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My husband suggested we go see this family movie and showed me the trailer which got my interest. We saw it Thanksgiving morning and both loved it! I was impressed with the cast, the multiple story lines and the insight into human nature that is portrayed in this film which is based on a book written by R. J. Palacio.
It is about Auggie who was born with lots of problems including some facial deformity that surgery couldn't fix. Halloween is his favorite holiday because he can wear a mask and fit it like everyone else that day. He wants so much to look ordinary so little kids are not afraid of him and other kids his age would quit being mean to him because of how he looks. His parents ache for him to get out into the world and have a normal life but do not want to see him get hurt. His sister loves him very much but feels her parents don't have time for her because their world seems to revolve around Auggie.
I really liked all the characters in this one and was so happy when Auggie finally became comfortable without the helmet on all the time because he was making some friends. This has lots of great moments and is both heartwarming, inspirational and very relevant. Many people tear up on this one; you can't help but feel for the kid. The theme is to choose to be kind to others regardless of how they look but to also realize everyone is a wonder. This is a wonderful movie and I look forward to reading the book because usually the book is even better than the movie.
If you've seen this, share one of your favorite scenes in the comments. If you haven't seen it, go see it!
Teaser from page 227 after Auggie's dog just died: And I wondered how it would feel to be in heaven someday and not have my face matter anymore. Just like it never, ever mattered to Daisy.
There are a lot of feelings brought out in this book, but the movie really brought it to life for me. In this case, I liked the movie better than the book. It changed just a few minor things and emphasized the teacher's role more than the book did. I liked the changes that were made in the movie. The theme I carried away from reading the book is to be kinder than necessary and make the world a better place. I recommend this book to kids and the movie to everyone! (4 stars)
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subset: commoncrawl


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Imgur needs a button for "download album as ZIP" please :)
Lois B 12 year бұрын • updated by Kangenwater Spray 8 year бұрын • 4
duplicate? http://imgur.userecho.com/topic/20384-download/
I came up with a temporary workaround and posted as a comment.
Yep, seems like a duplicate, but the title is not as explicit or clear as this one.
Duplicate or not, this needs to happen. It's been posted for almost a year now and they haven't even said that they are looking into it. Come on Imgur!
I just noticed that this has been done. Please excuse my rant.
Customer support service by UserEcho


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|Kristen Stewart at the Oscars
The 'Twilight' actress has been inundated with pleading texts and emails from her 'Snow White and the Huntsman' director - with whom she had an affair last summer, leading to the breakdown of his marriage with Liberty Ross - but has snubbed his messages as she is so ashamed of her "momentary indiscretion" and the hurt she caused her on/off boyfriend Robert Pattinson.
A source told RadarOnline.com: "Rupert's reached out to Kristen, but she doesn't want anything to do with him. He texted her a number of times after Liberty filed for divorce, however Kristen didn't respond.
"In truth, she regrets ever getting involved with Rupert, because of how much it hurt Robert and the amount of public backlash she was subjected to."
The 22-year-old starlet and her long-term love Robert are thought to be working on their relationship from afar while he films his new western movie in Australia.
Although she worries her romance with the handsome 'Cosmopolis' actor is "in limbo", she is apparently certain her dalliance with Rupert is over for good.
The insider added: "Kristen doesn't really know what's going on with her and Robert at the moment, and she's been left in limbo. Ideally, she would like things to go back to how they once were, but that's proving a lot more difficult than she imagined.
"But when it comes to Rupert, that ship has sailed."
British model Liberty recently filed for divorce from her husband Rupert and asked for joint custody of their children, Sykla, seven, and Tennyson, five.


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***Update*** (6/23/17): When we first published this story in 2013, the Pulse nightclub massacre had not yet occurred. So this is now the second largest LGBT massacre in U.S. history.
The 24th of June in 1973 was a Sunday. For New Orleans' gay community, it was the last day of national Pride Weekend, as well as the fourth anniversary of 1969's Stonewall uprising. You couldn't really have an open celebration of those events — in '73, anti-gay slurs, discrimination, and even violence were still as common as sin — but the revelers had few concerns. They had their own gathering spots in the sweltering city, places where people tended to leave them be, including a second-floor bar on the corner of Iberville and Chartres Street called the UpStairs Lounge.
That Sunday, dozens of members of the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), the nation's first gay church, founded in Los Angeles in 1969, got together there for drinks and conversation. It seems to have been an amiable group. The atmosphere was welcoming enough that two gay brothers, Eddie and Jim Warren, even brought their mom, Inez, and proudly introduced her to the other patrons. Beer flowed. Laughter filled the room.
Just before 8:00p, the doorbell rang insistently. To answer it, you had to unlock a steel door that opened onto a flight of stairs leading down to the ground floor. Bartender Buddy Rasmussen, expecting a taxi driver, asked his friend Luther Boggs to let the man in. Perhaps Boggs, after he pulled the door open, had just enough time to smell the Ronsonol lighter fluid that the attacker of the UpStairs Lounge had sprayed on the steps. In the next instant, he found himself in unimaginable pain as the fireball exploded, pushing upward and into the bar.
The ensuing 15 minutes were the most horrific that any of the 65 or so customers had ever endured — full of flames, smoke, panic, breaking glass, and screams.
MCC assistant pastor George "Mitch" Mitchell escaped, but soon returned to try to rescue his boyfriend, Louis Broussard. Both died in the fire, their bodies clinging together in death, like a scene from the aftermath of Pompeii.
Metal bars on the UpStairs Lounge windows, meant to keep people from falling out, were just 14 inches apart; while some managed to squeeze through and jump, others got stuck. That's how the MCC's pastor, Rev. Bill Larson, died, screaming, "Oh, God, no!" as the flames charred his flesh. When police and firefighters surveyed and began clearing the scene, they left Larson fused to the window frame until the next morning.
This news photo is among the most indelible I've ever seen:
Thirty-two people lost their lives that Sunday 40 years ago — Luther Boggs, Inez Warren, and Warren's sons among them.
Homophobia being what it was, several families declined to claim the bodies and one church after another refused to bury or memorialize the dead. Three victims were never identified or claimed, and were interred at the local potter's field.
When the Rev. William Richardson, of St. George's Episcopal Church, agreed to hold a small prayer service for the victims, about 80 people attended, but many more complained about Richardson to Iveson Noland, the Episcopalian bishop of New Orleans. Noland reportedly rebuked Richardson for his kindness, and the latter received volumes of hate mail.
The UpStairs Lounge arson was the deadliest fire in New Orleans history and the largest massacre of gay people ever in the U.S. Yet it didn't make much of an impact news-wise. The few respectable news organizations that deigned to cover the tragedy made little of the fact that the majority of the victims had been gay, while talk-radio hosts tended to take a jocular or sneering tone: What do we bury them in? Fruit jars, sniggered one, on the air, only a day after the massacre.
Other, smaller disasters resulted in City Hall press conferences or statements of condolence from the governor, but no civil authorities publicly spoke out about the fire, other than to mumble about needed improvements to the city's fire code.
Continuing this pattern of neglect, the New Orleans police department appeared lackluster about the investigation (the officers involved denied it). The detectives wouldn't even acknowledge that it was an arson case, saying the cause of the fire was of "undetermined origin." No one was ever charged with the crime, although an itinerant troublemaker with known mental problems, Rogder Dale Nunez, is said to have claimed responsibility multiple times. Nunez, a sometime visitor to the UpStairs Lounge, committed suicide in 1974.
Watch the trailer for Royd Anderson's new documentary about the UpStairs Lounge:
For more information on the massacre, check out these sources:
- New Orleans' UpStairs Lounge Still Burns, Out and About Nashville
- UpStairs Lounge Arson Attack, on Wikipedia
- The Haunting Tragedy of the UpStairs Lounge, alynepustanio.com
- The Horror Upstairs, Time magazine (paywall)
- Let the Faggots Burn, Johnny Townsend


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Maybe you didn't know this but your employer or a prospective employer can pull your credit report. Many companies routinely do this as part of their hiring process. The think tank Demos released a report recently that 10% of unemployed Americans have been refused jobs because of information on their credit reports. Demos is a very liberal organization so its information may be a bit biased. But as the old saying goes, where there's smoke there's fire. Some people have probably being refused jobs because of their credit reports but 10% may be on the high side.
A bill to prevent this
Sen. Elizabeth Warren recently introduced a bill that would prevent employers from denying jobs to people based on their credit. If this bill were enacted, employers would no longer be able to require prospective employees to go through a credit check. They would also be barred from rejecting them due to any negative information in a credit report.
Why do people have bad credit?
There is no question but that bad credit can be caused by many factors. Demos thinks that the most common reason is the loss of a job and subsequently health insurance – which makes it hard for people to keep up with their bills. Others believe the number one problem is that many people are just irresponsible in the way they use credit cards.
Sen. Warren believes that credit checks are keeping many people out of the labor market who need jobs. Plus, she feels that there is no proof that a person's credit correlates with job performance and that these checks are unfairly impacting certain groups of people including minorities, women, students and seniors. In addition, Warren also believes that, "This is another way the game is rigged against hard-working middle-class families."
4 million victims
It's arguable as to whether or not there is a correlation between bad credit and job performance but there is no question that credit reports can contain errors that might prevent people from getting jobs. One recent study done by the Federal Trade Commission found that 20% of credit reports had errors and 2.2% were errors so serious they could be causing people to pay more for their auto insurance, auto loans and mortgages. While 2.2% may not seem like a lot, think of it this way. There are credit files on roughly 200 million Americans. If 2.2% of these contain errors, that's about 4 million Americans whose credit reports include serious errors.
The biggest myths of credit checks
There are a number of myths that have the do with employers and credit checks. For one thing, employers who do these checks rarely pull the reports of all applicants. They get them for a specific reason such as the job is in finance or at an executive level where the person would have profit and loss responsibility.
A second myth is that employers and lenders look at credit reports the same way. The fact here is that lenders put a heavy emphasis on credit reports while employers don't emphasize them as much. Evaluating a prospective employee is a more holistic thing where skills, job experience and job history are more important. However, your credit report could be a showstopper if it causes your prospective employer to doubt your ability to handle and manage corporate assets such as debt and collections or litigation.
It's also a myth that you'll never be hired if you have poor credit. There are several reasons for this. First, many employers don't know how to read a credit report or even how to apply the information they see. And second, most employers know that many successful people have had financial problems. And it's likely that one blemish won't disqualify you. This is because most employers don't expect you to be 100% perfect.
Myth number four is that all negative information is bad information. The truth here is that some is more disturbing than others. A potential lender might balk if you had skipped a card payment but employers are likely to ignore it unless you were also sued for a debt that resulted in a monetary judgment.
The final myth is that companies can check your credit behind your back. This is totally untrue. You'll know if they're going to check your credit because you must give your permission.
What to do about negative information
If you know that there is derogatory information in your credit report such as late payments, a judgment, accounts that went to collection or a default, it's best to get the issues out in the open and discuss them with your potential employer. This gives you the opportunity to explain what happened. The company is going to learn about it anyway and it's better if it finds out from you. If you don't bring up those negative items and discuss them, your prospective employer may wonder why and if there might be other information you're trying to hide.
Get your credit report first
You should get your credit reports on a regular basis anyway. But it's most important to get them when you're job hunting or applying for a mortgage, an auto loan or some other major item. There are three credit-reporting agencies and each has a file on you. To make matters worse, the information in these three files can be different. There's no law that a lender must provide information to all three credit bureaus or even to just one. You really need to get all three of your reports. You can get them free once a year from the three credit reporting bureaus – Experian, Equifax and TransUnion – or at the site www.annualcreditreport.com.
What to look for
When you get your reports you need to look for the following items.
- Accounts that were sent to collection
- Tax liens
- Judgments and lawsuits
- Charge offs
- Bankruptcy and foreclosure
- Defaults
If you find one of these in a credit report, you can bet it's having a negative effect on your credit score and could be a problem with a prospective employer.
If you do find an error
Of course, there's always the possibility that the item is there due to an error. The credit bureaus handle thousands of items a week and mistakes can be made. As you read in a previous paragraph, errors have been found in 20% of all credit reports. If you find one, you need to dispute it by writing a letter to the appropriate credit bureau along with whatever documentation you have that proves your case. Once the bureau receives your letter it is required to contact the company or organization that supplied the information and ask it to verify the item. If the organization cannot verify it or doesn't respond within 30 days, the credit bureau is required by law to remove the item from your credit file. As you might guess, this could result in a nice boost to your credit score.
It's easier but still not easy
There has been pressure on the credit reporting bureaus to make their reports easier to understand. And they have gotten better. But they're still not as reader-friendly as, say, Sports Illustrated or Cosmopolitan. If you find you have a problem understanding your reports, you might ask a friend or relative for help. You could go to one of the credit counseling agencies mentioned previously and have a counselor explain things to you or you could watch this video to learn more about understanding credit reports.


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The calamitous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico isn't just a mess for the people who live or work on the coast. If you drink coffee, eat shrimp, like bananas or plan to buy a new set of tires, you could end up paying more because of the disaster.
The slick has forced the shutdown of the gulf's rich fishing grounds and could also spread to the busy shipping lanes at the mouth of the Mississippi River, tying up the cargo vessels that move millions of tons of fruit, rubber, grain, steel and other commodities and raw materials in and out of the nation's interior.
Though a total shutdown of the shipping lanes is unlikely, there could be long delays if vessels are forced to wait to have their oil-coated hulls power-washed to avoid contaminating the Mississippi.
Some cargo ships might choose to unload somewhere else in the U.S. That could drive up costs.
Cargo delays costly
"Let's say it gets real bad. It gets blocked off and they don't let anything in. They lose time, and they are very concerned about that," said river pilot Michael Lorino. "It's going to be very costly if they have to unload that cargo in another port and ship it back here because it was destined for here."
When a tanker and a tugboat collided near New Orleans two years ago, oil cascaded down the river and some 200 ships stacked up, unable to move for several days while the Coast Guard had the vessels scrubbed. Millions of dollars were lost.
Several river boat pilots said the edge of the oil slick Monday was 15 to 20 miles off the Southwest Pass, where ships headed to New Orleans enter the Mississippi. The latest satellite image of the slick, taken Sunday night, indicates that it has shrunk since last week, but that only means some of the oil has gone underwater.
The new image found oil covering about 2,000 square miles, rather than the roughly 3,400 square miles observed last Thursday, said Hans Graber of the University of Miami.
The new image also shows that sizable patches have broken away and are moving to the north and east, Graber said.
Crews have been struggling to stop the more than 200,000 gallons a day spewing from the sea after an offshore drilling platform blew up and sank last month in a disaster that killed 11 workers. The accident is the worst U.S. oil spill since the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska, leaking nearly 11 million gallons of crude.
Chemical dispersants seemed to be helping to keep oil from floating to the surface, but crews haven't been able to activate a shutout valve underwater. And it could take another week before a 98-ton concrete-and-metal box is placed over one of the leaks to capture the oil.
More ominously, it could take three months to drill sideways into the well and plug it with mud and concrete.
BP said Monday it would compensate people for "legitimate and objectively verifiable" claims from the explosion and spill, but President Barack Obama and others pressed the company to explain exactly what that means.
Businesses brace for pain
By all accounts, the disaster is certain to cost BP billions. But analysts said the company could handle it; BP is the world's third-largest oil company and made more than $6 billion in the first three months of this year. The oil spill has drained $32 billion from BP's stock market value.
Restaurants, hotels, casinos and other coastal businesses from Florida to Texas are bracing for their own pain.
Dana Powell expects at least some lost business at the Paradise Inn in Pensacola Beach, Fla., and could see a different type of guest altogether: Instead of families boating, parasailing and fishing, workers on cleanup crews will probably be renting her rooms.
"They won't be having as much fun," she said, "but they might be buying more liquor at the bar, because they'll be so depressed."
And what will she serve in her restaurant? Hamburgers and chicken fingers instead of crab claws. Federal officials have shut down fishing for at least 10 days from the Mississippi River to the Florida Panhandle.
In the Chandeleur Sound on Monday, about 40 miles northeast of Venice, La., thick, heavy oil formed long clumps that looked like raw sewage. Dying jellyfish could be seen in the water. A dolphin surfaced nearby but did not appear to be in distress.
The news was better from Mississippi to the Florida Panhandle, where the sheen isn't expected to touch beaches before Thursday. Wind and sea currents have helped to keep the oil away from points farther west, said Coast Guard Capt. Steve Poulin.
Hundreds of Coast Guard crews, private vessels and others are working offshore fighting to keep the slick at bay.
Sticky tar balls
Poulin used a map that projected what people can expect to see when the oil begins to hit. The outermost layer will include sticky tar balls that can adhere to bird feathers and accumulate in grasses and marshes. The next layer will have bigger pancakes of emulsified oil.
In Alabama, scores of shrimp boats sat at dock in Bayou La Batre, their crews unable to work. Vietnamese immigrant Minh V. Le, who owns two trawlers, said: "I'm confused about how I'm going to survive, and how my crews are."
The Port of New Orleans handled 73 millions tons of cargo in 2008, including coffee from South America and steel from Japan, Russia, Brazil and Mexico. More than 245,000 tons of coffee came through the port in 2008, second only to the New York-New Jersey port. And last year, it imported nearly 260,000 tons of rubber from such countries as Indonesia and Malaysia, making it nation's No. 1 gateway for natural rubber.
Nation's busiest port
Upriver is the Port of South Louisiana, the nation's busiest port with 224 million tons of cargo a year — mostly grain, other agricultural commodities and chemicals. Farther east lies Mississippi's Port of Gulfport, the nation's second-largest importer of green fruit. Central American bananas from Chiquita and Dole account for a big chunk of its cargo.
Some businesses were prepared because of their experience during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Folgers Coffee Co., which ships its coffee through the Port of New Orleans, has several weeks' worth of green coffee on hand and has made arrangements to use other ports in the event of a shutdown, spokeswoman Mary Beth Badertscher said.
"We've learned a lot of valuable lessons from Hurricane Katrina about supply logistics," she said.
About 60 percent of the grain exported from the U.S. goes through the Southwest Pass. If the spill delays barge traffic going down the Mississippi, prices for corn, soybeans and wheat could rise quickly on global markets, said Greg Wagner, a commodity analyst.
Grain prices within the U.S. could actually fall if shipments are unable to leave the U.S. and the grain begins piling up at silos in the U.S. But the price decreases would probably be small and wouldn't show up at the grocery store anytime soon, said Seth Meyer, an agricultural transportation analyst at the University of Missouri.
While a port shutdown would be devastating to the Gulf Coast region, many economists believe the overall damage to the $14.6 trillion U.S. economy could be small.
Cargo can be rerouted to other ports, and the income would be shifted but not lost. Even the lost income from tourism and fishing could be offset by more spending on cleanup.
"The U.S. economy is adaptable," said Martin Regalia, chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "When natural disasters strike, money may be lost in one area but can be made up by spending in other areas. It is more than a nuisance, but it is not a calamity in an economic sense."
Associated Press writers Sarah Larimer, Mike Schneider, Jay Reeves, Jeannine Aversa, Christopher Leonard, Alan Sayre, Melissa Nelson and Allen G. Breed contributed to this report.


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Our exhibit of Dash Shaw's artwork launched at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery this past weekend, and boy, is it a beauty!
If you live in Seattle, you should definitely drop by and see his original artwork in person. I'm especially in love with the piece drawn on polka-dot fabric! If you live too far away, you can also check out photos on the Fantagraphics Flickr.
And don't forget: Dash Shaw will appear in person on Saturday, May 4 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. He'll be discussing his work with a screening of his animated shorts, followed by a book signing featuring the debut of his latest graphic novel New School. May 4th also marks Free Comic Book Day, so drop by the store for a free mini-comic created by local cartoonists exclusively for us!
Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street in the heart of Seattle's historic Georgetown arts community, only minutes south of downtown. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone 206.658.0110.


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It became something of a tradition at the start of every meeting of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation's board of directors. A group of senior citizens would arrive to drive home the same message, again and again: They wanted a rollback of heightened fares on The Ride.
It was repetitive, relentless, and tedious — at least compared to the seniors' other tactics, such as the day they set out to block traffic and were taken briefly to jail.
But to the surprise of many, the meeting strategy worked, prompting an abrupt about-face last week as the transportation agency's board voted to reduce the cost of a ticket on The Ride from $4 to $3, effective Jan. 6.
Members of the Massachusetts Senior Action Council, who staged the protest effort, say their campaign was brilliant in its simplicity: "We just kept going back," said 89-year-old Ann A. Stewart, a Mattapan resident and former president of the Massachusetts Senior Action Council. Over the course of 20 months, they did not miss a single meeting.
The phalanx of senior citizens, always clad in matching blue T-shirts, would troop into the meeting room, shuffling through the narrow aisles between rows of seats, wheelchairs causing traffic jams in the doorway.
One by one, they would approach the podium to deliver statements, tirades, and speeches that always said approximately the same thing: Because of the July 2012 fare increases that doubled the cost of a trip on The Ride to $4, they were suffering. Limited budgets caused them to cut back on trips to churches, grocery stores, and doctors' offices.
At the front of the room, board members stared back — polite but largely silent, never giving an answer or a promise for a solution.
"I know that they just wanted us to get out of there half the time," Stewart said. "It doesn't bother us a bit, because we're fighting for something that's very important for us."
The wall of silence cracked in the fall, when administrators agreed to meet with activists. Then just before Thanksgiving a phone call came. Board members had come up with a potential solution: Would the Massachusetts Senior Action Council agree to a compromise to lower the fares by $1?
"I think they said, 'I guess I've got to appease these people some way, because they're not going to quit,' " Stewart said.
John R. Jenkins, chairman of the state Department of Transportation board of directors, did not find the seniors' repeated appearances annoying or tiresome; they were educational, he said. And they made a difference.
"Certainly their presence in telling their story and putting a human face on the impact of the fare increases, affected the board as well as the management of the MBTA," Jenkins said. "They were helpful to us in understanding that this was a step that we needed to take."
Jenkins said the decision also came down to numbers. The board had anticipated a 10 percent decrease in ridership as a result of the fare hikes; instead, the drop-off was nearly twice that.
Last week's fare rollback vote comes at a significant cost to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which manages the operation of the door-to-door transit service for senior citizens and people with disabilities. T officials estimate that the decreased revenue from fares, coupled with the added costs of an expected surge in ridership, will leave the agency with $3 million less than planned in its budget.
Despite their victory, the activists say they have unfinished business. They want the T to institute a new fare structure dependent on income level for The Ride, so people below the poverty line would pay the same as the cost of a bus ticket.
"The T has committed to working with us on some type of means test, but they said they needed to put in more time and thought," said Carolyn Villers, executive director of the Massachusetts Senior Action Council. "We're going to make sure that's not a forgotten promise."
Throughout the struggle to cut back the fare increase, Villers said, the activists at times questioned whether their efforts were worth it. But they wanted board members to see people their cuts had affected.
The seniors' decision to doggedly pursue those face-to-face confrontations meant the senior citizen agency often had to scare up legions of volunteer drivers and charter buses, but they were determined.
"There was a feeling that they wanted to hold the board accountable, that they wanted them to face the people that had made a decision to cause them harm," Villers said. "They wanted the board to know it wasn't just going to be business as usual."
They followed the Department of Transportation board around the state, to Worcester and Springfield, even to a meeting at Barnstable Municipal Airport.
"When we walked into that room, you should have seen their faces. It was like, 'Oh no, they followed us down here?' " Stewart said. "We sure did!"
The activists' efforts gained little traction until this past April, when discussion began on Beacon Hill about a transportation finance package that had the potential to institute important changes in the state's transit agencies.
The senior activists were angry at Richard A. Davey, the state's secretary of transportation, and the fact that he called The Ride "a budget buster."
They were also angry at delays in releasing a legally mandated survey about the effect of The Ride fare increases — a survey that would ultimately reveal that 22.4 percent of The Ride users reported cutting back on filling medical prescriptions as a result of the more expensive tickets, and 44 percent of all users of the service were spending less on groceries because of the increased fare.
That's when they began to ratchet up efforts. They protested — once in front of the State House and later outside the state transportation building — and they planned to be arrested for blocking the street, preventing others from completing their commute in the same way they felt that their transportation was impeded.
They were packed up in prisoner transport vehicles and the backs of cruisers. Their shoelaces were removed, and they were booked in jail. (They were later released with no criminal charges or fine.)
"It was an experience for me, because I've never been arrested in my life," Stewart said.
One of the seniors wondered what her church would think of her. Others were buoyed by thoughts of the actions of Rosa Parks.
"Even though we might be seniors," Stewart said, "we're kind of hardy people."
Days later, after she had been bailed out, Stewart received a phone call from her grandson in Hawaii.
"I said, 'You'll be surprised to know that your grandma got arrested the other day,' " she recalled. "He was so tickled."
Martine Powers can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow her on Twitter @martinepowers.


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Last week I read the book small is possible. It's a great read, and I heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoyed books like The Tipping Point, The Wisdom of Crowds, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and other books that powerfully explain the world from a new perspective.
From the back cover of the book:
Forget homeland security-meet the folks from Chatham County, North Carolina, who have discovered the meaning of "Hometown Security." This fascinating, diverse group of people, unwilling to rely on government and big business, set about finding actual solutions to actual problems at their local level. They developed a thriving food co-op with sustainable farms to back it up, turned a backyard biodiesel venture into a full-tilt commercial plant, and created numerous enterprises, from music festivals to wireless networks along the way. The residents discovered it really is possible for a community to feed itself, fuel itself, heal itself and govern itself.
The parallels between this community effort and the communities I have seen arise in the world of open source share more than a few similarities. I myself started writing GNU software because I was more willing to rely on myself and other developers willing to treat me as an equal than I was to rely on proprietary software companies who saw me as only a customer if I paid and as a criminal if I did not. As articulated by Eric Raymond in The Cathedral & the Bazaar, the effect of developers finding actual solutions to their actual problems appeared to be a superior innovation model to the MBA-led marketing teams who spent their time and money dreaming up abstract features in the hopes of selling new licneses to customers that were not exactly getting value from the licenses they had already. And along the way we created a community, rich and thriving, that develops not only some of the finest software in the world, but has a lot of fun doing it, too! The open source community has boostrapped a sustainable, community-driven software model whereas the proprietary model appears to be headed toward collapse.
So I start reading the book as if it will be about doing the same thing, not with bits, but with atoms. And the writing is great. But when I got to page 53, I realized that open source does play a role, even in a community where most people are trying like heck to get off the grid. Here's what the author said about my field of expertise (in the context of talking about how various people make money in Pittsboro, population 2,500):
One of the underpinnings of the Open Source movement is that the source code is available for free. Rather than buying a software package to complete your task, you simply fetch the open source equivalent you need for free.
Network monitoring is not free. It's ungodly expensive. Which means that when Tarus [I told you the characters were colorful–mt] rented an office in Pittsboro to set up his "free" software enterprise, he was a bit of an anomaly. […]
And so began my education in Open Source. Tarus brough his OpenNMS project into BLAST [the local network service that Lyle established–mt], and for awhile I was selling accounts for him. The only one I landed was the British Broadcasting Corporation[…]
He filled his space with highly paid experts who travel the world offering consulting, delivering code revisions, and upgrades based on free source code.
Talk about Small is Possible. The mightiest corporations on earth turn to a five person software company in Pittsboro for their network monitoring using OpenNMS.
I won't type in the whole chapter (too lazy), but I will say that he goes on for four pages talking about how open source makes it possible for small people to do powerful things, and how, as it inevitably gets better through user-driven innovation, it is the model of a sustainable system. (He even quotes from CATB and explains how he, as a biodiesel farmer and producer, has seen the open source effect in action, applied it to his own way of working, and has profited from it.)
But really, if you have read this far, then stop reading my blog, get a copy of small is possible, and enjoy a friendly tour of what is possible when a community decides to approach the 21st century by making itself sustainable, open source software and all.


text:
The Pencil. What can a Pencil do? It is just a simple tool that can launch a thousand ideas. I remember when I was younger, I had my own magic pencil case. I kept three, which i usually use in school. As I grew older, i shifted to pens and now I am blogging with the use of the keyboard. Pencil might be a small tool, but it can be a source of something big.
A few weeks ago, Manu informed me about this new online hotel called HotelWithHeart.com. What caught my attention is that the people behind this online hotel booking website is actively supporting some charities.
HotelWithHeart.com partnered up with Efren Penaflorida's Dynamic Teen Company (DTC) for HWH Pencil Project Signature Campaign. How does it work? All you have to do is sign up via the HWH Facebook Page and go to the Pencil Project tab for the Digital Signature. HWH will donate 1 pencil to DTC for every digital signature (Like and Sign Ups) collected.


text:
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text:
Sunday, January 1, 2017
68 comments:
Nice synchronicity Cobra :)ReplyDelete
First assosaction was this, most here know this video
Garret John - We Are From Future:
This time i feel, see so many timelines tangled, some surfacing some going down events. Old me would said:" Im lost, im drowning" but this time i feel more like just to withstand all of this, just like let it pass. LET THERE BE LIGHT. In interview you said that chance for disclosure in first quarter of 2017 is unlikely and i with my remote view agree, thats because in 2 quarter is in. THank you all who are here, you as close as family for me.
Oh yes! I see the middle east and india are centre stage to receive the light in this picture. 2017 is going to be epic.ReplyDelete
I saw this post coming. Indeed, this shall be the year we win, we free ourselves, we unite, and we fight with love. Victory of the light is upon us!ReplyDelete
Happy New Year One and All! Keep going RM and Cobra! We can do this together. Thank you for staying the course and leading the way. Many thanks to everyone for all their effort whether you are on planet or off. With deep gratitude from my heart to yours. :DReplyDelete
Yes !!ReplyDelete
Victory of the Light in (early, first quarter, preferred) 2017 !!
Thanks to the RM and light forces everywhere !!
Ganz genau.
Rocky! Rocky! Rocky!
Eye Of The Tiger
Love, Light, Unity, Peace and Freedom for All
VICTORY OF THE LIGHT!!!ReplyDelete
Wundervolles neues Jahr!ReplyDelete
And it will be..!
2017 The true light be ...ReplyDelete
Om Gam ganeshaya namah. Victoria of light be ligh in 2017ReplyDelete
We will win the middle east.victory of the light!happy New year!ReplyDelete
VICTORY TO THE LIGHT 2017...?????ReplyDelete
Agreed, I also noticed that Cobra posted this update at 1:01. A nice synchronicity! Victory of the light <3ReplyDelete
This post brought tears to my eyes. I say those four words often... Let there be Light... Let there be Light... Let there be Light.ReplyDelete
Thank you to all benevolent beings assisting with freeing planet earth. There simply are not enough words to express my gratitude to all of the Light Workers, RM and our friends and family in, on and above the earth. Let there be Light in 2017. Thank you...
Thank you Cobra for being with us to free this planete.ReplyDelete
We support you and we'll keep on as long as necessary.
This is our job and we'll finish it up!
Let There Be Light!
Victory to The Light!
Not eye of the tiger, I just got that song out of my head from when that movie came out....Damn you Ra the jahReplyDelete
- AnonymousJanuary 1, 2017 at 3:21 PM
This comment has been removed by the author.ReplyDeleteReplies
- AnonymousJanuary 1, 2017 at 4:02 PM
Nevermind, upon deeper inspection I came to the conclusion that they're getting too much attention from the main stream media and some of their leaked images to solve the riddle contain occult symbolism. Yep, definitely bad guys. It's a recruitment puzzle for elite mercenary hackers that work for these secret societies and billionaires.Delete
- AnonymousJanuary 1, 2017 at 3:22 PM
She's so incredibly beautiful. I LOVE YOU GAIA! <3ReplyDelete
Who does it depend on?ReplyDelete
I'm not clear at this point
Thank you for the feedback, Cobra!ReplyDelete
During our Sunday global meditation (Jan 1, 2017), I was "envisioning"/ "intending" that the myriad of limiting emotions that we were feeling about the ascencion were being cleansed away with light (like a giant global firehose of light washing away the psychic/emotional/spiritual grime).
Sort of an energy clearing for all the people who are meditating for ascencion.
Everything in the way of ascension and the event – I asked that we
and Clear
across all time, dimensions, space, and "reality"
Borrowing heavily from HOW Christie Marie Sheldon does her energy clearings with her work
I kept bringing in light until the group energy surrounding ascension (the event) felt lighter.
So that's how I intended today's New Year's Day meditation. Many blessings!
I Love you Cobra. And I love all the people who post here and participate here in the Global Meditation. Investigate how Christie Marie does her energy clearings. It's REALLY elegant!
VICTORY OF THE LIGHT!!光之胜利!!ReplyDelete
VICTORY OF THE LIGHT!!光之胜利!!ReplyDelete
I can't imagine a better time to be alive.ReplyDelete
Thanks to CoBra and to all those you made it possible for us to hear his words!!!
Can't wait to see you all on the other side!!! I love you all!!!
Light, there will be. *nods like master Yoda*ReplyDelete
LIGHT IS CREATED BY THE FREQUENCY OF SOUND BY THE ELOHIM WHO CREATED THE PGYSICAL UNIVERSE ACCORDING TO THE Ra.ReplyDelete
LIGHT IS THE MOST BASIC FORM OF CONSCIOUSNESS ACCORDING TO THE Ra.
65 MILLION WANDERERS STILL EXIST HERE ON PLANET EARTH. WANDERERS ARE EX ELOHIM WHO ARE STUCK DOWN HERE IN THIS PHYSICAL DENSITY ACCORDING TO THE Ra.
Yes, that is what my medititations has been about since yesterday. It is amazing! I feel so in peace. Thank you.ReplyDelete
Thanks Cobra... Did we really see cracks piercing the veil and intense battling these few days?? That's the impression I'm having anyways.ReplyDelete
Victory of the Light!
Happy Light Year! RM my sincere gratitude and thanks. Time for truth and freedom to reign on EarthReplyDelete
Thank you Cobra. Thank you RM. Thank you LF. Thank you all.ReplyDelete
Victory of the Light !
Let there be Light !
A Cobra gathering in Hungary, December 29.ReplyDelete
Interesting report and a short Q&A.
Nice. Thx West.Delete
Steve: Was the method of Access Bars really given to humanity by positive ETs?
What is Access Bars?
The only hint i could find when i google it.. Is being some exercise related topic... Or a gym
Nm .. I found these linksDelete
Thanks for posting that West ... Happy New Year :)Delete
WestcoastMegan, Thank You For sharing this link to the Cobra Meeting.Delete
- AnonymousJanuary 1, 2017 at 7:26 PM
Let there be light!!ReplyDelete
Great(and appropriate) message code! Victory of the Light!ReplyDelete
Light Victory 2017ReplyDelete
You already knew this song COBRA?ReplyDelete
Mike Oldfield - Let There Be Light
Or another one
Mike Oldfield - In the beginning & Let there be light
We can't wait any longer, not another year
This 2016 was one of the most weirdest years i remember, for good and for bad.
Love, zeolite and a happy new timeline to all you struggling implanted beings of light ...ReplyDelete
Bonne Année ! victoire de la lumière !!!! Merci Cobra !!! Merci à tous les travailleurs de la lumière !!!ReplyDelete
We Will Be Victorious!ReplyDelete
*Lachan ai Oshev*
Cobra posted this at 1:01 on a january 1 and now, if you add 2017: 2+0+1+7= 10 :)ReplyDelete
Theres 1 everywhere. Let There Be Light <3
Gaia looks wonderful and lovely in all her beautiful splendor and grandeur... indeed New Victory Of The Light for Gaia and Humanity in this New Year 2017~ Namaste~ReplyDelete
Happy New Year 2017 in Love and Light!!!ReplyDelete
Thank you all dear lightworkers, lightwarriors, lightbeings...from everywhere...Let there be Light! :-)
Surya namaskar.ReplyDelete
This comment has been removed by the author.ReplyDelete
Reminded me of this video https://youtu.be/15pOr1E6hvc LOL!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJanuary 2, 2017 at 7:40 AM
Breakthrough is so close, i can feel the magic in the air! Thank you for your help in this matter, RM ETERNAL LOVE AND LIGHT FOR ALL OF YOU!ReplyDelete
Thank you for your work.ReplyDelete
Woke up today and had parts of a tune and fragments of lyrics in my head.
"Sing hmmhmm, sing for (something)
Sing for the laughter, sing for the tear
Sing (something, something, something)
"Something, something, something) take you away"
And it just Would Not Go Away . . .
Hours later I couldn't take it anymore and fired up the google-machine to maybe find out what that song is 'cause I knew I had heard it before. Aha, success!
Wait, what? Aerosmith? You have got to be kidding me! I don't own that album and haven't heard that song in at least ten years. My guess is the last time was on Australian radio in 2004 or 2005.
Turns out the real lyrics are pretty pretty good and fitting. Everything happens for a reason of course, but colour me surprised on this one. Hadn't seen that one comin' ;-)
Anyway, there it is. It's only 43 years old . . . and it wants to be shared publicly.
Sing with me, sing for THE YEAR
Sing for the laugh, sing for the tear
Sing with me, just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good lord will take you away
Dream On, Dream On, Dream until your Dream Comes True
Yes, We Will Make Our Dreams Come True
Lots Of Love and Light
Brilliant State Of Mission report in the newest post, I like it a lot :-)
Let's bring it full-circle to the end.
Like A - Z
Here's that little band from Texas :-)
ZZ Top
Gimme All Your Livin'
Don't let up until we're through!
And We won't - We'll finish the job now
Amen to that. Happy New Year Cobra and RM. May victory be yours.ReplyDelete
This comment has been removed by the author.ReplyDelete
Victory to the Light, so be it.ReplyDelete
Happy new year to all of you, and be 2017 the cosmic window of the liberation of Gaia from thousands years of enslavement with her children'sReplyDelete
Victory of the Light and Liberation of all humanity and Mother Earth is coming finally.ReplyDelete
Thank you Cobra and RM, also to our Galactic family from inner and outer space.
With love and light Zdenek Maranius
Happy new year 2017 to dear brother Cobra and all members of RM and all humanity.ReplyDelete
Let it be Light and Love again on Mother Earth , together with our Galactic family from inner and outer space.
With love and light Zdenek Maranius😍😍
Thank you dear Cobra and RM for all your hard work, happy New year 2017 to all of us.ReplyDelete
With love and light Zdenek Maranius
Happy new year 2017 to dear brother Cobra and all members of RM and all humanity.ReplyDelete
Let it be Light and Love again on Mother Earth , together with our Galactic family from inner and outer space.
With love and light Zdenek Maranius😍😍
Victory of the Light and Liberation of all humanity and Mother Earth is coming finally.ReplyDelete
Thank you Cobra and RM, also to our Galactic family from inner and outer space.
With love and light Zdenek Maranius
Thank you, Cobra. There is excellent progress. I just hope there could be an effort to harmonize the information provided by various lightworkers.ReplyDelete
2017 feels so beautiful, it was immediate. The light is taking over now and there is no going back.ReplyDelete
Thank you,Cobra!ReplyDelete
LET THERE BE LOVE ❤ReplyDelete


text:
Obama executive orders vastly empower psychiatry while gutting patient rights
By Peter R. Breggin, MD
January 17, 2013
The history of psychiatry has been one of egregious abuses against its patients. The several-hundred year history of the state mental hospital system is proof of that. Until the states found the giant lockups too expensive and began arbitrarily throwing the inmates out, millions of people were deprived of their liberty and all human amenities, humiliated, abused, and finally tortured with treatments like lobotomy, insulin comma, and shock treatment. The only reason we don't have thousands of lobotomies being perpetrated yearly in America today is that I took several years out of my life to fight against organized psychiatry to stop the return of psychosurgery in the early 1970s.
Psychiatry has always sought increasing control over its patients and resisted any attempt to increase patient rights. Although the size of the state hospitals has declined, organized psychiatry has found another way to treat people against their will. Untold numbers of citizens in 44 states are subjected to outpatient commitment. They can live in their own homes and walk about in the community, but if they don't show up at the clinic for their regular long-acting shots of brain-paralyzing antipsychotic drugs, they can be forced back into the hospital or thrown down and injected with drugs inside their homes.
In the last several decades, psychiatry has joined forces with the pharmaceutical industry and the result is the mass drugging of adults and children. With a huge influx of money from the drug companies, psychiatry has enormously increased its influence in the government and society.
I previously have written a blog describing the already enormous capacity of psychiatry to lock up people against their will. In a feature that will follow this one on these pages of naturalnews.com, I will describe the history of psychiatry's thirst for power and the abuses it has perpetrated. Now President Obama's executive orders require me to stop for a moment to examine how these orders, heavily influenced by the Psychopharmaceutical Complex, will continue to swell the power of psychiatry and the drug industry.
President Obama issued a set of 23 executive orders Jan. 16, 2013 that vastly empower psychiatry. This great expansion of psychiatric authority and power will ensure that organized psychiatry and the mental health establishment will not resist other presidential executive orders that greatly impair the free and effective practice of psychiatry, psychotherapy, and all of healthcare.
Order 23 is "Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health." Even more than the "Decade of the Brain," from the 1990's, this new dialogue will push power to psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry. The dialogue will be a national PR campaign on behalf of psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry.
Executive orders number 20-23 are another psychiatric marketing dream come true. Number 20 orders, "Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover." Number 21 directs, "Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA [Affordable Care Act] exchanges." The Affordable Care Act is Obamacare, and the exchanges are the health insurance exchanges that are supposed to be established under the ACA. And Order 22 states, "Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations."
Before you imagine that these three commandments will make counseling and psychotherapy more available and affordable, think of Medicare or Medicaid. We will have more coverage for psychiatric drug prescriptions and for 5 or 10 minute med checks, the financial staples of the drug companies and psychiatry. The above three orders to enforce parity ensure a growing psychiatric establishment in America.
Order number 2 will break open to the feds the accumulating and soon to be vast federal data system for personal medical records: "Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system." Another order, number 4, will broaden the categories of individuals who can be investigated and whose privacy can be invaded. It orders, "Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks."
If you think that this destruction of privacy within American healthcare will end with providing information for gun ownership background checks, you are simply unrealistic. This kind of power does nothing but make itself grow at every possible opportunity.
Two other Presidential executive orders move us yet closer to turning the healthcare system into a spy network. Number 16 directs, "Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes" and number 17 orders, "Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities."
The last two directives have immediately undermined whatever privacy protections there were under federal HIPAA regulations, which were established federally to protect individual patient privacy. What the President now permits with his orders will soon be codified into law. Doctors and other health care providers will be burdened with spy duties, gathering information on gun possession and reporting anyone suspected by them of being potentially violent.
For those who do not practice psychiatry, I can confirm that any given time I will usually be treating at least one person who is potentially violent and perhaps two or three. In my entire career, not one of my patients has committed a serious act of violence, but that's in part because my patients feel relatively free to discuss their violent feelings with me. All of that has been changed overnight by Obama's executive orders. As of now, potential patients will begin to realize that President Obama has given the word to healthcare providers that they are under a moral, if not a legal obligation to start reporting potential violence. He's made clear that it's a public safety necessity for them to do so.
During the time I've been in practice since 1968, laws have come into place requiring a variety of healthcare providers and educators, depending on the state, to report any suspicion or threat of child abuse. These laws are well intended and probably work well in school settings where teachers can observe children with bruises or other signs of abuse. But in the practice of medicine and in particular psychiatry and psychotherapy, patients no longer talk to their healthcare providers about it when they feel afraid that they might commit abuses against children. I specifically remember, before these laws were active, talking with my patients about their abusive fantasies or tendencies, and helping them to overcome them. That doesn't happen anymore. Individuals struggling with a compulsion to commit child abuse no longer talk about it with healthcare providers.
The following can easily happen in psychotherapy and has happened to me on several occasions. A patient is suicidal, so you naturally ask if they have access to a gun. In one case, the patient actually gave me his gun, which I gave to the police, and he did not commit suicide. On another occasion, a very suicidal patient, following my urging to dispose of his gun, dismantled and destroyed his weapon. Commonly families of suicidal patients are asked to remove guns from the home of patients struggling with suicidal or violent feelings.
Now imagine this alternative scenario: A patient has a gun, and is suicidal, but is afraid to tell his therapist for fear the therapist will write it down or worse, report him to the authorities. He keeps the existence of the gun a secret, never gets to discuss it, which creates a much greater possibility that he will end up shooting himself.
Psychiatry and the mental health establishment will not resist Obama's call for doctors to police their patients. Psychiatry has never favored any efforts to increase the rights of citizens or patients. For example, it has fought all attempts to give patients the right to refuse treatment. It has supported laws to force outpatients to take drugs even when released to live in the community. Psychiatry has never shied away from taking on more power. It actively seeks increasing power and authority. The President is handing so much more power to psychiatry through these executive orders that my colleagues will never bite the hand that is feeding them by criticizing any of his policies.
Welcome to the new Orwellian world of psychiatry and psychotherapy.
Originally published in Natural News.


text:
This Is What New Yorkers Complain About
Wired magazine logged nearly 35,000 complaint calls to 311— New York's call-and-whine help line—and put them in this handy graph based on nature of complaint and time of call. They also break it down by bitchingest neighborhood
Naturally the number one complaint in New York—at least during the one week in September this chart depicts—is noise and of course the majority of those calls are late at night and earlier in the morning. Below is a map of the city divided by zip code with the most complacent neighborhoods shaded blue and the areas with the most annoyed residents shaded maroon. It seems the further you get from Manhattan, the more problems there are. [Click either image to expand]


text:
After I found out, in December 2016, that the elite have been drinking the blood of the young (vampirism) for centuries, I continued my investigation.
The trail of these bloodsuckers leads to a group that's known by a variety of names: Dragon Court, Order of the Dragon and Dragon society.
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles are descendents of the "real" Count Dracula, Vlad Tepes (which means Vlad the Impaler), who was a member of the Order of the Dragon.
Vlad (Dracula) was born in 1431 in Transylvania into a noble family. His father was called "Dracul" meaning "dragon" or "devil" in Romanian because he belonged to the Order of the Dragon.
From 1448 until his death in 1476, Dracula ruled Walachia and Transylvania, both part of Romania today.
Vlad earned his nickname "the Impaler", because his favourite method of torture was to impale people and leave them to writhe in agony for days. As a warning to others, he would keep the bodies on rods as vultures and blackbirds nibbled the rotting flesh: http://www.infoplease.com/spot/dracula1.html
There are some symbols that show the affiliation of the British and Dutch Royal families to dragons.
Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands lives at the Dragon castle (Drakensteyn) and her yacht is called the Green dragon (Groene Draeck).
The coat of arms of the British Crown Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, shows a red dragon.
At 10 locations around the City of London the boundary is marked by a dragon, with some red details and a shield with the Red Cross of Saint George; see "The Bishopsgate Dragon": http://www.seiryu.org.uk/ppp/city-dragon.html
Bibliotecapleyades.net has the most interesting information on the Dragon Court.
The Imperial and Royal Dragon Court & Order was one of several occult-inspired secret societies created by the aristocracies of Europe following the formation of the Catholic Priory of Sion and the Knights Templar in the 12th Century
The aristocratic families of the Dragon Court believe that their pure blood makes them genetically superior and the natural rulers of Man. They think of Democracy as: "Incompetent self-seeking, middle-class idiots more often find themselves voted into control of vast social systems".
Most of the European Community recognises the Dragon Court as an ethnic racial group and Sovereign State.
The Dragon Court is directly linked to the European Council of Princes - the political body of the European Grail families, who participated in the formation of the Bilderberg Group.
The Council of Princes was supported by the CIA.
Sir Laurence Gardner is both Chancellor of the Dragon Court and Presidential Attaché to the Council of Princes. The Princes fight to reclaim their "birthright" as natural dictators.
Chancellor Gardner and Sovereign Grand Master Prince Nicholas de Vere von Drakenberg have revealed much about the Occult philosophy and believes of the Draconists.
After he was appointed Sovereign Grand Master by the House of Habsburg (former head of the European Council of Princes Prince Otto von Habsburg), De Vere on his website Dragoncourt.org (no longer active) openly discussed the principles of the Order, including Vampirism, Witchcraft and Satanism.
De Vere accepted blood samples to be DNA tested at a top London facility for purity to decide if an applicant could join the Dragon Court (and become a Vampire).
The goal of the Dragon Society is to reunify the old bloodlines and create the Master Race.
De Vere allegedly adapted rituals to include the first menstrual blood of pre-adolescent girls.
Because De Vere made the secrets of the Order of the Dragon public knowledge, they declared him schizophrenic, he had to resign and was replaced by his cousin - Baron Sir Richard Dufton.
De Vere continued running his own transnational order besides an American Dragon Court, before he died under suspicious circumstances.
The Knights Templar also founded modern Freemasonry, and has served as the role model for Yale's secret society Skull & Bones, of which several members of the Bush family have been members.
In 2000, Skull & Bones featured Laurence Gardner as a guest speaker: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/so...goncourt01.htm
According to the "independent" Wikipedia, the Order of the Dragon was founded in 1408 by Sigismund, King of Hungary from 1387 to 1437 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1433 to 1437.
Its statutes, written in Latin, call it a society (societas) whose members carry the signum draconis. Today the order is known by a variety of names, such as Gesellschaft mit dem Drachen, Divisa seu Societas Draconica, Societas Draconica seu Draconistarum, and Fraternitas Draconum.
It was fashioned after the military orders of the Crusades to defend the cross and fight the enemies of the Christian Church, in particular the Ottoman Empire (Turkey).
In reality the Dragon Court didn't fight the enemies of Christianity at all, but has fought to get control over both Christianity and Islam to control the population...
Its members, known as "Draconists", swore loyalty to the king, queen, and their offspring and to protect the royal interests.
The edict of 1408 describes the insignia worn by Draconists: the sign of the Dragon incurved into the form of a circle, with blood forming a red cross flowing out into the interior of the cleft by a white crack, untouched by blood.
There were 2 degrees in the Order of the Dragon; a superior class and a second degree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Dragon
I believe that the Order of the Dragon is very important. I have seen lots of stories from "conspiracy theorists" about secret societies that rule over us; obviously these aren't "secret".
I have found nothing on the Order of the dragon by the most famous conspiracy theorists…
There is a great story about Neil Keenan's lawsuit for the "White Dragon Society".
It's fictitious, but great fun to read, with jokes like that they were offered $25 trillion by the Rothschilds to "go away". When they subsequently asked "can you make it $50 trillion?" the Rothschilds answered - "sure whatever you want".
But they didn't accept this "money" because they want to do the right thing and cannot accept "stolen money or money that was fraudulently created": https://geopolitics.co/vital-issues/...way-%E2%80%9D/
Here you can read the long version of this wonderful story (better than James Bond or Indiana Jones): http://neilkeenan.com/history-events-timeline/
I have got hard evidence that this story is fake and probably put on the internet to divert attention away from what's really going on.
The story of Keenan is founded on the "Green Hilton agreement" between President John F. Kennedy and President Sukarno (of Indonesia) of 14 November 1963 in Geneva, Switzerland.
Careful study of the document shows some discrepancies, but more importantly it's unlikely that Sukarno was in Switzerland at the time, as the GANEFO games were held from 10 to 22 November 1963 in Indonesia. Sukarno was at the very least present at the opening of GANEFO on 10 November 1963.
There is hard evidence that President Kennedy was in Washington DC on 13 and 14 November and on 15 November 1963 in New York City: http://uniqueexplorer.blogspot.nl/20...-memorial.html
I expect that my next post in this thread is dedicated to Nicholas de Vere.
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text: Hi! I registered a domain name with EasyDNS with DNS-Plus service (I'm on cable, behind a router with forwarding) and would like to setup a development web-server. I installed a "Debian perfect setup" + ISPConfig successfully with external IP and domain name. I'm a little bit confused about DNS and Bind9 and ISPConfig, because EasyDNS provide control panel to manage A records, and I configured nameservers to those of EasyDNS. - Should I turn off Bind9 and how? - Should I point to their nameservers? There is no problem seeing the ISPConfig server from outside, but I have difficulties to set subdomains as "user1.example.com" and "user2.example.com" so that they point to different web pages. Should I add IPs to /etc/hosts for each subdomains? Does anybody know examples on how to setup ISPConfig with dynamic DNS with nameserver of i.e. EasyDNS?


text:
H.R. 985 Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act/
house Roll Call 150 Mar 14, 2007
Member's Vote
or not)
Progressive Position
Progressive Result
(win or loss)
This amendment to the Whistleblower Protection Act was proposed by Rep. William Sali (R-Idaho) and would remove language from the bill that gives whistleblower protections to government-funded scientists. Whistleblower protections aim to ensure that federal employees who report corruption or wrongdoing are not retaliated against or lose their own jobs.
Sali said the motivation for his amendment was his belief that it's "inappropriate to attempt to shoehorn the debate about public policy influencing science into this legislation, thus turning it into a personnel issue to be litigated in the courts."
The underlying bill makes disseminating "false or misleading technical information" an "abuse of authority," which triggers whistleblower protections for those who expose it. The problem, Sali said on the House floor, is that in science, "the question of what is false or misleading is often a difficult question on which reasonable people can disagree, and on which sometimes scientific authorities have a hard time making up their minds." Whistleblower protection, Sali said, means the threat of lawsuits for alleged abuses, and he asserted that turning science into a personnel issue to be litigated in the courts "is not good public policy."
During floor debate, Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) responded that the Bush administration, by exerting unprecedented political interference on government-funded science, has put Congress in the position of having to legislate this issue.
"We have seen scientific findings manipulated or outright rejected when they don't bolster favored policies. And we have seen government agencies put out information about health that is entirely false, but politically advantageous," Braley said, adding: "In one EPA report on the environment, the White House made so many edits to downplay the discussion of global warming that scientists at the agency said the draft no longer accurately represents scientific consensus on climate change."
Braley pointed out that 52 Nobel Laureates, 62 National Medal of Science winners, 194 members of the National Academies of Science and thousands of other American scientists have signed a statement speaking out against political interference in science, and in order to remedy the problems, "we have to know about them." This legislation does that, he asserted, without effecting legitimate political or policy decisions related to scientific issues. All it does is prevent retaliation against employees who report political interference with science, Braley said.
By a vote of 159 in favor and 271 opposed, the House voted against Sali's amendment. All 232 Democrats present, as well as 39 Republicans, voted against it. Thus, provisions protecting government-funded scientists from retaliation for speaking out against undue political influence or other wrongdoing remained in the House's version of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act.
Issue Areas:
|Key: Y=Yea, N=Nay, W=Win, L=Loss


text:
Bus-Touring Obama Goes After GOP Presidential Hopefuls
President Obama's Midwest bus trip is part listening tour to show that he's concerned about the problems of actual Americans, part rolling bully pulpit that gives him a chance to make the case for compromise (and to blame congressional Republicans for not doing enough on that score.)
But it also was a chance to try and score a few points on the would-be Republican nominees.
Obama took Republican presidential candidates to task for that moment at the Iowa debate in which all the participants on stage said as president they would reject any deficit-reduction deal that would raise taxes, even an approach in which spending cuts would outweigh tax increases 10 to 1.
OBAMA: In terms of boosting folks' confidence, I think people would actually feel pretty confident if they felt like their leaders were working together. I mean, that's my belief. (Applause.) But I also think that they're looking for some practical common sense.
I know it's not election season yet, but I just have to mention, the debate the other party candidates were having the other day, when they were asked to reduce our deficit, reduce our debt, would you be willing to take a deal where it was $5 of spending cuts for every $1 of increased revenues, who would take it? Everybody said no.
They said, how about 10 to 1? Ten dollars of cuts for every dollar increase in revenue? Are you saying that none of you would take it — and everybody raised their hand. None of them would take it. Think about that. I mean, that's just not common sense.
Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton — the last time we had a balanced budget — all of them understood that you have to take a balanced approach to solving our deficit and debt problems, the same way a family would.
If you knew that you had to cut down on your budget, you wouldn't stop funding the college fund for your kid. You wouldn't say, sorry, Johnny, you know, things are tight so we're going to keep on taking our annual vacation and I'm going to buy a new car next year, but you're not going to college. That's not how you balance your budget.
Well, the American people are expecting that same kind of common sense reflected. And if it was there, I guarantee you confidence would go up.
I speak to CEOs of companies all across America, and what they tell me is, you know what, we're actually willing to do a little bit more when it comes to our personal taxes — because they know they've done very well.
Of course, it's election season, despite the president's comment to the contrary.
Mitt Romney was one of those Republican candidates on the debate stage in Ames, Iowa, who indicated he wouldn't raise taxes.
A question about a recent federal appeals court decision that concluded that the new health care law is unconstitutional gave Obama a chance to go after Romney another time.
Defending the individual mandate as the only way to get insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions, the president said:
This should not be controversial, but it has become controversial partly because of people's view that — well, let me just say this: You've got a governor who's running for president right now who instituted the exact same thing in Massachusetts — this used to be a Republican idea, by the way, this whole idea of the individual mandate, and suddenly some — it's like they got amnesia. (Laughter.) It's like, oh, this is terrible; this is going to take away freedom for Americans all over the world, all over the country. So that's a little puzzling.
Obama also made a defense of government that is likely to be heard many times in coming months. It was the other side of Romney's "corporations are people" comment. Government is people, Obama said.
You'll hear a lot of folks, by the way, say that government is broken. Well, government and politics are two different things. Government is our troops who are fighting on our behalf in Afghanistan and Iraq. That's government. (Applause.) Government are also those FEMA folks when there's a flood or a drought or some emergency who come out and are helping people out. That's government. Government is Social Security. Government are teachers in the classroom. (Applause.) Government are our firefighters and our police officers, and the folks who keep our water clean and our air clean to breathe, and our agricultural workers. And when you go to a national park, and those folks in the hats — that's government.
So don't be confused — as frustrated as you are about politics, don't buy into this notion that somehow government is what's holding us back. Now, too much government — if it's oppressive and bureaucratic and it's not listening to people and it's not responsive to the needs of people and isn't customer friendly — that's a problem. And if you stand in line at some government office and nobody seems to be paying any attention to you, well, that needs to be fixed. And if somebody is trying to regulate a small business and they're not paying attention to the realities of the small business, that's a problem.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Cleveland, OH – Trent Richardson's 26-yard touchdown run early in the first quarter proved to be the difference, as the Cleveland Browns held off the San Diego Chargers, 7-6.
Richardson, who played through a rib injury, carried the ball 24 times for 122 yards for the Browns (2-6), who have won two of three.
"I just felt real good out there," Richardson said.
Brandon Weeden completed 11-of-27 passes for 129 yards for Cleveland, which snapped a four-game skid against San Diego.
Philip Rivers connected on 18-of-34 passes for 154 yards for the Chargers (3-4), who have lost three in a row. Ryan Mathews carried the ball 24 times for 95 yards.
The Chargers moved the ball down to the Cleveland 30-yard line on the first possession of the game. Instead of kicking a field goal in the rain and wind, San Diego went for it on 4th-and-1. Jackie Battle was stopped for no gain and the Browns took over on downs.
"The conditions didn't help today," Rivers said. "We just need to finish some of those drives."
The Browns found the end zone 12 plays later. Richardson moved the chains with an 11-yard run on 3rd-and-1 near midfield. Faced with a 4th-and-1, Weeden got two yards on a quarterback sneak. Richardson then ripped off a 26-yard TD run to make it 7-0.
Cleveland failed to take advantage of Mathews' fumble near the end of the first quarter.
The Chargers got a late field goal to make it 7-3 at the half. San Diego moved the ball to the Cleveland 17-yard line, but Jeromey Clary caught a pass for a loss of eight yards. Nick Novak made a 43-yard field goal.
Following five combined punts to start the third quarter, Novak made a 31-yard field goal to make it 7-6.
Cleveland moved the ball to the San Diego 34 on the ensuing drive. Weeden, though, was sacked on 3rd-and-10 to force a punt.
The Chargers had one last chance on offense following a punt from each team. San Diego started from its own 12-yard line with 2:36 to play. Rivers led the visitors to the 44-yard line of the Browns. However, four incomplete passes in a row resulted in a turnover on downs.
The Browns ran out the rest of the clock to secure the narrow victory.
"Our defense won us that football game," Weeden said.
Game Notes
Browns defensive lineman Emmanuel Stephens left the game with a neck injury ... San Diego's Robert Meachem dropped a potential touchdown pass in the third quarter ... Ronnie Brown caught seven passes for 85 yards for the Chargers.


text:
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text:
Blessing changes properties of water
Moscow, March 17, 2006, Interfax - Scientists have proved experimentally the miracle-working properties of the sign of the cross and prayer. 'We have ascertained that the old custom to make a sign of the cross over food and drink before a meal has a profound mystical meaning. Standing behind it is the practical use: the food is purified literally in an instant. This is a great miracle, which happens literally every day,' physicist Angelina Malakhovskaya said as cited by the Zhizn newspaper on Friday.
Malakhovskaya have studied that power of the sign of the cross with the blessing of the Church for nearly ten years now. She has carried out a great number of experiments, which have been repeatedly verified before their results were made public.
She has discovered in particular the unique bactericidal properties of water after being blessed by an Orthodox prayer and a sign of the cross. The study also revealed a new, earlier unknown property of the Word of God to transform the structure of water, increasing considerably its optical density in the short ultra-violet spectral region, the newspaper writes.
The scientists have verified the impact the Lord's Prayer and the Orthodox sign of the cross make on pathogenic bacteria. Water samples from various reservoirs - wells, rivers, lakes - were taken for the research. All the samples had goldish taphylococcus, a colon bacillus. It turned out however, that if the Lord's Prayer is said and a sign of the cross is made over them, the number of harmful bacteria will decrease ten, one hundred, or over a thousand times.
The experiments were made in such a way as to exclude a possible impact of mental suggestion. The prayer was said by both believer and non-believers, but the number of pathogenic bacteria in various environments with different sets of bacteria still decreased as compared to the reference templates.
The scientists have also proved the beneficial impact that the prayer and the sign of the cross have on people. All the participants in the tests had their blood pressure stabilized and blood indexes improved. Strikingly, the indexes changed towards the healing needed: hypotensive people had their blood pressure raised, while hypertensive people had it reduced.
It was also observed that if the sign of the cross is made offhandedly, with the three fingers put together unscrupulously or placed outside the necessary points - the middle of the forehead, the center of the solarplexus and the recesses in the right and left shoulders - the positive result was much weaker or absent altogether.


text:
VALIANT Soars Onto X-O MANOWAR #2 Second Printing
X-O Manowar is simply unstoppable! Valiant Entertainment is proud to announce that X-O Manowar #2 has sold out at the distributor level and is heading back to press for the X-O Manowar #2 Second Printing Sketch Cover by rising star Arturo Lozzi!
New York Times best-selling author Robert Venditti and Eisner-Award winning artist Cary Nord continue their jaw-dropping, critically acclaimed reinvention of Valiant's signature hero in this sold-out second chapter of X-O Manowar! Trapped aboard a mysterious extraterrestrial ship, Visigoth warrior Aric of Dacia must choose between liberation – or death! But when salvation lies in a sentient suit of armor, will Aric take a leap of faith for freedom? The epic origin of the year continues here as the Valiant Universe is forged anew!
Join the breakout sensation of the summer on July 25th when the X-O Manowar #2 Second Printing Sketch Cover collides with comics shops everywhere. And the Summer of Valiant isn't over yet – be sure to reserve your copies of Bloodshot #1 and Harbinger #2, in stores on July 11th, and Archer & Armstrong #1, in stores on August 8th, with your local retailer today!
X-O MANOWAR #2 SECOND PRINTING SKETCH COVER – ON SALE AUGUST 8th!
Written by ROBERT VENDITTI
Art by CARY NORD
Cover by ARTURO LOZZI (MAY128153)
$3.99/Rated T+/ 32 pgs.
Also coming in July!
X-O MANOWAR #1 THIRD PRINTING SKETCH COVER – ON SALE JULY 18th!
Written by ROBERT VENDITTI
Art & Cover by CARY NORD (MAY128107)
$3.99/Rated T+/40 pgs.
X-O MANOWAR #3 – ON SALE JULY 18th!
Written by ROBERT VENDITTI
Art by CARY NORD
Cover by JELENA KEVIC-DJURDEJEVIC (MAY121315)
Variant Cover by MICO SUAYAN (MAY121316)
$3.99/Rated T+/32 pgs.


text:
|From: Eli Barzilay (eli at barzilay.org)
Date: Thu Jan 31 23:20:09 EST 2013
Racket version 5.3.2 is now available from http://racket-lang.org/ Core Libraries: * The new `math' library provides functions and data structures for working with numbers and collections of numbers. Functions include non-elementary (such as gamma, zeta, Lambert's W), number-theoretic (factorization, modular arithmetic), linear algebra (arithmetic, decompositions), and statistical (expected values, order statistics, binning). Data structures include arbitrary-precision bigfloats, probability distributions, and multidimensional arrays. * The new `file/untar', `file/untgz', and `file/unzip' libraries support unpacking widely used archive formats. * The new `lazy-require' form allows programs to delay the loading and instantiation of helper modules until they are needed. * The new `data/bit-vector' library provides an implementation of bit vectors (a mutable sequence of booleans) supporting popcount. * The `racket/generic' library allows the specification of default method implementations for core datatypes. * The `openssl' library can verify hostnames and use the operating system's certificate store to verify certificates. Package System: * A new package system is in beta release. This system will become Planet's successor. It differs significantly from the latter. For details, please read the documentation at http://docs.racket-lang.org/planet2/ and list your packages on the new index at https://pkg.racket-lang.org/. * The `raco test' command supports testing by collection and package, in addition to by directory and file, with the "-c" and "-p" options. Teaching Libraries: * batch-io: the read and write functions work on Unix-style standard input and output. DrRacket: * DrRacket's GUI is more responsive. * The automatic parenthesis insertion mode is improved. Scribble: * Scribble renders Markdown format files via the "--markdown" command-line flag. Example use case: Generate documentation hosted on GitHub or BitBucket. * Documentation cross-reference information is stored in an SQLite3 database, which means that SQLite3 is required for building Racket documentation on Unix/Linux machines (but SQLite3 is included in Racket distributions for Windows and Mac OS X). Using a database for cross-reference information significantly reduces the initial footprint of DrRacket, since DrRacket no longer needs to load all cross-reference information. Typed Racket: * Typed Racket programs can require `plot/typed' to draw plots. List- and vector-accepting functions accept general sequences. * Typed Racket supports Racket's delimited continuation and continuation mark operators. Redex: * Added more support for `define-judgment-form', including random generation for well-formed judgments and visualization of judgments. Deprecation: The following have been removed in this release: * the `planet' command-line tool; use `raco planet' instead. The following has been deprecated and will be removed in the August 2013 release: * the `mzlib/class100' library; use `racket/class' instead. Feedback Welcome, -- ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x))) Eli Barzilay: http://barzilay.org/ Maze is Life!
|Posted on the announce mailing list.


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text:
With Beijing hosting this years summer Olympic games it was no surprise that a number of Olympic themed games have appeared on this years calendar. Atari must of been kicking themselves when SEGA released Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, pretty much claiming all the Olympic medals in one fellow swoop. Does Asterix at the Olympic games stand any chance against SEGA's smash hit?
At first glance you'd expect the two titles to be quite similar, but thankfully for Atari their game is actually quite different and doesn't directly compete with the already released Mario & Sonic.
Asterix at the Olympic Games has been developed along side the upcoming live action feature film of the same name, the developers have tried to incorporate elements of the film, including video footage into the game experience.
The game follows Asterix, Obelix and the faithful Dogmatix as they travel to Greece in aid of their lovesick friend Lovestorix, whom has fallen in love with Princess Irina. For our heroes there is only one way to help young Lovestorix win the hand of the beautiful Princess Irina - win the Antique Games! But at every turn vile Brutus stands in their way, plotting to overthrow his adoptive father, Julius Caesar, and scheming to win the hand of Irina for himself!
But as events are warming up, Sam Schieffer reveals to his Gaulish friends the existence of an "inter-dimensional key" that can be used to travel between parallel worlds! The news spreads panic among the druids: the fragile equilibrium between worlds is compromised! Asterix, Obelix, and of course Dogmatix, set out for Olympia with their friends Getafix, Lovestorix, and Sam Schieffer, in order to eliminate two birds with one stone: win the games, and recover the inter-dimensional key.
As you should be able to tell by now this game is quite different from Mario & Sonic, the Asterix game has a story and should be treated more as an adventure game with sporting mini games. The single player adventure starts out in a little village where you master the basic controls by chasing around some filthy pigs. After some more story telling your whisked off to the Olympic village where your true adventure begins.
Once inside, its up to your team to figure out a way through the Olympic village by completing puzzles and tasks whilst also competing in preliminary Olympic events, training you up for the final show down. The adventure play sees you controlling Asterix and Obelix as a team, alternating between them to pass through the different areas in order to compete in new events. During adventure mode you also have a number of special moves, for example you can pick up defeated guards and throw them at targets.
The actual Olympic events vary from traditional events like sprinting to some rather bizarre ones such as "Toad ball". Generally these events are rather simple and lack any depth, of course Atari have used the Wiimote to inject some excitement, running is performed like other similar games where you move the Wiimote and Nunchuck up and down again and again.
Not being in line with its modern-day rivals, the mix of events found are somewhat amusing. Just imagine - two player tug-of-war with people flapping their arms around - brilliant.
If you decide against the story mode or simply want to compete against a friend you can enter the "Antique" mode. This gives you the choice of selecting any Olympic event and playing straight away. Whilst everything has been solidly put together, its hard to escape the lack of variety as even multiplayer mode gets tiresome quickly.
Somewhat to my surprise the game has been put together very well, its a nice compact package that doesn't have too many rough edges, the use of Wiimote controls are good, graphics are solid, sound is entertaining and menus are adequate.
But who will it actually appeal to? I've got a strong suspicion that Asterix at the Olympic Games won't really appeal outside of its existing franchise fan base, not because its a bad game, but more because of it's rather tired and old fashioned lead characters not being able to compete with the likes of Mario & Sonic.
Asterix at the Olympic Games is a pretty decent game, fans of the series will probably be satisfied with what it has to offer, which is a mixed blend of both 3rd person adventure gaming and a couple handfuls of sports mini game action. If your purely looking to purchase something with an Olympic theme we'd probably redirect you to Mario & Sonic, a far superior title when it comes down to thenitty-gritty of the controls and mini game action. Sorry Atari, this one only gets the silver medal.