text:
Appleton Metro Area, Wisconsin
0 Reviews | Review This Place
+19.9% since 2000
Unemployment Rate
Cost of Living
86.5 / 100
Median Home Price
Median Income
Comfort Index (Climate)
9.3 / 3.9
summer / winter
Lake Winnebago is the primary source for the Fox River, which ultimately reaches Lake Michigan at Green Bay. The so-called "Fox Cities" – Appleton, Neenah, Oshkosh, and Fond du Lac – surround the lake, and the area, known as the Fox River Valley, is a prosperous forest products, papermaking and manufacturing region. Appleton is the largest of and most diverse of the Fox Cities. Downtown Appleton- clean, attractive, active and livable- sits right at the lake, with livable city neighborhoods spreading east and northeast until reaching farmland outside the city.
Lawrence University, a highly rated liberal arts school, adds a college town element. Blue collar and white collar elements mix well in this town. Cost of living is low and standards of living are high. Future job growth projections have been healthy for a manufacturing area as companies discover the strong local labor force. That said, the future of the paper industry has been a concern. Nearby water, state parks, and the vast forested areas of upstate Wisconsin provide above average recreation opportunities, both summer and winter.
The Fox Cities sit in a mostly level valley plain surrounded by areas of low rolling and densely wooded hills. The decidedly continental climate receives the full effects of continental air masses, particularly in winter. Summers are pleasantly warm and sometimes humid, with occasional hot spells and cool evenings. Most precipitation arrives as thunderstorms from May through September. Winters are harsh and cold, although the coldest days are often sunny and dry. Most winter precipitation comes as snow with persistent snow cover. First freeze is early October, last is mid-May.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Pushtunwali Honour among them
Thieves, murderers, rapists; and how the Pushtuns' ancient tribal code is fighting for survival against radical Islam
Dec 19th 2006 | GARDEZ AND PESHAWAR
From The Economist print edition
IN A cinema hoarding in Peshawar's Khyber bazaar, Arbaz Khan brandishes a Kalashnikov rifle with a muscular brown arm dripping with scarlet blood. Two nicely plump, pink-cheeked maidens are arranged on the grey rocks behind the actor, manacled and in chains. Mr Khan's roaring, jet-moustachioed mouth bellows the name of the film: "It is my sin that I am Pushtun!"
As an examination of moral equivalence, the film raises difficult questions. To simplify: Mr Khan's father is killed in a blood-feud, after which, according to the tribal code of the Pushtuns—or Pakhtuns, or Pathans, as they are also called—Mr Khan's uncle should marry his dead brother's widow and accept Mr Khan as his son. But Mr Khan's mother is rather long-in-the-tooth, so Mr Khan's uncle (or father) takes up with a dancing-girl, whom, to satisfy his mother's honour, Mr Khan kills. Mr Khan then falls in love. But, dash it, his uncle (or father) makes a play for his girl! Herein lies a dilemma. According to the tribal code, which is called Pushtunwali, Mr Khan must honour his father and also slaughter anyone who messes with his lady. Which way should he choose? After brief anguish, Mr Khan slots his randy uncle.
To Western critics, "Aayeena" might sound like Bollywood schlock. But it has real-life resonance in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Your correspondent recently paid a visit there to a politician, Anwar Kamal Marwat, a florid gentleman of military bearing and parliamentary leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz in the NWFP assembly. By chance, Mr Kamal had that evening returned from a distant jirga, or tribal council, involving several hundred elders from Pakistan and Afghanistan, representing several dozen Pushtun tribes and their constituent clans. The jirga had been convened to settle a blood-money claim against the Marwat tribe, which Mr Kamal leads, incurred in April 2004.
For several years previously, the Marwat had been feuding with their neighbours, the Bhattani, another small Pushtun tribe. The tit-for-tat offences were quite piffling, said Mr Kamal—a spot of thieving or kidnapping of fighting-age males. Then some Bhattani hotheads abducted two Marwat girls; and Mr Kamal went Pushtun-postal. Leading an army of 4,000 Marwat fighters, equipped with artillery, he levelled a Bhattani town, killing 80 people, including the two unlucky, but nonetheless dishonoured, girls. Neither the bloodletting, nor the jirga that followed it (which stung Mr Kamal and his tribe for $60,000), seem even to have been mentioned in the Pakistani press.
Asked whether he saw any contradiction in a senior lawmaker instigating such extreme violence, Mr Kamal appeared astonished. "Well, we don't claim this is something to be proud of," he stuttered. "But it is a question of prestige, you see, a question of honour." In other words, he might have said, paraphrasing Mr Khan: it is his sin that he is Pushtun.
It is over 250 years since Afghanistan was cobbled together, from many ethnic groups, and two centuries since British colonisers tried stretching their writ to India's (now Pakistan's) north-western frontier, where the plains crumple up towards the Hindu Kush. Yet, in both places, a large part of the population is still wedded to Pushtunwali. Some 15m Pushtuns live in Afghanistan, or 50% of its population; and 28m in Pakistan, mostly in NWFP, representing about 15% of the population there. Most of them are ruled by their tribal code, the notable exception being where the rival Islamist code, of the stringent Saudi variety which is preached by the Taliban and quite new to Afghanistan, is strong. Islamism has rivalled Pushtunwali for centuries; it has often gained prominence, as currently, in time of war. More typically, the two competing ways have cross-fertilised in Afghanistan, each subtly influencing the other.
Pushtunwali's principles have not changed in centuries—certainly not since they were recorded by Victorian ethnographers, middle-class soldiers and civil servants: players of the Great Game. Most lionised the fierce tribesmen, who periodically murdered them. Some even swallowed a delicious Pushtun claim to be descended from a lost tribe of Israel. But not all Westerners fell for the Pushtun. As a reporter for the Daily Telegraph, attached to the Malakand Field Force, Winston Churchill wrote: "Their system of ethics, which regards treachery and violence as virtues rather than vices, has produced a code of honour so strange and inconsistent that it is incomprehensible to a logical mind."
Pushtun amateur genealogists (that is, most Pushtun men) say Pushtunwali is 5,000 years old. But as Pushtu was first written less than 500 years ago, the theory is hard to test. The code's sine qua non is honour, or nang, a word which, according to Sir Olaf Caroe, an imperial scholar of the Pushtuns, contains a mythical sense of chastity. According to Khusal Khan Khattak, a great 17th-century Pushtun poet, credited with 45,000 poems: "I despise the man who does not guide his life by nang,/the very word nang drives me mad!" In dusty Pushtun villages today, few bearded men would not nod approvingly at this. "Any man who loses his honour must be completely ostracised," said Sandaygul, a long-beard of the Mangal tribe in Afghanistan's south-eastern Paktia province. "No one would congratulate him on the birth of child. No one would marry his daughter. No one would attend his funeral. His disgrace will endure for generations. He and his family must move away." In Pushtu, to be disgraced means literally to be an outsider.
The insulting Americans
There are infinite ways to slight a Pushtun's nang, but most involve zar, zan or zamin: gold, women or land. The search tactics of American troops in Afghanistan, five years after they invaded the country, tend to offend on all counts. By forcing entry into the mud-fortress home of a Pushtun, with its lofty buttresses and loopholes, they dishonour his property. By stomping through its female quarters, they dishonour his women. Worse, the search may end with the householder handcuffed and dragged off before his neighbours: his person disgraced. America and its allies face a complicated insurgency in Afghanistan, driven by many factors. But such tactics are among them.
His honour besmirched—and here's the problem for the Americans—a Pushtun is obliged to have his revenge, or badal. Last year, in one of the myriad such examples that arise in conversations in northern Pakistan and Afghanistan, the daughter of a prominent businessman in Gardez, Paktia's capital, eloped with her beau. So the businessman sold up his property, moved to Kabul and tracked down and killed his daughter's lover. His daughter, whom he must also kill if the stain is to be removed, has been given sanctuary by a human-rights organisation. Her prospects are not good. According to a Pushtu saying: "A Pushtun waited 100 years, then took his revenge. It was quick work."
In addition, the honourable Pushtun embraces two obligations. He will offer hospitality, malmastai, to anyone needing it. And he will give sanctuary, nanawatai, to whoever requests it. Stories of extreme generosity are common in Pushtun places. Near the village of Saidkhail, in the Zadran tribal area of eastern Khost province, a wandering Islamic student, or talib, killed a man with a knife, recounts Mohammed Omar Barakzai, the deputy minister for tribal affairs. The talib knocked on the nearest door and said to the woman who opened it: "I have killed a man. Shelter me." She let him in. And sure enough, to trim an elegantly told tale, the murdered man was the woman's son. "I am a Pushtun and have given this man refuge," the woman told her blood-lusting husband and brothers. "Take him to safety."
"Their system of ethics, which regards treachery and violence as virtues rather than vices...is incomprehensible to a logical mind"—Churchill
But Pushtunwali is not all fierce imperatives. The code also contains many flexible means of preventing conflict through consensus and compromise. Chief among these is the jirga, of which each of Afghanistan's main groups, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Pashai, Hazaras and Baloch, has its version. By one estimate, jirgas settle over 95% of Afghanistan's disputes, civil and criminal. The figure for northern Pakistan is perhaps only slightly lower. This is not just because the regular courts are incompetent and corrupt (Afghanistan's were recently reformed by Italy). It is because, given high levels of illiteracy, many Afghans and Pakistanis find it easier to understand unwritten customary law, in Pushtu called narkh. And, where authority is contested by a well-armed citizenry, the jirga's verdicts, delivered with the warring parties' consent, tend to be more enforceable than off-the-peg legal or Islamic judgments.
A juddering two-hour drive from Peshawar, at Jamrud, in Khyber Agency, a 60-strong jirga recently settled half a dozen cases in a day—more than a bent Pakistani magistrate might manage in a week. Two disputes over money and property, including one involving the murder of five people, were ended with compromises. A dispute over a murderer who had been given sanctuary by a neighbour was postponed, pending deliberation from the spingeeri—literally, white-beards—who make up the jirga on a forerunning series of killings. A man accused of "adultery", of rape in fact, was told to pay 1m Pakistani rupees ($16,500) to his victim's family; he may thank his stars he had lived so long.
Among the spingeeri sat Adam Khan Afridi, who had himself been judged shortly before. For 25 years he squabbled with a cousin over which of them would inherit an uncle's lands, until Mr Khan killed his cousin and his cousin's sons and grandson. Then he killed their uncle. This was excessive, Mr Khan conceded; he had committed the crime of miratha—annihilating every male in the rival camp. The jirga decreed that two of Mr Khan's houses be destroyed, and fined him 500,000 rupees. He thought this harsh.
Jirgas do even greater service, as with the Marwat and the Bhattani, in ending tribal wars. On a chill recent morning in Kabul, your correspondent sat with a jirga convened to settle a dispute between two nomadic clans of the Siddiquekhail, a sub-tribe of the powerful Pushtun Ahmedzai. In 1980, a 17-year-old youth of one the clans, named Babur, disappeared while travelling through Pakistan with members of the other; then in 1992, a 60-year-old shepherd of the second clan was found murdered, allegedly killed with an axe by an uncle of Babur.
Previous attempts to settle the dispute had foundered in part on a deposit of $10,000 that each tribe had been asked to lodge with the jirga, with a vow to abide by its decision. "It is time for this feud to end," said Haji Naim Kuchi, the chief mediator, or narkhi, and member of a different Ahmedzai clan. "You should be at home sleeping with your wives, not plotting to kill each other!" Mr Kuchi, who is famed for his deep knowledge of customary law, asked the feuders to "place a stone" on their dispute—to suspend hostilities while the jirga sat. "We all know that if this continues many men will die before you return to the jirga," said Mr Kuchi, who had been released from American custody shortly before, after three years' imprisonment without trial in Guantánamo Bay.
To settle disputes, Mr Kuchi has two main options. He can order a guilty party to compensate its victim with cash, a practice known as wich pur, "dry debt", or he can order the two parties to exchange women, or lund pur, "wet debt". By binding the antagonists together—just as in medieval European diplomacy—lund pur is considered more effective. Typically it involves exchanging a 15-year-old, a ten-year-old and a five-year-old girl, to be married into three succeeding generations of the enemy clan. Thereby, and though human-rights groups understandably revile the practice, Pushtuns have peace and happy grandfathers. "Blood cannot wash away blood," runs a Pushtu proverb. "But blood can be turned into love."
In a land far, far away
If Pushtunwali is about more than killing, its strictures are still remarkably unforgiving. Many Tajiks, like Pushtuns, would die before they suffered a slight. But, unlike Pushtuns, they do not fear their peeved neighbours to the extent of living in castles. A recent European Union analysis of jirgas in eastern Afghanistan found that elopement was the crime most often heard by Pashai jirgas, but Pushtun jirgas rarely considered it. That could be because few Pushtun lads and lasses elope or, more likely, because they are more likely to be killed when they do. What makes Pushtunwali so durable and so harsh?
One reason is remoteness. At the confluence of civilisations, between Central Asia, ancient Persia and India's plains, Afghanistan has been contested by marauding armies and strange traders for millennia. A ruined capital, or two, lies buried in most of its 34 provinces, and each has left its trace in the languages and traditions of today. Pashto, for example, is believed to have originated in Bactrian, the language spoken by Greek descendants of Alexander the Great. And yet the wildest Pushtun places, especially along the lofty border where the strictest Pushtunwali is practised, have been relatively untouched by outsiders for centuries. Waziristan, in Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal area, has never been held by any foreign power.
Another reason for Pushtunwali's rude health lies in the nature of Pushtun society. Once rulers of Delhi, in the ranks of the Mughal emperors, and never vanquished for long, Pushtuns consider their society every bit as superior as Winston Churchill considered his. And it is defined by Pushtunwali: there is no Pushtun nation or, in fact, ethnicity. A Pushtun is simply someone who speaks Pushtu and who therefore follows the tribal code: Pushtunwali literally means to "do Pushtu".
A third factor promoting Pushtunwali is one of its most appealing features, egalitarianism. Leadership among Pushtuns is rarely inherited. It is more often bestowed by a jirga on merit. Even then, the most elevated Pushtun elder dares not condescend to another man of his tribe. When lunch is served at a Pushtun feast, with tasty dishes of mutton, raisins and rice, there are no servants, but servers, of equal status to host and guests. Where a good name is the cost of social inclusion, Pushtuns will fight to keep it so.
Compensation typically involves exchanging a 15-year-old, a ten-year-old and a five-year-old girl, to be married into three succeeding generations of the enemy clan
It is above all this political function that makes Pushtunwali so resistant to change; but it is not unchanging. Pushtun tribes constantly update their code. Three years ago, the Mangals of Paktia ended a practice of revenge-taking by proxy, whereby a weak man had only to slaughter a sheep outside the house of his stronger neighbour to make him accept his blood-debt. "We were doing too much killing," explained Sandaygul, the Mangal in Gardez.
More traumatic change to the code has come from external pressures. In urban places, where the Pakistani and Afghan states somewhat function, aspects of Pushtunwali have been jettisoned; jirgas of the Kasi tribe, which is based in the Pakistani city of Quetta, rarely meet. More powerful opposition has come from political Islam, which seeks to replace the authority of the jirga with the mullah, customary law with Islamic sharia.
Over the past millennium or so, the Pushtuns' religious and tribal codes have roughly co-existed. As a mark of a time-honoured accommodation, Pushtun elders and mullahs often insist there is no contradiction between the two prerogatives. "The sharia and jirga systems are not opposed," said Maulvi Sayeed, a member of the Muslim council, or shura, in Kandahar, capital of southern Afghanistan. "To solve a problem through the use of a shura, a council, is the aim of both. The jirga is not against sharia law. If there has been a murder then the aim is to satisfy the relatives of the victim," said the mullah, seated cross-legged amid stacks of religious texts, with a vast white turban atop his grizzled head.
In fact, sharia courts, which in Afghanistan are often indistinguishable from regular courts, are an alternative to blood-feuding and jirgas. Like jirgas, they can urge the victims of a crime to settle the matter through compensation. But where this is rejected, the courts can issue death sentences, or other harsh penalties, which jirgas do not. A plaintiff who is unhappy with a jirga's verdict may seek an alternative ruling from a sharia court. According to Maulvi Sayeed: "If the brother of a man who has been murdered does not agree to forgive his killer according to the jirga, then he can go to the sharia court. If the murder was unjust then the sharia court will say that the killer has to be killed."
Another big difference between the codes is in their treatment of women. In sharia law, there can be no exchange of women as a means to end disputes, and women are guaranteed some rights of inheritance—unlike in Pushtunwali. Nor does sharia law recognise the Pushtun habit of wife inheritance, wherein a widow is forcibly married to her dead husband's brother or cousin. "Such things happen when people are uneducated," sniffed Maulvi Sayeed. "We don't oppose the system of tribal elders but they must follow the way of Islam. They can convene jirgas and dispense the law, but the law must be that of sharia."
Though fiercely religious, Pushtuns have mostly preferred their leaders and law to be tribal. The great exception has been in times of duress, when a standard is needed to rally their fractious tribes and sub-tribes: then they have tended to hoist the flag of jihad. Of the 19th-century Masood tribe of Waziristan, Sir Olaf wrote that they wanted "at all costs to resist subjection and to preserve their own peculiar way of life. To attain this end they were always prepared to make use of adventitious aids such as appeals with a pan-Islamic flavour."
Thus the jihad launched in the 1980s against Soviet invaders united all Afghan tribes. It was generously backed by Saudi Arabia and America and given sanctuary by Pakistan, which was home to 3m Afghan refugees. Yet still its Pushtun leaders found it necessary brutally to suppress their tribal peers, terrorising the refugee camps and murdering the jirga-leaders who defied them there.
In the early 1990s, after the Soviets had been driven out and the former jihadist chiefs were fighting a civil war, Pushtuns again rallied around Islam. A band of Ghilzai Pushtuns near Kandahar, led by a mullah named Omar, backed by Pakistan and calling themselves the Taliban, raised the black flag. Gushing with Islamist zeal, Pushtun youths rushed to join them as they swept the feuding militias away.
But once the Taliban restored order to most of Afghanistan, Pushtuns began recoiling against their rulings. Their public executions and other outrages to public decency were anathema to them. So too when the Taliban—despite their celebrated chauvinism—outlawed wich pur and advocated female inheritance. No wonder if the lives of the vast majority of Afghan women have not eased since the Taliban were bombed from power.
For two years after their demise, the Taliban were not mourned in Afghanistan. But since then an insurgency has gathered pace. It is not quite clear what is driving it. An exploding opium harvest, which is providing cash for the Taliban and a reason for Pushtun farmers to keep the government away, is one reason. Another, as Sir Olaf might have foretold, is the response of the most remote and traditional Pushtuns to a foreign invasion.
In late 2001, thousands of Taliban and several hundred Arab and Central Asian followers of Osama bin Laden poured into northern Pakistan's tribal areas—including Waziristan, home of the Masood. To hunt them, and in a bid to save Western troops in Afghanistan from the same cross-border insurgency that hobbled the Soviet Union, Pakistan sent 80,000 troops into the tribal areas.
Alas, they have achieved the very opposite effect of that intended. Calling themselves the Pakistan Taliban, fighters of Waziristan's main tribes have rallied against the army, killing several hundred soldiers. As in the former refugee camps, jihadist assassins have killed several hundred Pushtun elders, ensuring that sharia, not Pushtunwali, is the law.
If history is any guide, the Pushtun will continue their drift to Islamist militancy until they are defeated, which looks impossible, or the outside forces are withdrawn
If history is any guide, many Pushtuns in northern Pakistan and southern Afghanistan will continue their drift to Islamist militancy until they are defeated, which looks impossible, or the Pakistani and Western forces are withdrawn. They are then likely to return to their simmeringly murderous tribal ways. That would be better than the current mess. But it would also leave millions of people outside the writ of Pakistan and Afghanistan. If either state is to succeed, the alternative writs of Pushtunwali and jihadist Islam will have to wither. But that will not be soon.
To imagine quite how long it may take, consider Nakband. It is a suburb of Peshawar, the most developed Pushtun city, a mere two-hour drive from Pakistan's smart capital of Islamabad. Yet it is little different from the craggy and forbidding tribal areas, where Pakistan's constitution does not apply. Nakband's inhabitants have no state services except the electricity they steal from the mains. There is no half-serious hospital for 20 miles. Pushtunwali, with a sprinkling of the Koran, is the law in Nakband. Blood-feuding, as marked by the ratchet of gunfire in the unbroken gloom of night, is routine. The government makes no effort to intervene in these disputes. Combing his long black hair beside a baked-mud road, a resident of Nakband said that, in theory, the city police were free to enter his suburb. But the locals had not permitted them to do so, so far as he could recall, since 1998.


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Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Berg & Berg F/W 2010 Patterned Knits
8 comments:
don't sleepReplyDelete
7 Days of Big Boi: Day 3ReplyDelete
Niggas don't fuck with a nigga like me
'Cause a nigga like me don't fuck around
Niggas don't fuck with a nigga like me
'Cause a nigga like me don't fuck around
I know you see that
No one's competed
Ooh, that turns me on
Ooh, that turns me on
What turns me on about you, I doubt you have a clue
Sassy attitude and red bottom shoes, God, I'm mad at you
I do think you're fierce and that you killing them of course
With the features of an angel and the bottom of a horse
Thoroughbred, thorough head
Makes you moist like the dark fudge
Brownie with the nut of your choice
Soaking wet, all the feathers in the goose
Down, who's loose now?
You done let the juice ooze down
Do smile when you do it's on some ooh child
Kiss you in the mouth, juicy fruit, make it cool down
And make it truth, ain't it true now?
Divine neck, the respect, it ain't shit for me to prove out
You need some time, press the snooze down
I don't mind 'cause I'm as hard as all the iron
In all the tool house or tool shed
Go and play it like when alarm sound off around 2
Visit http://www.xtralyrics.com
I know you see that
No one's competed
Ooh, that turns me on
Ooh, that turns me on
Who gives a damn about the past?
I live for the day, plan for the future, pack a lunch and haul ass
Anyway, it ain't no time for no picnics
This that business, the slickness to get your chick hit quick
I make her drip all her liquids
Then get butt booty naked when I spit on some pimp shit
Make her legs shake so she never loses interest
Calling out my name when I'm asking whose is this?
Naw, it's not a game, ass falling out the frame
With my Polaroid camera I have to take two flicks
She can't avoid all the stamina, we do this
With no steroids or other artificial juices
Therefore, she now's the undisputed truth
When I slip into this bood while I slid into this booth
I'm kicking it with you, lot like martial artists do
We can break boards and you can kick rocks
I know you see that
No one's competed
Ooh, that turns me on
Ooh, that turns me on
Sit yourself down on the big old bed
Turn your body 'round here let me give you some
Don't you want to make a freaky memory with me?
So later on you can think about it then you'll be like damn
That turns me on
I know you see that
No one's competed
Ooh, that turns me on
Ooh, that turns me on
From the back
Now from the front
Dude, we get it. You can copy and paste Big Boi lyrics. You really don't need to do this for 4 more days.ReplyDelete
wow, who is this clownReplyDelete
- AnonymousSeptember 22, 2010 at 11:15 AM
Lawrence, I wonder if the guy that commented on your "3' Redux" post about how you do to many posts on these ties is gonna say anything this time.ReplyDelete
Big Boi freak...really?...REALLY?
Anyway, these ties are great. Especially love the light blue + chocolate.
Lawrence - Just let the cycle resolve itself, playa.ReplyDelete
Knit ties always get my attention - and these are great! Great post (except for the junk comment).ReplyDelete
- AnonymousSeptember 22, 2010 at 6:33 PM
Man that Big Boi guy is ridiculous. I'm gunna post that shit before him tomorrow just to piss him off.ReplyDelete


text:
Bacon Breakfast Taquitos
1 slice center-cut bacon or turkey bacon
1 egg
2 tablespoons shredded cheese
Two 6-inch corn tortillasDirections:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a baking pan with nonstick spray.Cook bacon until crispy, either in a skillet over medium heat or on a microwave-safe plate in the microwave. (See package for cook time.)Scramble egg in frying pan sprayed with nonstick spray. Mix in cheese and crumbled bacon stir mixture.
Cherry Cheese Pie
- 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
- 1 (14 ounce) can EAGLE BRAND® Sweetened Condensed Milk
- 1/3 cup lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 (8- or 9-inch) baked pie shell or graham cracker crumb crust
- 1 (21 ounce) can cherry pie filling, chilled
- In large bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Gradually beat in EAGLE BRAND® sweetened condensed milk until smooth. Stir in lemon juice and vanilla.
- Pour into crust; chill 4 hours or until set. Top with desired amount of cherry pie filling before serving. Store leftovers covered in refrigerator.
Do you want a great recipe for parties? People always ask me for the recipe and it is the first empty bowl on the table.
Hot Bacon and Swiss Cheese Dip
2 Cups shredded Swiss
1 cup Mayo
8 Oz Cream Cheese softened
3 Green Onions chopped up
8-10 slice of cooked Bacon Crumbled
2 teaspoons Brown Mustard
1/4 Teaspoon Ground Pepper
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix all ingredients together. Bake for 25-30 minutes until brown and bubbly on the top. Service with crackers, vegetables, breadsticks, or bread.


text:
Rick Warren Shares Wisdom With Pastors in Year-End Webcast
Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Life, spent an hour on Wednesday addressing pastors in his year-end webcast, in which he shared both what he learned in 2011 and the vision he has for his ministry in 2012.
Warren opened the webcast by sharing leadership lessons he learned in 2011. The lesson he elaborated on the most was, "New growth happens on the newest branches ... not on the trunk."
He explained that one of the reasons Saddleback went through 25 years of uninterrupted growth was because he waited 15 years after the church was founded before building the church's permanent location. By waiting to settle down he was able to keep a "pioneer spirit" within his own people which helped them in their growth.
As time wore on, however, he said that many of the people who have been faithful in attending his church throughout the years eventually "reached all their friends," resulting in a "natural settling down" when it came to growth.
His solution has been to reach a new generation of people by starting new "branches," or sister churches and small groups in a variety of sizes. In the last year, he said, Saddleback has planted one megachurch, five average-sized churches and over 800 smaller groups, which he says are most effective when it comes to generating rapid growth.
One of the evangelism techniques Warren says he learned in 2011 was how to effectively minister to those who are financially hurting as a result of the poor economy. Churches should remember that the American economy is still struggling, he said, and that as a result food pantries and other assistance programs are powerful forms of ministry.
Saddleback's food bank, he said, has fed 72,000 people since the recession began in the United States. In 2011, he says, more people were brought to Christ through the food bank than through Saddleback's Easter services for the first time in the church's history.
Churches, Warren suggested, should consider doing a sermon series on jobs and careers, a relevant topic in a time where people are struggling and unemployment rates are high.
"Thank you" evangelism also proved to be effective for Saddleback in 2011. Warren read in the local paper that the Santa Margarita Catholic High School football team had won the California Division I state championship, so he invited the team and their families to a church service in order to honor them. About 250 people came as a result of the invitation, and 59 of them gave their lives to Christ that day.
Looking forward to the year 2012, Warren said his church is planning two major spiritual growth campaigns for his congregation. The first campaign, which will begin in January, is 40 Days in the Word, which will focus on Bible literacy. Approximately 3,000 different churches will also participate in the campaign.
"One of the convictions that I got as a result of 2011 is that Americans are biblically illiterate," said Warren. "They just don't know the Word of God ... Our parents' generation knew the Word of God pretty well. My generation knew a little bit. The next generation knows none of it."
In the Fall of 2012 the church is doing 40 Days of Transformation, which will take the five purposes of God outlined in The Purpose Driven Life – worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry and evangelism – to see how those purposes transform the lives of Christians.
Another major plan for 2012 is Peace 3.0, a mission to reach the 3,800 tribes around the world that still don't have churches by the end of the decade. He calls these tribes the "final frontier" in fulfilling the Great Commission.
Warren, who has nearly 500,000 Twitter followers, also said that pastors need to take advantage of social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter as a part of their ministries.
"I want pastors to dominate Twitter," he said. "We don't want celebrities dominating these things, we want pastors using this for the Good News."
In his conclusion, Warren gave some suggestions for personal growth, saying that pastors should seek to become more gracious.
"The mark of godliness is graciousness. The more carnal I am, the more critical I am," he said. "Be slow to judge what people do until you know what they've been through."
Warren founded Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., in 1980 with just one other family. About 20,000 people now attend weekend services at Saddleback, according to the church's website, and Warren's influence has expanded through his other ventures including The Purpose Driven Network, The Peace Plan and Pastors.com.


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Skandagiri - Full Moon Trek
In a nutshell - Think of a trek, for 5 kms, across the mountains, at the night, during the full moon, walking amidst the clouds, with a gentle breeze, just to watch the stunning sun rise - that is what the Skandagiri full moon trek is all about. . Click here for the complete Travelog.Read More


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L.A. tax-hike vote patterns tell a tale of two realities
Nearly every week, 70-year-old Barb Johnson hears word of a nearby robbery or car break-in in Vermont Knolls, her neighborhood of modest bungalows just west of the Harbor Freeway in South Los Angeles.
So it was alarming, she says, to learn this week that voters had rejected a proposed city sales tax increase that the mayor, the police chief and other civic leaders said was vital to shoring up the Los Angeles Police Department and improving emergency services.
"How are we supposed to keep our streets safe if there's no money?" the retired office manager asked.
Over the mountains, in the distant northwest San Fernando Valley suburb of West Hills, Orly Salem, 59, was unmoved by City Hall's plea. A construction company bookkeeper, Salem dismissed the proposed half-cent increase in the sales tax with a weary assessment: Enough is enough.
"Every time it's more, more, more," Salem said. "When I don't have money, I cut my expenses. Why can't they do the same?
A detailed Times analysis and interviews with those and other voters found starkly contrasting vote patterns and perceptions of the proposed sales tax hike across the nearly 469-square-mile expanse of the sprawling city.
In many South Los Angeles precincts, support for the tax increase was overwhelming, as high as 86%. The opposite was true across large swaths of the northwest San Fernando Valley, the Westside and San Pedro, where "no" totals ran as high as 83%. Overall, the measure was defeated with 55% of voters opposed, according to unofficial results.
The contours of the results — and the overall outcome — show the well-established voting dynamics in Los Angeles that will play a significant role in the current campaign to replace Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. More fiscally conservative, independent and Republican voters are concentrated in middle- and upper-income neighborhoods on northern, western and southern fringes of the city. And Tuesday they followed a historic pattern of going to the polls in larger numbers.
Proposition A offered a new look at the divergent views of City Hall, public spending and how elected leaders should respond to the steady reduction in public services precipitated by a municipal budget crisis and the Great Recession.
Several Valley voters interviewed by The Times said they don't trust City Hall to manage its money and live within its means. They also didn't believe that the $200 million in new revenue anticipated from the tax hike would have gone to public safety.
Police Chief Charlie Beck appeared in ubiquitous TV ads for the measure warning that public safety was at risk. He also told reporters the LAPD would lose 500 officers if the city did not get the added sales tax income. But voters like Mel Mitchell, 67, a resident of the northwest Valley hillside community of Porter Ranch, weren't swayed.
"I like to think the voters are getting smart about that stuff," he said.
The size of next year's projected budget shortfall has been a moving target since the election. Villaraigosa suggested Thursday it could drop sharply, from a previous estimate of $216 million to less than $100 million. The city's chief fiscal analyst countered Friday that officials still need to close a gap as large as $165 million.
Attitudes toward the issue divided along economic, ethnic and geographic lines but not in ways the campaign debate necessarily would suggest, according to election results, Times polling data and interviews.
Opponents of the measure argued it was a regressive tax increase that would place a heavier burden on lower-income families than other tax alternatives, such as taxing real estate transactions. But working-class, heavily Latino communities proved to be some of Proposition A's stronger supporters.
In the closing days of the campaign, two-thirds of Latinos backed the measure, according to the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy/L.A. Times Los Angeles City Primary Poll. Nearly three-fifths of white voters opposed it, the poll found.
"Latinos do support bigger government more than smaller government," said Mark Hugo Lopez, associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center. In a survey conducted last year, his organization found that 81% of immigrant Latinos prefer a bigger government to one with fewer services. That support fell to 72% among second-generation Latinos and 58% in the third generation.
Villaraigosa said he was not surprised that working-class neighborhoods more heavily favored the proposed tax increase.
"The people that need government are more supportive of a balanced approach to resolving our budget challenges," he said. "They don't want to see cuts in services. They want to see the city tighten its belt in the way that we have.
"But they understand that in this economic climate, we need some new revenue source."
Councilwoman Jan Perry, who represents part of South L.A. and opposed the tax, said warnings from Beck and others about fewer police officers "put fear" into neighborhoods where crime is a constant concern.
"I'm sure that had a hand in people's decisions," said Perry, who ran for mayor but failed to make the runoff election.
In Johnson's Vermont Knolls neighborhood, 74% of voters approved the tax, according to The Times analysis of unofficial results. Farther south, more than two-thirds of residents favored it in the neighborhood where cashier Candy Arrellano, 28, cast her vote.
Arrellano said she knows of shootings and drug deals that have taken place not far from her home near 91st and Hoover streets. She backed Proposition A because she wants her children to be able to play in the frontyard without danger. "That's why I say, a couple extra cents at Target or the supermarket isn't going to be a big deal for me," she said.
In the Valley's Porter Ranch, 76% of those who turned out opposed the tax, the Times analysis found. In nearby Chatsworth, more than 72% rejected it.
Gas station owner Andre Van Der Valk, who lives in that neighborhood, said voters are "disgusted" with government these days. In addition, he said he was "offended" by the frequent TV spots that warned of reductions in public safety services if the tax hike failed.
Beck should not have been such a public face of the Proposition A campaign, Van Der Valk said. "He's a good chief, but don't get into the politics," he added.
Times staff writers Laura J. Nelson and Kate Linthicum contributed to this report.
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There's a parlance in basketball analysis about the leading scorers on bad teams. It goes like this, "Someone has to score." Efficiency hardly matters on poor teams; so a chucker, a player who shoots without prejudice, can boast gaudy points per game averages. The same thought process can apply to bad baseball teams. Someone has to drive in the runs, someone has to pitch the ninth inning, someone has to win games. Even Mike Maroth, owner of a 75 ERA+, won nine games for the 2003 Tigers (while also losing 21 times).
The Astros are the worst team in the majors. The someone wining games is Lucas Harrell. On Tuesday night, Harrell pitched eight innings against the Cubs and allowed one run. Houston has 39 wins on the season, and 10 have come with Harrell on the mound. Winning 10 games in a season is no longer impressive; however, winning 10 games and accounting for more than a quarter of your team's total victories remains notable. When Astros fans sit down to watch a game, they know their team is going to lose, and lose easily on most nights. But their team has a chance when Harrell is on the mound. Those are the happy days.
Harrell joined the Astros during the unhappiest days. Ed Wade entered July 2011 with the Sword of Damocles hanging over his head. Jim Crane was in the process of purchasing the Astros, and only the league's approval stood between Wade and unemployment. Wade continued to operate as if his job were secure. He traded Michael Bourn and Hunter Pence for two packages of prospects, furthering Houston's rebuilding phase. A lesser move made earlier in July has been the one to pay off for the Astros this season.
On July 8, Wade claimed the 26-year-old Harrell off waivers from the White Sox. You needn't go farther than the MLB Trade Rumors post chronicling the transaction to find the tenor of the reaction. One user with an Astros logo for an avatar wrote, "YEAH!! Another AAAA pitcher—gotta love Ed Wade. I hope Jim crane fires him QUICK!" Another, also equipped with an Astros avatar, provided this prescient comment, "I see this as a good signing. He could become a good pitcher with the right instructor."
The pessimism surrounding Harrell was understandable. Injuries and poor performance paved his departure from the White Sox system. He entered 2011 with an opportunity to make the big-league roster, but the spot went to Philip Humber instead (who had an ERA in the low-3.00s on the day Harrell changed squads). After being claimed off waivers, Harrell reported to Triple-A Oklahoma City. He'd pitch 52 1/3 innings with a 1.72 ERA and a 1.58 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Somehow, Harrell managed to avoid giving up a home run during his stay in the Pacific Coast League. A rare feat, but perhaps more likely to be a fluke than a portent of future greatness.
Starting Pitchers to Throw 40-Plus Innings in the PCL Without Allowing a Home Run
Lucas Harrell
The Astros did eventually become Crane's property. He fired Wade and installed a new front office. Harrell hung onto a 40-man roster spot throughout the winter, came to spring training, and won a rotation spot. He started the second game of the season for the Astros and hasn't looked back. In the process, Harrell has become the anchor in the rotation. Some of it by default—the Astros traded most of their veterans—and some of it by merit. Harrell has the best ERA and FIP in the Astros rotation, and only Bud Norris tops him in FRA. Not bad for a pitcher whose player comment from Baseball Prospectus 2012 read:
Signed off waivers from the White Sox in July, Harrell will likely serve as a useful swingman. His fastball touches 92 mph and he has the ability to induce ground ball after ground ball. He doesn't gain enough effectiveness as a reliever to warrant a larger role at the end of games, nor would he be the worst fifth starter in baseball, given a chance.
Saying someone wouldn't be the worst fifth starter in baseball is like saying someone wouldn't be the craziest Roman emperor; it's a compliment, but only in the vagueest sense. Harrell has pitched better than a normal fifth starter. He's pounded the zone with his sinker and generated a high rate of groundballs while keeping the ball in the playing field. Amongst pitchers with 100-plus innings, Harrell has the fifth-best groundball rate and 10th-best home run rate. Harrell isn't keeping runs off the board due to defensive support, either. The Astros rank near the bottom of the league in raw and park-adjusted defensive efficiency; Houston also ranks seventh-worst in batting average on groundballs in play.
Granted, Harrell is still a back-end starter type. He's battled with consistency problems (his quality start rate is closer to 40 percent than 50 percent) and his upside is limited. On a good team, Harrell is filling out the rotation rather than leading it. Still, he's shown the ability to get big-league hitters out, and he's given the Astros a chance to win every fifth games. That makes him somebody.
Thank you for reading
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What a great dining room! I like all of the varying textures, the natural neutral color palette, the liberal use of all things wood and all the while maintaining an air of sleek modern. I call this style rustic modern. All of those elements that technically would be used in rustic style decor but that have been fashioned in a clean line modern way. Understand what I mean?
Wood paneled walls and wood slatted ceilings work in this space (painted wood slats on walls always look good in my view) to create a cozy feel to the space. The clean lines and subtle curves Danish furniture add a vintage mid century modern vibe to this eating area as well. Light colored wood floors blend in with the walls. I love the lighting too…large glass and wire grid pendant lights too.
I like. Take a look.
|I absolutely love the French doors with the trellis pattern detail. (above)
What do you think of this dining room? Would you call it rustic modern or something else? What do you like? What don't you like? Please advise in the comments below!
Happy Wednesday!
P.S. Had a mini Presidential debate watching "thing" at my house last night. Served some nice cold white wine (it is so hot here in Los Angeles), put out a nice fruit and cheese plate, and ordered in pizza and salad from one of my favorite restaurants…Cheebo. Had a great time watching the debate and then laughing about the news commentary on CNN after!
P.P.S. Later this week, I'm going to a very small private cocktail event here in Los Angeles where I get to meet a big huge name in the fashion industry – from here on out "The Icon". I was invited so I could be introduced to "The Icon". The cocktail party is oh so small. "The Icon" is a huge commercial success in fashion and I've read about how he got started as inspiration when I was starting my home furnishings collection. "The Icon's" team wants to introduce me to him because of the COCOCOZY textiles collection. I'm not supposed to talk about any of the specifics I don't think…so I'll keep very quiet now as to who "he" is. Don't know what to wear though. Yikes! There will be a handful of famous people there too. Oy va voy. I have a cute leather top (but might be too hot)…I also have an adorable navy and black sparkling mini skirt (but it looks better with opaque black tights and it is too hot for that)…I think the weather is going to thwart my stylish wardrobe plans. Please have the weather drop to 60 degrees overnight so that I can wear my cute fall outfits! Please.
P.P.P.S. Happy Wednesday again!
Photo: Stine Langvad


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Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery
Paul M. Bauer • 232 N Wallace St • Pierce• Ellsworth, WI 54011 United States
Ellsworth White Cheddar Cheese Curds taste like no other because they come from 30,000 cows on 450 family farms in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Our farmer/producers are very fussy about quality and it shows in every fresh batch of Cheese Curds they produce.
That is why buyers from all over insist on only Real Ellsworth Cheese Curds. The famous squeaky cheese is available at hundreds of restaurants and stores all over America.


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You will require this permit if you intend to sell or offer to sell goods in a public place. Public places are:
This permit will be required where goods are sold or offered for sale from:
You may also require this permit if you intend to conduct door-to-door sales.
Please note that this permit may also be required to sell to a person in a public place from premises that is adjacent to that public place.
A licence defines the need to obtain recognition / certification and registration to undertake a certain business activity.
In order to be eligible for this permit, you may be required to hold public liability insurance.
Please consult the responsible council for more information regarding eligibility requirements.
As specified on the permit.
Fees Details for this service in table format.
Per annum. Fees for 2023-24
Local Government Act 2020 Victoria
Local Law No. 1 - Streets and Roads 2017 - PDF
(Opens in new window)
You must lodge your application in the form approved by council and accompanied by the required fee.
You must lodge your application in the form approved by council and accompanied by the required fee.
Indigo Shire Council
Contact Email, Phone and Address Details for this service in simple two column table format, header then data.
Indigo Shire Council


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Researchers have used new techniques and one of the brightest X-ray sources on the planet to map the 3-D structure of an important cellular gatekeeper in a more natural state than possible before.
The new approach, published recently in the journal Science, is a major advance in exploring G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs)—a vast, hard-to-study family of proteins that play a key role in human health. GPCRs are targeted by an estimated 40 percent of modern medicines.
"For the first time we have a room-temperature, high-resolution structure of one of the most difficult-to-study but medically important families of membrane proteins," said Vadim Cherezov, a structural biologist at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) who led the research. "And we have validated this new method so that it can be confidently used for solving new structures."
Significant Advantages
In the study, the scientists examined the human serotonin receptor, which plays a role in learning, mood and sleep and is the target of drugs that combat obesity, depression and migraines. The scientists prepared crystallized samples of the receptor in a fatty gel that mimics its environment in the cell.
Working at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser at the Department of Energy's (DOE's) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the scientists then used a newly designed injection system, engineered by a team from Arizona State University, to stream the gel into the path of the X-ray pulses, which hit the crystals and produced patterns used to reconstruct a high-resolution, 3-D model of the receptor.
The method eliminates one of the biggest hurdles in the study of GPCRs. It is notoriously difficult to grow sufficiently large crystals of these proteins needed for conventional X-ray studies at synchrotrons. Because LCLS is a billion times brighter than synchrotrons and produces ultrafast snapshots, it enables researchers to use tiny crystals and collect data in the instant before any damage sets in.
"This is one of the niches that LCLS is perfect for," said SLAC Staff Scientist Sébastien Boutet, a co-author of the report. "With really challenging proteins like this you often need years to develop crystals that are large enough to study at synchrotron X-ray facilities."
Wei Liu, a TSRI staff scientist who was first author of the study, said, "It's a big advantage that you don't have to harvest individual crystals—you can just load the whole gel-like sample with embedded microcrystals in the injector and start collecting data. It's also significant that the crystals don't have to be cryo-cooled in liquid nitrogen to protect them from radiation damage. Instead of looking at the samples at minus 173 degrees Celsius, we can look at them at room temperature—much closer to the temperature of their natural environment, which is body temperature."
While a team led by Scripps Research Institute scientists had previously determined the human serotonin structure with conventional methods, that effort required the receptor to be frozen. It also took much longer.
Even after samples of a GPCR are crystallized and imaged, with conventional methods it can take several months to optimize the crystal size and collect enough synchrotron X-ray data to produce structural information, Cherezov noted. This new method can potentially condense that timeline to a matter of days.
'Just the Beginning'
Disorders linked to GPCRs include hypertension, asthma, schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease. Because of their vital role in regulating cells' signaling and response mechanisms and their importance to human health, advances in receptor-related research garnered the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
So far, scientists have been able to map the structures of fewer than two dozen of the estimated 800 GPCRs in humans. The more accurate the structure, the better scientists can use it to create effective drug treatments without side effects.
"I view these recent experiments as just the beginning," Cherezov said. "Now it is time to start making a serious impact on the field of structural biology of G protein-coupled receptors and other challenging membrane proteins and complexes. The pace of structural studies in this field is breathtaking, and there is still a lot unknown."
In addition to Cherezov, Liu and Boutet, the study, "Serial Femtosecond Crystallography of G Protein–Coupled Receptors," was authored by Daniel Wacker, Gye Won Han, Vsevolod Katritch, Chong Wang and Raymond C. Stevens of TSRI; Cornelius Gati, Anton Barty, Kenneth R. Beyerlein and Thomas A. White of Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron; Daniel James, Dingjie Wang, Garrett Nelson, Uwe Weierstall, Nadia A. Zatsepin, Shibom Basu, Raimund Fromme, Christopher Kupitz, Kimberley N. Rendek, Ingo Grotjohann, Petra Fromme and John C. H. Spence of Arizona State University; Dianfan Li, Syed T. A. Shah and Martin Caffrey of Trinity College, Dublin; Marc Messerschmidt, Garth J. Williams and Jason E. Koglin of SLAC; M. Marvin Seibert of SLAC and Uppsala University; Richard A. Kirian of Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron and Arizona State University; and Henry N. Chapman of Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, University of Hamburg and Center for Ultrafast Imaging. See http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6165/1521.full
The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health Common Fund in Structural Biology (grants P50 GM073197, P50 GM073210, R01 GM095583), the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (PSI:Biology grants U54 GM094618, U54 GM094599) and the National Science Foundation (award 1231306), with additional support from the Helmholz Association, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, and Science Foundation Ireland (07/IN.1/B1836, 12/IA/1255).
The research team for the new study included (left to right): Daniel Wacker (TSRI), Uwe Weierstall (Arizona State University), Dianfan Li (Trinity College Dublin), Vadim Cherezov (TSRI), Ingo Grotjohann (ASU), Petra Fromme (ASU), Chris Kupitz (ASU), Wei Liu (TSRI), Shibom Basu (ASU), Nadia Zatsepin (ASU), Raimund Fromme (ASU), Cornelius Gati (Center for Free-Electron Laser Science), Martin Caffrey (TCD), and Daniel James (ASU). (Photo courtesy Vadim Cherezov, TSRI)
Send comments to: press[at]scripps.edu


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Stop the unjustified killing and hunting of Montana's wolves. Use science!
Stop the unjustified killing and hunting of Montana's wolves. Use science!
Why this petition matters
Below is a running total of written signatures that are occasionally sent in by environmental organizations. They can be added to the number of online signatures to give the total number of petition signatures:
7286 written signatures as of 2/18/17 (add to number of online signatures).
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In Montana, there is only one source of wolf population numbers: Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. In the past, their five Wolf Management Specialists spent the year "counting" wolves throughout the state. These numbers were then used to set wolf management policy, along with the number of wolves that will be killed. When I asked our then local Specialist Kent Laudon what protocol is used to collect these data, he responded with, "Jay there are no protocols. No protocol would be necessary or even help really." In other words, science has never been used to collect even the most basic information about wolf populations in our state, at least by FWP. Yet, these animals are being slaughtered every year. Now, instead of using Wolf Management Specialists to obtain most of the wolf population data, hunter observations are used. Nevertheless, FWP claims they use science, despite no scientific protocol to control for the "objective" data provided by the people who paid FWP for the right to kill wolves.
Below, I present you with the evidence that documents the systematic "genocide" of a species and what you can do to prevent it. No one scientist or environmental group will stop this. Only when humanity decides that the lives of animals are important will this unscientific and senseless policy cease. Please step-up and help these beings whose lives are an intricate part of healthy ecosystems. The truth is right in front of you.
Currently, there are two wolf issues that people find confusing: 1) The removal of all gray wolves from the federal government's Endangered Species Act (ESA); and 2) Their management by the states. The ESA designates U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) as the agency responsible for determining what species are endangered and place them on the Endangered Species List (ESL). After this happens, USFWS is responsible for removing species from the list and the ESA gives them the power to do so. The wolves in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming were removed from the ESL in 2009, but currently the ESA still provides minimal protection: it only requires the states to maintain 100 wolves with 10 breeding pairs. They can kill the rest which is exactly what Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho are doing. If the few remaining protections are lifted, then the states are free to kill ALL of their wolves with no intervention from the federal government. Nevertheless, the remaining federal protection doesn't help much because the wolves are being slaughtered anyway as part of wolf management at the state level.
Environmental groups and other organizations are currently fighting to keep the wolves protected. However, even if they "win" and wolves remain under the minimal protections of the ESA, then the status quo will also remain - hundreds and hundreds of dead wolves. No one has yet addressed the actual problem which involves the erroneous and misleading information provided by state wolf management. Despite all of the lawsuits, protests and rallies, the killing of wolves has only gotten worse, both in number and violence. Nevertheless, the solution is straightforward: the public must hold government agencies accountable for their deplorable management practices that do not follow scientific protocols. If not, wolves will continue to die, thus my petition. I've provided the world with my published review of the government's flawed data and how they exploit this misleading information to justify their slaughter of wolves. Use my paper. Use the published papers of other scientists as well which demonstrate that the killing of predators, both aquatic and terrestrial, degrade the world's ecosystems. This is a concern for the health and safety of all people. In other words, management agencies, such as Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, disregard the proven science that demonstrates the destructive effects that killing predators has throughout entire ecosystems. You can use what what science knows in a logical and reasonable way to stop the senseless and irresponsible mismanagement of our wildlife at its source.
To do this, the public must demand answers from wolf managers, via phone calls, emails, etc., and help scientists like me to reach the upper levels of management and expose their false information and debunk their claims of science. These are your wolves and it doesn't matter if you live in Montana or not. Most of these animals live in national forests which any U. S. taxpayer owns. You pay these people to provide the service of "managing" your land, yet their own data demonstrates their incompetence and destruction of the local environment. In the food service industry, would you pay someone to provide you with a lousy meal? This is business, and wolves are slaughtered for money and convenience despite the science that demonstrates their importance in maintaining healthy ecosystems. Please continue reading to learn more about my research and published scientific review of FWP's flawed data, and how this petition will help wolves.
For over twenty-seven years I have researched and taught about wolves. Having had the longest running behavioral study of these animals in Montana's history, outside of Yellowstone National Park, my interactions with wolf management agencies has been extensive. I have found that most managers have an appalling lack of knowledge about these animals, along with a disregard for science.
At the end of 2011, I published a paper in a peer-reviewed scientific journal that analyzed the data found in the annual reports published by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP). This agency is responsible for wolf management. Their information was filled with fabricated numbers used in making management decisions, such as determining the hunting quota. In summary, my review found:
1. The scientific method is not used during data collection which makes management decisions based on this information highly questionable. As noted above, Kent Laudon, one of the Wolf Management Specialists who collected the data, informed me that no protocols are used during data collection. This is important because the conclusions derived from the data cannot be any better than the quality of data collected. In other words, wolf management is not based in science as FWP has claimed.
2. There is no accountability for the repercussions of management decisions, such as killing wolves without proper scientific assessment. Several years ago I took my paper to the Governor's Office and met with Mike Volesky, the Environmental Policy Advisor to the Governor at the time. Among other topics, I asked him about the procedures FWP used to collect their flawed data, because they claimed that wolf hunts were based in science. He said he would "investigate." In subsequent emails, I was passed from one person to the next throughout the FWP hierarchy and never were my questions answered completely or even intelligently in some cases. On my web site, you can read some of my email exchanges with FWP and judge for yourself.
3. There appears to be no quality control of the data which makes FWP seem as if they do not understand or are unaware of what their numbers say. After years of interacting with these officials, I can say that they are a club. Their concept of wolf management acts more like a belief system rather than a set of rational guidelines. They are entrenched in their conviction that what they do is right, despite scientific evidence to the contrary. As a result, FWP uses other peoples' hatred of wolves to make and save money.
4. Wolves are managed without regard to their top-down influence throughout ecosystems, by ignoring other areas of science such as animal behavior, emotions, intelligence, interactions among life forms, and some basic ecological principles. Although some management may be necessary, hunting wolves remains scientifically unjustified. In regards to emotions, you can read my published scientific study about a captive wolf from the wild that developed PTSD from her abuse by wolf managers and subsequent captivity. She had been shot (tranquilizers via guns) four times and chased by aircraft twice.
5. When the state of Montana created revenue by killing its own wolves, hunting them became a self-serving process, as with the hunting of all managed wildlife. Hunting wolves can save the state money by reducing costs, creating revenue, and collecting opportunistic data from hunters. Therefore, money and convenience are some of the reasons to hunt wolves, which implies conflict of interest, especially when no scientific protocols were followed.
6. The actions of FWP bring up the moral issue of how a government agency can use flawed data to make management decisions, kill hundreds of wolves, and be allowed to do so. Even when FWP conducted studies on elk populations, their own data demonstrated that their justifications for killing wolves was wrong. Click here for a summary of that information and current policies.
The global view of the negative effects on ecosystems, caused by the killing of predators, was published by the top biologists and ecologists in the world. Please click here for their published paper in the journal Science, considered the elite when it comes to scientific publications.
I have come to realize that I cannot expect FWP to act responsibly because they do not know what that means. I am responsible for wolf management. So are you. If you want wolves you will have to fight for them. Use what science knows about these animals and understand the data. Use the provided links to educate yourself about the insanity of wolf management and to email FWP officials directly. This is crucial because managers at FWP create a facade with their numbers. It will take some effort to unravel this illusion to reveal the truth.
Through my ten year study of the Fishtrap pack, and from the results of other scientific studies, there is at least one truth science has learned about wolves: the pack is an intricate design of almost infinite complexity. I have learned that rather than a "thing," a wolf pack is a dynamic process. It is greater than the sum of its parts. The parts consist of pack members interacting with each other and with their surrounding environment. The net result is a force that changes over time as the pack reacts to endless environmental variations such as increasing or decreasing prey populations, prey migration, climatic changes, or when pack members come and go.
The picture above shows a pup who was a member of the Fishtrap pack. I found her shot and thrown into a ditch, and this was when wolves were still endangered. Nevertheless, entire packs could always be removed as part of wolf management control actions. Despite the science, my decade long study of the Fishtrap wolves came to an abrupt end when FWP killed all of them for apparently killing someone's cow. There was no warning, no call, nothing. They just vanished. I had even found wolf pack behavior never before documented, but wolf management is not about enlightenment. It is about killing, because they don't seem to know what else to do, and it is convenient and profitable.
Currently, FWP continues to let the public kill more and more wolves, without knowing how many wolves actually live in the state and without scientific justification. Hunters and trappers are now allowed to kill up to five wolves each. As added incentive, out-of-state hunting fees have also been reduced.
Following is a list of the officials involved in wolf management. They are arranged from the highest political level to the lowest, top to bottom. I urge anyone interested in this subject to email these people and demand the truth about wolf management and clarification as to what is really going on.
Steve Bullock, Governor of Montana, email@example.com.
Martha Williams, FWP Director, email@example.com.
Mike Volesky, Chief of Operations, email@example.com.
Jim Williams, FWP Wildlife Program Manager, email@example.com.
Diane Boyd, Wolf Management Specialist, firstname.lastname@example.com.
Please visit my web site for more specific and additional information about wolves in Montana and my interactions with the government to end the killing of these animals. My scientific publications and the magazine articles I have written about this issue are available as free PDF downloads. You will see that FWP has no scientific justification for killing our wolves. Until the public as a whole tells wolf managers to stop, this process will continue indefinitely.
The goal is 100,000 signatures: a good representation of different people and cultures from around the world. Make FWP listen. Every signature is emailed to the officials listed above. Enough of the killing. It needs to stop.
Please share this petition with family and friends using Facebook, Twitter or other social media. These are your wolves, the world's wolves. Don't let them die for the agenda of only a few misguided and bigoted people.
Thank you for your concern,
Jay Mallonee
Wolf and Wildlife Studies
This petition began on 3/29/13.


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Hilarious New Mommy Halloween Costumes
My Facebook page currently features an image of a mom in a Wonder Woman costume nursing Baby Superman. Not surprisingly, I am a breastfeeding momma myself, currently approaching month eight with our little girl, Evie. While a red satin bustier does sound appealing in terms of being able to easily whip out my boob on demand — and the shiny gold belt would perfectly cover up my c-section scar — I haven't decided what I'm going to dress up as on October 31, as I'm too busy obsessing over Evie's first ever Halloween costume (I've narrowed the options down to Madonna circa 1985 and a ladybug.) But if I do decide to dress up, a number of perfect new mommy-esque costumes await me, most of them easily thrown together with objects currently lying around my tornado of a home:
Costume: New mommy
Accessories: Milk-splattered nursing tank with one strap unhooked, exposing breast; smoky gray eye shadow for enhancing undereye dark circles; Crisco to massage into scalp for that "I haven't washed my hair in five days" look; sweat pants with cotton mesh hospital underwear peeking over the waistband; three-month-old pedicure.
Costume: Female reproductive tract
Accessories: Write "UTERUS" across the chest of an old tank top; underneath, wear a turtleneck in a contrasting color and have a friend write "FALLOPIAN TUBE" on each arm. Buy a pair of stretchy cotton gloves in yet another color and label them each "OVARY." Walk around with your arms raised above your head all night long.
Costume: Sexy Reproductive Endocrinologist
Accessories: Super-tight lab coat with plunging neckline; white stiletto heels with red American crosses on the sides; shove five baby dolls in a doctor's satchel so their heads all peek out of the top. When children approach you yelling, "Trick or Treat!", hand them a vial of Follicle Stimulating Hormone. Bonus: Drive around in the most expensive car you can find and slap a "My Other Car is a Petri Dish" bumper sticker across the back fender.
Costume: The Baby Whisperer
Accessories: Dark blue button down shirt, tie and stethoscope; carry a copy of The Happiest Baby on the Block; name tag that reads "Harvey Karp, MD"; go up to everyone and yell, "SHHHH!" while wildy gesticulating with a swinging-baby motion.
Costume: Professional wrestler named "The Sultan of Swaddle"
Accessories: Sew a toga out of Aden + Anais muslin swaddle blankets; cinch it with a gold Championship-style belt with giant letter "S". Gold lame knee-high platform boots. Swaddle a Cabbage Patch Kid and tuck him under your arm, along with a copy of Baby-Gami: Baby Wrapping for Beginners. Carry around a spray bottle full of tanning oil so you can constantly mist yourself (a good swaddler breaks a sweat).
Costume: Lactation Consultant
Accessories: Breast pump to carry on your shoulder; My Brest Friend Velcro-strapped around your waist; string a long piece of yarn through multiple nipple shields and wear them around your neck like a necklace; ILCA nametag; baby bottle to drink champagne out of at the party. Give yourself a dual-handed knuckle tattoo that reads BREAST = BEST. Optional: " La Leche League_ Forever" _lower back tattoo.
Like Wonder Woman Leslie? Follow her on Twitter @LeslieGoldman or Facebook
Follow Leslie's breast pump @ThePumptyDance
Read her blog @ HealthBreaksLoose.com


text: A Meeting Of Great Minds: During his 1966 visit to South Africa, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy met with anti-apartheid activist Chief Luthuli and later spoke publicly about their meeting. Because of a government ban on media coverage of Luthuli, it was the first news many had of their leader in more than five years. Shoreline Productions hide caption toggle caption Shoreline Productions The Two-Way LOOKING BACK: RFK's 'Ripple Of Hope' Speech In South Africa June 30, 2013 Speaking in Cape Town on Sunday, President Obama recalled what some say was Robert Kennedy's greatest speech — the senator's 1966 address at a South African university.


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This is my new favorite awkward silence of all time. All that's audible is vacant crowd noise, but if you listen hard enough, you can hear the play-by-play guy thinking, "Well, what the hell am I supposed to say now?" and the other guy, ESPNU's Brian Kinchen, thinking, "Uh oh."
How running an NFL team is like running a restaurant | Chef Emeril Lagasse
I actually got a Hugh Johnson message about this yesterday, but I couldn't get confirmation on it, so I held off. The video makes it worth the wait.
'That's Kinda Gay' [The Wizard of Odds]


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Professor Jonathan Gosling
Emeritus Professor of Leadership Studies
+44 (0) 1392 722568
Streatham Court, University of Exeter, Rennes Drive, Exeter, EX4 4PU, UK
Trained as an anthropologist, Professor Jonathan Gosling worked for several years as a mediator in neighbourhood conflicts in London, founded the UK's first community mediation service and was the founding Secretary of the European Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution. After taking a mid-career MBA, he moved into management education at Lancaster University, where he directed the MBA and other programmes for British Airways and other major companies. He co-founded, with Henry Mintzberg and three other malcontents, a new approach to management education, the International Masters in Practising Management. This takes place in six countries around the world, and has been the springboard for several subsequent innovations in helping practising mangers to improve the way they manage. Professor Gosling also played a significant role in the so-called 'critical management' movement, launching an influential MPhil and PhD and contributing to the development of specialist conferences and interest groups. At Exeter he led the growth of leadership studies towards a consisted research and publishing profile, significant contributions to undergraduate education, and headed Executive Education for several years. In 2009/10 he collaborated with Jean-Paul Jeanrenaud at WWF International to co-found the One Planet MBA, the first MBA designed explicitly to build on the implications of a fundamental but seldom-questioned assumption: that we have just one planet - and we've all got to get along on it!
Amongst the many questions posed by this approach is 'How will value be negotiated in the food and agriculture supply chain?', where producers vie for control with international companies, and nature is valued in different, often incommensurable ways. This complex issue is crucial to enabling peace, health and environmental sustainability across the world, and could be a driver for economic reform; Prof Gosling has co-founded Business, Nature Value, a multidisciplinary, international research cluster to address the issue.
Professor Gosling has published articles in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Leadership, Management Learning, Academy of Management Learning and Education, and in many more practice-oriented outlets. He is currently finalising a text book based on the One Planet MBA. His most recent book is Napoleonic Leadership: A study in power (Sage, 2015); following his Nelson's Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Commander, published for the 2005 bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar. Both books underpin popular talks and workshops on contemporary strategic leadership. Prof Gosling has also written several core texts on leadership, including 'Key Concepts' titles for Rutledge (2008) and Sage (2013); a successful text book Exploring Leadership: Individual, Organisational and Social Perspectives for Oxford University Press (2011, with colleagues at Exeter); and several other collections including one on leadership lessons from fiction.
Professor Gosling advises several companies, international agencies and government departments on their leadership-related issues, and is Lead Faculty member on the Forward Institute's 'responsible leadership programme' 2015-'16. He is a Fellow of the Leadership Trust Foundation ,Trustee of the JH Levy Trust, a co-director of the European Leadership Centre , and a director of Coaching Ourselves Inc.
As former director of the Centre for Leadership Studies (2002-2009), he works with a world-wide first-rate team of researchers, teachers and consultants collectively making a significant impact on both the understanding and practice of leadership.
Professor Gosling is currently (2015) Visiting Professor in the School of Philosophy at Renmin University of China, where he delivered a series of lectures on the Philosophy of Leadership. He held an Otto Mønsted Fellowship at Copenhagen Business School (2014), working on 'the pleasures of power'; was 2009 Distinguished Visiting Professor of Leadership Development at INSEAD, France, working on experiential methods in leadership development; and has held similar posts at at McGill University, Quebec; Lund University, Sweden; and IEDC Bled School of Management, Slovenia.
He retired from Exeter in July 2015, much before the official retirement age, in order to focus on more immediate and impactful contributions to society; he remains active as an Emeritus Professor at Exeter, and can be contacted at http://www.jonathangosling.com
BA, Dip RSA, MBA
- Video: The Most Overrated Value in Business (Harvard Business Review)
- Review of Professor Gosling's 'Leadership: The Key Concepts' from the 'Journal of Management Development'
- Video: Lessons for Business School Research in Emerging Markets by Jonathan Gosling
- Review of Professor Gosling's 'Nelson's Way' on the Washington Post
- Alastair McIntosh - Thought for the Day – c. 0723, 10 August 2011 - BBC Radio Scotland
- No shortage of managers but academics bemoan a 'leadership lacuna'
Research interests
- Leadership and ethics in current strategic changes
- Contemporary innovations in leadership development
- Fostering continuity in change through leadership
Leadership and management development. Much of Professor Gosling's work for the past 10 years has been focused on elucidating the contribution made by various interventions in organisations, ranging from formal management training to collective narrative processes (indicative publications: Gosling, 1996; Gosling and Mintzberg, 2002 (Runner-up, best published paper, Academy of Management), 2003, 2004; Bolden, Gosling and Wood, 2005; Gosling and Purg, 2007). Several of these publications have given rise to substantial debate, press coverage and further publications in industry journals. A recently completed two-year research project for the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education has produced numerous reports and articles (see references to Bolden, Gosling and Petrov below); and a follow-on project examining the relationships between HEIs and businesses in the SW. Current research focuses on how technical experts and 'deal-makers' can be assisted to 'step up to leadership', especially in international, multi-cultural organisations.
Leading continuity and change. Much of what leaders and managers actually do is clearly aimed at sustaining the continuity of operations and, more importantly, of a shared identity in their organisations. Professor Gosling has examined the activity of managers and the structure of managerial tasks in a number of situations, with a medium-term aim of developing a theory of continuity. Early work looked at conflict resolution processes (Gosling 1994a, 1996; Linstead, Gosling et. al., 2004), but is now focused more directly on general leadership roles.
Psychoanalytic perspectives on leadership studies. Some of Professor Gosling's earlier work on management development drew on the work of Wilfred Bion as a basis for analysing group dependency on teachers and facilitators (Gosling and Ashton, 1994). Later work on community identity and leadership (Gosling, 1996b) drew on John Bowlby's theory of attachment, though Professor Gosling has returned to Bion's application of Kleinian theory in more recent work - of which an early paper was nominated for the 'best paper' award at the American Academy of Management (Gosling and Western, 2004). A new branch of this work now underway is to link the psychoanalytic concept of 'containment' to classical concepts of 'care of the self'. This builds on Professor Gosling's earlier work on Platonic influences on leadership theory (Gosling, 1996a) and links to shared interests with his former colleague in CLS, Prof. Peter Case (Case and Gosling, 2007). This has now evolved into a continuing series of enquiry and papers, linking pre-modern wisdom traditions to contemporary systems psychodynamic concepts (French, Case and Gosling, 2009; Gosling and Case, forthcoming).
Fundamental concepts of leadership. Professor Gosling has worked on the predominance of psychological constructs in the leadership canon, and articulated alternatives drawn from analytic language philosophy (with Antonio Marturano, former Research Fellow), to appear in Philosophy and Management in (Marturano, Gosling and Wood, 2010). This paper makes important links to an earlier debate in the literature (Organization Science, 1992 and 1993) with innovative solutions to conceptual problems raised at that time; and points to further links to infomatics, genetics and bio-ethics. In the meantime, Professor Gosling has published 'Leadership: The Key Concepts' (Marturano and Gosling, 2008, Routledge).
Jonathan is a member of the ESRC Centre for Sports, Leisure and Tourism Research.
Research projects
- 'Emerging Concepts of Academic Leadership': by survey, interviews and 'listening posts' across UK HE Institutions. With Richard Bolden, Anne O'Brien, Michelle Ryan, Kim Peters and Alex Haslam, 2010-2011
- 'Branding in Higher Education': collaborative ethnography, with Lund University and others, 2010-2011
Key publications | Publications by category | Publications by year
No publications found
External positions
- Member of the Advisory Board to the Defence Academy
- Fellow of the Windsor Leadership Trust
- Fellow of the Leadership Trust Foundation
- Member of the Advisory Board of Reykjavik University
- Visiting Professor at INSEAD, France; IEDC, Bled, Slovenia; Lund, Sweden
- Trustee of the Fintry Trust and the JH Levy Trust
Professor Gosling's teaching is focused on the practices of leading and managing, aiming to directly confront the difficulties, excitements, motivations and effects. In some circumstances, he approaches this through experiential methods (derived from systems psychodynamics) in a highly participative manner. At other times, he pursues a more philosophical mode of enquiry into questions such as 'what is the right thing to do?', 'what is a leader responsible for?' and 'what are the most important things to get right?'. Another approach is to examine some of the more colourful leaders from history, to analyse their particular talents and madnesses, as well as the other actors and circumstances that contributed to their successes (and failures).
The following list shows a selection of programmes taught on behalf of Exeter University. For other offerings please contact Prof Gosling directly.
Executive Education: degree-bearing (indicative selection)
- MA and MRes in Leadership Studies (Lecturer and Supervisor, 2002-2014)
- Critical Issues in Leadership: 3-day courses for middle / senior managers and HMF (Course Leader, 2004-2014), 18-25 per cohort over 3 months
- 'Better Leaders: Better Doctors', p/g certificate for GPs aspiring to lead change in Primary Health Care in the UK
- Managing Around the World: Roundtables for Practising Managers (for EMBA students at partner business schools, 2006 - present)
Executive Development: non-degree bearing
- Responsible Leadership (Forward Institute, 2015-2016)
- G'10 Global Leadership Programme for 3i (Director and designer, 2007-2008)
- Strategic Leaders' Programme, BAE Systems (Director, Programme Architect 1997-2000), 15-20 per cohort over 18 months
- Advanced Leadership Programme (Director, 2000-2004), 30 per cohort over 9 months
- Royal Mail Group 'Difference' Top Management Programme (Director 2004-2006), 20 participants per intake, for 9 months each
- Basell 'Lead2Lead' programme (Director 2000 - 2002), 120 participants
Information not currently available


text:
Supermarket Observations.
At the outset, let me say that I am not a stranger to supermarkets. Over the years, I have probably spent more time in supermarkets than most men. Now, following retirement and making the House by the Parkway (South) the default residence, the division of labor has worked out such that I do most of the supermarket shopping.
I have a few observations I thought I'd share:
Today's Subject: Shopping Efficiency — Men and Women
Of course, there are numerous exceptions, but I think it's fair to say that when women shop alone, they are good at, most likely having done it for years. I have noticed that when men shop alone, they are also pretty good at it and quite efficient, except for an occasional lapse of douchebaggery where you see a man on the cell phone calling home for instructions. "They don't have the 16-ounch cans. Would two 8-ounce cans be OK?†Most men don't have to make such calls, but, alas, some still do. Despite the occasional Call-for-Instructions Guy, I think it's fair to say that when shopping alone, men are pretty efficient.
The problems arise when men and women shop together. Efficiency goes right out the window.
The shopping-together phenomenon takes two forms.
The Puppy Dog, Bored, Hopelessly Lost Looking Husband
I'm sure you've seen these couples. The man walks several steps behind the woman and contributes absolutely nothing toward the goal of buying supermarket stuff. He often looks bored to death, or confused by it all. You have to wonder why he came along in the first place. I never get the impression that the woman asked him to accompany her, or, for that matter, even wants him there. He's nothing but a drag on the process, destroying the efficiency of the operation.
The "Expert†Shopping Nazi
I see this type of chooch a lot in the supermarket near the House by the Parkway (South), where there are an abundance of retired people. This is typically a guy who, before retiring, left the supermarket shopping to his wife. Now that he's retired, he's decided that, for all those years, his wife didn't know how to shop for groceries.
So, he accompanies his wife to the supermarket, where he demonstrates his instant expertise on everything having to do with grocery shopping. Every single purchase involves a conference, which sounds more like a lecture from the Expert Shopping Nazi to the hapless woman who obviously has been doing everything wrong for the past three decades. "Why are you buying that? We don't need it, and this one over here is two cents cheaper.â€
I would like to see one of these women whack her imperious, Shopping Nazi husband in the kisser with bag of onions.


text:
Asteroid Vesta to Reshape Theories of Planet Formation
EPFL researchers have a better understanding of the asteroid Vesta and its internal structure, thanks to numerical simulations and data from the space mission Dawn. Their findings, published today in Nature, question contemporary models of rocky planet formation, including that of Earth.
With its 500 km diameter, the asteroid Vesta is one of the largest known planet embryos. It came into existence at the same time as the Solar System. Spurring scientific interest, NASA sent the Dawn spacecraft on Vesta's orbit for one year between July 2011 and July 2012.
Data gathered by Dawn were analyzed by a team of researchers from EPFL as well as the Universities of Bern (Switzerlanf), Brittany (France) and Arizona (USA). Conclusion : the asteroid's crust is almost three times thicker than expected. The study does not only have implications for the structure of this celestial object, located between Mars and Jupiter. Their results challenge a fundamental component in planet formation models, namely the composition of the original cloud of matter that aggregated together, heated, melted and then crystallized to form planets.
At EPFL's Earth and Planetary Science Laboratory (EPSL), led by Philippe Gillet, Harold Clenet had a look at the composition of the rocks scattered across Vesta's ground. "What is striking is the absence of a particular mineral, olivine, on the asteroid's surface," said the researcher. Olivine is a main component of planetary mantles and should have been found in large quantities on the surface of Vesta, due to a double meteorite impact which, according to computer simulations, "dug" the celestial body's southern pole to a depth of 80 km, catapulting large amounts of materials to the surface.
The two impacts were so powerful that more than 5 % of Earth's meteorites come from Vesta. « But these cataclysms were not strong enough to pierce through the crust and reach the asteroid's mantle,» Harold Clenet continued. The meteorites originating from Vesta and found on Earth confirm this since they generally lack Olivine, or contain only minute amounts compared to the amount observed in planetary mantles. Also, the spacecraft Dawn did not find olivine in the vicinity of the two impact craters. « This means that the crust of the asteroid is not 30 km thick, as suggested by the models, but more than 80 km. »
Composition of planets
These discoveries challenge models that describe the formation of Vesta, and consequently the formation of rocky planets in the Solar System including planet Earth. Cooling theory and "re- melting" phenomena in the depths of previously solidified elements would also need to be reviewed. "The crust might have been thickened by the formation of "plutons", that is: igneous rock intrusions, hundreds of meters large, some of which emerged to the surface," explained the scientist.
If Vesta has less of a (olivine-rich) mantle and more of a (pyroxene-rich) crust, then the proportion of materials making up Vesta, and probably the Earth and other telluric planets (Mars, Venus, Mercury), is different from what was previously expected.
A more complex model of planet formation therefore has to be considered, one that takes into account not only the original composition of planets, but also their orbits, sizes and related cooling times. Vesta is the only known asteroid that has an earth-like structure - with a core, mantle and crust – making it an incredible laboratory for testing hypotheses and theories.


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SpaceX Dragon capsule launched to space station
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A commercial cargo ship rocketed into orbit Sunday in pursuit of the International Space Station, the first of a dozen supply runs under a mega-contract with NASA.
It was the second launch of a Dragon capsule to the orbiting lab by the California-based SpaceX company. The first was last spring.
This time was no test flight, however, and the spacecraft carried 1,000 pounds of key science experiments and other precious gear. There was also a personal touch: chocolate-vanilla swirl ice cream tucked in a freezer for the three station residents.
The company's unmanned Falcon rocket roared into the night sky right on time, putting SpaceX on track to reach the space station Wednesday. The complex was soaring southwest of Tasmania when the Falcon took flight.
Officials declared the launch a success.
In more good news, a piece of space junk was no longer threatening the station, and NASA could focus entirely on the delivery mission.
NASA is counting on private business to restock the space station, now that the shuttles have retired to museums. The space agency has a $1.6 billion contract with SpaceX for 12 resupply missions.
Especially exciting for NASA is the fact that the Dragon will return twice as much cargo as it took up, including a stockpile of astronauts' blood and urine samples. The samples — nearly 500 of them — have been stashed in freezers since Atlantis made the last shuttle flight in July 2011.
The Dragon will spend close to three weeks at the space station before being released and parachuting into the Pacific at the end of October. By then, the space station should be back up to a full crew of six.
None of the Russian, European or Japanese cargo ships can bring anything back; they're destroyed during re-entry. The Russian Soyuz crew capsules have limited room for anything besides people.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX — owned by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk — is working to convert its unmanned Dragon capsules into vessels that could carry astronauts to the space station in three years. Other U.S. companies also are vying to carry crews. Americans must ride Russian rockets to orbit in the meantime, for a steep price.
Musk, who monitored the launch from SpaceX Mission Control in Hawthorne, Calif., called the capsules Dragon after the magical Puff to get back at critics who, a decade ago, considered his effort a fantasy. The name Falcon comes from the Millennium Falcon starship of "Star Wars" fame.
An estimated 2,400 guests jammed the launching center to see the Falcon, with its Dragon, come to life for SpaceX's first official, operational supply mission.
It was no apparition.
"Just over a year since shuttle retirement, to be able to do that is, I think, what people are very excited about," said NASA's deputy administrator, Lori Garver.
Across the country at SpaceX headquarters, about 1,000 employees watched via TV and webcast.
SpaceX is shooting for its next supply run in January.
Another company looking to haul space station cargo, Virginia's Orbital Sciences Corp., hopes to launch a solo test flight in December and a demo mission to the station early next year.
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