text:
Strands of strung ribbons crisscrossing a party room look fabulous... So how about crisscrossing your scrapbook pages? Oh, you know it's going to look great! The denim digi paper for my Snip Snap Scrap Backgrounds is available for free. You'll find it with so many more free papers in the GrannyEnchanted.Com Paper Directory. While you're there pick up a Free denim seam in the PNG Trim Directory.... and I might hint that there are some denim frames in the frame directory.... Oh, I could go on and on about the freebies there. It's freebie heaven.
Free Cow-Star Digi Scrapbook Ribbon Trims 19197


text:
(Reuters) - A crowd-funding campaign to save a Canadian abortion clinic has surpassed its C$100,000 ($93,100) goal but the Fredericton, New Brunswick, facility will still close its doors on Friday while organizers scramble to lease space for a new clinic.
While state-funded abortion is available across Canada, the eastern province of New Brunswick provides abortions only in hospitals and only if two doctors agree the procedure is medically necessary.
The Fredericton Morgentaler Clinic, founded by the late abortion provider and activist Henry Morgentaler in 1993, is a private facility and does not need to meet that criteria.
Organizers of the two-week-old crowd-funding campaign, which had raised C$108,554 by Thursday (fundrazr.com/campaigns/aoCmf), said they are trying to get a new clinic up and running in the same space as the old one as soon as possible.
"The (old) clinic is up for sale, and we've been working on how we can go about leasing it. (The fundraising) has been incredible," said Kathleen Pye, chair of Reproductive Justice New Brunswick. "We're so grateful and we are so overwhelmed that we've had this support and had it so quickly."
She said donations have come from across Canada.
Clinic manager Simone Lebovitch said the Morgentaler clinic has been operating at a loss for a long time because it is only open one day a week and women must pay C$700 to C$850 out of pocket to terminate their pregnancies.
Advocates would like the new clinic to offer a broader range of services, including family and women's medicine. That way the bulk of its services could be publicly funded and it would be open daily.
Lebovitch said the Morgentaler clinic's phone lines will remain open until a new clinic opens in Fredericton. Staff will work with clinics in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto to serve women who want abortions. ($1=$1.07 Canadian)
Reporting by Andrea Hopkins; Editing by Peter Galloway

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Black Ops III Multiplayer Beta Is A Complete Blast To Play
After just one week in the high octane trenches of the Call of Duty: Black Ops III beta, more than just the COD faithful here are singing its praises. First off, this is just a beta, and yes there are times, though limited, where the gameplay will slightly glitch, often leaving you emptying your clip into an enemy player without recording a kill. Or you just complete a match and the top three player are not revealed and the match performance overview is completely blank leaving the other players unable to see your stellar K/D ratio and kill count.
Again, these mishaps have been very rare occasions for our week long digestion of the experience. Aside from this we are of the opinion that veterans of the series should be right at home with this stylish new multiplayer direction of the Black Ops series. Our opinion in a nutshell, even in its beta state, the multiplayer experience has an addictive attraction about it that we can't put down, we're loving it!
Over the course of the past year we have heard the concerns surrounding Call of Duty: Advance Warfare, with the main gripe founded on the games dynamic maneuverability, seeming like too much of a leap forward for the series, Black Ops III feel more like a tamed leap forward. With no more over the top swift misdirections, supported by the exoskeleton abilities, Black Ops III takes a page from the Titanfall traversal system, in addition to offering a great feel to the trigger pull excitement.
For a beta Black Ops III offers quite a bit of content, with up to four maps, a leveling cap of 40, a weapon design customization system, some very cool character options and more. For the past week the beta has been a blast to play and thankfully we only have just a few more months before we're neck deep into the full experience.


text:
Origins Theories may be an area of interest for some of you.
So far, what's available is the origins homepage and three homepages
for sub-areas: Views of Creation, Origins Evidence, Origins Education.
There is some content for "Design of the Universe" (in Origins Evidence)
and quite a bit in the Origins Evidence page.
prototype pages: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/index202.htm
(so far, there are no links to this from other parts of the Sci Ed site)
Although I'm the main developer/coordinator, this should be a project
for the science education and Christian communities (especially the ASA)
so I'm submitting it to you for feedback.
I'm looking forward to hearing what you think. You can send feedback
to me or, if you think it will be productive for everyone (including those
who will be reading the archives) to see it, to the whole ASA-list.
Your comments and suggestions can be for changes (in content, style, or
attitude) of what I've written, or for other resources (mainly web-pages to
link to). If you suggest web-pages, remember that SELECTIVITY is the main
challenge. I need ideas for BETTER pages, not just more pages. { My hard
disk has 450 "origins education" pages I've downloaded, and I've looked at
many more. }
One type of page that the website will have, but doesn't have now, is
critiques of other pages, and reviews. For example, I've got pro-and-con
reviews of "Pandas and People" and some will be selected for links. And
there will be critiques of policy papers (by NSTA, NAS,...) and responses,
and so on. But there isn't much of this now.
DIVERSITY, NEUTRALITY, and FAIRNESS
A basic approach, from the home-page for the Origins Theories area:
> In contrast with most websites, which express only a single view of
>origins, "a website of the ASA should reflect the diversity of views in
>ASA and in the Christian community. ... Instead of providing the Origins
>Answer, we'll explore interesting Origins Questions."
In the "Accurate Information" introduction for the Origins Education
homepage, I say "Although we won't be neutral, we will try to be fair, by
providing an opportunity for representatives of different perspectives to
clearly express their views."
Since my non-neutral slant will be "pro-design, old earth" I'll provide
opportunities for pro-evolution and young-earth proponents to state their
cases. You (TEs and YECs) can suggest web-resources and write your own
pages. And I'll revise my home-pages in response to your suggestions.
I'm not sure about the details, but we'll improvise as we proceed.
The evolution-and-design area of "Origins Evidence" will begin to take
shape in June, and "age of the earth" sections will be added to all three
areas (for religion, science, education) in July.
Craig Rusbult
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon May 20 2002 - 17:31:17 EDT


text:
Disney Infinity 2.0: Producer John Vignocchi Looks at Lessons Learned, Teases Jaw-Dropping 3.0
Just a year ago, we were anticipating the second edition of Disney Infinity, due to add Marvel Comics' cast of heroes to the virtual (and real) toy box. Today, we're seeing the final two Disney Infinity Marvel Heroes 2.0 Edition characters released, rounding out a hefty collection with star of animation and live action (and current comic book Captain America) The Falcon and the villain teased months ago, Loki.
To celebrate the occasion, it was clearly time to speak with John Vignocchi, the VP of Production for the game, and get his insight. We looked back at the victories of 2.0, the surprises and challenges of adding in another disparate property to an already successful formula, what it took to make these final two figures, and got tiny and subtle hints about what's to come in 3.0 Edition which has previously been teased as containing Star Wars characters (JV told me last year that "2015 isn't so far, far away now" when asked about it late last year), coming later this year.
So John, Disney Infinity 2.0 Edition…
John Vignocchi: They got you on the phone to talk to me about these last two characters, Loki and Falcon, huh?
Yes indeed. So I got these in the mail a couple days ago, and holy cow, that Falcon mold is just so awesome!
JV: I'm so glad you have said that. I wonder how much people know how much TLC went into making that. To me, it's one of my favorite figures from a design standpoint. There was so much time spent on making those wings.
Yeah, they are awesome. I really think this is the best figure you guys have put out yet.
JV: Thanks man, I'll tell the team!
The translucency of the wings, and the pose, where he looks like he's just about to take off… it has such a feeling of action to it for a non-poseable statue type figure.
JV: Yeah, it's crazy. I don't think people realize the type of considerations the team has to go through to create something like that. If you close your eyes and you think of Falcon, and the comic books, and when he appeared in Winter Soldier, you imagine this guy with big wings, spread out. You imagine him flying. But when you start thinking about "what is the pose going to be" and you start thinking about the dimensions of the box you have to play with, these are the things! I don't think people know! As we were working on it, then, too, obviously this is the Falcon from the animated series, Avengers Assemble. So we looked at that design and thought "how do we do this for Infinity?"
So those wings, the translucent pieces, that's the first time we've ever done something with translucent or transparent pieces. So that was quite a bit of additional R&D to make sure we could make something that would look good on that character and fit within the Infinity style. So I'm glad to hear you appreciated it, because it was a lot of work for the great art team at Avalanche.
So this being the last couple of figures for 2.0, for Marvel, is that why you put a little more into it? So you had an idea of what you could pull off in future editions?
JV: (laughs) That's an interesting way to ask that question. The answer, unfortunately, is no, this wasn't directly planning for the future. We try put 110% into every character we design. There's a whole bunch of backstory too about Loki that we'll talk about.
But I think if you look at the entire Marvel line in Infinity 2.0, you'll see that they all got a lot of love from a pose and overall quality perspective. Even Venom – did you hear the story about Bendis? They're changing the design of Venom in the comic books to match Infinity! We heard about that from IGN and our jaws totally dropped. That we can provide Marvel with a brand deposit with some of the explorations with some of our characters is awesome.
Obviously you're pulling from the animated series, but was it more his Winter Soldier appearance that made you decide to pull Falcon into the roster? A happy combination of the two?
JV: Yeah, it was a happy combination of the two. We had approached Marvel with a list of characters, when we had a little bit of extra production bandwidth, that we thought would be great from a design and gameplay perspective. Then we asked for their recommendation for characters they thought would be fun and popular and that Marvel fans would want to see. Obviously, with Falcon appearing in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, he was top of mind when we were having the discussion, but also because he is on Avengers Assemble, which Infinity's Avengers is based off of, it was natural that he could come in.
So he's now popular in the MCU, and also popular on the animated series. That is also what led to the discussion of us having the costume change disc for Falcon. That changes him into his Winter Soldier costume and look. So animated series fans can enjoy the figure molded after that look and playing in game with him in that style, but the power disc will change him into the Winter Soldier costume for those fans.
Loki is a little easier to figure out why you made him: he's probably the most popular comic book supervillain of the last ten years!
JV: (laughs) Yeah, good point!
Why save him for the end of the production cycle here, then?
JV: It's kind of the same story as with Falcon at first – we had the extra bandwidth and approached Marvel about doing him.
The key thing, if you'll recall 1.0, we had villains like Davy Jones and Randal and Syndrome, and fans really enjoyed that. So when we were talking about these characters, we figured that based on the popularity of villains in the first version, it was natural to have villains as part of the Marvel line as well, and Marvel agreed. Certainly, Loki, as a character in Avengers and Thor, he's risen in popularity considerably. I think the way you just put it is perfect and I'll probably steal that for my answer the next time someone asks me, "why Loki?"
But also his gameplay is a lot of fun. So in terms of when he's being released, there's no magic there. We wanted to do the villains and we thought it would be great, but this was the earliest time we could get him out. But in terms of gameplay, he's just a really fun character. He's also the first character that (developer) Ninja Theory did for Infinity.
So we signed Ninja Theory to start working on Infinity a year ago February. They have chops working not just on level design and combat mechanics, but on character rigging and animation. They were working closely with Avalanche on the tools and pipelines and processes they work on for characters, and we gave them Loki as the first character for them to work on.
If you'll notice, they spent a lot of time on it – look at his combat moves, look at his cape animations; there's a lot of TLC that Ninja Theory put into Loki. It's not only because they're a fan of Loki, but also to prove to Avalanche that they can make characters!
With the figures themselves, and I'm literally looking at my giant Disney Infinity shelf right now – you have a lot of characters in very iconic, but relatively static poses. Some of them, like Drax, Hawkeye are in very ready poses – but both of these last two in particular, Loki and Falcon, you can see the action, you can see their next step. Was that a goal, or again a kind of happy accident?
JV: Yeah, you know, it's interesting that you identify that. So, the entire line was developed in conjunction with Marvel's feedback, specifically Dan Buckley (President of publishing, tv, film) and Joe Quesada (chief creative officer). They had seen the original Infinity figures, and as we began working with them, they instructed us on heroic poses for their figures and ideas of where we should go with it based on what they'd worked on in the past, in promos and the covers of comic books and what have you. In terms of what we've worked on closely with Marvel over the course of this game, we're continuing to understand and improve and affect what their line of figures should be when it comes to those poses.
What you're seeing there, though you might not have put a word to it, is the sense of anticipation. That's what we were trying to capture with the look of those characters, and with the look across the line of Infinity. It's always interesting – the Disney side of it speaks to the personality of the character. The Marvel side speaks to the heroic nature and this sense of anticipation – if that character was alive in real life, the next thing Falcon would do is fly off the ground. That's the thing we want, when people look at it, is to feel that emotion. You're picking up on that, and it takes a detailed eye to see that, and I'm glad that you do!
I'm glad my powers of observation are not failing me! (laughs)
JV: (laughs) To give you more context with Loki, too, his pose was chosen in conjunction with the giant Frost Beast display we have as part of the Sony exclusive…
Right, where you revealed his prototype really early on Instagram!
JV: Yeah, that was… another genius John Vignocchi moment. Thanks a lot for reminding me of that! (laughs) That's why I always have a handler with me now.
Disney PR: He's got two of them on this call! (laughs)
JV: Yeah, I've got two of them right now. Oh man. I'm very well guarded.
Yeah, when we were doing training, it was "John, we know you're passionate, but think about what you're saying!"
But yeah, with Loki, it was the Frost Beast display, that was part of what influenced his pose. The other thing that was interesting, like Falcon and his wings, with Loki's horns, having him do a more traditional pose, his Chitauri scepter and his horns would actually break through the packaging! So part of his design for his pose was influenced by that, alongside his character. We have all these elements to remain true to his character, but how do we also get him into a pose that fits within the dimensions of the box?!
Some of the pose explorations we did with Loki made us realize they wouldn't fit inside the box.
Yeah, that's something that I doubt a lot of fans are thinking about, how characters would fit in the box dimensions.
JV: Right? And believe me, we're a bunch of video game dorks. We're learning about how to make high quality figures as time goes on, so we're learning these lessons too.
You did manage to fit both of these characters into the Avengers playset, as well – how important was it to put them in there rather than just having them as Toy Box characters?
JV: We heard loud and clear from Infinity 1.0 fans that they wanted characters that not only played inside the Toy Box, but fit into playsets as well. It was important for us. As you recall, last year, even villains like Randall and Syndrome, they played in their playsets. So we wanted people to have the experience of enjoying that Avengers story and flying around Manhattan as Falcon. And of course, playing the hero story as Loki, fighting against Loki! Ultimately, the conceit is that they're all toy versions of themselves, so you're not breaking any fiction there, right?
But it's fun to play as Loki, with his mechanics, fighting against Loki and the Frost Giants.
So now that you've had this experience of bringing in the Marvel Heroes, you've seen the feedback and the way they're playing with these characters, or even playing with them alongside Disney characters… what would you say you've learned that you can take going forward as you bring new things… I'm trying to dance around other hints you've given me, John. (laughs) But as you continue to bring in new experiences and characters and things into Disney Infinity, what have you learned here?
JV: Heh, I know. Well, what we've noticed, and what we've heard from our fans, is that the ability to bring the Disney and Marvel characters together in the Toy box is a total blast, and something they absolutely love. It goes back to the original promise that the Toy Box is your parents' living room floor, and you can play with things however you want to. It's been a total blast to see the things that people have been creating. We highlight them all the time on Toy Box TV (Disney Infinity's Youtube show), and it's staggering. This is one of the things – not only the Toy Box mode, but the brands, the IP that we have inside of Disney Infinity, that makes it so much different from any other product on the Toys to Life market.
The thing is that, as long as the Walt Disney Company and all of our divisions are continuing to make great content, we'll continue to put it inside Infinity. So there, I managed to dance around your question in regards to 3.0! (laughs)
From a design standpoint, what about the process has become easier, what have you learned about making the disparate properties work together, sharing design elements?
JV: Ultimately what we've learned is that if you make the creator or controller of that IP happy, chances are, fans of that IP will be happy. That's always been our number one rule. We have to make Johnny Depp love his character, and chance are, if he does, people will love Jack Sparrow in our game. We have to make sure Joe Quesada loves the look of Captain America, and we know that if we do that, the loyal fans of Captain America will be happy. So that's what we've learned form a design standpoint, that the most important thing is making the person who plays the role, or the creator, or the people working on them now happy. If we make them happy, the chances are the fans will be happy, and that's the most important thing for the Infinity line.
Very cool, man. If you had to tease 3.0 in one sound effect, what would it be?
JV: Uhhh… uhhhh… (Vignocchi silently drops his jaw open) So my jaw just dropped, and whatever sound that makes, that's hopefully what fans will be doing when we make an announcement.
With that, Disney PR laughingly yelled at me for asking such an entrapping question, we all laughed, and that was that.


text:
Congratulations to Dr. Karl-Friedrich Israel
Congratulations to Dr. Karl-Friedrich Israel
Congratulations to former Mises Research Fellow Karl-Friedrich Israel for successfully defending his thesis at the University of Angers in France.
Dr. Israel's academic research has largely focused on monetary policy, monetary theory, and the history of macroeconomics.
At AERC in 2016, he presented a fascinating paper on the history of econometrics and how the concept has changed over the years. In it he highlights that the originator of the term, Pawel Ciompa, considered it a way of illustrating accounting, as a opposed to a means of developing economic theory. The paper can be read on the University of Angers website.
Dr. Israel has also written several articles for the Mises Wire, including:
How Much Do Central Banks Cost Us?
Five Reasons for Central Banks: Are They Any Good?
Inflation May Be Causing a Long-Term Rise in Unemployment
Ragnar Frisch: The First Nobel Laureate Chosen over Mises
The "Lucas Critique" Is Misesian at its Core
He has joined Jeff Deist twice on Mises Weekends:
"We Find Ourselves Back with Deja Vu" Jeff Deist on the US Housing Market
About Civility...
The foundation of any and every civilization, including our own, is private ownership of the means of production. Whoever wishes to criticize modern civilization, therefore, begins with private property.
—Ludwig von Mises.
Civility is the word of the moment.
New stories lament the breakdown of civility in American society, while reports of Antifa street violence in cities like Portland raise uncomfortable memories for older Americans of 1960s riots. Editorial after editorial decries the loss of social cohesion and friendliness across the country, even within families. Pundits and politicians insist we must restore civility in politics. Otherwise we face a bleak and intensifying cold civil war: progressive vs. conservative, urban vs. rural, #metoo vs. Brett Kavanaugh, elites vs. populists, and Never Trumpers vs. Deplorables.
Yet how do they propose to accomplish this? More politics, more elections, and more top-down edicts from Congress and the Supreme Court.
Hillary Clinton, for instance, suggests civility will be restored only following successful midterm elections that places Democrats in control of Congress. And why not? The political world is all she knows, and the political world yields winners and losers, victors and vanquished. In her utterly politicized worldview, things will settle down only when the right people—her people—control US politics. Hers is a zero-sum world, always ruled by the political gang in power.
We hardly should expect an America so wracked by politics to remain civil.
But Ludwig von Mises understood a different world, one organized around property and trade rather than the state. To him, private property was the basis of any civilized society. Without that foundation, without property and a concomitant system of mutual exchange, he knew humans were destined to devolve into poverty, war, and anti-intellectual savagery. Property gives us prosperity, and therefore material abundance to live civilized lives beyond mere the subsistence that marked most of human history. Property rights give us the ability to accumulate capital, to invest in higher productivity, and to have a greater degree of certainty regarding the future.
Civility cannot be sheared from the broader concept of civilization itself. Both words share the same Latin root civilis, which means relating to citizenship or public life. But it also means relating to others with courtesy, manners, and affability. If civilization is the sum total of a society and its culture, civility—or the lack thereof—is its building block, the positive or negative social traits exhibited by people in that society.
Lew Rockwell, our Founder and Chairman, has a long career fighting for both civilization and civility. Along the way he met some of the brightest lights of our time or any time: Neil McCaffrey, Henry Hazlitt, Leonard Read, Percy and Bettina Greaves, Ayn Rand, Ludwig and Margit Mises, Ron and Carol Paul, and Murray and Joey Rothbard among them.
So I'm sure you'll enjoy my recent interview with him. With the help of Mrs. Mises, whom Murray Rothbard called a "one-woman Mises industry," Lew Rockwell set about saving the work and name of the 20th century's greatest economist from obscurity. Today Mises is known around the world, and cited even by his harshest critics as a champion of laissez-faire who fearlessly challenged the supposedly scientific case for socialism.
Don't miss David Gordon's review of Kirkpatrick Sale's remarkable book Human Scale Revisited: A New Look at the Classic Case for a Decentralized Future. Sale is no libertarian, and even an anti-materialist, but he understands the risks posed by consolidated political power. Thus he thinks the 20th century's trend toward larger and larger centralized states, prevalent both in once-confederated Europe and America, has been harmful to community, peace, and human flourishing.
To Sale's credit, he is one of many thinkers from around the political spectrum challenging the accepted wisdom that political globalism and political universalism are per se beneficial. Just as Mises elevated self-determination to a defining principle of liberalism, progressives, conservatives, and libertarians increasingly see subsidiarity and decentralization as defining characteristics for a peaceful future.
Speaking of peace, on behalf of everyone at the Mises Institute let me wish each of you a very Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, and a peaceful, happy New Year. All of us want peace and prosperity for the world; all of us share a (true)liberal worldview, and all of us understand how non-interventionism in both the economy and world affairs is key to a better future. Let us all commit to making the world a better place next year through our own contributions.
We have big plans at the Mises Institute for 2019—unique, outside-the-box speakers at events, new podcasts, a new entrepreneurs platform, and new opportunities to earn academic credentials from the Institute—and we hope you'll be part of them.
This article first appeared in the November/December issue of The Austrian.
Fewer Guns, Less Crime? Not in Europe
As an addendum to last week's article on the prominence of civilian-owned guns versus homicide rates, it may be interesting to look at the diversity in gun prominence across European countries.
Contrary to the broad generalizations and over-simplifications spread by US gun-control advocates about European gun control, there is actually quite a diverse range in gun prominence and gun control laws across Europe.
Returning to the Small Arms Survey data, released earlier this year, we see that gun prominence in Europe ranges from 2 per 100 people in Hungary to 39 per 100 in Serbia:
Comparing these numbers to homicide rates, however, we clearly don't find much of a relationship at all.
Homicide rates in nearly all cases are below 2 per 100,000 which is a very low rate by any global or historical standard.
But, as we can see, civilian guns in Austria, for instance, are six times more numerous what they are in the UK. But the homicide rate is lower in Austria. Similarly, there are twelve times more civilian guns in Switzerland than in the Netherlands. Yet both countries have about the same homicide rates.
Attempts at proving causality here then especially starts to go off the rails when we look at Russia. In Russia, there is a modest 12 guns per 100 people — which is about half the Swiss rate. And yet the country's homicide rate is 10.8 per 100,000.
What can explain these large differences?
In the case of Russia, at least, we certainly can't blame things on lax gun control laws. Gun ownership requires registration and licensing. Handguns and rifles with shorter barrels are tightly controlled.
By contrast, guns are easier to acquire in Switzerland, Finland, Serbia, and Austria — although we find registration and licensing requirements in most cases. Especially notable is the Czech Republic which, by European standards, has very lax gun laws. In fact, it is remarkably easy to acquire a conceal-carry permit in the country, and more than 200,000 such permits (in a country of fewer than 11,000,000 people) have been issued.
The Czech republic has also made headlines in recent years by additional legislative efforts to further ease gun restrictions in certain cases.
The Czech Republic, by the way, has one of the lowest homicide rates in Europe, at less than one per 100,000.
Household Gun Ownership vs. Gun Prevalence
It is helpful to remember, though, that even in cases where gun prevalence is high, gun ownership rates (on a household basis) might still be low. That is, it's entirely possible in some cases that only a small number of people own most of the civilian guns that the Small Arms Survey says exist. This could lead to a situation in which few people have guns in spite of there being a large number of guns overall. However, while this is theoretically possible, it has not been demonstrated to be a common occurrence. Moreover, this lopsided situation is more likely in poorer countries where the high cost of firearms, combined with government-mandated licenses, is prohibitive for much of the population, leaving ownership a realistic option open to only a relatively few wealthy residents.
International comparisons in gun ownership rates, however, are hard to find. Most articles that purport to make these comparisons are usually using the Small Arms Survey data, and are thus just comparing gun prevalence.
(At the very least, considering both high gun prevalence and relative ease of purchase in countries like Switzerland, Austria, and Serbia, we have good reason to believe that both gun ownership rates and prevalence are comparatively high in some areas of Europe.)
Few gun control advocates trouble themselves with these details, however. For many, it apparently remains good enough to simply conclude "more guns=more crime," even when the numbers fail to show much connection at all.
Intergenerational Conflict Will Get Worse
The excellent British online magazine Spiked recently published this article warning about deteriorating attitudes toward elderly people in the UK. As the article points out, there is more to the problem than logistical and financial concerns about providing socialist medical care to an aging population. Nor do increasing lifespans in the West, with attendant increases in loneliness and age-related morbidity, account for this unhappy state of affairs. No, the root of the problem is simply a lack of caring and empathy, made worse by fewer intact multi-generational families and alienation between taxpayers and pensioners:
These are not just technical questions for the social-care sector to grapple with. They are far bigger than that, touching upon the issue of what kind of society we want to live in, and what we expect of each other. At root, there is the issue of what we regard as individual and collective responsibilities; and what the duties of the young are to the old; and the question of how elderly people come to decide for themselves how they should be cared for later in life.
More than that, the problems facing the social-care system need to be understood in the context of a wider generational hostility that is compounding, if not driving, a longstanding official neglect of older people's care.
Sad, yes, but entirely predictable. Britain, perhaps faster and more vigorously than most western countries, has fallen prey to the doctrine of "presentism": an ahistorical narrative in which the past is always bad and repressive, feelings and "lived experiences" (generally quite lacking among the young, yes?) prevail over facts, and group identity dictates ideology. If the past is all wrong, the people who lived in it and even prospered during it surely are not to be admired or cared for:
'Negativity about ageing and older people is pervasive in our society', says Caroline Abrahams at Age UK. Whether it's the nasty sentiment that Brexit voters are a bunch of selfish old bigots whose demise can't come too soon, or that Baby Boomers have been piling up problems for moaning millennials, or that old people are just getting in the way with their 'bed-blocking' and their unreasonable expectation that younger folk should subsidise their state pensions, free bus passes, TV licences and winter fuel allowances – again and again, we see generational disdain for older people.
Democracy, as usual, doesn't help. Brexit voters in the Leave camp skew older, more rural, and more "English." Remainers skew younger, urban, and more "European." In their 2014 independence referendum, younger Scottish voters overwhelmingly chose to leave Britain and fully embrace the European Union; older Scots chose the perceived safety of London pensions over counting on Holyrood and Brussels State pensions and state-provided healthcare, even more sacrosanct in the UK than Social Security and Medicare are here, will never be reduced or addressed by voting. Yet just as the American entitlement system faces a $200 trillion shortfall—the likely cost of future promised benefits minus likely future tax receipts— Britain's younger taxpayers will struggle mightily in coming decades to pay ever-expanding old-age pensions.
America is in the same boat, with the population above age 65 set to double over the next thirty years. Republicans and Trump voters are older, whiter, more rural or suburban, and more likely to see America in far rosier terms than the average Ocasio-Cortez supporter. Social Security, which in 1940 boasted more than 100 paying workers to one beneficiary, today struggles with a ratio of less than 3 to 1. And those three workers in many cases are decidedly younger, more left-liberal, less white, and less affluent than the one beneficiary. Unskilled workers, recent immigrants, and teenagers often work at low-wage hourly jobs, but still pay full Social Security taxes on their meager earnings.
All of this is a recipe for intergenerational strife.
The baby boomer mantra—never trust anyone over 30— is now bequeathed to millennials, but for very different reasons. In many senses millennials are more conservative than their grandparents were at the same age, particularly when it comes to sex, recreational drugs, education, and a carefree live-for-today attitude toward life. There is no millennial version of Easy Rider or American Graffiti; slacker paeans like Superbad show teenagers with low aspirations and no interest in eclipsing boomer noncomformity. But millennial distrust for older Americans is based on the strong perception that today's economic and social horizons are far less robust for them than previous generations, generations that are happy to ride out the clock until entitlements run out.
It will get worse. Cultural, economic, fiscal, and political fault lines in America today all bode ill for harmony between younger and older generations. But what should we expect in a country where politics and government dominate? Where transfer payments dominate old age and government schools dominate youthhood?
Family, religion, and civil society don't play nearly the same role for young people today as for Baby Boomers, who rebelled against all three. What we're left with, in the view of many Americans, is a society where government is the only thing we all belong to. Many scoff at the notion of any natural order, without recognizing that government simply substitutes an unnatural political order run by those in power.
Sensible societies harness the energy, optimism, and beauty of youth in productive ways: their talents are unleashed in art, athletics, business, and technology (not war). But apart from standout exceptions young people are not the leaders of sensible societies, because we recognize that what one believes at 16 or 20 or 25 will change, and often change radically. So sensible societies venerate the wisdom of older people, wisdom that is separate and distinct from mere information. Unlike data on a smartphone, this wisdom passes down naturally—albeit not without friction—because everyone recognizes the healthy and mutually beneficial connection between generations. Over time bad ideas, traditions, and modes fall away, replaced by new and better ones.
Decaying, dysfunctional societies, by contrast, pit generations against each other at the ballot box and otherwise. Politics and government become powerful weapons in an intergenerational cold war. Aging western populations skew the demographic political balance in favor of older people, especially active older voters. Brexit, Trump, and the Scottish independence referendum have now exposed this growing reality.
As Housing Prices Fall on West Coast, Even Red Zones Turn Against Trump
Donald Trump continues to claim victory, but the blue wave was undeniable on the left coast. You might say, California was already a bunch of lefties. Yeah, except Orange County has always been a Republican stronghold since the days of R.C. Hoiles. In a review of Brian Doherty's " Radicals for Capitalism ," I wrote,
One of the genuine heroes of the movement who the book enlightened me to is R.C. Hoiles. It should have occurred to me sooner that a courageous man was behind a very libertarian daily newspaper being published from the middle of liberal California: the Orange County Register. As Doherty describes, "Orange County became known, to a large degree thanks to Hoiles himself, as 'nut country,' the hotbed of the rightest of the right wing."
"Any time a man has to pay for something he does not want because of the initiating of force by the government, he is, to that degree, a slave," Hoiles wrote. Now that's my kind of guy, and the fact that he owned a newspaper with all the pressures of making advertisers happy to keep the presses running is heroic.
"Hoiles was an earthy and simple man and a notorious union-busting anarchist cuss," writes Doherty, "who'd thrust himself into picket lines surrounding his property to tell the union boys why they were all wet." Just learning about the late Mr. Hoiles is worth the price of the book.
Orange County "nut country" went bluer than blue on election night. Was it Trump's fault, or maybe the Trump Bump has turned into Trump Dump in west coast housing with voters voting their falling property values.
In the seemingly always red-hot Bay area and Silicon Valley homeowners are rushing to put their homes on the market. Wolf Richter writes ,
So it's time to unload. Sellers are putting their homes on the market, and active listings in those three counties combined – San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara, which cover the area from San Jose to San Francisco – surged by 76% in October compared to October last year, to 4,149 listings, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The chart below dramatically illustrates the Bay Area price cutting.
The market is no better in Southern California. KTLA 5 News reported at the end of October,
A chill is settling over the once white-hot Southern California housing market.Listings are up. Sales are falling. Price reductions are becoming more common.
The Seattle market also hit the ditch this summer. The number of listings doubled in October, from a year ago, with the number of listings matching the lows of 2012. Price cuts in King County (Seattle and Bellevue) have tripled according to Wolfe Street .
Mr. Richter makes the point that Seattle and San Francisco voters didn't side with Trump in 2016, "But when it comes to home prices in these liberal bastions, the 'Trump effect' made property owners a ton of money – if they're able to get out in time."
If they are not out by now, they may have waited too long.
The Coming Bankruptcy of the American Empire
US Ranks 13th in UN's Latest Human Development Index
Last month, the United Nations released its Human Development Index , which is a report that attempts to quantify the quality of life in world's nations in a way that looks beyond purely economic measures. According to the report:
The underlying principle of the HDI, considered pathbreaking in 1990, was elegantly simple: National development should be measured not only by income per capita, as had long been the practice, but also by health and education achievements.
Ranking countries by their HDI value trans- formed the development discourse and dethroned income per capita as the sole indicator of development progress.
The Economist sums up the method in more detail:
The index combines four simple measures: life-expectancy at birth; gross national income per person; average years of education; and expected years of school. First, each variable is normalised on a scale of zero to one; next, the two education variables are averaged; and finally, the index is calculated as the geometric mean of its three components.
In other words, the index is an attempt to answer the often-hard criticism that there's more to life than measures if income.
Of course, there's also more to life than aggregated numbers on life expectancy, education, and income, as well.
And, as Daniel Mitchell has often noted, these sorts of ranking schemes created by organizations like the UN and the OECD tend to be created in a way that looks good to the international bureaucrats who create them. And needless to say, these people aren't exactly known for a dogmatic preference for laissez-faire.
Nevertheless, if viewed with the proper skepticism, HDI is an interesting look into what UN researchers think is important, and how different countries stack up in this particular case.
When we list the top 30 countries ranked in terms of HDI, we find Norway at the top, Estonia at the bottom, and the United States close to the middle:
The only Western European countries that don't make the top 30 are Portugal and Andorra which are ranked at 41 and 35, respectively. Greece, which is an EU country, and traditionally considered to be part of "the West" is ranked at 31.
If we were to extend the list to the top fifty, we would also see Poland, Latvia, Chile, Hungary, Argentina, Croatia, and Russia, among others.
Where Does the United States Rank?
From what I can find, not a single major news outlet other than The Economist has commented on the new report. This may be in part due to the fact that the rankings don't lend themselves to any snappy observations about how the report "proves" that the United States is gravely deficient in some sort of quality-of-life indicator, and that all the US's problems will be solved if only it embraces more government intervention.
It is no doubt disappointing then, that the United States is not especially remarkable in the HDI. It ranks 13th between Canada and the United Kingdom. The US is two notches below Denmark and two notches above Finland.
France, Spain, and Italy, however, rank remarkably low, coming in at 24th, 26th, and 28th respectively.
It's conceivable, of course, that believers in the myth of the Scandinavian socialist utopia might point to this as further "evidence" that more interventionist states are "better off" than the supposed hyper-capitalist United States.
This supposition fails, of course, because the United States is not especially capitalist, nor is Scandinavia especially socialist.
Moreover, if having a highly interventionist state is the prescription for success, why do countries like Italy, Spain, and France rank so far below the United States? Those countries all have enormous welfare states and profligate government spending. Indeed, if the Scandinavia is our model, why does the US rank above Finland, and barely below Denmark? After all, the US's HDI value is 99%the size of Denmark's. There's really not much of a difference here between the US and the supposed promised lands of northern Europe.
"Adjusting" for Inequality
If you have a habit of reading reports like this, though, you can probably guess where this is headed.
The UN's own report points toward a very high level of quality of life in the US both in terms of education, life expectancy, and income.
However, as has become popular now among agencies like the UN, the report must be "adjusted" for inequality.
(If you're interested in how they do this, see here .)
The US is quite large and diverse (in terms of geography demographics, and more) compared to every other country with a "very high HDI." Not surprisingly, then, we find more diversity in the US than elsewhere.
The UN researchers then "adjust" for this by discounting the US's HDI score in accordance with its inequality level.
Thus, the US HDI value falls from .92 down to .79. Now, rather than being near the top, this puts the USA much farther down the list near France (.80), Hong Kong (.80), Israel (.78), and South Korea (.77).
Now, instead of being ranked 13th, the US is ranked 24th.
Of course at this point, we're reaching labyrinth-like levels of aggregation and adjustment. We've reduced every country to a single number, and then we've adjusted it further to account for inequality.
In spite of this rather improbable method of reducing numerous countries of many millions of people into a single number, rankings like these nevertheless tend to pop up in international lists of "happiest" countries or "the best country to live in."
The US Is Too Big for These Comparisons
The whole endeavor strikes me as rather suspect, especially when dealing with a country as enormous as the United States. After all, the US is, by far, the largest country in the top rankings. With 320 million people, the US isn't really comparable to even the next-biggest "very high HDI" country, which is Germany with 80 million people. Other comparisons are far worse. Norway, for example, has 5 million people, and is thus 1.5% the size of the US.
A far more meaningful ranking system would be to account for differences across political sub-units and regions, such as the US states. As we've already seen in numerous cases, such as with incomes, life expectancy, and crime, variations are quite large across states. Some US states are places where residents enjoy remarkably low crime, low mortality, and high incomes. Other states do less well.
One aggregate number of the entire US actually tells us very little.
Record European Skyscraper
A new record breaking skyscraper for Europe has been completed as the tallest skyscraper in Europe. Under construction for six years, the 87 story building (Lakhta Center) in St. Petersburg will become the headquarters of Russia's natural gas giant and its oil subsidiary, Gazprom. The building will not be finished on the interior and open to the public until next year.
This sets the stage for the Skyscraper Curse.
The STOXX European 600 Index, which consists of a variety of stocks from European stock markets is down 9% since September 27, about when the record was broken. HT: RB
The Federal Government Can't Centrally Plan Immigration Any More than It Can Centrally Plan Society
Immigration has featured prominently in the news ever since Donald Trump first announced his presidential candidacy and inveighed against Mexican immigrants and the crime they supposedly brought with them.
However, with the recent revelation that the federal government has separated over 2,300 children from their parents, immigration has again dominated the news, and with good reason: these actions were arbitrarily cruel and unnecessary.
Reasonable people can disagree about immigration policy, and the issue as a whole is not as simple as either side would like to portray. Specifically, concerns about the impact of immigration on American culture are often not given enough consideration by many people in favor of a more open immigration system.
However, conservatives favoring restrictions because of concerns about cultural change must then explain why they are willing to abandon core conservative principles like voluntary community, and why they believe that the U.S. government should centrally plan the culture of our society.
One of the core conservative insights stressed by both Edmund Burke and Friedrich Hayek is, in the words of political theorist Linda Raeder, that "social order appears as a product of the interplay of historically evolved institutions, habit and custom, objective law, and impersonal social forces." In their time, both Burke and Hayek opposed efforts to reengineer society through central planning, whether by French Jacobins, Russian communists, or American and European democratic socialists, precisely because such efforts necessarily suffered from an inability to take into account the vast amount of local knowledge required for successful planning.
Hayek called this the knowledge problem, and wrote that
this is not a dispute about whether planning is to be done or not. It is a dispute as to whether planning is to be done centrally, by one authority for the whole economic system, or is to be divided among many individuals.
A core component of conservatism is the rejection of central planning. As conservative luminary Russell Kirk's eighth principle of conservatism says "conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism." Conservatives, especially those concerned with the cultural effects of immigration, should explore and embrace ways of decentralizing the power of immigration away from the federal government to the state, or, even more ideally, the county level.
With over 320 million people in the U.S., it is nonsensical to think that one uniform immigration policy is sufficient to address the circumstances and needs of everyone in every place. Decentralizing the issue allows for every state to experiment to see what works best for them.
While such a radical idea may seem untenable in our current political climate, it is not infeasible in the long run, and it provides a ripe opportunity for conservative scholarship on the issue on many fronts.
On the judicial front, some legal scholars contest the idea that the federal government even has any legitimate authority over immigration at all. This is a view, which, if widely adopted, would certainly make implementing plans for decentralization much easier. Fox News' Andrew Napolitano, the network's senior judicial analyst, has said that "the Constitution itself — from which all federal powers derive — does not delegate to the federal government power over immigration, only over naturalization."
Similarly, George Mason law professor Ilya Somin has argued that "the Naturalization Clause does not create a power to prevent foreigners from entering the country. It merely allows Congress to set conditions for the grant of citizenship." Elsewhere he has contested the idea that Article I, Section 8, Clause 10 of the Constitution permits federal regulation of immigration under the auspices of the concept of The Laws of Nations. While such views are not currently widespread, merely discussing them helps to move the ball forward.
On the level of practical implementation, the Cato Institute has a white paper exploring the possibility of establishing a state-based visa system modeled on similar systems currently in place in both Canada and Australia. The proposed system would have the benefit of allowing labor to flow into those parts of the countries where it is needed and kept away from parts without a labor shortage or that don't desire immigrants, as well as allowing for states to implement their own policies concerning welfare eligibility. This system would also create incentives so that immigrants stay in their sponsoring states by making it part of their legal residency requirements, which would alleviate fears that immigrants in New York would immediately start to flood into Pennsylvania, or vice versa.
It is my own view that some kind of sponsorship system, in which citizens post a bond or surety and are liable for the good conduct of the immigrants they sponsor, is a good way of aligning incentives for all parties concerned. As writer Chris Calton has pointed out , blanket immigration restrictions not only affect foreigners, but also affect American citizens who wish to interact in both economic and social ways with these potential immigrants. If people want more immigrants, then it makes sense that they should be willing to internalize any potential externalities, whether it be potential welfare dependence or crime.
Such an incentive structure offers a compromise between those who are enthusiastic about immigration and those opposed. Sponsorship programs in one form or another have been suggested by people across the political spectrum, such as Matthew La Corte and David Bier at the Niskanen Center, law professor Eric Posner and economist Glen Weyl , and Arc contributor and Mises Institute writer Tho Bishop .
Developing a decentralized framework should be a starting point for any view of immigration policy that takes essential conservative views about the fundamental nature of society seriously. Any true conservative would be up in arms over the idea that the government can somehow centrally plan widget production, yet many are willing to cede the idea that the government can somehow successfully centrally plan the makeup of society itself, which is much more complex than any industry.
It is time to take conservative principles seriously and begin the development of a truly decentralized approach to immigration.
Jeff Deist on the Accad and Koka Healthcare Podcast
The Accad and Koka Report, hosted by two MDs, focuses on free-market approaches to medicine and health.
Drs. Michel Accad and Anish Koka recently hosted Mises Institute president Jeff Deist for a no-holds barred look at how Congress, the medical establishment, and lobbyists work together to make healthcare anything but free. Watch the interview here.


text:
Hemel Hempstead Town are 'raring to go' ahead of this weekend's clash with Margate, according to manager Dean Brennan.
The Tudors have not played a full 90 minutes since their victory over Gosport Borough at the end of October. having since seen their home game with Eastbourne Borough postponed before last Saturday's abandonment at Truro City.
It's a game we need to win really if we want to start creeping up the table again.Hemel Town FC manager Dean Brennan
And Brennan says that his team cannot wait to get back to action at Vauxhall Road on Saturday afternoon.
"We are raring to go and training this week has been excellent – the tempo was good and we worked on plenty of things, both collectively and individually," said the Hemel boss.
"We haven't played a full game for three weeks so we are really looking forward to the game on Saturday."
Hemel go into the game against 19th placed Margate as favourites, but Brennan knows that his team cannot afford to take their opponents lightly.
"We know Margate are a very ambitious club – a seriously ambitious club – and for me they are in a false league position at this moment in time," he said.
"Iv'e seen a lot of their games and we've scouted them quite a bit and they have got a lot of ability and a lot of impressive CVs.
"They have got a very experienced management team who have been there, done that and got the t-shirt so we are expecting a very tough game.
"We are under no illusions because we know Margate's ambitions and we know where they want to go – they are a club that wants to get into the Football League.
"We need to be on our game and everyone has got to deliver a high level of performance. It's a game we need to win really if we want to start creeping up the table again."
Looking at the main threats posed by Margate, Brennan continued: "They have a very dangerous front three.
"They have got fantastic ability out wide and the boy (Danny) Green is an excellent player.
"The lad up front is quick, they have good experience in centre-midfield and the left-back is another excellent player.
"They have got a very good goalkeeper, and if I'm being honest they have got fantastic players right across the pitch.
"They have had an inconsistent season so far by their standards, and they will know that, so we have to make sure we play to the best of our ability to get the three points."
Long-term absentee Ed Asafu-Adjaye is the only Hemel player unavailable for Saturday's game, with Brennan having an otherwise fully-fit squad to choose from.


text:
The police haven't put anything out officially, but we're told that two men were stabbed in a gang-related fight outside the Pyramid Night Club at 101 Ave. A in the village. The incident took place at about 1:30 a.m. Channel 7 reported that the men were taken to local hospitals with non-life-threatening wounds. A knife, the station said, was recovered from the sidewalk. A couple of local blogs have brief reports on the incident and some photos:
The incident comes on the heels of our article on youth violence in the neighborhood, which you can read at: http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-01-12/news/in-a-crime-free-city-how-does-a-young-gangbanger-represent/


text:
I have to admit that ever since working a previous job that my body got auto-programmed to do absolutely no work on Sundays. I tried to go against that cycle yesterday and it ended with the need to do nothing to leak over into today. So there's you're new edition excuse for why the LGAPR post is so late today.
Today we show off the many faces of LGAPR.
Turns out most of them are pretty darn adorable.
Previous Standings
1) Aikatsu Stars! – 284 Points
2) PriPara – 221 Points
3) Mahou Tsukai Precure! – 201 Points
4) Rilu Rilu Fairilu – 167 Points
It's amazing how a bit of magic can arise a series from the depths of the leader board.
Weekly Point Distribution
1) Mahou Tsukai Precure! – +9 Points
2) Rilu Rilu Fairilu – +6 Points
3) Aikatsu Stars! – +3 Points
4) PriPara – +1 Point
A Word From the Big Man
I actually made a prediction mid-week that about every show this week would probably suck. But I was pretty surprised to see that this week turned out marginally (and I mean a pretty big margin) better than last week.
This is a smile on the face of a girl who loves getting stuck in foliage.
You know, the offcial Aikatsu twitter kind of scares me sometimes. They pitch these really wild tweets on the same day an episode airs and mislead you into thinking you're getting something that you really aren't. This week they made it seem like they were going to shift over to the males a lot more, when it really turned out that they just showed up for the last two minutes of the episode. I guess it tricks certain people into watching in real time, but it's hard to say that nobody was going to tune in anyway.
This week was just solid. I mean the usual Aikatsu development episode kind of solid. It's not really amazing, but it leaves you with a lot of good feels by the end of the episode. I think I'm just generally satisfied that everything is moving really nicely around Yume right now. Different characters are slowly interacting with her and sparking baby steps in terms of development. I think the only thing that's kind of dragging it down is that Yume is the only character that is really giving off any…character. Outside of what we saw in episode two, the series has been a little short in the humor department and leaves us with a carbon copy of what we saw in Fairilu a few weeks back. The show is probably going to take it really slow, and that just means the first episodes have a really low ceiling of potential. But I do hope they continue to build higher once they get more of the main cast settled in and we don't have to be too serious all the time.
This is a smile on the face of a should be main character.
Lala's baby issues continue and she ducks about every opportunity to actually make the situation better. Like, you know, turning the baby into the authorities rather than walking around with it like an idiot. But at least it leads to shenanigans, right? Whatever, I don't care. The point is the episode devoted it's last few minutes to introduce a fraction of the new characters. And since PriPara has wasted various character personalities on so many throwaways, I guess the only solution was to start fusing together the main cast to produce rivals. Unless they manage to get creative, we might be looking at the return of a nightmare.
This is a smile on the face of an angel.
I think two of the biggest perks of this season of Precure came out in this episode. One, is the fact the double main character is giving them time to allow Rico to develop via baby steps. I probably brought it up before, but most Precure suffer from the fact that they have to develop five characters, and it leads to these tremendous development steps that seem horribly manufactured and fake. The other perk that came out this episode is what I was kind of waiting for upon Rico migrating to the non-magic world. Unlike Mirai, Rico isn't the most open thinker, and it means that the unfamiliarity of a different culture will come out a lot more. So I'm hoping most of the new walls that Rico tends to hit are just ones that involve the culture clash.
Overall, it was just another solid week with just enough of this and that to put it above everything else. It did a good job of showing that Mirai isn't perfect and preventing Rico from becoming the perfect student she wanted to, and easily could have been. The real charm of Precure every week is that even if they're not able to avoid every writing stereotype, they try to dodge as many as they can every week. And it generally results in a breath of fresh air.
And this is the face of lifelong childhood trauma.
This week of Fairilu managed to balance the cute and the chaotic, and I don't mean the bad sense of that word. I had been saying that Fairilu staff was finally seeming comfortable, and it looks like they got comfortable enough to just dump the load they've been wanting to. Was it probably a little much? Yeah. Did it make the episode do a 180 degree turn after the first part? You bet. But it was entertaining and probably something a lot of people had been waiting for. Fairilu is structured in the same way as it's spiritual predecessor, and it really has the freedom to get a little crazy from time to time. I don't think it's a show that should be doing something like this every week, but I do hope they get the urge to goof off from time to time. Overall, it was just nice to see the staff finally let it all hang out without getting too out of control.
Just remember that with every good in the world comes things that give you nightmares for weeks.


text:
Off-trail, UTM and Cautions
Disclaimer: I assume no responsibility for incorrect coordinates, hazardous conditions between your car and the wreck site or any other hazard you may encounter. You should be responsible for yourself as you pursue this activity. If you don't know how to go hiking, driving, or walking safely, get professional help. Getting lost in the woods with inadequate gear can be FATAL. If I had a lawyer, he'd probably tell me to never tell anyone about anything. Be careful!
GPS/equipment & Standard Operating Procedures
CAUTION: Because I took coordinates pre-SA shutdown, you still must use descriptive information provided when trying to find the wrecksites listed. One hiker reported being on the wrong side of the ridge from the Crown Point B-17 when using my coordinates. I'm sorry about that but there is error inherent in what we're trying to do here.
UTM and Datum Discussion
There are some additional nuances about GPS that should be discussed. Most consumer-grade GPS units have the capability of handling alternative coordinate systems and alternative datum (plural?).
The most useful alternative coordinate system is UTM. UTM stands for Universal Transverse Mercator. That's nice. This doesn't explain why it's useful. In a nutshell, it is useful because it is a decimal-based system which allows you to very accurately transfer coordinates to and from your USGS quad map.
Consider the problem of trying to plot coordinates in a degrees, minutes (that's the ' symbol) , seconds (the " symbol) system. How does one interpolate 40 seconds? In practice, 40 seconds is 2/3 (or 60%) of the way between minutes. In UTM, the interpolation is already contained in the coordinates you have.
If you have a modern USGS quad map, you should be able to find tick marks along the edge with a string of numbers - 4130 for instance. If you were to pencil a grid across your map based upon these marks, you would find that you have divided up your map into a series of squares each 1km (1000meters) on a side. So when you go to plot your coordinate: say 4130600 you would know that this is 600 meters from the edge of the 4130000 line. Try it on your map and see for yourself. When I'm transferring coordinates to/from my USGS maps I will ONLY USE UTM. It's wonderful!
Datum is another word for "reference system." Most consumer GPS units can accomodate different reference systems. This becomes important in MY coordinates because I do not use the standard WGS83 system that GPS units are normally delivered to initialize with. I use the NAD27 reference system because that's what the UGSG quads use. NAD stands for North America Datum 1927. Yes, it's old. But it's what the maps use. This makes transferring coordinates to and from the map more accurate. It also introduces an error between GPS units operating in WGS83 compared to NAD27. The magnitude of the error is not known to me at this time. Be sure you set your GPS to the right datum when using my coordinates. That's why it's part of the table - so you know to think about it.
Note- During a Colorado Aviation Historical Society outing to the Pingree Park B-17 it was found that one of the students had failed to enter the correct datum for the coordinates he was given. He was aware of the datum and had thought he'd used the correct datum but something happened and he did not. While standing at a checkpoint we each compared our GPS readings to that checkpoint. Coordinates were entered the same but the datum was different. His GPS told him that he was 0.15 miles from the point while mine read that we were 0.05 from it (basically within touching distance). The datum difference at this point yielded a 0.1 mile error in position. That may not sound like much but that difference could be very frustrating in the woods. The error could be larger. I simply don't know. USE THE CORRECT DATUM!
GPS Decimal
You'll find entries on each crash page labelled as "GPS decimal." This is my way of having the coordinates available for easy typing into the US Census Tiger Mapserver so that I can construct the link to show the maps. My Garmin GPS units can easily be changed to show and use UTM, degrees and decimal degrees, degrees + minutes + seconds and so forth. If you need to convert from one system to another, do it the easy way, change the display in your GPS and then look at that waypoint again.
Off-Trail Hiking Precautions
Off-trail hiking requires a heightened sense caution which should lead you to exercise greater than normal preparedness. When hiking off-trail you will be less easily found if injured, will not be accidentally found by others in the area and are much more likely to encounter bad footing, down trees or get lost. I've hiked off-trail by myself very happily many times but this might not be for you. All the outdoor wisdom says you should not go alone and indeed this is good advice. I've just found over the years that if I'm not willing to go alone, I might not get to go at all. Still, I work very hard to minimize my risks when I go and I try to pay close attention to each and every move and step I am going to make because breaking a leg while alone off-trail is a horror scenario.
When hiking off-trail I regard the following as essential:
Home Moggie!
Last Modified:7/8/2006


text:
How can I find all the different possibilities for the sum of rows/columns/diagonals for a $4\times4$ magic square? I am not sure how to proceed, except by brute force, which is entirely inelegant.
I should mention that I am looking at a $4\times 4$ magic square with symbols from $0$ to $15$ inclusive.


text:
Rush Joins Effort to Block Trump's Travel and Refugee Ban
CHICAGO — Today, U.S. Representative Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) joined over 160 of his House Democratic colleagues in introducing legislation to rescind and defund President Trump's travel and refugee ban. The SOLVE, or Statue of Liberty Values Act, was introduced by U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) following widespread confusion and fear after the implementation of an unprecedented Presidential Executive Order banning refugees and individuals from seven majority Muslim countries. Over the weekend, airports across the country, including Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, were filled with chaos as travelers, including Lawful Permanent Residents, children and elderly persons, were denied entry to the United States.
Simply put, this Executive Order is bad policy and only serves to make our country less safe, and a growing chorus of foreign policy experts has condemned Trump's Muslim and refugee ban as disastrous to both U.S. foreign policy and national security.
"The United States is a nation of immigrants and we have seen time and time again that immigration has been, and continues to be, an important factor in the development of the United States," said Rush. "From the very beginning of our history immigrants have played an important role in helping to weave our modern social fabric.
"President Trump's Executive Order has taken us from a Nation that tells the world 'Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,' to a Nation that discriminates based on religion and national origin; principles that violate both the spirit and text of the U.S. Constitution and federal law.
"President Trump's executive order demonstrates the infantile evil acts of a street bully. In my experience, the only way to beat a bully is to stand up and fight back; which, morally, I must do."
Full bill text of the SOLVE Act can be found here.


text:
Follow This Company
Company Overview
Grainger is a global leading broad line supplier of facilities maintenance products serving businesses and institutions. Our 18,000 employees are driven to serve customers and the community in exceptional ways focusing on delivering the highest level of service. The Grainger team works closely with customers to better understand their challenges and provide cost-saving solutions. Grainger's employees serve customers more than 115,000 times every day through multiple channels. As part of a high-performing team, you'll be able to develop your talents, and make a difference. Grainger is a Fortune 500company and a perennial member of Fortune magazine's Most Admired Companies list.
Position Description
Services multiple customer locations on a daily basis to oversee customer inventory by:
· Monitoring inventory stocking levels
· Ordering and replenishing inventory is depleted
· Ensuring proper labeling and quantities on hand are accurate
· Meet key customer contacts to ensure needs are being met and products are available
· Ensures accuracy of all activities related to KeepStock Solutions at multiple customer sites
Knowledgeable of Grainger's offer to help streamline orders and provide ongoing support for customers
Resolves customer problems promptly and accurately in a manner that will retain and promote customer loyalty
Follows designated route as defined by routing software application
Documents and follows standard operating procedures at customer locations to provide direction to back-up resources to ensure continuity of service
Identifies continuous improvement opportunities in productivity, process improvement, and cycle time with all sales and services activities
Complies with the safety and inspection requirements of the facility where the service is being provided. Helps generate new orders by engaging with customer to identify additional product needs (e.g., seeks and captures "spot buy" opportunities while on site, looks for additional opportunities to add items to program)
Probes for customer needs during each site visit and provides leads to assigned Account Manager Reinforces with customers to the value of installing or using Grainger services or solutions to benefit their business
Executes onsite service component of account strategy as defined by cross-functional local leadership (Mgr, Onsite Services, Account Manager, or District Sales Manager)
Participates in implementation call reviews with Account Manager, District Sales Manager and Mgr, Onsite Services to assess viability of Inventory Solutions offerings at a customer site
Works collaboratively with sales partners to expand Grainger services and offerings in assigned customer locations
Position Requirements:
EEOC Statement
Grainger is an Equal Opportunity Workplace and an Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status.
W.W. Grainger, Inc. (Grainger) distributes facilities maintenance products, and provides services and related information used by businesses and institutions primarily in the United States, Canada and Mexico to keep their facilities and equipment running. Grainger is the supplier of facilities maintenance and other related products in North America. Its operations are managed in three segments: Grainger Branch-based, Acklands - Grainger Branch-based (Acklands - Grainger), and Lab Safety Supply, Inc. (Lab Safety). Grainger Branch-based is an aggregation of the Grainger Industrial Supply (Industrial Supply), Grainger, S.A. de C.V. (Mexico), Grainger Caribe Inc. (Puerto Rico), Grainger China LLC (China) and Grainger Panama S.A. (Panama). Acklands - Grainger is the Company's Canadian branch-based distribution business. Lab Safety is a direct marketer of safety and other industrial products. (Source: 10-K)


text:
Senior Vice President, Health JIF Practice firstname.lastname@example.com
Paul Laracy is the Executive Director of the five Health Insurance Funds managed by PERMA Risk Management Services, an independent affiliate of Conner Strong & Buckelew. In this capacity, he manages day-to-day affairs of the Funds, reports to each Funds' executive committees, and oversees underwriting, financial, governance, and regulatory operations.
Prior to joining Conner Strong & Buckelew, Laracy was a city management professional for 13 years. He served as Business Administrator of Berkeley Township, NJ; Administrator of Point Pleasant, NJ; and Assistant Administrator in Plainfield, NJ. He was one of the founding commissioners of the Ocean Joint Insurance Fund. In 1991, Laracy joined Conner Strong & Buckelew, bringing an in-depth knowledge of the public sector to the risk management discipline.
West Virginia University – Master of Public Administration in State and Local Finance
Villanova University – Bachelors of the Arts in Political Science


text:
VITAMIN D3 TABLETS (4 Months Expiry – Mega Sale!)
₨ 2,500
- Size :
- Condition :
Vitamin D3 tablets are a fat-soluble vitamin D supplements that's considered by sports scientists to be essential for boosting the immune system, enhancing recovery and ultimately helping the entire body cope with the physical stress it's put under during periods of intense training.
- Description
- Usage
- Reviews (2)
Product Description
Vitamin D3 has been considered an essential vitamin in sports nutrition for years, which is why it is recognized as a must-have supplement at TPW™ Towers today. Along with its immune boosting properties, Vitamin D3 also contributes to overtraining prevention and recovery. Vitamin D is found in foods such as oily fish, milk and eggs, although to meet your daily requirements, taking a tablet form, such as TPW™ Vitamin D3 2500iu tablets, is much more convenient.
Now specifically for athletes and those who train, when working at 90% of your maximum heart rate or near exhaustion your immune system can become suppressed. This is because your oxygen usage skyrockets which in turn causes an increase in lactic acid accumulation in the muscles, which in turn causes your body to pull alkaline reserves from bones and other mineral dense sources. It's what's known as an 'immune crash' and it's during this time that your body is susceptible to viruses, bacteria and overtraining. Vitamin D3 has been shown to help combat this since it plays a crucial role in activating the body's 'T' Cells (the cells in the body that seek and destroy anything 'foreign' that enters the body such as bad bacteria or a virus). Vitamin D3 is therefore a great supplement for those who want to prevent overtraining.
Vitamin D3 has also been shown to play a role in reducing inflammation in body tissues, again a common problem of overtraining and intense exercise. This is especially important for athletes who undergo heavy, compound movements on a regular basis or anyone who continually loads their body above its habitual level during training or competition.
Furthermore, more recently there's been promising evidence that suggests Vitamin D3 levels are associated with the maintenance of power and strength by potentially increasing the size and number of fast twitch fibres. This means that Vitamin D3 supplementation could not only improve immune function and prevent overtraining, but actually have performance enhancing properties too.
Whilst Vitamin D3 tablets are often used as a permanent supplement in most athlete's nutrition plan, it's particularly important during winter training since it's during this period when the body can become deficient in it due to lack of sunlight. This is why it's recommended to take Vitamin D3 in the months leading up to the winter so it can accumulate in the body and therefore boost immune health.
Whilst studies vary on the adequate amount of Vitamin D levels in the body, the most often cited amount is 2000iu per day.
Here at TPW™ we don't cut corners when it comes to the quality of our products. Before we give any products the TPW™ seal of approval, all ingredient suppliers have to pass thorough and strict checks, guaranteeing quality, consistency and transparency across the entire TPW™ range.
|Anti Caking Agent – Microsrystalline Cellulose
|Anti Caking Agent – Di Calcium Phosphate
|Vitamin D3 (2500 iu)
|Preparation – Cholecalciferol (D3)
|Preparation – Acacia Gum
|Preparation – Sugar
|Preparation – Sunflower Oil
|Preparation – Corn Starch
|Stearic Acid
|Anti Caking Agent – Magnesium Sterate
|Flow Agent – Silicon Dioxide
|Stearic AcidBinding Agent – Carboxymethyl celluslose sodium
One tablet daily
Take one tablet daily with food.
Q. When is the best time to take Vitamin D3?
A. Any time of the day since there isn't a specific nutrient window when Vitamin D3 is best taken.
Q. Why do people choose to supplement with Vitamin D3?
A. The main reason people take Vitamin D3 is to support the immune system during periods of intense training. But it's also been associated with helping prevent stress fractures, chronic musculoskeletal pain and inflammation.
Q. Are all Vitamin D3 blends the same?
A. The quality of Vitamin D3 can vary significantly and therefore the potency will do too. We suggest you read the ingredients and nutritionals on the label to better understand exactly what you are buying. If you check our Product Profiles, you will see that we are committed to transparency and openness in all our products.
Q. Can I use Vitamin D3 with other supplements?
A. Yes, in fact Vitamin D3 will work well with any other product to help support intense training.
Q. Are there any side effects that come with Vitamin D3?
A. There are no known side effects with using Vitamin D3.
Q. Can I use Vitamin D3 when trying to lose fat?
A. Yes, absolutely and it will help ensure your immune system stays healthy too.
Q. Can I use Vitamin D3 when trying to increase muscle?
A. Yes, not only does heavy training suppress the immune system but it can also cause inflammation, 2 things that Vitamin D3 can combat.
Q. Who should take / benefit from using Vitamin D3?
A. Anyone who trains or who wants to improve their immune system.
2 reviews for VITAMIN D3 TABLETS (4 Months Expiry – Mega Sale!)
What's meant by "5 month expiry"?
New Stock Kab aye ga


text:
I claim tentatively that this seems to be a limitation on realism. If scientific theories are formal representations of a belief of set of beliefs about the world and beliefs are thoughts, there seems to be inbuilt limitations on how accurate our all theories can represent the world. Our brains are finite. It is composed of 100 billion interconnected neurons. Even if each neuron can be a single thought, our theories might ultimately be deficient or fine grained enough to represent the world if the world is at its most fundamental level, too fine grained, nuanced, sophisticated to be represented by such a neuronal networks. There should be a large but finite number of structures built up from basic thoughts or single neuron firings (2^100 billion(?)).
So if reality is much more nuanced in its structure than the brain is capable of forming structural isomorphisms with, there seems also to be limitations to our understanding of the world. Our theories may approach a perfectly accurate description of the world but never get there even in theory. It will have inherent limitations. If the universe is infinitely fine grained (detailed) and all that detail is interconnected in a way that it matters for an accurate description of it to represent the interconnection and more fundamental levels are required for explaining less the fundamental, then the brain will never represent reality in its essence. Even if the universe is not infinitely fine-grained (considered as gunky) or there are possible representational simplifications that retain complete accuracy but that these are sufficiently so beyond the capacities of the brain's flexibility to represent it, it will still be the case that our theories will always be strictly speaking false and that there is upper limit to how further accurate our understanding of the world can get.
My idea is predicated on a kind of representational theory of mind. The analogy (and it's a rough analogy) is with cameras. The picture resolution of a digital camera is dependent on the number of pixels it fits on a picture. The picture's resolution is limited by that number. Reality is presumably continuous but if there is enough pixels, a picture can approach a representation of some parts of the world (the scene represented in the photo). But there may be things in the world the camera cannot accurately represent due to limitations in the resolution power (for example, very fine print at some distance) and lack of pixels it can fit in a picture. The brain has analogous limitations assuming the assumptions mentioned above is true.


text:
Peter L. Navins
Practice Focus
Peter's practice focuses the areas of probate, estate and trust administration, estate planning and residential real estate. He guides clients through the probate process and prepares estate tax returns. In the estate planning context, he advises clients on tax minimization, drafts wills and trusts, and also serves as a fiduciary upon request. A title insurance agent, Peter's real estate practice includes the drafting and negotiation of purchase and sale agreements, title examination and the preparation of loan documentation.
Boston College Law School, J.D., 1974
Williams College, A.B. with honors in American Civilization, 1970
Governor Dummer Academy (now known as The Governor's Academy), cum laude, 1966
Peter has experienced the practice of law both in the small firm suburban setting and in a downtown Boston law firm. During that time period, he was exposed to most anything which a "general practitioner" could encounter, ranging from civil suits for assault and battery to petitions for partition of jointly owned real estate. He subsequently narrowed his focus, and has been drafting estate planning documents, settling estates and handling residential and commercial real estate transactions on behalf of buyers, sellers and lenders for over thirty-five years. Originally from the North Shore, Peter has lived in Wayland for more than thirty years and has been involved in a variety of civic and volunteer organizations during that time period.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts
Professional Activities
Massachusetts Bar Association, Estate and Trust Section
Real Estate Bar Association


text:
Is This the New Norm?
Are Scleral Lenses the New Norm for Irregular Corneas?
By Mile Brujic, OD, & David L. Kading, OD, FAAO
Scleral lenses have become a mainstay in many of our offices for many types of patients. Although we utilize them for myriad conditions, sclerals certainly have an important place for irregular cornea patients.
When managing irregular corneal shape resulting from surgery, trauma, or disease, we traditionally think of corneal GP designs for the clarity of vision that they provide. If a patient can adapt, GP lenses can provide both comfortable wear and clarity of vision. However, there are always some patients who cannot adapt and are not able to complete the transition to the corneal GP modality.
Traditionally, such patients have had to resort to either wearing soft toric lenses or glasses; in more severe situations, they have had to undergo surgery. With the introduction of a new era of materials and lens designs for irregular cornea patients, we ask: Have scleral lenses become the new norm for irregular cornea patients?
Sclerals Versus Corneal GPs
So, how do scleral lenses compare with corneal GPs?
Adaptation Scleral lenses tend to provide a surprisingly comfortable initial wearing experience. A scleral lens rests on the conjunctiva and underlying sclera, vaulting the highly sensitive cornea. The lens diameter is significantly larger compared to its small-diameter corneal GP predecessor, and thus the edge of the lens will have little to no interaction with the lid.
Figure 1. Checking scleral lens clearance.
Fitting Process The size of scleral lenses tends to deter many practitioners from fitting them. Rather than focusing on the keratometry readings (which measure the central 3mm to 4mm of the cornea) as you would for a standard GP corneal lens, scleral lenses challenge you to think differently about the fitting process. The key components are central and limbal clearance (Figure 1), and proper scleral landing characteristics.
Parameter Availability Like corneal GP lenses, spherical scleral lenses can mask most of the irregular cylinder that patients have. However, approximately 20% of the scleral contact lenses that we order have some cylinder, either in the lens power to compensate for uncorrected astigmatism or in the scleral landing zones to optimize fits for those who have significant toricity in their scleral profile.
Lens Fit Scleral lenses vault the cornea, so they eliminate the challenges that can be introduced when a corneal GP lens rests along an irregular cornea.
The Verdict
Although contemporary scleral designs and GP materials have offered significant advantages for some of our most challenging patients, we should be cognizant of the clinical challenges that exist with this modality. Scleral lenses are certainly a viable option and continue to play an increasingly important role in our fitting strategies, including for irregular cornea patients. CLS
Dr. Brujic is a partner of Premier Vision Group, a four-location optometric practice in northwest Ohio. He has received honoraria in the past two years for speaking, writing, participating in an advisory capacity, or research from Alcon Laboratories, Allergan, B+L, Optovue, Nicox, Paragon, SpecialEyes, TelScreen, Transitions, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, Valley Contax, VMax Vision, VSP, and ZeaVision. Dr. Kading is in practice in Seattle and is an adjunct faculty member at Pacific University. He is co-owner of Optometric Insights with Dr. Brujic. He has received honoraria for speaking, writing, participating in an advisory capacity, or research from Alcon Laboratories, Allergan, Art Optical, B+L, Contamac, CooperVision, Essilor, Nicox, Paragon, STAPLE Program, SynergEyes, RPS Detectors, Unilens, Valeant, Valley Contax, Vistakon, and The Vision Care Institute.


text:
This content has been marked as final. Show 3 replies
1. Re: reopening a projectBlue May 14, 2012 1:02 PM (in response to Droid Hiring)
If by reopen you mean that you want to run more forge commands on your project but you cant because you have the following prompt:
[no project] <Your Workspaces> $
Then all you have to do is run the "cd <insert your project name here>/" command and you should be able to start running more forge commands on your project again.
If this is not what you are referring to, could you clarify what you mean by reopen the same project.
2. Re: reopening a projectDroid Hiring May 15, 2012 6:11 AM (in response to Blue)
Too easy to be true!
It works!
Thank you very much!
3. Re: reopening a projectLincoln Baxter III May 15, 2012 7:09 PM (in response to Droid Hiring)
Awesome! Glad you got it working


text:
The Rainmaker Institute's expertise spans marketing platforms, business sizes, and areas of practice. This allows us to serve clients from all over the country in all areas of practice, including:
- Appellate law
- Bankruptcy
- Business and commercial
- Criminal law
- Estate planning
- Finance and banking
- Immigration law
- Intellectual property
- Family law
- Labor and employment
- Personal injury
- Product liability
- Real estate law
- Tax law
- White collar crime
Our clients are in small towns and metropolitan areas; they serve both plaintiffs and defendants; and they work in both civil and criminal law.
You can read more about how we've helped our clients target their marketing efforts and increase their revenues on our Testimonials page.


text:
September 2015 Blog Posts
ENERGY STAR Certification Program is Growing to Include LNE & Other Product Categories
MET Labs was fortunate to have the opportunity recently to host U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ENERGY STAR Product Manager Verena Radulovic, who gave a talk on the ENERGY STAR Product Certification Scheme. Here are a few key points from her presentation: The ENERGY STAR program is a big success. 87% of households recognize the ENERGY... Read More
Most Popular Solar UV Tests Include MIL-STD-810G Method 505.5 and ASTM Standards
Call it what you want: solar radiation, UV exposure, accelerated weathering. When is this testing necessary or advisable and which test should be used? When is easy: You should perform solar testing if your product will be exposed to sunlight. Which test is more difficult to answer. There are several different types of solar tests.... Read More
Gulf Countries Introduce GCC Certification for Safety & EMC of Low Voltage Electrical Equipment
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Standardization Organization (GSO) has introduced a common Technical Regulation for low voltage electrical products, effective July 1, 2016. This Technical Regulation (BD-142004-01) covers safety and electromagnetic compatibility and will affect seven GCC member states: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Yemen. It follows a similar existing regulation for... Read More


text:
Indian Skunk
Sold Out
Product Details
South Indian Kerala was bred by Sacred Seeds in the late 1970ÌÎ_̴Ìös and is one of the finest sensimillas to be found anywhere in the world.
It was crossed with Skunk No.1 by Sacred Seeds to give an earlier maturation and bigger yield. It has the look of skunk with the taste and smells of India.
Genetics: South Indian Kerala x Skunk No. 1
AKA: "Kerala Krush"
Variety: Mostly sativa (87.5%)
Type: F1 Hybrid
Harvest Date: Late-October
Flowering Period: 10 weeks
THC Content: 13-15%
Characteristics: Early Maturation
Kiwi Feminized Seeds are seen by others as a great alternative to this plant.


text:
Monday, March 6, 2017
Farewell from Michelle
Hello all!
I can't believe my term on the Artfull Crafts Design Team has come to end - this last year has certainly flown by so quickly, and I have loved my time on the team. Thank you to all of you who have followed me throughout the year – your support and comments have been greatly appreciated. And to Liz – always so bubbly and supportive – it's been a great year thank you. Receiving our DT packs was like Christmas – besides the paper ranges, we always got all these lovely extra embellishments and bits to complement each range.
Looking back to a year ago, this was one of the first layouts I did – and definitely one of my favourites (Kaisercraft Coastal Escapes)
And then the exploding box – I so thoroughly enjoyed putting this one together, and the love received from everyone on this one, was awesome – thank you! (Kaisercraft Peek-a-boo)
And last but not least, the last layout I created for the design team, also a favourite of mine, and again so much love received from everyone on this one. Thank you! (Kaisercraft UBud)
(Haha) .. notice the trend here – all the favourites are in shades of blue….. J
So the next step for me, as the expression goes "when one door closes, another door opens" – and I have been fortunate enough to have been selected on the creative team 2017 for White … with 1. This is a monthly challenge site, and I would love to see some of your creations on their blog using that colour of the month!
I do also have a blog, and would love for you to stay in touch. "My Most Scrappiest Corner"
Again, thank you all for your amazing and wonderful support!
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


text:
The main difference between Comets and Asteroids is what they are made from. Asteroids are made of metals and rocky materials whereas comets are made up of ice, dust and rocky materials. Asteroids and Comets were formed early in the history of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago.
Asteroids formed much closer to the Sun, where it was too warm for ices to remain solid. Comets formed farther from the Sun where ices would not melt. Comets which approach the Sun lose material with each orbit because some of their ice melts and vaporizes to form a tail.
Asteroids:Scientists have found more than 90K asteroids-rocky remains from the formation of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago- in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter
Comets:Some chunky parts of ice and dust and are some of the least changing objects in space giving scientists a look into the past.
Asteriods are made of metals and rocky materials whereas comets are made up of dust and ice as well as rocky materials like asteroids. Currently, asteroids roam around outside of the asteroid belt.


text:
Free $1.00
Blue Live clock face for Samsung Gear S2. This face contain of Analog clock, day / night indicator with Sun and Moon icon and also display battery life.
- Compatible:
- Samsung Gear S3 Classic
- Samsung Gear S3 Frontier
- Samsung Gear S2 Sports
- Samsung Gear S2 Classic
- Features:
- Analog Clock.
- Display sun and moon during day and night timings.
- Battery status.
- Date and month.
- Always On Mode.
- Tap Sun or Moon to open Weather App.
- Tap Battery icon (6 o'clock) to open Battery detailed.
- Tap Settings icon (9 o'clock) to open Gear settings.


text:
There's no shortage of expert advice for auto dealers on the subjects of SEO, PPC Campaigns, Social Media, and Online Marketing. If you're selling more cars today, it's likely due to your dealership's website and social media business pages. But, selling more cars also has a lot to do with how you engage your prospects and clients online.
While TO DO tips often prove valuable, it's also important for auto dealers to know what not-to-do. To get the most out of your social media and online marketing efforts, here are four "online don'ts" to consider when it comes to engaging your readers:
Don't Just Tweet and Tweet
Tweet at the right time. Facebook and Twitter are great social media tools for helping you stay in touch with followers. So, don't annoy your followers with an overabundance of untimely wall postings and tweets.
KissMetrics.com shares this useful information about timely posting on Facebook and Twitter:
- Best time to Tweet – 5 PM (Eastern Time)
- Best practice for tweeting frequency – 1 to 4 tweets per hour
- Best day to share on Facebook – Saturday
- Best time to share on Facebook – Noon (Eastern Time)
- Best practice and frequency forFacebook sharing – .5 posts per day
Don't Let Blogs Go Blah
Blogs are usuallyinformative and useful. Topics have to be thought-provoking to get readers' attention. But, sometimes bloggingtoo often or inconsistently can cause both writer and reader to lose interest. Blogs should be posted periodically not sporadically. Whether your dealership posts one blog a month or every two weeks, it's important to stick with aregular posting plan.
Don't Waste YourWebsite
According to Statistic Brain, 75% of small businesses have yet to develop a website. Today's car buyers are information-driven and time-constrained. And, the most instructiveand convenient way for them to find vehicles is online. So, it is important to engage these potential buyers quickly and keep themengaged. Don't let your readers find your website sitting out-of-date. Make sure your inventory is regularlyupdated and your site easy to navigate.
Don't IgnoreOnline Complaints
Ideally, no one will have anything bad to say about your dealership. Inevitably, a customer will share a negative experience more so than a positive one. And this type of sharing today happens online. There is more than a surplus of sites available to help potential buyers and customers share bad experiences. Be sure to offer a place on your site for feedback––positive and negative. If and when a complaint falls into your lap, embrace it as an opportunity to clear up the matter.You can expect that online readers will share how you addressed and resolved the issue.
Learning how to engage your readers while maximizing your social media tools and online presence can only result in selling more cars.
Syed Azam
President, AutoJini.com
(515) 232-2024