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Imagine you're a United States Senator and you aren't much of a fan of the Clean Water Act, notwithstanding the fact that it has been a tremendously successful and wildly popular law for more than 40 years. If you wanted to effectively repeal the law, but leave it nominally in place (for fear of the citizen outrage you might spark with a frontal assault, for instance), how would you do it? Here's how: attack the one section of the law that drives how it works - the provision that defines what kinds of water bodies it protects. Virtually all of the law's most critical pollution control programs depend on this requirement, so it's notable when members of Congress seek to gut it, as several Senators recently did.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), joined by Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Mike Lee (R-UT), last week introduced a bill that would cut back on the coverage of the Clean Water Act so much that it would be barely worth the paper it's printed on. This post analyzes how the bill accomplishes that dirty result. If you find it convincing, and think your Senator shouldn't touch this thing with a ten-foot pole, please let him/her know. (You can access a list of Senators and contact information from this link.)
Before I get into a detailed analysis of this terrible bill, an important note: staying off this legislation, but supporting other efforts to derail the administration's development of the Clean Water Rule (like the bill that I discussed in a prior post, and that the House of Representatives is likely to consider next week, would do) is not acceptable. Because the Clean Water Rule is critically needed to protect our drinking water supplies, opposing it makes your member of Congress a clean water opponent.
Section-by-section analysis of S. 980
Section 1 names the bill the "Defense of Environment and Property Act of 2015." That's a bad start, as even the title is false. As discussed in detail below, the bill would destroy the Clean Water Act's ability to keep waterways clean and to restore polluted ones. Moreover, it undermines property owners' ability to use their land by making it easy for upstream industrial operations to destroy and dump toxic chemicals into water bodies that flow through peoples' homes and farms.
Section 2 of the bill is the legislation's most dastardly provision. It would, in various ways, deny pollution safeguards to the vast majority of the nation's water bodies. Here are a few:
- The bill would limit protection under the Act only to water bodies that are navigable-in-fact or are "permanent, standing, or continuously flowing bodies of waters commonly known as streams, oceans, rivers, and lakes that are connected to waters that are navigable-in-fact." By listing streams, oceans, rivers, and lakes, the bill appears to exclude wetlands, which typically are not navigable, but which have been federally protected for several decades and which any responsible clean water policy would protect. Wetlands provide numerous public services, including flood control, pollutant filtration, groundwater recharge, and wildlife habitat.
- The bill would deny protection for so-called "isolated" waters unless they happen to be actually navigable, because the bill would exclude water bodies unless they physically abut other defined "navigable waters" or have a "continuous surface water connection to navigable waters...." However, these water bodies are critical resources that commonly are connected to larger waters by groundwater and can affect downstream waters through that path. Moreover, the fact that certain water bodies lack a physical surface connection can itself be important for downstream water conditions - the separation allows these disconnected waters to trap heavy rains that would otherwise cause flooding downstream, and capture and remove pollutants that are toxic or that cause slimy algal blooms.
- The bill would prohibit the Act from protecting both natural and man-made features "through which water flows intermittently or ephemerally...." By itself, that brief clause would deny Clean Water Act protection to nearly 60 percent of the streams in the continental U.S. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 59% -- nearly two million miles -- of the streams in the U.S., excluding Alaska, flow seasonally or in response to rain. These are streams that have long been protected by the law, and are ones that the science overwhelmingly shows are important to the conditions of waterways downstream. Moreover, these kinds of streams, in combination with small headwater streams, help supply the drinking water systems that serve one in three Americans.
- A ridiculously vague and poorly-drafted provision of the bill further excludes both natural and man-made features "that periodically provide drainage for rainfall...." Read literally, this language could exclude virtually any water body from the Clean Water Act. Try to imagine a waterway that doesn't periodically provide drainage for rainfall.
A separate part of section 2 adds a new and open-ended invitation to attack all manner of pollution protections. It says that "[a]n activity carried out by the Administrator or the Corps of Engineers shall not, without explicit state authorization, impinge upon the traditional and primary power of States over land and water use." For starters, the bill doesn't identify what's included among the "traditional and primary power of States over land and water use," nor does it explain how one would determine if an action would "impinge" on such power. Moreover, it seems as though it could apply to any action by EPA or the Corps, including EPA rules governing clean air, hazardous waste disposal, and toxic chemicals. I can only imagine the delight amongst lawyers for polluting industries should this become law. They will be all over this language arguing that any polluting action involves land or water use and thus is off-limits to federal action: "Why, yes, my client is burying millions of gallons of toxic sludge in rusted out barrels next to a creek that flows through a public park, but he's just using his land, which the states have 'traditional and primary power' over, so get lost, EPA."
Section 3 of the bill seems intended to wipe out prior administrative actions by EPA and the Army Corps, and to bar the agencies from taking future action to develop clarifying rules or explanatory material for the benefit of regulated entities as well as concerned citizens. Oddly, while it wipes out several actions, the bill would also leave in place a hodge-podge of pre-existing rules and guidelines. This suggests one of two things, neither good: either the authors of this bill don't fully understand the history they are seeking to change, or they want to retain a potpourri of conflicting and outdated documents, so as to leave the people responsible for implementing and complying with the law hopelessly confused.
Section 4 of the bill states something that has always been obvious in the Clean Water Act and that nobody thinks should change, namely that states have the authority to regulate waters in their states. The same section says that this new bill wouldn't change landowners' responsibility if they create a nuisance. However, one wonders, having listed only nuisance, if the bill would impliedly repeal other traditional state common law remedies; thus, like much of this bill, this provision will be read as an open invitation to polluters' lawyers to attack existing safeguards against fouling and destroying waterways.
Section 5 of the bill generally prohibits entry onto private property by federal pollution control authorities to collect information about waters for which the bill authorizes regulation. Officials seeking to inspect a pollution source or follow up on a citizen complaint about an illegal discharge could only conduct such an investigation with the consent of the owner and subject to other conditions. This provision undoes basic Clean Water Act enforcement authority that has long been in the law. It also appears to apply even in the case of alleged criminal violations of the law and in the case of emergency and hazardous situations. The bill would therefore give polluters a way of preventing meaningful oversight of their actions and covering up grossly illegal pollution. That is not good news for anybody who happens to live downstream of a facility that would rather not have law enforcement scrutiny.
Section 6 likely would prevent all manner of future federal water pollution rules. It requires the government to pay "twice the value of the loss" to any property owner whose property is diminished in value by "a Federal regulation relating to the definition of navigable waters or waters of the United States...." As I noted at the outset, virtually all regulations under the Clean Water Act relate to the provision defining which waters are protected, such that this compensation provision conceivably could apply to a host of regulations under the law, including ones limiting the amount of toxic pollution that major facilities can discharge. But the provision doesn't only frustrate rules by making it a financially risky proposition for the government; it also includes an impossible-to-administer restriction on whether the rules can ever take effect, by saying that any rule subject to the section (again, which would likely include most Clean Water Act rules) cannot have force or effect "until the date on which each landowner with a claim ... relating to that regulation has been compensated...." But there is no way to know whether any given person anywhere in the country might be able to make an argument that s/he has such a claim, so the agencies would likely have to wait indefinitely before enforcing the rule, making the entire process pointless.
And, so, there it is - a bill that should be known as the "Clean Water Act Repeal Act of 2015" or, better yet, the "Return to Flammable Rivers Act of 2015." Given how radical it is, it might be tempting to laugh it off as a stunt that's going nowhere, but that wouldn't be prudent. The bill already has the backing of Majority Leader McConnell, whose Big Polluter Agenda Congress is racing to implement. Please let your Senator know that this bill is awful and should be rejected and, while you're at it, please tell them to let EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers finish the job of restoring Clean Water Act protections for the nation's critical water bodies.


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Catoosa County won't loan any more money to Hutcheson Medical Center.
At their meeting this morning, county commissioners declined to loan $2 million that the financially troubled Fort Oglethorpe hospital sought.
"We are at the point where we can no longer provide any interim or stop-gap measures for the hospital ... without putting our taxpayers at risk," commission Chairman Keith Greene said.
Walker and Catoosa counties already backed $6 million in temporary financing plus another $20 million that Erlanger Health System loaned to Hutcheson through an agreement under which Erlanger managed Hutcheson, said county commissioner Jim Cutler.
"We tried to give ... the financial revenue to turn the hospital around," Cutler said. "It just hasn't happened."
The hospital needs the $2 million to make payroll, Walker County Sole Commissioner Bebe Heiskell said on Nov. 25, when she held a special meeting to announce she would back a loan of up to $2 million - provided Catoosa County or Dade County also supported the loan.
Hutcheson spokeswoman Stacey Kaufmann said, "We did payroll last week. Payroll went through just fine."
The three counties created the hospital authority decades ago.
Read more in tomorrow's Times Free Press.

subset: commoncrawl


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18 Year Old Madison Is Living In A Hell Whole. She...
Everything About You
- by 1D_Niall_Lover_Forever
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18 year old, Beth, had tried to kill herself at a young age and no one lets her live it down. She knew it was a mistake, and she has always regretted it. Her parents and siblings love her, along with her whole extended family, but there are still times, bad times, when she wishes she hadn't survived the fall. As she takes care of the animals kept in her room, she gets an unexpected surprise, 3 actually. But one is something she was born with, something that she didn't know about. (Sorry, I keep getting new ideas)
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Coach Juan Carlos Goicochea and his DUSC team.
Team focuses on improving play, not just winning
By Judith Stiles
Believing that the world was round, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in search of the New World. And although it is widely believed that he was not the first to arrive on this continent, one thing is certain, he did not land anywhere near Greenwich Village, or the neighboring hamlet of Brooklyn. Nevertheless, throughout New York City, Columbus Day rivaled the best of popular holidays with fabulous parties and parades. And while many New Yorkers were busy honoring Columbus by marching along Fifth Ave., some of those who worship the roundness of the soccer ball skipped out, and opted to play calcio, which is the preferred name of the game in Italian.
More than 125 teams converged on gorgeous grass fields near the Verrazano Bridge in Brooklyn for the annual Christopher Columbus Cup Soccer Tournament. The Brooklyn Italians Soccer Club sponsored this three-day event, drawing teams from as far away as Massachusetts, Florida and Canada. And from across the waters of the great East River, several teams from the Downtown United Soccer Club made the journey to compete.
Gustavo Palomino, director of coaching at Downtown United, encouraged his coaches and players to take a break from the regular season games to participate in a minimum of four games at this tournament.
Nine-year-old Meril Takizawa of DUSC was thrilled with the chance to play soccer in such a large event, as 10 games were played simultaneously at the expansive Dreir-Offerman Park. While Takizawa's team played eight versus eight on the field, the 16-to-19-year-olds competed in 11-versus-11 games, nearby at Floyd Bennett Field in the Columbus Cup college showcase.
On the sideline of Takizawa's games, the excitement was electric as his mother, Kazuko, who also plays soccer, remarked, "Oh I love watching these games but this soooo. . . makes me want to get out on a field and play in a tournament!"
Young Takizawa played excellent defense, rallying his DUSC team against a local team from the Big Apple Soccer League. He was skilled at winning the ball and passing to open midfielders. The DUSC team looked like little mini-men, as they played a great game of passing and not just booting the ball willy-nilly. This mature style of play can be credited to the excellent coaching of Juan Carlos Goicochea, who learned the game himself in Colombia.
"I want my players to be comfortable with the ball on the field and I want them to be creative," said Goicochea, whose son Sebastian is a star forward on the team. Young Goicochea's facile dribbling and speed just might earn him a spot playing at Floyd Bennett Field with the big guys sometime soon.
It was also apparent that Callum Johnson learned a trick or two from his older brother Christian, who is on the U.S. National Team. Callum looked up and quickly surveyed the field before he made expert passes, which is also uncharacteristic of most 10-year-old players. In the second half of the game, Moctar Niang deftly dribbled around three opponents and wowed the spectators as he too made a perfect pass. Even his father, Mamadou Niang, a former National Team player from Senegal, was impressed.
Many soccer coaches in the Downtown United Soccer Club, including Goicochea, believe that when youngsters play soccer the emphasis should be on developing, even if it means not winning a lot of games in the beginning. For this reason, Goicochea's team of mostly 9-year-olds was entered in an older 10-year-old division, without expectations of winning a lot of games. When the score was 4-0 at halftime in favor of the Big Apple team, nobody from DUSC seemed to be upset.
The youngsters seemed to understand this was part of the development process and were happy to play in games with good competition. All the players, especially the tough-as-nails sweeper, Andrew DeMaria, ran back onto the field and played their hearts out during the second half. DeMaria thwarted almost every scoring attempt of the Apples, and fortunately DUSC's speedy Salvitti Edoardo had a breakaway late in the game resulting in a beautiful goal.
One could view the final score of 5-1 as a big loss for DUSC. However, the younger, smaller fellows from DUSC actually tied in the second half, 1-1, and that is certainly development and progress. After the game, as the parents chatted and mulled over the details of the match, the players trotted off the field to grab another bit of Columbus Day fever at the snack bar. They gobbled up tasty hot dogs and just about the best Italian sausage with peppers and onions in town. This may not have been the best power meal for an athlete, but it was an irresistible way to celebrate the game of calcio on Columbus Day.
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Whisky Magazine Issue 46
March 2005
This article is 13 years old and some information provided may be time sensitive. Please check all details of events, tours, opening times and other information before travelling or making arrangements.
Copyright Whisky Magazine © 1999-2018. All rights reserved. To use or reproduce part or all of this article please contact us for details of how you can do so legally.
This is the third time we have held the Best of the Best. But as Dominic Roskrow reports, this is the biggest and most ambitious attempt yet to find the world's best whiskies
Almost 60 great whiskies tasted blind in five countries by more than 100 tasters over four months... the Best of the Best event in 2005 can rightly claim to be the most ambitious whisky tasting ever held.
And the results reflect just how thoroughly we searched for the finest products from America, Ireland, Japan and Scotland... and what an exceptional standard of whisky enthusiasts have been able to enjoy over the last two years.
Best of the Best is held every two years, and is a tasting of the finest whiskies scored in Whisky Magazine over the previous 24 months. For the 2005 event, though, some significant changes were made to the event's structure.
Only proprietary bottlings were admitted – a separate independent bottlers' challenge is to be held later in the year – and we made sure that all the whiskies were widely available with the exception of the flight for fine and rare malts. Atasting in Ireland was added and the tasting was split in to two so that more flights could be added and more whiskies tasted. And instead of just compiling the scores from the regional tastings the whiskies were numbered down even further and a final tasting held in London for the first time.
Our judges were made up of distillery representatives, journalists, and retailers, all of whom gave up their time free. They were asked to provide comments , some of which appear on the following pages.
How it was done
Stage one
The top scoring whiskies scored by our tasters in the issues betw...


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Author: joybucket
Created: February 3, 2018
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And how can we win when fools can be kings?
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The President of Israel, Mr. Shimon Peres' critical comments on the current Norwegian government's reluctancy to follow EU, UN and USA in denouncing Hamas as a terrorist movement, are timely remarks. If one adds Harvard professor Alan M. Dershowitz article in the Wall Street Journal March 30, it all makes me ashamed to be Norwegian. Under the title "Jews are not welcome in Norway," Mr. Dershowitz told of his encounters with anti-Semitic Norwegian academics who made it clear that he was unwanted as a guest lecturer at Norwegian universities. This is how Norwegian intellectuals treat one the West's most famous defense lawyers and an internationally renowned Harvard University professor. This is anti-Semitism with a new European face: Anti-Israelism.
I met Dershowitz in March during Oslo Symposium 2011. His description of the obvious anti-Semitism and the lack of willingness to be objective that characterizes Norwegian academia, is flat out shocking. During my opening lecture at the same Symposium Conference, I pointed out that the lack of nuances that characterizes the Norwegian understanding of the realities in Israel and the Middle East are not only shameless, but historically inacurate. For culturally we have much more in common with the Jewish people than one would think. Western civilizational values has its cradle in the Greek and Roman contributions, but also, and especially when it comes to values, in the Hebrew-Christian contribution. The European humanistic view of the dignity of human beings regardless of rank, class or ethnicity carries deep impact from Judaism. These values are at the core of what it means to belong to Western Civilization.
But today, Norwegians reach far beyond the question of Palestine, and instead of supporting the only real democracy in the Middle East, namely Israel, we blackmail the Israelis in a manner as though we were still in 1939 at the time the socialist Hitler "zieg heil " was shouted in Norway. For the Nazis were Left Wing, and came out of Germany's Socialist Labour Party, they were not right-wing. The individuals in the Norwegian politically powerful positions that have pushed for these solely negative attitudes for so many years, are responsible for creating a politically-correct hatred towards Israel that has made Norway the most anti-Semitic country in the West. Norway's largest newspaper VG recently showed a survey on what the Norwegian people think of the largest TV station, NRKs chronically negative covering of Israel. The question was whether the people feel that the coverage is done in an objective manner or not. 60% believed that the recent complaint by the Israeli embassy in Oslo is right in that the coverage is constantly negative towards Israel and highly biased. The current Radical Leftwing government, voiced by people like Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr-Store's embracing of the Hamas, thus does not reflect the feelings of ordinary Norwegians who support a higher level of justice towards Israel. Prior to the Oslo Agreement, Fatah's Yasir Arafat was required to denounce terrorism. Today, the Radical Norwegian governments silently accept Hamas' wish for ethnic cleansing of the Jewish minority, and pose no major remarks. Anti-Israelistic actions like these are unprecedented in modern Norwegian History. The French philosopher Bernard Henri-Lévy has strongly criticized the European Left for its flirt with the totalitarian islamist movement, which values, for example the desire for ethnic cleansing, clashes with core Western ideals like human rights, the concept of tolerance and democracy. His point is that the Left's ongoing sympathy with the weak and feeble in society, clouds their minds and creates an atmosphere where they make the crucial mistake of supporting the anti-Americanism, anti-Israelism and bottom line, anti-Westernism that these groups carry.
When the democratic right to free thinking is restricted, and only one part of the story is told, democracy alters shape and turns into a totalitarian system of speech control. Today Norwegian media tells of Jews who hardly dare walk the streets of Oslo without fear of being spat on, – and not from Muslims but of ethnic Norwegian misguided people who think they do the truth a service by bullying fellow human beings. Deep injustice lie in the fact that leading Radical Leftist opinionmakers in the Norwegian system have decided NOT to contribute to increased knowledge of international relations, but only reflect the politically-correct Leftwing dictate. During Soviet times this was called propaganda.
Foreign Minister Store ongoing articles in international newspapers in defense of Hamas, reflects this naiveté which eventually becomes so great that one should be promoting suspicion of deliberate malice. His International Harald Tribune article February 15 is a disgrace. There is good reason to understand why parts of the Labour Party would rather have him as Minister of Health. Then one could at least have stopped the harm this man is doing when it comes to degrading Norway's international reputation. For Mr. Store is internationally ridiculing his own country by acting as a self-styled Hamas activist. He was recently caught lying in a live TV2 show, denying his continuous political talks with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. He only changed his story when the reporter told him Mr. Meshaal had spoken about his conversations with Mr. Store.
Because of the lack of political will to present both sides of the story, Norwegians are denied objective information that could have contributed to public knowledge of the international situation. The same happened in Iran in 1979 when the Marxists and other supporters of the naive dreams of the effects of armed revolutions "of the people", hailed Khomeini. The Shah of Persia was overthrown and many Marxists shed tears of joy because the Iranian people now had their revolution. Today many also cry, but for quite other reasons.
The Norwegian media's uncritical celebration of the angry young men on Tahrir-Square during the recent revolution in Egypt, is a similar example. It was remarkably quickly forgotten that President Mubarak at the last election had more than 80% of the population behind him. During his years in power, he enabled Egypt to become Africa's fastest growing economy and one of the Middle East's most expansive, secular and stable country, rated as a middle income country by the UN, with a national income per. capita increased by 40% from 2004 up till today. In recent years, Mubarak succeeded in bringing one million out of poverty and into a middle class, an accomplishment that further pushed economic growth.
Many questions can be asked when it comes to the situation in the Middle East, including Egypt. It is well known that the country has struggled with corruption, poverty and lack of religious freedom. Nevertheless, the conservative philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville observed that when the so-called dictators over time have made conditions better for their people, that is when revolutions come that often make things worse again.
The lack of will to promote and highlight various aspects of what is really happening in Israel as well as in numerous other international issues, is thus one of the reasons why many Norwegians now stand together and push for a new course in Norwegian politics. We want an end to the propaganda and to the misleading image which continually is portrayed of Israel. We want justice.
By: Hanne Nabintu Herland, Norwegian academic, historian of religions and bestselling author
www.hannenabintuherland.com and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanne_Nabintu_Herland


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Bar Refaeli has sparked rumors she has is dating the son of French President Nicolas Sarkozy after the couple was spotted partying together in Paris.
The Israeli supermodel's on/off relationship with Leonardo DiCaprio came to an end in May (11) and he has since been linked to Gossip Girl star Blake Lively.
Now it appears Bar Refaeli is moving on after she was photographed in an embrace with Nicolas Sarkozy's 25-year-old son Pierre at Paris' Raspoutine nightclub on Friday night (30Oct11).


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A massive step forward for the US
RE: A massive step forward for the US
(23-10-2011 10:50 PM)defacto7 Wrote:(19-10-2011 01:19 PM)cconti Wrote: Born and raised in Italy, I was baptized catholic. Heck, I was baptized in St. peter in Rome (not by the Pope though. He was busy that day).
I would assume they do. They tend to live in a bubble, but they have ears. Plus is so ingrained in the culture that I would find it preposterous they were not aware of the allegations.
As far as taking action instead of cracking jokes? It would be nice, but Italians already have an issue with institutions, the church is one of those entities that would make going against "City Hall" look like a walk in the park. Plus there is the influence of the women and peer pressure.
For the victims we know from press reports how hard their ordeal has been. I'd argue that coming out at a tender age against the church, with parents and peers at least aware of the allegation would have been social suicide.
Since these monsters didn't do it on the altar in full view of the congregation it would have been a "he says, he says" situation with a child on one side and a very expert, socially powerful molester on the other.
I am sure the molesters counted on that to remain unpunished.
The following 1 user Likes cconti's post:1 user Likes cconti's post
kim (24-10-2011)
RE: A massive step forward for the US
Kim... I just read that banishment order again and it made me weep for the joy that comes when justice prevails against evil. This is no little thing. It is a step I wish to see all over the world against these perpetrators of pain. It makes me glad to have native American blood. Why no one in this forum has recognized the significance of it is beyond my understanding.
Ah hane he yo heyo.. ah hane he yo heyae yo heyo..
...a prayer (to the earth) for peace and the healing of wounds
Who can turn skies back and begin again?
RE: A massive step forward for the US
Just read Kims' Post. Definitely intriguing. Kind of wish I had me some native blood so I could bask in the glory that the media doesn't bother to cover.
To answer Defacto as to why no one else is bothering with such tactics it's because of numerous factors. One is Natives celebrate their own belief structure to begin with, they were never happy to have the churches barging their way in. They have an almost insulated culture due to being mostly sequestered on native land. Like you said, they operate like a sovereign state. Nothing else is like that. That I'm aware of anyways. Because of the fact that they have their own belief structure and the fact that while on their own land they can deny anyone the right to live and preach they can accomplish such a deed.
We couldn't do that as our laws protect the catholic church from banishment. Not to mention they hold a large portion of the voting public. They have none of those things while on native land.
What we do have though, that I would like to see used, is laws that determine what a criminal organization is, and what we can do with them. The states have even more laws regarding this (especially having to do with international criminals) that they never use when religious bodies are concerned. By definition of these laws, the catholic church (as do all christian churches) falls into this category. They are organized crime. Their delegates should be arrested on site.
I think however that as nice and even legal as that would be, it's a gonna be a long time before anything like that happens.
On a lighter note I'm eating cereal right out of the box right now for no reason. I don't even like it.
"I think of myself as an intelligent, sensitive human being with the soul of a clown which always forces me to blow it at the most important moments." -Jim Morrison
The following 2 users Like lucradis's post:2 users Like lucradis's post
defacto7 (25-10-2011), kim (25-10-2011)
RE: A massive step forward for the US
I know you are right. My statement was a wish. But just the fact that someone, some system has the balls to do something is elating to me. The native people have been inundated by Catholics (and a few others) for centuries. Because native peoples are now autonomous, they can do the things all people aught to be able to do. The outside world is in bondage. Natives are now the free people.
Whether you are native or not, all people should be applauding their action. It is righteous. take lessons from the native people the idea of freedom, look to the future and make plans and actions accordingly.
Who can turn skies back and begin again?
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kim (25-10-2011)
RE: A massive step forward for the US
This is just so cool!
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. Friedrich Nietzsche
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I'm part of a team that's one of the finalists in the Rolls Royce schools Science prize: we're building a wind tunnel, and I seem to be in charge of the instrument package. My background is as a post-doc geophysicist, so I've no fear of the technical aspects...
The idea is to take top-end Primary age children through the whole design process for building a wind turbine - how blade number/shape affects power output, different efficiencies at different wind speeds etc, and then hopefully build a good size version using the data they've obtained for testing outside in the real world.
The measurements we want to take in the tunnel for now are:
Wind speed (actually air flow, but we can scale this). We're not quite sure which instrument to use to measure this - pitots are as expensive as you like: there are thermal, ultrasonic, and rotor designs too which come with RS232 output.
Voltage/current. We'll be attaching our test turbines to a low-voltage DC motor - which may or may not involve gearing. The output will probably (hopefully!) exceed 2.5v.
Rotor speed. I had the wild idea of using a light gate, activated by an in-situ LED or laser, to indicate every time a blade passes. It might be that this will be modified to strike a silvered patch on one of the model blades.
Measurements that we would like to make in the future:
we have a wind tunnel! We'd like to use it to explore the effect of shape on drag, getting the kids to design aerodynamic cars.
also, exploring the concept of lift with wings.
I'm supposing that both of these will involve digital balances
We intend to build two tunnels, so we'd need two of everything. The budget I have for instrumentation is £500. We already have USB compatible laptops running XP in school.
Obviously, we're looking at the DrDAQ. Is there any particular reason why it wouldn't be suitable for the above applications? My primary concern at the moment is, can I disconnect the light gate from the board and stick it on the end of a sensor inside the moment, or am I looking to get my soldering iron out?


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Fast and Furious was a conspiracy by President Obama to destroy the Second Amendment.
Fast and Furious was actually the brainchild of the Bush administration, and the ATF simply continued the operation under a new name.
These are two of the conflicting conspiracy theories now surrounding the infamous gun-walking strategy dubbed Operation Fast and Furious. Which is true? Neither.
With all the political spin coming from Washington and here in Arizona, it's been difficult trying to sort fact from fiction. But there are some credible articles worth reading, including one recently published in The Arizona Republic by reporter Dennis Wagner. If you didn't get the opportunity to read the article, you can find it here.
Mr. Wagner's story highlights the strange bedfellows made between opposing political philosophies, that of ATF agents and prolific Second Amendment bloggers. It details the steps taken by an ATF whistleblower to shine light upon the irresponsible and deadly operation that left one U.S. border patrol agent, Brian Terry, and an untold number of Mexican nationals dead.
But what's makes Mr. Wagner's story even more compelling is the way politicians used the death of Agent Terry to spin conspiracies and theories for the benefit of party politics. It's the type of spin that makes fact-finding and problem solving difficult and underscores the current, extremist political divide that uses controversy as a means to destroy the opposing side.
On one side of the aisle stand the Republicans, lead by individuals such as Representative Darrell Issa and Senator Charles Grassley who, along with the NRA, have insisted Operation Fast and Furious was a grand scheme cooked up by the Obama administration to allow a flow of high-powered firearms into Mexico. The Republicans want the public to believe this was a calculated attempt to win a future assault weapons ban. If the administration could demonstrate that scores of weapons used by Mexican cartels were being traced back to American gun stores, Democrats could justify the need for further gun restrictions.
Of course there's already proof that cartel members use straw buyers to purchase weapons such as AK-47's from American gun stores. This is something we've known for years and something the Mexican government has been pleading with us to stop.
But saying the administration would purposefully allow guns into the hands of cartel members simply to gain an advantage in a policy debate goes beyond the normal Washington rhetoric and into the land of hysteria. Combine this with the fact that there is no shred of proof to this conspiracy theory and that it's being disseminated by those who stand to benefit from throwing the Obama administration under the bus, and all Americans have reason to be suspicious.
The theory also fails to explain why the Bush administration would use similar tactics in the first failed gun-walking strategy, Operation Wide Receiver. Nor does it explain why ATF whistleblowers point the finger at Arizona ATF supervisors, NOT Washington politicians.
The whistleblowers have maintained the strategy originated in the Phoenix office and was promoted by administrators who overlooked obvious and fatal flaws in favor of self-inflated hopes for promotions and recognition. As of yet, we still have no idea how far the details went up the chain of command, nor do we know when, exactly, Attorney General Eric Holder knew about the operation.
It's quite possible Holder knew about this strategy much sooner than he's testified to, but it's a big stretch to maintain the Attorney General's knowledge of the strategy is the same thing as being the mastermind of it or that the intended goal was some sort of assault weapons ban.
The Democrats, however, should not continue to lay blame for the operation at the feet of the Bush administration. In theory, the idea of allowing weapons to walk in order to take down top cartel leaders is a good one. If the U.S. government was able to trace the weapons to those in charge, it's possible they'd be able to help the Mexican government clamp down on the cartels.
Unfortunately, what was good in theory failed miserably in practice.
This became obvious during Operation Wide Receiver when weapons walked and officials were unable to track them once they crossed the border. The operation failed, and it ended. For Democrats to excuse the strategy simply because it was first employed years earlier is a cop out and does nothing to address the obvious incompetency of the ATF or why a failed program would resurface and continue even after tragedy.
The ATF, as pointed out in Mr. Wagner's article, has a history of problems that date back several administrations (think Waco, Texas). The fatal Fast and Furious operation and ensuing investigations could be an opportunity to radically change the ATF. But that will only happen if politicians on both sides of the aisle stop trying to spin conspiracies and instead begin the long, overdue process of cleaning up an embattled bureau.
As is common in most dysfunctional agencies, ineptness begins at the top and filters down. Politicians would be wise to listen to the field agents versus the administrators to find ways to bring about effective change.
The circumstances of Officer Terry's death should outrage all of us, but let's use that outrage to fix the system, and its agency, instead of using it to score points against an opposing political party.


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Add-on Fun & Gifts:
Walking Brewery Packages & Events
If somehow you haven't heard, Kalamazoo is among the world's greatest destinations for world-class, craft-brewed beer. And nobody puts you closer to the action than The Kalamazoo House!
Read More >
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With the UKA you are effortlessly chauffeured from the inn to a daytime getaway like no other. Or Bike to the launch, aka UBKA! Two kayaks. A delightful river paddle from Comstock to Kalamazoo. It's quiet, enjoyable time on a beautiful river ride, with a destination that's as fun as the journey. <more>
Romance Package
ROMANCE...RENEW, RELAX, AND RECONNECT! Leave your hectic lives behind and spend time enjoying each other's company in a way you haven't been able to do lately. Let the Kalamazoo House Bed & Breakfast bring romance to your lives! < more >
Bike Storage and Rentals
Ride off-street trails throughout the area, expand our Urban Kayak Adventure by biking to the launch point, or just store your bikes with us for free! <more>
Keepsake Wine Baskets from Tempo Vino!
Get your K-House Keepsake Wine Basket delievered for your stay, directly from Tempo Vino Winery! We'll coordinate it all! Your basket includes two souvenir wine glasses, a bottle of private-labled Kalamazoo House ... < more >
Gift Certificates
A gift certificate for the Kalamazoo House Bed & Breakfast is the perfect present for that special someone. Add a special package if you like. < more >
Couple's Massage
Pure self-indulgence for you and your partner provided by the therapists at nearby Inspiring Hands Therapeutic Massage. Our guests enjoy a free upgrade to Essential Oils or Hot Stones. (Solo massages can also be arranged). < more >
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A finer day is hard to imagine. After a lovely breakfast and relaxing morning stroll, your black car sedan is waiting outside to seamlessly chauffeur you to your choices of the many Southwest Michigan wineries from an area many are calling the Napa of the Midwest. < more >
State Theatre Live Concert Packages
The perfect Venue for your favorite concerts is just steps away from the inn. Together with the State, we've put together some great package pairings to guarantee an unforgettable experience.
<Read More>
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Soft and luxurious microfiber on the outside, and warm terry on the inside combine to make a warm and snuggly robe. Shawl collar, patch pockets, and adjustable belt. And embroidered with the Kalamazoo House B&B logo to bring back special memories. One size fits all. (Shipping $12.35 for standard First Class USPS). Total with tax: $79.50 Total with tax and shipping: $91.85
Kalamazoo House Brewpub Limo Tour
Kalamazoo is a quickly becoming a real beer-lovers destination, and for walkers there's no place better stay than the Kalamazoo House. Still, this IS Michigan, and there are some cool destinations well outside the city—so let us do the driving. < more >
One-Hour Couples or Solo Massage
One hour couple's massage with complimentary upgrade to therapeutic essential oils. Our massage therapists will contact you after your reservation is made to schedule a time for the massage. < more >
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Do you remember those sheets from your stay at the Kalamazoo House? One guest commented "They felt like whipped cream." Smooth, soft, and oh, so comfortable. Let us have a set drop-shipped to you. (Price includes shipping continental U.S.) An amazing deal at Queen $150, King $160--including shipping in the continental US!
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Downtown Craft Beer Gift Basket
Highlight your brew city experience with mementos from Kalamazoo's eight downtown breweries, in this unique gift basket. We've done the work for you with this wicker
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It's about License to Operate
With reputation risk flagged as the top risk in 2016 for CxO's and their Boards and one of the top 5 Global risks, understanding your own industry's dynamics is a critical necessity for both competitive positioning and protecting your Company's legal and social licenses to operate.
RL Expert is trusted by the world's leading companies Boards and Senior leadership teams to provide clarity about an organisation's reputation risk exposures. We work with their Senior Executives to establish comprehensive reputation risk management programs to proactively mitigate reputation risks and exploit opportunities for growth and performance.
Ask us how today and/or take our reputation risk survey to understand where you are on your Company's reputation journey.
Do you know the top reputation risks that will impact your legal and regulatory license to operate?
Do you know the interconnected risks in each country and sector that can influence these? Do you know the specific key opinion leaders and influencers involved? Do you have the organisational structure and tools in place to mitigate reputation risks if and when they occur? RL EXPERT can help you understand what reputational risks you are facing and put in place a comprehensive reputation risk management program to effectively deal with them.
Do you have a social license to grow and innovate from your stakeholders?
Companies around the world are focused on customer centricity, digital transformation and accessing new emerging markets to capitalise on growth. While their Executives today have found ways to reduce operational risks with great precision, very few companies have a detailed understanding of one of the very biggest risks they face – the risks to their social license to operate. This is because the risk management discipline factors for hazard and probability, but does not have an effective mechanism to factor for "stakeholder outrage". Leveraging real time reputation risk analytics, RL EXPERT can help you understand your Company's critical social license to operate risks and put in place a comprehensive reputation risk management program to ensure a social license to operate, unlocking market access for growth and performance.
Ask us how today and/or take our reputation risk survey to understand where you are on your Company's reputation journey.
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Department of Family Medicine
Marcia Edmond-Bucknor, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor
Department of Family Medicine
- About
The newest member of the Family Medicine faculty is Marcia Edmond-Bucknor, M.D., who joined the Department in September 2009 with a faculty rank of Clinical Assistant Professor. Dr. Edmond-Bucknor serves as an attending physician, dividing her time between Student & Employee Health Services and Family Health Services (FHS), the neighborhood primary care center sponsored by University Hospital of Brooklyn and operated by the Department of Family Medicine.
The Department of Family Medicine has been acquainted with Dr. Edmond-Bucknor since her days as a medical student at SUNY Downstate's College of Medicine (2000-2004). Following medical school, Dr. Edmond-Bucknor was invited to join the Family Medicine Residency Training Program at Downstate, which she completed in July 2007. During her residency, Dr. Edmond-Bucknor followed a panel of patients at Family Health Services. She was, and continues to be, well-liked by her patients at FHS. After graduating from the Residency Program, Dr. Edmond-Bucknor completed a two-year Fellowship in Women's Health and Faculty Development from 2007-2009.
Dr. Edmond-Bucknor completed the A.A. degree at the Borough of Manhattan Community College in 1988. She earned a B.S. degree in Biology (1997) and a M.A. degree in Cell and Molecular Biology (2001) at the City College of New York (CCNY). Throughout her undergraduate education, she supported herself through a combination of full-time and part-time jobs. In addition, Dr. Edmond-Bucknor was employed as a ninth grade teacher by the Board of Education of the City of New York during the 1999-2000 school year.
Local community churches frequently ask Dr. Edmond-Bucknor to present informational talks on relevant health topics, and she is happy to oblige.


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BackgroundWriting unit tests for threaded code is hard. What follows is a simple example, along with instructions on how to improve your chances of finding threading errors in your code. I've updated this as of February 2010. If you are looking for the original material, click here.
IntroductionThis page describes some of what it takes to successfully test thread-related code. The primary emphasis here is on supporting technology rather than techniques.
If you just want to get to the step-by-step instructions, click here.
Broken CodeHere is some simple production code:
01: package com.om.concurrent.example; 02: 03: public class ClassWithThreadingProblem { 04: int lastId; 05: 06: public int takeNextId() { 07: return ++lastId; 08: } 09: }
The name should be a hint that it has problems, and it does. If a single instance of this class is used by more than one thread, it is possible that expression ++lastId on line 7 could fail. How? If one thread starts executing that method and another thread preempts it, then one of the updates could get lost.
Think it is not possible? It is.
What is an atomic operation in the JVM?You can safely skip this section if you are not interested in the bit-head information.
What is an atomic operation? Any operation that cannot be interrupted from when it starts to when it completes. For example, in the following code, line 5, where 1 is assigned to value, is atomic. It cannot be interrupted:
01: public class Example { 02: int value; 03: 04: public void assignOneToValue() { 05: value = 1; 06: } 07:}
What happens if we change line 5 to use ++ instead? It is still atomic?
01: public class Example { 02: int value; 03: 04: public void incrementValueByOne() { 05: ++value; 06: } 07:}
In this case, the answer is it can be interrupted, it is not atomic.
Before we go any further, here are three definitions that will be important:
|Every method invocation requires a frame. The frame includes the return address, any parameters passed into the method and the local variables defined in the method. This is a standard technique used to define a call stack, which is used by modern languages to allow for basic function/method invocation and to allow for recursive invocation.
|Local Variable
|Any variables defined in the method. All non-static methods have at least one variable, this, which represents the current object; the object that received the most recent message (in the current thread), which caused the method invocation.
|Operand Stack
|Many of the instructions in the Java Virtual machine take parameters. The operand stack is where those parameters are put. The stack is a standard LIFO data structure.
Even so, let's have a look at the details of this one line of Java code. The instruction set for the first example, where we assign 1 to the field value, is:
|Operand Stack After
|Load the 0th variable onto the operand stack. What is the 0th variable? It is this. It is the current object. When this method was called, the receiver of the message, an instance of ClassWithThreadingProblem, was pushed into the local variable array of the frame created for method invocation. This is always the first variable put in every instance method.
|Load the constant value 1 onto the operand stack.
|this, 1
|PUTFIELD value
|Store the top value on the stack (which is 1) into the field value of the object referred to by the object reference one away from the top of the stack.
So isn't that three instructions? It is. However, these three instructions are guaranteed to essentially be atomic because while the thread executing them could be interrupted, the information for the PUTFIELD instruction (the constant value 1 on the top of the stack and the reference to this one below the top, along with the field value) cannot be touched by another thread so when the assignment occurs, we are guaranteed that the value 1 will be stored in the field i. The operation is atomic.
That same guarantee does not not apply for 64 bit types (e.g. longs and doubles) since assigning to a 64-bit variables requires two 32-bit assignments.
If we look at the second operation, ++, it gets even worse (assume that value holds 42 at the beginning of this method):
|Operand Stack After
|Load this onto the operand stack.
|Copy the top of the stack. We now have two copies of this on the operand stack.
|this, this
|GETFIELD lastId
|Retrieve the value o the field lastId and store it on the stack. d
|this, 42
|Add the constant 1 to the stack.
|this, 42, 1
|Integer add the top two values on the operand stack and store the result back on the operand stack.
|this, 43
|PUTFIELD value
|Store the top value on the operand stack, 43, into the field value of the current object, represented by the next-to-top value on the operand stack, this.
There are several places where this sequence of steps could be interrupted. One bad case is where two threads both call the same method on the same object. The first thread completes the first three instructions, up to GETFIELD, and the is interrupted. A second thread takes over and performed the entire method, incrementing value by one. Then the first thread picks up where it left off. It has the old value on its operand stack. It adds one and stores the result. This results in adding one two times and only incrementing by one because two threads stepped on each other.
Demonstrating the failure with a testHere's a description of a test that will prove our code is broken:
- Remember the current value of lastId
- Create two threads, both of which call takeNextId() once
- Verify that lastId is two more than what we started with
- Run this until we demonstrate that lastId was only incremented by one, instead of two.
Here is such a test:
01: package com.om.concurrent.example; 02: 03: import static org.junit.Assert.fail; 04: 05: import org.junit.Test; 06: 07: public class ClassWithThreadingProblemTest { 08: @Test 09: public void twoThreadsShouldFailEventually() throws Exception { 10: final ClassWithThreadingProblem classWithThreadingProblem = new ClassWithThreadingProblem(); 11: 12: Runnable runnable = new Runnable() { 13: public void run() { 14: classWithThreadingProblem.takeNextId(); 15: } 16: }; 17: 18: for (int i = 0; i < 50000; ++i) { 19: int startingId = classWithThreadingProblem.lastId; 20: int expectedResult = 2 + startingId; 21: 22: Thread t1 = new Thread(runnable); 23: Thread t2 = new Thread(runnable); 24: t1.start(); 25: t2.start(); 26: t1.join(); 27: t2.join(); 28: 29: int endingId = classWithThreadingProblem.lastId; 30: 31: if (endingId != expectedResult) { 32: System.out.printf("Problem discovered at iteration: %d\n", i); 33: return; 34: } 35: 36: fail("This test should have exposed a threading issue but it did not."); 37: } 38: }
Interesting Lines
|Create a single instance of ClassWithThreadingProblem. Note, we must use the final keyword since we use it below in an anonymous inner class
|12 - 16
|Create an anonymous inner class that uses the single instance of ClassWithThreadingProblem
|Run this code "enough" times to demonstrate that the code failed, but not so much that the test "takes too long." This is a balancing act, we don't want to wait too long to demonstrate failure. Picking this number is hard - although later we'll see that we can greatly reduce this number.
|Remember the starting value. This test is trying to prove that the code in ClassWithThreadingProblem is broken. If this test passes, it proved that the code was broken. If this test fails, the test was unable to prove the the code is broken.
|We expect the final value to be 2 more than the current value.
|22 - 23
|Create two threads, both of which use the object we created in lines 12 - 16. This gives us the potential of two threads trying to use our single instance of ClassWithThreadingProblem and interfering with each other.
|24 - 25
|Make our two threads eligible to run.
|26 - 27
|Wait for both threads to finish before we check the results.
|Record the actual final value.
|31 - 35
|Did our endingId differ from what we expected? If so, return - end the test - we've proven that the code is broken. If not, try again. Report the iteration number at which we demonstrated the error.
|If we got to here, our test was unable to prove the production code was broken so we have failed. Either the code is not broken or we didn't run enough iterations to get the failure condition to occur.
OK, I've lied. This test will not reliably (or even frequently) demonstrate that the code we're testing is broken.
I tried running it with a larger number of iterations and running it multiple times. It did demonstrate the code was broken occasionally, but rarely. In 10 executions with a loop count of 1,000,000, the test failed once. So you can interpret this as roughly a 10% success rate (1 in 10 times demonstrated the failure). Really, it's much worse than 10% as we will see.
Maybe we could improve our chances. We could change our Runnable() from incrementing the value once to 10, 100 or 1,000,000 times. This could increase our success rate. If that does not work, we could increase the loop on line 18 to 1,000,000. Eventually, we could get this test to prove that the code is broken more reliably, right? If that did not work, we could create 5, 10, 100 threads. That's three different dimensions of flexibility we could use to try and prove this code is broken.
Good luck. Even if you get it to fail with 50% reliability in under 30 seconds on one machine, you'll probably have to re-tune the test with different values to demonstrate the failure on another machine, or operating system, or version of the JVM. Note that this is about as simple as multi-threading gets. If we cannot demonstrate broken code easily here, we are in trouble.
So what approaches can we take to demonstrate this simple failure? And, more importantly, how can we write tests that will demonstrate failures in more complex code? How will we be able to discover if our code has failures when we do not know where to look?
Here are a few ideas:
- Make tests flexible, so they can be tuned. Then run the test over and over - say on a test server - randomly changing the tuning values. If tests ever fail, the code is broken (assuming the tests are correct). Make sure to start writing those tests early so a continuous integration server start running them now. By the way, good luck knowing the conditions under which the test failed.
- Run the test on every one of the target deployment platforms. Repeatedly. Continuously. The longer the tests run without failure, the more confident that either:
- The production code is correct
- The tests aren't adequate to expose problems
- Run the tests on a machine with varying loads. If you can simulate loads close to a production environment, do so.
You should be doing all of these things anyway. If you are writing threaded code and you are not doing all of these things, you have a design debt. By doing all of these things, you are simply getting back to a debt of 0 with respect to thread-based testing.
Yet, even with all of these things, you might still not find threading problems with your code. However, lets work off the assumption you've done your due diligence and you want to significantly increase the chances that you'll find threading problems with your code, can you do so?
Tool Support for Thread-Based CodeThere is a tool from IBM called ConTest that will instrument classes to make it more likely that such non-thread-safe code more reliably fails.
Note, I do not have any direct relationship with IBM or the team that developed ConTest. A colleague of mine pointed me to it and I've worked with it a little bit. I noticed vast improvement in my ability to find threading issues after a few minutes of using it.
Here's an outline of how to use ConTest:
- Write tests and production code, making sure there are tests specifically designed to simulate multiple users under varying loads, as mentioned above
- Instrument test and production code ConTest
- Run the tests
When I instrumented my code with ConTest, my success rate went from roughly 10% to roughly 100%. I think in practice 10% is too high since I happened to see the code fail in one run of a series of 10 back-to-back runs. However, I had not seen it fail before nor since. The value of 100% is probably a bit high as well. I checked the value of the loop variable for several runs, and the test was able to demonstrate that the code was faulty early in the loop. Here are the loop values for several runs of the test: 13, 23, 0, 54, 16, 14, 6, 69, 107, 49, 2. That is, ConTest-instrumented classes failed much earlier and with much greater reliability. Every time I have run the test after instrumentation, it demonstrates the code failed. However, I cannot say with certainty that the test will expose the problem 100% of the time. Even so, there's at least one order, and probably closer to 2 orders of magnitude improvement in our ability to discover problems in our thread-based code.
At a first glance, that is the primary purpose of ConTest. It instruments your classes so that during execution time, ConTest adds so-called noise into the execution of your tests. By doing so, it increases the number of ways in which the threads in your tests interleave with each other, which increases the likelihood of exposing unsafe execution orderings. However, it additionally remembers the order in which things occurred, so it is also possible that it can help you figure out why your code broke so you have a better chance of fixing it.
Describing how ConTest actually accomplishes this, and what other features it offers, is better described by several publications.
Getting it WorkingFirst the steps in a nutshell:
- Download ConTest, note you may need to create an account to do so.
- Create a project in your favorite IDE (I'll use Eclipse)
- Configure your test execution to include a command line parameter.
- Configure the "KingProperties" file to include your classes to be instrumented.
Download ConTestAs of this writing, what you ultimately download is a zip file. That zip file contains a single directory, JavaConTest. Extract that file to a convenient location. In my case, I put that directory under the project in my Eclipse workspace directory. Specifically, my workspace directory is ~/src/ConTestFeb2010. I created a project called ConTestDemo, which created ~/src/ConTestFeb2010/ConTestDemo. I extracted the zip file to that directory, which created ~/src/ConTestFeb2010/ConTestFeb2010/JavaConTest.
Create Project
- Create a standard Java project in your IDE
- Create the problem class and test above in some package. (Here are the files without the line numbers for easy copying)
package com.om.concurrent.example; public class ClassWithThreadingProblem { int lastId; public int takeNextId() { return ++lastId; } }ClassWithThreadingProblem
package com.om.concurrent.example; import static org.junit.Assert.fail; import org.junit.Test; public class ClassWithThreadingProblemTest { @Test public void twoThreadsShouldFailEventually() throws Exception { final ClassWithThreadingProblem classWithThreadingProblem = new ClassWithThreadingProblem(); Runnable runnable = new Runnable() { public void run() { classWithThreadingProblem.takeNextId(); } }; for (int i = 0; i < 50000; ++i) { int startingId = classWithThreadingProblem.lastId; int expectedResult = 2 + startingId; Thread t1 = new Thread(runnable); Thread t2 = new Thread(runnable); t1.start(); t2.start(); t1.join(); t2.join(); int endingId = classWithThreadingProblem.lastId; if (endingId != expectedResult) { System.out.printf("Problem discovered at iteration: %d\n", i); return; } } fail("This test should have exposed a threading issue but it did not."); } }For the purpose of the following instructions, the package is: com.om.concurrent.example
Configure Test ExecutionThese instructions are for eclipse. Your IDE will have a similar feature. The import thing is the VM argument below.
- Run the test for the first time. This will probably fail (if not, you got lucky).
- Pull down the Run menu and select Run Configurations...
- Find the run configuration (under JUnit, it will be named the same as your test class name ClassWithThreadingProblemTest)
- Click the arguments tab
- Enter the following in the VM arguments:
-javaagent:JavaConTest/Lib/ConTest.jarNote, this is a relative directory under the current project. If you placed ConTest in another directory, you'll have to make sure to use the correct directory. Run your test again, it will fail and you'll notice output (somewhat shortened):
>>> ConTest: ConTest for Java, version 18.104.22.168 >>> ConTest: build: 02 September 2009 10:40:13 >>> ConTest: (c) Copyright IBM Corporation (1999, 2009), ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. <<<snip>> >>> ConTest: Found 0 listener registery files >>> ConTest: id for this run is: [1266514450576] !!! ConTest: system error: aborting ConTest: !!! ConTest usage error: following exception was thrown: com.ibm.contest.instrumentation.TargetSpecificationException: target classes not specified in preferences at com.ibm.contest.instrumentation.TargetHandler.<init>(TargetHandler.java:103) at com.ibm.contest.instrumentation.InstrumentationAction.<init>(InstrumentationAction.java:311) <<snip>>
The exception is the subject of the next section.
Configure KingProperties
- Find the directory containing ConTest.jar (in my case it is ~/src/ConTestFeb2010/ConTestFeb2010/JavaConTest/Lib)
- Edit the file KingProperties, find the following line:
targetClasses = *
- Replace the * with the package of your test, using / instead of ., e.g.:
targetClasses = com/om/concurrent/example


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2580 E 16th Avenue, Vancouver MLS®: R2256940
Popular Renfrew Heights location. Level Lot, 3976.7 Sq ft lot with 40 frontage, Both with a side lane and back lane. South facing backyard. 2 Level Solid Home, 2 bedrooms on main bungalow with hardwood floors. Just steps to Beaconsfield Park and short walk to Trout Lake, John Hendry Park, Community Centre, 5 Blocks to Lord Beaconsfield Elementary School, 13 minutes walk to Renfrew Skytrain Station or Nanaimo Station. Great location to build a new home or fix up to live or rent. Super Location to Everything.
Taxes (2017): $3,940.66
Site Influences
- Central Location
- Recreation Nearby
- Shopping Nearby
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Listed By: RE/MAX Central
Disclaimer: Listing data is based in whole or in part on data generated by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley Real Estate Board which assumes no responsibility for its accuracy.


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Open Thread: Talk About Clothes, Style, Fashion — Whatever the Heck You Like to Call It
Your place to come talk about clothes whenever you feel like it.
One of the biggest fights I ever got in with my ex-boyfriend was because I completely over packed for our vacation and we missed our flight because we had to deal with checking my overweight, overstuffed bag.
I can still hear him screaming, "Do you really need all this stuff? Do you really need two maxi dresses? Are you kidding? Oh, and thank god you brought four books" like it was yesterday. Memories! Like the corner of my mind!
It's true: I am not naturally a good packer. There are some people who manage to predict everything they will need for a weekend like its no big deal. I am not one of those people. It's not that I'm high maintenance (I mean, I am high maintenance, that's just not why I'm bad at packing).
I just am sorta a hoarder and I am incredibly indecisive. How could I possibly know that I'm going to want to wear that dress on a night that is three nights away? And what if I get bored of that book and need another book? I know I probably won't even have a lot of time to read, but what if?
For one reason or another, I've wound up on a plane about once a month for the past six months. Quickly, it became clear that checking a bag is both a time and money suck. I realized that if I wanted to make my time in the airport as easy and cheap as possible, I needed to get my act together and learn how to pack a carry-on like an adult. Here's what I learned:
1. Only pack that which you love. Like, love.
You know those mornings when you wake up with 15 minutes to spare, but you still have to look like a functioning member of society, so you grab an outfit that you've had forever and know works? Yeah. That's the stuff you should be packing. When you have limited space, you shouldn't be wasting it on those printed pants that you were sorta iffy about because they're a bit tight, but you've wanted printed pants forever. Pick a few outfits you know you love and that you know are comfortable.
2. Consider getting a blowout before you fly.
I know, I know. Who do I think I am? Kate Middleton? But it takes one blowdryer, one straightening iron, two different products, and three different brushes to style my naturally curly hair. Those are things that mama just doesn't have room for. Instead, I get a blowout the night before I fly or the morning of the day I'm flying, depending on flight time.
Of course, this doesn't work for vacations longer than a weekend, but who do you think you are taking a vacation longer than a weekend? If you can afford to leave your life for longer than three days, I am so jealous that I don't even care that you're going to have to pack a blow dryer.
3. One word: dresses.
I wear a lot of dresses and dudes are always like, "Are you going to prom," and I let them in on a Lady Secret: Dresses are really the easiest way to look like you're put together, when really you just put one thing on. Pick a dress you can easily transition from day to night, or can style for lots of different occasions. During the day, you can wear a chambray or sweater over it, and then at night you can throw a statement on it. Boom. Instant sexy time.
4. Stuff things in other things.
Stuff jewelry into your shoes (I like to put the jewelry in a plastic baggie before, just in case). Stuff underwear in a purse. Stuff socks in bras. Just put things into other things and you will save all the room.
5. Downsize your make up bag. Like, by a lot.
I have three large make up bags that hoard all my make up, but bringing those three small children in my suitcase would be a huge waste of room. Instead, I use two zip lock bags: One for products (just the essentials, whatever those may be for you) and one for brushes, since sometimes products will explode and you don't want that ruining your brushes.
I am very specific about what products I put on my face, so I go the extra mile and fill up those travel sized containers with the products I need. If you do that, just be sure to label them with a Sharpee, so you're not sitting on the bathroom floor, trying to figure out if the little white bottle you're holding is face wash or conditioner.
6. Do your homework.
Is the hotel you're staying at going to have a blowdryer? Does your friend's apartment have a straightening iron? Is there a computer where your staying that you'll have access to? Where's the nearest drugstore? Figuring these things out ahead of time can save a lot of room in your suitcase.
7. You don't need to pack a purse.
Unless you're packing a clutch (in which case WHO ARE YOU THAT YOU'RE GOING ON VACATIONS THAT REQUIRE A CLUTCH? DO YOU ALSO TAKE VACATIONS LONGER THAN A WEEKEND?), just use your "personal item" as the purse you plan on using throughout the trip.
Go for something that's large enough to lug around your books, headphones, snacks, pepper spray (Kidding! Kinda! My dad totally bought me pepper spray!), and wallet during the day, but will also be appropriate for the night. I usually bring a large-ish black leather bag, since it matches everything.
Let me know your packing tips below or at @michellelynking. All photos are taken by the lovely Kait Robinson, as per ush.


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It is snowing, she's barefoot, but Galya runs. Her captors are close behind her, and she won't go back there, no matter what. Tricked into coming to Belfast with the offer of a good job, all she wants now is to get back home. Her only hope is a man who gave her a cross and a phone number, telling her to call if she escaped. She puts herself at his mercy, knowing she has nowhere else to turn.
Detective Inspector Jack Lennon wants a quiet Christmas with his daughter. When an apparent turf war between rival gangs leaves a string of bodies across the city, he knows he won't get it. As Lennon digs deeper he discovers the truth is far more threatening. Soon he is locked in a deadly race with two very different killers.
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Answer the following question correctly
Q: Stolen Souls is Stuart Neville's third crime novel. To win a copy, tell us the title of his first!
Send your answer to firstname.lastname@example.com by no later than midnight on Thursday 9th February 2012.
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This competition is now closed. Thanks to all who entered. A copy of Stuart Neville's 'Stolen Souls' is now with the following winners.
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Bob Woody is returning to Hood River on May 25 to be with his wife, Evelyn, and son, Michael. He was born on Nov. 11, 1923, and grew up in a small home on the southern edge of the Hood River Golf Course with his parents, twin brothers and sister. His father died in a fishing accident when Bob was very young and he was raised by his mother.
From caddying as a child in Hood River to the fairways of Augusta National and Pebble Beach, golf was always an important part of his life. Not only was it a source of recreation but it was also a center of his social life.
Bob was a Navy pilot during World War II and shortly after the end of the war, in 1945, married his high school 'hood sweetheart, Evelyn Parks. After the war they returned to Hood River where he began his successful carrier with Standard Oil, driving a delivery truck to wholesale accounts.
Their three sons, Steve, Mike and George, were all born in Hood River and shortly after pouring the foundation for their first home he was promoted to a sales position in Medford. By the time he retired in Seattle in 1983 his promotions had taken him from Medford to San Francisco, Cedar City, Reno, Everett, Seattle, Spokane and back to Seattle.
With his outgoing personality, everywhere they moved they formed lasting friendships with their neighbors, at the local golf clubs and with co-workers.
In retirement he used his Sahalee Country Club membership to play golf several times a week, kept his management skills sharp directing a team of gardeners who helped him to keep their property in perfect condition and sponsoring family expeditions to Maui.
When Evelyn passed away in 2003 after 53 years of marriage, Bob was devastated. The family was very worried about his mental and physical condition until he connected with an old friend. They were wonderful together and a perfect match for each other.
Fran Stevens and Bob were married in 2006 and were able to share many great years together before she passed away in 2011.
In February Bob was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. As he became weaker he moved in with his son Steve and daughter-in-law Carol.
Wednesday the 24th of April was an unusual sunny 80-degree day. In the morning Bob and Steve drove to Brittany Park, where he had lived for the past six years. Many of his friends and the staff were around to tell him how much they missed him and how special he was to them.
Bob had been gaining weight on home cooking and on the way home they stopped and he purchased some new pants. In the afternoon they sat in the sun in the backyard, visited with the nurse from hospice and talked of days gone by. That evening at the dinner table he was vibrant and happy, reminiscing about all of the great times he had experienced.
Prior to going to bed, with a ear-to-ear grin, he said, "I didn't think this day would ever come!" He slept most of the day on Thursday and early on Friday morning, April 26, 2013, he passed away peacefully in his sleep.
He is survived by his sons Steve and George Woody, his granddaughters Christine Smith, Leigh Woody, Shannon Raney and Amy Stocki as well as five great-grand children.
He was a special individual who cared deeply about his friends and family. All of us who know him will miss his wit and wisdom. Bob enjoyed a long and successful life; right up to the end he always did it his way.
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Photographed by Josh Lehrer for Avenue Magazine
Dorothy Herman, Dottie, is the quintessential New York success story. In only two decades, she climbed to the pinnacle of the housing industry – CEO of Douglas Elliman, the #4 ranked real estate company in the United States. Today, under her leadership, Douglas Elliman is New York's largest residential brokerage, with over 6,000 real estate professionals and 675 employees working in more than 80 offices in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, the Hamptons and the North Fork, Westchester/Putnam and South Florida, Aspen and Los Angeles. Dottie created a company that serves the customer's every real estate need. In addition to leading New York's largest residential real estate brokerage and rentals, she also controls a portfolio of real estate services, including commercial and retail leasing and sales, relocation and settling in services, new development consulting and also Manhattan's largest residential property manager, Douglas Elliman Property Management, as well as DE Capital Mortgage.
Dottie began her career on Long Island, and purchased Prudential Long Island Realty in 1989. After turning the company into the powerhouse brokerage operating on Long Island and in the Hamptons, she purchased Douglas Elliman, Manhattan's largest and most prestigious brokerage firm, with her partner Howard Lorber in 2003. Since then, Douglas Elliman has become the largest and fastest-growing real estate firm in New York, with offices from Manhattan to Montauk, and no in Westchester County and South Florida. Dottie is an honored contributor to The Sunrise Fund at Stony Brook University Medical Center, a program established to raise awareness and funds for pediatric oncology programs. In the summer of 2008, Dottie was honored at the 12th Annual Heart of the Hamptons Gala, receiving the Distinguished Community Leadership Award for her continual support and contributions. In 2009, the Guardian Angels honored Dottie with the Outstanding New Yorker Award, and she was named among the 50 Most Powerful Women in New York by Crain's New York Business, an honor she received again in 2011. In 2010, Dottie was named as one of The New York Observer's Power 150 and by Inman News as one of the Top 100 Most Influential Real Estate Leaders. For the last four consecutive years, Dottie has been celebrated on The New York Observer's The Power 100, a list recognizing New York City's most influential people in real estate. She is also host of WOR's popular Saturday morning radio show, Eye on Real Estate, focused on the latest real estate market trends and news. Dottie is a long time supporter of the American Heart Association, the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, the Southampton Hospital, the Katz Institute for Women's Health and Katz Women's Hospital located at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset and LIJ Medical Center in New Hyde Park. She is also involved with the Every Woman Matters Walk: A Walk for Women and Their Families.


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Date Announced: Oct 16, 2010
FOBSUN ELECTRONICS LIMILTED unveils their new frosted T8 LED tube lights recently. The newly developed Frosted LED T8 Tube Light with interior power supply is the next generation T8 LED Tube, from the leader in LED Tube Lighting, FOBSUN, now let us have a look at the unique edges of the new T8 tubes.
What makes this tube different? A patented optical technology used within the tube ensures optimum LED tube brightness, with a 'frosted' look, and 95% more uniform light distribution. This frosted T8 LED tube light can deliver more even light output with high powered SMD LEDs built-in, because all the LEDs are invisible, due to the frosted cover. Maximum brightness just like conventional fluorescent tubes when the light is lit, without any flickering when this frosted T8 Tube Light works, so don't worry about eyestrain. These tubes achieve 1900+ lumens of output, for an even brighter T8 lamp fixture than a conventional fluorescent, without the fear of breaking the fixture due to toxic mercury, and since all of our LED tubes are shockproof, for industrial durability. The new T8 tube offers a record-breaking high power factor of 0.95, which ensures that most energy can be effectively converted into light output without wasting. Therefore, it is real energy efficient replacement for conventional fluorescent tubes.
Lighting source: High power SMD LEDs
Measurement: D1.2*L23.2inch (D30*L590mm), D1.2*L47.1inch (D30*L1196mm)
Light output: 890lm, 1600lm
CRI: 85 Typical
CCT: 2800-4000K, 5000-6000K Typical
Input voltage: 100-277v ac, 50/60 Hz
Energy efficiency: 89lm per watt
Power factor: 0.95
Power consumption: 10+/-1W, 20+/-1W
Fittings: G13 bi-pin
Lifetime: 50,000 hrs
Beam angle: 120 degree
Heat sink: Aluminum housing
IP Rating (Working environment): Indoor use, applicable for dry environment
Operating environmental temperature: -10 to +40 degree Celsius (+14 to +104 degree Fahrenheit)
Storage temperature range: -40 to +85 degree Celsius (-40 to +185 degree Fahrenheit)
Humidity (non-condensing): 5% - 95% RH
About FOBSUN
FOBSUN ELECTRONICS LIMILTED, a high-tech enterprise, founded in 2004, is professionally engaged in researching, developing and manufacturing energy saving products, and mainly specializes in designing, producing, distributing and licensing lighting emitting diode (LED) controllable digital decoration and illumination lighting systems, In 2004, FOBSUN established a factory as a branch of LED lighting devices in mainland.
FOBSUN's main products: LED T5 | T8 Tube Lights, all kinds of LED Downlights (Round, Square, Linear, ELV Dimmable), LED Strips (Flexible, Rigid), LED Spotlights (MR10, GU10, E27, E14, E26, G24), LED Wall Washers(Round, Square, Linear, IP20 or IP65), LED Rope Lights, LED Neon Rope Lights, LED Strings, Drivers, RGB Controllers, Dimmers and DMX Decoders etc.
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"A complex, dream-charged vision of alienation in the wet, mean streets of New York City, where primal, natural urges are suppressed in the lonely isolation of crowds. It's a picture of a soulless civilization headed toward the apocalypse. It's a poetic and lyrical novel—told virtually without words . . . Mr. Drooker has discovered the magic of pulling light and life out of an inky sea of darkness." —Art Spiegelman, The New York Times
Winner of the American Book Award
Introduction by Luc Sante
Original art purchased by Library of Congress
192 pages, 2-color, 9" x 6.25"
Dark Horse Books, hardcover: $24.99
1st Edition ©1992, 2nd Edition ©2002
3rd Edition ©2007, 4th Edition ©2015
"Startlingly beautiful Blood Song . . . has a strong and compelling narrative . . . a mythopoeic account of a young woman's flight from a ruined Eden to the corrupt and terrifying urban world."
—Nick Hornby, The New York Times
"Eric Drooker's elegiac, spiritual, and political Blood Song has no current peer. Written in a language that anyone can understand, exploring themes of universal interest."
312 pages, full color, 9" x 6.25"
Dark Horse Books, paperback: $19.99
1st Edition ©2002, 2nd Edition ©2009
First published in 1956, Allen Ginsberg's Howl is a prophetic masterpiece—an epic raging against dehumanizing society that overcame censorship trials and obscenity charges to become one of the most widely read poems of the century. Now a major motion picture, starring James Franco, this graphic novel is illustrated with animation art Drooker designed for the film.
"In publishing 'Howl,' I was curious to leave behind after my generation an emotional time bomb that would continue exploding in U.S. consciousness, in case our military-industrial-nationalist complex solidified into a repressive police bureaucracy. . . .
"I was also curious to see how [Eric Drooker] would interpret my work. And I thought that with today's lowered attention span TV consciousness, this would be a kind of updating of the presentation of my work . . . He really captured that sense of Moloch I was going for in the second section of 'Howl'—'Moloch whose buildings are judgment!'. . . Drooker's old Poe hallucinations of beauteous deathly reality transcend political hang-up and fix our present American dreams." —Allen Ginsberg
224 pages, full color, 9" x 7"
Harper Perennial, paperback: $19.95
1st edition ©2010
In this current series of paintings & drawings, the artist explores a wide range of nude themes. The upcoming book, O Muse! is inspired by all those who've dropped by Drooker's studio to participate.
"There were times I wondered if my body was too ample or hungry and recalled your expansive and liberating drawings. The way you depict women has helped me come alive." —Joy, Minneapolis, MN
Disguised as a book of innocent postcards, Slingshot is a dangerous collection of Eric Drooker's most notorious posters. Plastered on brick walls from New York to Berlin, tattooed on bodies from Kansas to Mexico City, Drooker's graphics continue to infiltrate and inflame the body politic.
"When the rush of war parades are over, a simple and elegant
reminder of humanity remains—in the work of Eric Drooker."
—Sue Coe
"Drooker's iconic images have a way of lingering. I recently spied one
of his stark cityscapes tattooed on the calf of a young traveler."
—Sarah Ferguson, The Village Voice
68 pages, 3 color, 6" x 4 5/8"
PM Press, paperback: $14.99
Special edition of the 14th century classic, The Divine Comedy with new covers & inner flaps by Drooker. Dante's epic poem is a brilliantly nuanced and moving allegory of human redemption. This acclaimed blank verse translation is published by Penguin for the first time in a one-volume edition.


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Child Held Hostage In Alabama Bunker Freed
(Midland City, AL) A 5-year-old boy who has been held in an underground bunker for a week is safe.
The child was kidnapped from a school bus after the driver was shot dead.
Jimmy Lee Dykes had been holding the child in the bunker, talking with negotiators through a pipe.
Gunshots were heard Monday afternoon and shortly later it was announced Dykes was dead.
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