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The 2012 Volkswagen GTI, which originally debuted in 2010, continues this year with nothing but minor trim changes. The GTI's Convenience and Sunroof package now adds a leather-trimmed multifunction steering wheel, premium stereo and in-dash CD changer to the package. The GTI's Sunroof and Navigation package builds on the previous package, and adds amenities like LED daytime running lights. The GTI's Autobahn package also adds LED daytime running lights, and gets new 10-spoke 18-inch "Serron" alloy wheels.
Six generations ago, the GTI burst on the scene to become the car that created the hot hatch segment. The current Volkswagen GTI carries the flame well. It's powered by a 200-hp 2.0-liter turbocharged I-4 making 207 lb-ft of torque, hooked up to a slick-shifting six-speed manual, or a rapid-fire six-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission.
While the GTI may not produce the power of its competitors, it's an incredibly refined and premium package that for many is worth the extra buck or two over its competitors. The GTI is not only a great all-round performer, but it's comfortable and features a high-quality interior bound to put smiles on its owners' faces.
Body styles: Two-door hatchback, four-door hatchback
Engine: 2.0L turbo I-4
Transmissions: 6-speed manual, 6-speed dual-clutch auto
Models: Volkswagen GTI 2-Door, Volkswagen GTI 4-Door
The 2012 Volkswagen GTI gets nothing but minor trim changes this year. The GTI's Convenience and Sunroof package now gets a leather-trimmed multifunction steering wheel, premium stereo and in-dash CD change, in addition to the sunroof. The GTI's Sunroof and Navigation package builds on the previous package, and adds amenities like LED daytime running lights, and a GPS navigation system. The GTI's Autobahn package also adds LED daytime running lights, and gets new 10-spoke 18-inch "Serron" alloy wheels.
Like its more pedestrian stablemate, the Golf, the 2012 Volkswagen GTI is available as a two- and four-door hatchback. The VW GTI builds on the Golf's basic trimmings with a more aggressive honeycomb grille with the GTI's signature red piping around the edges. The GTI also gets black side skirts, and 18-inch wheels, which help visually lower it compared to the Golf. Out back, the GTI gets smoked taillight covers, a subtle spoiler, a blacked-out diffuser, and unique chrome-tipped split dual exhaust.
The Volkswagen GTI's interior is mostly a standard Golf affair, with some unique touches. The GTI features an abundance of soft plastics, and has a premium feel that makes the GTI feel as if it costs much more than its price point. The GTI's interior is further differentiated from the Golf's by its steering wheel, cloth seats, and manual transmission shift knob. The GTI gets a unique leather-wrapped sport steering wheel with a racy-looking flat bottom. The GTI's seats have a plaid pattern, and its shift knob is (you guessed it) a golf ball.
While we're huge proponents of rowing your own gears, we must give Volkswagen credit with its six-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, which is one of the best in the business. When the GTI's 200-hp 2.0-liter turbocharged I-4 is bolted to the dual-clutch transmission, the GTI is capable of a 5.8-second 0-60 mph time. The GTI isn't all about 0-60 mph times though; it's an absolute joy in the corners. One of our editors described it best when he said of the GTI, "This is a bantamweight MMA fighter ready to kick you hard in the head with the way it grips and goes. A fantastic drive."
The Volkswagen GTI comes standard with front, and front side mounted airbags, and side air curtain airbags both front and rear. The 2012 GTI also comes standard with ABS, electronic brake pressure distribution, hydraulic brake assist and a traction and electronic stability control system. The GTI also features Volkswagen's Intelligent Crash Response System, which will unlock the doors, turn off the fuel pump, and activate the GTI's hazard lights in the event the vehicle's airbags are deployed.
GTI 2-Door: 21 mpg city/31 mpg highway (manual); 24 mpg city/33 mpg highway (dual-clutch auto)
GTI 4-Door: 21 mpg city/31 mpg highway (manual); 24 mpg city/33 mpg highway (dual-clutch auto)
Big fun, bigger utility

subset: commoncrawl


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California State Parks takes over ops at more North Tahoe properties
KINGS BEACH, Calif. — California State Parks has taken over operations at several California Tahoe Conservancy-owned beaches and parcels along the North Shore.
As of July 1, the state has been running North Tahoe Beach, Moon Dune Beach, Kings Beach Plaza, Coon Street Corner, Secline Beach, Sandy Beach, Sun and Sand Beach Easement and Steamers Beach.
"We are confident that state parks will provide the high level of service that beach users expect, and we are working to make sure the transition is as seamless as possible," Patrick Wright, executive director of the Conservancy, said in a statement.
These properties will continue to offer the same amenities and hours of operations, according to a joint statement from the conservancy and state parks.
Included in the roughly $120,000 annual maintenance and operation cost — which the conservancy will cover — state parks will provide trash pickup, personnel, law enforcement and regular maintenance, said Victoria Ortiz, communications liaison for the conservancy.
"California State Parks is excited to bring our resources and expertise, and work with the California Tahoe Conservancy to continue to bring quality recreation and services to visitors to the Tahoe Basin," Marilyn Linkem, Sierra District superintendent for state parks, said in a statement.
North Tahoe Public Utility District previously operated the sites on the conservancy's behalf, a partnership that started in the early 1990s, Ortiz said.
"We thank NTPUD for their years of service at these important public parklands," Wright said in a statement.
This transition is part of an agreement announced in March 2014 by the California Natural Resources Agency, state parks, and the conservancy to exchange and consolidate state-owned parkland in the Tahoe Basin.
"This is an effort to consolidate management of these public areas or state-owned lands to best utilize state resources," Ortiz explained.
Part of that agreement included state parks taking over day-to-day operations of the Kings Beach State Recreation Area from NTPUD, which had managed the state-owned rec area since 1978.
While it was originally intended for that transition to occur Nov. 1, state parks took over May 15 after the NTPUD board decided to terminate operations due to a lack of parking revenue needed to meet its standards.
In the future, state parks is looking at making improvements at the rec area, such as ADA upgrades, with the conservancy funding a portion of work.
For management questions on these state-owned lands, contact state parks at 530-583-3075.


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Laura Robson feels she has earned her grand slam breakthrough after pulling off the result of the day for the second consecutive round at the US Open and subsequently becoming the first British woman to reach the fourth round of the US Open for 21 years.
The 18-year-old made it back-to-back wins over former grand slam champions on Friday when she added Li Na's scalp to that of Kim Clijsters with another stunning performance. Li has been one of the form players of the north American summer but was outplayed by the world number 89, who powered to a 6-4 6-7 (5/7) 6-2 victory.
Robson said: "I have just worked hard over the last few weeks and I feel like I'm playing very well. I have had lots of tough matches against some very experienced opponents so, the way that I see it, it was time to start winning a few of them."
Ninth seed Li was lacking her usual consistency in the opening set and a half but stepped up her game towards the end of the second to take the match into a decider.
But Robson, who is now the first British woman to reach the fourth round of a grand slam since Sam Smith at Wimbledon in 1998 and the first at the US Open since Jo Durie 21 years ago, simply raised her level again and overpowered Li in the third set, and will now face defending champion Sam Stosur.
She said: "I had the opportunity to win it in two. It was a really close tie-break and at 5-5 she played two really good points. There's not much that I can do off that.
"I knew that if I kept playing the way that I was and kept playing how I started the first set, really aggressive and accelerating on my forehand when I had the opportunity, then I knew that she would struggle. That's what I did."
That Robson secured the win despite being on the wrong end of a couple of dubious umpiring calls was also impressive. The first incident came on break point in the fifth game of the third set when she hit a shot that landed on the baseline. It was called out and, although Robson's challenge was correct, she was made to replay the point and Li won it.
The same thing happened in the next game when a Robson serve was erroneously called out and again they replayed it, despite the British player's protestations.
Robson said: "I wouldn't say I wasn't distracted. I was a little bit annoyed. But that's what happens from time to time, so you've got to deal with it. I think being a little bit annoyed seemed to help me."


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A full list detailing the number of parking tickets issued in Northern Ireland for the first quarter of 2017 has been published by the Department for Infrastructure (DfI).
A total of 20,502 on-street Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) were issued throughout Northern Ireland from January to March 2017.
The worst offending area was Belfast (8,331) with Newry (1,919) and Londonderry (1,365) second and third respectively.
Incidentally, 4,894 PCNs were issued for moving traffic offences in Greater Belfast. More than a third (36 per cent) of these contraventions occurred on Donegall Square East, just over a fifth (21 per cent) on Great Victoria Street and approximately a sixth (16 per cent) on College Square East.
No on-street PCNs were issued in Ahoghill; Ballykelly; Castlewellan; Clogher; Crossgar; Cullybackey; Dromore (Tyrone); Gilford; Glenavy; Kesh; Lisnaskea; Millisle; Newtownstewart; Portballintrae; Richhill; Tandragee; Toome and Whithead.


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Here at drinkstuff we know that time is money. Getting good publicity for your company is an important task, that's why we at drinkstuff have a selection of customisable corporate gifts to help you and your business. Instead of ringing around for ideas we have them all in one place so you can see what you want and how much it costs. We are also able to source other products that may not be in our list. If you require further information or other ideas please email Tony at email@example.com
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Brand awareness is important for any business which is why we offer a wide range of cheap corporate gifts that can be branded with your company logo, company artwork or company information. With a wide selection of customisable gifts your customers can receive a practical and stylish customised gift that also promotes your brand.
Ideal for trade shows, exhibitions and brand promotion, our range of corporate gifts are a great way to advertise your brand. Ideal for any company, our range of promotional gifts includes customisable bar equipment, customisable poker equipment and customisable practical gifts.
Reward your staff and treat your business partners with our range of unique corporate gifts, available in bulk quantities for Christmas corporate gifts and personalised corporate gift ideas. Our range of executive corporate gifts can be easily ordered online and delivered direct to your door with fast UK delivery.


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BRUSSELS, Sept. 20 (UPI) -- China pledged to maintain support to Europe, its main trading partner, to recover from its debt crisis.
The promise came from Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at the China-European Union Business Summit in Brussels.
The official Chinese news agency Xinhua said Wen told the meeting China is willing to work with the EU to build their bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership into a model of international cooperation in the 21st century. Those attending the summit included European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
Wen said the China-EU relationship is among the most important in the world and is also a strategic priority of China's foreign policy, Xinhua reported. He said two-way trade reached $567.2 billion last year, up nearly 21 percent since 2003.
The Chinese promise of support indicated it will continue to buy European bonds, a source of Europe's recovery, Voice of America reported.
Beijing has been buying the bonds despite Europe's embargo on arms sales to China. The EU also has not granted China tariff-free trade status.
Referring to those issues, Wen said: "We have been working hard for 10 years, but the solution has been elusive. I deeply regret this. I hope, and I do believe, that the EU side will seize the opportunity and take greater initiative at an early stage," VOA reported.
Earlier, Barroso asked the two sides to use their decade of relationship to resolve the issues.
The New York Times reported the EU considered easing the arms embargo in 2005, but there were objections from the United States and some EU members because of concerns about China's human rights violations.
In other developments, Van Rompuy and Barroso, in a statement, said, "We have asked China, as a permanent member of the Security Council, to redouble its efforts to ensure the United Nations Security Council can contribute effectively to the solution of the Syrian crisis."


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Results 1 to 1 of 1
Thread: RSR Power Rankings
RSR Power Rankings
So I know that most of you haven't noticed me by now. I happened to mention Power Rankings that i wrote for another forum for about 1/2 of this season so far and linked to them once for Cincy to check out because he was interested. I think that RSR has a fantastic, knowledgeable fanbase that would be an excellent group to vote to create a weekly power rankings.
A little background: I have moderated this site since 2004 while having been an admin for short periods of time through the years. I had about two years off where I had to take care of some life stuff and, when I came back, the forum was damn near dead. The idea to have front page articles was mine and brought a ton of views (and money) to the admin but he never turned it around to put it back into the site. He's allowing it to die for the sake of clicks and a bigger bank roll. The only articles that can see the front page are the ones he has personally written because nothing else can possibly be of the quality that he produces.
The idea? The weekly power rankings are voted on by the members of RSR each week in order from 1-32. They are submitted via e-mail or PM to a designated member to calculate the rankings based on the number of voters. Of course there has to be a deadline so the columnist has time to get the article researched, written, and formatted so it can be posted to the main feed. I propose that members are given until late Tuesday night to vote so the author has all day Wednesday to produce the final article for posting early Thursday morning, the first day of the NFL week. My reasoning in waiting two extra days after the major media sites' rankings is to give time for injuries to play out and team transactions to happen. This allows the author to use popular tags in Google trends the day the article is posted in order to garner more clicks (nee: more traffic) for RSR.
Rankings are done similar to college football. Each vote is given a point based on their rank. If a member decides that the Broncos are number one they get 32 points but if another member decides they are number two and the Jags are the best team the Jags get 32 points and the Broncos get 31 points. The rankings are then totaled and complied in numerical order. To remove bias ties are only broken when there is a clear difference in quality between two teams and that would be at the author's discretion.
Link to the rankings that the admin bothered to post as an article. Please excuse the formatting as I had little to no say in some of it:
Week 8:
Week 7:
Week 6:
Week 5: (I was moving, my best friend wrote this weeks' and did a great job)
Week 4:
Week 3: (This was the first week, please keep that in mind)
Please keep in mind that I am NOT using these links to advertise for the forum. To be honest with you all I am showing you this as evidence of my lack of bias, humor, and writing quality in order to sell myself as the new columnist for the proposed RSR weekly power rankings.
TL;DR: I wrote a weekly power rankings for another forum that is currently dead and I want to resurrect it for RSR because we only had four voters for most of the season and the site couldn't generate the traffic that I believe my lack of bias, subtle humor, and professional writing style deserved.


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Males are entirely red with black around the base of the bill. Females are brown overall with red tail, red on wings, and red bill. Note distinctive crest in both sexes. Forages mainly for seeds in dense shrubby areas. Regularly visits feeders.
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Your Online Guide To Birds And Bird Watching
Comprehensive life histories of North American breeding birds
Life histories of all species breeding in Mexico, Central America, and South America


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Commercial and Government Entity Code 9x330 refers to the manufacturer Westinghouse Electric Corp. Owned and operated by ASAP Semiconductor, ASAP Part Services distributes multiple parts including 0477273-0802301, 477273-0802301 from Westinghouse Electric Corp. The expert team at ASAP can help cross reference the CAGE code with an NSN or Part Number to help ensure that you procure the exact part you were looking for. Our goal is to mitigate any part sourcing confusion and simplify the procurement process for our customers. Our shipping and supply chain is one of the fastest in the industry. Once we have procured the part you need, we can send it to you as soon as possible. Simply let us know if you have any AOG requirements and the dedicated ASAP team will be sure to meet them. Fill out a request for quote today to get started.
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Free range fun and relexation couldn't get any better for the Griffiths family from Abergavenny who won a luxury short break family holiday here at Bluestone in spectacular Pembrokeshire.
Sam and her two children won the break in one of our recent Facebook competitions and had been to Bluestone on holiday previously. So she was over the moon when she found out she was coming back.
"I was thrilled to have won the chance to come back to Bluestone and as usual it didn't disappoint," she said told Bluestone Blog.
My four and two year old kids had a blast. They loved the swimming in the Blue Lagoon water park. Even on a rainy day we found loads to do, from picking dandelions and daisies to make eau de Bluestone, to joining Kids Hour and romping around the nature trail.
"We also took the chance to visit some of Pembrokeshire's beautiful beaches. A fantastic break - thank you."
And thank you Sam and family for taking the time to tell us about your break. We look forward to seeing you again soon.
Categories:Family, Guest Reviews


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Mountain Moonshinetm Made In West VirginiaMoonshine is a clear corn whiskey that is distilled from fermented corn mash. When aged for two years it becomes Bourbon Whiskey. The fresh corn whiskey is Moonshine and is consumed without aging. Moonshine has a reputation far and wide as a clean, clear and potent liquor. West Virginia Moonshine is particularly renowned for its crisp, clear, taste.Until now, Moonshine has been hard to find. Almost all of it was distilled in the back woods, away from the prying eyes of tax revenue officers out to stop the illegal business of non-tax paid whiskey. In 1999 Payton Fireman decided to create a legal Moonshine distillery. So he started up West Virginia's first distilled spirits plant with license WV-DRB-1. The Sunshine's Best in Florida; The Moonshine's Best In West Virginia. Mountain Moonshinetm is currently available in roughly 100 of the 150 liquor stores in West Virginia. It is not possible to sell or ship any liquor products to individual customers at this time.
New!! Introducing a video of distillery operations. It runs 2 1/2 hours and covers an entire season of distiling operations from cooking to distillation as well as bottling operations. Follow the video/pictures link for sample excerpts and ordering information. Only $40. Shipping included!
For more information, contact:West Virginia Distilling Co., LLC.1380 Fenwick AveMorgantown, WV 26505email: email@example.com
Mountain Moonshine takes Gold and Bronze in the Moonshine Category in the American Craft Distiller's Awards from the American Distilling Institute ConferenceGold – West Virginia Distilling Company, Mountain Moonshine Old Oak Recipe
Bronze – West Virginia Distilling Company, Mountain MoonshineRead the details, and see other winning craft distillers, at BourbonBlog.com.


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CostsWithout a membership: $3.00 Included in membership
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This class combines basic boxing, kickboxing and traditional martial arts techniques into a music based moderate to high intensity workout. Designed to support basic defensive and offensive fundamental movements; promoting cardio fitness, core strength and flexibility.


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Noble Street Tires from TireRack
Noble Track Tires from TireRack
Pictures or videos of your Noble or Rossion, plus any other vehicles in your stable.
Use this control to limit the display of threads to those newer than the specified time frame.
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Rossion Q1 Street & Track Tires from TireRack


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Smokey Robinson, James Taylor Team on 'Ain't That Peculiar' (Exclusive Song Premiere)
Smokey Robinson co-wrote "Ain't That Peculiar" for Marvin Gaye nearly 50 years ago, now he revisits the song with help from James Taylor in a new version that premieres today on Speakeasy.
This rendition of the soul classic takes on a rootsier vibe that suits Taylor, who sings first before Robinson comes in. "He always loved that song," Robinson said of Taylor in a soundbite made available to the press. "So when they gave him the choice of a song of mine that he wanted to sing, he picked 'Ain't That Peculiar.'"
The track is from "Smokey and Friends," a new album of duets that also includes Elton John, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Sheryl Crow, John Mayer, Mary J. Blige and Cee Lo Green. Producer Randy Jackson let the guest vocalists send him their interpretation of the songs, and arranged the tracks around what they sent, said Robinson, who described Taylor's take on "Ain't That Peculiar" as "funk-rock." "It's not at all like Marvin's version," Robinson said. "And it's great."
Listen after the jump.


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Yesterday I attended a seminar talk titled "Cluster presentation of reflection groups", and before it I tried to ask Google what is a "cluster presentation" --- but all one can find on this request is about databases or social studies.
Another example: try to find something on "geometrical groups" and not "geometric group theory".
I think this is a very common problem, when you are interested in some area you don't know anything about and trying to find some texts on it --- but it's very hard if you don't know what exactly to look for. Of course if you have someone to ask, it's not a problem anymore, but usually you don't.
So the question is: how to start learning an advanced topic if you don't have any texts or guidelines about it (and have nobody to ask except for MO community)?


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Say goodbye to long forms and meaningless numbers. MicroEval is the quickest and most meaningful way to give feedback to your employees.
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- Page 1 Yamaha RX-V473 Review
- Page 2 Features and Operation Review
- Page 3 Yamaha RX-V473 – Performance and Verdict Review
- Detailed sound with decent grunt
- AirPlay and internet radio
- Sleek black design
- Basic looking menu system
- Couldn't stream from Windows Media Player
- Cluttered remote
Key Specifications
- Review Price: £339.00
- AirPlay and DLNA music streaming
- Internet radio
- 5 x 80W power output
- YPAO automatic setup
- CINEMA DSP 3D and Virtual Presence
Yamaha's RX-V473 hails from the entry-level section of the company's AV receiver range, sandwiched between the RX-V373 and RX-V573. Despite its status as an affordable model, the feature list looks healthy for the money, boasting network streaming support and full compatibility with Apple products (including AirPlay for the first time on a Yamaha receiver). More discerning cinephiles might like to explore two premium models further up the range, the RX-V673 and V773, but if you're after a nice balance of features and affordability then the five-channel RX-V473 already looks like a good bet.
Design-wise it's vintage Yamaha, clad from head to toe in a seriously sleek black finish. A large display panel shines important info into the room in clear lettering, including the currently selected input and the volume level. Fans of clean minimalist AV kit might bemoan the lack of a flap to cover up the front panel clutter, although there's a bit of geeky pleasure to be had in all the buttons, dials and sockets peppering the fascia – a reminder that it's the busy hub of your home cinema system.
The buttons on the front let you control the built in radio tuners, bass/treble and input selection, while four Scene buttons act like macros, powering up the unit than selecting the relevant input and DSP mode. Front sockets include 3.5mm minijack and composite video inputs, headphone output and a socket for the supplied setup microphone (more on that later).
The rear panel is nicely stocked with sockets, including four HDMI inputs with support for 3D, ARC and even 4K2K passthrough when such devices come to market. Also useful is that you can switch between sources connected to the HDMI ports while in standby.
They're joined by two sets of component video inputs and one output; four composite video inputs and two outputs; three digital audio inputs (two optical, two coaxial); three analogue stereo inputs and one output; a subwoofer pre-out; an Ethernet port for the on-board network functionality and aerial inputs for the FM and AM radio tuners. That's a generous selection that should keep you connected for years to come.
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From forged bar stock or seamless pipe
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Utility distribution networks (e.g. nitrogen, instrument air, cooling water)
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Home fires occur more in the winter months than any other time of the year. As cold weather encroaches, the Fulton County Fire Rescue Department (FCFRD) encourages residents to be mindful of potential dangers from home heating sources. According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), December, January and February are the leading months for home heating fires. Heating equipment is the second leading cause of U.S. home fires and home fire deaths.
"Following a few simple safety tips and precautions can prevent most heating fires from happening," states Chief Larry Few of the Fulton County Fire Rescue Department. "We can reduce the number of home heating fires in our community be taking some simple precautions and using heating equipment properly."
The Fulton County Fire Rescue Department and NFPA recommend the following heating tips to help prevent winter fires and to stay safe this winter season:
Contact the Fulton County Fire Rescue Department at 404.612.5700 for more fire safety information and tips. Follow them on Twitter at @FCFRD.
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Foods that stress you out
Piles of papers, deadlines, constant phone calls—all can cause stress at work. But what about what you're eating? Your diet could be feeding your stress at work, look out for these foods.
First are foods high in sodium. Fries, chips, and even deli meats cause the body to retain fluids and can lead to hypertension. Instead eat grilled, low fat foods and take a quick walk to help reduce blood pressure.
Look out for caffeine too. Large amounts of caffeine can lead to anxiety and loss of concentration, which can make you less productive and put you behind. Moderation is the key.
Eating lots of fatty foods can put stress on the heart. Fried foods aren't the only culprits. Large amounts of whole-fat dairy like milk, cheese, and yogurt can cause concern. Using skim milk instead of cream in your coffee is a little change that can make a difference.
Limiting junk foods and alcohol can help reduce stress as well. Alcohol in particular has been shown to release the stress hormone cortisol in your body.
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Do not be shy, take a look at them! Perhaps they will interest you.
You can make the best decision, just briefly looking through our review of Antique Cut Engagement Rings. Buying an antique engagement ring instead of a new is an opportunity to be different and bring in your marriage something special. After all, antique ring is a ring with some history and character. The antique rings as a rule decorated with diamonds of better quality, and often they are made with complex artistic details that are difficult to reproduce. Find even more imaginative jewelry in Antique Cut Engagement Rings.Antique Cut Engagement Rings


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Melissa Gartenberg Livney, PsyD
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Melissa Gartenberg Livney, Psy.D. joined the Section of Geriatric Psychiatry in 2007. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She completed her predoctoral internship at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, NY. She consistently customized her training experience emphasize work with older adults. Her dissertation was a study of the role of psychologists who practice in long-term care settings.
She currently provides individual psychotherapy to older adults with a range of difficulties including depression, anxiety, and transitions that often occur in later life such as retirement, physical difficulties, memory loss, and grief. She also works within the PENN Memory Center to provide a psychoeducational group for caregivers of family members with dementia. She is currently developing a research protocol that will follow older adults over the course of three years to learn more about the interactions between psychological distress, resilience, and cognition. This study includes a neuropsychological evaluation as well as an assessment of distressing life events, mood, coping style, personality characteristics, and associated biomarkers.
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March 8. After lengthy discussion of the tax-the-rich subject, and at least one forum thread about it, I can distill my argument to a few key points:
1. Although I identify as an anarchist, I'm also an opportunist and not a purist, and my support for socialism is opportunistic. As long as we have a big government, I'd like influence it to do more wealth redistribution. And no, that's not going to undermine my dedication to building systems with no central control. Do you think I have no mental discipline at all?
2. If you really like what you do for money, you won't care if other people are being paid money to do nothing. You might even feel sorry for them. If it bothers you that other people get to slack off while you work, then you hate your work, and your hostility should be directed at the system that pressures you to do that work, and if other people manage to escape it, you might want to learn from them.
3. It's true that some of us, if we were rich, could use our money for the greater good much more effectively than the government uses it through taxing and spending. But most rich people either hoard their money or spend it selfishly. Until rich people as a whole learn to do all the good stuff the government does and less of the bad stuff, or until there's a way to tax only rich idiots, the best system is to tax them all.
4. One frequently hears the argument, "This is my money. I earned this money. The government has no right to take it away." But the government's right to take it away rests on exactly the same foundation as your right to have it in the first place: that's what the rules say. Our very concepts of "money" and "property" are social constructions -- and not very good ones. Money is power, and a well-functioning society will award power to those who prove their ability to use power wisely. Our rules award money for all kinds of things: greed, foresight, lack of empathy, frugality, corruption, self-discipline, luck, manic work habits... but not for the ability to spend that money effectively for the greater good. That's why taxation is necessary, but even taxation is only a patch for a system that's fundamentally unsound.
Because we have rules that give power to people who use it badly, and rules that create positive feedback in both wealth and poverty, and rules that reward short-sightedness and ecological destruction, our system is collapsing. To simple-minded people who benefited from the rules, this will cause great suffering and confusion.
5. Finally, in our detached and money-worshipping society, there's a common assumption that the best way to do good in life is to make a ton of money and then donate it to charities. But it's much more efficient to use your attention and energy directly for helping.
March 9. Everybody chill out about H.R. 875. That link goes to a full paranoid analysis on Cryptogon. In theory, this law could have federal agents stomping through your vegetable garden and fining you a million dollars for failing to get a permit. In practice, this is a move by occult trickster entities to grow and harvest emotions of fear and victimization from the fertile soil of the foilhead crowd.
I swear, anti-government people worship the government. Nobody else has such unwavering belief in the government's omniscience and omnipotence. Anything the government writes on paper is assumed to be magically done. This analysis on Campaign for Liberty says the law "will literally put all independent farmers and food producers out of business due to the huge amounts of money it will take to conform to factory farming methods." You know, you don't have to do everything you're told. Why not say instead that this will put the government out of business due to the huge amounts of money it will take to enforce the law against millions of small food producers?
We're in the position of strength here. Look at all the ways the file sharers have dodged the copyright cartel, and they're sharing fragile high-tech artifacts that require sophisticated computer equipment and electricity. We're sharing life, seeds that can remain viable for hundreds of years, plants that need only dirt and water and sunlight, animals that can live on table scraps in the garage, species that have duplicated themselves, in many cases without human help, for thousands or millions of years. Look at what happened when they tried to eradicate cannabis, and imagine them trying to fight the same war on a thousand fronts, never mind the tens of thousands of species they don't even know are edible. Seriously, I hope the agriculture giants really do try to stop all independent food production, because we will stuff them in the compost bin of history.
March 10. From last month, prominent techie Kevin Kelly covers the Unabomber and primitivism. Kelly raises some great issues and asks good questions, but then halfway through he blows it with a weak easy answer: Kaczynski said civilization robs us of freedom, when really it gives us freedom, where "freedom" is defined as abundance of choices. This is a semantic trick, and by using it, Kelly fails to grasp what really makes civilized people want to go primitive, and why this civilization is dying.
A few days later he again stumbled close to understanding when he posted a video of comedian Louis C.K. talking about how "everything is amazing right now and nobody's happy." People complain about waiting on an airport runway for 40 minutes and then totally fail to appreciate that they get to sit in a chair miles above the earth flying across the continent in a few hours. But both Kelly and C.K. are missing the point. It's not that we are idiots for failing to appreciate the miracle of flight. It's that amazement does not make us happy. Amazement is shallow and short-lived, and if that's all that flight offers us, then flight is an empty novelty, like a song that only sounds good on the first listen.
What makes us continue to appreciate a technology, a behavior, an experience, is integration into a world that serves our deep human needs. Two of those needs are autonomy and meaning. American-style "freedom" means you can zip around the world and buy toys and choose from 200 varieties of soda. Autonomy means that as you go through your daily activities, nobody is riding you -- you're not micromanaged, coerced, or denied participation in power. And meaning means you're part of a larger story that you feel good about.
In a good primitive tribe, or in nature, every tool and action is integrated into a world full of autonomy and meaning. But in civilization as we know it, most people are denied both, and that's why we fantasize about the end of the world. Techno-utopians don't understand this because their lives do have meaning, and often autonomy: they're authors or inventors or independent consultants, leaders in a story about "progress" and space colonies and immortal intelligent machines. They don't see all the lives being ground up in the gears of their shiny engines. When you raise the issue, their easy answer is that soon all the bad jobs will be mechanized, but again they fail to notice that humans are going to have to manufacture and repair those machines. And manufacturing and repairing a burger-flipping machine is more resource-intensive and vulnerable to disruption than simply flipping a burger, and might create jobs that are worse.
The techno-elite, lacking experience in bad jobs, don't understand what makes a job bad. The reason we hate low-status jobs like burger-flipping and toilet cleaning is not that they're physical or dirty. We love to do physical and dirty things like work on our own cars and tend our own gardens and play sports and go on hikes. The jobs are bad because they're crushed under a hierarchy, because the story they're part of is "you do what I say" or "our company that treats us like shit is great", and because the focus is always on quantity or speed, and never on quality.
Our quantity-worshipping culture thinks "sustainability" means not running out of kilowatt-hours, but it's even more critical for a system to not run out of human will, to be psychologically sustainable. Civilization as we know it is not, but other highly complex societies are possible, and we may eventually build one that we all enjoy enough to keep it going.
March 15. When I first mentioned buying an old Toyota truck, several readers told me I could get a Ford Ranger cheaper, and I said I'd gladly spend an extra $1000 for the legendary Toyota reliability. And I still would... but that's not the right number, unless the trucks in question are selling for $1000 and $2000. Comparing trucks in this area with the same age and features and condition, Toyotas are running about double, not because they're worth double, but because of supply and demand: Friday on Seattle/Tacoma Craigslist, there were 98 new postings of Ford Rangers for sale. So I decided to look for a Ranger, and after more thought, one with an extended cab. Even though they're heavier and less nimble, they have valuable extra storage space for fragile cargo, including people.
My brother-in-law Sean has been helping me look, and yesterday morning we drove up to check out a 1993 with only 76,000 miles that a dealer was offering for $2500. But unevenly worn front tires suggested misalignment from a crash, and the pedal wear suggested the odometer had been rolled back a couple times around the planet. So we came back and then he spotted another good one only minutes after it was posted, a 1997 with 120,000 miles, for $2800 from a nearby private owner. We were there within an hour, the owner was very nice and apparently honest, and I was happy to pay her $2600 for it. Here I am with my truck! It's a 1997 Ford Ranger XLT, 2wd, 4 cylinder, 5 speed manual, and more green than it looks in the photo. That's a soft tonneau cover on the back, and it also came with an Adventure Truck Tent, so between those I won't need a canopy.
Of course I'm still anti-car. And in American liberal culture, anyone against cars is assumed to be thinking something like this: "Driving is an amazing privilege, giving drivers great pleasure and freedom, but they are selfishly contributing to ecological destruction and climate change, so the morally pure action is to personally avoid driving." That is nowhere near my position. Social change comes through through large-scale organized action, not disconnected individual puritanism. And my critique of cars follows Ivan Illich's critique of cars: that driving burdens and disempowers the drivers and passengers themselves. I'm not looking forward to the burdens of registration and insurance and repairs, but I still see the truck as a net benefit to me and the land. To paraphrase William Kotke: not only is it OK to use the tools of this system to build the better system that will follow it -- ideally all the tools of this system would be used that way.
March 16. I finally read Octavia Butler's 1993 collapse novel, Parable of the Sower. It's a fun read, especially the second half, where the narrator leaves her besieged suburb and has adventures uncannily similar to a D&D game (travel, set up watch, orcs attack, kill orcs, loot bodies). But I was disappointed to see such a respected novel embrace the same myth as common right wing doomer porn: that when central control breaks down, the great danger comes from "chaos", mobs of crazed fast-moving zombies destroying and killing for kicks.
Sometimes real collapses do lead to a brutal dog-eat-dog social landscape, but more often the victims either suffer quietly or come together and innovate. And the vast majority of the murders in history have been done not by individuals with too much freedom, but by organizations with too much power. The most famous genocides of the 20th century were all done by radical ideologues using the machinery of a centralized state. After Katrina, it turned out there were no murders in the Superdome, no gunfire on aid helicopters, and powerless people in the French Quarter formed tribes, while white vigilante gangs hunted and killed black men in the name of keeping order. So the real danger is not "hordes" but organized violent gangs of all sizes.
Last week the War Nerd made exactly this point in a piece called Apocalypse Never, and Jeff Vail made it in this impressive analysis of the Mexican Collapse. As one system begins breaking down, long before it finishes, the void is filled, not by chaos, but by other systems. In Mexico it's the drug gangs. Brecher thinks that in an American collapse it could be the churches. Vail thinks the era of the nation-state is ending and future systems will be organized more laterally and less vertically, and in a linked article, The New Map, he argues that discrete national boundaries are a weird artifact of the Cartesian age. So forget those maps with "Cascadia" and "Republic of Texas". I imagine a messy patchwork of overlapping spheres of influence, including neo-feudal warlords, corporations, remnants of national and state governments, invigorated local governments, informal "nations" based on race or religion or culture, and tribes based on mutual aid.
March 19. New from Charles Eisenstein, Money and the Turning of the Age. The first 80% of the essay is brilliant, the best critique of economic growth I've seen yet, with great stuff about money as magic/illusion, the limits to monetization, the manufacture of needs, and even a good critique of high tech.
Then he loses me at the end, beginning with this sentence: "We are in the midst of a transition parallel to an adolescent's transition into adulthood." That's a seductive idea, and certainly we are in the midst of a transition, but I don't see any evidence for the adolescence/adulthood metaphor. We don't seem any more mature than our ancestors, individually or collectively, and most people in the world are still striving for the western industrial lifestyle, or clinging to it. We didn't get wiser -- we just ran out of drugs.
It occurs to me that the extreme optimists and extreme pessimists are all making the same argument: in the lifespan of people alive today, history will end and we will settle into a permanent state. To the pessimists it's extinction, or an airtight repressive government, or bad primitive living with no way out. To the optimists it's good primitive living with no way out, or an airtight utopia, or spiritual transcendence. I took the extreme optimist position in some of my early essays, and more recently I've written that it will take us thousands of years to build an enduring non-repressive society. But now I think that's the wrong goal. There are no enduring societies.
My big scene in the "What A Way To Go" movie was telling the Parable of the Tribes, which comes from a book of that name by Andrew Bard Schmookler: there are a bunch of tribes living peacefully, and then one of them turns its energy to war, and whether the other tribes run away, or submit, or fight back, the violent paradigm expands into their territory, and this process continues until it consumes the whole world. But this story does the same thing looking backward in time that the utopians and dystopians do looking forward: it draws an imaginary line beyond which the turmoil of history stills, and there is no change.
I think there have always been warlike tribes, and there always will be. A society that turns its energy to war and conquest will always defeat a society that lives in peace, because it can fight better; but then, a peaceful and cooperative social order will always defeat a violent and repressive social order, because it's a better way to live. These two systems have existed in balance since the beginning of time, the violent systems sweeping through the peaceful systems and burning out like fires.
Only when grain agriculture released the energy of topsoil, and industry released the energy of oil, did the fire of the violent tribes rise to engulf the world. Now that the fuel is running out, we are entering a new age, neither an age of increase nor an age of low-level equilibrium, but an age of high-level equilibrium, more complex and chaotic than prehistory because so many technologies and energy sources will survive.
In a world like this, it will be impossible to build any kind of enduring large system. Our path, instead, will be to continually break down the repressive systems, dodge the conquering systems, and rebuild good systems through the cracks, forever. Actually I think that will be more fun than Utopia.
March 23. Solar storm could crash electric grid (here's an alternate link and a pdf link), taking down drinking water pumps, fuel pumps, pipelines, power plants, hospitals, food refrigeration, food distribution, and most manufacturing, for months or years. Hydroelectric power is highly resistant to most disasters, but not this one. On the solar storm blackout warning map, that giant red circle in the northwest has to be the transformer at Grand Coulee Dam.
John Michael Greer has pointed out that a complex system can recover more easily from a sudden crash than a slow decline, because after a sudden crash there are still people who remember how to run the old system. A solar storm crash could have a similar effect to the Black Death in Medieval Europe, causing deep changes in society without much decline in complexity.
March 31 - April 1. On the forums Coyote posted this wonderful page about making rubber from dandelion sap in the context of a discussion about the survival of bicycles. Personally, I don't think the end of growth is going to bring the end of manufacturing, high technology, big systems, or suffering. Maybe I'm wrong, and bicycles won't survive, but I have lost all interest in arguments that something can't be done. I've made those arguments myself, but now I'm going to quit, because when they're right they're a waste of time, and when they're wrong they are actively harmful. To argue for the impossibility of something you like is despair, and to argue for the impossibility of something you don't like is dangerous wishful thinking. Instead of talking about why things can't be done, we need to focus our attention and power on how things can be done.
This kind of positive thinking should not be confused with blind optimism. I've said this before: the weak kind of "hope" is about what's going to happen: that Obama will save the economy, that science will find a replacement for cheap oil, that economic growth can continue indefinitely, that nobody who now has food and electricity will lose it, that there will be no surprising disasters.
The strong kind of "hope" is about what we do: that we can find shelter without money, be comfortable without electricity, keep order without the police, grow food without chemical fertilizers, preserve wheeled transportation without factories, and generally adapt to great challenges, even if we cannot yet see the way.
April 7. Back in November I wondered where right wingers could go to flee Obama's victory, and I could think of only one place in the world both farther right and wealthier than America: Dubai. Well, now we see where that combination leads: The dark side of Dubai exposes Dubai's draconic laws, its army of slaves, the vapor-like nature of its wealth, and its impending collapse. It's going to make some impressive ruins, and I remember Chuck telling me that because Dubai is so dry, and so far from major fault lines, the Burj Dubai could easily stand for thousands of years.
April 9. About Obama, the lefties are correct in the details but simple-minded in the big picture. Biologically, we want to think of the President as the Chief of a tribe where everything is simple and transparent, when in reality he's like a figurehead/technician of a massive system with unimaginable complexity and inertia, almost all of it hidden from public view. It's funny how so many people will abandon their trust in an individual, believing that Obama is stupid or evil, before they'll abandon their trust in the government, that it's designed so well that an intelligent and benevolent president could change everything, or before they'll abandon their trust in the media, that they show us the whole picture.
Obama is playing a chess game in which we can't see most of the pieces. If he backs his queen off for no apparent reason, the fool says, "I could play better than that," while the wise person tries to infer the position of the hidden rook. From his policy decisions so far, I infer an army of strong pieces whose motive is to continue the American Cult Suicide. Every powerful interest is going to hold onto its power at the expense of the whole system, which will continue to decline and fall, as we continue to build new systems in its cracks. What Obama gives us, at the very least, is a few years of relative stability. He's going to keep the bus from flipping over or bursting into flames as it rolls down the slope.
Who I fear is the next president. This article argues that the current policy mix reflects those of Germany during the period between 1919 and 1923, the famous Weimar period that fueled Hitler. Americans are going to get angry and desperate, and the great danger is that someone will appear with Obama's charisma and appeal to the youth, but where Obama is an empiricist and a negotiator, this leader will be an ideologue and a fanatical crusader. It's the most normal thing in history for exciting revolutionaries to become the new dominators.
April 13. Mr. Soddy's Ecological Economy. I've posted before about ecological economics, but this is a guy who was born in 1877, who won a Nobel prize as a chemist and then switched to economics where he was dismissed as a crank for suggesting five politically impossible reforms. Now four of them have already been made. The fifth is to prohibit fractional reserve lending, where banks loan more money than they actually have.
I wouldn't be surprised to see this reform in my lifetime, since it already seems like common sense to non-bankers, and it would enable something like the present system to survive without perpetual growth. Here's the wikipedia page on full-reserve banking, which mentions some current systems that come close. We might see it first in small banks and small or radical nations, and eventually everyone will switch when they see how much better adapted it is to the new landscape.
It's important to remember that perpetual growth and positive feedback in wealth are different things. In one, the numbers get bigger for the system as a whole, and in the other, whoever has the most numbers gets to take numbers from whoever has the least. It's like there was a Great Fire that burned the whole world, and now that it's dying down, there will still be fire: wealth/power will still leverage itself into more wealth/power. The good news is, without universal increase, the rich will no longer be able to buy the political support of the middle class. There may not even be a middle class! But it won't be like the 20th century third world, because those societies were dominated by economic growth in the first world. We are entering completely new territory: an age with high technology, highly complex societies, cities, corporations, governments, socialists, anarchists, pirates, global commerce and communication, but without increasing numbers. How it will play out is anyone's guess.
April 17. Have you seen the film Gattaca? I didn't like it. The idea is, some people are genetically engineered to be smarter and stronger and healthier, but they're lazy, and the non-engineered hero beats them by fanatically pushing himself. Isn't it more likely that the ruling powers would genetically engineer people to fanatically push themselves? And the non-engineered people, by taking their time, would do higher quality work and have more foresight and be more connected to the whole. But that's exactly what has already happened -- not through genetic engineering but social engineering. And I expect the manic mode to burn itself out and collapse while the slow mode endures.
April 20-21. A year ago I posted a few links about the benefits of going barefoot. Here's a new long article, The painful truth about trainers, and a short one, What Ruins Running, both focusing on shoes. Until the 1970's, shoes had thin soles that made it painful for runners to come down on their heels, so they had to come down on the balls of their feet, and use the springiness of their feet and ankles to absorb the shock. Then someone had the idea to design shoes to let runners come down on their heels, which turns out to have been a terrible mistake, because even the newest and most expensive heel technology cannot prevent the shock from going up and damaging your ankles and hips.
You don't need to go barefoot to avoid injuries -- you just need soles thin enough that you can't land on your heels. Several readers have recommended Vibram Five Fingers as a shoe that gives you the benefits of going barefoot while protecting your feet from broken glass and stuff. [Update: after some research, I got the KSO model, and I'm very happy with it.]
April 24. Just finished a fun DIY project. My Freeplay radio wouldn't hold a charge, so I opened it up and discovered that the battery pack is just three AAA batteries in series. After doing a bunch of research and buying some soldering equipment, I managed to make a new battery pack out of three Sanyo Eneloops, which are much higher quality than the batteries the radio came with. I just held them together with clear mailing tape and soldered wires directly to the battery terminals. Most sources say it's really hard to do that without overheating and damaging them, but I found this great page, Making NiMH Battery Packs, illustrating a technique that hardly heats the batteries at all. Basically you use a lot of flux, and you first put a bead of solder on the battery, and also put some in the wire, and then join them.
April 24. I've written before that we could define the "owner" of a place as whoever lives there, and factor out the whole concept of "property". Last month I discovered that Pierre-Joseph Proudhon had the same idea in 1840, in his book What Is Property? Specifically, Proudhon noticed that our word "property" blurs together two opposite concepts: the rights of someone who actually works with a piece of land, a house, a sum of money, a tool; and the rights of someone who does not work with it, who might never see it, but who is said to "own" it because, well, the rules say so, and we don't question them.
Looking just at land, where do pieces of "bought" land originally come from? Usually they are violently stolen from indigenous people, or in the case of unoccupied wilderness, some central authority simply declares "ownership" out of thin air. Tribal people have the concept of territory, but they would think it's insane for one tribe to "own" the land that another tribe occupies. Even neolithic farmers, who have already carved fields out of the forest, would not understand how one family could work a field "owned" by another -- unless they were slaves.
The concept of non-occupying ownership is like a magic spell that makes violent conquest and near-slavery seem natural. It enables ecological destruction, because people actually living on land, seeing the effects of their actions, are less willing to cut down forests and deplete topsoil than remote commanders seeing only numbers. And it enables positive feedback in wealth distribution: the two big ways the rich get richer are rent and interest, one where you pay a fee to the "owner" of land you're occupying, and the other where you pay a fee to the "owner" of money you're using.
So, should we make possession the whole of the law? I see two problems with this. The first is that no set of laws can make a tolerable society if people are still hyperselfish. For example, you might leave your house for a day and come back to find out that someone else has claimed it. The other problem is that even occupiers of land can abuse it, like the mining companies that are cutting tops off mountains in West Virginia, or renters who trash a house because they know they're not staying long. In this case, it's the absentee landlord who has a healthy relationship with the property (though not with the renters).
So I suggest a more useful distinction, not between possessing and non-possessing ownership, but between sustaining and extractive ownership. More generally, we can distinguish between sustaining and extractive relationships. An extractive relationship is what you have with an apple: you get it, you eat it, it's gone. It's not good to have an extractive relationship with a person, or a piece of land. Civilization as we know it has an extractive relationship with the whole planet. But as the extractable resources get used up, more and more human systems will have to develop sustaining relationships with their land. The challenge is to have good relationships and high social complexity at the same time.
I'm also thinking about this in the context of money. In the Empire money system, rich people and banks have sustaining relationships with their piles of money -- they want their money to stay the same size or grow year after year. And they do this by having extractive relationships with people and land. In a system with depreciating currency, people are forced to have an extractive relationship with their money: If they hold onto it, it will decay, like an apple, so they have to use it up by spending it. And if they're smart, they will spend it to build sustaining relationships with people and land.
April 28. The missing sunspots could mean a cooling sun that would more than cancel out warming from greenhouse gases. If so, it would be an interesting coincidence that humans are warming the planet at exactly the same time that the sun is cooling it. It often seems to me that events in this world fit together much too well to be random. Here's a 1999 article that could explain why: Quantum Mechanics Implies That The Universe is a Computer Simulation.


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West Coast Jet Sprint
Jet Sprinting is the wildest motor sport action that happens on water, and sometimes even on land.
Baldivis Jet Sprint Park is a World Class Venue having hosted many International events including the World Series.
This dynamic sport began in New Zealand and has quickly spread throughout Australia and America.
Jet Sprint boat racing is very similar to rally car racing, except that it takes place on water.
Each boat carries a crew of two, a driver and a navigator. A typical race involves memorising a sequence of up to 22 directional changes on a course made up of narrow channels and islands.
The driver task is to correctly complete the course in the fastest possible time, the navigator assist the driver with directions by means of hand signals. The teams compete against the clock and a sophisticated timing system records each boats time to 100th of a second. The winner is the team to complete the course in the correct rotation in quickest time.


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Eager reader: Gallagher picks Caldecott winner
Genevieve Gallagher has read pretty much every picture book published in 2005. That's 575 and counting, with more coming in every day.
Her zeal suggests a Type A librarian, but Gallagher has another motive: She's a member of the 14-person Caldecott Committee, which will choose the 2005 winner of the prestigious award for the most distinguished picture book of the year.
"It's huge, it's huge," says UVA prof Joan Kindig, who specializes in reading and children's literature. "She'll have an impact forever on what children read." Being asked to be on the committee is quite an honor, Kindig adds.
The committee is made up of members of the children's wing of the American Library Association. Gallagher flies to San Antonio January 19 to meet with the committee and pick the Caldecott winner, which will be announced January 21. "I wouldn't want to make that choice by myself," she says.
She refuses to give hints about her top 10 candidates. But "The cream is definitely in my mind," the Murray Elementary School librarian says.
Gallagher's husband had to build a bookcase to hold all the entries, which arrived by the boxful for a while. She keeps track of them with a database. As for the choosing, "It's been hard," she says. "It's like comparing apples and oranges, or members of your family. One book might be a watercolor, or a cartoon, or goofy..."
While her knowledge of the latest picture books is certainly au courant, Gallagher, 31, didn't dream of being a librarian in her youth. Her degree is in political science, and she wanted to work in the foreign service. But after a stint in Togo with the Peace Corps, she couldn't find a job.
Her aunt clued her in that a public library in Manhattan was hiring, and that's how Gallagher took a different career path– one for which she seems to have been destined all along. "I love finding out what kids think about what they read," she says.
With her long blonde hair, boots, and patterned stockings, Genevieve Gallagher defies the frumpy librarian stereotype. She describes a cowboy-booted colleague who sports a pierced nose and tattoos. "I like that," she says. "My friends and I are giving a new face to librarians."
(And she calls herself a librarian, rather than the obfuscatory "media specialist" in vogue with– well– librarians.)
Gallagher is so serious about her profession that instead of taking vacations, she pays her own way to ALA meetings twice a year.
Wait. Maybe she is a Type A librarian...
Genevieve Gallagher


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Bonnie Jean Baird Wilson of Glen Rose, ascended to be present with the Lord on September 4, 2011 at the age of 70. She was born April 17, 1941 in Kansas City, Missouri. She resided in Tulsa, Oklahoma until age 12, and then lived in Shaker Heights (Cleveland), Ohio until she married her husband at age 22. She lived in Malvern (Glen Rose) the remaining years. She attended Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and was a member of the Chi Omega Sorority. She belonged to the Arkansas Quilter's Guild, the American Quilter's Society, and the National Quilter's Association. She entered many of her professional quilted works in national competitions, and was recognized for her quilting abilities. In 1988, the then Governor Bill Clinton purchased six of her Quilted wall hangings to present as gifts to dignitaries on his business trips to the Far East. In 1990, after her first battle with cancer she donated a large wall quilt to St. Vincent's Infirmary in Little Rock, Arkansas which hangs in their Oncology Admissions Area Over the years, she was actively involved in Glen Rose Missionary Baptist Church, where she served as a Sunday School teacher, Sunday School Superintendent, Assistant Church Treasurer, Church Financial Committee, and was the church organist from 1972 until 2004. She was one of the many members representing their church in the annual cancer walk, "Relay for Life" in Malvern, while she was still able to participate. She married George W. Wilson in 1963 and is survived by her husband of Malvern (Glen Rose); their son Kevin R. Wilson and his wife Jennifer, and two granddaughters, Sydney and Tristen, all of Lonsdale, Arkansas. She is also survived by her sister, Lynn Shaw and husband Russ, of Aurora, Ohio; her brother Scott and wife Jan, of Chelsea, Michigan; and three nieces and two nephews. She was preceded in death by her parents, John and Eleanor Bloor Baird. Memorial services will be held at Glen Rose Missionary Baptist Church on Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 10:00 AM. Ministers will be Bro. Gary Copeland and Bro. Dennis McClintic. Visitation and fellowship will be following the service.
Memorial contributions, in lieu of flowers, may be made to the Glen Rose Baptist Church Building Fund, or to the American Cancer Society
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The Fire Caves on Bajor were a prison created by the Prophets to contain the Pah-wraiths after they attempted to seize the Celestial Temple. Despite the name, there was never any actual fire in the Caves except when the Pah-wraiths were nearly released.
During the Occupation, the Cardassians found the Bajorans' fear of the Caves to be amusing, but they never explored them. (DS9: "What You Leave Behind")
Benjamin Sisko wanted to visit the Fire Caves in 2369 with his son Jake Sisko, after attending the Gratitude Festival. (DS9: "The Nagus")
Keiko O'Brien visited the Caves during an expedition in 2373, and unwillingly became host to one of the Pah-wraiths until it could be forced out by her husband Miles. (DS9: "The Assignment")
In late 2375, Kai Winn Adami and Dukat attempted to free the Pah-wraiths from the Caves, using the Book of the Kosst Amojan. Winn was initially concerned about releasing them, as Bajoran prophecy stated their release would mean the end of Bajor. (DS9: "The Changing Face of Evil", "When It Rains...")
One of the wraiths did escape and joined with Dukat who then prepared to release the others, killing Winn in the process. In an act of bravery, Benjamin Sisko was able to throw himself, the book and Dukat in to the fire below, destroying the book and therefore trapping Dukat with the Pah-wraiths forever. (DS9: "What You Leave Behind")
|Geographical features on Bajor
|Land formations: Cliffs of Undalar • Dahkur Hills • Fire Caves • Janitza Mountains • Kendra Valley • Kola Mountain • Northern peninsula • Northwest peninsula
|Perikian Peninsula • Ratosha Pass • Sahving Valley • Serpent's Ridge • Southern islands • Tanis Canyon • Trilar Peninsula
|Forests: Bestri Woods
|Rivers: Glyrhond River • Holana River • Yolja River • Qui'al Dam
|Districts: Northeastern District • Northwestern District
|Provinces: Dahkur • Eastern • Kendra • Hill • Musilla • Rakantha • Lonar • Tozhat • Hedrikspool
|Settlements: B'hala • Hathon • Ilvia • Jalanda City • Janir • Jo'Kala • Kran-Tobol • Lasuma • Relliketh • Tamulna • Tempasa • Unnamed
|Other: H'erat
External link Edit
- Fire Caves at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works


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For sheer murkiness, the African Union is in a world of its own.
Established back in 2002 to replace the older, less-organized Organization of African Unity, the African Union has ambitions of creating a common policy front so that 54 different African countries can confront what they see as an exploitative and richer world with one voice. It's an ambition deeply rooted in the Pan-Africanist movement of Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere and Leopold Senghor, who wanted to do away with colonial borders and build on the common features and strengths of Africa culture to form a single African nation. But it's an ambition wrapped in profound distrust of other countries who would take advantage of Africa and its disunity.
Today, at the end of its 18th assembly of African leaders in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the AU is an organization that has begun to put action behind its words. It sends peacekeeping missions to the Darfur region of Sudan and to support the tottering transitional government in Somalia. Its leaders jet off to growing conflict zones such as post-election Ivory Coast and pre-war Libya and attempt to achieve peace through negotiation, with varying success. But is it any closer to creating a single voice on matters that affect all African states?
A fairly vicious battle for the AU's top leadership position, as chairman of the AU Commission, shows that unity is still a distant goal.
The incumbent is Jean Ping, a Gabonese diplomat of mixed heritage. His father was a Chinese immigrant, his mother was Gabonese. Mr. Ping was educated in France, and rose up through politics to be chief of cabinet for the long-ruling Gabonese President El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba. The magazine African Confidential quoted Ping as being largely uncritical of China's growing role in Africa.
"With China, everything is simple," Ping is quoted by African Confidential as saying. "She gives us debt forgiveness or long-term loans without interest or conditions."
But Ping's capabilities as a diplomat were not quite up to the exacting standards of South Africa.
During last year's Libyan crisis, when South African President Jacob Zuma was attempting to broker a peace deal between Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and Libyan rebels, Ping was seen as inadequately standing up for the interests of the AU. Ping failed last March to broker a peace deal in Ivory Coast, after disputed elections turned into a brief civil war. Many South Africans fretted that his failure gave an opportunity for France to throw in its troops to oust former President Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to accept election results showing he had lost.
So when Ping's job came up again for renewal, South Africa mounted a campaign to replace him. AU members did not accept South Africa's alternative, the formidable former foreign minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, but they did prevent Ping from getting the two-thirds majority vote required for another term. When the final votes were counted, and the AU was left without a leader, witnesses told the Monitor that South Africa's delegation was dancing in the hall.
Ms. Dlamini Zuma, meanwhile, says that she will try again for the chairmanship, when Ping's extended six month tenure ends.
One thing that most African diplomats can agree on these days is that Africans need to protect their interests against the power of former colonial powers, such as France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and their perceived supporters, such as the United States. Another thing many Africans can agree with is that they still need outside foreign assistance, as long as that assistance comes with few strings attached. That's why China, and to a lesser extent, India are welcomed in Africa.
At the AU summit, a senior Chinese diplomat, Jia Qinglin, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said all the right things.
"…we must fully respect the efforts of African countries in resolving African issues independently. In recent years, Africa has steadily built up its capacity to independently address African issues. Facts have proven that African countries are able and wise enough to do so. The international community should provide support and help to the resolution of African issues. China believes that such help should be based on respect for the will of the African people and should be constructive. It should reinforce, rather than undercut, Africa's independent efforts to solve problems. Interference in Africa's internal affairs by outside forces out of selfish motives can only complicate the efforts to resolve issues in Africa."
China has not been shy about getting involved in Africa, as the recent construction of the AU's new headquarters -- built by Chinese companies -- clearly illustrates. But while China is clearly giving money in order to secure access to natural resources, it does not give African leaders a lecture on how to run their countries, how to protect civil liberties or human rights, or how to run the public treasury.
In the end, it may have been "outside interference" by old colonial powers that cost Ping his job. Speaking with South Africa's Independent newspaper, the Mozambican Foreign Minister Oldemiro Baloi, confirmed that AU members were turned off by the "interference" of outsiders, and separately, South African and other southern African participants confirmed that intense lobbying by the French ambassador to Ethiopia in favor of Ping made many AU members see him as France's man.
Normally, AU members would have voted to extend Ping's chairmanship but, "because we felt this was not just a discussion between Africans – and that is why Ping did not win on the fourth round." Mr. Baloi did not specifically name France, but did say, "I cannot mention the name of the country, but there was outside interference, not only in the election, but also in some of the dossiers under discussion, such as the question of Madagascar."
Now the AU is in a kind of leadership limbo. Ping has been given a six-month extension, a leader without a mandate, until another vote can be held at a summit in June or July. With an ongoing election crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with growing tensions between Sudan and South Sudan, with an increasingly bloody war and killing famine in Somalia, with electoral troubles brewing in Senegal, and the challenges of restoring peace in Libya and Egypt, this is a time when Africa could use a unified voice.


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Michael Hoey was in upbeat form following a four-under par opening round at the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open at Portstewart on Thursday.
The Galgorm Castle golfer had three birdies and an eagle, but dropped one shot on the ninth hole.
Having missed the cut in the previous two Irish Opens, Hoey is in good place to ensure a weekend pass on the North Coast.


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A Dracaena planting serves as a lasting reminder of a loved one and can be placed in the home or garden.
Through the Nature Conservancy's Plant a Million Trees Program, PreferredFlorist.com will arrange to have a tree planted in the Atlantic Brazillian Rainforest for every floral or plant arrangement purchased from our store.
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What It Takes To Be An Effective Leader
Awhile ago, I was asked, "What five most important traits must a leader have to be effective?" I could reply fairly quickly, but I did take a moment to remember that when I asked a similar question in a LinkedIn group discussion, group members offered up nearly 100 different adjectives to describe an effective leader.
But, for me, I contend the five most important traits are:
- Good communicator. That means effectively communicating timely and consistent messages during good and bad times. And, knowing how and when to be a good listener. Communicating is critical. Employees must hear from their leaders. And, hearing from their leaders in person versus e-mail and written memos is even more effective.
- Being a servant leader. Put your employees and your company first. A top manager who makes decisions that are self-serving will lack followers and will bring the company down.
- Adaptable. Today, more than ever, a leader needs to adapt. That means adapting to competitive and industry situations. It also means being willing to change your decisions if new information or circumstances warrant the change.
- Decisive. Leaders who aren't decisive and who can't make a decision will spin their organization into a frozen state where employees are unmotivated, wasting time, and discouraged.
- Motivating. Smart, decisive, engaging, tough yet fair, personable and encouraging leaders are motivating. These leaders motivate employees to deliver their best for their leaders and for their company.