text:
COMMENTARY / At war Sean Penn finds getting out of Iraq even tougher than getting in
PART 2. Sean Penn did not go to Iraq a year ago as an actor, but as a father, a husband and an American. He made the visit, from Dec. 13 to 15, 2002, to learn about the American-Iraqi conflict from the people who were living through it. A year later, the week before Saddam Hussein was captured, Penn returned to Iraq to find out how life had changed after the American invasion. What follows is the second part of his report of the journey.
My taxi arrives at about 9 p.m., and one of the staff of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting gives the Arabic-speaking cabdriver directions to the restaurant where I'm to meet with Collier (I'll get a goddamn lamb chop yet). I grab my video camera, slip the button to "night shot," and my driver and I hit the road.
It's about a 20-minute drive along a main artery through Baghdad. We're about 10 minutes in when, on the opposite side of the road, I see a U.S. military unit conducting a raid on an apartment building. I tape it from the car as we pass. I zoom in through the back windshield as doors are kicked in, and I stay fixed on the scene until we drift a block and a half away, when the image appears too small to be useful.
As I am about to shut off the camera, I sense a bright light over my right shoulder. Keeping the camera to my eye, I pan past the windshield to where on the right shoulder, six armed Iraqis mill about beside a sandbag- fortified position, housing a long-gunner in front of a nondescript building. We are moving into some traffic as I pan the camera through the passenger-side window. One of the armed men screams something in Arabic at me and raises his rifle toward my camera. We are suddenly stuck in traffic.
I switch off the camera and drop it at my feet as more rifles and voices rise and move toward us. I suddenly fear that my driver might attempt to accelerate and somehow escape. Every instinct tells me that the soldiers would fire on us if he did. I know he doesn't speak English, so I use the universal, "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!"
He whoas and we are surrounded at gunpoint by six guards as they pull us from the taxi. There is a lot of shouting, and my driver looks frightened. We are ushered out of the illuminated area of the street and now, standing in a darkened Baghdad alley, my legs spread, arms extended, I am circled by six leather-jacketed Iraqis, their Kalashnikov rifles trained on me.
Here is what comes to my mind: "Dear Phil Bronstein, please accept my formal resignation from journalism. My understanding is that Giorgio Armani is sending a new linen suit to my California home, and I would like to supply it a body as intact as possible, as the suit is tailored. P.S.: I miss lamb chops. "
In lieu of explaining this in the Arabic I don't speak, I await the commander of this yet-unidentified militia. When he arrives, I am searched. It is not the casual search of amateurs, but rather of people who believe they are going to find a weapon. And then the commander speaks. He speaks in English, reviewing the passport and press credential he has pulled from my pocket. He speaks in good English. This man is no Iraqi. But I can't make out his accent. Perhaps South African.
And then he is joined by another man dressed in what I would call militarized CIA garb: combat boots with camouflage pants tucked into them, topped by a civvy shirt with an identification tag on a long chain around his neck that cannot be read in the darkness of the alley. This one speaks Texas. I'm asked the whys and wherefores of my presence and camera. I am informed that the building being guarded had been car-bombed the previous day and that they will need to review the videotape and detain me for as long as that takes. It seems they are concerned that their fortification is being, in some way, reconned for further attack. I ask with innocent curiosity who I am dealing with.
The Texan curtly informs me, "I work for DynCorp."
I ask for a business card.
Just as curtly, he says, "I don't have a card," then points at the chained identification around his neck, "only this ID."
Of course, we are still in the dark, and it is still illegible. Although the Kalashnikovs have by now been lowered, further questions don't seem to be on the invitation list. And rather than ask them to shine their own flashlights on their identification, I take the "Yes, sir," "No, sir" route as they check the car and its contents for weapons and explosives.
The Texan tells me that when the Iraqis under his charge complete their search, I will be permitted to check that the contents of my bag are intact. They sit my driver and me on a concrete curb, still in the shadows of the alley. I distract myself by rolling the word DynCorp around in my head. Something about "The Parallax View" comes to mind. Something with a scent, redolent of war profiteering.
A third officer exits the building -- another Westerner with a short, cropped beard. It seems it is his job to review the tape I had shot. We sit in the cold night air under guard as the three officers retreat into the building with my camera. It will be another half hour before they return. And the third officer returns my camera, acknowledging that I have only shot what could be seen of their fortification by any civilian on the street and they have not deemed it necessary to erase it. I thank them for their professionalism without commenting on their lack of humor.
When the deafening crack of an assault rifle blasts through the adjacent alley, I scan the faces of this war-experienced crew. There is not a single reaction to the gunshot among them. Evidently, we represent a greater threat than one more lump of lead screaming through the shadowy Baghdad streets at 3, 000 meters per second. My driver and I make haste.
As the rifle concussion vibrates through my head, so does the name DynCorp. I've since done a little research, and here's what I found: DynCorp is a ubiquitous presence in Baghdad. A PMC, or private military corporation, DynCorp was started in the late '40s and given a big recruiting boost by the post-Church Commission firings of thousands of CIA operatives by President Carter in the late '70s.
PMCs, and there are many of them, tend to be staffed and directed by retired generals, CIA officers, counterterrorism professionals, retired Special Air Service men, Special Forces guys and so on. DynCorp is a subsidiary of the benignly named Computer Sciences Corp. DynCorp forces are mercenaries. Their contracts have included covert actions for the CIA in Colombia, Peru, Kosovo, Albania and Afghanistan.
In 1999, the company claimed 25,000 employees. As an aside, DynCorp personnel, contracted to the U.N. police who served in Bosnia, were accused of buying and selling prostitutes, including girls as young as 12 years old. When several DynCorp employees were also accused of videotaping the rape of one of the women, employee Kathy Bolkovac blew the whistle on the alleged sex ring and was immediately dismissed from the company. DynCorp is a "top 25" government contractor, which posted $2.3 billion in revenues in 2002, according to Business Week. It is DynCorp employees who are the security force for the new Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. Former CIA Director James Woolsey is a primary stockholder.
But DynCorp is not alone. Electronic media companies employ a number of PMCs as well. CNN, for example, uses a company called AKE, a British security firm. Certainly, with CNN's high-profile correspondents and camera equipment ripe for pillaging, it's not hard to understand. But let's look at the case of another PMC -- Kellogg, Brown & Root, the company that has the security contract with the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad.
A subsidiary of Halliburton, it is in effect a private military at the disposal of a major American corporation and, at one time, at the personal disposal of Vice President Dick Cheney, who was chief executive of Halliburton.
Thanks to my corporate detention, I am 45 minutes late for dinner with Rob Collier. When I enter, I see Rob sitting at a back table with Vivienne Walt, a former USA Today correspondent who talked with me during my previous visit to Iraq. They are the last remaining patrons in the restaurant. As I wave and approach, I notice Rob raising something to his mouth. Can it be? I move closer. It is. Oh God, no! But it is too late. The last lamb chop disappears into his mouth. I curse DynCorp.
I sit and explain the delay, but there isn't much time to talk. Rob and Vivienne are in a hurry to leave for an interview with Sheikh Ghazi Ajil al- Yawar, a governing council member and tribal chief who lived in Saudi Arabia before the war. Rob invites me along for the ride.
It is about 10:30 p.m. when we drive the short distance from the restaurant to the barricaded neighborhood where the sheikh lives under 24-hour guard. It is strangely quiet as we exit the car and walk the desolate street beyond the barricades. Yawar's security force is expecting us and escorts us to a small sitting room within the compound. The sheikh arrives in full tribal dress and greets us warmly in flawless English. Rob and Vivienne's interview focuses on the U.S. plan for hand-picking a new government by a system of "caucuses" and whether full, free national elections might be better.
I concentrate on the sheikh's philosophical concerns about his country, his people and their future. He describes the geo-psychological shock of a people who have suffered 30 years of war and tyranny and are now confronting both occupation and the possibility of freedom. Though most Iraqis are glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein, his rule, perverse though it may have been, brought a sense of security and order. That has been lost. Yawar becomes emotional as he speaks of his own children, who, for their safety, live in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He speaks of Grand Ayatollah Ali Hussein al-Sistani, the nation's top Shiite religious authority, as representing something we in the Western world might equate to the pope in terms of broad influence, among not only Shiites but Sunnis as well.
Much of the election debate in Iraq rests in the question of whether a constitution should come first, or general elections. And who should participate in writing that constitution? Sistani's view is that, if the United Nations can provide neutral oversight and confirm that the technology to hold elections is available, then elections should precede the writing of a constitution. And under the present state of the governing council, Yawar is concerned that in making those decisions, too many of Iraq's diverse voices would not be heard. Sistani and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani would be important mediating factors here, where people's emotions are running so high.
"Democracy itself," Yawar says, "is a functional philosophy for those who have something to lose. And for the moment, it is difficult for the Iraqi people to understand what is theirs in the first place." Yawar suggests we consider that the United States took seven years to form its Constitution. With emotions in Iraq today at such a height, he says, we should beware of what we provoke and be reminded that "Adolf Hitler did not come into power in a coup d'etat, he was elected, by emotional and hungry people."
Yawar continues: "The hard-liners in Iran would use Iraq as a quicksand to the resources of the United States."
Yawar contends that Western journalists and governments fuel divisiveness in a surprising way. He used the example of an American citizen meeting another on the street: "Hello, how are you?" "I'm fine, thank you. Are you a Jew or a Christian?" In our own culture, we understand that such a question is personal. Guess what? It is in theirs, too. Our focus on the religious differences in this very modern society exacerbates the Iraqi perspective of their own separatism. It strikes me that a man like this would be of great value on American television. His command of the English language and deep roots in Arab culture could bridge some of the gap between our two countries now. Yawar himself, while vehemently against the Saddam regime, still opposes the war. He states succinctly, "But it has happened. So here we are. We begin today."
It's raining outside the compound as the meeting comes to an end. The sheikh thanks us for coming but doesn't walk us all the way to the exposed doorway. Upon exiting the compound, seeing the barricades and the guards, I am reminded of the direct threats and assassination attempts that he and the other members of the governing council constantly endure. Several guards, Kalashnikovs in hand, stand in the rainy night. For the moment, it is quiet, except for the slapping of our feet as we walk away on the wet Baghdad street.
It is some time after midnight when Vivienne drops Rob and me at the Flowerland Hotel before continuing on to the Palestine. I check in to the Flowerland for the night, in a room two floors above Rob's. We have a nightcap in his room, and then he has a story to file, so I go upstairs. The TV doesn't work, the phone doesn't work, distant gunshots echo, and as I lay in bed, I notice that I don't think much about sex in Baghdad, except to notice that I am not thinking about it. I go to sleep ... or something like it.
I know that Rob is leaving for an interview in Fallujah at about 9 the next morning, so I get up early and rap on his door, hoping his satellite phone will be charged and I might borrow it to call home. He answers the door looking like a man who has been up all night and, evidently, he has, filing his story in time for deadline. I am deeply impressed with the risk-taking and commitment of all of the journalists I've met in Baghdad. Feeling guilty, I ask for the use of his sat phone, to which he graciously complies.
I go back up to my room and call home from my balcony overlooking Baghdad. It is a pretty quiet morning, my wife answers, and then, just as bad timing would have it, pop, pop, pop. She asks me what the sound is, and I have to acknowledge that somebody is firing a gun nearby. In this case, probably just into the air, to make the point that their neighborhood's not to be messed with. Nonetheless, I know support for my trip at home is waning.
When I return Rob's sat phone, it is almost 9 a.m., and I tell him I'll be downstairs having a coffee if he wants to join me. He says he'll be meeting "Ahmed" (name changed for his own protection), his "fixer," for breakfast. Fixers are the people who set up your interviews, get you around town and generally fix things. Well, coincidence of coincidences, it was Ahmed who had been my "minder" on my trip the previous December. "Minder" meant the Hussein regime's intelligence personnel designated to keep one's eyes on those things the regime wanted one to see and off those things it did not. But Ahmed had been a warm presence on my first trip, a father sharing stories of his children as I shared stories of mine.
Nonetheless, there is something in the coincidence of our paths crossing again that forces me into a very ugly place. It is, after all, the midlevel Baathists, those not in our "deck of cards," who are largely behind the insurgency. And however prone I am to trust Ahmed, I become equally mindful of how real the danger of misplaced trust is in this area of the world. I will have to be wary of Ahmed. This is the most remorseful moment of my trip: sacrificing instinctual trust or courage for intellectual commonsense and guardedness. Perhaps the Bush administration has gotten to me, too?
I go downstairs ahead of Rob and greet Ahmed in the lobby. It is nice to see him alive. I am eager to hear what he might have to say, now that his old boss is not the new boss, and to hear him describe the experience of his family and himself living through the U.S. bombing campaign and invasion of Baghdad. But Ahmed is reserved and simply lets me know that it is difficult getting by each day to support his family, and I am reserved in sharing many of the specifics of my trip or movements.
He offers to arrange transportation and a translator for me. I decline. I am sorry not to have more time with Ahmed. I had felt that he was a good man who had simply been under Hussein's iron thumb. It seems that my discomfort (even self-importance) in worrying about the coincidence of our interaction is nothing compared with the decision-making that must face the investigative journalist daily. Read that: Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and executed in Pakistan in 2002. This just isn't the time or place to confirm my better instincts about Ahmed. I write these words very aware that Ahmed himself may read them at some point and I confess to him their ugliness.
I'd anticipated I would see him and Rob later that day, when we would all regroup at the Flowerland. What I hadn't thought about was that, with Rob leaving, his sat phone was going, too. But I have a few dinars in my pocket, and I go out on the street where Iraqis, looking to make a little bit of coin, walk the sidewalks with Thuraya satellite phones, selling minutes at an exorbitant rate to anybody with a few bucks and someone to call. So I negotiate poorly, overpay, and call Hiwa Osman at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. He agrees to ride over with my driver Qadir and pick me up. The cab ride the prior evening had not been wildly successful, so I appreciate a couple of familiar faces, one of whom is armed. DynCorp, SchmynCorp. My friend's got a gun now! We'll kick your ass!! BRING 'EM ON!!! We drive back to the institute, where Hiwa, Betsy Hiel and Maggy Zanger, the institute's country director, begin packing for Mosul in the north, where they will set up a training session for the journalists there. Eighteen newspapers have been formed in Mosul since the war. I am asked along, but I am increasingly torn about the fact that my family wants me home and there is no clear way but the highway to leave. All flights have been shut down out of Baghdad for two weeks at this point following the surface-to-air missile attack on a DHL cargo plane, which landed safely with a burning wing. The only other flight option is on an NGO (non-governmental organization) flight called AirServ that flies out once a day, using a spiraling takeoff to avoid surface-to-air missiles, and those flights are booked for the next week.
In addition, I had hoped to catch up with Medea Benjamin and the delegation from Global Exchange. So I let the trip to Mosul go and start working the phone, looking for Medea.
Hiwa, who's become my younger big brother by this point, lends me a cell phone that is exclusive to NGOs. I am able to track down Medea just as she and her delegation are heading into what amounted to a handshake meeting with Ambassador Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq. Though Global Exchange has a long and distinguished record as a human rights organization, and this particular delegation is made up of parents of active-duty servicemen, including Fernando Suarez del Solar, whose son was killed here, and even though Global Exchange had sent meeting requests months in advance, it had not been until they arrived in Baghdad that Bremer agreed to meet with them. And that happened only because of media pressure. I tell Medea that I'll be going by the Palestine Hotel, and I give her the number of the NGO phone. She says she'll call me when their meeting is over and we'll find a rendezvous point.
I ask Ali Muhammed, a student at the institute, if he would come along with me as a translator on my unplanned day, and he says yes. We get a car and head over to the Palestine. As we arrive, American soldiers are filing out the front door of the hotel. One complains, "They're kicking us out for not paying our room charges. It's not like the place is full. And we liberated this goddamn country, didn't we?"
CNN staff members live and have their headquarters in the Palestine, so I stop in on Nic Robertson, who had interviewed me on my last trip around, just to see a familiar face. We have a quick hello, after which Ali and I tour the grounds and greet, talk with and take pictures of the American kids protecting the hotel. Then the phone rings. It is Medea, calling to say she and the delegation are heading over to the Baghdad University for Economic and Administrative Sciences for a sit-down with its formerly Baathist dean. It's way the hell out in Wazirya, about a 45-minute drive.
But I get there just in time to see what a firecracker Medea is in her interaction with Dean Mohamed Taka. He had written a book on the negative effects of globalization prior to U.S. intervention. Medea challenges him to spearhead a letter from Iraqi economists to denounce a U.S.-enforced investment code favoring contracts to foreign companies over Iraqi companies. The dean is fearful of taking such a position, saying that his "bosses," the U. S. government, would "fire him or worse." After the meeting at the university, I piggyback with Medea and her clan over to Al-Iskan children's hospital. I had visited the Al-Mansour hospital on my trip last year and am eager to see the improvements the occupying authority has brought to the care of Iraqi children. Except there aren't any. The hospital is filthy, extremely understocked and staffed, and low on medicine and blood. It's a place you wouldn't bring a mangy dog for veterinary care, yet it's where the world's most dense collection of infant leukemia patients live and are being cared for. I am trying to photograph a dirty syringe on the hospital floor when an Iraqi guard (there are guards everywhere. And yes, they're armed in the hospital) pushes my camera away. An ABC news crew is following del Solar on his journey through Iraq, so the hallway is pretty crowded. I grab Ali and take off.
We head through the parking lot to our car, when BAM! A rifle shot about 70 yards away. It's like being hit on the ear with a board. Ali asks me if I am bothered by the constant gunshots in Baghdad. I answer, "I'm not if you're not." But still, I notice my step quickens as we close in on the car.
The ride back to institute headquarters still seems a little hallucinatory. It is rush hour in a war zone. There are gunshots, military actions, whirring helicopter blades and the all-pervasive call to prayer. All these faces in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, looking at me, a Westerner. Suspicious faces. Or is it I who am suspicious?
Crossing the bridge over the Tigris River, I drop Ali off on a wide boulevard near his home. We take a picture together on the sidewalk, and I promise to send him a copy (a camera defect left the photo unexposed). He writes down a Hotmail e-mail address. Hotmail.com? This world's getting too small for war.
Back at the institute, the place feels empty with so many of its journalists on the road to Mosul. I have a couple of shots of Glenfiddich and wait out the hours until morning, San Francisco time, and call home. My wife informs me that my son has said, "If anything happens to Dad, I'll never forgive myself" (remember, I asked his "permission"). Needless to say, it was time to start organizing my way out of this place. I call my assistant, Sato, back in San Francisco and say, "I don't care if it's a military flight, an NGO or a spaceship, just get me out of here." I leave it to her to work something out by morning, down a few more shots and go to sleep. When I wake, I call her and she informs me there would be no flights out but that Samson Mulugeta, Newsday's Africa correspondent, has just finished a month in Baghdad and will be taking a taxi the 12 hours back to Amman at 8 that morning. It is about 6: 30 a.m. and I have to pack and figure out a ride to his hotel across town, and then it occurs to me that I never paid my bill at the Flowerland Hotel, where I'd stayed with Rob the night before. The idea of walking out on that bill crosses my mind, but not proudly, and I can't do it. I haven't flown here to rip off the Iraqis. Nor do I want to do my impression of Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress opposition group, who, when in exile, fled a bank fraud allegation from Jordan, hightailing it through the night in the trunk of a car to Turkey, awaiting the personal benefits for American intervention in Iraq.
Steve Negus, who had recently joined the institute as an editor, is in an upstairs bedroom and is the closest thing to an Arabic translator I can get so early in the morning. I rudely awaken him, and bless the guy, he gets me a cab -- mind you, the rattiest little cab I've ever seen. I can barely see through the spider-cracked windshield, but it gets me across town by 7:45 a.m. First, to the Flowerland, where I pay my bill, and then I go on foot through a maze of car-bomb barricades to Samson's hotel. I run up the steps into the building, where I call up to Samson's room and tell him, breathing heavily, "I'm here. I made it. It's 8." Samson laughs and says he'll be right down. I walk out onto the stoop in front of the hotel to smoke a cigarette in the morning air. And there they are, another unit of PMC men polishing their rifles, suiting up in bulletproof vests and warming up the engines of armored vehicles. And out of the hotel comes their client. He too has a chain around his neck with an identification card, sees me and says, "Hey, aren't you ...?"
"Yeah," I say. "Your ID card says contractor. What do you build?"
And with a smile, he says, "Elections."
"How do you do that?"
He grins a little more and says, "Whatever it takes."
(Could this guy be from Florida?)
He jumps in with the armed convoy, and off they go.
As I wait for Samson in the cool morning air, I consider how much of what I've seen looked like something out of my business, the movies. Little do I know all that would happen in the weeks to follow.
Just then, I get a tap on my shoulder.
"Are you Sean?"
I say, "Yes," and extend my hand. "Samson?"
He nods and we shake hands. My immediate impression of this Ethiopian- born journalist is big smile, good brain. I grab my duffel and we jump into the backseat of a cab. The driver tips his moony eyes to the rearview mirror and says a thickly Arabic-accented "Hello." The folds in his unshaved cheek suggest a smile. I am about to cross the Sunni Triangle in a yellow cab with the Peter Lorre of the Middle East. A couple of blocks from the hotel, Samson picks up some water, bread and bananas for our ride. We take a deep breath as we head out toward Fallujah, Ramadi and ultimately Amman.
The first tense 200 kilometers have just fallen behind us as our driver, Yasir, looks to some kids on the roadside who are selling petrol out of used water bottles. He smiles at us, "Petrol?" "No, no," we say. "Not now." We were still too close to where all the banditry takes place. So he smiles more broadly and says, "Good. Petrol," as though we had agreed to the purchase. "No, no," we cry. He just smiles and pulls over.
There's a strange irony in Iraq right now. The gas lines in the city take all day. With the second greatest reserves of petroleum in the world, right under their feet, they're experiencing a shortage beyond what we experienced in the United States in the early '70s. This is partly due to pipelines being sabotaged, partly to the influx of huge numbers of new cars and partly due to the tragic, poetic irony of war. Most cabdrivers work one day on and one day off, using the alternating days to wait in line to fill their tanks.
But we get the guy who wings it. One damn Dixie Cup of black market gas, every 40 or so kilometers. By the time we are halfway to the Jordanian border, we've stopped for gas so many times, I want someone to kill me. Samson and I feel like calling the Ali Baba hot line, trying to identify our own car for attack. "We have cash and I'm American. I didn't vote for Bush, but if you don't get out here and kill me, I might when I get home."
No such luck.
Again, our driver: "Petrol?"
Samson and I give in. We mash some banana into our bread and chew on it as if it were a rare rib-eye steak.
I know we are getting close to the border as we pass the forked junction to Syria. Then, there it is, right in front of us: Jordan. We are a hundred yards from the border when Yasir suddenly makes a U-turn.
"This can't be happening," I tell Samson.
"Yasir, where-you-go?" Samson pleads. (That was the extent of Samson's Arabic, by way of English.)
You guessed it: It occurs to Yasir we should go back 5 kilometers for one last pinch of petrol at Iraqi prices before hitting Jordan. So 5 kilometers back we go. We pull over and I get out of the car to urinate roadside while Yasir fills up. None of the black-market gas kids or Iraqis passing in vehicles pays me any attention. The one honk I get from a passing vehicle is from an armored car of PMC men transporting clients into the country. The honk seems to indicate their misguided sense of kinship to me. Perhaps they are familiar with the practice of pissing on this tragic place. I finish up and once again, we head for the border.
By the time we arrive in Amman, I haven't shaved and hardly showered for four days. Samson and I check into the Hyatt. I have about five hours before my flight to Paris. So I shower, shave and meet Samson for dinner in the lobby of the hotel. God, it is civilized. We talk politics for a bit and discuss having Ethiopian food sometime in the future together in Johannesburg. But he leaves me with the following thought, "Syria's next." (Days after I returned home to the United States, President Bush formally signed economic sanctions against Syria.)
I get the Air France flight from Amman to Paris and am abruptly reminded of my own notoriety as the pilot invites me to experience takeoff from the cockpit. If I'm on my way home to take more crap from the radical right talking heads on TV, I am damn well gonna strap into a jump seat directly behind a French pilot. And when I do, there sitting to my right in the jump seat behind the co-pilot is CNN's Christiane Amanpour. Every French story has to have a woman. And I've always found this woman impressive. One would think she'd had enough adventures for any six lifetimes, yet she still seems innocently excited about this cockpit takeoff. To look at her face, you think she's just strapped herself into a roller coaster at Disneyland. She is all giggles. I pretend to share her enthusiasm by accessing the glee I feel just being out of Iraq. For her it is just plain fun, for me it is an escape. And a successful one. My son will not be blaming himself for anything bad that would happen to his dad.
In Paris, another five-hour layover, peeling one red wax seal off a piece of cheese after another (complimentary in the Air France lounge) and chasing each one with a miniature can of Fanta. I throw in a cracker here or there. These are not acts of boredom or hunger. I am just exercising my rights. And I enjoy peeling wax, until up, up, (and an Ambien) and away. I sleep over the Atlantic and the North American continent until we land in San Francisco.
Wheels down. Terra firma, U.S.A., baby. Yes, I love my country. The taxi time of a plane at SFO is mercifully short, so in no time I'm chugging through the airport with my duffel over my shoulder, quick through customs and into the happy hug of my relieved wife.
The last sound I hear before exiting the airport is over the PA system, resonating like the Iraqi call to prayer, "Please report any suspicious activity ..."


text:
"It was midway through the Yankees' 7-6 win last night against the Orioles in Yankee Stadium that YES broadcaster Michael Kay threw out a tidbit designed to give Yankee fans cause to swagger anew. Only once in the team's long history, Kay said, had the Yankees been in first place this late in the season and failed to finish."
Michael Kay looks like a pencil eraser. And besides that juvenile little 4th grade crack, he's also a pompous jerk and a moron.
And he's just done it. He just ended the Yankees season. Pretty soon, in about 12 days, St. Joe Torre and Willie Randolph can both go golfing at Wykagyl, pondering whether or not they'll still have jobs.
The Yankees have stuck their plum, fat thumbs in the eyes of the baseball gods for too long now. And last year, as Dave Roberts slid into second in game four, just two outs from a sweep, the Gods finally stopped taking it from the Bronx Bombers.
The Gods in heaven finally got sick of Ruth eating hot dogs and farting. They got sick of DiMaggio being an aloof jerk. They were tired of Mantle's drinking and Munson trying to get angel wings to learn how to fly (insert off-color bad pilot joke here).
And finally, the Gods of baseball sat down and listened to Ted Williams. He spoke loudly and bombastically, but he made sense. You had to swing up on the ball, as the pitcher has a 12% advantage coming off the mound. He spoke of hitting home runs when they didn't count and missing some of his best chances at a World Series title because he served his nation - not once, but twice.
He bragged that when Bob Feller finally reached the pearly gates, that he would finally get the best of him in heaven's full-scale replica of Fenway. And tears welled in his eyes as he described what it was like to see ole Needlenose - Johnny Pesky - be able to hold that World Series trophy high and put one of those gigantic World Series rings on his finger.
The Gods know. They understand. They listen. They respond.
The Red Sox, as beaten and battered as they are, will win the American League east title. They will win it, presumably, in the last game of the season. And it will come in, well, one of those Yankee fashions. Remember 1996? Remember that "true Yankee team?"
The guys that got them there to that title didn't have their own planes, eight numbers and three commas on their paychecks, and frighteningly blue lips (or blue man-parts and back acne either).
It was Scott Brosius who hit the big homer. It was Luis Sojo who came up with the clutch pinch hit slapper. It was Charlie Hayes who made the final FF5 scoring play to end the game. It was a rookie fireballer who set up the ninth for the erstwhile closer.
Get ready for the Bill Mueller clutch diving play and big double in the gap. Get ready for Alex Cora to come up big when his back is against the wall. Get ready for the other Manny, the new Clemens, and a kid who is just five months removed from rising and sleeping in the shadows of Utopia Parkway.
It's destiny now. It's our destiny. It happened that way last year. Curses be damned, the Babe is speaking in softer tones now, up there. Now it's Ted. Ted is bellowing and it's now Ted's curse - not so much as a spell or a voodoo, but mostly his language.
And it's karma - for all the pomposity that comes from the mouths of Kay and the equally as horrible John Sterling. It comes right back around. Just like Ron Burgandy's guns, "they'll gitcha; they'll gitcha everytime." (check!)
For as great as the only comeback from an 0-3 deficit in Major League Baseball history last year was - when the Sox were the ham sandwich to the Yankees Mama Cass - the measure of how far we as Sox fans and the whole Red Sox Nation (god, I'm really beginning to hate that term, esp. in light of the fact Shaughnessy came up with it and pardon the run-on sentence but it's my blog and I can do what I want, but you should all click on the link up top for Sheriff Sully and read his latest "Under the Bus" entry. It's priceless...)
Sorry, I digress...the measure of how far we've come is how we follow it up the following year. While I firmly believe that not making the playoffs is not the end of the world, I don't believe that is going to be the case. What will be great is the manner in which the Sox do make it.
Final weekend. Three games to glory - and sorry Dr. Charles, the boys down on Rt. 1 have that phrase trademarked - at the end of the season. A true season-ending series, as the one left standing when the music stops ought to breakout the Ping Zings and get going. And when this happens, with the Sox' big hit coming from one of the aforementioned players, it will be a total and complete reverse of fortunes. The Gods are on our side now.
I close this rambling stream of consciousness with this: a called to WEEI's Whiner Line a few weeks back made a funny and I stole it and have been using it as my own. As many of you know, that's how I get my humor. But the caller said something along these lines:
"5 games up. 5 games back. 1 game out. Back to 5 back. 1st place. Then 2nd place. Then nothing. Hey Yankee fans, welcome to the last 86 years of our lives."
Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]

subset: commoncrawl


text:
£34,000 Offers over
Part Exchange Available , Traditional First Floor Flat , Lounge , Kitchen , Bedroom , Shower Room , Double Glazing , Electric Heating , Secure Entry Move Quick are open 7 days a week: Monday - Friday 8am - 8:30pm &Saturday &Sunday 9am - 6pm to arrange your viewing appointment.
Lounge - 3.4 x 3.7 (11'2 x 12'2 )
Kitchen - 3.8 x 1 (12'6 x 3'3 )
Bedroom - 3.9 x 3.2 (12'10 x 10'6 )
Shower Room - 1.7 x 1.8 (5'7 x 5'11 )
Move Quick presents to the market this Traditional Sandstone First Floor Flat located in the popular village of Lochwinnoch. The property sits in a quiet position with views over towards Castle Semple Loch. The property will make an excellent purchase for the first time buyer as well as the buy to let investor.
The accommodation on offer comprises a hallway this gives access to the lounge which is to the rear of the property, there is a door off the lounge giving access to a galley kitchen with both wall and floor mounted units with additional shelving providing extra storage. The bedroom is to the front of the property and is a good size double. The shower room completes the accommodation, this is fitted with a three piece suite comprising a wc, wash hand basin and shower cubical with electric shower.
Further enhancements to the property include electric heating and secure entry.
The village of Lochwinnoch has a wide range of facilities including primary schooling, local shops and recreational pursuits including water sports at Castle Semple Loch and an 18-hole golf course. There is a railway station with rail links to Glasgow Central and the Clyde Coast and good arterial road links towards the Clyde Coast and inland towards Glasgow International Airport, Braehead Shopping Centre and Glasgow City Centre.
This house description is based upon information supplied by the owner, or on behalf of the owner. These property particulars are produced in good faith and do not constitute or form part of any contract. s1homes do not take any responsibility for the accuracy of the information contained in this document.
If a property value displays '0', don't worry it just means no properties have been sold in that area during that time.
Sold house price data is supplied to us by the Registers of Scotland, a government department responsible for compiling and maintaining property registers, every month. There can be a delay of up to 3 months from when a property is sold to being recorded with Registers of Scotland. We provide house price data for your information only, we do not accept any liability for any errors. If you have noticed any incorrect information, please contact Registers of Scotland.


text:
On Wednesday, the hull of the first of the Royal Australian Navy's two new amphibious ships, HMAS Canberra, arrived in Australia aboard Dockwise's MV Blue Marlin, following a 13,000 nautical mile trip from Spain.
The HMAS Canberra is the first of two Landing Helicopter Docks (LHD) for the Royal Australian Navy and, upon completion, will be the largest ever warship to serve in the RAN.
The hull measures 230m long and 32m wide, making it the same length as the Rialto Tower in Melbourne.
The height from waterline to the aft mast is just 40cm lower than the deck of the Sydney Harbor Bridge.
The flight deck on the LHD is as big as 24 tennis courts and could fit four ANZAC class frigates.
At full load, Canberra will displace 27,851 tonnes, making the new LHDs the largest ships to serve in the RAN.
Construction of LHD 01 began in September 2008. The first three blocks were laid down in September 2010 and the hull was launched in February 2011.
The hull was constructed in Spain by shipbuilder Navantia and has taken around nine weeks to complete the 13,000 nautical mile voyage to Australia.
HMAS Canberra will be accepted into service in 2014, followed by her sister ship HMAS Adelaide (LHD02) the following year. Upon arrival at Port Phillip Bay, the HMAS Canberra was greeted by the men and women of HMAS Cerberus on October 17, 2012.
All photos (c) Australian Royal Navy


text:
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
By Pawan Rana
Renault to launch Nissan Evalia based MUV in India
Renault seems to be planning a big show for India. It is about to launch the Renault Duster SUV tomorrow and there are reports that inspired by the huge success of Maruti Ertiga, the French car maker will be launching its MUV in the country soon. The Duster SUV launch tomorrow will be followed by Renault Scala sedan launch during the festive season. The Renault MUV will be launched sometime late this year or early next year. In the absence of any confirmation by Renault, the MUV has been a guess work till now but there will be one indeed in order to complete coverage of all the segments.
|See More Nissan Evalia Photos
|Get Nissan Evalia Price
Renault has been pretty aggressive about India as it is one of the major emerging car markets of the world. After the launch of Renault Duster tomorrow, the car maker will be preparing for the rebadged Nissan Sunny avatar – Renault Scala launch in Oct – Nov this year. The MUV by Renault is also expected to be a rebadged avatar and this time Renault will be copying Nissan Evalia that is also expected to be launched this year. The Evalia MUV is a seven seater car with lots of headroom, legroom and elbow room even at the third row. Meanwhile, Nissan also plans to launch a commercial version of the Evalia in collaboration with Ashok Leyland. This MUV will be called as Ashok Leyland Stile and as per the latest updates Stile launch will be a little delayed.
|See More Nissan Evalia Photos
|Get Nissan Evalia Price
Meanwhile, there are also reports that Ford is also coming up with the seven seater avatar of its upcoming SUV Ford Ecosport. Being under four meter for India, the Ecosport is supposed to be a five seater as the squeezing of the extra .3 meter from the Brazilian counterpart means that there will not be enough legroom for the third row.
Comments (1)
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
I like the features but first I would like have test drive.


text:
Isobutene process
Global Bioenergies was founded in 2008 with a unique goal – to develop a process converting renewable resources (sugar, crops, agricultural and forestry waste) into isobutene, one of the main petroleum derivatives.
This new approach based on gas fermentation has two major advantages and will bring down operating costs:
- The main drawback of conventional fermentation processes – the liquid product that builds up in the reactor is toxic to the micro-organism – has been overcome since the product evaporates spontaneously. The process can even be implemented almost continuously.
- The purification stage is simpler – the isobutene merely has to be extracted from the air, CO2 and steam, rather than having to separate a liquid compound from a complex and varying cultured broth. Conventional methods, tried and tested over many decades, can achieve this.
Why use this process?
Because isobutene, one of the major building blocks of the petrochemicals industry, represents a market worth $25 billion and may one day address an additional market worth $400 billion. 15 million tonnes are produced every year and are turned into plastics, rubbers and fuels.
Why was it a scientific challenge ?
Because micro-organisms do not naturally produce isobutene. And it's easy to understand why. A micro-organism converting its nutrients into isobutene, a volatile compound, would soon lose its carbon stores and be discarded by evolution. We had to "recode the software" in micro-organisms in our laboratory to make them produce the compound.
For the first time, an artificial metabolic pathway – a series of enzymatic reactions – was created from scratch. When implanted into a host micro-organism, it can convert sugars into isobutene in a several-stage process
This ground-breaking achievement has opened up the entirely new domain of synthetic biology.
Modified micro-organisms have been used in fermenters on an ever-increasing scale, initially in a laboratory and now in an industrial pilot. They are intended for use in plants in rural areas where they can produce fuel, plastics and rubbers using this alternative technology.


text:
In the past, I've written about how women are comfortable relating to male characters, and now I want to tackle it from the other end: are men uncomfortable relating to female characters, and if so, why?
To answer the first question. There's no hard and fast research on this, so I have to base my answers on experience and observations. Personally, I've never heard a guy go on about how much his life is like some female characters', or how much he relates to something that happened to her on a show. So while I'm not quite sure they don't relate, it seems to me they don't acknowledge it if they do. Try to imagine a guy telling you he's getting sick of some conspiracy theorist who keeps bugging him at work. Now try to imagine him saying, "Jeez, I felt like Agent Scully after a while". Even though that's a gender-neutral comparison – in fact, Scully's role as the grounded and scientific partner is often a male role – it's just not the comparison most guys would make.
I'm not criticizing guys for this. I want to make that clear.
I think the reason is that, no matter how enlightened you are as an individual, we've all inherited a ton of brainwashing from infancy on, telling us that women and men don't have the same roles in society, and women's roles are inherently second-class. When women and girls want to have male roles in society, it's discouraged – but it's seen as only natural. But when men and boys want female roles, not only is it discouraged – it's evidence that there's something badly wrong with them. Examples of some stereotyping that illustrates my point:
- If a girl wants a toy gun, that's cute. If a boy wants to play with dolls, there's a trip to a psychitrist in his immediate future.
- If a wife wants to work outside the home while raising her kids, that's selfish. If a husband wants to raise his kids while only his wife works outside the home, he's an unfit husband.
- Women wear pants with society's approval, but a man wearing a skirt to work is probably at risk of getting arrested.
This is how entrenched our society is in the assumption that men's roles are better than women's. No wonder so many people of both genders relate more to male characters – their roles are predefined as best. But even setting the pre-definition aside, far more male than female characters get to do stuff and think cleverly and develop depth. They can be unsympathetic heroes and likeable villains and all the other shades of grey. With exceptions, female characters just aren't allowed this level of variety and emotional truth.
Basically, it's embarrassing to relate to most female characters. I mean, if you tell me you feel like Rachel Green from Friends, I am so going to write you off as a vapid, selfish twit, no matter your gender.
So if we get more female characters like Ripley from Alien, whose roles could easily have belonged to either gender, will we eventually get men saying, "Jeez, I felt just like Ripley trying to tell them the mission was a bad idea". I think we might need some conscious re-adjustment before that happens, but the the first step has to be assembling a mass of female characters no one would be embarrassed to admit they relate to.
[Edited for clarity – I hope – after Telepresence's insightful comment.]


text:
Get Inspired Radio with Sue London: - From The Hit TV Series- Little House on the Prairie Meet Nellie Oleson, Actress Alison Arngrim - Encore Presentation
02/27/2014 02:00 pm PDT
Alison Arngrim, is most famous for her iconic character of Nellie Oleson on the 11 year TV hit series "Little House on the Prairie." In fact, Vanity Fair chose the character as the 1 Bitch of in all TV History, second to Joan Collins Alexis Colby. This has led to a world wide cult following. When asked about the publics response to her famous alter-ego, Alison says "Someone has called me a bitch to my face every single day of my life since I was 11 years old." Learn what has happened in Alison's life since Little House On The Prairie. You will be surprised to learn what the real actors were like on that show
Sue London
Sue London helps people overcome difficult or traumatic situations in their lives. Through her radio show GET INSPIRED, coaching, writing and motivational speaki...Find out more »
Alison Arngrim
Alison Arngrim, best known to viewers world-wide for her portrayal of the incredibly nasty "Nellie Oleson" on the much loved, long running hit television series "Little Hous...Find out more »


text:
A nice little photo tour around locker rooms of the NFL, which don't look that different from each other, although a few stand out thanks to actually making their floor … More
Sometimes, team logos need a little bit of modernization and a touch of a redesign. The NFL teams aren't currently doing anything, so OspreyDawn over on reddit decided that making the best use of his time would be to make new logos for some of the NFL teams he felt were in need of a new flavor and image on their helmets. More


text:
A samurai sword-wielding man was arrested in Manhattan Friday evening, according to Port Authority police.
Cops say Orlando Lassiter, 51, was charged with criminal possession of a weapon and disorderly conduct after menacing people with the weapon outside of a subway station near Watts Street at around 8:30 pm.
Lassiter, who is believed to be homeless, was seen holding the sword by veteran Port Authority police officer James Dunphy, who pursued Lassiter to Barclay and Church Streets, where he was disarmed and arrested.
The blade measured in at 27 inches in length, police say of the sword.
There were no injuries, according to authorities.


text:
Does your skin itch or do you have an inexplicable cough? Well,fungus can be your cause for itchy skin or coughing symptoms.
Fungal infections often start in your lungs or on your skin when their spores are inhaled or make a skin landing. Fungus can survive off your dead hair, nails, skin tissue.
Some of those itchy skin or coughing conditions caused by fungus include:
- aspergillosis
- cryptococcus
- sporotrichosis
- blastomycosis
- histoplasmosis
- tinea capitis ~ scalp
- tinea cruris ~ jock itch
- pulmonary aspergilloma
- tinea corporis ~ ringworm
- tinea pedis ~ athlete's foot
- candidiasis ~ yeast, thrush
- mucormycosis ~ bread mold
- onychomycosis ~ nail infection
- coccidioidomycosis ~ valley fever
- tinea versicolor ~ chronic skin infection
Fungi can be difficult to kill. And your likelihood for getting a fungal infection increases with a weakened immune system or antibiotics use.
Fungus can cause or contribute to other health conditions as well, such as:
- vulvitis
- arthritis
- cellulitis
- sinusitis
- pneumonia
- pericarditis
- esophagitis
- myocarditis
- bronchiectasis
- Addison's disease
- seborrheic dermatitis
Antifungal creams, ointments and sprays are available for treating itchy skin and nail infections. Oral antifungal medicines may be prescribed for other serious coughing infections.
Unfortunately for some, fungal skin infections come back again and again. Your health status is not to blame, because even healthy immune systems adapt to their presence without a reaction.
Fungus thrives in moist, warm environments. This is why certain skin areas are more vulnerable. One healthy way to minimize this cause is via dry maintenance.


text:
Effective 20 November, the east and west entrances to Jefferson Hall will be secured 24/7 and will be available for emergency exit only. All those seeking to enter or exit Jefferson Hall should use the main south entrance across from Bartlett Hall. This change is at the direction of the Superintendent and is designed to improve security for cadets, faculty, and staff. Signs in the hallways and on the doors themselves will redirect traffic through the main entrance. All cadets, faculty, and staff, including those assigned to Jefferson Hall are asked to adhere to and uphold this access policy.
Staff who work in Jefferson Hall and who require off-hours access through one of the restricted entrances may continue to enter, however, they must ensure that the entrances remain secure and locked after entering. Staff access through these doors is only permitted when the facility is closed. We will have additional guidance forthcoming regarding access procedures for personnel assigned to Jefferson Hall once it is complete.


text:
Join us for the Annual Kentucky Derby Day party on Saturday, May 5 at MBC sponsored by the frostbite fleets. This is a fun day with Mint Juleps, wine, and beer along with assorted snacks. No need to bring an appetizer. Do your homework and be prepared to put money on your favorite horse. Derby Day Party starts at 5 PM and the race starts about 6:30 PM. Door prizes will be awarded after the race.
$7 per adult. Children $2 per. Reservations appreciated but not required.
Contact Denis Farley: firstname.lastname@example.com (732) 571-5142


text:
All Active Directory (AD) administrators have to deal with paths to objects in AD. Usually, these paths are distinguished names (DNs) of objects in the directory (e.g., "CN=Ken Dyer,CN=Users,DC=fabrikam,DC=com"). For various reasons, it's useful to retrieve parts of these names. For example, string parsing is often used to retrieve the parent container of a named AD object. One way of doing this is to find the first comma in the DN and retrieve the rest of the string after it, as Figure 1 shows.
However, simple string parsing has its limitations. For example, a comma isn't an illegal character inside a DN, but it needs to be escaped using a backslash character. That is, suppose the user object's name is "Dyer, Ken" instead of "Ken Dyer". In this case, the DN is "CN=Dyer\, Ken,CN=Users,DC=fabrikam,DC=com." The string parsing technique illustrated in Figure 1 will output " Ken,CN=Users,DC=fabrikam,DC=com" (including the leading space) because of the comma in the first element of the DN ("CN=Dyer\, Ken").
Commas aren't the only characters that require escaping. You also need to escape the forward slash (/) when specifying a DN for use with Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI). For example, consider the command:
$user = [ADSI] "LDAP://CN=HRUser,OU=H/R,DC=fabrikam,DC=com"
This command will fail because the forward slash in the organizational unit's (OU's) name ("CN=Jeff Smith,OU=H/R,DC=fabrikam,DC=com") isn't escaped. To make the command work, you need to escape the forward slash with a backslash, as follows:
$user = [ADSI] "LDAP://CN=HRUser,OU=H\/R,DC=fabrikam,DC=com"
If none of your AD objects' names contain commas, forward slashes, or other characters that require escaping, string parsing will work (until you run into an object in AD that contains an unexpected character). However, the effectiveness of your scripts shouldn't depend on specific naming conventions in AD. Scripts should work with any valid AD names, regardless of whether characters need escaping.
Because properly escaping AD paths is more complicated than it seems at first, Microsoft provided the Pathname COM object. The Pathname object provides a way to specify an AD path and retrieve it (or parts of it) in a number of different formats. It also provides automatic escaping if needed. The Pathname object is relatively straightforward to use in a VBScript script, but it's more awkward and difficult to use in Windows PowerShell because it lacks a type library. The NameTranslate COM object has the same type of problem, as I describe in my article "Translating Active Directory Object Names Between Formats." You have to use the same kind of code to interact with the Pathname object as you do with the NameTranslate object. Specifically, you need to call the InvokeMember method of the Pathname object's base object.
Introducing Get-ADPathname.ps1
Rather than continually deal with the awkward syntax of the InvokeMember method, I wrote a PowerShell script, Get-ADPathname.ps1, that provides a more straightforward way to interact with the Pathname object. The script can perform seven kinds of actions based on the parameters you specify. These action parameters are listed in Table 1. All the action parameters in Table 1 (except for -GetEscapedElement) also require the -Path parameter, which specifies the AD paths you want to parse.
|Action Parameter
|Retrieves AD paths. This is the default parameter.
|Adds elements to an AD path.
|Removes the final element from an AD path.
|Splits an AD path and outputs the individual elements as a list.
|Outputs an AD path's element based on its index number. The leftmost element's index number is zero.
|Outputs the number of elements in the AD path.
|Outputs an element with the correct escape characters inserted.
|* -GetNumElements isn't strictly necessary because -Split outputs this number of elements. ** -GetEscapedElement doesn't use any of the modifier parameters listed in Table 2.
In addition to the action parameters listed in Table 1, there's a set of modifier parameters that affect the script's input (-Path and -Type) and its output (-Format, -EscapedMode, and -ValuesOnly). These parameters are listed in Table 2. Each action parameter in Table 1 (except for -GetEscapedElement) use one or more of the modifier parameters in Table 2.
|Modifier Parameter*
|Specifies the AD paths. This parameter supports pipeline input if using the -Retrieve parameter. This parameter is required unless you pipe input to the script. This parameter is assumed to be first, so the parameter name (-Path) is optional.
|Specifies the type of the AD paths (either DN or Full) given to the -Path parameter. The Full type includes the path's provider (usually LDAP) and an optional server name. The DN type is the default value for this parameter.
|Specifies the format in which to output the AD paths or path elements. This must be one of the values listed in Table 3. X500DN is the default value for this parameter.
|Specifies the escape mode when outputting the AD paths or path elements. This must be one of the following values: Default, On, Off, or OffEx. Default is the default value for this parameter. Table 3 lists the default escape mode when this parameter is set to Default.
|Specifies how to output the elements in the AD paths. If this parameter is absent, the script outputs path elements using both attributes and values (e.g., CN=Ken Dyer). If this parameter is present, the script outputs path elements using values only (e.g., Ken Dyer).
|* The -GetEscapedElement parameter doesn't use any of these parameters.
The -Format parameter listed in Table 2 has nine possible values that tell Get-ADPathname.ps1 how to output the AD paths. These values are listed in Table 3.
|Default Escape Mode*
|Full path in Windows format (Example: LDAP://servername/DC=com/DC=fabrikam/CN=Users/CN=Ken Dyer)
|Windows format without server (Example: LDAP://DC=com/DC=fabrikam/CN=Users/CN=Ken Dyer)
|Windows format, DN only (Example: DC=com/DC=fabrikam/CN=Users/CN=Ken Dyer)
|Windows format, parent only (Example: DC=com/DC=fabrikam/CN=Users)
|Full path in X.500 format (Example: LDAP://servername/CN=Ken Dyer,CN=Users,DC=fabrikam,DC=com)
|X.500 format, DN only (Example: CN=Ken Dyer,CN=Users,DC=fabrikam,DC=com)
|Server name (Example: servername)
|Provider name (Example: LDAP)
|The name of the leaf (Example: CN=Ken Dyer)
* The Default Escape Mode column specifies whether the output contains escape characters when the -EscapedMode parameter is set to Default.
** The -Format Server parameter only works when the -Type parameter is set to Full and the -Path parameter includes the server names.
Now that you know about the parameters and values that are available, I'll show you how to use them. The best way to do this is to demonstrate how to use each of the seven action parameters listed Table 1. (You can download the Get-ADPathname.ps1 script by clicking the Download the Code button near the top of the page.)
Using the -Retrieve Parameter
The -Retrieve parameter retrieves AD paths in various formats. It's the default action parameter. Its syntax is:
Get-ADPathname.ps1 [-Path
] [-Type ] [-Retrieve] [-Format ] [-EscapedMode ] [-ValuesOnly]
The -Retrieve parameter name is optional, but you can include it for clarity. Similarly, the -Path parameter name is optional. In the commands I present here, I sometimes include the -Path parameter name while other times I don't include it so that you can get used to it both ways. Besides a string, the -Path parameter also accepts pipeline input.
Retrieving AD paths is useful in several scenarios. For example, suppose you have a list of DNs and you want to pass each DN to the [ADSI] type accelerator. If the DNs are in a file named DNs.txt, you can use a command such as:
Get-Content DNs.txt | Get-ADPathname -Type DN -Retrieve ` -Format X500 -EscapedMode On | ForEach-Object { ([ADSI] $_).displayName) }
The [ADSI] type accelerator requires the full LDAP path for each DN in the list (-Format X500) and requires proper escaping (-EscapedMode On). The result of this command is to output the displayName attribute for each DN in the DNs.txt file. Note that I could have omitted -Type DN, -Retrieve, and -Format X500 from this command because those parameters are all defaults, but I included them for clarity.
Here's another example: Suppose you have a list of full LDAP paths (i.e., LDAP://...) that include escape characters in a file named FullPaths.txt. From this list of LDAP paths, you want to create a list of DNs that don't include the escape characters. To do this, you can use a command such as:
Get-Content FullPaths.txt | Get-ADPathname -Type Full -Retrieve -Format X500DN ` -EscapedMode Off
The -Type parameter's argument (Full) tells Get-ADPathname.ps1 that each input path (i.e., each line in FullPaths.txt) is a full LDAP path. In this case, the -Format and -EscapedMode parameters are optional because -Format X500DN and -EscapedMode Off are the default settings, but I included them for clarity.
Finally, here's an example of a command that retrieves the name of an object:
Get-ADPathname "CN=Ken Dyer,CN=Users,DC=fabrikam,DC=com" ` -Type DN -Retrieve -Format Leaf -ValuesOnly
This command outputs the string "Ken Dyer" (without the quotes). If you omit the -ValuesOnly parameter from this command, it will output the string "CN=Ken Dyer" (without the quotes) instead.
Using the -AddLeafElement Parameter
The -AddLeafElement parameter adds leaf elements to an AD path. The syntax is:
Get-ADPathname.ps1 [-Path]
[-Type ] -AddLeafElement [-Format ] [-EscapedMode ] [-ValuesOnly]
For example, here's how to use -AddLeafElement to add two leaf elements to an AD path:
Get-ADPathname "CN=Users,DC=fabrikam,DC=com" ` -AddLeafElement "CN=Ken Dyer","CN=Jeff Smith"
Figure 2 shows the results. The -AddLeafElement parameter isn't that useful in most cases because you can do the same thing using string concatenation in PowerShell, but I included it for completeness.
Using the -RemoveLeafElement Parameter
The -RemoveLeafElement parameter removes a leaf element from one or more AD paths—that is, it outputs the parent paths of named AD objects. The syntax is:
Get-ADPathname.ps1 [-Path]
[-Type ] -RemoveLeafElement [-Format ] [-EscapedMode ] [-ValuesOnly]
Here's an example of how to use the -RemoveLeafElement parameter to output the names of the parent containers of two AD paths, with escaping enabled:
Get-ADPathname "CN=Ken Dyer,CN=Users,DC=fabrikam,DC=com", "CN=Jeff Smith,OU=H/R,DC=fabrikam,DC=com" ` -RemoveLeafElement -EscapedMode On
Figure 3 shows the results. Notice the second OU in the output.
Using the -Split Parameter
The -Split parameter splits an AD path and outputs the individual elements of the path as a list. The syntax is:
Get-ADPathname.ps1 [-Path]
-Split [-EscapedMode ] [-ValuesOnly]
Here's an example of the -Split parameter in action:
$userDN = "CN=Jeff Smith,OU=H/R,DC=fabrikam,DC=com" $pathElements = Get-ADPathname $userDN -Split -ValuesOnly "Object name: $($pathElements[0])" "Container name: $($pathElements[1])"
In this code, the -ValuesOnly parameter omits the CN= and OU= parts of the names. Figure 4 shows the results.
Using the -GetEscapedElement Parameter
The -GetEscapedElement parameter outputs an AD path element with escape characters included. This parameter is useful because you don't need to look up which characters need to be escaped. Its syntax is:
Get-ADPathname.ps1 -GetEscapedElement
Take, for example, the command:
Get-ADPathname -GetEscapedElement "CN=Dyer, Ken"
This command outputs the string "CN=Dyer\, Ken" (without the quotes).
Using the -GetElement Parameter
The -GetElement parameter outputs a specific element from one or more AD paths. Its syntax is:
Get-ADPathname.ps1 [-Path]
[-Type ] [-EscapedMode ] [-ValuesOnly]
The leftmost element in the AD path is numbered 0, the next element is numbered 1, and so forth. This parameter is useful when you want to retrieve a specific path element. Take, for example, the command:
Get-ADPathname -Path ` "CN=Ken Dyer,CN=Users,DC=fabrikam,DC=com" -GetElement 1
This command outputs the second element in the path: "CN=Users" (without the quotes).
Using the -GetNumElements Parameter
The -GetNumElements parameter outputs the number of elements in one or more AD paths. Its syntax is:
Get-ADPathname.ps1 [-Path]
[-Type ] -GetNumElements
Here's an example of how to use the -GetNumElements parameter:
Get-ADPathname -Path ` "CN=Ken Dyer,CN=Users,DC=fabrikam,DC=com" -GetNumElements
This command outputs the number 4 because the AD path contains 4 elements ("CN=Ken Dyer," "CN=Users," "DC=fabrikam," and "DC=com"). This parameter isn't strictly necessary because the -Split parameter will output this number of elements, but I included it for completeness.
Stop Parsing AD Paths Manually
Microsoft provided the Pathname object to parse AD paths, but it's hard to use from PowerShell. The Get-ADPathname.ps1 removes the difficulties and makes it easy to interact with the Pathname object. Add the Get-ADPathname.ps1 script to your script toolbox and stop writing unnecessary code to parse AD paths.


text:
Top women's Halloween costumes
What's worse than showing up at party with the same cocktail dress? Showing up at a Halloween party in the same costume. Worse yet? Not being the one who pulls it off better. Here are some top picks for off-the-wall Halloween costume ideas -- sorry guys, the infamous sexy nurse did not make the list.
Copyright © 2018, Daily Press


text:
After extensive talks with Acclaim representatives earlier this afternoon, IGN.com learned that the English-developed action/slasher Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance has been cancelled for GameCube. Though no official reason for the cancellation was given, the fact is that's it's happened -- so there.
We'll have more on Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance on the Xbox and PS2 channels over the coming months. See you then.


text: I own the HTC EVO 4G (Android 2.2) through Sprint and I'm addicted to the Android OS. I plan on purchasing a tablet within a week. I was wondering if anyone could tell me what tethering or USB Dongle is? I am pretty technical as a user, but I'm not a developer/programmer at all. Does this mean that I can connect a tablet to my phone so that I could access the Internet through my unlimited data plan or would I need to subscribe to the WiFi Hot Spot? If so, could someone tell me if my EVO 4G has the capability to have a new tablet access the Internet, and if so, what technology do I look for in a tablet to make sure it is also compatible? I don't necessarily need to wait for the Honeycomb OS, but I would like to at least have Android 2.2 so that I can use Flash. I actually would prefer my first tablet to be Android 2.2 to keep the cost down while they fix any bugs and upgrades in Honeycomb and allow it to come down a little in price. Any suggestions on a tablet that would go well with my EVO 4G?


text:
BEIJING (AP) — China on Tuesday ruled out a meeting between the Chinese and Japanese leaders at next month's Group of 20 summit in Russia, citing a festering territorial dispute and provocations by Tokyo.
Japan's failure to "broaden its mindset, face historical facts and take concrete actions to remove obstacles" make a meeting between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe impossible, Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.
"Under such circumstances how can we arrange the kind of bilateral meeting as wanted by the Japanese side?" Li said.
Tokyo has repeatedly called for dialogue to resolve the dispute, but has made no solid proposal for a Xi-Abe meeting on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg summit.
The dispute over the uninhabited East China Sea islands escalated sharply last September after Japan's government bought them from their private Japanese owners.
Violent anti-Japanese protests broke out in China, and Beijing sent patrol ships to the area to assert its claim that they are Chinese territory.
Li was quoted as saying that there is currently no possibility of resolving the dispute and repeating China's accusation that Japan is entirely to blame for the impasse.
The tiny islands located north of Taiwan are called Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan. They are also claimed by Taiwan.


text:
Leave You Alone Ft. Ne-Yo - text
Musíš se nejprve přihlásit. Pokud nemáš účet, tak se zaregistruj
[Hook: Ne-Yo]
She Said (she said)
You ain't no good (no good)
But you feel so good
She said (she said)
What if I could?
But I gotta leave you alone
(She said) I gotta leave you alone
She said (she said)
I know you bad
But I want you bad
She said (she said)
Makes so sad (That I)
Gotta leave you alone
(She said) I gotta leave you alone
[Verse 1: Young Jeezy]
I got my mind on my money
All I need is a bad bitch
That I can run through the city spend this cash with
That I can run through this city spend this cash on
Wake up in the morning get my smash on
I don't want much baby egg whites
Keep your stomach and your thighs and your legs right
While I'm out here focus getting this bread right
But if the head right, Jeezy there every night
Wake up in the morning and I'm still here
Wake up in the morning and I ain't gone
All I ask, let me just do me
And maybe just me and you can get along
Had them other bitches mad when they seen us
Had them matching rolexes baby, team us
Yeah the earth is our turf we can share the world
Maybe even go half on a baby girl
[Verse 2: Young Jeezy]
Let me be your mind reader, let me read your mind
And when I'm done with the front, hit it from behind
Love a loyalty never cross the line
Just hit a nigga up when I cross your mind
Show you how to get you on you won't be watching mine
? show you how to shine
And maybe we can kick it when I got the time
Be my back bone every nigga need a spine
Gotta know you ride with me if I'm right or wrong
Case I wake up in the morning and it's all gone
Best believe I'ma get it right back
Thats the hustler in me I know you like that
You probably think I'm with a different broad every night
When I think about it shit man you're probably right
The more I think about it shit you're probably wrong
Cause what you didn't think about is that I'm probably grown
[Verse 3: Ne-Yo]
She said she wish she never met me
Cause she just can't help her let me go ahead
And do whatever the hell I want
She said she hate how much she need me
Turn around, and say she don't need me
Always talking about she gonna leave me
But she don't
But maybe this time might be different
Cause she shed so many tears
She'll remind me all the dumb shit that I've done over the years
But she don't be tripping in the morning, I got her legs up by her ears
But as soon as we get done, I swear this is all I hear, yeah
Thug Motivation 103: Hustlerz Ambition
- Waiting
- What I Do (Just Like That..
- OJ Ft. Fabolous & Jadakis..
- Nothing
- Way Too Gone Ft. Future
- Supafreak Ft. 2 Chainz
- All We Do
- Leave You Alone Ft. Ne-Yo
- Everythang
- Trapped Ft. Jill Scott
- F.A.M.E. Ft. T.I.
- I Do Ft. Jay-Z & André 30..
- Higher Learning Ft. Snoop..
- This One's for You Ft. Tr..
Young Jeezytexty
- 1. I Luv It
- 2. Soul Survivor Ft. Akon
- 3. Leave You Alone Ft. Ne-Yo
- 4. Put On
- 5. F.A.M.E. Ft. T.I.
- 6. Mr President
- 7. Last of a Dying Breed Ft...
- 8. Bang Ft. T.I. & Lil S..
- 9. Air Forces


text:
Pharmaceutical company VIVUS (NASDAQ:VVUS) has been marketing its obesity drug, Qsymia, primarily to physicians -- but the drug's initial sales were far below what investors were expecting. Presumably under pressure to ramp up sales, VIVUS recently announced a consumer-targeted program that offers a two-week free trial to patients.
Is this the spark that VIVUS needs to get back on track, or will sales take another hit when Arena (NASDAQ:ARNA) and partner Eisai market their competing drug in early 2013?
In the following video, health care analysts Max Macaluso and Brenton Flynn discuss this new marketing approach and what VIVUS might need to do in order to increase revenue.
Brenton Flynn has no positions in the stocks mentioned above. Max Macaluso, Ph.D. has no positions in the stocks mentioned above. The Motley Fool has no positions in the stocks mentioned above. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.


text:
Step 1: Pick a Topic
Before sitting down and beginning to pen your electronic masterpiece, you will need to come up with a basic premise behind your comic strip. As a general rule, the "funnier" comics on the Internet fall into one of three main categories:
1) Geek humor,
2) Relationship jokes,
3) "Cutting Edge" humor that is too intelligent for anybody but the author and his coffeeshop friends to understand.
Most Internet comics tend to fall into categories one and two, as "cutting edge" humor doesn't seem to generate that much traffic (as opposed to cartoons about Linux and dating). It doesn't really matter if you're very knowledgeable of the subject you're writing about, or if you even have the most rudimentary of artistic talent, because on the Internet anybody can have a webpage! Yes, thanks to the miracle of the Information Age, you too can toss up virtually any mess of digital vomit for the entire world to see! Don't worry about your comic being "funny enough" to go public, just be concerned with learning how to make text show up as bold in AOL Press!
Step 2: Pick a Title
The first thing anybody will notice about your Internet comic (besides the Angelfire popup ad) will be its title. You'll have to think of something clever and indescribably witty, a name that will bring in people by the millions. The title should also have some practical relationship to the actual subject matter of your comic, shown in the following examples:
Example #1: Comic revolves around the hilarious antics that ensue in a web design company.
GOOD TITLE: "Web Wackiness!". With a name like this, people know it's going to be a comical look at Information Superhighway!
SLIGHTLY LESS GOOD TITLE: "The Hilarious Antics That Ensue In a Web Design Company". Sure, the title does a good job at sufficiently explaining what the comic's about, but it's just not catchy.
BAD TITLE: "Family Circus". This name, while being recognized by many people, is unfortunately taken. As a general rule of thumb, you should probably not use names of other comics for your cartoon.
Example #2: Comic is about a single father (Bob) trying to raise his wisecracking son (Tim).
GOOD TITLE: "Bob and Tim". Simple and to the point! It not only reminds everybody who the main characters in the comic are, but it also let's everybody know that your comic isn't "BadTech" (which has a completely different name).
BAD TITLE: "Adolf Hitler's Rotating Testicle of Doom". While being somewhat catchy, references to the Nazi party and most genitalia should probably be avoided.
Step 3: Create Some Characters!
Here's where our comic starts to form and take shape! Now many people out there are afraid to make their own Internet comic because they're under the false impression that it requires actual skill and artistic talent to create one. They couldn't be farther from the truth! Even the most blind, piss-poor, seizure-ridden of braindead chimpazees can make their own Internet comic! To determine if you have the raw tools needed, ask yourself the following questions:
1) Do you own a computer?
2) Do you have MS Paint installed?
3) Do you have access to an external device which allows you to input some form of data into your computer?
If you answered "yes" to any of these questions (or "no", it doesn't really matter at this point), you are in fact ready to get started! Let's go!
This Halloween, log off and visit your friends at the local Halloween Superstore.
Welcome to the world of working endlessly to please an audience specifically downloading your show to find mistakes.
Better than expected, and absolute garbage
The Spiritual Successor to Demolition Man! Wait, did we say successor? We meant shameless ripoff.
Nancy and the Banker are back!
Something Awful Guides can help you, the Internet reader, make the most out of your life and just might possibly end up getting you incapacitated or killed!
Copyright ©2017 Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka & Something Awful LLC.


text:
LHC accepts plea for reclaiming Koh-i-Noor diamond from British queen
The directions were given by Justice Khalid Mahmood Khan of the LHC. The petition was filed by Attorney Jawaid Iqbal Jafree. The LHC bench also rejected objections of the registrar office on the petition.
The judge directed the office to fix the petition before any appropriate bench for hearing. The office had objected to the maintainability of the petition, saying the LHC had no jurisdiction to hear a case against the British Queen.
India also has made regular requests for the jewel's return, saying the diamond is an integral part of the country's history and culture.
Britain's then colonial governor-general of India arranged for the huge diamond to be presented to Queen Victoria in 1850, during British colonial rule.
Majority-Hindu India and majority-Muslim Pakistan became two different countries in 1947 when they became independent of Britain.
If Kate Middleton, the wife of Prince William, who is second in line to the throne, eventually becomes queen consort, she will don the crown holding the diamond on official occasions.
In the last half century, Attorney Jawaid Iqbal Jafree has written over 786 letters to Queen Elizabeth and various Pakistani officials asking for the diamond's return.
His latest high court petition notes that his letters have never been acknowledged, except once by Queen Elizabeth through her principal private secretary.
During a visit to India in 2010, British Prime Minister David Cameron said in an interview on Indian television that the diamond would stay in London.
"What tends to happen with these questions is that if you say yes to one, then you would suddenly find the British Museum empty," he said.


text:
Close up of eagle bearer conversion
Skirmishing voltiguers
Advancing Line troops with head conversions
Italeri hussars painted as the 5th Hussars
Elite company head conversion
Generic Chasseurs - HaT riders, Italeri horses. The HaT horses were deformed IMO.
Chasseur command figures
Italeri dragoons
Dragoon command figures
Dragoon elite company head conversion
My 25mm Warrior lead Cuirasiers thanks to John R. Slightly bigger than my plastic cavalry, but after all they were supposed to be big men on big horses. I've got the Legio plastic pack, but its fiddly assembly has put me off making many so far.
Cuirassier eagle bearer conversion
Cuirassier command figures


text:
Get Inspired Radio with Sue London: Psychologist Provides Key to Inner Peace and Happiness with guest Dr Mark Brown - Call 800 930 2819 to ask your questions
04/05/2012 03:00 pm PDT
According to a recent Stress in America Survey, American Psychological Association, more than four in 10 Americans reported laying awake at night in the past month with worry. External factors such as the economy, one's earnings and job pressures are largely to blame for this stress uptick, so is it possible to make internal changes that permanently ease mental and emotional strain? Dr. Mark Brown will help you understand the relationship between how you view the world and your stress levels, and offer a step-by-step approach to changing what goes on in your heads.
Sue London
Sue London helps people overcome difficult or traumatic situations in their lives. Through her radio show GET INSPIRED, coaching, writing and motivational speaki...Find out more »
Dr. Mark Brown
Dr. Mark Brown is a practicing psychologist who also teaches meditation using EEG biofeedback. He is the author of the books The Hidden Gift In Divorce: How to Find Hope, He...Find out more »


text:
The Options Your VPS is Bundled With
All the functionalities that you'll require for your KVM VPS server in a single place
Your KVM VPS server is equipped with a vast set of functionalities for controlling your ever–demanding web presence. You'll be given SSD storage space, along with assured server processing power and storage assets for maintaining your multi–media web pages. Furthermore, you'll obtain a free dedicated IP and a collection of no cost tools to initiate your very own reseller web hosting home business, including a domain merchant account and a support & billing application installation. In addition, your KVM VPS server will be located on a solid command server that will guarantee a dependable platform for setting up and taking care of web presence.
A Variety of Operating Systems
Tell us what is your preferred Linux OS version
You are able to make a choice between various OS's for your KVM VPS server – Debian, Ubuntu or CentOS.
SSD–centered VPS Hosting Solutions
Increase your web site's general performance with our SSD–centred VPS's
Each of the KVM VPS servers supplied by aekap is equipped with SSD hard disks instead of standard HDD hard drives. Using SSDs on your VPS is a very good bonus for your web sites. SSDs offer much better reading/writing connections and additionally support quicker document access. This generally indicates that all the things on your web server will operate a lot quicker, including all your websites and web applications.
Setup & Troubleshooting
Let our admins perform the challenging work for you
Our server experts can help you with the setup of a various app that you want for your site. Additionally, if you ever have a trouble with your hosting server that you don't know how you can eliminate, you can easily ask them for guidance. The Installation & Problem–solving assistance is attainable as an add–on with every KVM VPS server at a really good value.
100% Free Add–Ons for all of Your webpages
Web accelerator software tools, a domain reseller account and many more
Our KVM VPS servers have a group of no cost bonus deals, that include a dedicated IP address for your web page. At the same time, we include a website reseller account and the ClientExec assist & payment application to make it easier to initiate your personal reseller hosting business.
A 99.9% Network Uptime
Ultimate security is guaranteed
Our admins are working hard in collaboration with the engineers at our data center in North America to supply you with a steady system for your VPS. In our US data center we also deploy the the best high–end server hardware and security software on the market to warrant a 99.9% uptime for your digital platform.
A free–of–charge Dedicated IP
One unique totally free dedicated IP address with each virtual server
With every single KVM VPS server, you will receive 1 totally free dedicated IP.
Complete Root Server Access Privileges to the Server
Total permission to access to every component of your hosting server
Having full root privileges to the KVM VPS server, you can grow to be an administrator of your hosting server platform. Such admission permits you to set up an Operating System or modify the Apache hosting server settings. You could also install many types of software apps and reboot the hosting server whenever you have to. With our Installation & Troubleshooting bundle, you can leave this work to our well–experienced executives.
No Installation Expenses
No hidden taxes. No excess charges.
In general, the KVM VPS servers are far more dynamic than the ordinary website hosting solutions and are therefore more expensive. In order to optimize the buying price of a KVM VPS server, we have tried our utmost to limit the set–up charges and we will not charge you any VPS configuration fees. Furthermore, we will not seek out virtually any extra costs right after your VPS starts performing. The price that you will find on our webpage is the final fee that you will pay for each month.
VPS Hosting Service–level Guarantees
99.9% networking uptime and 24 hours guidance
Your KVM VPS server is protected by a set of service guarantees. First and foremost, our well–experienced sysadmins will build the machine for you within 1 hour after sign–up. Considering that we like to always provide you with the best price in the marketplace, we don't charge you any kind of configuration fees. Furthermore, we have created our own inner system as a result of which we could guarantee a 99.9% system uptime for your VPS. You are able to benefit from our 24x7 support employing any of the pre–installed in advance programs.
An enterprise-level virtualization
A kernel-based virtual machine virtualization
VPS Content Backup
We are able to restore your valuable data in any case
We realize how upsetting it could be to suffer a loss of the content of your site by chance. Because of this we offer a back–up service with each KVM VPS server. Our knowledgeable system administrators will make a backup copy of all the stuff on the hosting server – from your web site's data files and data bases to your Apache settings and PHP configurations.
- Order Now
Service guarantees
- Our KVM VPS Servers are loaded with zero setup costs and function in a well balanced 99.9% uptime network. Full root server access rights is warranted.
Compare our prices
- Have a look at our costs and pick the top KVM VPS server for your ever–growing web sites. Migrate to a more advanced VPS server with just a click of the mouse.
- Compare our VPS plans
Contact Us
- We're online 24/7/365 to answer any queries concerning the KVM VPS services. 1–hour reply–back time frame warranty.


text:
Discussion in 'Social Networking Sites' started by xmastex, Jan 30, 2008.
Heya, is there any way to get a stumbleupon account generator software? Looking forward to it
You are looking for http://www.stumblebot.com
Hey Nova,
Any clues as to when this product will be launched ?
I saw a stumblebot selling on DP. Anyone have any info about it?
Real soon dude..the app is ready.. just making the video...
Looks nice, thanks
Check out these two threads they may help
Stumblebot 2
Nope, Im referring to another one, which is advanced, like Nova?s stumblebot.
this one?
LOL that guys tool is a joke... know somebody who bought it....
one tag per review... lol... get real... high end tools my ass
I had to digg it out coz I havent bookmarked it.
Dunno if is this the same guy, but I reffering to this thread: hxxp://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=658141&highlight=stumbleupon+bot
I have been creating stumbleupon account for about a year i didn't heard of
something that generates a/c automatically
my suggestion to you is even if you find such a software don't use those spammy accounts cause you'll get cought easily or at least they make your stumbles countless
you know each account gotta be
created upon unique IP (at least 5 per one IP)
an avatar and some friends should be there
some stumbling activeness
holla at me if you need a quality SU accounts
it is you stumblebot can create as many account i want?
I guess he misunderstood what xmastex want
stumblebot is website for stumble exchange not SU account creator ....correct me if I am wrong
Yes you can create any number of accounts you want... and it has a way lot more functions..
Look at this video
You are wrong Its a account creator and more...
Separate names with a comma.


text:
- Home
- Welding Supplies
- Chemicals
- Absorbents
How do you clean up an oil or chemical spill? Chemical absorbent is a must in any shop. Clean up oil spills, stains, grease, acids and fluids quickly and safely with chemical absorbents offered by Weldfabulous.
Sign up for our newsletter and save 10% on your first order!
*some exclusions may apply.
Weldfabulous.comA Division of Mississippi Welders Supply
© 2018 Weldfabulous. All Rights Reserved.
Bigcommerce Website Design by Diztinct.com


text:
I know this post has the potential to stir up some controversy depending upon who is reading this. However, I do feel the need to share my Team Beachbody experience.
Three years ago, I had responded to an advertisement on Craigslist for a Health and Wellness Coach. Being someone who was in the middle of completing a Masters degree in Exercise Science and Health Promotion, this seemed like a great idea. It turned out that I had responded to an ad to join a Beachbody coaching team. For anyone not familiar with Beachbody, you also try to recruit new coaches to work under you in addition to recruiting people to buy Beachbody products. I was skeptical. The girl, who had written the ad, quickly friend-ed me on Facebook. At this point, I didn't sign up. However, I did watch her posts for the next three years. She seemed to have a great thing going for her. She was working from home and able to stay home with her kids. I still didn't sign up. In fact, at this point I was eagerly looking for a job that I had to go to on a daily basis. After working from home for a few years as a freelance journalist, I was young, wanted to get out of the house and meet people. I still didn't sign up after many, many contacts with this girl…who seemed very nice, but slightly pushy.
Over the next three years, I did take a job that required I get out of my house, while maintaining a list of freelance writing clients. I did Insanity from time to time. When the 21 day fix came out, I was very excited to give it a try. I just wanted to tone-up and this seemed like a great way to do it. I've never been good with portion control! I did tone up and even started to develop some abs. However, I did not use Shakeology while on the 21 day fix.
After the 21 Day Fix was over, I continued to follow the meal plan loosely. I'm not one to deprive myself of anything. If it's something I want, I don't see the harm in moderation. I also continued with the workouts. All along, I had been using a different meal replacement powder as well as a separate protein powder. I liked them. They kept me full and even tasted great — especially when mixed in smoothies. However, I'll be willing to admit that I was still very intrigued by Shakeology.
When PiYo came out, I made the decision to sign up as a coach. I contacted this girl, who I had essentially be Facebook stalking, for the past three years. I signed up on her team. Honestly, I was excited to be part of a team. I got a pretty good deal on a challenge packet and was ready to go. I had signed up for the discount, but was open-minded to attempting to make some extra money.
Immediately, I was sent a list of things to do. For example:
- Get goals.
- Join a number of different Facebook groups.
- Tell everyone I know that I am now a Team Beachbody Coach.
- Read personal development books.
- Set up my first challenge group.
- Wear Beachbody clothing.
I'm sure there is more, but you get the point!
This was a lot of work to do for essential free. I understood though. You don't build a successful business overnight. I was also tossed into a "coach camp" that was run through Facebook. This was supposed to me teach me all of the basics. Honestly, I'm not a huge Facebook user. It was fun in college, but now I swear the people I know who use it on a regular basis are my parents age. I hardly had time for this. Not too mention, I don't like to be on camera. There were daily assignments. Many of them required filming yourself talking about your Team Beachbody goals and your own personal fitness goals. I'm a writer, I do not enjoy the camera!
The other thing that got me about Beachbody is that they claim it's not sales. To me, it ended up seeming no different than having a jewelry party or a candle party at your house. I was told repeatedly to reach out to family, friends and co-workers who I think could use my help. This may be inappropriate, but all I could hear in my head was myself saying, "Hey, you are looking like you put on some extra weight. If you pay $140+ , you can shed those unwanted pounds in no time!" I am a very independent 29 year old…I own my own home (I have since I've been 25), I don't use credit cards, I pay my own bills and I enjoy a comfortable lifestyle. I was not about to financially benefit from the fact that I have friends who enjoy way too much McDonalds.
To avoid reaching out to my family and friends, I started connecting on Instagram with some people I had never met before. Isn't it odd how I was more comfortable talking to strangers out this than people I actually knew? I had some people seem interested. For most, it just wasn't in the budget or I never heard from them again after I sent them an e-mail regarding challenge groups or signing up to be a coach. Honestly, I was starting to feel guilty. I felt like a used car salesman or those people who work at the kiosks in the middle of the mall during the holidays, who practically chase you around the mall trying to get you to purchase some lotion that smells terrible.
Side note: I feel the need to talk about Shakeology before I finish my story. Shakeology tasted great. I enjoyed all the flavors. I just did not enjoy the price tag. However, as I continued to use Shakeology, I felt like I started to develop headaches and even a few hives after drinking it. I've talked to medical professionals, who advised against me continuing to drink this product. I complied, my health is not worth holding the title of Team Beachbody Coach. Shakeology did leave me feeling full though. However, I feel like I can find a meal replacement that works for me and that costs much less. I know Shakeology fans are going to say there is no better and that's okay. I'm wanting to hear all of your comments.
Back to my story, I decided to cancel my Beachbody Coach account as well as my Shakeology. This proved to be more challenging than any Beachbody workout I had ever completed. It's almost a mystery. Beachbody is not very clear on how to cancel your account. When I did finally find the form, no one processed my cancellation. I've entered the Team Beachbody live chat many of times and still no cancellation. The 48-72 hour cancellation policy apparently takes much, much longer than this. They seem very reluctant to let me cancel. I've threatened the Better Business Bureau, I've called my credit card company, called Beachbody and entered the live chat many, many times. Still, I've had no results. I've been cancelling for two weeks and I can't seem to get past a video of Beachbody's CEO telling me not to go.
Buddy, I've made up my mind. I'm out. I don't care what you have to say. I will follow my dreams and I will be successful. I am going to one day have children and I am going to work from home. However, I will not be supporting my family off of my family and friend's money. All of this has inspired my to become the best possible writer I am can be so that I can have a freelance career and stay at home when the time is right!


text:
Musette — Datum
Musette — Datum
Tona Serenad — TS01
Release date: 2009-02-24
Format: 320 KB/S MP3
Patiently written down dates, noted with a piano and carefully collected on cassette tapes, one by one. An assiduous attempt to keep books of time, to sketch the events, the landscapes and neighborhoods with melodies and recordings of sound. For several years Joel Danell has been writing songs on a piano, all given the names of dates as if they were diary notes. The kind of notes where the writing, more than the words themselves, recounts for the moment of them being written: times of accumulation where the letters stand close to each other and reach far into the margin, moments of pensiveness where lines have been crossed out and others have been added and moments of excitement where the letters have gained in size and defied the ruling of the sheet.
"Datum" is the retelling of these notes with the help of violin, whistling, guitar, accordion and Dobro, recorded in Blackeberg January 2008. Pieces that recount for an otherwise forgotten day in April, that describe the view from a balcony in a Stockholm suburb in late October, that is a remembrance of the rushing bicycle and the passing landscape in the beginning of June.
01. 24 maj
02. 2 mars
03. 23 oktober
04. 10 juli
05. 17 oktober
06. 14 april
07. 18 juli
08. 24 januari
09. 1 juni
10. 1 februari
11. 16 oktober
12. 22 december
13. 9 november
14. 4 november