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How to rent movies now that Blockbuster is dead
Rest in peace, Blockbuster stores. Long live Redbox, libraries, streaming services, and other alternatives.
Talk about the end of an era. On Wednesday, Blockbuster Video -- the chain that almost single-handedly drove mom-and-pop video stores out of business -- announced plans to close its remaining retail stores, effectively driving the final nail in the movie-rental coffin.
Well, the traditional movie rental, anyway. There are still plenty of ways to borrow a flick, in physical and digital formats alike. Let's take a look at some post-Blockbuster options.
DVD and Blu-ray rentals
Although shiny silver platters have as much of a future as videotapes, they're still a desirable option for car DVD players, Blu-ray home theaters, laptops with optical drives, and so on.
Thankfully, even without Blockbuster, you still have options for renting them.
Home to both 2D and 3D movies, 3D-BlurayRental.com offers one of the largest Blu-ray catalogs you'll find anywhere. This movies-by-mail service charges from $3.99 to $7.99 for most rentals, two-way postage included. After you receive your disc, you have seven days to watch the movie. If it's not postmarked by the seventh day, the service will charge an extra $2 per day until you send it back.
You can also choose a Netflix-style subscription plan, which allows for one, two, or three movies out at a time, with no limits on how long you keep each one -- and, therefore, no late fees.
Remember when Netflix was exclusively a movies-by-mail service? That option still exists, with plans starting at $7.99 monthly for DVDs, and $9.99 for Blu-ray. If you like to watch a lot of movies, it remains one of the most convenient and cost-effective choices.
You've probably seen Redbox kiosks at your local drugstore and/or grocery store. But you don't have to drive there to see if a movie you want is available: you can check inventory -- and reserve rentals -- via the Redbox Web site or one of the Redbox apps.
DVDs typically cost $1.20 per day, while Blu-ray rentals cost $1.50. (Many kiosks also stock video games, which cost $2 per day.) The trick, of course, is returning your rental in a timely fashion. But you can drop your movie in any Redbox kiosk; it doesn't have to be the one you rented from. That's great if you're stocking the minivan with movies for your next road trip -- just return each watched movie along the way.
Your local library
Many people forget that most public libraries offer movies you can check out absolutely free, just like books. Rental periods will vary, but typically it's seven days. And although you might not find a Blockbuster-caliber selection, or even much in the way of Blu-ray, you simply can't beat the price.
Your local video store
Yep, it's true, the mom-and-pop stores are starting to return, at least in some areas. In my neck of the woods, for example, a Family Video moved in where a Blockbuster used to be. It's a small (though multistate) chain with an impressive selection, great deals on older releases, and even a freebie section.
Try a little Googling or Yelping for video stores in your area. You might be surprised and actually find one.
Streaming services
Needless to say, the future of movie rentals doesn't involve driving to a store, a kiosk, or any other physical structure. It's all about on-demand streaming services, which give you virtually limitless selection and immediate delivery.
Of course, you'll need a delivery mechanism for these services; the top choices are a smart TV, an Apple TV, a Roku box, or a game console. Personally, I think an inexpensive Roku box is your best bet, largely because it paves the way to just about every streaming service save one: iTunes.
You're probably familiar with most of the big-name players, but here's a rundown anyway:
Amazon Instant Video
For $79 annually, you can get Amazon Prime, which gives users unlimited access to thousands of movies and TV shows. But Amazon also offers pay-per-view rentals, making it arguably the Internet's single most comprehensive streaming service. (Netflix doesn't do pay-per-view, and iTunes has no all-you-can-watch option.)
The no-brainer choice for owners of Apple TVs and iOS devices, though you can just as easily use iTunes to rent movies for viewing on your laptop.
Technically, Netflix doesn't allow you to rent movies. Instead, you pay $8 per month for unlimited access to an ever-expanding catalog of movies and TV shows, all of which you can stream to just about every Internet-connected device known to man.
Sony Entertainment Network
Integrated into Sony's PlayStation consoles and some Blu-ray players, the SEN offers a generous selection of movies to rent -- including some 3D titles, which few other streaming services offer.
Walmart-owned Vudu specializes in movie rentals, offering most new releases and a decent catalog of older stuff, most of them available in three different formats -- SD, HD, and HDX -- and at different prices. So if you're renting "Pacific Rim" to watch on your iPhone, you might pay $3.99 for the SD version. But if you want it on your big-screen TV, you can pay $5.99 for HDX (which streams at full 1080p with surround sound).
Xbox Marketplace
Like Sony's network, Microsoft's service lives on its game consoles. So if you have an Xbox, you have another movie-rental option.
Your cable provider
You may also be able to rent movies from your cable or satellite service. Comcast Xfinity, for example, offers both new and older titles, including some freebies, and even a smattering of 3D movies.
Have you found any other noteworthy sources for movie rentals, either on DVD, Blu-ray or online? Do you prefer one over another? Let's pick up the Blockbuster-fallout discussion in the comments.


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Trust Me: Three Books With (In)credible Narrators
Many of my all-time favorite novels have a common (if slightly unsettling) thread: They feature an unreliable narrator at the helm. The term was popularized in the 1960s by the literary critic Wayne C. Booth, but the unreliable narrator herself has been around at least as long as the Wife of Bath in The Canterbury Tales. An unreliable narrator is one who tells a tale with compromised credibility, whether the narrator herself understands that or not. The reader usually finds this out only slowly, as cracks in the narrator's version of events begin to appear. For the reader, figuring out what really did happen is an unending but joyful mystery.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

subset: commoncrawl


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[Updated 11 Feb 2011 – I'm not sure the original version actually worked properly.]
Quite often I'll make small changes to a project's code which I'm 99% sure won't break the build. Of course thanks to Murphy's Law that probability falls to about 10% if I decide to risk it push the changes upstream without running the full build locally.
Now even if the build only takes a few minutes to run, that's a few minutes which I can't spend doing anything else with the code, because if I save a file I can't be sure whether the original or changed version will be used in the tests. What I'd like to be able to do is to run the build in the background, with changes automatically pushed upstream if everything's green, or an alert shown if either the build fails or the push is rejected (because someone else has pushed a change while the build was running).
Fortunately with a distributed version control system like git, this is fairly easy.
Firstly, clone the local working repository and set up a remote pointing to the clone:
git clone . ../myproject-staging git remote add staging ../myproject-staging
Now set up the cloned copy:
cd ../myproject-staging # Allow pushing into the checked-out branch git config receive.denyCurrentBranch ignore # Create a remote for the upstream server you want to push to (change the URI!) git remote add upstream email@example.com/your/repository/path.git
Do anything that needs doing to allow the cloned project to build (if you have a test database, create a separate instance to avoid tests interacting with your main workspace), and verify that the build runs.
Now add the following to
#!/bin/bash cd .. export GIT_DIR=.git git reset --hard nohup .git/hooks/post-reset 1> build_output 2>&1 &
This will reset your checked-out working copy to the pushed master, then run
.git/hooks/post-reset in the background. Create that file with the following content:
#!/bin/bash function error { growlnotify -s -t `basename $PWD` -m "$1" exit 1 } # Replace this with your build command bundle install --local && rake || error "Rake failed" git push upstream master || error "Git push failed" growlnotify -s -t `basename $PWD` -m "Built and pushed successfully"
Make sure both these hooks are executable:
chmod u+x .git/hooks/post*-receive
Now, back in your normal working repository you should just be able to type
git push staging (add
--force if you've rebased your normal master and get an error about the push not being a fast-forward), and the project will build in the staging repo. If everything works, it'll push upstream and you'll get a Growl notification (assuming you have Growl and growlnotify, or the equivalents for your OS, installed). If it fails, you'll also get a Growl notification. I've made the alerts sticky, so I don't miss them – if you don't want that, just remove the
-s flag. The build errors will be in the
build_output file.


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51°44' / 19°41'
Translation of "Andrzejów" chapter from
Pinkas Hakehillot Polin
Translation of "Andrzejów" chapter from
Published by Yad Vashem
Published in Jerusalem
Published in Jerusalem
Project Coordinator
Morris Wirth
Project Coordinator
Morris Wirth
Our sincere appreciation to Yad Vashem
for permission to put this material on the JewishGen web site.
This is a translation from: Pinkas Hakehillot Polin:
Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities, Poland, Volume I, pp. 58-59 published by Yad Vashem, Jerusalem
JewishGen, Inc. makes no representations regarding the accuracy of
the translation. The reader may wish to refer to the original material
for verification.
JewishGen is not responsible for inaccuracies or omissions in the original work and cannot rewrite or edit the text to correct inaccuracies and/or omissions.
Our mission is to produce a translation of the original work and we cannot verify the accuracy of statements or alter facts cited.
pp. 58-59
Information on the fate of these few Jews during World War 2 is lacking. It is presumed that at the outbreak of the war they fled to larger communities, or perhaps were ousted by the German authorities and resettled elsewhere (possibly in the German General Government area).
Yizkor Book Project JewishGen Home Page
Copyright © 1999-2023 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 1 Sep 2005 by MGH


text:
Coronet magazine Dec 1955
8 more images from this series here.
But his distincive style and best and longest association would have to be in the realm of children's book illustration, where he cut his teeth illustrating "Three Mice and a Rat" by Margaret Wise Brown and Jean H. Berg in 1950. Seiden illustrated over 300 books and was both author and artist of at least 22 children's books for virtually every major publisher in America beginning rather appropriately with "My ABC Book" for Wonder Books in 1953. Seiden spent the following decades working with an alphabet of authors and coming back around to Margaret Wise Brown with one final book, "The Train to Timbuctoo" for Golden Books in 1999.
Seiden worked mainly in transparent watercolours and gouache and is a member of the American Watercolour Society and The Society of Illustrators, among others. His work is represented by the Kendra Krienke Gallery in New York City and he lived in Woodmere, NY.
* Special thanks to Terri Goldich, Curator of Archives & Special Collections at the University of Connecticut, for assistance with this information. The Art Seiden Papers contain a comprehensive listing of titles Seiden worked on.


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She thought better to wait until learning whether she had made it closer to the mind-boggling event before passing along the Earth-shattering news to Fred and Paula Mullen of Dunstaffnage.
The response, at first, to learning their girl was among dozens of Canadians reaching the next round of selections for a planned one-way mission to Mars was stunned silence.
They both then cracked a smile.
Mom was impressed but noted she would be "heartbroken'' if Woodford actually took off for the red planet.
Dad exclaimed: "So you want to go to Mars and never come back?''
Yes, that is definitely what the 29-year-old prosecutor for the City of Toronto wants.
Woodford was, one might say, over the moon when she got word on Dec. 30 that she is one step closer to the possibility of being among the first humans to ever set foot on Mars.
"There was shock and there was excitement but also a sense of humility,'' she says of realizing her chance has improved to be among one of the crews of four that will depart every two years starting in 2024, with the first group arriving in 2025 to set up a human colony on Martian soil.
Woodford wants to be part of Mars One, a non-profit organization based in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, because she believes the mission promises to be fascinating and groundbreaking.
"I think the clues to our existence lie outside the Earth,'' she says. "It's a step towards greater exploration.''
When Woodford first joined a worldwide applicant pool of more than 200,000, with 8,243 applications from Canadians, she didn't really weigh how the decision would impact people close to her if she was given the nod.
She learned last month there was great angst, but also strong support, from family towards the prospect of Woodford one day taking off for good from her home planet.
"Ultimately, my parents have always been incredibly supportive,'' she says.
"They have encouraged me to pursue my dreams.''
All candidates now have until mid-March to provide a health certificate from a doctor. After that's done, regional selections will be made during a third round which should follow later this year.
Woodford, of course, hopes to fare well in the complete physical and psychological evaluation to be done by her own family doctor.
She has already been through what she calls a "major physical transformation'' in losing 125 pounds over the past year and a half through exercise and changes to diet.
Today, Woodford, who stands five feet and two inches tall, weighs 110 pounds. She doesn't own a car. She walks everywhere.
Woodford attributes being psychologically strong to her personality. She has learned that she has a much lower level of anxiety than the average person.
"So I am not someone who easily becomes anxious,'' she says.
"It sort of makes me suited for a mission like this.''
And what a mission. Just getting there is a mind-boggling undertaking.
The flight will take between seven to eight months (depending upon the relative positions of the Earth and Mars), according to the Mars One website. The astronauts will spend those seven months together in a very small space -- much smaller than the home base at the settlement on Mars -- devoid of luxury or frills.
Woodford says she is willing to make whatever sacrifices are needed. She is ready to give up her life on Earth -- and even risk her life -- to be part of Mars One.
"Life is not measured by how long you live but what you do with your life,'' she says.
"This is an opportunity to do something extraordinary. This is worth the risk.''


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Dall of Denali
Photo taken on 21st of September 2015 - Denali National Park
We had a snowy but successful day in Denali National Park and Preserve on the final day of the Road Lottery.
Up Close
Alaskan Beaver near Fairbanks, Alaska
Alaska Bull Moose Swimming
Young Bull Moose takes a dip in the shallow ponds near Fairbanks to forage for food.
Willow Ptarmigan in Winter
This female Willow Ptarmigan hides beneath a willow bush thinking I can't see her with her winter camouflage.
Collard Pika preparing for winter
Since it does not hibernate, this Collared Pika is busily storing away vegetation for winter. It will make thousand of trips like this, storing 50 times its body weight in the plants in caches under the rocks. Denali National Park & Preserve
Horned Grebe at Sunset in Fairbanks, Alaska
Tundra Bull Moose
We happened across this beautiful big bull in the first few miles of the Park Road at Denali National Park in mid September the night before the Road Lottery opened. The colors were very late this year which made it the most spectacular road lottery to date.
Grazing Bull Moose
Another young Bull Moose found along Chena Hot Springs Road
Food Fight 1
I witnessed this amazing scene between a couple fox and eagles fighting over food while on a trip out in Dutch Harbor in 2010. One of the most amazing places I've been to in this state.
Common Loon at Sunset
A Common Loon I was able to capture a few moments with at sunset while paddling one of the many lakes in the Kenai Peninsula.
Bull Moose along Chena Hot Springs Road
A still "budding" Bull Moose I came across as he grazed in a pond along Chena Hot Springs road one July evening.
Juvenile Bald Eagle in Dutch Harbor
The Juvi Bald Eagle preens himself in the early afternoon misty light.
Fall Favorite
Found this beautiful Bull Moose in Denali National Park near Wonder Lake during the 2013 Fall Road Lottery. We had a very late Spring and Fall which led to an unusually late color change making 2013's Road Lottery one for the books!
Denali Arctic Ground Squirrel
Another awesome critter we found during 2013's Fall Road Lottery. A very sunny summer lead to an amazing berry season and this guy looked well prepared for the long winter ahead.
Winter Fox
This beautiful Cross Fox was spotted in Unalaska aka Dutch Harbor, Alaska
Denali Pride
Alaska Bull Moose in Velvet


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Demi Lovato is really making the rounds in support of her new single, the positive, dancey anthem 'Give Your Heart a Break.' The teen will appear on 'American Idol' next Thursday, March 15 at 8PM on FOX. She will perform her new hit song on the results/elimination episode. The crème de la crème usually performs on the Thursday episodes of 'Idol' all season long, so this is a big coup for Lovato.
Lovato is fresh off her well-received, hour-long documentary 'Stay Strong,' which aired on MTV on Tuesday, March 6. The revealing special, along with the live Q&A that aired afterwards, let fans and viewers in on the singer's continued recovery process. It was a long, hard look at her life-after-rehab, where she admitted she continues to struggle but that her fans have pulled her through. It was anything but a puff piece on the beloved singer. Our respect for her, which was already pretty high, soared through the rough after the doc.
We're sure Lovato will light up the 'Idol' stage and teach the Season 11 hopefuls – there are now 12 — a thing or two about bringing it in the live setting. Be sure and tune in, Lovatics. Demi will not disappoint. Of course PopCrush will recap her performance immediately after it happens.
Source: Pop Crush


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- City Fajr Shuruq Duhr Asr Magrib Isha
- Dubai 04:53 06:06 12:12 15:35 18:12 19:26
Google Inc launched a special service to allow people in Egypt to send Twitter messages by dialing a phone number and leaving a voicemail, as Internet access remains cut off in the country amid anti-government protests.
"Like many people we've been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground," read a post on Google's official corporate blog on Monday.
The service, which Google said was developed with engineers from Twitter, allows people to dial a telephone number and leave a voicemail. The voicemail is automatically translated into an audio file message that is sent on Twitter using the identifying tag #egypt, Google said.
Google said in the blog post, titled "Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard," that no Internet connection is needed to use the service.
It listed three phone numbers for people to call to use the service.
Internet social networking services like Twitter and Facebook have been important tools of communications for protesters in Egypt who have taken to the streets since last week to demonstrate against the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak.
Internet service has been suspended around the country and phone text messaging has been disabled.
A source familiar with the matter said Google, whose corporate motto is "Don't Be Evil," was not taking sides in the crisis in Egypt, but was simply supporting access to information as it has done with other services such as video website YouTube.
YouTube has been streaming live coverage of Al Jazeera's broadcasts of the events in Egypt.
Dozens of the so-called speak-to-tweet messages were featured on Twitter on Monday. The messages ranged from a few seconds to several minutes and featured people identifying themselves as Egyptians and describing the situations in various parts of the country.
"The government is spreading rumors of fear and of burglary and of violence," said one of the messages from an English speaker. "The only incidence of theft and burglary are done by the police themselves."
Google listed the following numbers for people to use the service: +16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855.
Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.


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Mac Computers Most Reliable According to 2008 Reliability Report
by Gregg Keizer, Computerworld
Dec 17, 2008:
Mac Gets Top Scores for Reliability and Support
For the second year running, Apple Inc.'s computers are the most reliable and its support the most dependable of all computer makers selling in the U.S., a national chain of computer service shops said today.
Apple's Macs beat machines sold and supported by Panasonic Corp., Lenovo Group Ltd., Toshiba Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co., according to Rescuecom Corp.'s third annual reliability report. Apple, which took the top spot last year, more than doubled its score from 2007 and again trounced the competition, this year posting a score 43higher than next-best Panasonic.
Rescuecom comes up with its scores by comparing the percentage of each vendor's support calls with its U.S. market share, said Rescuecom CEO David Milman. The greater the difference between the two, the higher the score. Apple, for instance, received its record-setting score of 700 because Macs made up only 1.1of all calls to Rescuecom, even though its estimated market share was 7.8for the year.
Apple's 2008 score soared because as its market share increased -- from 5last year to the 7.8in 2008 -- the percentage of Mac-related calls to Rescuecom actually dropped, from 2007's 1.4to this year's 1.1
"Apple has a very strong game in this market," said Milman. "This year it's like last year, but even more so. The combination of its online support, and the support at local stores, has been a big winner for Apple."
Key to Apple's success, he argued, is the support the company provides at its retail stores. "Apple is essentially giving away support," said Milman, referring to the free consultations any Mac owner can schedule with tech support personnel at Apple's brick-and-mortar stores. "That's a great way to neutralize Windows' [dominant] place in the market. Even though Apple claims Macs are easy to use, to a long-time Windows user, switching might be a daunting task."
Panasonic, which placed second on Rescuecom's list with a score of 489, and Toshiba, in fourth place with 299, are both new to the company's top five list. The pair surged past rivals by boosting their U.S. market share while continuing to account for low percentages of support calls.
"Laptops are getting sturdier," Milman maintained, "and the move toward laptops and away from desktops has helped some laptop providers." Both Panasonic and Toshiba are best known in the U.S. for their laptops.
Some laptop makers, however, fared poorly. Sony Corp., for example, placed seventh on Rescuecom's list with a score of 114. "Its U.S. share grew 31last year, but its share of the repair calls grew at a similar pace," said Milman. "Sony's laptops are built more on elegance and aesthetics rather than reliability."
Dell fell off Rescuecom's list for the first time, even though it improved its score, from 2007's 94 to this year's 129. "It's not that Dell dropped, but that some very strong players, like Panasonic and Toshiba, came in," Milman said. "Dell's problem was that it didn't improve as much as [its] competitors." Two years ago, Dell was in fourth place, while last year it came in fifth.
Lenovo, which was second last year, slipped to third place in 2008. Like Dell, Lenovo's score improved, in large part because it lost 10of its market share during the year. "It's no surprise, since the marketing engine for the company is no longer IBM," said Milman. "But they kept their reliability strong."
Milman also noted that Windows Vista -related calls have dropped off. "Vista has gotten a lot more reliable, with its patches and the service pack. [2008] didn't have the rush of calls we got when Vista first came out," he said.
"And I expect that the new release of Windows will embed all those improvements, so it should be reliable, too," Milman added, talking about Windows 7 , the in-development successor to Vista.
Netbooks, the small, low-priced laptops that are gaining share as consumers increasingly look for bargains, are also starting to show on Rescuecom's radar. "When people call up and find out that it will take between $88 and $100 to fix [a netbook], they'll say 'But I only paid $400 for it'," Milman said. "If you buy a cheap machine, expect it to perform as a cheap machine."
Some netbook sellers are at an additional disadvantage, in that they don't have a support infrastructure that can compete with the likes of Apple, HP or Dell, Milman added.
Google Reviews
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I received this comment today. I deleted the comment and banned the poster because he insulted me, but his comments are interesting nonetheless. His position is that most Caucasian populations are significantly admixed with non-Caucasian, and I am afraid he is right. There are probably few if any pure Whites or pure Caucasians.
The guy appears to be some sort of a Hindu nationalist type and he seems to be making a big deal out of the fact that Indians are mostly White, especially high caste ones of which he seems to be a part. He is quite offended by the idea that Indians are part-Australoid, but that is how they show up on some charts.
He says the Australoid component is more similiar to SE Asians such as Thai people. However, this Asian component also looks something like the Asian part of the Ancient Northeast Asian group. The Asian part of the ANE's has been called different things, but to me they look Ainuid. So the Asian part of Indians looks like Ainuids/Thais. I think he may really be onto something here. It is a good hypothesis.
He is just wrong about some things below. ANE did not originate in Amerindians (How did that happen? Did it move back from the Americas to Asia?); instead, Amerindians are obviously partly derived from ANE from Northeast Asia itself. The Karitiana of Brazil have the highest ANE ever found. They may be the remains of some of the earliest settlers to the Americans.
The Chukchi are probably also heavily ANE somehow because these very Asian-looking Eskimo like people actually plot Caucasian on some charts! So in Far Northeastern Asia, early Caucasoids and early Asians have been mixing it up for some time. He also notes that Berbers have a lot of Black blood. This is correct. In fact, on some charts, Berbers plot outside of Caucasian altogether and end up slightly into the the Black or African quadrant.
He also says that Ashkenazi Jews have a lot of Asian and Black in them. Asian maybe (ancient Asian). Black, no way. I have seen charts showing that Ashkenazi Jews and other people of the Caucasus have the least amount of Black of any White group on Earth. How hilarious for Stormfronters that Jews are the most pure of all the Whites. Australoids are absolutely not archaic Whites or archaic Caucasians.
This is an interesting blog. What I'd like to point out, however, is that there is quite a bit of misinformation regarding the genetic makeup/ancestry of races and ethnic groups/castes found in India on this blog. I noticed you implied in some of your posts here that Indians are hybrid population between two groups, one most similar to present-day non-White Caucasoids, and one most similar to Australian Aboriginals.
Let me explain what the genetic/latest research has actually shown, as far as India's demographics and the genetic composition of its castes is concerned. What follows is a detailed explanation of South Asian genetics and therefore, I must warn you, it is a long wall of text but completely accurate and supported by the latest research, despite containing a lot of jargon that may give you a headache. Bear with me here.
Indians are composed of two composite groups: ANI or the Ancestral North Indians, a group which itself is a composite of two or more different Caucasoid populations, that are on average, closest to present-day Georgians in genetic makeup, and ASI, or the Ancestral South Indians, a group which is also a composite of two or more different populations, at least half of which is Caucasoid in nature, with the other half varying in composition from one ethnic group to another.
In other words, while ANI is completely Caucasoid in nature, ASI is 50-60% Caucasoid in nature depending on the caste in question, and the remainder of ASI ancestry is either composed of Mongoloid, proto-Mongoloid, proto-Caucasoid or in exceptionally rare, isolated cases like the Paniya tribe of South India, of proto-Australoid-like ancestry which still isn't the same as having Australoid ancestry. Keep in mind that Australoids themselves are at least 80% Mongoloid in genetic makeup and are considered to be archaic Whites themselves.
They are also the furthest group genetically on Earth, from the Negroids/Congoids/Bantuids of Sub-Saharan Africa. So, apart from a minority of untouchables of South India and parts of East India who are not even a part of the caste system to begin with, no other group in South Asia has any proto-Australoid-like admixture to speak of. And Indians are predominantly Caucasoid and group with other Caucasoids according to every genetic test/anthropometric study since the dawn of time. More information here.
It is crucial to remember that Indians have nothing to do with Australoids – those people are completely different apart from a very few isolated tribes in India that have real proto-Australoid-like admixture due to their status and extreme isolation. And this admixture has nothing to do with ASI admixture – ASI is just like the paleolithic ANE influence in Europeans, and half of it is Caucasian (at least half, if not more, it varies for different people in India) and it is a composite just like ANI is with different components for different people/castes in India.
The Reich et al paper even pointed out that the Onge were at best a poor proxy to get something without ANI admixture and little ASI admixture, and even then, it was a worse proxy than the Han Chinese. In other words, East Asians were a better proxy than the Onge themselves.
The reason they picked the Onge as a (poor) proxy was because they were the only group they could find in that region without ANI admixture and because they are such an old population that has been isolated and separated from mainland populations for a very long period of time. They also have very few individuals left, so owing to the problems of genetic drift, they assume ownership of a component, and the admixture program tries to force the Onge component in an admixture model of South Asians.
In more recent papers, this has been clarified further and it has been stated that they were simply making a poor guess when using the Onge as a proxy in the model.
Furthermore, to illustrate just how poor of a guess it was, they pointed out that ASI is massively separated from the Onge. In fact, ASI is just as far from the Onge as the Utah Whites (a group of random Euro-descent samples from Utah in the States) are from the Onge, indicating that ASI is as related to Onge as Utah Whites are.
Papuans and Onge have no relation to India at all – the Onge are in SE Asia. Han are a much better proxy. In addition, Indians lack Denisovan admixture and other crucial haplogroups found commonly in the Onge as well.
It must also be said that if Indians are erroneously assumed to have proto-Australoid-like ancestry, so are Europeans.
You might be under the false assumption that Europeans are somehow a "pure" Caucasoid population, when in fact that couldn't be further from the truth. The latest genetic research conclusively shown that Europeans are all admixed to different degrees between at least four main populations of people: West European Hunter-Gatherer (WHG), Early European Farmer (EEF), Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherer (SHG), and Ancient North Eurasian (ANE).
It has also conclusively shown that all populations of Europeans and other "White" Caucasoids have significant to huge amounts of non-Caucasoid ancestry due to the fact that the ANE/Ancient North Eurasian component is at least 45% East Asian/Mongoloid in ancestry. The ANE component is based on the genome of the infamous Mal'ta boy or MA-1.
In Europe today, it peaks among Estonians at just over 18%, and intriguingly, reaches a similar level among Scots. Finns, Russians and Mordovians also carry very high ANE in addition to very high amounts of much more recent Siberian admixture. What's even more interesting is that this ANE influence is the very influence found among South Asians, albeit in a slightly different variety known as ASI.
What the aforementioned information means is the following: Indians are not a hybrid population between Caucasoids and Australoids. In reality, the vast majority of Indians are an admixed population between Caucasoids and Mongoloids – except in this case, the Mongoloids are most similar in phenotype and genotype to SE Asians like the Thai.
According to the latest research, the average Indian is at least 75% Caucasian and 25% Asian – these figures have been substantiated by multiple reports including the National Geographic Project's Geno 2.0 DNA ancestry test samples, the 23andme test samples, and even the Reich et. al paper published in the highly-cited/high impact factor scientific journal Nature.
It has been conclusively proven that South Asians/Indians range from 5-10% Asian to 35% Asian or in other words from 65% Caucasian to 95% Caucasian. The most Caucasian people in the region are from the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, and the least Caucasian people are from the east and south. Only one person broke the magic 35% barrier, and he was a Bangladeshi (38%).
If you'd like a layman's interpretation of the data in the aforementioned sources, check out this article by Razib Khan, one of the pioneers in the field of population genetics, particularly as it pertains to the archaeogenetics of South Asia as a whole – he writes articles for Discover Magazine, which is a well respected source. He is also a PhD student at UC Davis. Here is a post describing the general findings of genetic research into South Asian populations
In addition to the Reich et. al paper and other landmark papers in this field, the Harappa Ancestry Project, which is helmed by a genetic expert and is working in combination with Reich's data is also another landmark study into the archaeogenetics of South Asia. It has conclusively proven and further substantiated the results I aforementioned.
According to the samples collected by the project, there is a sharp correlation between caste/location and Caucasian ancestry in India, with the upper castes in all parts of India being significantly more Caucasian than the lower castes, and the North-West Indian/South Asian upper castes being the most Caucasian of all – up to 95%.
All of the Northwest Indian/Pakistani/Nepali/Afghani upper castes are between 5-18% admixed with East Eurasians/Mongoloids; in other words all of them are between 82-95% Caucasian. These castes would include the Rajputs, Jatts, Khatris, Gujjars, Sindhis, Brahmins, Bhumihars, Balochis, Brahuis, and certain upper caste Punjabis, and Pathans. Note that this is only applicable to the upper castes aforementioned that are in the North and North-West of India as well as Pakistan and Nepal.
As for the rest of India (and Bangladesh/Sri Lanka), as I mentioned earlier, the average South Asian is 75% Caucasian and 25% Asian, so a good amount of South Asians are more Caucasian than 75%, and a good amount are less Caucasian.
For instance, the average Tamil (from South India, and well represented in the diaspora in the USA as the "typical Indian" stereotype) is 33-34% non-Caucasian, and the average Bengali/Bangaladeshi is closer to 55-60% Caucasian. The dalits of Tamil Nadu or the lowest caste Tamils (also well represented in the States), are at least 40% non-Caucasian. The lowest castes of India, the Chamars, who are found all over India (also in the States) are also in the 50-60% Caucasian range. Upper caste Indians in the rest of India (apart from the Northwest) tend to be 70-80% Caucasian.
If you'd like to see the data for yourself, here is the link to the spreadsheet.
For reference, the "South Indian" component is 50-60% Caucasian, and the ANE/NE Asian component is 45% non-Caucasian. The SE Asian, Siberian, Papuan, American and Beringian components are all Mongoloid, and the E. African, San, Pygmy and W. African components are all Negroid. Keep in mind that the data here is accurate only for South Asians, other regions are too under-sampled in the project.
Now you might be wondering, if South Asians, particularly the upper castes in the North and Northwest, are between 5-18% admixed, are they alone in this predicament? As I alluded to earlier, they are anything but alone.
Let's start with Middle Easterners and Northern Africans. Egyptians, Moroccans, Libyans, and other North Africans are on average 15% Black/Negroid admixed. In fact, according to the latest research, the average North African is 15-16% black, and individual countries like Egypt and Tunisia are 18-21% Black on average, so some would be more than 21% black, some less.
The highest admixture is found among Moroccans and Berbers, who can be up to 30% Black/Negroid admixed on average. As far as the Middle East goes, Yemeni people have been shown to be 18-19% black on average, and the Bedouin tribes have been shown to be 16-18% Black on average as well. Qataris are 12-16% Black, and Saudi Arabians range from 14-18% black as well, on average. Jews, particularly the Ashkenazim, have also been shown to be 16.5% admixed with Mongoloid and Black/Negroid on average.
So on average, MENA people are 75-85% Caucasoid and 15-25% Black/Negroid admixed, therefore its safe to say that MENA people are Caucasoid-Negroid hybrids, with some groups being more and others less Negroid. All these figures have been collected by National Geographic and many other researchers.
As far as West Asians/Central Asians are concerned, they show significant amounts of Mongoloid admixture on average.Tajiks have 15% Mongoloid admixture on average, while Turkmen have 16% Mongoloid admixture on average.
However, some groups of Turkmen average 27% Mongoloid, and some are 35-56% Mongoloid. Southern Turkmen on average are only 1/8 to 1/3 Mongoloid or better said 13-31% Mongoloid. However in some parts of Turkmenistan like the northern and eastern parts, the Mongoloid DNA reaches 33-55%. Other parts of Turkmenistan are 33-55% Mongoloid.
Even many Turkish people are 10-20% Mongoloid and 15% Mongoloid on average. Iranians are also Mongoloid admixed – up to 10% on average, with the Azeris of Iran being even more admixed. Tatars are 16% Mongoloid admixed on average.
So, its safe to say that most West Asian groups are a hybrid of Mongoloids and Caucasoids, being on average 80-85% Caucasian and 15-20% Mongoloid, with some groups being much less Caucasian and much more Mongoloid.
Now, lets look at the European data. All non-Sardinian Europeans have been shown to have significant amounts of ANE ancestry due to the Malt'a boy mentioned earlier, and this ANE ancestry is related to/is the same as ASI ancestry in South Asians, relating Europeans to Amerindians and East Asians.
The ANE component is composed of 45% Mongoloid and Australoid-like ancestry (similar to the distant relation that some South Asians have to proto-Australoids), and the Malt'a boy also has a proto-Australoid ASE component on the order of 10%.
This ANE component peaks in the Karitiana Indians of South America
More info about ANE's relationship to ASI is available at this link which itself references this landmark paper:
It is also pertinent to point out the fact that ANE ancestry in all Europeans with the exception of Sardinians (who have very minor ANE ancestry) is mostly (45-55%) non-Caucasoid in nature, and does not include separate additional East Asian ancestry that is due to much more recent admixture with Mongoloids from the Golden Horde and other admixture events.
ANE or NE Asian is best thought of as very ancient Asian admixture, while the recent admixture is added separately. A recent landmark paper definitively showed a clear signal of admixture in Northern Europe, represented by the ANE/NE Asian component. Here is the link to the paper and here is a link to the layman's explanation of it.
What this paper definitively shows (as do successive papers recently released after it) is that Europeans, especially Northern Europeans, have huge amounts of NE Asian, also known as ANE, admixture. This is because they are descended in part from an Amerindian population.
What is the actual amount? Well, remember that ANE or NE Asian is made up of two components – one is Caucasian and related to Levantine ancestry and the other is related to NE Asia/Siberians and the American Indians, peaking in the Karitiana Indians of South America.
Therefore, according to the research data in the latest papers, Northern Europeans are 5-18% admixed with Mongoloids, or in other words, Northern Europeans are 5-18% Non-Caucasoid, and the authors pointed out that this is actually a conservative estimate, one that is lower than what the actual value is likely to be – which is purported to be even higher than the 5-18% range, easily crossing over into the 10-20%+ non-Caucasoid range.
Keeping in mind that in the Near East among Lezgins, Chechens and Ossetians, ANE is in the 23-27%+ range. This means that other Eastern Europeans not residing in Northern Europe are also heavily admixed with non-Caucasian ANE ancestry as well. The ANE ancestry is 45% East Asian/Amerindian in composition and 10% SE Asian in ancestry, so 55% non-Caucasian and ANE ancestry ranges from 8-21%+ in almost all Europeans except Sardinians.
A table with ANE scores from a recent paper. Remember how I mentioned earlier that this ANE non-Caucasoid ancestry did not include additional, more recent, non-Caucasoid East Asian ancestry?
Well, lets take a look at that data as well. Russians and Finns are 80-88% Caucasian depending on the person (not including non-Caucasoid ANE admixture which would make them even less Caucasoid) because of much more recent East Asian admixture with the areas with the higher non-Caucasian mixture in the 12-20% range around Leningrad.
Finnish people, according to the latest genetic study, are at least 13-17% East Asian, and Russians, according to the latest genetic study, are 12-18% East Asian. More info here.
Lithuanians and Swedes are at least 10%-20% admixed with recent East/Mongoloid mixture. If we add this recent Mongoloid admixture to the more ancient ANE ancestry in Europeans, we get the following numbers: Russians, Finns and Swedes are 17-30% Mongoloid/Non-Caucasoid and 70-83% Caucasoid. Because of this, Finns have been found to be distinct from other Europeans and don't cluster as close to them. Russians in the North are much the same way.
Therefore we can sum up the above with the following three sentences:
- Proto West Eurasians + ANE/ASI-like = Europeans and Latin Americans
- Proto West Eurasians + ASI/ANE-like = South Asians and Central and West Asians
- Proto West Eurasians + African = Middle Easterners and Northern Africans
And since everyone in these regions can be as much as 30% non-Caucasoid due to either Mongoloid or Negroid ancestry, (but closer to 20-25% non-Caucasoid), Indians are definitely not alone in being admixed Caucasoids on this planet. They are actually part of the norm, being on average, 75% Caucasian and 25% Asian,
The data clearly shows that Indians are as admixed as other Caucasian groups throughout the world, and in some causes, purer, particularly in the case of the upper caste North and North-West Indians, who are at most 18% admixed or less and thus 82-95% Caucasian.


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Nov 6, 2017
CRA vows action on Canadians exposed in Paradise Papers
The Canadian Press
OTTAWA -- The Canada Revenue Agency says it won't hesitate to investigate new evidence of offshore tax evasion in the wake of a second massive leak of tax haven financial records.
The leak of some 13.4 million records, dubbed the Paradise Papers, lifts another veil on the often murky ways in which the wealthy – including more than 3,000 Canadian individuals and entities – stash their money in offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes.
Among the names that pop up in the records with some connection to offshore accounts are former Canadian prime ministers Brian Mulroney, Paul Martin and Jean Chretien, the Queen, U.S. commerce secretary Wilbur Ross, and the past and current chief fundraisers for the federal Liberal party.
Chretien denied having an offshore account via a statement on Monday.
"Any news report that suggests I have or ever had or was associated in any way with any offshore account is false," Chretien said in the statement. "While as a lawyer for Heenan Blaikie I did some work for Madagascar Oil as a client of the law firm, all fees were billed by the law firm and went to the law firm. I never received any share options and I never had a bank account outside Canada."
Neither the CRA nor any court has determined the Canadians did anything wrong.
"It's a bit rich to be chasing small business people and farmers, and professionals and doctors and lawyers when the upper 0.1 per cent is making use of these tax havens," said Richard Leblanc, a professor of corporate governance at York University, in an interview with BNN Monday.
Offshore accounts are used by wealthy individuals and corporations around the world as a perfectly legal way to reduce their tax burden, although the anonymity provided to account holders has also led to associations with tax evasion, money laundering and organized crime.
The Paradise Papers were obtained by German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, including CBC/Radio Canada and the Toronto Star, which published details on Sunday.
The media outlets did not disclose how they acquired the documents, which consist primarily of client records of offshore law firm Appleby, as well as some records from offshore corporate services firms Estera and Asiaciti Trust.
In an apparent attempt to pre-empt the news reports, the CRA issued a statement late on Friday, detailing the agency's efforts to crack down on tax evasion and tax avoidance, which intensified following the first huge leak of tax-haven records, known as the Panama Papers, in April 2016.
Leblanc called the Paradise Papers a "gift" to the Canada Revenue Agency.
"It's beneficial [for the CRA] because they now have a line of sight to what the mind and management was, truly, as opposed to legal disclosure -- which often in Caribbean countries you have a numbered company, you have a shell company, you have opaque disclosure" he said. "What this does is it opens the komono, if you will, for what is actually happening."
The agency said it has invested $1 billion to tackle the problem and currently has more than 990 audits and more than 42 criminal investigations underway related to offshore tax havens.
As a result of audits over the last two years, the CRA said it identified some $25 billion in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties. And last year, it levied more than $44 million in penalties on tax advisers who facilitated non-compliance with Canadian tax laws.
The agency said it's also working closely with 36 other countries in the Joint International Taskforce on Shared Intelligence and Collaboration on more effective ways to detect and deal with tax evasion and avoidance.
The CRA also promised to do more should new details of questionable practices emerge.
"In the event that further details come to light, CRA will not hesitate to investigate and take further action as warranted," the agency said.
"The government of Canada will continue to work with the provinces and territories, as well as other tax administrations and all other partners, to ensure a tax system that works for Canadians. In addition, the CRA will continue to build on its capacity to detect and crack down on tax cheats and ensure that those who choose to break the law face the consequences and are held accountable for their actions."
Are you confident the Canada Revenue Agency is doing enough to crack down on offshore tax evasion?
A spokesman for National Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier, said on Sunday that "the CRA is reviewing links to Canadian entities and will take appropriate action in regards to the Paradise Papers."
Tax avoidance measures involving offshore trusts are legal, provided that the trust is genuinely managed offshore and that Canadian taxes are paid on any Canadian contributions.
According to the Toronto Star and CBC/Radio Canada, the records suggest that Stephen Bronfman and his family's Montreal-based investment company, Claridge Inc., were linked to an offshore trust in the Cayman Islands that may have used questionable means to avoid paying millions in taxes.
Bronfman is a close friend of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who tapped him in 2013 to fill the role of revenue chair -- effectively, the chief fundraiser -- for the federal Liberal party.
In a statememnt released Monday, Bronfman said he and his family "have always conducted themselves in accordance with the highest legal and ethical standards."
"Stephen Bronfman has never funded nor used offshore trusts," the statement read. "His Canadian trusts have paid all taxes on all their income to the Canadian Government."
The offshore trust also involved former chief Liberal fundraiser and senator Leo Kolber and his son, Jonathan Kolber.
William Brock, a lawyer for Bronfman and Jonathan Kolber, denied any impropriety, telling the CBC that his clients "have always acted properly and ethically, including fully complying with all applicable laws." Any suggestion of "false documentation, fraud, 'disguised' conduct, tax evasion or similar conduct is false," Brock added.
The Prime Minister's Office referred questions about Bronfman to the Liberal party.
Party spokesman Braeden Caley said Bronfman's role is strictly a volunteer position devoted to fundraising, "not policy decisions." The revenue chair is a "non-voting position" on the party's national board, Caley added.
Conservative leader Andrew Scheer issued a statement on Sunday accusing Trudeau of failing to crack down on "tax avoidance schemes used by his wealthy friends."
"Justin Trudeau's well-connected Liberal friends get away with paying less, and you pay more. There is nothing fair about that," the statement said.
-- With files from BNN


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Latest race news from Team Associated:
The 11th Annual "Dirt" Nitro Challenge hosted by the Nitro Pit raceway in Wittmann, AZ represents the most difficult conditions for an R/C car to survive and tests not only the durability of the vehicle, but the wherewithal of the best drivers in the World. Adding another dimension to the event was Mother Nature, who sent the temperatures from a perfect 80 degrees to a wet and soggy 50 within one day.
Heading in to the event, Team Associated had won the 1/8th Pro Buggy class in 2008 and 2009 at the hands of Ryan Cavalieri and Ryan Maifield, respectively. And in the 1/8th Pro Truggy class Ryan Cavalieri piloted the RC8T to the winner's circle in 2009. So needless to say, Ryan and Ryan were favorites heading in to the event.
1/8th Pro Buggy
As conditions continued to change throughout the event, Ryan Cavalieri proved to be the most consistent driver with top three finishes in all three qualifying rounds. However, without a Top Qualifying run, Cavalieri found himself starting second on the grid. Joining Cavalieri in the A Main for Team Associated were Reedy teammates Ryan Maifield and Richard Saxton.
At the start of the main event, Cavalieri made quick work of Top Qualifier Jared Tebo and set a blistering pace, finding himself with a 30+ second lead over second place, 30 minutes in to the 45-minute main. Smooth driving from Cavalieri easily brought home the third consecutive victory for the Team Associated RC8B at the Nitro Challenge and proves the RC8B's durability, consistency and drivability on even the toughest tracks.
1/8th Pro Truggy
Carrying over the momentum he built at the Nitrocross at this same track in November of 2009, Ryan Cavalieri took his Team Associated RC8T CE truggy to the top spot on the grid for the 45-minute main event. Joining him the "hard way" was teammate Ryan Maifield who had to bump from the B Main and started 13th on the grid.
A quick start from Cavalieri saw him build a lead as teammate Maifield worked his way through the pack. By the 30-minute mark Cavalieri was out to a lead ahead of Reedy electric driver Ty Tessmann and Maifield. Hard-charging from Tessmann and troubles with lapped drivers saw Cavalieri's lead shrink and the 2x World Champion eventually found himself behind Tessmann with only a few minutes to go. Uncharacteristic mistakes from Cavalieri and steady driving from Tessmann got the young Canadian his first major victory on US soil. Rounding out the podium were the RC8Ts of Ryan Cavalieri and Ryan Maifield.
Pro2 Short Course
The theme in Pro2 was SC10! In both the Stock and Modified divisions, Team Associated SC10s took the top qualifying spot and victories. Taking the sweep in the Stock category was Bill Koch, and in the Modified class Chris Jarosz took an impressive TQ and win. Both drivers demolished the field with lap times over 3 seconds faster than the next closest driver … proving once again that if you want to compete in Short Course racing, you better be driving an SC10.
1/8th Pro Electric
Growing in popularity, the 1/8th electric class had two full heats and saw some of the top pros compete in the fledgling class. Travis Amezcua took his new ride powered with the LRP SPX8 system to the top step of the podium. Travis has seen good success in this class with a controversial second place overall at the ROAR Championship in late 2009. Look for LRP drivers across the country to start utilizing the newly released SPX8 Speed Control and Vector8 motor.
Congratulations to all the champions and to the Dirt crew, the Nitro Pit crew and all the volunteers for making the 2010 Nitro Challenge a success even with the torrential downpours.
For more information, visit http://www.thenitropit.com
Trevor "Chilly" Duncan
Online News Editor
Radio Control Car Action


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A friend let us in on one of Cincy's home improvement secrets. It's called Home Emporium and they sell all kinds of things for home projects and decor. The inventory comes from closeouts and liquidations and then the savings are passed onto customers. We decided to check 'em out and Handy Hubby called before we visited to ask if they had any pine tongue and groove in stock. They did! So we borrowed our new neighbor's trailer and hitched it up to our SUV in case we decided to purchase the tongue and groove for the Underdog's vaulted ceiling. {We decided to finish the ceiling in the great room with tongue and groove versus sheetrock.}
{HH doing one last calculation to double check we bought enough tongue and groove}
Bringing the trailer ended up being a good idea because we did end up buying unfinished pine tongue and groove in various lengths. An employee helped HH pick through the pile of pine lengths, passing on boards that were warped or damaged. At 49¢/linear foot, we spent $700-$800 on the ceiling boards for our 25'x25′ great room. There are less expensive options of bead board available that we considered but they were much thinner and flimsier than the 5/8″ thick sturdy boards we brought home. We were worried that the thinner versions may wave or warp over time.
We unloaded the pine boards at the Underdog and wrapped them in plastic while the drywall was going up and getting finished. The plastic tarps did a good job of keeping the boards dust-free. This past weekend, with the drywall work complete, HH and his dad unwrapped the boards and got to work installing them on the vaulted ceiling.
{grooved side of the pine boards}
At first, I thought I wanted the grooved side of the boards facing out. But after looking at a bunch of tongue and groove ceilings online, I realized that I preferred the wider plank look…so HH faced the smooth side of the boards.
The wider planks look less busy than the grooved bead board side of the tongue and groove. I love them! After a full day's work, HH and his dad got one side of the great room's ceiling hung.
{HH rented the scaffolding}
The next day, with his neck and back aching from twisting his body into peculiar positions while hanging the plank ceiling, HH framed out the skylights on the other side of the great room ceiling. There aren't any boards hung on that side of the ceiling yet but we're already enamored with the aesthetic of the tongue and groove ceiling. While I do like the look of unfinished pine, I'm still thinking it will get primed and painted to mix better with that simple, clean and airy feel we're going for.
That's the latest and greatest at the Underdog. We've been anxiously awaiting this phase {finishing and installation} of the renovation, but it looks like things may be slow going for a few weeks while HH's real job pulls him away with lots of traveling over the next several weeks. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed about being a single, prego mom for such a long period of time. Kudos to all those moms out there that do it everyday, day in and day out…whether you're single or your spouse works away from home for extended periods of time. I don't know how you do it!
On a lighter note, we came across a few other finds at Home Emporium. Along with home improvement supplies {tile, cabinetry, flooring, lighting, fixtures, etc.} the store also had a great selection of furniture, rugs and accessories. Other than the tongue and groove, we also purchased these items…
HH picked out the wooden bowl and I found an affordable alternative to the bullrush basket I featured in the kids' bathroom mood board. $375 was a ridiculous amount of money for us to spend on a basket, but $17?…yes, please! I think it'll come in handy in the kids' bathroom for dirty towels and clothes. I also picked up a pair of faux bull horns for $40. I eyed similar real ones at a local upscale design boutique a few weeks ago but they were outta my price range at nearly $200 a piece. Yikes! So happy to have found similar faux ones for much cheaper. I think I'll probably end up painting the square mounting blocks white or gray to give them a lighter feel.
So what do you think? Like the ceiling progress? Would you leave it unfinished or paint it?
FYI – I was not compensated in any way to mention Home Emporium. I just love sharing good shopping spots!
images: all Dana Miller for House*Tweaking


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Reserve Taurean Prince helps No. 9 Baylor roll past Savannah State
WACO, Texas -- Taurean Prince thinks he's starting to better understand his role with Baylor. The results back him up.
For the second consecutive game, Prince came off the bench to provide a spark for the ninth-ranked Bears, scoring 12 of his 15 points in the first half of an 80-50 win over Savannah State.
Cory Jefferson had 13 points for Baylor (12-1), and Isaiah Austin and Rico Gathers each scored 11 as Baylor won its 12th consecutive home game.
"It's just a learning process, and I'm just trying to find where I fit and try to be the best at what I do," said Prince, a sophomore. In his freshman year, he played in 24 games and didn't start any of those, either. He has played in all 12 of the Bears' games this season without making a start.
On Monday, Prince came off the bench and scored 16 in Baylor's 81-55 win over Oral Roberts. And not being in the starting lineup isn't a concern of his.
"I think our coaching staff never doubts (Prince's) offense," Baylor coach Scott Drew said. "We're always encouraging him about the other end, and he's gotten better and better. Because of his length and athleticism, he can be an impact defensive player as well as an offensive player. So, really pleased with the progress he's made there."
Joshua Montgomery made four 3-pointers and scored 14 of his 15 points in the first half for Savannah State (2-12).
Baylor improved to 25-9 in January since 2009-10. The Bears' only loss this season was to then No. 8 Syracuse in Hawaii in November.
Jefferson hit a 3 -- his second of the game and fourth of the season -- to give Baylor a 45-28 lead with 1:41 left in the first half, and the Bears led 46-30 at the break. Baylor was 6 of 8 on its 3-point attempts in the half and shot 75 percent from the field.
"It was a combination of things," Jefferson said of the shooting percentage. "Good ball movement and knowing where our guys are going to be by knowing the plays and paying attention during practices."
Baylor had 19 assists for the game, 12 in the first half.
"We really shared the ball in the first half, made the extra passes and we made shots," Drew said. "Second half, we didn't get as easy a looks, and didn't work the ball early on. And then, we had some 3s, and we were 1 for 11 in the second half from 3."
Both teams struggled after halftime. Baylor scored just five points in the first 5 minutes. Savannah State was scoreless until Jeremiah Hill's jumper in the lane with 14:12 left. At that point, Baylor held a 51-32 lead.
Gathers made four consecutive baskets for the Bears in a 3-minute, 21-second span midway through the second half. He hit a layup with 13:01 left. On Baylor's next possession, he established his position just under the basket on an inbounds play, took the pass from Ish Wainwright and slammed in a quick dunk. After a rebound and putback, Gathers then converted a three-point play that gave Baylor a 62-42 lead with 9:39 remaining.
Jyles Smith shot Savannah State's first free throw with 6:52 left in the game, making 1 of 2 after being fouled by Jefferson. For the game, Savannah State made 2 of 4 free throw attempts. Baylor was 19 of 28 from the line, with Prince making six of his eight attempts.
"You expect that type of unbalance," Savannah State coach Horace Broadnax said. "We weren't doing what we needed to do to attack the basket off the dribble like I wanted to. Going up against these trees, it's hard for these 6-foot guys to get the ball to the basket."
Baylor opens Big 12 play at Iowa State on Tuesday.
Game Information
- Referees:
- Greg Rennegarbe
- Gerald Williams
- Joe DeRosa


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The floppy disk, already abandoned by most computer users, has been pushed closer to extinction by a Sony decision to end manufacturing of the storage media this early next year.
Sony, one of a handful of companies that still sells floppy disk media in Japan, will end sales of floppy disks by March 2011 due to dwindling demand.
The Japanese domestic floppy disk market amounted to about 12 million disks last year, of which Sony had a 70 percent share, it said. A 10-pack of Sony 3.5-inch floppy disks costs ¥570 (US$6) at a central Tokyo electronics store.
Many of the remaining customers are legacy equipment users in the education and research sectors, said Sony.
Demand for the disks peaked in the mid-nineties when the most popular type of floppy, the "HD" disk, offered 1.44MB of storage space, but it began to fall in the latter part of the nineties when the more durable and higher capacity CD-R and CD-RW formats reached the mass market. In contrast to the small capacity of the floppy disk, a CD could hold 650MB so offered obvious benefits to users. In recent years USB memory sticks have become popular for transporting data between computers.
To put the floppy market in perspective, consider those 12 million disks sold in Japan last year. Together they can hold about 17 terabytes of data, enough to fill about 700 single-sided Blu-ray discs.


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Retailers will soon find out if concerns over the so-called fiscal cliff and possible tax increases deter any shoppers from malls nationwide on Black Friday, the unofficial start to the holiday shopping season.
The National Retail Federation says holiday sales will rise 4.1 percent to an estimated $586.1 billion this year, compared with a 5.6 percent gain in 2011. Even though thousands of stores are opening earlier, 147 million consumers, or 5 million fewer than last year, plan to hit the malls this weekend, according to an NRF survey conducted by BIGresearch.
"We hear these guys on cable television with eerie music, talking about doom and gloom," Mortimer Singer, chief executive officer of New York consulting firm Marvin Traub Associates, said in a telephone interview. "Consumers get nervous when this kind of stuff happens."
To put them in a spending mood, retailers opened earlier than ever and dangling discounts such as $7 board games at Target and $19 sweaters at Gap. Mindful that many shoppers plan to buy gifts online, Target and Best Buy matched prices offered by online competitors such as Amazon.com, while some merchants are adding kiosks and mobile checkouts to integrate online and in-store shopping. Others have giveaways such as free family portraits in November at J.C. Penney Co. stores.
In an effort to lure shoppers into stores, malls have added such features as lounges, gift-wrapping services, even child- care, Joel Bines, a Dallas-based managing director in the retail practice at AlixPartners, said in a telephone interview.
The moves are "almost entirely related to the amount of business that has moved to the Web," he said.
U.S. consumers, whose spending makes up about 70 percent of the U.S. economy, have coped this year with political uncertainty, higher fuel prices and, in the Northeast, the fallout from Hurricane Sandy.
There are signs of improvement, including rising home prices and a jobless rate that's ducked under 8 percent in the past two months, the lowest since January 2009. Household confidence in the week ended Nov. 11 climbed to 33.1, the highest level in seven months, according to the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index, and has increased in 10 of the past 12 weeks. Still, that figure indicates that one-third of those surveyed hold a negative view of the economy.
Black Friday got its name because retailers traditionally turned profitable on the day following Thanksgiving. While that is no longer true across the board, Black Friday has become a powerful marketing tool and one of the busiest days on the U.S. shopping calendar. More than half of American consumers plan to shop during the holiday weekend, with about one-third hitting the stores on Black Friday alone, according to a survey conducted by the International Council of Shopping Centers, an industry group based in New York.
Thousands more stores are opening early this year, after a few chains tested the water last year.
Wal-Mart Stores, the world's largest retailer, will started its in-store specials at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving, two hours earlier than last year. Gap, the biggest U.S. specialty-apparel retailer, opened more stores, about a third of its total, mostly at 9 a.m. on Thanksgiving this year. Macy's opened stores at midnight after Thanksgiving having done so for the first time last year. Kohl's, Staples and The Disney Store were among those offering "pre-Black Friday" specials.
Merchants that sell to teens can particularly benefit from earlier hours, according to John Morris, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets in New York. Most American Eagle Outfitters and Abercrombie &Fitch stores will open at midnight.
"It is literally a party, it is a teen party mob scene," Morris said. "These teens are going nuts over this stuff."
More than 180 of Mall of America's 520 stores will open at midnight on Thanksgiving, an increase from 65 a year ago.
Stores that didn't open early in 2011 "were bummed," said Julie Hansen, a spokesman for the Bloomington, Minn., mall. Several stores that opened at midnight last year had surpassed their sales figures from the previous Black Friday by 4 a.m., she said.
Customers have long complained about seeing Christmas decor in stores before kids had even finished devouring their Halloween candy, and retailers had traditionally saved their best come-hither deals for after Thanksgiving. More recently, though, some retailers began offering Black Friday deals online beginning on Thanksgiving and then opening stores on the holiday, and consumers followed.
"It's unfortunate, but it's just that constant creep forward. Soon, there will be no Thanksgiving holiday," Bines said. "The holdouts this year are next year's participants. It's just a question of who wants to push the envelope."
Not everyone is a fan of the extended hours. While the holiday openings, with their doorbusters and giveaways, create buzz, the downside is that adding hours on Thanksgiving can damage employee morale and performance in the long run, said Paul Swinand, a retail analyst at Morningstar Inc. in Chicago.
More than 130 petitions asking large retailers to forgo holiday hours have been introduced this year, according to Change.org, a website that allows activists to post petitions. That includes one from a Target worker calling for the Minneapolis-based discounter to revert to a 5 a.m. Black Friday opening that has garnered more than 350,000 signatures this year, according to the organization.
Wal-Mart workers demanding better pay and benefits have vowed to stage more than 1,000 protests online and outside U.S. stores this week. To gain leverage, protest leaders will have to turn out significant numbers of strikers and persuade bargain- hunters to go elsewhere. Similar protests in recent weeks have had little perceptible impact.
Some merchants, including J.C. Penney and Staples, say they'll remain closed on Thanksgiving because they don't want to infringe on their workers' time with family.
Even without opening early, retailers will benefit from the maximum number of days possible – 32 —between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, said Roseanne McCauley, vice president of the Americas for Experian FootFall, which tracks traffic and other data for retailers.
"People have two more paychecks coming in before the end of the month," she said.
Adding a sales day from Thanksgiving "is going to absolutely increase volume" for retailers, enabling them to stick to their planned schedule of markdowns, McCauley said. "At the end of the day, the hours are driven by the consumers."
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text:
Dennis Cooper and the Demystification of Love
by Joseph Suglia
The definitive psychopathology of love has yet to be written. Perhaps it never will be. Love has been praised as a virtue, as the affirmative emotion par excellence at least since Petrarch; indeed, it is quite possibly, along with the concept of freedom, the most dominant ideal in Western culture. (Is it even logical to make of an emotion an "ideal"?). Nonetheless, we have yet to understand (or at least to conceptualize) all of the valences that comprise this strange emotion. It could be argued that love throws us into our more profound dimensions, that love, far from being merely the affirmation of the in-amorata, impinges upon much darker affects. When Christianity orders us to "love one another," "love" seems to be conceived as a form of harmonization. But doesn't love also call forth division, antagonism—even violence?
Dennis Cooper's fiction offers a discomforting interpretation of the phenomenon of love (particularly, erotic love and filial love). Let us say a "punk" interpretation, precisely in the sense that he gives to this word in his breakthrough collection of short stories, Closer (1989): "Punk orders us to demystify everything in the world or we'll be doomed to a future so decadent, [sic] atomic bombs will seem just one more aftershave lotion and so on." Dispensing with all literary artifice, his savage fiction desublimates one of the West's most influential values. There is in his work a demythologization of love, a kind of "punk" reductionism of an affect that is relentlessly praised in most arenas of Western culture. "Love" is portrayed, rather, as a form of submission and of domination, of cruelty and of brutality.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Cooper's most challenging work of fiction, Frisk (1991). The crux of the narrative is as follows: As a young boy, the book's protagonist, Dennis rifled through hardcore pornographic magazines at Gypsy Pete's, a storefront run by an aged, unshaven alcoholic. Gypsy Pete introduces Dennis to even more subterranean publications, some of which contain what appear to be images of necrophilic sex. From this moment on, Dennis links desire with destruction, love with assassination; sexuality appears intimately bound to murder. As he grows older, Dennis finds himself attracted to the same type of boy that he saw in the magazine, with the same hairstyle, the same bedazzled expression in his eyes, the same "look." He careens from one impersonal tryst to another, seemingly in order to master his original experience. He "loves" his conquests "according to [his] loose, personal definition of the word"—which seems to be, to quote Dennis' counterpart, Julian, "what you feel for someone you don't know very well, if at all":
'Christ,' Julian groaned. 'Are you one of those guys who think love's … whatever, sacred?' Henry shook his head. 'Good, because as far as I'm concerned, love's what you feel for someone you don't know very well, if at all. Maybe I was 'in love' with your body when you were over there studying Jennifer and me. Now I'm just, uh … hungry, you could call it. You being my… meal …'
No, love is not "sacred"; one may say that it is, rather, a mode of desecration. A form of cannibalism, if you will.
The narrative takes an even darker turn when an older version of Dennis teams up with two Germans. They move from one scene of human destruction to the next, murdering young boys and having sex with their dead bodies. In one especially disgusting scene, the narrator inserts one of his body parts into the mouth of a corpse.
What is particularly striking is the way in which these necrophilic encounters mirror all other forms of sexual relation. Desire for the beloved, in this body of work, is indistinguishable from the desire to kill that person. Take the following scene as an example. While traveling on a train through Holland, Dennis stares at a young Dutch boy lying across from him and fantasizes about the things that he would like to do to the latter's body: "I've filled the Dutch boy's lips with the words, 'Kill me, Dennis.'" Whether or not one should kill the person one desires or loves is never a question in Cooper's fiction: Indeed, the ultimate, poisonous destination of all love is here the slaughter of the one whom one loves. The novel (if it is one) suggests that love brings us to such extremes. His main character precipitates down the descending scale of desire until he reaches the end point, which is death.
It is not merely the case, however, that the lover is violent. What most readers find troubling about Cooper's books is their suggestion that the victims are complicit in their own destruction, that they willingly lower themselves to the status of dead meat in order to complete the desires of their tormentors. Such is indeed the intense fascination that exists at the heart of all of Cooper's work: a fascination with young boys who allow themselves to be exploited and violated—sometimes even killed—in order to recognize the desires of their tormentors as belonging to the sphere of love. A fascination with young boys who permit themselves to be, to use an over-used word, objectified. Objectification (the reduction of a human being to the level of an object), Cooper seems to suggest, is essential to the erotic process.
Let me refer to another representative text to make my point clearer. Ziggy, the dazed protagonist of Cooper's most formally sophisticated work, Try (1994), is sexually manipulated by both of his male parents to the point at which he can no longer distinguish love from erotic exploitation. While his stepfather obsessively roots around in his stepson's body as if he were a hound in rut, Ziggy, stoned and stupid to all sensation, submits to his protector's will, as if the invasion of his body were the parental prerogative, as if the impossible completion of the love process were an act of intercourse performed by the man responsible for the cultivation of his person. A transformation, again, of consciousness into object. A sexuality that ends in the "death"—the making-object—of the loved one.
It would perhaps not be superfluous to pause over the philosophic import of relationship of sexuality to death.
The end of all desire, it may be said, again, is destruction. Why else would thoughts of suicide and even murder be seldom absent from the mind of a lover? The Oscar Wilde cliché "All men kill the thing they love" is a propos to this context. What drives us crazy is that in the object of desire which is free from our desire, that part of the other human being which escapes us infinitely; the absolute self-sufficiency of the other person brings us into a frenzy. No one can control, absolutely, what the other person thinks, says or does; s/he can always respond negatively to any possible affirmation on our part, or vice versa. Insofar as s/he is infinitely and absolutely free, the other person forces us to experience the limits of our own presumptions. This inevitably converts the desire that we have for the other person into the desire for his/her destruction—that is to say, the desire to reduce that person to ourselves, to nullify that person's "otherness," the desire to turn that person into nothing.
It is perhaps the case that what is called "love," the most intense form that desire may take, draws out the deeper dimensions of human selfhood. It exposes, perhaps, our most profound valences; it makes apparent our drive toward aggression, our desire for domination, our wish (whether conscious or unconscious) for the annihilation of the beloved.
Baudelaire wrote in his journal: "Even though a pair of lovers may be deeply devoted, full of mutual desires, one of them will always be calmer, or less obsessed, than the other. He or she must be the surgeon or torturer; the other the patient or victim." That is, in love, one partner is absolutely passive; the other is absolutely aggressive. This same zero-sum relation is apparent everywhere in Dennis Cooper's fiction. The rapists and murderers that populate his work are needed by their younger victims; these same victims are needed by their older predators. The interdependence of victim and victimizer is what is most uncomfortable in this reading experience–a relationship which is not reducible to the psychological categories of perversion or depravity; its all-pervading status incites one to believe that it is, in fact, absolutely normalized. Cooper's world is one in which the pebble is substituted for the clod (to refer to Blake), a world in which the consciousness of the beloved is reduced to mute matter. Love, then, is not equated with affection in this oeuvre. The perfect expression of love, in this body of work, is the Rim Job.
One could, of course, dismiss such an equation as the agitprop of a "transgressive" novelist. Soberer minds will recognize that the same thought is pronounced throughout the history of classical literature–most precisely, perhaps, in the later verse of William Butler Yeats: "Love has pitched his mansion/In the place of excrement."
Unfortunately, I must add that Dennis Cooper has a thudding, awkward prose style. I find his writing nearly unreadable and sloughing my way through his novels was a burden and a chore.
Joseph Suglia


text:
by David Crane
[email protected]
DefenseReview will be publishing its SHOT Show 2005 pics in the days to come. However, in the meantime, before we get ours uploaded, "platform389" has posted some terrific digital pics of cool items he found at the show on the MilitaryPhotos.net forums, and "LARRYG36" and "Schuey2001" have done likewise at the HKPro.com forums. DefRev will try to get its SHOT Show 2005 digital photos up on its server, soon.
Perhaps the most significant photos shown are those of the semi-auto-only civilian-legal prototypes of the FN P90 PDW (16" barrel) and FN F2000 infantry rifle. DefenseReview got to handle these prototypes at the FNH USA (FN Herstal USA) booth, and we liked what we saw and felt. We would, however, like to see a full M1913 forend rail system with rails at 3, 6, 9, and 12 o'clock, so one can attach tactical white lights, targeting lasers, vertical foregrips, etc. Let's see how these new civvie-legal versions run at the range. That will be the proof in the pudding. By the way, FNH USA kept these out of sight in their meeting room, so they were not on display at the booth. However, a few lucky attendees got to pose with them. A quick note: According to Rick DeMilt, FNH USA's Director of Law Enforcement Sales and Marketing, the production-version civilian-legal FN P90 PDW will sport an O.D. green stock. On the civvie-legal FN F2000, not the Mil-Std 1913 top rail (M1913 rail).
Below are the links to the relevant threads that include quality digital pics of the prototype (and civilian-legal) FN Herstal weapons:…
Author's Note: When you visit the MilitaryPhotos.net forums thread, the prototype civilian-legal FN P90 PDW (Personal Defense Weapon) and FN F2000 digital pics are close to the top, so will have to scroll very little to see them. In the HKPro.com forums thread, you'll have to scroll more, as they're further down. There are more great pics of additional tactical-application firearms in both threads, as well.


text: SOS Children's Village Morosolo The SOS Children's Village Morosolo is located in the Lombardy region with the regional capital Milan. Other major cities of the region are Como, Pavia, Bergamo, Brescia, Mantova and Cremona. Geographically, the region is characterised by the Alps on one hand and well known lakes like Lake Como, Lake Maggiore and Lake Garda on the other. The southern part of Lombardy is dominated by the river Po and a vast plain. Lombardy is considered one of Italy's most important regions in terms of economy and is at the same time one of the most densely populated ones. Agriculture and textile industries are the prime sources of income. The city of Morosolo is situated the province of Varese that together with the provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, Como, Cremona, Milan, Pavia, Sondrio and Mantova constitute the region of Lombardy. The construction of the SOS Children's Village Morosolo was started in 1983 and was completed in 1986. The SOS Children's Village Morosolo was built on a site of 17,000 sq. m in the outskirts of the province's capital Varese on a green and quiet hill. The spacious park of the SOS Children's Village is used as an enormous playground by the about 60 SOS children. The SOS Children's Village consists of eight family houses, the house of the Village Director, a building housing class rooms for the training of SOS staff as well as offices.


text:
|New American Bible
2002 11 11
IntraText - Text
Chapter 24
Five days later the high priest Ananias came down with some elders and an advocate, a certain Tertullus, and they presented formal charges against Paul to the governor.
When he was called, Tertullus began to accuse him, saying, "Since we have attained much peace through you, and reforms have been accomplished in this nation through your provident care,
we acknowledge this in every way and everywhere, most excellent Felix, with all gratitude.
But in order not to detain you further, I ask you to give us a brief hearing with your customary graciousness.
We found this man to be a pest; he creates dissension among Jews all over the world and is a ringleader of the sect of the Nazoreans. 1
He even tried to desecrate our temple, but we arrested him.
If you examine him you will be able to learn from him for yourself about everything of which we are accusing him."
The Jews also joined in the attack and asserted that these things were so.
3 Then the governor motioned to him to speak and Paul replied, "I know that you have been a judge over this nation for many years and so I am pleased to make my defense before you.
As you can verify, not more than twelve days have passed since I went up to Jerusalem to worship.
Neither in the temple, nor in the synagogues, nor anywhere in the city did they find me arguing with anyone or instigating a riot among the people.
Nor can they prove to you the accusations they are now making against me.
But this I do admit to you, that according to the Way, which they call a sect, I worship the God of our ancestors and I believe everything that is in accordance with the law and written in the prophets.
I have the same hope in God as they themselves have that there will be a resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous.
Because of this, I always strive to keep my conscience clear before God and man.
After many years, I came to bring alms for my nation and offerings.
While I was so engaged, they found me, after my purification, in the temple without a crowd or disturbance.
But some Jews from the province of Asia, who should be here before you to make whatever accusation they might have against me -
or let these men themselves state what crime they discovered when I stood before the Sanhedrin,
unless it was my one outcry as I stood among them, that 'I am on trial before you today for the resurrection of the dead.'"
Then Felix, who was accurately informed about the Way, postponed the trial, saying, "When Lysias the commander comes down, I shall decide your case."
He gave orders to the centurion that he should be kept in custody but have some liberty, and that he should not prevent any of his friends from caring for his needs.
4 Several days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish. He had Paul summoned and listened to him speak about faith in Christ Jesus.
But as he spoke about righteousness and self-restraint and the coming judgment, Felix became frightened and said, "You may go for now; when I find an opportunity I shall summon you again."
At the same time he hoped that a bribe would be offered him by Paul, and so he sent for him very often and conversed with him.
Two years passed and Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus. Wishing to ingratiate himself with the Jews, Felix left Paul in prison. 5