Remember that any information on your web page is by default visible to the entire world. At the least, this strongly suggests that you should not put anything on your web page that you would not also publish on the front page of the New York Times. (It is possible by murmuring a suitable incantation to limit access to computers on the Princeton network; I will be happy to help with incantations upon request.)
It's dead easy to view the contents of an HTML file in a browser: use the File / Open File menu to navigate to your file, or type its filename in the URL entry box as file:///path_to_file.
As you develop your web page, you should check its appearance in your browser frequently. If you check each change as you make it, you can see its effect right away, and quickly isolate the source of any problem. If you make a lot of changes at one time, it's harder to trace a problem to any particular change.
It is very likely that at some point during this lab you will find yourself staring at your page in your browser, wondering why the changes you just made had no effect. When this happens, recall that to see the effect of the most recent changes, you must first save the file in your editor, and then reload the just-saved file in your browser.
Finally, you might think that if you start up a new copy of a browser, you will see the newest version of any page you visit. Alas, it ain't necessarily so. You may end up looking at an out-of-date version because in an attempt to be efficient, a browser may display a copy of the page that it has stored on your computer ("cached") rather than retrieving a new version. Caching is generally helpful, but sometimes it gets in the way. To be absolutely sure you're looking at the latest version, you may have to force the browser to reload in spite of its cache; indeed, under some unusual circumstances, you might need to hold down the Shift key while Reloading to force an uncached copy of images.
Web pages are written in a language called HTML, which stands for HyperText Markup Language. Mostly HTML is ordinary text, but it includes formatting information that describes the layout. This extra information is contained in a set of tags, which are ordinary text surrounded by < and > signs. They give the browser information about how to display the text.
The next few sections will help you create your own web page. The skeleton of any web page has this form:
The text between < and > is called a "tag". Tags can be written in upper case or lower case; we will use upper case here to make them stand out, but lower case is probably easier to type most of the time.  <title> Title of the web page goes here </title>   Content of the web page goes here
Every HTML file must begin with  and end with . These two tags tell your browser that the file is written in HTML and that it should translate every tag it finds between them into the proper effect. Everything you put in your HTML file must go between these two tags.
There are two separate parts to an HTML file, the HEAD and the BODY. The HEAD comes first, is surrounded by the  and  tags, and usually contains information about the HTML file that is not displayed, like author name, keywords, and a summary of the file. These are not displayed by the browser, but they may be used by search engines and other programs.
One exception to this invisibility rule is the page title. If you look in the title bar of your browser window, you should see the title of the page you are on. If you were to find the page in a search engine or among your bookmarks, it would have the same title. You can use the <TITLE> and </TITLE> tags (within the HEAD section) to specify the title of your web page.
Finally comes the BODY section. Everything in this section will be displayed in the main window of your browser.
Create your initial index.html file. It's easiest to copy and paste
the template above and put it in a file.
Since this lab will involve several files, you might find it convenient to create a separate folder to hold them, with a name like lab2.
Each HTML filename must end with .html; browsers expect that. (The extension .htm is often allowed as an alternative but don't use it here.) Also note that Unix file names are case sensitive. Use lower case for index.html.
Unlike the other tags you've seen so far, the BODY tag has a few options, called attributes, that can be included inside the tag to customize your page. Each attribute is written as name="value" where name is the name of the attribute and value is what you set it to be. You never have to include attributes; they are completely optional.
For example,  instead of just  will make the background color of your page blue.
The most popular attributes of the BODY tag are:
|a color
|changes the color of all normal text
|a color
|changes the background color
|a filename
|displays an image file as the background
Thus, if you want a black page with white text, use . If, on the other hand, you had a picture named cat.jpg, you might try . That would tile the cat picture over and over as the background of your page, and all your text would appear in red. The file name can be a link instead, as described later.
Here's a list of some named colors; you can get others by specifying their red, green and blue components, which we'll explore in the next lab.
|Available Colors
|Add some attribute(s) to the BODY tag, for example . If you prefer other colors or an image, change them now. You can try hexadecimal values for more color choices; use six hex digits for the color, as in BGCOLOR="00aaff", or try names and hex values from this file of colors.
Here is what you should have so far. Don't worry if the spacing is a little bit different, or if you've chosen different colors. Just make sure you understand what each tag does.
<TITLE> Title of the web page goes here </TITLE>

(All the content of your web page -- what you want your viewers to see in their main window -- will go here.)
However, there are some key differences. First and foremost is the fact that line breaks have to be explicitly marked with a
 tag, which causes a line break: text after it will be on a separate line. Besides using
 to separate text you can also use the
 or paragraph tag, which not only starts a new line but also puts an empty line between the two chunks of text it separates. Here's an example:
|What you write in HTML
|How it appears on your web page
|The cat sat
on the
|The cat sat on the mat.
|The cat sat
 on the mat.
|The cat sat
on the mat.
|The cat sat
 on the mat.
|The cat sat
on the mat.
At this point you might wonder how we display
 and
 tags in plain text. It would seem that if we were to write
 in an HTML file, it would insert a break rather than showing the literal text "
". The secret is to use "escape codes" to represent certain symbols that have special meanings in HTML. For example, to display
 in an HTML document you write "
". The escape code < stands for < ("less than"), > stands for > ("greater than"), and & stands for & (ampersand).
Note that the semicolon is part of the escape code; if you omit it, things won't work.
Other symbols, including accented letters like é and ñ and symbols like ©, are not found on the keyboard and so are difficult to include. Again, we use escape codes like é, ñ and ©. One especially useful escape is , which produces a "non-breakable space", that is, a blank space that does not go away. You can use it to force a space or to keep two words together on one line. There's a complete list of escapes at this site. Finally, you can include any Unicode character as &#xhhhh;, where hhhh is the hex value, or in decimal by omitting the x. For instance, א and א both produce the Hebrew character alef א.
To include headings in your web pages, with larger and bolder text that stands out, use the <Hn> </Hn> tags. Replace "n" with a number from 1-6 and surround your heading with these two tags. The text inside will be bold, usually larger (depending on the number -- H1 is the largest), and surrounded by empty lines.
|What you write in HTML
|How it appears on your web page

This is an H1 heading.

This is an H2 heading.

This is an H3 heading.

This is an H4 heading.

This is an H5 heading.

This is an H6 heading.

This is an H1 heading.
This is an H2 heading.
This is an H3 heading.
This is an H4 heading.
This is an H5 heading.
This is an H6 heading.
Always close your header tag (using the appropriate closing tag) or the rest of your page will be displayed in the larger, bolder text. The closing tag must match the opening tag: if you open with
, you must close with
.
With a few tags, you can make text bold, italicized, underlined, bigger, smaller or even a different color.
|What you write in HTML
|How it appears on your web page
|This tag makes text bold!
|This tag makes text bold!
|This tag italicizes text!
|This tag italicizes text!
|This tag underlines text!
|This tag underlines text!
|<TT>Here's some fixed width text!</TT>
|Here's some fixed width text!
To display colored text or change the size of the text, use . The  tag doesn't do anything by itself, but it allows you to set the size and color of text through its attributes. The following table shows how to use the  tag.
|What you write in HTML
|How it appears on your web page
|This is blue text!
|This is blue text!
|This is big text!
|This is big text!
|This is really big red text!
|This is really big red text!
The color should be one from the table of background colors for the BODY tag. The size can range from 1-7 with 1 the smallest and 7 being very, very large. You can also use relative sizes, like size=-1 and size=+1.
Lines: You've probably noticed the horizontal lines that separate sections of these instructions. You can include such lines in your page by typing
 ("horizontal rule") at each place where you would like one to appear. Like
,
 does not require a closing tag. The line need not stretch across the whole page; try
.
Alignment: To center a heading or a paragraph, use the   tags to surround whatever you would like to be centered. You can also use the ALIGN=RIGHT or ALIGN=CENTER attribute with headings and paragraphs, as in
.
Pre-formatted Text: If you cannot find a way to make your text appear the way you want, you can always resort to using the

 tags. Any text placed between these two tags will appear exactly as you type it, including spaces, indentation and empty lines (though you need escape codes for <, > and &). But the text will appear in a fixed-width font, will not flow naturally, and won't wrap at the edge of your window.
Tables: Our tabular displays are created with the
 tag; it's one of the topics of the next lab.
| Using these
tags write two or three paragraphs about yourself or some fictional
person. It's definitely ok to invent a persona if you prefer not to publish
personal information on the web; this part is just to use some of the
things that you've learned during this section of the lab. Try to use
the tags outlined above whenever appropriate.
Include some escape codes, and combine effects like style and color changes.
Now that your web page is up and running with a colorful background and formatted text, it's time to learn what makes the World Wide Web a "web". Hyperlinks, or more commonly just "links," are cross-references from one web page to another, or to another part of the same page. They form the foundation of the Internet because they allow you to navigate and find information without knowing the exact location of what you're looking for. For example, you may not know the name of the file on www.cnn.com that contains an article you want to read, but you can still get to it by clicking on the link to www.cnn.com.
Most often, you will want to link to other sites. The address of a site is called its URL (Universal Resource Locator). A URL is a string of text consisting of a domain name like www.google.com, prefixed by http:// and sometimes followed by other information, that tells the browser know where to go. To create a link in a web page, use the A ("anchor") tag and the HREF attribute:
Caption for linkAny text that you type between  and  will be displayed in blue and be underlined. For instance, to make a link to Google, add:
Click here for Google!which will produce Click here for Google!
|What you write in HTML
|How it appears on your web page
|Click here for Google!
|Click here for Google!
|Add two or more links to sites you like; each link should include some text saying what the link is.
immediately in front of the place you want your link to point to. For example, the top of this page has an anchor called top before the introduction section. This anchor looks like this:

To link to an anchor, use an HREF with a # and the anchor name you want to point to, as in the table below. When you click on the link, the browser will find the "top" anchor and send you directly there.
|What you write in HTML
|How it appears on your web page
|Click here for the top of this page.
|Click here for the top of this page.
Note that the # is included in the HREF link, but not the anchor NAME itself. You can also link to an anchor in another page; just add the #name to the end of the link.
|Add a link near the bottom of your page that returns you to the top.
We will be using two different kinds of lists in this lab, ordered and unordered. Both have beginning and ending tags that bracket the entire list, and inside those tags they have tags that mark individual items. All of the techniques for formatting text that you've learned above can be applied to text in lists, including lists within lists, and of course there can be links in lists.
One common type of list is the "ordered list." Within such a list, the web browser will automatically number and indent each list item for you, so you can add, remove and rearrange items without having to change your entire numbering scheme.
An ordered list begins with the
 tag. Each list item begins with the tag
 ("list item"). When displayed, this will start a new line with the correct number and indentation. There can be any number of
 tags. Finally, the list ends with the tag
:
|

 COS 109 problem set

 Call home

 Sleep
Unordered lists are nearly identical to ordered lists, except the browser does not number the list items. Instead, it uses symbols such as a box or a circle to mark each list item.
You can create an unordered list in the same way as an ordered list, using the

 tags instead of

. Here's the same list, unordered:
|

 COS 109 problem set

 Call home

 Sleep
|Use an ordered or unordered list to add a "Top 5" list to your page. It can be anything: your top five movies, albums, books, food, or whatever.
Important: Material on other web sites may be subject to copyright, and there are both legal and University restrictions on what you can do with copyrighted material, including images and sound. The law is evolving in this area and copyright holders can be very aggressive in asserting their rights (and sometimes more than their rights). You should be aware of the University's policy on intellectual property rights.
In part, this says
"If you want to use an object or work, which may include an image, a background pattern, a section of text or a musical, film, television show, or video selection that you would like to use, you should make a good faith effort to determine that such use constitutes a "fair use" under copyright law or you must obtain permission of the owner or copyright-holder. As a general matter, you are free to establish links to Web pages you enjoy and which you would like to share with others. But you are not generally free to copy or redistribute the work of others on World Wide Web (or elsewhere) without authorization and proper attribution."
Accordingly, you should be especially careful of images or sounds that might be of commercial value to their copyright owners. If a site has an explicit copyright notice, you should not copy anything from it.
For purposes of this lab, and in creating other web pages, you should add a citation for each image or sound that you link to or copy; this is equivalent to citing sources of quotations in a paper. If there is any ambiguity about whether a sound or image is copyrighted, use a link, not a local copy. (A few sites may try to prevent you from linking, however.)
We won't do video in this lab, but everything here applies to video clips as well, though the file types will be different.
One of the things that distinguishes an eye-catching site from a mundane one is the clever use of pictures, or images. These images can come from many different places -- you might draw them yourself, you might upload photographs, and under some circumstances you can take them from other web sites.
In an upcoming lab you will learn more about how images work. For now you can use images you find on the Web, or any other picture you have on a computer, perhaps from your phone or camera. As long as the filenames of the pictures you are using end in ".gif", ".jpg" or ".png", the pictures will be displayable.
First, make a link to an image without copying it onto your computer:
Save and view your web page to make sure the picture appears correctly.
Next, display a picture that you have saved locally:
For now, we will be working with sounds that you find somewhere on the Web. If you don't have the URLs for any sounds, use a search engine to locate one. There are also sound files on Windows and MacOSX; use Search / Files or Finder to look for possibilities. Re-read the discussion of copyright above before you choose a sound file. Do not use a copy of a popular song, for example.
Sound files come in a wide variety of formats, including .WAV ("wave"), .MP3, and .MID. For this lab, use MP3 or MIDI files because they're smaller. Just as the web browser is only able to display certain kinds of picture files, by default it can only play sounds from certain kinds of sound files as well. You will know that you have an appropriate file because the last three letters of its filename (its extension) will be .MP3 or .MID (or maybe .MIDI).
When you find a sound you like that raises no copyright issues, use the following instructions to include it in your web page.
The final topic for this section is how to use pictures as hypertext links. You've already seen how to use the  tag to turn text into a hypertext link. But what would happen if, instead of text, you used those tags to surround a picture?
would produce
pusmall.gif is the name of the file that contains the Princeton name and logo. We originally downloaded it from the University's web site.
Using an image as a link is exactly the same as using text. There is something on the web page which the viewer can click to go to the new location. From the technical viewpoint, there is no difference between a picture and text except for slightly different tags.
OIT provides a way for students and other university memberss to create personal web pages. It is based on cPanel, a widely used system for creating and maintaining small web sites. It's well supported by OIT, and you can readily extend it beyond these labs if you like.
You have to set up your cPanel site before you can make your index.html visible. Begin by reading http://helpdesk.princeton.edu/kb/display.plx?ID=1123. You can then request access with this link: http://oitdas.mycpanel.princeton.edu/mycpanel_request.php.
Once this has been set up (which should take only a few minutes), you can access your cPanel control page at
Use the Getting Started Wizard on that page. You can safely ignore almost all of the decisions; just click through to see what's involved. You could include "Access Web Disk" for later use, but it's not required. Skip webmail and ssh keys for now.
Use the File Manager icon to upload your index.html file. Do these steps to put upload a new file:
log in to your_netid.mycpanel.princeton.edu/cpanel click File Manager select Web Root (public_html/www) click public_html on left upload file to that (leave the modes alone)
Once you have uploaded the file, it should be visible to the whole world as
your_netid.mycpanel.princeton.edu/filenameIf you omit the filename part, index.html will be used by default.
Again, make sure that the uploaded files only contain information that you wish to share with the whole world.
For now, it's easiest to put your files at the top level in your cPanel file system, though ultimately it might make more sense to have separate folders for different labs.
You will notice that there are several icons for creating new files and for editing files that have been uploaded. Feel free to experiment with these, but don't use the HTML Editor to edit your own files for this lab; the goal here is for you to learn what's happening underneath. Plain "Edit" is best. Bear in mind that if you edit the uploaded version, your changes won't have any effect on the file on your own machine, so watch out for inconsistent versions.
Your index.html should contain examples of lists, links, headers, images, sounds and other neat things.
At a minimum, the web page you submit must have the following:
If your page looks a bit lame, you're welcome to fix it up and make it look more like ones you find attractive. If you want to know how a web site achieves a certain look, examine its HTML code by selecting "View | Page Source" or equivalent in your browser window while you are visiting that page. If there are tags you do not understand or things you cannot figure out how to do, ask a TA for assistance.
You might also find it instructive to view your web page with more than one browser; it's sometimes surprising how even simple things look different, and if something is grossly different, you might want to try to make it more uniform.
We will do more HTML in later labs, especially for images. Meanwhile, we will post links to the web pages created for this lab so you can see what your friends have done (and vice versa).
Make sure your page, including the images and sound, is accessible at http://your_netid.mycpanel.princeton.edu. Ask a friend to view your page and check all the links from his or her computer. You will have to make sure that any image or sound files that you added are also readable. Use the cPanel web interface to adjust permissions if necessary.
When you are sure that your page is displaying correctly,
upload your index.html file to the CS dropbox at
http://dropbox.cs.princeton.edu/COS109_F2014/Lab2. There's no need to upload the other files;
we'll look at your cPanel page.


text:
My tweets
- Sun, 17:56: Five minutes till close and today's been awesome: I replaced my first vib motor and had (mostly) flawless repairs today!
- Sun, 21:39: I love @WebDesignerMag, but the glue used to keep the CD in the mag's back is so strong, I can never get the CD off the page w/o damaging it
- Sun, 22:07: I just won an Ivanka Trump Large Crystal Satchel (worth $150) for 1� on QuiBids! This is the first time I've ever won anything on that site!
- Sun, 22:48: Trolls start harassing @femfreq; her Kickstarter donations almost DOUBLE in what, just over a week? Take THAT, trolls!
- Mon, 09:17: Please let me have time during my shift today to catch the keynote at #WWDC. I hate being the last to find out things re: my own job! </ul


text:
Being Heard
Michele Abdul Sabur got involved in education advocacy as a volunteer 12 years ago to make sure her own voice—and those of her children—would be heard. Now Sabur is a facilitator of the Parent Partner Network, an organization that seeks to improve achievement for all students. The network is integral to the Syracuse City School District's efforts to connect with parents."I started my involvement as a parent who was concerned for my own children, who are African American and Muslim. I grew to care about the educational achievement of all children," says Sabur, 58, who lives in Syracuse. "Education truly is the key."
Sabur not only advocates for better learning for others, she lives by example. She came to Syracuse in 1969 to attend Syracuse University as a special education major. But when her husband, David, was drafted and served in the Vietnam War, she put her academic ambitions on hold to tend to family matters. She returned to SU as an adult and completed a degree in child and family studies in 1995.
Sabur's five children graduated from Syracuse city schools and, now grown, include a teacher and two Ph.D. candidates.
Sabur strives to help parents make the most of schools' resources. "There is a large body of research to support the notion that parents want to do the best they can by their children and that it is the responsibility of the schools to help them to do so," she says. "The schools have the resources, information and data on the students and their needs. Parents can share their experiences, knowledge of their own child and commitment to reinforce attitudes, behaviors and habits which support success."
Organizations such as the Parent Partnership Network are important, Sabur says, because some parents may not know the best way to approach the school district when issues regarding their children arise. "The educational world is hard to understand or to approach for most parents," she says.
Sabur says too often parents feel as though they do not have a voice in a large school district. They may feel powerless to request information they need to help keep their children on track.
"Far too many parents have to overcome barriers of work, feelings of inadequacy or lack of importance, money, opportunity, transportation or childcare to be involved at the school," she says. "Schools are not the same as they once were, educational expectations are not the same and neither are family lives."
Sabur works with three parent liaisons, and they each serve parents in 13 schools. The liaisons meet one on one with more than 500 parents each year.
"We have a model of advocacy support which is not adversarial and has proven effective time and time again to get together the adults to work on the best interest of the child and to (have everyone) leave with better understanding," she says.
The Parent Partnership Network liaisons assist with a variety of tasks, from attending student hearings to helping parents take advantage of special education services. "We especially like to help parents to prepare for a meeting so that they are not angry and can represent themselves and their children well in order to gain a better outcome," Sabur says.
Like Sabur, the other parent liaisons have children who attend or have graduated from SCSD schools, which gives them credibility with fellow city parents. "The three liaisons, Maria Zapf, Mary Lisa Wade, and Nina Vergara, are very knowledgeable in the area of parental involvement and best practices," Sabur says.
Sabur would like to expand the network and provide more services and resources. "We will, and must, do more," she says. "What I call 'internal advocacy,' is very important—the ability to act as a catalyst for change in the district."
Expanding the network's online presence and establishing specific outreach to very young parents are also among Sabur's long-term goals.
After more than a decade of advocacy work, Sabur is proud of the impact the Parent Partnership Network has made. "Our mission remains true and strong, and is treated as the guide and the touchstone to see if our activities are on track."


text:
1 Min Read
April 3 (Reuters) - Meyer Thomas
* THOMAS MEYER REPORTS 12.6 PCT STAKE IN AURIS MEDICAL HOLDING AG AS OF MARCH 29, 2018 - SEC FILING Source text: (bit.ly/2uJaqwA) Further company coverage:
All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays.
© 2018 Reuters. All Rights Reserved.


text:
Geoff Nelder
The June Selected Writer is Geoff Nelder
Feel free to email Geoff at: firstname.lastname@example.com
One more to go. Careful, because the tussocks of long grass snatch at her Timberlands.
It was the day before she would hand a botany outline to her tutor, who would be standing with arms folded and a sneer. Just the thought of Rotten Professor Beaph's negativity and his black, spiky eyebrows makes her stumble. She falls, betrayed by a loop in a beige bootlace and her preoccupation with Rotten.
Focus. She shouldn't have worn her denim shorts, but nothing else was clean. Now these aren't clean either. Grass and mud stains. Blood too. Derryth shrugs off her backpack to access her first aid kit. It wasn't her choice to be labeled a Derryth even if she bawled out loud in Maternity at the time. Her mother had demanded an ancient link to nature, and Derryth is what she got. Maybe that is why she studies botany.
Mother pulled a favor and dropped a hot tip: an enclosed woodland surrounded by a military training ground has just been acquired by the Woodland Trust, so Derryth volunteered to classify its flora. She knows that Rotten is vying for her mother's affection. Sadly, that bastard has the devil's own magnetism. She smiles that she's been able to block Rotten's attempts to move in even at the cost of poor grades. Maybe she should've gone to another university after all.
This wood is near the cliffs at Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast. A Google Earth image showed the wood pixelated as if the trees demanded privacy.
Just a straight-as-she-can transect for two kilometres to the other side should tell her if there's something here. Derryth sips from her flask, Red Bull but without the vodka, replaces it in her backpack and faces an ancient red brick wall. It's a micro-ecosystem. She laughs at a five-legged ant emerging from a brick-dust cavity. It waves an antennae greeting as it crawls over her green nails—to go with her goth green hair, anything to vamp up her natural mousey brown mop. Then another.
"Hello, Ant Number Two, have you also had a limb accident or does it run in the family?"
"Any other pentapedes here?" She glances behind her in case anyone overheard. Returning her attention to the ants, she snaps a few close shots with the Canon slung around her neck, then fishes in her rucksack for a bug pot and teases one of the ants inside.
A frown follows. She doesn't recognize the species. "Friggin' hell, Derryth, you could identify two hundred of the most common insects in the country by the age of twelve. What's this ant species?"
She noticed the tree in front of her. Rarely found in Britain and never where anyone has planted a tree for centuries, she sees it is a eucalyptus. She gets within millimetres of the peeling bark. She can't smell the distinctive oil. Out with her penknife.
Not the fragrance she associates with eucalyptus, yet the edges of the cut flares pink. Closer with her nose. Metallic, as if blood. Another sample pot and she stands to examine her route. She smiles at the lack of ground flora because it makes for easy access. If the trees are a species of eucalyptus then the leaf mould is too acidic for most herbaceous plants. The trees are about three metres apart.
Something hits her on her head, bounces off and rolls into the leaf litter.
"Ow!" She falls to her knees, turns over to lie onto her back and gazes up at the canopy to seek her adversary. No sign of a squirrel but blue sky breaks through the wispy leaves.
She lies there enjoying the view and even the prickles in her back from the autumn leaves. "Was that a pine cone you hurled?" She rolls over onto her knees and uses both hands, breaststroke-style, to make parting waves in the pale yellow leaves. She finds a pine cone.
"Ah, Pinus sylvestris by the raised lump in each scale. I love pine cones, how dare you hurt me!" She notices blood on the cone and touches her scalp, feeling the wetness there.
Something dark and furry reaches from behind, grabs her bag and races back through the trees.
"Damn, there goes my phone and peanut-butter sandwiches!" She's surprised a squirrel would have the strength to carry off a small backpack...maybe it's a mutant, like the ants. She takes stock and tallies her flask, camera and remaining wits. Surely the cursed beast will have dropped her bag by now, so she sallies forth between trunks on a search and recovery mission.
Unnerved by such events in what should have been a pleasant walk, she attempts to search for her bag. "Good grief, girl, it's not the apocalypse, just a critter-snatched-pack, but then it held my obs with only hours left to save my Cambridge career." She shudders to a halt, sending up a cloud of pungent dried leaves, determined to brave this out. Apply logic and calmness. Now she could smell peanut butter, the cheeky varmint! She hastens but she loses the scent.
She gives up the chase and tries to return, attempting to spot her footsteps but instead aiming to her right where the tagged trees should be.
A movement behind her makes her glance around...there's movement again but now on both sides. A tree appears to move a few inches towards her. Its roots are mostly hidden by the leaf-fall, so it was as if the giant had slid through them. Another mirrored the approach on her right, forcing her to run forward out of their way. Although the shady wood is cool, perspiration prickles on her forehead and down the middle of her back.
Trees and saplings ambush her. She's in a small space but now surrounded. She falls to her knees.
The trees in front nudge each other, creating an opening. Hallucination or not, she takes the opportunity, rises and bolts for the gap. She slows as her panic state lowers. The trees are not willing to let her decelerate. The arboreal creatures glide through the leaf litter. They are so close on either side she imagines she can hear them breathe.
Panic returns as she stumbles then struggles to see properly through her moist eyes and the increasing darkness from the trees blotting the light. There's a momentary hiatus in the wood's velocity, a full stop, allowing her to halt, too.
She remembers the cigarette lighter in her pocket. The leaf litter is made of eucalyptus dried leaves—fantastic tinder.
A groan reaches her from behind like the bulkhead of a wooden ship screeching against a quayside in pain. She readies to run again but in spite of her teeth chattering in fear, she's compelled to look. She sees one of the trees is three times broader than the rest, a blue sheen on its bark and its lower branches are reaching towards her with hand-like twigs as if to strangle her.
"Sorry, sorry," she blurts, throwing away the unlit lighter in full view of the tree. If only she possessed a flare gun, she could keep the trees at bay like wolves. A tickle above her right ankle reveals a scratch, leaking blood and more worryingly, a tree licking it up.
She turns and runs towards what she hopes is the nearest clearing. A crescendo of inhuman screams and cracking timber assaults her ears, wave after wave. She tries to stop but branches flagellate her back forcing her to keep going, her trainers now dragging, not in the leaf litter but on roots writhing beneath her. She has to stop momentarily to throw up. Steaming remains of sickly breakfast escape her mouth onto the nearest tree. Serves it right. She uses a handful of leaves to wipe her mouth.
The trees thin in front, allowing more daylight through along with an unexpected aroma: ocean. The horror of what is happening grips her stomach, sending its own anti-peristaltic convulsions up her throat. Even while stumbling along, becoming increasingly scratched, bruised and desperate for escape, she has to vomit again.
Through tears she sees, just a few strides before her, a row of trees fall forward. Their roots bizarrely rise up with a mass of dirt stuck to them but they topple over, away from her. Derryth struggles to recall her map of the wood. This wood—no, she digs her heels in but the ground is shifting along with the trees—borders on a sea cliff.
Surely the trees will not take her over? Panic is heating her face, steaming her whole body. There must be an ancient and fair-minded dryad about but a nagging thought crawls up her neck suggesting that someone she knows is controlling the demons animating this wood. Not military toxins but a more ancient evil.
Only one tree before the cliff now.
Derryth can see a steady line where the horizon battles to separate sea and sky. She holds out her hands but what to rest them on...other than a tree about to do a lemming suicide?
Turning, she grabs at a low branch of a moving tree that is following behind her. Maybe she could climb up and make her way back through the wood, swing on a vine like Tarzan? The quasi-eucalyptus has other ideas and exudes gum so that her hands slip. Flat on her face in among the wriggling leaves, she scrambles but before she can regain her feet she is taken to the cliff edge. Bizarrely, her rucksack appears just out of arm's reach. Had the squirrel brought it back? Her reasoning is abandoned as she spots her glowing phone displaying a message: Got you!
Her brain is in a whirl but knowing the text is from Rotten, she goes over the edge, feet first, on her stomach, cushioned by the springy leaf litter.
She flails her arms but there's no rock outcrop, no roots that aren't on the move. She's part of a multiple log plume waterfall without the water. Her ears fill with wooden groaning, screeching and screams, much of which escapes from herself. Although she knows she is falling it doesn't feel like it because this section of wood is travelling with her. It's all relative and her sister trees share her fate. Her nose twitches with the tangy aroma of tree roots recently unearthed, newly torn wood, and her now sore eyes, although scared wide open, sees little through a dense fog of soil, leaves and a distant flicker of a blue phone screen.
This is it. Her end of days in a cascade of weird wood and she's hardly had a life. It isn't a clean fall. No illusory stretch of time to reflect on her life although she has time to curse Rotten for stalking her mother and ruining her university life. She's prodded by branches who are probably thinking along the same lines. Ironic that her fellow plunging sufferers have had a longer life than hers.
She's surrounded by falling trees as if she's prematurely in a coffin, but suddenly everything shudders to a halt. She is standing on a forked branch which is shaking but not descending any more. The cloud of leaves and soil precipitates allowing her to see what's happening. Although shivering with fear, she laughs with relief. "Priceless! Rotten, you've failed again."
Unlike lemmings who are pulverised or drowned after their fall, the trees have piled up like a near vertical log jam. She examines potential footholds in the upside-down eucalyptus and works her way down the wood-filled slope. A noxious lump comes up in her throat as a tree slips beneath her then another rolls.
She can't see far down below for leaves, roots and branches. Is the tide in? Progress is slow; she is scratched sore and her fingers ache. Above the cacophony of grinding wood she hears an incongruous chattering. She looks up into the face of that damn-bag-snatching squirrel but it scampers away and she sees why. A huge eucalyptus is toppling over the top of the cliff and she's about to be a smear unless she gets out of the way—fast.
She follows the squirrel. After all, if it's under the influence of Rotten it wouldn't have alerted her now to the overhanging monster. She's desperately scrambling sideways, hands slipping with perspiration. Ah no, blood. Splinters are not just in her hands but knees too, and she's about to be impaled by a giant shard.
Breathing is difficult with the air so thick.
She has to traverse more than a few arm's lengths to be clear of the oncoming tree, not just its branches but massive roots. Perversely, some of the branches have sheared off from contact with its tree siblings.
The trunk thunders past like a derailed train. She closes her eyes in fear. Her back is whacked and scraped by branches. She feels compelled to open her eyes and sees that the big tree has halted its descent.
In spite of everything, she notices a red ribbon fluttering from the trunk. Number 3.
She grabs a smaller tree, Number 5, and hangs on while looking down past its roots and sees the mass of wood like a giant logjam. Are there reflections beneath them? The sea is down there but then if she crash-splashes among the trees it wouldn't be safer than up here.
Without notice, Number 5 is flipped upright, launching her into space.
Not far is an ocean landing. She knows the water will be full of woodland debris and many traps underwater but in spite of screaming, her trajectory is out of her control. She curls into a fetal position just before splashdown then shrieks as the cold ocean takes her in.
She's alive. She can't believe she survives.
She splutters to the surface trying to avoid breathing in the woody flotsam. Her right shoulder is so sore from the impact she cries, releasing hot tears, warming the sea. She lies on her back for a few moments in a lull between waves churning less than the sea near the cliff foot. There she witnesses the extraordinary sight of the jagged slope of trees leading up to the cliff top. She looks up at a pinking sky, altocumulus clouds underlit with marmalade light.
Her body is dragged down feet first until she realizes her boots are anchors. She gulps air so as to reach down, undo the laces and retrieve her Timberlands. She knows her feet might need them so she ties the laces together and strings the boots around her neck like a lifebelt, one that sinks.
She swims to shore.
She drives two-hundred miles to her mother's house in Ely because she knows the damned Professor Beaph will be there, breaking the news of her daughter's untimely gone missing, presumed dead. Comforting her mother...and the silly woman will let him.
Derryth stops once at a motorway service station and mall to change into dry clothes and grab food, coffee and to buy a steak knife.
Her mother's cottage might have yellow roses over a portal but Derryth bristles at the sight of Rotten's blood-red Audi Cabriolet in the driveway. She opts for stealth, not knowing about the new squeak in the side door.
They are already looking up at her from the sofa. Mother in tears with a saturated hanky and Rotten's blue shirt is wet from where her face had snuggled. Both sets of eyes are wide open in shock; and of pleasure from her mother, but anger from Rotten.
His words belie his eyes. "My dear Derryth, how wonderful to see you safe. I've been misinformed."
"Yes, squirrels can be unreliable," Derryth says, gripping the knife behind her.She brings it out, points it at him, and lunges.
Her head swims as if it were back in the sea, making her miss by an arm's length. She sprawls on the Axminster and is too weak to get up. Blood oozes from her head and arms as earlier scratches reopen. A weight is on her back, getting heavier and the back of her neck becomes moist from his rancid, hoarse whispering.
"You're such a simpleton, Girl. My name—Tom Beaph—is Baphomet. Even the Knight's Templar couldn't annihilate me. You had your chance to escape. Now I'll have to finish what the cursed wandering wood couldn't."
He reaches for her dropped knife with one hand while grabbing her hair with the other. Suddenly he cries out and lets go, staring at his hand. She wriggles out from under him and shakes her head. From out of her green hair comes a cascade of tiny spores...miniature revenge-bombs. The devil appears to be helpless, writhing on the floor.
Derryth grabs her mother's hand. "Come, we have to get out of here!"
Along the brick path to the iron gate and to her blue Citroen 2CV. She hears a familiar rustling noise and looks back. The tall sycamores in the rear garden are the first to reach the house. Poplars, beech and oaks are engaged in a pincer movement. Mother tugs at Derryth's arm because ash trees across the road are marching up behind them.
The little French car had never accelerated so fast. Half a mile away is a bridge on top of which she stops to gape at the crushing of her mother's home.
Trees are succeeding where the Knights' Templar failed. No wonder he had to make his own trees in her attempted murder.
But she had been born with the name of a Rowan Druid from the Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire. The real trees, her trees, are taking revenge. Her turn to laugh and laugh.
Geoff Nelder lives in rural England within easy cycle ride of the Welsh mountains. Having had 84 short stories published, Geoff was chosen to be the short fiction judge for the Whittaker Prize.
Geoff is an editor at Adventure Books of Seattle, and he was a co-editor of science fiction magazine, Escape Velocity.
Publications: humorous thriller Escaping Reality (2005)
Award-winning science fiction, Exit, Pursued by a Bee (2008)
Another thriller, Hot Air, (2009) won an award from an Arts Academy in the Netherlands.
A science fiction post-apocalyptic trilogy, ARIA (2012-2015) won best SF novel 2012 with its original premise. An historical fantasy, Xaghra's Revenge is out this year.
You can find Geoff HERE