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Modern Civil Rights Movement in Alabama
The modern civil rights movement in Alabama burst into public consciousness with a single act of civil disobedience by Rosa Parks in Montgomery in 1955. It began to fade from the public eye a decade later, following the formation of the original Black Panther Party in Lowndes County. During the intervening years, Alabama was the site of some of the most defining events of the civil rights era. These events transformed the state and profoundly changed America.
Parks, Rosa Boycott Black protest started long before the civil rights movement emerged and continued long after it stopped receiving front-page headlines. African Americans in Alabama began fighting for basic civil and human rights as soon as slavery ended in 1865, and they continue to fight for these rights today. Although they have adjusted their tactics to fit the times, their goals have changed very little. They have fought consistently for social autonomy, quality education, political power, and an acceptable standard of living. They have also fought to end racial terrorism and to enjoy the fruits of their own labor. On the continuum of black protest, however, the 1950s and 1960s were unique. During these years, black protest involved more people, was more highly organized, and lasted longer than any other period of activism. It also featured the most direct challenges to segregation and produced the most dramatic gains.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
On Thursday, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American seamstress, boarded a city bus in downtown Montgomery and sat one row behind the whites-only section. As the bus filled with passengers, the white driver ordered Parks to surrender her seat to a white man. Parks refused. Her defiance prompted the driver to summon the police, who promptly arrested her for violating the city's segregation ordinance.
E. D. Nixon Parks had been involved in the fight for civil rights for some time. She was an active member of the Montgomery branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). That summer, she had also taken a trip to the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, to participate in civil rights workshops. Virginia Durr, a white southern reformer who had befriended Parks, arranged the trip. When Virginia's husband, Clifford Durr, a prominent lawyer known for accepting civil liberties cases, and E. D. Nixon, the president of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP, learned of Parks's arrest, they bailed her out. They also contacted Jo Anne Robinson, the president of the Women's Political Council (WPC), who immediately organized a one-day bus boycott. Montgomery's black residents responded enthusiastically to the call to stay off the buses because so many had suffered similar indignities for so long.
On Monday, December 5, 1955, some 30,000 African Americans participated in the bus boycott. That afternoon, the leaders of the African American community, including Ralph David Abernathy, the pastor of First Baptist Church, formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to coordinate future protests. They also appointed Abernathy's close friend Martin Luther King Jr., the 26-year-old pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, president of the organization. This fateful decision thrust the young preacher to the forefront of the boycott and into the national spotlight. That same evening, King and the MIA held a mass meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church. Ordinary black folk filled the pews and voted overwhelmingly to continue the boycott.
King, Martin Luther Soon after the boycott began, MIA representatives met with Montgomery mayor William A. Gayle and other city leaders and explained that African Americans would not resume riding the buses until the bus company hired black drivers for routes through black neighborhoods and instructed white drivers to treat black passengers with courtesy and professionalism. They also informed Gayle that they wanted a seating arrangement similar to the one instituted in Mobile, which permitted African Americans to begin filling buses from the back to the front, and whites from the front to the back. Although their demands were well within the bounds of Jim Crow traditions, the city leaders rejected them outright. Their stubbornness prompted Fred Gray, a local black attorney, to file a lawsuit in federal court. The lawsuit, known as Browder v. Gayle, sought a complete end to segregation on the city's buses. As Browder v. Gayle wound its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, the MIA sustained the bus boycott by developing an intricate carpool system that involved several hundred drivers. City police harassed the boycott's supporters, and white terrorists targeted the boycott's leaders. On January 30, 1956, they bombed King's home, and two days later, they bombed E. D. Nixon's home.
Rosa Parks's Symbolic Bus Ride, 1956 On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower-court ruling declaring that segregation on Montgomery buses was unconstitutional. One month later, African Americans integrated the city's bus system, ending the 381-day boycott. The successful protest was a source of inspiration for African Americans nationwide. The high rate of black participation and the sophisticated nature of the mobilization effort demonstrated what African Americans were capable of achieving. The boycott also breathed new life into black protest by introducing King to the nation. The victory, however, did not end segregation beyond the city buses. Nor did it end racial violence. On January 10, 1957, white terrorists bombed Abernathy's home.
The Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
Fred Lee Shuttlesworth In response to the boycott's success, state officials conspired to prevent future outbreaks of black protest by trying to silence the NAACP. John Patterson, the Alabama attorney general and soon-to-be governor of the state, led the effort. Using a loophole in state law, he managed to shut down local NAACP branches. As the nation's leading civil rights organization, the absence of the NAACP created a noticeable void in the black community. In Birmingham, the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR), founded on June 5, 1956, filled this empty space. Fred Shuttlesworth, a fiery orator and the pastor of Bethel Baptist Church, headed the organization. Shuttlesworth and the ACMHR fought admirably to end segregation in the "Magic City" but made very little headway on their own. The slow pace of progress over the next several years eventually led them to invite outside organizers to help them with the struggle. King was among those who would answer the call.
Tuskegee's Fight for Voting Rights
State officials did not limit their attempts to preserve segregation to neutralizing the NAACP. They also tried to make it even more difficult for African Americans to gain political power. In Tuskegee, where African Americans had been registering to vote in increasing numbers since the early 1950s, the state legislature redrew the city's boundaries in 1957 in such a way as to exclude the vast majority of them. This blatant act of gerrymandering robbed African Americans of the right to participate in city elections. In response, the city's black residents launched a boycott against local white businesses. In 1958, Charles Gomillion, a sociology professor at Tuskegee University and the president of the Tuskegee Civic Association (TCA), filed suit in federal court to return the city to its original boundaries. Two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Gomillion v. Lightfoot that the city's original boundaries had to be restored. This ruling established an important judicial precedent for court intervention in voting-rights cases. It also energized local African Americans. The continuation of social segregation, however, was tremendously disappointing. It was especially disheartening to students at Tuskegee University, who were a part of the emerging cadre of young activists who would redefine black protest in the 1960s.
Sit-Ins and Freedom Rides
Lunch Counter Sit In On February 1, 1960, several black students in Greensboro, North Carolina, conducted a sit-in at a lunch counter in a Woolworth's department store. The protest encouraged black students across Alabama. In Montgomery, students at Alabama State University were among the first to organize. Soon after the Greensboro sit-in, three dozen Alabama State students attempted to eat at the segregated cafeteria in the state capitol. None of them was surprised when cafeteria workers refused to serve them, but they were all shocked when school president Councill Trenholm expelled them at the insistence of Governor Patterson. Several thousand students held a rally in support of their classmates at Hutchinson Street Baptist Church, and at least as many marched on the capitol the following day. The willingness of black students to challenge the authority of the state placed them on the frontline of the civil rights movement, where they remained for the rest of the decade.
Freedom Riders The civil rights movement in Alabama reached a new level of intensity when the Freedom Riders entered the state in May 1961. The racially integrated group of activists rode Greyhound and Trailways buses across the South to test compliance with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which forbade racial discrimination in interstate travel. John Lewis, a native of Pike County and a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), was one of the group's leaders. On Sunday, May 14, 1961—Mother's Day—some 200 white men attacked the first bus of Freedom Riders with bats and pipes when it reached Anniston; they later firebombed it. The Freedom Riders barely escaped the burning bus, and as they stumbled out of the flaming ruin, the white mob attacked again. Freedom Rides Only the presence of an Alabama Public Safety officer prevented a death from occurring. In Birmingham, another mob beat a second group of Freedom Riders when their bus pulled into the city's downtown bus station.
SNCC leaders in Nashville quickly sent reinforcements to Alabama. But when the second wave of Freedom Riders arrived in Montgomery on May 20, 1961, the city police refused to protect them. Instead, they allowed a group of whites to attack them as they disembarked. The assault sent John Lewis and several others to the hospital. This round of violence embarrassed and infuriated U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy and caused him to pressure Governor Patterson to provide the Freedom Riders with safe passage into Mississippi. Once there, the Freedom Riders were arrested and jailed. Their demonstration was a turning point in the Alabama civil rights movement, however. The Freedom Rides refocused attention on segregation and racial violence in the state and forced Pres. John F. Kennedy to take decisive action to protect the civil rights activists. Unfortunately, the president did not make protecting civil rights workers a permanent priority, which left them exposed to white violence.
The Struggle in Birmingham
Fred Lee Shuttlesworth After the Freedom Riders left Alabama, the civil rights effort lost some of its energy, but their absence did not keep African Americans from continuing to fight for their rights. In Birmingham, Fred Shuttlesworth was among those who carried the struggle forward. As the president of ACMHR, he had been at the forefront of the movement in the city since 1956. In September 1962, the fearless preacher helped secure a promise from white civic leaders to desegregate downtown water fountains and restrooms, a major accomplishment given Birmingham's reputation as the most segregated city in America. When the white leaders reneged on the agreement a few months later, Shuttlesworth appealed to King for help. By that time, King was the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a national civil rights group established in the wake of the Montgomery bus boycott.
"Bull" Connor in 1963 SCLC organized an elaborate campaign to desegregate Birmingham. The operation involved sit-ins, marches, and a boycott of downtown stores. The initiative began on April 3, 1963, with a series of small demonstrations. As the protests intensified, so too did the reaction of Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor, who deployed police with German shepherds to disrupt them. At the behest of Bull Conner, Judge William A. Jenkins Jr. issued a court injunction forbidding public protest, but King disobeyed the order as a matter of principle. His defiance resulted in his immediate arrest. While behind bars, he wrote "Letter from Birmingham Jail," in which he chastised white clergy for not getting involved in the freedom struggle. After King's arrest, SCLC brought in elementary and high school students for the Children's Crusade to revitalize the campaign. In a remarkable display of collective courage, the children faced high-pressure water hoses as they marched through Kelly Ingram Park and the city's streets. Good Friday March Connor hoped that his harsh tactics would intimidate them, but each day more people joined the protests. In addition, news footage of children being thrown down by blasts of water from the hoses and bitten by police dogs damaged the city's image. The negative publicity prompted white civic leaders to negotiate a settlement. On May 10, 1963, King announced a gradual desegregation agreement. It was less than what the people wanted, but more than what they had. The agreement brought the demonstrations to a halt, but it did not end white violence. On September 15, 1963, a bomb exploded at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church just before the start of Sunday school, killing Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair, and Carole Robertson, who ranged in age from 11 to 14 years old.
Stand in the Schoolhouse Door
Gov. Wallace's Stand in the Schoolhouse Door In June 1963, national attention shifted momentarily away from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa, where Vivian Malone and James Hood, black students from Mobile and Gadsden, attempted to enroll at the University of Alabama, the state's flagship university. The university was still all white, despite countless attempts to desegregate it over the preceding decade, including a valiant attempt by Autherine Lucy, a native of Marengo County who attended classes briefly in 1956 before university trustees suspended her because of rioting by white students and others. U.S. district judge Seybourn Lynne forbade Gov. George Wallace from interfering with the registration of Malone and Hood, but on June 11, 1963, Wallace made a great show of public defiance in front of Foster Auditorium on campus. Later that same day, he yielded to federal pressure and allowed the two students to register. In 1965, Malone became the first African American to graduate from the university.
Vivian Malone President Kennedy followed the events that were taking place in Tuscaloosa closely. On the same evening as Wallace's "stand in the schoolhouse door," as it became known, Kennedy addressed the nation and announced his intention to send a new civil rights bill to Congress. In July 1964, his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, signed the legislation into law, which now prohibited discrimination in public accommodations and hiring. One of the earliest tests of compliance with the 1964 Civil Rights Act occurred in Selma, where SNCC field secretaries Bernard and Colia Lafayette had been organizing African Americans since 1962.
In many parts of Alabama, slow progress was being made. In Anniston, an interracial group of clergy worked to end segregation incrementally. In Huntsville, local activists desegregated downtown businesses and were close to desegregating the public schools by 1962. And in Tuscaloosa, the Tuscaloosa Citizens for Action Committee (TCAC), aided by an armed African American self-defense group, desegregated downtown lunch counters and city buses. But in Selma, segregation and disenfranchisement endured.
Sheriff Clark and Demonstrators In July 1964, the Lafayettes organized a series of nonviolent, direct-action protests in downtown Selma, but Dallas County sheriff Jim Clark defeated the campaign with violence. Black protest subsided until January 1965, when SCLC and SNCC launched a joint effort to draw attention to the denial of black voting rights locally and throughout the South. Their goal was to secure the vote for African Americans in Dallas County and win support for federal voting-rights legislation. To dramatize black disenfranchisement, the two organizations, in collaboration with the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL), organized several marches on the county courthouse, beginning January 18, 1965. Not surprisingly, Sheriff Clark harassed and arrested the demonstrators, including King.
Jimmie Lee Jackson The Selma campaign began to wane near the end of February 1965. At the same time, civil rights organizing increased in the rural Black Belt counties surrounding the city. In Perry and Wilcox Counties, voters' leagues, loosely affiliated with SCLC, led the way. The cause gained renewed vigor when a state trooper fatally wounded 26-year-old local activist Jimmie Lee Jackson during a night march in Perry County. To honor Jackson's memory and highlight his sacrifice, SCLC organized a march from Selma to the governor's doorstep in Montgomery. On March 7, 1965, as several hundred marchers crossed Selma's steeply arched Edmund Pettus Bridge, Clark's posse and state troopers brutally beat them. That evening, the television networks broadcast footage of what became known as "Bloody Sunday," bringing the violence of Jim Crow into the living rooms of millions of Americans.
Bloody Sunday In the aftermath of "Bloody Sunday," King issued a call for civil and human rights supporters to come to Selma to join another march on March 9. James Reeb, a white Unitarian minister from Boston, was among the many thousands who answered the call. Soon after arriving in Selma, however, he was beaten by a group of young white men and died two days later.
Frank M. Johnson On Sunday, March 21, 1965, after three weeks of legal battles, the Selma-to-Montgomery March finally resumed. U.S. district judge Frank M. Johnson ordered Alabama officials not to interfere with the demonstration. He also limited the number of people who could walk the entire 50 miles along U.S. Highway 80 to a few hundred, but more than 20,000 people joined the marchers five days later on the stark white steps of the state capitol. There they listened to King deliver a stirring speech on freedom, justice, and equality. That same evening, Viola Liuzzo, a white activist who had travelled to Alabama from Michigan to participate in the march, was murdered as she and black activist Leroy Moton shuttled marchers between Montgomery and Selma.
Events in Selma cleared the way for President Johnson to sponsor legislation to protect black voting rights. In August 1965, the U.S. Congress passed the landmark Voting Rights Act, which banned literacy tests and permitted federal registrars to add eligible African Americans to the voting rolls. Attorneys from the U.S. Justice Department who had litigated voting rights cases in the Alabama Black Belt for several years played a prominent role in drafting the key provisions of the new law. The city is now a center of the National Civil Rights Trail, with the Selma Interpretive Center, as well as the nearby Lowndes Interpretive Center, both operated by the National Park Service, serving as visitor's centers.
The Rise of the Black Power Movement
Voting Rights Act of 1965 The Voting Rights Act ushered in the era of black re-enfranchisement. But after African Americans gained access to the ballot box, they had to decide whether or not to support the Alabama Democratic Party, which publicly embraced white supremacy. In Lowndes County, the leaders of the Lowndes County Christian Movement for Human Rights (LCCMHR) decided to organize an all-black, countywide, third party—the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO). The group chose as the party's ballot symbol a snarling black panther, which earned the LCFO the nickname the Black Panther Party. The symbol inspired African Americans across the country, including the founders of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland, California, who named their organization after the LCFO symbol. A team of SNCC field secretaries, led by Stokely Carmichael, helped Lowndes County activists build the LCFO. The SNCC workers also drew upon this experience to develop the theories and programs behind Black Power, which Carmichael introduced to the nation during the summer of 1966.
Stokely Carmichael In the 1966 general election, the LCFO ran a full slate of African Americans for local office. The Black Panther candidates were defeated by their white opponents, largely as a result of ballot fraud. Nevertheless, the LCFO laid the foundation for the eventual rise of African American political power in the county and across the Black Belt. The LCFO also inspired the creation of the National Democratic Party of Alabama (NDPA), a statewide alternative to the Alabama Democratic Party. The LCFO merged with the NDPA in 1970, the same year that Lowndes County activist John Hulett became the county's first black sheriff.
The embrace of independent politics by African Americans signaled the transition from civil rights to Black Power. During the Black Power era, African Americans organized more explicitly around racial solidarity and black consciousness. They also placed a greater emphasis on economic and political empowerment. The emergence of Black Power did not mark the end of black protest, but rather the start of a new, more radical phase. In cities across the state, Black Power looked very much like it did elsewhere in the country, both in terms of programs and organization. In rural areas, particularly in the Black Belt, it assumed a slightly different form and function. Black farmers, for example, pursued economic empowerment through agricultural co-operatives, such as the Southwest Alabama Farmers Cooperative Association (SWAFCA).
The civil rights movement transformed Alabama and the rest of the nation, ending a century of legal segregation and creating new opportunities for African Americans and others. Although it did not solve every problem caused by racial discrimination, it helped to forge a more open and democratic Alabama and United States of America.
Additional Resources
Ashmore, Susan Youngblood. Carry It On: The War on Poverty and the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama, 1964-1972. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2008.
Burns, Stewart, ed. Daybreak of Freedom: The Montgomery Bus Boycott. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
Eagles, Charles W. Outside Agitator: Jon Daniels and the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.
Eskew, Glenn T. But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
Gaillard, Frye. Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement that Changed America. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004.
Garrow, David J. Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1978.
Jeffries, Hasan K. Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama's Black Belt. New York: NYU Press, 2009.
Mannis, Andrew. A Fire You Can't Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham's Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1999.
McWhorter, Diane. Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.
Norrell, Robert J. Reaping the Whirlwind: The Civil Rights Movement in Tuskegee. New York: Vintage Books, 1985.
Thornton, J. Mills. Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002.
Films and Videos
Boycott. HBO Films, 2001.
Citizen King. WGBH Educational Foundation and ROJA Productions, Inc., 2004. (Distributed by PBS).
Eyes on the Prize. Episode 1 "Awakenings (1954-1956);" Episode 3 "Ain't Scared of Your Jails (1960-1961);" Episode 4 "No Easy Walk (1961-1963);" Episode 6 "Bridge to Freedom (1965)"; and Episode 7 "The Time Has Come (1964-1966)." Boston: Blackside, Inc., 1986, 1990; distributed by PBS.
Four Little Girls. Los Angeles: HBO Documentary Films, 1998.
Lowndes County Freedom Party: The Rise of the Black Panthers. Princeton: Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 1995.
Mighty Times: The Legacy of Rosa Parks. Los Angeles: HBO/Southern Poverty Law Center, 2002.
Scottsboro: An American Tragedy. Boston: WGBH Educational Foundation, 2001; distributed by PBS.
External Links
- Alabama Department of Archives and History: "Using Primary Sources in the Classroom: Civil Rights Movement Unit"
- Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
- National Parks Service: "We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement"
- The Library of Congress: "African American Odyssey: The Civil Rights Era"
- Rosa Parks Museum
- New Georgia Encyclopedia
- Civil Rights Digital Library
- The Jack Rabin Collection on Alabama Civil Rights and Southern Activists
- Selma Interpretive Center
- Lowndes Interpretive Center


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The Farm Bill is the federal blueprint for the American food system. Due to pass into law as soon as this Friday, the bill does little to address poor nutrition, GMO and other unsustainable practices, and dangerous corporate control over the U.S. and global food supply.
The Green Shadow Cabinet have analysed the bill, and have reached the conclusion that it should be vetoed and replaced by new legislation with the wellbeing of farmers, consumers and the land -rather than corporate interests, at its heart.
The Farm Bill that President Obama signed into law will result in a very high level of hunger in the world's richest country. It continues to promote a diet of overly processed food (or food substitutes) high in fat, sugar and salt that leads to health problems such as high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity. It provides massive tax subsidies to corporate agribusiness and wealthy investors rather than supporting family farmers. It promotes unhealthy food, monoculture and genetically engineered crops as well as confined animal feeding operations (CAFO's) rather than sustainable agriculture. It slashes funding for conservation measures needed to reduce the pollution of our waters from these large scale, factory farming operations.
The power of corporate interest in Washington is evident throughout this legislation. For example, Dow has successfully lobbied to have a one-paragraph provision added to the Farm Bill that will reverse the EPA's proposed decision to prohibit the use of sulfuryl fluoride. This is despite the 2011 EPA proposal to phase-out the use of sulfuryl fluoride as a food fumigant which was based on the science – and agreed with all of the objections brought forward in the complaint.
The push to level the playing field for smaller livestock processors and farmers slid backwards. There are only a handful of beef packers, hog processors and poultry integrators. Farmers and ranchers often have little alternative but to accept the terms and prices offered by the few, large firms that dominate the industry – terms that are often unfair and abusive (to both the farmers and animals).
SNAP (food stamp) benefits were cut to an estimated 850,000 households – mainly public housing residents – by an average of $90 a month ($8.6 billion over 10 years). This was on top of the $5 billion SNAP cuts agreed to three years ago (when the Democrats were in the majority in both houses) but which took effect on Nov. 1. More than half of those receiving food stamps have a job but their pay is too low to feed their families. Anti-hunger advocates had wanted to increase food stamp benefits by at least 30%; right now they provide less than $1.40 per meal per person.
Demand at emergency food providers around the country has skyrocketed since the Great Recession started in 2007, more than doubling in many communities. Much of the rise in hunger has been due to the sharp spike in unemployment – and under the meager so-called recovery, middle class jobs have been replaced by those paying less than a poverty wage. The Republican response to joblessness has been to cut food benefits (they will be more desperate for work if they are starving) and to cut unemployment benefits.
Many groups have expressed relief in the passage of the farm bill, noting that it could have been far worse. There are some modest reforms in the present bill. The Farm Bill does relink conservation requirements to the receipt of crop insurance premium subsidies. A number of good programs that were cut out a year ago when the farm bill was extended were restored – Beginning and Disadvantaged farmers, farmers markets, community food projects, support for local food systems, etc. But they amount to a few million dollars here and there in a bill that spends around $100 billion annually. Pocket change, not game changers.
The last time the Farm Bill passed in 2008, House Speaker leader Nancy Pelosi publicly promised the American people that Congress would never pass such a bad farm bill again, after a spirited struggle to reign in corporate subsidies failed. Pass it now, we'll do better next time, she said. That promise was not kept.
President Bush vetoed that 2008 Farm Bill because it "continues subsidies for the wealthy." President Obama lacks the courage to do so. This time around, the minor reforms to curb such subsidies were jettisoned in the closing hours of negotiations. Instead of a $50,000 annual limit on the primary payments (or double that for married couples), Congress approved a $125,000 limit (again, doubled for married couples). They also decided not to adopt the House and Senate-passed provisions to close the loopholes that currently allow large, wealthy farms to collect many multiples of the nominal payment limit.
Yes, the system of direct payments for commodities was largely eliminated (largely due to record high prices) but environmental and taxpayer groups claim that the new insurance "reforms" are largely a bait-and-switch effort that will continue giveaways to agribusiness and wealthy investors. Though there were some limited reforms to aid both organic and diversified farm operations, the crop insurance program is designed to protect, at taxpayer expense, the profits of large farms that produce commodity crops. It does little to protect small integrated farmers that actually grow food,
A proposal to cap (not eliminate) the profits of the ten largest farm insurance providers in order to free up funds to eliminate the cuts to the SNAP program was defeated 2 to 1 in the Senate – which meant that 2 dozen Democrats voted against it. Taxpayers take the risk under the farm insurance program while the insurance companies pocket the profits.
This Farm Bill highlights all that is wrong with our political and economic system. It continues the destructive and inequitable status quo. The debate was not over what was good for America, but between the needs of plain farmers in the mid-West (corn, soy, wheat) vs. Southern farmers (rice, cotton, peanuts). The well-being of the vast majority of Americans wasn't a factor. Campaign contributions and special interests determined the decisions.
For all of these reasons, the Green Shadow Cabinet cannot support the Farm Bill, and maintain our call for full restoration of SNAP, A global moratorium on genetically engineered foods and crops, organic production targets and a fair-trade model for the U.S. food supply.
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How do I begin to describe this place?
For starters, I am not from Johor Bahru. I could not find my way around even if I had a GPS because the roads are rather confusing. I totally had to rely on my colleagues to take me to eat the "legendary spare-parts of the pig" at this famous road side hawker.
Affectionately known as "kway teow kia" (mini/small kwey teow) this description is of the flat white rice noodles that accompanies the pig's intestines and other delectable offal that comes with this dish. The kway teow is far smaller than the ones you get in Kuala Lumpur, hence the nickname "kway teow kia" , kia meaning small or little. The location of this famous stall is near the Stulang Laut area, and near Taman Pelangi. If you want to fine tune the directions some more, then this place is just next to the infamous San – Lou ( 3 storey apartments).
OK, that's all I can tell you about the location of this place. The rest you will have to find out from a local JB-ian;)
Yes, if you have ever eaten kway teow kia before, then you must be a die-hard fan like I am, and know that it is similar to the kuey chap in Penang or Kuala Lumpur, including all the little piggy organs and spareparts. The difference is instead of the retangular "kway teow" that is used in kuay chap, kway teow kia uses small bite size, super thin, silky and flat kuey teow (flat chinese rice noodle). It is served in a bowl of delicious herbal-like soy-base soup, very similar to bakuteh. The accompanying mixed plate of braised goodies – portions of hard boiled egg, pig intestines, stomach, ears, neck and innards, taufu pok (bean curd puffs) and pig skin is simply to die for. You could say that the Pig, really put his best foot forward.
This place is closed on alternate Tuesdays. Opening hours are 0930 – 2000hrs. I very much appreciated the subtle chewiness of the cartilaginous parts of the pigs ears and neck. You could say that the Pig really stuck his neck out.
Squiggly intestine
hard boiled eggs
Do you want to taste my piggy unmentionables?
"I just want to feel.. safe in my own skin".. says
dido the pig
chewy skin
twisted intestines
If piggy spare parts and offal are not your thing, you can always have the curry laksa just opposite the Kway Teow Kia stall.
greasy and heavenly.. you can opt for as much stuff/ingredients (liao) that your bowl will permit you to take
The endless supply of thick coconut based curry laksa soup/broth
The curry is a coconut-based curry soup. The main ingredients for most versions of curry laksa include bean curd puffs, fish sticks, shrimp and cockles. Oo.. the cockles are a MUST. Some vendors add chicken to their laksa. Laksa is commonly served with a spoonful of sambal chilli paste and garnished with coriander, or laksa leaf, which is known in Malay as daun kesum. The black fish balls are legendary here – you must order them. And the white fishballs are not bad either. Quails eggs are my absolute favourite and I always add tons of these.
Over here, you just need to follow your heart, and pick as many types of ingredients that your hungry tummy moves you to pick. Beware, you will need to pay the price and exercise doubly hard tomorrow. But tomorrow, as they say, is another day.
Address No. 62,
Jalan Stulang Darat,
80300, Johor, Malaysia
closed on alternate Tues
[Olympus logo]


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Google has pulled more than 50 malware-infected apps from its Android Market, but hasn't yet triggered automatic uninstalls of those programs from users' phones, security experts said today.
"The apps were 'Trojanized,' for a better word," said Tom Parsons, a senior manager with Symantec's security response team. "With the phones being 'rooted,' the attacks can do almost anything, including pulling data off the phone," he said, referring to the malware's ability to gain root access to the devices.
The apps were available for about four days on the Android Market, Google's official app store. According to San Francisco-based smartphone security firm Lookout, between 50,000 and 200,000 copies of the apps were downloaded by users.
All the apps were infected with the same malicious code, said Kevin Mahaffey, the CTO of Lookout, and came from three different publishers. The malware, dubbed "DreamDroid," lets attackers compromise Android smartphones, then connect them to a command-and-control server (C&C) which can issue orders to the devices.
In some cases, the malicious apps were pirated versions of legitimate Android software.
Mahaffey called the appearance of so many infected apps on the official Android Market a turning point in mobile malware. "This was a tier 1 market that had a significant number of malicious apps that were downloaded a significant number of times," he said.
Previously, malware-infected Android apps, like the bogus "Steamy Window" app that Symantec discovered Monday, were posted on third-party download sites, not Google's own e-mart.
Mahaffey confirmed that Google has yanked the 50-some apps from the Android Market, but said that as of late last night, the mobile OS maker had not pulled those apps from users' phones.
Like other mobile app distributors, such as Apple, Google has the ability to flip a switch that remotely removes questionable or malicious apps from all Android smartphones. Google has pulled the uninstall switch at least once before, in June 2010.
"Google's very responsible with that power," said Mahaffey, explaining why the apps have been pulled from the Android Market but not yet removed from users' phones. "They want to make sure that it's used only in cases when they're sure they're removing only malware."
Google declined to comment on what actions it has taken so far to protect users.
Mahaffey said Lookout is still analyzing the malware, its capabilities and how the attackers hoped to profit from the compromised smartphones, but said his company's initial investigation had uncovered a C&C server located in Fremont, Calif.
The infected phones are communicating with the server and sending information -- including the user-specific subscriber identifier, also known as the IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity), and the phone's SIM card's serial number -- via an encrypted channel. The C&C server seems to be hosted on a legitimate system that hackers had breached previously.
Parsons and Mahaffey differed when asked how the incident reflected on Google and the security of its Android Market.
"More than anything, it shows how popular Android is," said Parsons. "Google has a major challenge vetting nearly a thousand new apps each day, and this may indicate that that vetting isn't robust enough."
But Mahaffey saw a silver lining in the cloud.
"I'd argue that it speaks to the openness of the Android platform that a user was empowered [enough] to notice [a malicious app]," Mahaffey argued, referring to reports that an Android smartphone owner was the first to go public with his suspicions. "We will see more people be more vigilant."
Both Parsons and Mahaffey applauded Google for quickly responding -- within minutes of the first reports -- to the situation by deleting the apps in question from its marketplace.
"After this, there will increased vigilance by a lot of people," said Mahaffey, hinting at Google's likely wake-up call. "For users, the best advice is to pay attention to what you download."
Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His e-mail address is email@example.com.


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Davis residents receive a large amount of junk mail.
Some of this is mailed, other publications are delivered to home driveways. Rather than throw this directly into the recycle, perhaps we can opt out of receiving the junk mail in the first place. Save trees, save energy, etc. It may be a good idea to actually look through the junk mail as it is filled with many coupons.
Main Davis Offenders
|To opt-out try calling
|Consumers Guide Davis
|Consumers Guide
|(530) 666-7799 or http://consumer-guide.com
|Davis Direct
|The Davis Enterprise
|(530) 756-0800 or mailto:[email protected]
|The Davis Shoppers Guide
|Davis Shoppers Guide
|(530) 758-0509
|Market Value Place (m.v.p.)
|The Sacramento Bee
|[email protected] (for removal requests)
|800-284-3233 or 916-650-2847
|Franchised Nationally
|ADVO, Inc.
|888-241-6760 or http://www.advo.com/consumersupport.html
|online form for removal
|Four phonebooks/year
|Yellow Pages
|online form for removal
Other options
If a particular item was sent First Class, the recipient may mark that item as "Refused" and expect that it will be returned to sender with additional postage due. Many senders will clue in to the fact that you don't want their crap. If it's "Bulk" or "Standard", then you're still entitled to mark an item as "Refused" but it will only cost the Post Office money - the sender will never know.
For reference, see the USPS Domestic Mail Manual section DMM300, "Recipient Options: Refusal After Delivery" at http://pe.usps.gov/text/dmm300/508.htm#wp1044866
1.1.3 Refusal After Delivery
After delivery, an addressee may mark a mailpiece "Refused" and return it within a reasonable time, if the piece or any attachment is not opened. Mail that may not be refused and returned unopened under this provision may be returned to the sender only if it is enclosed in a new envelope or wrapper with a correct address and new postage. The following may not be refused and returned postage-free after delivery:
a. Pieces sent as registered, insured, certified, collect on delivery (COD), and return receipt for merchandise mail.
b. Response mail to the addressee's sales promotion, solicitation, announcement, or other advertisement that was not refused when offered to the addressee.


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The Air Force's muscle car chase cars are all kinds of badass, serving as wingmen for frail spy planes. One Camaro SS got the best view of this spindly U2 in a touch-and-go.
This was shot last week at Beale Air Force Base, California, home of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing. If you're wondering what a completed landing looks like, you can see an even closer view from another GM V8 muscle car at the same AFB one year ago.
(Hat tip to David Cenciotti!)


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Inside AnandTech 2013: CPU Performanceby Anand Lal Shimpi on March 15, 2013 1:56 PM EST
- Posted in
- IT Computing
- CPUs
- Intel
- Enterprise
Last week I kicked off a short series on the hardware behind our current network infrastructure. In the first post I presented a high level overview of the hardware that runs AnandTech, while in the second post I detailed our All-SSD Architecture. Today I wanted to do some rough CPU comparisons to show how much faster the new hardware is, and on Monday I'll conclude the series with a discussion of power savings.
Our old infrastructure was built in the mid-2000s, mostly around dual-core processors. For our most compute heavy systems, we had to rely on multiple dual-core processors to deliver the CPU performance we needed. Once again I'm using our old Forums database server, an HP DL585, as an example here.
This old 4U box used AMD's Opteron 880 CPUs. The Opteron 880 was a 90nm 2.4GHz part with 2 x 1MB L2 caches, and a 95W TDP. Our DL585 configuration had four of these 880s, each on their own processor card, bringing the total core count up to 8.
We replaced it (and all of our other servers) with 2U dual-socket systems based on Intel's Xeon L5640 processors. Each L5640 features 6-cores, making each server a 12-core machine, running at 2.26GHz with a 60W max TDP.
The spec comparison is pretty interesting:
|AnandTech Server CPU Comparison
|AT Forums DB Server (2006)
|AT Forums DB Server (2013)
|Server Size
|4 x AMD Opteron 880
|2 x Intel Xeon L5640
|Total Cores / Threads
|8 / 8
|12 / 24
|Manufacturing Process
|Release Year
|Number of Cores per Chip
|L1 / L2 / L3 Cache per Chip
|2 x 64KB / 2 x 1MB / 0MB
|6 x 64KB / 6 x 256KB / 12MB
|On-die Memory Interface
|2 x 64-bit DDR-400
|2 x 64-bit DDR3-1333
|Max Frequency (Non-Turbo)
|Max Turbo Frequency
|Max TDP
|Die Size per Chip
|199 mm2
|240 mm2
|Transistor Count per Chip
|Launch Price per Chip
Although die area has gone up a bit, you get 3x the number of cores, a lot more cache and much more memory bandwidth. The transistor count alone shows you how much things have improved from 2005 to 2010. It's also far more affordable to deliver this sort of compute. Although I won't touch on it here (saving that for the final installment), you get all of this with a nice reduction in power consumption.
Now the question is how much has performance improved? Simulating our live workload on a single box without the infrastructure that goes along with it is a bit difficult, so I turned to some quick Integer and FP benchmarks to give a general idea of the magnitude of improvement:
|AnandTech Server CPU Performance Comparison
|4 x AMD Opteron 880
|2 x Intel Xeon L5640
|7-Zip Benchmark (1 Thread)
|7-Zip Benchmark (Multithreaded)
|Cinebench 11.5 (Multithreaded)
Unlike what we saw in our SSD vs. HDD comparison, there are no 19x gains here. Single threaded performance only improves by 39% over a span of 5 years at roughly similar clocks (it's a little worse if you take into account the L5640's turbo boost). The days of huge/easy improvements in single threaded performance ended a while ago. Multithreaded performance shows much better gains thanks to the fact that we have 50% more cores and 3x the number of threads in the new server.
All of this comes at a lower TDP and lower price point, despite the 20% larger die area. The market was very different back when the Opteron 880 launched.
If you're still running on large, old and outdated hardware, you can easily double performance by moving to something more modern - all while reducing power and rackspace. If your workload remained the same (or very similar), you could thoretically replace multiple 4U servers with half as many 2U servers given the sort of performance/density improvements we saw here. And 2U boxes aren't even as dense as they get. If space/rack density is a concern, there are options in the 1U space or by going to blades.
Looking back at what we had almost 7 years ago makes me wonder about what the enterprise market will look like 5 - 7 years from now. Presumably we'd be able to deliver similar performance to what we have deployed today with a much smaller, even more power efficient platform (~10nm). There's a lot of talk of going to many smaller cores vs. the big beefy Xeon cores we have here. There's also the question of how much headway the ARM players will make into the enterprise space over the coming years. I suspect, at a minimum, we'll see substantially increased price pressure on Intel. AMD was headed in that direction prior to its recent struggles, but the ARM folks should be able to deliver once they navigate their own 64-bit transition.
This will be a very interesting post to revisit around 2017 - 2018, when our L5640s will be 7+ years old...
21 Comments
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skuban - Friday, March 15, 2013 - linkSome per core comparisons would make a nice addition to the 1st table.
Casper42 - Friday, March 15, 2013 - linkSo along those lines, why the heck did you compare a well spec'd Opteron 880 against a Low Power L5640. Why not compare it to something like an X5650 that was the bottom proc of the high end family at the time?
Seems like a real Apples:Oranges type comparison.
aruisdante - Friday, March 15, 2013 - linkBecause they're compairing what they had then to what they have now. It's apples to apples in terms of application, not processor.
Mumrik - Sunday, March 17, 2013 - linkThat would make absolutely no sense. This is an article about Anandtech's upgrade.
Casper42 - Monday, March 18, 2013 - linkI get that, but go back and read the article and you see there are several generalized statements about "processors from then vs processors from now".
When making such comparisons they should have pointed out that the differences seen are against a Low Power model and that a normal or high power model would have even more impact on then vs now.
bryanb - Friday, March 15, 2013 - linkYour "new" Xeon L5640 is already 3 years old. In comparison, you could have gone with the much newer Xeon E3 v2 that uses 22nm Ivy Bridge. You would get even better power efficiency at a much lower cost (currently $200-300) per chip. However, memory capacity may be a problem as you would have to rely on a LGA 1155 server boards which typically have fewer ECC ram slots.
MartinT - Friday, March 15, 2013 - linkYou have to remember (from the other articles) that these upgrade were done a long time ago, IIRC before Ivy Bridge Xeons even launched.
DanNeely - Friday, March 15, 2013 - linkLGA1155 doesn't support dual socket boards; so until about a year ago the older LGA1366 chips (LGA1567 was also available but AT didn't need quad-socket any longer) were the only viable Intel option for their performance target.
Casper42 - Friday, March 15, 2013 - linkRight, I want to run my enterprise on a desktop chip with a Xeon badge.
A Xeon E3 v2 is nothing more than a Core i7 with Xeon bading and ECC support.
You want at least an E5 before I will even remotely consider it an Enterprise server.
In that space everything is currently on Sandy Bridge EP/EN with Ivy Bridge EP coming around Sept, Ivy EN (why bother really) a few months later, and then Ivy EX (The E7 big boys) either late 2013 or early 2014.
Casper42 - Friday, March 15, 2013 - linkPS:
Xeon E3 v2 = Dual Channel memory and 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0 (Single socket only)
Xeon E5 v1 = Quad Channel memory and 40 lanes of PCIe 4.0 per socket, 80 lanes in a standard 2P server similar to their "new" DB server.
RAID Controllers (especially with SSDs behind them) and Network cards and such need some decent I/O.


text: BOSTON - Companies continue to leave too much of their security apparatus in the hands of geeks in the IT department and not enough in the hands of the wider workforce. Until that changes, enterprises will continue to have gaping holes in their data defenses.That's one of the main messages from a panel discussion on the 2008 Global State of Security Survey, held at the offices of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Boston Tuesday. CSO and PricewaterhouseCoopers recently released the results of the survey, where 7,097 business and technology executives worldwide shared their security troubles. This is the sixth year in which CSO and PricewaterhouseCoopers teamed up for the survey.Though security has improved significantly in some areas -- especially among companies in India, China and South America -- too many enterprises continue to view security as a task best left to the IT shop. As a result, security efforts are too focused on putting out fires and stewing over network logs and not enough on big-picture strategizing and better awareness among the larger workforce, according to CSO Publisher Bob Bragdon, who spoke at length during the event."When we compared last year's survey results to this year's results, we found that the people and priorities part of security still isn't growing as much as tech spending," Bragdon said. "If you don't focus on people and process, you're not going to get the full value out of your technology."If a company can't get out of the weeds, it can't approach security strategically, he added.Sharing that viewpoint was Gerard Verweij, a principal at PricewaterhouseCoopers, who at one point deadpanned that "a fool with a tool is still a fool." Verweij noted that information is the new business currency and securing it must be about more than meeting a compliance checklist."What stunned us a bit after seeing the results was that so many CISOs continue to see their positions as mostly a compliance function," he said.On the positive side, the survey showed that companies are buying and applying such technological tools as software for intrusion detection, encryption and identity management at record levels. The down side is that too many organizations still lack coherent, enforced and forward-thinking security processes. While 59 percent of respondents said they have an "overall information security strategy," that's up just two points from last year's survey - too little, Verweij and others at PriceWaterhouse Coopers said.Elsewhere, 56 percent of respondents said they employ a security executive at the C level, down 4 percent from last year. Respondents also noted they comb network logs for fishy activity, but only 43 percent said they audit or monitor user compliance with their security policies. This is up 6 percent from 2007, but still "not where we need to be," PriceWaterhouseCoopers Principal Mark Lobel said in an earlier interview.The survey results also showed other countries making security gains, even exceeding gains made in the U.S. Companies in India are now outpacing security efforts in U.S. companies, and enterprises in China and South America are making headway. Progress has stalled in Europe, however.South American businesses must prove to North American companies that they're doing what they can to protect data, Verweij said.Asked to identify trends that are headed in the right direction, James Mignone, CISO at Citizens Financial Group and RBS Americas, noted that upper management is coming around to the notion that security is a business enabler, not a necessary evil."The tagline is that we're making RBS the safest place to do business," he said. "Senior management has signed off on that and we have more support than ever for a full-blown strategy."Now, Mignone said, companies need to remove the geek image of security from the public mind. "The information security group is often seen as the cool tool guys, and nobody knows exactly what they do," he said. "You need to show how you are using technology to mitigate risk, and you need more than geeks to pull it off."To move beyond that reputation, he said much more time, energy and money must be spent on programs to make the larger workforce more security savvy.Asked where they would deploy new security specialists if they were hired, Mignone said he'd focus them on risk assessment and metrics, which "right now is a weak spot." Bragdon said, "I agree, but would also add training to it, educating the masses on security."


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On xoJane: "OH MY GOD IT'S SO HUGE!" "I Could Never Handle Anything That Massive!" Why I Love My Big, Big Phone
My favorite piece of tech is one I can't keep in my pocket. At least, not when I'm sitting down. So it's usually hanging out on the table or the bar in front of me even when I'm not obsessively checking Twitter or Google+. When people see it, their reactions tend to fall within a predictable range:
"Oh my god, it's so huge!"
"How do you even use something so big?"
"I could never handle anything that massive!"
"I can't even wrap my hand around it!"
No, they're not talking about some giant dildo, they're talking about my phone.


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Following up on our earlier post Chicago Streetcars in Black-and-White, here are nearly 40 more pictures in color. Because they are in color, they naturally skew towards the last 10 years or so of service, leading up to that fateful morning on June 21, 1958, when the last Chicago streetcar ran:
We hope that you enjoy these glimpses of a bygone era. We have provided what information we have on the locations and circumstances. If you can help fill in some additional details, let us know.
-David Sadowski


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- Home
- Government
- Community Development
- Building & Safety
- Permit Process
Permit Process
Projects Requiring a Permit
Businesses must obtain building permits for construction and interior improvements. Other projects that require building permits are:
- Additions
- Demolitions
- New interior walls
- Drop ceilings
- New plumbing lines and fixtures
- New electrical wiring or lighting fixtures
- Replacing or installing HVAC equipment
Projects Not Requiring a Permit
Finish work that does not require a permit includes:
- Carpeting
- Non-structural flooring (tile, laminate, and hardwood)
- Painting
- Wallpapering
Before Applying for a Permit
Before applying for a Building Permit (PDF), it is important to check with the Planning Division to ensure that your proposed business is permitted at your desired location and if a Conditional Use Permit is required. The Planning Division can be contacted at 562-383-4100. For any additional information on opening your business, please visit the La Habra Chamber of Commerce.
Application Process
To obtain your building permit(s), you, your contractor or designer must submit plans for plan review to the City's Building and Safety Division. The type of plans required and the level of detail will depend upon the scope of work proposed. When plans are required, it is advisable to have an experienced design professional assist you. Plans for non-structural alterations, such as door and window replacements, can be drawn by the contractor, but projects that may seem simple on the surface may involve detailing and specification requiring special training and expertise.
For projects involving structural modifications, plans and calculations must be submitted for plan review. A plan check fee will be collected. The 1st plan check review takes 2 weeks. You or your contractor/designer will be provided a list of corrections to be made to the plans. After the plans are revised please have them resubmitted for verification that the revisions have been made.
We offer appointments to assist and expedite the 2nd review of the plans. For non-structural modifications, an over the counter permit can sometimes be obtained by the licensed contractor or by the lessee. Learn more about the submittal plan process on the Plan Submittal Guidelines page.
For More Information
The purpose of the building code is to provide minimum standards to safeguard people and property. The City's Building and Safety Division can assist you in determining what work requires a building permit and provide guidance of the building plan check process. Please contact Nayaly Casillas or Lauren Davis at 562-383-4116 with any questions you may have.


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Crown Of Thorns Album 'Faith' Coming In September
July 4, 2008
Frontiers Records is truly excited to announce the release of the highly anticipated CROWN OF THORNS come back album "Faith" on September 19th 2008.
Releasing their now legendary self titled debut album in April 1994, Crown Of Thorns have steadily become one of the favourite bands of the Melodic Rock resurgence in the late nineties. With amazing albums such as "Breakthrough", "Lost Cathedral", "Destiny Unknown and "Karma" and relentless touring that brought them to play in support of Bon Jovi and Van Halen for three months throughout all of Europe, Crown of Thorns remain one of the leading bands of the Melodic Hard Rock genre.
Formed at the dawn of the 90's by former Plasmatics and songwriter for KISS, Ramones, Lionel Ritchie, John Waite and many others, Jean Beauvoir with Tony Thompson of Chic and The Powerstation, Micki Free of Shalamar and top session bassist Michael Paige, Crown Of Thorns underwent some personnel changes during the early years, with Tommy Lafferty taking place on guitar and Hawk Lopez on drums.
This line-up reconvened during 2007 when Jean Beauvoir connected with Frontiers Records President Serafino Perugino about working on a brand new studio album.
Jean collaborated this time with Bob Clearmountain (Bryan Adams, Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi) in the recording sessions and Mark Plati (David Bowie) for the mix, and the result is probably the best sounding CoT album ever! "Faith" is an album that brings back the trademark Crown of Thorns sound as defined in the debut album and "Lost Cathedral", still keeping intact all the elements of infectious guitar riffs, soaring hooklines and great melodies.
"Faith" final tracklisting will include:
All In My Head
Living In The Shadows
The One
Rock Ready
Believe Me
Stay With Me
All I Wanna Do
Home Again
All Or Nothing
Sound samples available on: www.frontiers.it/Default.aspx?tabid=85&pl=C
Courtesy of www.frontiers.it


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Three Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RS-68A Engines Power Delta IV Heavy Upgrade Vehicle on Inaugural Flight
29 Jun, 2012, 03:21 ET
CANOGA PARK, Calif., June 29, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The sky rumbled and the ground shook as the three most powerful hydrogen-fueled liquid rocket engines ever built successfully boosted a U.S. government satellite into orbit. Developed by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, the RS-68A engines thundered into the sky on their inaugural launch, boosting a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket from the pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Once above Earth's atmosphere, the reliable Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RL10B-2 engine provided upper-stage propulsion. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is a United Technologies Corp. (NYSE:UTX) company.
"The RS-68A engines were specifically developed for this mission, and to watch them fly successfully for the first time, with so much power, is truly gratifying," said Steve Bouley, vice president, Launch Vehicle & Hypersonic Systems, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. "This launch is testament to the reliability of our propulsion systems, and the capabilities of the talented people who make them a reality. We are proud to help place these critical national security payloads into orbit to support our service men and women worldwide."
"The RL10B-2 performed exactly as planned, boosting a payload that will benefit the United States and its allies," said Christine Cooley, RL10 program manager, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne.
The RS-68A is a liquid-hydrogen/liquid-oxygen booster engine designed to provide increased thrust and improved fuel efficiency for the Delta IV family of launch vehicles. It evolved from the RS-68 engine, which was developed and certified for commercial use with private company funds. Each RS-68A provides 702,000 pounds of lift-off thrust, or 39,000 more pounds of thrust than the RS-68 engine, with increased combustion efficiency as well. During hot-fire tests, the RS-68A engine demonstrated the ability to operate for 4,800 seconds of cumulative run time – more than 10 times what's needed to boost the Delta IV Heavy rocket into space.
The RS-68, RS-68A and RL10 engines will power the Delta IV Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles through the decade.
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a part of Pratt & Whitney, is a preferred provider of high-value propulsion, power, energy and innovative system solutions used in a wide variety of government and commercial applications, including engines for launch vehicles, missile defense systems and advanced hypersonic engines. Behind its successful designs, manufacturing processes, and hardware are Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne's research and development engineers, who solve tough problems in extreme environments. For more information, go to www.PrattWhitneyRocketdyne.com. Follow us at www.Twitter.com/PWRocketdyne and www.Facebook.com/PWRocketdyne.
Pratt & Whitney is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of aircraft engines, space propulsion systems and industrial gas turbines. United Technologies, based in Hartford, Conn., is a diversified company providing high technology products and services to the global aerospace and commercial building industries.
SOURCE Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne


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Just because you don't have a large enterprise doesn't mean you can't run your IT operation like the big guys. Here are seven ways to help your SMB–a small or medium-size business–implement some of the lessons big IT operations have learned over the years. Using these tips, you should be able to improve productivity, cut costs, and keep your business running smoothly.
1. Standardize on Desktops and Cell Phones to Reduce Support Differences
This is not as easy as it sounds, because even if you buy multiple quantities of the same exact model of PC, the systems could still have subtle internal differences that can come back to haunt you when you have to fix them. Carey Holzman, an independent reseller based in Glendale, Arizona, ran into this problem. His company ordered a particular model of computer that contained specific parts meeting the corporation's strict requirements. Yet when he received the PCs, he found that the systems contained two revisions of the ATI video card, one of which caused an incompatibility with the mice the company used.
And unfortunately for Holzman, the PC vendor was of little help. "The vendor refused to acknowledge any responsibility for the video card incompatibility. We started ordering the computers without video cards after that–until the next problem cropped up, and eventually, [we] switched vendors entirely," he says.
To keep incompatibilities to a minimum, you should try to stock hard drives from the same vendor, and to standardize on the same model of peripherals such as printers, mice, and keyboards, too. You can also make use of Windows Inspection Toolkit or similar utilities to keep track of the specific configuration of your systems. Finally, use drive imaging software such as Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost to make copies of your basic system installation, so that it can be recovered easily in case of virus infections or other problems.
Many IT shops also buy spare PCs and use them for replacements. "The problem is that you are tempted to use it as new workstation, instead of as a replacement, and then you no longer have a spare," says Holzman. "You need to put it in the closet and use it only to help you through temporary IT emergencies." Besides keeping several spare PCs, it's also a good idea stock a spare laser printer and network hub in case yours go south.
Holzman also recommends retainer support contracts with a local technician, so you won't have to scrutinize the invoices trying to interpret the work that was done and whether the tech was being fair and honest.
2. Perform Off-Site Backups
Small businesses have basically two approaches to choose from in doing backups: One is to copy critical data to a series of external hard drives and periodically rotate them from your office to a remote location (such as a bank safe deposit box). The other is to use one of a number of online backup service providers such as Box.net, Symantec Online Backup, Carbonite, or Mozy that offer low cost gigabyte-level storage. Big IT typically uses off-site tape storage because of the quantity of the data involved, but for smaller outfits, online services are less expensive and more convenient.
The trick with either method is to use them religiously, and to ensure that all of your data is copied on a regular basis. The online backup option could be especially handy in more than one way: Earlier this summer, Damian Zikakis, a Michigan-based headhunter, had his laptop stolen when someone broke into his offices. He replaced it a few days later; and because he had used Mozy, he thought that he was covered in terms of being able to bring back his files from the Internet backup.
When Zikakis had a moment to examine the layout of his new machine, he "found several incriminating files. The individuals who had my computer did not realize that the Mozy client was installed and running in the background. They had also used PhotoBooth to take pictures of themselves and had downloaded a cell phone bill that had their name on it," he says.
Zikakis did a bit of head hunting on his own and contacted the appropriate police department with this information. They were able to recover his computer, and now have the task of figuring out who actually took the laptop originally and what law enforcement options to pursue.
3. Use Hardware to Secure Your Internet Connection
SMBs often are not as attentive to the security of their Internet connection as they should be, and the results of such neglect could be disastrous. Last year, hackers compromised the point of sale system (POS) of clothing designer firm Nanette Lepore. The hackers managed to reconfigure the outdated firewalls and sold some stolen credit card numbers from the company's high-end clientele.
This happened because the company's chain of retail stores had little or no security measures or proper procedures. "All of our store clerks were using the same password to access the POS," says Jose Cruz, Nanette Lepore's network manager. "It was wide open. No one had ever thought to change passwords periodically, or even use different ones for each user. Prior to my arrival here, the emphasis on POS security wasn't urgent. Needless to say, this all changed."
Cruz got a call that no one ever wants to receive–from the FBI, telling him that several of their customers had received fraudulent credit card charges. This led to finding out that the company's Netopia DSL routers had been hacked, and their firmware had been changed to allow hackers inside their network.
The stores now use SonicWall integrated security devices, and Cruz has implemented password change policies and other security procedures to ensure that he won't get a repeat of what happened before. Such an approach can help an SMB keep private information secure. Another good policy: Ensure that all network access is turned off when an employee leaves the company.
4. Use a VPN
Many larger IT shops make use of virtual private networks (VPNs) to ensure that their communications are kept confidential, and that traveling users can access home office files and other resources when on the road. Many of these VPN products can be quite expensive, but the SMB alternatives don't have to cost a lot of money.
Some, such as Openvpn.org, are free, while low-cost VPN service providers such as LogMeIn.com's Hamachi can run about $50 per person per year. "Hamachi allows us to connect to hundreds of our customers and monitor live videos of our security cameras discreetly and without having to worry about being compromised by unauthorized users," says Ben Molloy, the vice president of Pro-Vigil, a San Antonio, Texas-based company that provides security for off-hours construction sites.
And VPNs come integrated in a variety of lower-cost security gateway appliances, too. Nanette Lepore makes use of the SSL VPNs that are included in the SonicWall appliances to connect their stores together, and to ensure that no one can compromise their communications.
The Lepore firm even set up temporary accounts for guest workers and maintenance personnel that are purposely time-limited. Granting accounts for temporary personnel without such time limits is another common mistake. Time-limited accounts mean that the IT staff doesn't have to remember to remove the account when the maintenance is completed.
5. Run Personal Firewalls, Especially on Windows PCs
Windows is notorious for being a security sinkhole, and most larger IT operations now require their PCs to run some kind of personal firewall to prevent infections and malware from taking over. A wide range of products is available, but the key is to pick one, make it standard, and make sure that all employees are educated about why it is necessary to keep the firewall running at all times, especially when traveling. Inexpensive but effective firewalls include AVG from Grisoft.com, Online Armour, and Kaspersky Labs.
However, you can't always manage each individual machine, and a careless user could turn off these defenses and let viruses in. This is where having a drive image copy can come in handy.
Another way to enforce security policies and other protective measures is to deploy some endpoint security tool that will block unhealthy PCs from gaining network access. Napera is one product that is specifically targeted at SMB installations, and McAfee and Sophos have others.
Matt Stevenson, who is the director of information technology for Talyst, a pharmacy automation vendor in Bellevue, Washington, has been using the $3500 Napera appliance on his 120-node network for the past six months. "A lot of our staff is out in the field, and they attach to a wide variety of networks. When they come back to our office, the Napera box forces their PCs to become compliant and to ensure that our network won't get infected," he says.
6. Rely on VoIP PBX for Your Phone System
As more and more big IT shops can attest, using a VoIP PBX telephone system has tremendous cost advantages. The biggest one is for your remote workers who can have extensions on your headquarters' phone system. These systems are also very flexible in terms of call handling, and offer other features such as call forwarding, multiple simultaneous rings (where an incoming call can be answered wherever it is more convenient), so-called follow-me (where incoming calls are routed to particular numbers at particular times of the day), and do-not-disturb.
"Now businesses are able to get features that can set the rules on how they are contacted, and be able to conduct more business when they aren't in their office," says Henry Kaestner, the founder and CEO of Internet phone provider Bandwidth.com, one of the many vendors that offer this kind of service. CBeyond and Asterisk are other companies that offer VoIP PBX.
These systems start at around $400 a month and have the advantage of being able to grow or contract with your staffing needs. They also can present your company as more professional, with features that are normally found on very expensive phone systems. The downside is that you need to ensure that your network is up to snuff to handle all the voice traffic; and to get the most out of these systems, you'll want to find a VAR or consultant who specializes in VoIP PBX installations.
7. Have a Solid Test Plan for Adding New Technology
The big guys don't put some new tech into their operations without first doing a lot of testing first. Put together a test lab or designate one office that will be your "beta bar," and encourage your most technical staffer to try out new things before getting them deployed.
Ramon Ray, the owner of the site Smallbiztechnology, advises that in addition to testing, it's important to analyze a variety of options. "Just don't just go for the first choice, but think and review the pros and cons and what else is available to you. During the testing, it is also important to consider your future needs. Many smaller businesses don't think of their future growth, which will affect their IT plans," he says.
David Strom is a veteran technology journalist, speaker, and former IT manager. He has written two books on computing and thousands of articles. His blog can be found at strominator.com .


text: Personally, I like the idea of using the raw number value, whatever it is. Although it's a bit disconcerting to see values in the ten thousands place -- it's a very useful way of identifying the gross scale of the vulnerability problem. For all of the security technologies and tools -- you'd think we'd start seeing fewer raw numbers instead of more, eventually. I think raw numbers help keep a sense of scale on the whole vulnerability problem. Are we winning? It doesn't always sound like it; so, raw numbers seem more useful to me. Kevin -----Original Message----- From: email@example.com [mailto:firstname.lastname@example.com] On Behalf Of Mark J Cox Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 9:03 AM To: Steven M. Christey Cc: email@example.com Subject: Re: The CVE-10K Problem I like seeing CVE identifiers used in publications that go to non-technical audiences, and I fear we'd frighten them away with hex. I find the year useful, even if it's slightly out by one or two years for some issues. I almost liked changing the initial identifier based on the type of issue (why not put all those vulnerable webapps into CVF-2007) but I think people would be confused because the CAN prefix mapped to CVE directly, so CVE-2004-2001 == CAN-2004-2001 but CVF-2007-0001 != CVE-2007-0001. I'm pretty sure everyone implementing tools around CVE will have to make tool changes no matter what, so I'd much prefer us rolling over to CVE-2007-10000 which is a) what people will expect b) much less of a hack and c) gives the tools at least half a year to prepare. I also prefer it since half the Red Hat tools will work just fine where we used the regexp C\S\S-\d+-\d+ for validity. Red Hat itself moved from 3 digit to 4 digit advisory identifiers at the start of 2006 (we added several new products and we share identifiers between security and non-security updates). In the end we didn't need the whole range in 2006, but because we started it at the start of the year we were able to add the leading 0 to help fix the sorting issues. Mark


text:
Nutrition labels set for major overhaul
Should a regular bag of Chex Mix be labeled as containing eight servings, or just two? Should pasta sauce jars tell how much sugar was added?
The Obama administration is expected to take a major step toward addressing questions like these on Thursday when it unveils the first update to nutrition labels on food packages in more than two decades.
The big changes coming to the iconic Nutrition Facts panel are to be rolled out Thursday, sources say, when First Lady Michelle Obama is scheduled to make an announcement in the East Room at the White House "regarding proposals to help parents and other consumers make healthier choices." Neither White House nor Food and Drug Administration officials would confirm the timeline.
The event is part of the fourth anniversary celebration of Let's Move!, Obama's campaign to combat the childhood obesity epidemic.
( Also on POLITICO: Full agriculture policy coverage)
The proposed rules, which have been in the works at FDA for more than a decade, are a high priority for the administration and have been swiftly ushered through the review process at the White House Office of Management and Budget, where they are currently listed as under review.
Food industry groups and health advocates have not yet been briefed about what, exactly, will be in the proposals, but the changes are expected to spark significant pushback from the industry.
"I haven't seen the proposal, so I don't know what's in it," said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "I would hope that calories will be bolder, considering our obesity problem."
Food policy experts are guessing that the changes will result in calories being displayed more prominently and serving sizes more in line with what American consumers are actually eating.
Other changes, which could be unveiled with multiple format options, might include dropping and adding certain nutrients from the list of vitamins and minerals with daily value percentages, dropping the requirement to list "calories from fat" or adding whole wheat percentages. Most experts expect the FDA will require more accurate serving sizes, as the current labels are based on decades old data on consumer consumption.
"A lot of foods that common sense dictates are a single serving size, like certain snacks and beverages, are listed as multiple servings," explains Wootan. She wants to see those packages labeled as one serving "so people know what they're getting."
For example, a typical bag of peanut butter M&M's is currently listed as two servings, at 210 calories and 13 grams of fat each. If updated data shows that most consumers wolf down the whole package of candies, they might have to be labeled as one serving with 420 calories and 26 grams of fat.
Over the years, FDA has also hinted that it might require food manufacturers declare "added sugars" on food packages, instead of just listing "sugars" which is already required. Health advocates argue that many consumers don't realize sugar is added to an estimated 75 percent of processed foods and a label might help curb stealth sugar consumption.
But making such a change would likely be picking a big fight with the food industry, which argues that there's no way to distinguish between added sugars and natural sugars in the lab tests they use to validate their labels.
"The thing that's important is already there: total sugars," said Regina Hildwine, senior director of science policy and labeling and standards at the Grocery Manufacturers Association. "That's what consumers really should look at."
Marion Nestle, a leading nutrition policy expert and professor at New York University, said added sugars will be one of the first things she looks for when the proposals are unveiled. It's the "number one priority for advocates," she said.
Nestle said she also hopes to see calories displayed more prominently.
"I want to see a label that consumers can actually understand."
Whatever the administration proposes, GMA will be looking closely at the FDA's scientific rationale for specific changes as well as the cost-benefit analysis out of FDA, said Hildwine.
"Everyone in the industry is going to be affected. Everyone in the industry is going to have to change their labels," said Hildwine, who advised GMA back in the early 1990s when the Nutrition Facts were first mandated. "It's a very big deal. It's very expensive."
Hildewine said she will be looking for the agency to answer several key questions in the proposals: "What was the matter with the original nutrition facts? Where did it fail? And what evidence does FDA have that this will fix it?"
Food industry attorney Stuart Pape, partner at Patton Boggs, thinks the proposals have the potential to kick up a lot of controversy in Washington, especially if the administration decides to mandate added sugars or if the proposal "blows up" the food industry's voluntary " Facts Up Front" program, which put calories and other nutrition information in little boxes on the front of packages.
In addition to the uncertainty about what's in the proposal, Pape also questions whether the Obama administration has time to enact such a big nutrition policy change before a new administration takes over in 2017.
"I think it's precipitously close to not getting done on time," said Pape, who noted that the mid-term election could slow down the process and FDA already has a full plate. "If Mike Taylor, [FDA's deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine], had nothing else on his to do list, he could get this done, but he does."
The agency is also working on several major food policy changes, including a move to ban artificial trans fats, overhauling the nation's food safety system, setting sodium targets for food products and a controversial final rule to require restaurant chains and "similar food establishments" post calories on their menu boards.


text:
TUB750-WHT-White Paper Tub (26oz) 750cc
Price (incl. VAT): £43.50
Price (excl. VAT):
£44.90 £36.25
Unit price: £0.12
Units per case: 300
Availability: In Stock
Now available are Ambican's White Paper tubs- These tubs are perfect for serving salads, pasta, noodles and much more. The tubs have a greaseproof lining which make them ideal for serving salads with dressing. Lids can be purchased separately- Code- TUB750PP-LID.
Qty per case-300
Base Diameter 130mm-
Height 60mm-
Top Diameter 150mm
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text:
LISTEN: Amid Chaos In Las Vegas, Police Dispatches Reveal An Evolving Response
It took just over an hour.
At about 10:08 p.m. local time Sunday, the first reports of gunfire surfaced on dispatch radio for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. By about 11:20 p.m., law enforcement had used explosives to bust down the door of a hotel room in Mandalay Bay, where they would soon report their suspect dead, surrounded by firearms.
In the horrific interval between — and for a confusing time afterward — there were calls for medical help, attempts to protect panicked civilians and conflicting reports of active shooters across the city. The radio dispatches reveal a battered police force struggling to save dozens of victims at the Route 91 Harvest music festival — and at the same time figure out who, exactly, was raining bullets down upon them.
At the same time, the dispatches do not reveal everything. Gaps and unanswered questions beneath the eddy of voices. Even the compilation of body cam footage released Tuesday night provides an incomplete, although dramatic picture. Some of the views are obscured by the darkness, obstacles or even articles of clothing.
What you'll find below is the audio of the Las Vegas police response to Sunday's massacre, as archived and hosted in the creative commons by a service called Broadcastify, which says the recording is unedited. The audio is divided into half-hour chunks, taking the listener from the opening moments to the immediate aftermath.
Below that audio, you'll also find notable quotes from the response as it unfolded, time-stamped by approximation and arranged in the order they were reported.
In the first half-hour of the attack, law enforcement came to grips quickly with the enormity of the situation. The search for the source of the gunfire proved more difficult, impeded by conflicting reports and the need to treat the concertgoers hit with the attack.
Even as police progressed toward the suspect, one frustrated officer's statement made plain their difficult choice: "We can't worry about the victims!" he shouted. "We have to stop the shooter before we have more victims!"
- 10:08: First reports of shots fired at the festival — but it's initially unclear where they're coming from.
"We've got shots fired … at the Route 91. Sounded like an automatic firearm."
"It's coming from upstairs! From the Mandalay Bay. Upstairs at Mandalay Bay. Halfway up, I see the shots coming from Mandalay Bay — halfway up!"
"We have an active shooter! We have an active shooter inside the fairgrounds!"
- 10:10: Officers report casualties at the concert.
"Just advising, there are people down on stage left."
"Shots fired from Mandalay Bay. There's many people down stage left."
- 10:12-15: A team deploys in front of Mandalay Bay, while police still try to determine the source of the gunfire.
"We're in front of Mandalay Bay. We're trying to see where the shots are coming from. If anyone can advise if they're coming from Mandalay."
"It sounds like it's either Mandalay or Luxor. We cannot tell."
"North of Mandalay Bay! It's coming out a window."
"Flashes in the middle of Mandalay Bay on the north side. Kind of on the west tower, but towards the center of the casino, one of the middle floors."
"I'm inside the Mandalay Bay on the 31st floor. I can hear the automatic fire coming from one floor ahead, one floor above us."
- 10:17-19: The officers remain under fire. Gunfire audible in the background.
"Just be advised it is automatic fire. Fully automatic fire from an elevated position."
"We can't worry about the victims! We have to stop the shooter before we have more victims! Anybody have eyes on 'em to stop the shooter?"
"We have multiple, multiple victims. Shots fired right at the medical tent. We've got one shot in the head."
"Hey officers, please stay calm. Just relax. We're trying to get this set up, OK. Just stay calm."
- 10:20-25: Conflicting reports on the shooter's activities.
"He's still firing."
"It's been a while since we've heard any shots. Does anybody have eyes on the shooter?"
"Be advised, we are taking fire from a very high floor. We believe it's possibly coming from the Mandalay Bay."
"We're getting from civilians saying there might have been three shooters."
"We've interviewed multiple people leaving the concert venue … saying that there have been multiple people that are shot or were shooting in the concert venue."
- 10:25-32: A clearer idea of the shooter's location emerges, and a team gets to the gunman's floor.
"It's Room 135 on the 32nd floor. I need SWAT."
"We have a four-man element at the very end of the hall."
"We have a security officer also shot in the leg on the 32nd floor. He's standing by by the elevator."
"He shot down the hallway and hit a security guard."
Here, police move steadily to clear the floors in Mandalay Bay where they believe the attack is coming from, even as there are indications in the audio that the gunfire has stopped. After a flurry of communications, one officer notes he has not heard gunshots for a while.
On Tuesday afternoon, Las Vegas Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told reporters what officers appear to have had trouble discerning in the chaos: Shots were fired for approximately nine minutes.
- 10:32-36: Police note a possible suspect and clear the floors beneath 32.
"About three minutes ago, a black … unknown truck — looked like a Chevy, unknown occupied — ripped out of the parking east of Excalibur heading south. … It was reported by several people and witnessed by me. Just keep an eye on it."
- 10:36-40: Signs the gunfire has ended?
"Has anybody on the outside heard any further shots?"
"That's a negative. We've been pinned down at Mandalay Bay Road and the Boulevard for about 15 minutes, and we have not heard any shots in probably 10 to 15."
- 10:40-11:02: Chaos continues on the ground, as officers approach the room on the 32nd floor.
"I need some more units here! I'm being overtaken by citizens trying to take patrol cars."
"We're moving towards 135 over here."
"Copy, we have the hallway. Let me know when you move. … We have the hallway contained. The room where the shots were fired from — it is contained right now."
It is at this point that the search for the shooter comes to a head. Officers approach the target, then knock down the suspect's room with explosives, calling: "Breach, breach, breach." On the other side of that explosion, officers report "one suspect down" with a cluster of firearms.
At the same time, the channel becomes flooded with reports of shots fired in no fewer than a half-dozen casinos across the Las Vegas Strip. These reports would be knocked down one by one, as strike teams deployed to each location and found no such thing.
- 11:08-10: Officers establish position outside the room.
"We are at the end of the hall next to the target."
"We are at the end of the hall. We are going to be peeking out into the hallway. Those officers that are down the hall, you need to acknowledge so we don't have crossfire."
"SWAT's in place."
- 11:17-18: After active shooters are reported at New York-New York and Tropicana, police dispatch teams to investigate.
"Be advised, we're getting multiple calls of active shooters at multiple locations. May or may not be diversions [unintelligible] or what."
"I'm outside Tropicana. We're not hearing any 434s [illegal shootings]. This could be a diversion."
- 11:19-20: Police warn they have set an explosive on the suspect's door — and soon blow it down.
"I need everybody in the hallway to be aware of it and get back. We need to pop this and see if we get any type of response from this guy — to see if he's in here or he's actually moved somewhere else."
"Copy, all units on the 32nd floor, SWAT has explosive breach. Everyone in the hallway needs to move back. All units, move back."
"Breach, breach, breach. [Explosion]."
- 11:21-23: Reports of shots fired continue to multiply — ultimately also including the Bellagio, Planet Hollywood and Paris — and the reports continue to be debunked. Five minutes later, an officer would say the reports at Aria "appear to be unfounded at this time."
"I just got reports of citizens shots just fired — two shots in the park area of New York-New York."
"Copy, be advised there's two shots fired in the park area of New York-New York. Now they're also saying one at Aria."
"So far, New York New York is clear. Negative shots fired."
11:23-25: Suspect reported down inside his room in Mandalay Bay.
"We are clearing this room. We have one suspect down."
- 11:26-27: Officers announce and execute "another explosive breach," then say the area is clear.
"The breach is going off here in about 5 seconds."
"We've got these two rooms secure. We've got one suspect down, multiple firearms."
As the clock nears and rounds midnight, the officers in the gunman's room begin to turn up clues — including his address and the name of a possible person of interest. Meanwhile, officers across the city struggle to vet and investigate a series of active shooter reports.
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text:
I love fresh flowers, it's one of the easiest ways to put life and harmony to a room (including books). These roses lasted for weeks but tomorrow it's time for a new bunch of flowers. Happy Thursday! Photo: Mia Linnman
Thursday, 25 September 2014
Tuesday, 9 September 2014
France part III
Some relaxing days in beautiful Deauville was a perfect end of a lovely vacation. Full of inspiration and impressions we turned our loaded car home with just one nights rest outside Bremen (Germany). With this in mind I think I'm ready for fall. Photo: Mia Linnman.
Etiketter: My pictures, travel
Thursday, 4 September 2014
Yvonne Kone
I'm so inspired by the danish designer and brand Yvonne Kone. She creates really lovely and cool bags, shoes and leather accessories. Pictures from the flagship store in Copenhagen. I'll definitely go for a visit next time in Denmark. Photo: via Yvonne Kone.
Etiketter: Fashion, shop design, Shopping
Monday, 1 September 2014
Fall inspiration!
Fall inspiration by Spanish Vogue september issue. Photo: Benny Horne.
Happy new week!
Etiketter: Fashion
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