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Power Your Drive
No one knows your Lexus better than we do. Let us help you find the battery that was specifically made for your vehicle.
If your vehicle is hard to start and/or has dim headlights when the engine is turned off, your battery is getting weak and should be replaced with a new Genuine Lexus battery. Manufactured by Lexus' standards for quality and performance, these batteries are the only batteries authorized for original equipment (OE) warranty replacement. They come with a 24-month free replacement warranty and prorated for the balance of the 84-month warranty period.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
A man looking for a new beginning
Hunter Donovan is a writer who dreamed of penning the great American novel but settled for a job running the family business, Donovan Books. Trapped publishing other people's stories, Hunter buries his frustrations in vodka and an endless parade of one-night stands.
A woman with a secret
Cary Anderson is the perky, petite, and staunchly determined editor who is well versed in erotica fiction. But Cary has a kinky side that she is struggling to keep hidden from the world.
Fed up with dwindling sales, Hunter hopes to breathe new life into his publishing house by breaking into the risqué world of erotica. He hires Cary to rescue his company and she is keen to show her new boss everything she knows. But what starts out as a lesson in sexual fiction turns into an unexpected roller coaster ride of disastrous romantic encounters. And just when Cary helps stir Hunter's creative voice, he uncovers the truth about her wicked ways.
Some ties that bind can cut right to the heart in…The Bondage Club.
The veil of evening was reaching across his office window when Hunter's cell phone on the side of his desk rang. Checking the caller ID, he frowned when he saw that the number was blocked.
"This is Hunter Donovan," he barked into the phone.
"Do you always answer the phone in such a cheerful manner?" a seductive female voice reprimanded.
"That depends on who this is."
"Cary told me of your little meeting today, and your interest in my next book. You don't waste any time do you?"
Hunter's heart skipped a beat. "Well, well, Ms. Slut. Nice to hear your voice again. I hope your time at the Book Expo was worthwhile."
"You were the highlight of my trip, Mr. Donovan."
Hunter smiled as he sat back in his creaky desk chair. "I'm so glad. I was beginning to think you didn't like me.""Have you ever met a woman who didn't like you?"The question made Hunter chuckle. "Which answer will get me your next book, Ms. Slut?"A high-pitched tinkling laugh came through the speaker of his iPhone, making Hunter's stomach flutter ever so lightly. "I like a man who doesn't waste time with sweet talk. Check your email. I just sent you the manuscript. It's called The Bondage Club, and if you're interested, e-mail me a contract, and I will look it over.""Can I ask what it's about? I mean, with a title like that I can guess, but…." His voice faded as his curiosity rose."There are many different kinds of bondage, Mr. Donovan, that don't involve ropes, chains, or even handcuffs."Hunter gaped at his cell phone. "I don't get it.""Love can be a form of bondage," she explained. "We can get tied to someone just as easily as we can be tied up by someone. The book is about bondage in all of its forms.""Then I look forward to reading it." He paused as he thought of an idea. "But why not come to my office? We can discuss the details of the contract over lunch," he pursued with a hint of insistence in his voice."I don't think so. Lunch with you would be dangerous."Hunter coyly smiled. "For which one of us, Ms. Slut?""I'm not your type, Mr. Donovan."Hunter's body rippled with the hint of a challenge. "You never know; if Donovan Books handles your novel, we may grow on each other.""I hope not. Getting involved with the man who publishes my book would complicate matters. I'm also a very demanding author. I might get on your nerves after a time.""I have a lot of demanding authors. You would fit right in.""Do you usually try and date your authors, or will I be the first?"He fingered a corner of the manuscript open on the desk before him as his imagination began to wander. "You would be the first. I never date clients.""I heard a nasty little rumor to the contrary, about your brother and Monique Delome. They were engaged and then she up and married some Texas oil man. Lucky girl.""Lucky to be rid of my brother," Hunter returned, pushing the manuscript in front of him to the side."Oh, do I detect a note of sibling rivalry, Mr. Donovan?"He leaned back in his chair and turned his eyes to his arched window. "Rivalry, nah. More like deep-seated hatred. And if I'm going to bare my soul to you, you should start calling me, Hunter.""Let me guess, Hunter." Her voice was throaty and delicious, spurring on his desire. "He stole your Legos when you were six and you have never forgiven him."Hunter ran his hand over his face, feeling the conversation was getting a little too personal. "Never mind my brother. Let's talk about you.""I make it a practice never to talk about myself. The less people know about me, the better.""I don't agree, Ms. Sl…." Hunter crinkled his brow. "What else can I call you? Ms. Slut is too—""Call me Smuttie, if you like.""Smuttie…don't you have a real name?""Smuttie is all you need to know." The sound of voices in the background broke in. "Let me know what you think of my manuscript, Hunter. I'll be waiting to hear from you." Then the line went dead.
Alexandrea Weis is an advanced practice registered nurse who was born and raised in New Orleans. Having been brought up in the motion picture industry, she learned to tell stories from a different perspective and began writing at the age of eight. Infusing the rich tapestry of her hometown into her award-winning novels, she believes that creating vivid characters makes a story memorable. A permitted/certified wildlife rehabber with the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries, Weis rescues orphaned and injured wildlife. She lives with her husband and pets in New Orleans.
Tie-In Novels:
(Each Novel is a Stand-Alone read)


text: SlideShare has added Web conferencing to its site for posting, viewing, rating and commenting on business presentations, documents and videos, the company said Wednesday.The new SlideShare service, called Zipcast, is designed to be a simpler alternative to existing Web conferencing applications, according to SlideShare co-founder and CEO Rashmi Sinha."Web conferencing tools aren't up to par with consumer [online] products today," she said. "They're stuck in the 1990s. They require downloading, they're bloated and difficult to use.""We want to redefine the Web meeting experience with something modern, fast, simple and social," she added.Zipcast is browser-based, requires no software download and has been built using HTML5 capabilities. The service is integrated with the presentation- and document-sharing portion of the SlideShare site, so that users can call up an existing presentation and launch a Web meeting about it in an ad hoc manner. They can also upload new presentations up to 300MB in size.SlideShare has about 45 million unique monthly visitors to its site, most of them professionals seeking business information and contacts, according to the Sinha. They view about 3 billion slides per month.After registering with SlideShare, users get a unique URL for their online meeting "room" that they can share with an unlimited number of participants. There is no limit on how many meetings a user can host either.Meetings can be public or private. The meeting interface has sections for the shared presentation, group text chat and participant streaming video. Basic SlideShare accounts are free and include Zipcast meetings with one-way audio and video.Those with SlideShare Pro accounts, which start at US$19 per month, get additional features, including the ability to set a password for a Zipcast Web meeting and two-way audio.


text:
Publish open with us!
Are you planning to start a new Open Access journal, convert an existing subscription-based journal, or would you like to publish books or other writings in an Open Access format? Contact us for more information about what Nordic Open Access Scholarly Publishing is and what we can offer you. Learn more


text:
Credit and debit card payments giant Verifone [NYSE: PAY] is investigating a breach of its internal computer networks that appears to have impacted a number of companies running its point-of-sale solutions, according to sources. Verifone says the extent of the breach was limited to its corporate network and that its payment services network was not impacted.
San Jose, Calif.-based Verifone is the largest maker of credit card terminals used in the United States. It sells point-of-sale terminals and services to support the swiping and processing of credit and debit card payments at a variety of businesses, including retailers, taxis, and fuel stations.
On Jan. 23, 2017, Verifone sent an "urgent" email to all company staff and contractors, warning they had 24 hours to change all company passwords.
"We are currently investigating an IT control matter in the Verifone environment," reads an email memo penned by Steve Horan, Verifone Inc.'s senior vice president and chief information officer. "As a precaution, we are taking immediate steps to improve our controls."
An internal memo sent Jan. 23, 2017 by Verifone's chief information officer to all staff and contractors, telling them to change their passwords. The memo also states that Verifone employees would no longer be able to install software at will, apparently something everyone at the company could do prior to this notice.
The internal Verifone memo — a copy of which was obtained by KrebsOnSecurity and is pictured above — also informed employees they would no longer be allowed to install software of any kind on company computers and laptops.
Asked about the breach reports, a Verifone spokesman said the company saw evidence in January 2017 of an intrusion in a "limited portion" of its internal network, but that the breach never impacted its payment services network.
An ad tied to Verifone's petroleum services point-of-sale offerings.
"In January 2017, Verifone's information security team saw evidence of a limited cyber intrusion into our corporate network," Verifone spokesman Andy Payment said. "Our payment services network was not impacted. We immediately began work to determine the type of information targeted and executed appropriate measures in response. We believe today that due to our immediate response, the potential for misuse of information is limited."
Verifone's Mr. Payment declined to answer additional questions about the breach, such as how Verifone learned about it and whether the company was initially notified by an outside party. But a source with knowledge of the matter told KrebsOnSecurity.com that the employee alert Verifone sent out on Jan, 23, 2017 was in response to a notification that Verifone received from the credit card companies Visa and Mastercard just days earlier in January.
A spokesperson for Visa declined to comment for this story. MasterCard officials did not respond to requests for comment.
According to my source, the intrusion impacted at least one corner of Verifone's business: A customer support unit based in Clearwater, Fla. that provides comprehensive payment solutions specifically to gas and petrol stations throughout the United States — including, pay-at-the-pump credit card processing; physical cash registers inside the fuel station store; customer loyalty programs; and remote technical support.
The source said his employer shared with the card brands evidence that a Russian hacking group known for targeting payment providers and hospitality firms had compromised at least a portion of Verifone's internal network.
The source says Visa and MasterCard were notified that the intruders appeared to have been inside of Verifone's network since mid-2016. The source noted there is ample evidence the attackers used some of the same toolsets and infrastructure as the cybercrime gang that last year is thought to have hacked into Oracle's MICROS division, a unit of Oracle that provides point-of-sale solutions to hundreds of thousands of retailers and hospitality firms.
Founded in Hawaii, U.S. in 1981, Verifone now operates in more than 150 countries worldwide and employ nearly 5,000 people globally.


text:
BURWASH, JOHN, Methodist minister and educator; b. 8 May 1842 near St Andrews (Saint-André-Est), Lower Canada, second of the six sons of Adam Burwash and Anne Taylor; m. 25 June 1867 Eden (Edon) Henwood, and they had one daughter; d. 16 Nov. 1913 in Calgary.
John Burwash's parents, both devout Methodists, moved to a farm near Baltimore, Upper Canada, in 1844. John, like his elder brother Nathanael, was drawn to the ministry, and was encouraged to acquire a college degree, still a relative rarity at the time for those entering the Methodist ministry. In 1859, with the financial help of Nathanael, who interrupted his studies to teach for a year, John enrolled in the Methodist Victoria College in nearby Cobourg. The influence of President Samuel Sobieski Nelles* and the curriculum, which drew heavily on the 18th-century Scottish Enlightenment, swayed him to assume a natural relationship between faith and reason and this outlook would be reflected in his later response to Darwinian science and the higher biblical criticism.
A medallist at his graduation with a ba in 1863 (he would receive an ma in 1872), Burwash entered the Methodist ministry as a probationer, and was stationed at Canton, Colborne, Barrie, Baltimore, and Grafton before being ordained in 1867. After serving briefly in Belleville and Parkhill, he became vice-principal and headmaster of the boys' branch of the Mount Allison Wesleyan Academy in Sackville, N.B., in 1870. Although his only teaching experience had been as a classical tutor at Victoria in 1866, when he was stationed in Baltimore, he was asked to teach mathematics and the natural sciences at both the academy and the Mount Allison Wesleyan College and Latin at the academy. In 1873–74 he sought to remedy his deficiency in training in the sciences by taking time from a pastorate in L'Orignal, Ont., to attend some courses at Harvard in Massachusetts.
Burwash returned to Mount Allison in 1874 and functioned as the college's one-man science department until 1890, with an interruption from 1882 to 1885 when he served as minister in Charlottetown. He was professor of natural sciences until 1877, of chemistry in 1877–78, and of chemistry and experimental physics from 1878 to 1882 and from 1885 to 1890. In a college which was parsimonious in remunerating its faculty and providing scientific equipment, he was grateful for a $250 grant in 1878 for some basic laboratory apparatus. Recognition of his reputation came in 1885 when he was asked to do geological work for the New Brunswick government as provincial assayer and analyst, and in 1888 when Mount Allison awarded him an honorary d.sc.; in 1900 he received a d.litt. from the University of New Brunswick.
In 1875 Mount Allison had established a faculty of theology and Burwash also became professor of homiletics. He taught ministerial candidates from the three Methodist Maritime conferences and frequently served on a voluntary basis as examiner in reading and elocution for the provincial Normal School at Saint John and as a lecturer at teachers' institutes. These efforts won him praise, in the Mount Allison Argosy, as "one of the most eminent and useful educators of the Maritime Provinces" and "one of the very ablest preachers and platform-speakers ever listened to."
Burwash left Mount Allison in 1890 to teach the sciences at Victoria University, where his brother Nathanael was chancellor. When Victoria moved to Toronto in 1892 and responsibility for the sciences was transferred to the University of Toronto, Burwash was appointed to Victoria's chair of homiletics and pastoral theology. For the next 18 years, despite his age and the failing health which began to plague him after 1900, he taught Greek New Testament, church polity and discipline, Wesleyan theology, and homiletics and elocution, and after 1902 occupied as well the newly endowed Massey Chair in English Bible.
Following criticism by several alumni of his effectiveness in teaching homiletics, an investigation by Victoria's board of regents in 1902 produced a solid show of support from colleagues and students. They emphasized Burwash's conscientious preparation, his efforts to remain informed of new thought, and his helpfulness towards students. With complaints resurfacing periodically and his health continuing to deteriorate, in 1910 he retired from Victoria, left the active ministry, and moved with his wife to Calgary in order to be with their only daughter, Annie, one of the first female graduates of Mount Allison and the widow of the Reverend Frederick Langford, a Victoria graduate. Burwash, who was admired for the physical strength which had enabled him until his final years to carry heavy canoes on long portages near his summer home in Muskoka, declined rapidly after the death of his wife in 1912.
Like his brother Nathanael, with whom he retained a lifelong friendship, John had been able, as an educator, to bridge the old and the new at a time of great intellectual ferment. A bluff, forthright Methodist, he was conservative in his theology and strict in his piety. A strong supporter of the temperance movement in New Brunswick and in Ontario, and a mason, he reflected throughout his life the simple moral code on which he had been raised. "He followed the primal instincts of an intelligent, unspoiled, Christian heart rather than fine-spun theories. To John Burwash sin was sin, wrong was wrong, righteousness was righteousness, and he would follow right in scorn of consequences," Francis Huston Wallace, dean of theology at Victoria, recalled in his official eulogy. This practical piety allowed Burwash, like other Canadian evangelical academics of his generation, to be accommodating towards the new Darwinian science and the higher criticism of the Bible. An empiricist, as critical of "dogma" in religion as of "speculative theory" in science, he advised ministers that "the only way rightly to understand the Bible is to live it out; to go from experience of heart and life back to the direction of the book." Thus the scientific method was as applicable to religion as to the world of nature: each had its own clearly defined limits and both were connected by God into a harmonious whole. Always convinced that it was the Christian scholar who should be at the centre of the new scientific and biblical thought, in an 1884 sermon he warned that "the books of nature apart from revelation can only bring despair."
John Burwash's publications include the sermon in Mount Allison Wesleyan College, Theological Union, Fifth annual lecture and sermon, delivered June, 1883 (Saint John, 1883; copy in Mount Allison Univ. Arch., Sackville, N.B.), 39–46, and "The limits of religious thought," in The Methodist pulpit . . . , ed. S. G. Phillips (Toronto, 1884), 178–89. An abstract of a lecture delivered at Victoria University, "Genesis and geology," appears in Acta Victoriana (Cobourg, Ont.), 14 (1891–92), no.7: 4–7.
AO, RG 80-27-2, 47: 16. UCC-C, Biog. file. Victoria Univ. Arch. (Toronto), Fonds 2042 (Nathanael Burwash), esp. files 119, 622. Christian Guardian (Toronto), 10 Dec. 1913. G. H. Cornish, Cyclopædia of Methodism in Canada (2v., Toronto and Halifax, 1881–1903). Michael Gauvreau, "The golden age of the church college: Mount Allison's encounter with 'modern thought,' 1850–1890," in The contribution of Methodism to Atlantic Canada, ed. C. H. H. Scobie and J. W. Grant (Montreal and Kingston, Ont., 1992), 169–86. J. F. McLaughlin, "Rev. John Burwash,
© 1998–2023 University of Toronto/Université Laval
Cite This Article
Marguerite Van Die, "BURWASH, JOHN," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed October 4, 2023, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/burwash_john_14E.html.
The citation above shows the format for footnotes and endnotes according to the Chicago manual of style (16th edition). Information to be used in other citation formats:
|Author of Article:
|Marguerite Van Die
|Title of Article:
|Publication Name:
|Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14
|University of Toronto/Université Laval
|Year of publication:
|Year of revision:
|Access Date:
|October 4, 2023


text:
|Song Title
Big Sean - It's Time Lyrics (feat. Young Jeezy & Payroll)
Big Sean – It's Time Lyrics (feat. Young Jeezy & Payroll)
[Intro: Big Sean]
I done fell asleep fucking last night
That's how much I don't sleep nigga
Finally famous nigga
[Hook: Big Sean x2]
And I'll be goddamned if I didn't
Put the city on let's get it
(alright alright alright, alright alright alright)
Let's get it
[Verse 1: Big Sean]
Today is a good day
I wish a nigga would day
Ride through the hood day
Ride through the hood where I would stay
If I wasn't me, wasn't committed
I told my mom and my dad it'll be the last Christmas
In the hood that you can visit
Oh boy I got it, no chasers
Cause the best mixed with Hennessey is problems
I took that advice young when I was headed up to college
Momma swimming in that debt
Rather swim with the piranhas or the shark
Ready set go, on your mark to the top
Getting rich ain't a blessing it's a choice
Drunk and still drinking out the bottle
I want a hood rat bitch motherfuck a model
You ain't alive if you ain't living that's the motto
And imma' probably wake up tomorrow sayin, sayin
[Hook: Big Sean]
[Verse 2: Young Jeezy]
Lets get it, yeah be alright nigga
It's the motherfucking world nigga
Getcha some time to just do it how I done it
First up on the first cause' first of all you gotta want it
Re-up time for every penny, never fronted
So room for, paid every penny then I stunted
Stunted so hard you woulda thought I was a stuntman
TS4 with 23's I'm talking jumpmans
Twos and thirds watch for the blitz, you know they rush
Just don't get caught in the coupe with them birds, end of discussion
Them boys round the corner wanna sell in that Cal Ripken
If them niggas think I'm riding with that, them niggas tripping
Yeah I got a magnificent hustle, cause' imma' grinder
Told my olds im hiding you here, so they won't find you
What you know about a bag that's heavy as anacondas?
Bet you one thing, I ain't talking no marijuana
That's whats wrong with these niggas they think it's about shine
You niggas get back to your grind, I think it's about time
[Hook: Big Sean]
[Verse 3: Payroll]
They say it's my time according to my Rolex
I'm bout to fuck the game, then your ho next
I used to talk dirty on my cell, no phone sex
No yoga boy I was making blow stretch
Press the fast forward button, I'm pushing a foreign something
All through my neighborhood, next stop is the haters hood
My bitch so bad, but you can bet that my paper good
I do this for real, you lil niggas just fake it good
It's time for a new crib, it's time for a new chain
20 thousand on me homie that's just loose change
Too many diamond chains that nigga a mess
But if you knew bout my hood you'd say that nigga is blessed
Detroit in this bitch, Big Sean what it do bro?
Getting money four ways so I can buy a two-door
Stash looking healthy but my jewelry got the flu though
The hustle's who I represent, dope boys we in this bitch
[Hook: Big Sean]
Detroit, once the backbone of this country
Now it's the largest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy
Thriving neighborhoods are now vacant
Going from a population of nearly 2 million
To under 700,000 in a matter of years
The people of Detroit really going to have to stick together,
To make it through these tough times
[Big Sean – It's Time Lyrics (feat. Young Jeezy & Payroll)]
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Lyrics Information
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|"Hall of Fame" (2013)
Album Cover
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text:
Benghazi. Algeria. This is the ground where Americans have been killed by Islamist terrorists over the past four months. And so far, nothing has been done to avenge their deaths.
"Avenge." That's the word President Obama used when he spoke to the widow of Sean Smith after his murder in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012, as recounted by Michael Hastings in his bracing new book, Panic 2012.
It was a sentiment the president repeated the day after the attack to a campaign crowd in Nevada, saying: "We want to send a message to all around the world who would do us harm. No act of violence will shake the resolve of the United States of America … I want to assure you we will bring their killers to justice."
It is now late January. There has been no justice. There has been no vengeance. There have, of course, been accusations and congressional hearings. Political finger-pointing has been the preoccupation, but action has been lacking.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton more than held her own in the cross-examination from occasionally hostile senators and members of Congress. But one line of questioning revealed the weakness of the administration's response to date. Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) asked Clinton about the whereabouts of one of the prime suspects detained in Tunisia and even interviewed in the days after the Benghazi attack.
Here is what she said:
"We have been assured that he is under the monitoring of the [Tunisian] court. He was released, because at that time—and [FBI] Director [Robert] Mueller and I spoke about this at some length—there was not an ability for evidence to be presented yet that was capable of being presented in an open court. But the Tunisians have assured us that they are keeping an eye on him. I have no reason to believe he is not still in Tunis, but we are checking that all the time."
I think most Americans can be forgiven for doubting the suggestion that the Tunisian government is "keeping an eye" on the suspected killer of four State Department officials. This is the diplomatic equivalent of saying "the dog ate my homework."
Rational frustrations have nothing to do with the ghoulish, opportunistic outrage pumped up by hyperpartisans in the wake of the attack. But four months later, the lack of retaliation sends a dangerous message to our enemies: Americans can be killed with impunity. Such a message only encourages future aggression. Add to that the unrequited murders of four Americans working in Algeria.
Think back to al Qaeda attack on the USS Cole in the fall of 2000 that killed 17 American sailors and injured many more. There was no direct retaliation—only a lot of inconclusive inquiries. One year later, the attacks of 9/11 occurred. The atmosphere of impunity only encouraged aggression on our own soil.
I called the former commander of the Cole, Kirk Lippold, to get his take on the high-profile congressional inquiry with Clinton.
"There was never any kind of bold statement that we were going to hunt them down and kill them," he said, "which to me is a reflection of administration policies … We saw that pattern at the end of the Clinton administration and paid for it dearly at the start of the Bush administration."
"It's an impulse to develop evidence for a court case rather than a military action," Lippold said. "I experienced it firsthand [with the Clinton-administration inquiries]. We kept being told that we needed more evidence … They didn't want to admit that al Qaeda attacked the USS Cole.
"For years, back to the embassy attack in Beirut in 1983, Americans were willing to live with fellow Americans being killed, as long as it was overseas. That was up to and through the USS Cole. That mindset can't be allowed to exist in a post-9/11 world, whether it's one American or 100, and that has to be a clearly articulated foreign-policy objective."
In fairness, the Obama administration has developed a successful record of killing al Qaeda leadership, from Osama bin Laden on down. The White House has been relentless in deploying drones and surgically striking AQ leadership while winding down our boots on the ground. In many ways, Obama's strategic response has been more successful and sustainable than his predecessor's. But faced with the recent killings of Americans by al Qaeda offshoots in North Africa, the response has been confused—tough rhetoric combined with inconclusive results and unsteady resolve.
This matters. So much of geopolitics is a matter of credibility. Some forces, unfortunately, only understand the language of uncompromising strength. We supposedly learned that again after the attack on the USS Cole. But here we are, mourning American dead while their killers walk free. It makes us look weak. It undercuts the idea of justice. And every day that goes by makes justice more difficult to attain, as the attack recedes in the rearview mirror of history.
No doubt, that is not the intention of the Obama administration. But it is the effect. There is every reason to feel a sense of urgency. After four months, however, a sense of urgency seems to be absent. It is in the president's power to prove us all wrong and remind the word that America never forgets. But the clock is ticking, and every day the credibility gap grows.
We cannot know just how terrorists might be emboldened by the idea that they can kill Americans without painful retaliation. But it cannot be a positive precedent. Al Qaeda and its offshoots "do not have the operational planning capability right now to pull off a 9/11-type attack," said Lippold. "But if [the Obama administration] does nothing to respond to these attacks, they will regroup, find a safe haven, and then they will find that capacity, and they will come after us again."


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Sacramento "Ideal" org completed no more than 375 "Bridge steps" in a whole year. And that was "Highest Ever."
A Bridge step is defined as: "anything on the Bridge: Basics, Life Improvement Courses, Life Repair, Purification Rundown, Student Hat and on up, etc."
This is 7 completions per week. SEVEN. Including Life Improvement Courses. And this is an "ideal" org — an org that is "the best" and "dominated" in the "Ideal Org arena" (whatever that is…) with "massive upstats."
For a 10 million dollar plus investment, this is not much of a return. They could have paid 375 people $1000 a piece to come in and take a course and been WAY ahead of the game (might have even gotten some resigns and made more than their money back….)
More evidence that straight up and vertical is nowhere in sight.
The fundamentalist church of scientology is limp. No matter how many grand speeches Dear Leader delivers or how many times they tell the media about their "11,000 orgs and missions and under the leadership of Mr. Miscavige scientology is experiencing its greatest time of growth ever", the real story keeps leaking out (and to the sheeple who actually go into these buildings, it is staring them right in the face, but they have been brainwashed into believing what they see IS massive expansion — hence emails like the one below).
Limp orgs are limp.
Re: A Personal Letter to all of you from Virginia Jensen, ED Sacramento Foundation
Dear Friends,
I have not written a letter to you in awhile and felt that it was time to do so, and I have a plan I want to share with you. (Yes, it has everything to do with Sacramento Org winning the Birthday Game 2015).
Now, as you already know Sacramento Org is very well known for being The Best at whatever we put our minds to do and working as a team to accomplish it. We dominated in the Ideal Org arena, then our incredible Tech Team, now IAS. I say it is time to continue these massive upstats and also take the World Stage and win LRH's Birthday Game 2015!
In LRH's Birthday Game Program the very first target LRH gives us is:
So here is the game plan…
For LRH's Birthday 2015, which will be his 104th Birthday, we are going to complete 1004 Bridge steps in the Foundation Org!!! (A Bridge step is anything on the Bridge: Basics, Life Improvement Courses, Life Repair, Purification Rundown, Student Hat and on up, etc.). This would be unprecedented expansion and also over 3X of what we did last year, which was highest ever.
The only reason the Org and staff are here is for you to travel up the Bridge. We want to take this even more passionately this year and rocket you even faster up the Bridge! This is more real than ever with the release of Golden Age of Tech Phase II.
Please take a look in a new unit of time at what Bridge progress you want to accomplish this new LRH Birthday year. Remember LRH's advice:
If you need a technical consultation please contact the Deputy Executive Director, Elizabeth Smith, and she will get you scheduled. I would love to hear from you so please feel free to write to me.
Virginia Jensen
Executive Director
Sacramento Foundation


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What are the various formats/storage technologies which fall under the name Esri Geodatabase?
What are the most important differences between them?
and (briefly) what are the mainstream means to utilize them?
There are conversations all over the place about personal and file and enterprise and (?) geodatabases. These are each different beasts which need distinct handling, but there is a lot of confusion in the answers as to which means apply to which formats of geodatabases.
update: I should add that don't feel any single answer has to address the whole range of possibilities. It would be okay to say "the two single user gdb formats are personal and file gdb, they are appropriate for xxx, have these limits xxx, and the primary differences between them are xxx" etc.


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EA shutting down online services for least popular gamesBy Jose Vilches 27 comments
Electronic Arts has announced that it will shut down online servers for another round of games seeing little user activity over the next few weeks, including one that features the company's Online Pass initiative aimed at curbing second-hand game sales. The move means you'll no longer be able to use the online portion of affected titles on both Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, as well as their PC counterparts.
"As games get replaced with newer titles, the number of players still enjoying the older games dwindles to a level - fewer than 1% of all peak online players across all EA titles - where it's no longer feasible to continue the behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping these games up and running," reads the official statement.
The shutdown makes sense for the publisher from a financial and logistics point of view, as its resources are better spent on the other 99% of customers playing more popular games, but it is likely to irritate those who've paid money for an Online Pass to access the very same services that are being axed. In total, eleven games are going down on April 13. The full list, from EA's own website, includes:
- Boom Blox Bash Party for Wii
- Burnout Revenge for Xbox 360
- EA Create for PC, PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360
- EA Sports Active 2.0 for PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360
- EA Sports Active NFL Training Camp for Wii
- FIFA 10 for PlayStation Portable and Wii
- The Godfather II for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
- EA Sports MMA for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
- Need for Speed: ProStreet for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
- The Saboteur (loss of The Midnight Club access) for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
- Spare Parts for PlayStation 3 Xbox 360
The newest game on the list is Xbox Live Arcade title Spare Parts, which came out as recently as January 2011. EA Create, EA Sports Active 2.0, EA Sports Active NFL Training Camp, and EA Sports MMA were all released between October and November of 2010 while the rest are 2009 or older titles.
EA Sports MMA is the first game featuring EA's Online Pass to be shut down. The service lets new game owners enter a code for "premium" features and content, while those buying send-hand need to pay $10 to access the same content. Although EA Sports MMA was a high profile attempt to outdo THQ's UFC Undisputed, it wasn't exactly a sales success, and its promised sequel never materialized.
In other words, it hasn't been replaced with something new and the fact that some users may have bought an online pass less than a year and a half ago isn't stopping EA from axing online support for the game.
The company is also closing down the servers for its mobile games Battlefield 3: Aftershock, which only launched this February and promptly pulled from the Apple App Store, Fantasi Safari, and Ghost Harvest.


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Boloco CEO: Paying Higher Wages Is Worth It
As fast-food workers across the country are on strike Thursday, one restaurant CEO says he sees the value in paying workers a little more money.
Boloco CEO John Pepper, who oversees a chain of 22 burrito shops, tells FBN's Stuart Varney that he pays entry-level workers between $9.50 and $11 an hour.
While Pepper agrees that restaurants have traditionally made money by keeping labor costs down, he says paying employees more than the current minimum wage pays off in a more productive staff and attracts talented workers who can inspire loyalty in customers.
"It's a lot easier to keep wages down than it is to find better practices, bolder practices, more efficient practices, which come through training," says Pepper. "We're constantly looking for practices and ways to bring wages up."
For Pepper, paying his staff a good wage is in line with Boloco's values.
"We use the highest quality ingredients available -- responsibly raised meats, organics – and we're willing to pay more for that and for the humane treatment of animals," says Pepper.
"When we increase our prices because of that … customers say OK. But what about the people – what about paying for high-quality people?" he asks. "We're trying to work that into the balance."


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I help leaders of large organizations deliver on their commitments to high performance.
Before, during and after an Agile adoption like LeSS, SAFe, Scrum at Scale, DAD or any kind of Lean transformation, large organizations often find that they need to de-scale and simplify organizational structures and processes. I function as an Executive-level guide for companies approaching their second growth phase. Industry leaders in banking, insurance, telecommunications, healthcare, utilities, media and agriculture hire me to help remove obstacles in their path to innovation.
We address specific pain points in the system so upper-management can learn to enable emergent solutions. For example:
➸ Horizontal complexity - consolidating functions across the enterprise, growing highly effective cross functional teams
➸ Vertical complexity - shedding obsolete roles, layers and reporting structures in order for fast decision making and increased flexibility
➸ Spatial complexity - preparing distributed and remote teams for success, digital is in my genes
➸ Technical complexity - removing technical debt by decoupling, XP and DevOps practices, growing products instead of building them
My engagements with clients achieve greater organizational alignment with fewer dependencies left to manage. Transparency with access to good data ensures empirically-sound decision making. As a result, the system becomes leaner, more customer-centric and ready with each successive change wave to build its greatest products yet.
Do you want to unlock strengths inside your organization's culture to navigate new markets and technologies so you come out ahead of competition? Commitment to high performance means removing whatever stands in the way. Reach out to me - I bring intense curiosity to learn about your context and circumstances.
For companies that endure, simplicity brings its own rewards.
Co-Creator LeSS: Bas Vodde
Co-Creator LeSS: Craig Larman
Jurgen is one if the first Certified LeSS Trainers. He has a broad hands-on experience with LeSS adoptions from medical to telecom. One great thing about Jurgen is his broad knowledge and his ability to strengthen LeSS with other great ideas such as Innovation Games and Management 3.0
Jurgen has an extraordinary and sensitive ability to help people see, and to own their insights. That quality, combined with his deep experience that spans from large-scale organizational design to startups, is a wonderful and rather unique combination. I am honored that a person of his calibre has joined as one of the first LeSS trainers.
Creator Management 3.0: Jurgen Appelo
Creator of Innovation Games: Luke Hohmann
Jürgen is acting as a licensed trainer of my Management 3.0 courses and, according to his course evaluations, doing a great job at it. At several occasions I have referred my own customers to Jürgen, because I fully trust him to do a great job in teaching people the Agile way of management and leadership.
Jurgen is remarkable person. He is a terrific Innovation Games® / Agile Instructor, infusing his classes with a blend of immersive experiences and sound theory. He is also adept at Producing and Facilitating both online and in-person events, guiding organizations on how to leverage serious games to generate high-impact business results. I strongly recommend Jurgen for his work and his philanthropic contributions.


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Taylor Swift -- Charges Dropped Against Nashville Intruder
Taylor Swift Charges Dropped Against Nashville Intruder
A man arrested for trespassing on Taylor Swift's Nashville property earlier this month will skate -- TMZ has learned all criminal trespassing charges against the man were dropped.
As we reported, 24-year-old Jacob Kulke was busted on December 14th after allegedly hopping a fence near Taylor's property. Cops say he told them he was Taylor's BF, and had taken a bus from Wisconsin to be with the singer on her birthday.
But today, prosecutors decided not to pursue criminal charges against Kulke.
According to Kulke's attorney, one of the reasons he won't be prosecuted is because Swift's home did not have "No Trespassing" signs posted at the perimeter, leading Kulke to believe it would be okay to enter the property.
Another, more logical, reason ... Swift's family reportedly did not want to move forward with the case.


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Sound Recordings
The sound recordings in After the Day of Infamy: "Man-on-the-Street" Interviews Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor were taken from instantaneous disc recordings in the Library's collections or from preservation tapes when original discs were unavailable. The analog audio from the discs and tapes was converted to PCM digital audio and stored in the WAVE file format.
The preservation WAVE files were created at a sampling rate of 96,000 samples per second and 24-bit word length. A two-channel (stereo) file was created to preserve the disc's two groove walls despite the mono content of the original recording.
Three derivative copies of the recordings were created through a batch conversion process. Dual channel WAVE files were created at a sampling rate of 44,100 samples per second and 16-bit word length. MP3 and RealAudio files were created at a constant bit rate of 256 kilobits per second and a sampling rate of 44,100 samples per second.
Surface noise, clicks and pops, and distortion are inherent in the original discs. These recordings have not been restored and are presented in this manner to allow for maximum playback flexibility.
Manuscripts and Record Sleeves
Manuscript materials and record sleeves were scanned onsite in the ITS Digital Scan Center at the Library of Congress. A Powerphase FX overhead satellite scanner, made by Phase One, was used to digitize all of the items. All scans were done at 300 dpi resolution.


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Referral Line: 484-628-HELP
Reading Hospital: 484-628-8000
Toll Free: 1-866-988-4377
Reading Health System Menu
Request an Appointment
Health Library
For most people, medicines can control partial seizures. But there are several types of partial seizures, so it may take some time to find the best medicines for you. Your healthcare provider may try several kinds of medicines at varying doses before finding what works best for you. You can help make medicines a success by following these suggestions.
Don't be afraid to talk to your healthcare provider about your medicines. Speaking up is the only way your provider can know if your medicine is working right. Be sure to tell your provider if:
You are still having seizures. Keep a seizure calendar to accurately keep track of your seizures.
You notice any side effects from the medicine.
You are taking any other medicines—even over-the-counter ones.
It's always important to be under the regular care of a healthcare provider if you have a seizure disorder.
Try some of these ideas to make it easier to remember to take medicine:
Set a watch or clock to go off when it's time for the next dose.
Keep medicine with things you use routinely. Store it near your makeup, toothbrush, or coffee mug, for example.
Use a pillbox to count out all the pills you need for a week.
Ask family, friends, or coworkers to remind you when it's time to take a dose.
Consider a phone or Internet-based app that reminds you to take your medicine.
Keep your medicines out of reach from children.
You need a certain level of medicine in your blood at all times. This way, when a seizure happens, your body is ready for it. Never skip a dose or stop taking your medicine without your healthcare provider knowing. Doing so could result in serious consequences. It's quite common for people with epilepsy to miss a single dose once in a while. Often nothing bad happens, but your chance of having a seizure may be higher. Missing 1 dose is more likely to cause seizures if you're scheduled to take your medicine only once a day. Then if you miss a dose, you've missed a full day of medicine. If you take it 2 to 4 times a day, the risk from missing 1 dose is less. But if you miss several doses in a row, the likelihood of a breakthrough seizure will be higher. So take all precautions to ensure that you take your medicine on time.


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One of the perks of entrepreneurship is that you get to decide when and where you work. A desk, a beach, your kitchen table: it's your call.
That's why we're always trying to make it easier for you to manage your business anytime, anywhere, with the Shopify app for iOS and Android.
Now, in addition to everything else you can do to run your business from your phone, our Canadian and American merchants can add shipping to the list. The Shopify app now supports buying and printing shipping labels from your phone.
You can create and print labels immediately, or save them to print later, and you can manage your entire shipping workflow from the palm of your hand.
You also get full access to everything you currently use in Shopify Shipping, including our low rates with supported carriers (UPS, DHL Express, USPS, and Canada Post) directly in the Shopify app.
Simplify your workflow
Before this update, you could mark orders as fulfilled in the app, but you'd need to stop by your desk for the rest of the process. Helpful when you're trying to clean up small administrative to-dos, but nothing close to being able to manage your shipping workflow on the go.
Now, instead of having to use a computer to purchase and print your shipping labels, you can complete the process anywhere. No more making notes of tasks you need to wrap up when you get back to your desk, or waiting to get shipping labels created. Whether you're using it yourself, or training your team, it's easy to get started.
Fulfill from anywhere
Getting an order notification is a great feeling, no matter where you are (cha-ching!). Now, as soon as the order comes in, you can quickly create a shipping label and pay for it from your phone.
- Pick an order and tap "Create shipping label"
- Choose your carrier and shipping service
- Buy a shipping label and print!
Your phone will automatically detect nearby printers using AirPrint or Google Cloud Print. No installation required.
Get access to the brand-new Brother Printer.
Brother launched a wireless label printer, and Shopify merchants can start using it right now. If you're using an Apple device, you can order the printer now. (We're working on support for Android phones!)Get access to the new wireless Brother Printer
Deliver great customer service
When you can manage your shipping anywhere, you and your customers both win. Now that you can print labels without tripping over wires, you can get them taken care of in record time—and your customers will notice.
"Sometimes printing the labels is something I want to take care of quickly, so the email gets sent to my customers. I'll often print the labels before going to bed so customers know I've processed the order, then pack and ship the next day," says Chris, co-founder of Craigmont Standard Goods.
Start Shipping On Mobile
To get started fulfilling orders from your phone, all you need to do is download or update the Shopify app for iOS or Android. You'll be able to access all of your new Shopify Shipping functionality right away.


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Burton Girls: Fall Lookbook Shoot
04 October 2012, 20.23 | Posted in Fashion, Photography, Travel | No comments »
A little while back I had the privilege of venturing up to the Oregon coast with some of the Burton crew to do a shoot for their Fall lookbook and the relaunch of BurtonGirls.com. Seeing as their new site just went live, I figured I would give you a preview of my day exploring the woods and the shore with team riders Gabi Viteri, Kimmy Fasani, and Hannah Teter. It is always cool working with Burton seeing as they are like family, but it was especially rad to do this shoot with an all girl crew from the talent, to the stylists, filmer, and producers. Be sure to check out the full lookbook here and click around the rest of the site to see what these lovely ladies have in store for you.
More photos and a video from the day after the jump.


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NFL Street Cheats :
This cheat for NFL Street [Game Cube] has been posted at 30 Apr 2005 by Unregistered and is called "Cheats - All stadiums". If cheat is usable don't forgot thumbs up Unregistered and share this with your freinds. And most important we have 7 other cheats for NFL Street, look them as soon as possible!
Cheats - All stadiums
by Unregistered Apr 30, 2005
Normally when you try to exit the ladder screen, it erases your ladder status. However, if you turn off your GameCube at the ladder screen, you can turn it on again and play the game as usual. When you select your NFL challenge team, it will take you to the ladder screen with all of your beaten games.
NFL Street Cheats:
Sorry, to fulfil this action you have to be CheatsGuru User
Login/register with FaceBook!
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By David Crane defrev (at) gmail (dot) com April 7, 2010 Updated 4/09/10 Looks like nuclear weapons aren't the only thing the Iranian government is after. Apparently, they've also got a penchant for speedboats, specifically high-tech, very expensive speedboats. Multiple news sources are reporting that the Iranians have surreptitiously acquired a "James Bond-style" fast mover called the Bladerunner 51 / Bradstone …Read More »
Tag Archives: sig 516 reviews
A Tale of Two Custom Mid-Length AR Carbines: The Frankengun (Frankencarbine) Project
By David Crane defrev (at) gmail (dot) com All photos contained in this article were taken by DefenseReview.com, and are copyrighted. DefenseReview.com owns the copyright on these photos. The photos were shot with a Canon PowerShot S90 10-megapixel digital camera (still camera with video capability). February 23, 2010 DefenseReview plans to run two custom-built tactical AR carbines (AR-15 carbines) through …Read More »
SIG SAUER SIG516 Short-Stroke Gas Piston/Op-Rod Tactical AR (AR-15) Weapons Series
By David Crane defrev (at) gmail (dot) com September 21, 2009 Updated May 31, 2010 Back in June, DefenseReview published an article on the Ruger SR-556 piston AR. Well, it's now official: Everyone AND their mother is now making short-stroke gas piston/op-rod AR (AR-15) carbines and SBRs (Short Barreled Rifles). SIG SAUER has just entered the game with their SIG516 …Read More »


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"Laser" is actually an acronym for Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation. A surgical laser, like the CO2 laser, emits a beam of light to remove scars, lines or other imperfect skin tissue. The radiation bursts vaporize skin cells and are then absorbed by water in the cells. The bloodless procedure is safe and controlled, allowing the laser light to penetrate a very precise area and lower the risks for scarring or pigmentation issues. Laser skin resurfacing is performed in the office using light sedation.
An alternative to more invasive chemical peels or dermabrasion, laser resurfacing involves less pain and quicker recovery time. It is also typically less expensive than these other options. This procedure is beneficial in both men and women for reducing acne scars, small wrinkles, sun damage and other flaws, especially around the mouth and eyes.
Your initial appointment with Dr. Your Last Name(s) will include an explanation of your skin diagnosis and treatment options. Most often, treatment is performed during a subsequent appointment after a complex medical history and evaluation are completed at the consultation. Bring the following information to your first appointment: list of current medications, surgical referral slip and X-rays if applicable (which may be brought with you to the consultation or forwarded by your physician), and necessary completed forms if you have medical insurance. Alert the office if you have any medical conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, rheumatic fever, artificial heart valve and joints, or other issues that might cause concern prior to surgery. Remember that all patients under age 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
If you choose laser skin resurfacing, Dr. Your Last Name(s) will discuss your skin goals and fully explain the appropriate procedure for you. You will also learn exactly what to expect during the process and the anticipated costs. Often, your skin will be pretreated before the procedure to improve recovery time. During the procedure, a local anesthetic will be administered so that you are completely comfortable. If IV anesthesia will be used, a pre-operative consultation is mandatory. Do not eat or drink anything 8 hours before the procedure, and arrange an adult to drive you home afterwards. To perform the procedure, the targeted area of your face will be cleansed and draped before Dr. Your Last Name(s) directs the laser beam toward your skin. The outermost skin layers, about four to five cells thick, will be accurately and quickly vaporized.
Only one laser skin resurfacing treatment is typically required to achieve your goals. Initial redness will fade to a light pink within a few weeks, and is easily concealed with makeup. Any skin discoloration dissipates in one to three months, leaving you with an improved facial appearance. Keep in mind that realistic results are skin improvements as opposed to complete corrections. Factors like your age, skin condition, heredity as well as the location, shape and size of the flaws will all impact laser resurfacing results.
Although complications are rare, please call drName office and explain any issues to our receptionist. An immediate appointment may be scheduled under our policy of 24-hour emergency coverage to best serve your emergency needs.


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WASHINGTON—After more than five decades of tireless work, brave exploration, and technological innovation aimed at a single objective, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced Wednesday that it had finally completed its mission to find and kill God.
"I am ecstatic to tell you all today that we have beheld the awesome visage of the supreme architect of the cosmos, and we have murdered Him," jubilant administrator Charles Bolden said after being drenched with champagne by other celebrating NASA employees. "There have been innumerable setbacks, missteps, and hardships over the past 50 years, but we always stayed true to our ultimate goal and we never gave up."
"We finally got the son of a bitch!" Bolden continued. "He's dead! God is dead!"
According to officials, God was killed this morning on the moon by a highly trained team of seven astronauts. He was reportedly lured into a trap after coming into contact with the Voyager 2 probe, which was transmitting a false message that NASA wanted to broker a truce with God on "neutral ground."
"One of our lunar rovers captured an image of God at approximately 2100 hours last night, and we immediately launched a vessel manned by our best assassins," said Richard Egan, Mission Control Chief at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "After exiting the lunar lander, the astronauts approached God under the false pretense of peace, but He must have sensed something was amiss and fled. Our men gave chase in a moon buggy, finally overtaking Him in a crater where He was subdued after several minutes of violent hand-to-hand combat."
Egan told reporters that it took as many as five highly trained astronauts to fully restrain the Supreme Being. He also confirmed that three of the astronauts sent to kill God were badly injured, but were expected to recover.
"He was damn fast. And strong—as strong as anyone I've ever engaged," said Captain Trevor Sullivan, the astronaut who, after his weary team dragged a bloodied and beaten God back to the lunar module, executed Him with a single gunshot to the head. "He fought like a wild animal, and the fact that He's omnipotent really worked against us. But we know a few tricks ourselves, and after all was said and done, we took Him down for good."
"Gotta give Him credit, though, God was defiant right up until the end. Scrappy bastard spit right in my face just before I pulled the trigger," added Sullivan, smiling.
NASA was founded in 1958 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower for the express purpose of locating and assassinating God. By 1969, it had completed a successful lunar landing, bringing mankind that much closer to neutralizing the Almighty. It was in that year that U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first to step on the moon, and uttered the legendary phrase, "Where are you, God, you fucking faggot? Come and get me!"
Over the years, officials told reporters, God had proved to be an elusive and formidable foe. In 1986, He destroyed the Challenger shuttle, killing all seven crew members, including Christa McAuliffe, a special operative who had been given orders to seduce and then strangle God with garrote wire. The Lord subsequently blew up the Columbia Destroyer Shuttle on reentry in 2003, and several times sabotaged the Hubble Space Telescope, a large piece of surveillance equipment launched into orbit in 1990 to monitor His activities.
"I can't tell you how many times God gave us the slip," NASA aerospace engineer David Williamson said. "We learned pretty quickly that you couldn't underestimate Him, not for a second. He was an unbelievably intelligent and resourceful enemy, and if you made even the smallest mistake, you can bet He'd make you pay for it."
Sullivan's begrudging respect for God was echoed by many other NASA officials and employees. Though most have spent the majority of their adult lives working toward killing God, a certain reverence for the deceased deity pervaded NASA headquarters.
"It's ironic that despite all of the technological advances and powerful weapons we've made, it was God's trusting and compassionate nature that was His final undoing," said Buzz Aldrin, a former astronaut who ripped out pages of the Bible on the moon's surface in an effort to enrage God and draw Him out of hiding. "I mean, you've really got to hand it to Him. He gave us one hell of a fight."
"I only wish it had been me personally who got to pull the trigger on that cocksucker," Aldrin added.


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Dan's Papers Photo Contest
The photo featured above is none other than the grand prize winner of the first set of Dan's Papers photo contests. Photographer Jacques LeBlanc first won our August 2021 contest for his photo "The Flag Barn" which earned him a $100 gift certificate to Calissa in Water Mill and a chance at the first set's grand prize of becoming a Dan's Papers cover artist. All first set winners submitted a second round of photos for cover consideration, and LeBlanc's "The Big Duck" was chosen for the February 25, 2022 cover.
Now, get ready, local shutterbugs, because the next photo contest of the second set has begun! Each contest brings a fresh theme, a fabulous prize and a chance to be honored as a Dan's Papers cover artist! The current theme can only be found in the photo pages of Dan's Papers or the most recent digital edition in our issue archive at DansPapers.com/read-the-paper-online.
Sound good? Read the rules below to enter.
Up to 5 preferably high-res photos (no paintings, digital illustrations, etc.), each including your name in the file name, must be sent to [email protected] with this month's email subject by this month's cutoff date, both found only in the photo pages of Dan's Papers. The winner will be announced in the following issue, so no late submissions will be accepted. Select runners-up will run in subsequent issues.
All photos must also be taken on the East End (Hamptons, North Fork and Shelter Island) and submitted by the photographer who took them. The contest is open to both amateur and professional photographers. Please include a little about yourself, some info about the photo (title, location, subject, etc.) and cut/paste the following written release statement with your submission: "By entering this contest and submitting photos, I acknowledge that Dan's Papers (Schneps Media) is granted permission to post and print the attached images and their likeness with relation to the photo contest in print, online and on our social media."
Keep reading Dan's Papers and DansPapers.com for announcements of each next contest theme and its corresponding dates and email subject for entry.
Best of luck, photographers!


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Glass Chopping Board – Wild Garlic During Golden Hour – Shorwell
Bring a splash of colour and style to your kitchen workspace with a high quality glass chopping board. Chopping boards have a textured surface, are super hard wearing, heat resistant and come complete with anti-slip rubber feet.
Visit the Prints & Gifts section for product images.
Quality Item and Quality service. Impressed with the communication also. Thank you so much Chad Powell.
Brought for a Christmas present & I'm sure there going to love it as much as I do


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I'm up to my old tricks again, picking up bargain furniture for cheap at the Goodwill thrift store, and transforming into something better for my home.
Some of you might actually like the "Before" and I have to tell you, I did too, but it was terribly scratched up at the base and on top, and for fifteen dollars, I felt no guilt in painting it. The finish was also a speckled stain you see on a lot of old furniture, and up close it looked very old fashioned. So I decided to paint it white for my daughter's room because it was the perfect size for a narrow wall.
It was a bit more challenging this time, because the piece was heavily varnished, and had a lot of paneling that required more attention.
How to Paint Heavily Varnished Wood Furniture:
Medium grade sandpaper
Disposable paper mask
Oil based primer and brush
Paint color of choice
Wipe on polycrylic
Step One: Sand with medium grade sandpaper to remove most of your varnish if possible. Make sure to wear a disposable mask, or you will end up inhaling microscopic dust – no thank you ! Wipe off dust with moist wipes and allow to dry completely.
Step Two: Cover entire piece with primer. In my opinion, oil based primer is more durable and provides stronger coverage than water based primer. When dealing with heavily varnished furniture, you absolutely must use primer. Allow it to dry completely. I like to use cheap brushes with oil based primer and dispose of them when done instead of cleaning them since clean up with mineral spirits is no fun.
Step Three: Cover your piece with two coats of paint. It's my experience that one coat never covers completely. You'll be glad you did two coats, especially when using a white or light shade of paint.
I chose to use a brush application of paint instead of a spray application because of all of the paneling involved. Sometimes when you use spray paint, you get drips, and it's really tricky to go back and correct them without causing streaking in your spray paint job. When you use a brush, you can easily correct drips. Allow both coats of paint to dry completely.
Step Four: Add a coat of wipe on polycrylic to protect your paint and your hard work.
I chose to "wallpaper" the back of this cabinet with some inexpensive wrapping paper I found on clearance. Just a little double sided tape is all you need.
I also splurged with my Restoration Hardware gift card, and purchased two glass knobs for the cabinet to match her room's decor and add a little sparkle. I love just these.
I had very big plans of using this piece for a sensible storage solution for books and toys. My "client" has made other plans. I've been informed that this cabinet is now a home for all things furry. Otherwise known as a "critter condo".
Some "clients" just have a different vision. Oh well. :)


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This scene of an approaching owl is not a video. It's a still image. Seriously. One still image manipulated to appear like a video scene. In fact, each scene in the following video is made from one photo only. It's unbelievable.
How did they achieve this incredible feat?
Make Productions turned still photos from the World Wildlife into a short movie that looks more like a documentary about nature shot with traditional movie cameras. Except it's not.
They processed each still photo in Photoshop, separating different elements on their own layers—parts of the background, elements of the figures, etc. Then they imported these still layers to After Effects, where they animated them in layers, moving them at sightly different speeds to achieve a parallax effect—since objects closer to the viewer appear to move faster than objects faraway, this makes your brain think the camera is moving in 3D space. It's the same parallax effect they used in old video games, when true 3D was still not available.
Then they applied some subtle deformation to some elements of the image (like the wings of that owl) to give the illusion of actual movement. Add some clever editing and boom, you think you are watching actual video captures.
I told you. Magic!
Here's a video that explains it better:


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JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (Feb. 7, 2009) - Well aware that they were facing one of only two teams to beat them in Atlantic Sun Conference play this season, the ETSU Buccaneers produced their best offensive game of the season and rolled to a 102-78 win over Florida Gulf Coast Saturday afternoon in front of 4,045 fans at Memorial Center.
The win avenged a 64-61 loss to the Eagles earlier this season, and moved the Bucs to 17-6 overall, 11-2 in A-Sun play. With Jacksonville's 72-71 loss to Mercer earlier in the day, ETSU now holds sole possession of first place in the conference standings.
"We've talked all year about the Big Three and when they are on how we can score points - and tonight we saw that," said ETSU head coach Murry Bartow. "I thought we had a great week of practice and that led to this. It's a good win for us especially after not playing well against them down there."
ETSU's "Big Three" - seniors Courtney Pigram (Memphis) and Kevin Tiggs (Memphis), and junior Mike Smith (Vandalia, Mo.) - were certainly on their game in this contest. Smith collected his third straight double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds, while Tiggs posted a game high 29 points on 9-of-12 shooting. Pigram finished with 27 points, moving his career scoring clip to 1,874 and overtaking former ETSU great Calvin Talford for fourth place on the all-time scoring list.
The first half did not start out in a good way for the Buccanners, as the Eagles used some pinpoint 3-point shooting to shred the ETSU man-to-man defense and build a 23-15 lead with 13 minutes left in the half. However, from there the Bucs changed to a 2-3 zone and clamped down defensively, allowing just one field goal over the next six minutes and kicking up the offense on a 21-4 run that ended with the Bucs holding a 36-27 advantage.
ETSU didn't let up at that point, outscoring FGCU 16-8 the rest of the half to post its best offensive first half of the year and lead 52-35 at the break. In the first 20 minutes, the Bucs shot 57 percent from the field and were 58 percent from 3-point range, while holding the Eagles to just 27 percent shooting. The Bucs outrebounded FGCU 24-18 in the first half.
The second half was more of the same for the Bucs, as ETSU posted another 50 points in 20 minutes of play and shot 48 percent from the field. Ultimately, the Bucs out-rebounded FGCU 47-38 and forced 17 turnovers by the Eagles. ETSU shot 52 percent from the field and an impressive 50 percent from 3-point range in the victory.
For FGCU, Reed Baker and Reggie Chambers had 18 points apiece, while Derrik O'Neil added 10.
ETSU will return to action Monday night at 7 p.m., hosting A-Sun foe Stetson in Memorial Center. For more on ETSU men's basketball, visit ETSUBucs.com and click on the men's basketball link.


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Republican Presidential hopefuls Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney have reached a critical point in the election season. A do or die moment. They've both made an intractable decision that will impact their legacies forever: they've picked their Secret Service code names. And both of them are delightfully, obliviously phallic.
GQ revealed that the two frontrunners for the GOP Presidential nomination have chosen for themselves nicknames that would get them laughed right out of a middle school cafeteria. Rick Santorum, that Allegheny Holy Roller, has chosen "Petrus," a biblical reference to Peter, the founder of the Church that both doubles as slang for "cock" and adequately represents the candidate's staggering delusions of grandeur. He's founding America: The Church! and we're all invited and if we don't go we'll be stoned to death! Per Petrus!
Mitt Romney has chosen Javelin as his nickname, which is a reference to the name of a car model manufactured by the company of which his father was the CEO. It's also a long straight thing that high school track athletes sometimes put between their legs while making a humping motion to the delight of their teammates.
In most cases, candidates and their families are assigned nicknames rather than given the option to choose. In 2008, John McCain was called "Phoenix" by his Secret Service detail. Nancy Reagan was known as "Rainbow." Bill Clinton was known as "Eagle," and the current First Family is known as "Renegade" (Barack), "Renaissance" (Michelle), "Radiance" (Malia), and "Rosebud" (Sasha). Meghan McCain was known as "Peter Sellers" on the 2008 campaign trail. Todd and Sarah Palin were known as Driller and Denali, respectively. I hope against hope that Todd didn't choose "Driller" for himself, because that makes huge crowds of people shouting "Drill Baby Drill!" at Sarah seem even more pornographic.
Code names aren't actually necessary anymore in the age of encrypted messages, and thus talking about them isn't actually putting anyone in danger. Even though the practice is now obsolete, he Secret Service has held onto the tradition because it's entertaining and gives us another reason to make fun of Rick Santorum.
Exclusive: GQ Reveals Romney's and Santorum's Secret Service Code Names [GQ]


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Was Adolf Hitler Leader or Follower?
Hitler: A Biography
By Ian Kershaw
W.W. Norton, 1,030 pages, $25.95
Hitler's Hangman: The Life of Heydrich
By Robert Gerwarth
Yale University Press, 336 pages, $35
Heinrich Himmler: A Life
By Peter Longerich
Oxford University Press, 1,072 pages, $34.95
Those who can, make history; those who can't, write history; those who can't write history write biography.
This, at least, was once the attitude of professional historians toward biography. Biography was either too narrow (oblivious to the great sweep of political, social, economic and intellectual changes), too shallow (one cannot begin to plumb the complexities of an era through the life of one person), too presumptuous (surely no one believes that one person, no matter how powerful, can actually inflect the course of history) or too trivial (more or less the above three criticisms combined).
Read the Forward's story about the new volume of the Holocaust encyclopedia.
But the disdain for biography among historians has itself become history. Most of us now recognize the merits of biography; more important, we also recognize the breadth of its appeal. One need only visit a Barnes & Noble to confirm biographer Paula Backscheider's observation that the "last literary genre to be read by a very wide cross-section of people is biography."
Samuel Johnson, the subject of the first modern biography — and no mean biographer himself — best expressed this attraction. He claimed that biography is the most useful of literary undertakings: We see our own struggles in the lives of fellow human beings. "We are all prompted," he wrote, "by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure."
Do all struggles share these ties, though? Would Johnson, in other words, have extended his remarks to Adolf Hitler, the author of "My Struggle," better known by its original title, "Mein Kampf," along with those whose horrifying careers he made possible?
Backscheider devotes an entire chapter to the relation between biographers and their subjects in her authoritative "Reflections on Biography." She notes the occasional affinities between the biographer and subject, but more frequently commercial incentives and professional ambitions. As a result, biographers "write the lives of people they consider monsters or repellant human beings." Yet, almost as if determined not to look too deeply, Backscheider quickly returns to more admirable biographical subjects. Hitler gets precisely one mention in her work.
And yet there are hundreds of Hitler biographies — enough to spawn meta-biographies, books like Ron Rosenbaum's "Explaining Hitler," in which the author interviews historians, as well as theologians and philosophers, who have written on Hitler. For Rosenbaum, the endless stream of works on the Nazi leader reflects a "persistent anxiety that Hitler has somehow escaped explanation." His many interlocutors seem to agree: Historian H.R. Trevor-Roper, one of the earliest biographers of Hitler, confesses that his subject "remains a frightening mystery," while Alan Bullock, author of "Hitler: A Study in Tyranny," concedes: "The more I learn about Hitler, the harder I find it to explain."
Another tough-minded Brit, the late Tony Judt, took a slightly different tack. In "Thinking the Twentieth Century," the series of conversations he held over the course of 2009 with historian Timothy Snyder, Judt remarked that former communists often make the best commentators and historians of communism. "We have never quite lost the sense that… you cannot fully appreciate the shape of the 20th century if you did not once share its illusions, and the communist illusion in particular." But he refused to extend this observation to Nazism: "The choice made by prominent Germans in 1933 to welcome the Nazis… is not intelligible to us today, except as an act of human cowardice." Judt argues that this unintelligibility derives from the utter impoverishment of Nazi thought: "I simply cannot think of a single Nazi intellectual whose reasoning holds up as an interesting historical account of 20th-century thought."
And yet, the best biographers of such figures as Hitler or Himmler must do what Milton did for hell in "Paradise Lost": make "darkness visible."
All three of the biographies under review — Ian Kershaw's "Hitler" (Norton, 2008), Peter Longerich's recent "Heinrich Himmler" (Oxford, 2012) and Robert Gerwarth's "Hitler's Hangman: The Life of Heydrich" (Yale University Press, 2011) — act on Milton's imperative. After more than 2,000 pages of text, and immense scholarly effort, do they succeed? The answer is a qualified yes.
"You've established a wonderful thing here with Hitler…. Nobody on the faculty of any college or university in this part of the country can so much as utter the word Hitler without a nod in your direction…. He is now your Hitler, Gladney's Hitler…. You've evolved an entire system around this figure, a structure with countless substructures and interrelated fields of study, a history within history. I marvel at the effort…. It's what I want to do with Elvis."
Murray Suskind, a character in Don DeLillo's novel "White Noise," thus sums up his colleague Jack Gladney's department of Hitler studies, at College-on-the-Hill. Suskind's observation, of course, captures how the American academy, just like our media, manages to grind everything, sinister or silly, sublime or sordid, into a vast cultural stew. Oddly, though, Suskind's remark also captures an unsettling parallel between Jack's own bureaucracy, made of countless substructures and interrelated fields of authority, and the Nazi state portrayed in the biographies by Kershaw, Gerwarth and Longerich.
Ian Kershaw may have trumped Gladney. In this single-volume version of an earlier two-volume set — "Hitler: 1889–1936: Hubris" and "Hitler: 1936–1945: Nemesis" — Kershaw has made Hitler his own. In his effort to whittle down the two volumes, Kershaw had to carve out more than 650 pages, along with the scholarly apparatus, from the earlier works. For scholar and nonscholar alike, the result is remarkable: In the surviving 900 or so pages, Kershaw creates a complex and compelling account of Hitler.
But the complexity results less from plumbing Hitler's character than from casting Hitler in a nuanced reconstruction of the regime he created. Kershaw readily concedes that Hitler was an "extraordinary personality." But personality alone simply fails to explain how "such a bizarre misfit [could] ever have been in a position to take power in Germany, a modern, complex, economically developed, culturally advanced country." Kershaw thus turns to Max Weber's notion of "charismatic personality": an individual who, at a critical moment in the nation's history, seems to reflect those qualities that promise national salvation. In other words, Hitler can no more be grasped outside the context of interwar Germany than interwar Germany can be understood without Hitler.
Viennese satirist Karl Kraus famously said about Hitler that he had nothing to say — an insight Kershaw develops at epic length. Hitler's inner life? Kershaw argues there was no private self, but a self that flourished only in the public arena of political activity. For Kershaw, Hitler is an "unperson": Outside of politics, Hitler's life was "largely a void." This would pose a problem not just for Johnson, but nearly all of us, as well: The stuff of biography, after all, is the rapport between the public and private lives of the subject. What happens, then, when a biographer concludes that his subject had no private life to speak of? When what is most striking, as Kershaw claims about Hitler, is the great gulf between his public persona and "the emptiness of what was left of an existence outside politics"?
On the one hand, this assessment is chilling: It is easier to come to grips with a monster than with a vacuum. On the other hand, it allows Kershaw to shift the traditional focus of biography. Rather than setting off on the futile pursuit of an inner Hitler, Kershaw chose to write a "history of his power," a history that embeds Hitler in the society that allowed him to obtain and exercise his power.
Such a conception dovetails neatly with the so-called functionalist thesis: namely, the claim made by a growing number of historians that rather than an omnipotent and omniscient Führer leading the Nazi state, the Nazi state was, if not precisely leading the Führer, trying to anticipate him. This process of acting on wishes rather than following explicit commands was oiled by the regime's dizzying flowchart of overlapping ministries, parallel bureaucracies and endlessly multiplying offices.
By the late 1930s, Kershaw asserts, the "person" Hitler was disappearing "more and more into the role of the almighty and omniscient Leader," largely confining his role — with the exception of military strategy — to pronouncements and prophecies. The sprawl of agencies that had sprouted under his aegis then competed with one another to divine and act on these utterances. In the phrase Kershaw plucks from a speech given by a Nazi functionary, they sought to "work towards the Führer."
The effects were no less horrific than if Hitler had actually micromanaged the Nazi state. This holds true, Kershaw argues, even (perhaps especially) for the implementation of the Final Solution. Kershaw takes great pains to recreate Hitler's youthful experiences as a soldier in World War I and as a bohemian in postwar Vienna, and his immersion in the city's cesspool of anti-Semitism. "Mein Kampf," written in prison in 1924, reflects the summa of Hitler's racialist worldview, imbued with the conviction that "Aryans" and "Semites" were engaged in a life-or-death struggle. He had nothing more to add, or subtract, from this worldview until the very end, when he attributed his defeat to a global Jewish conspiracy, then blew his brains out in the Berlin bunker.
In this respect, Kershaw's portrait of Hitler is familiar. But it is the way he frames the portrait that causes consternation in some quarters. On the subject of the Jewish genocide, Kershaw does not mince words: "Hitler's role had been decisive and indispensable in the road to the 'Final Solution'…. Without Hitler, and the unique regime he headed, the creation of a program to bring about the physical extermination of the Jews of Europe would have been unthinkable."
Yet, though Hitler's role was crucial, Kershaw also claims it was "at times indirect. He states that "Hitler's broad sanction was needed. But for the most part, little more was required." In his meticulous account, Kershaw makes clear that the escalating violence aimed at German Jews during the 1930s was not solely Hitler's doing. Instead, he asserts, the "accelerated disintegration of any semblance of collective government, the undermining of legality by an ever-encroaching and ever-expanding police executive, and the power ambitions of an increasingly autonomous SS leadership all played important parts."
The agency of Nazi agencies, particularly the SS, becomes even more striking once Hitler plunges the world into war. No less striking is the improvisational nature of the Nazis' Jewish policy following Operation Barbarossa — Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union. It was, Kershaw argues, only during the months following the start of this plunge eastward that "out of the contradictions and lack of clarity of anti-Jewish policy, a program to kill all the Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe began to take concrete shape."
For historians of Nazi Germany, chronology is eschatology. Both Robert Gerwarth and Peter Longerich begin their biographies with the deaths of their subjects. Himmler died in British captivity after biting into a cyanide tablet while Heydrich died in an ambush on his car by Czech partisans. (Kershaw, on the other hand, begins 13 years before Hitler's birth — when his father, Alois Schicklgruber, changed his name to Hitler — and raises the intriguing question of whether our names are our destiny.) Himmler and Heydrich's respective deaths, of course, reflect the nature of their lives. They are, in dramatic terms, good deaths.
But the eschatological question goes much deeper. So much of our understanding of the Holocaust — not just historical, but moral, as well — pivots on the questions of dates: in particular, when the decision was made to "solve" once and for all the Jewish question and to determine what part Hitler played in this decision. The earlier the date, the clearer Hitler's role; the later the date, the dimmer.
Longerich and Gerwarth offer similar answers to these questions: The crucial date is in early 1942, while Himmler and Heydrich were, if not the cause, at the very least the architects of the Final Solution. Tellingly, in life as in death, the two men had much in common: They came from middle-class backgrounds, boasted mediocre characters and were miserable failures in finding a profession. As youths, both men dealt with serious handicaps — Himmler's deep insecurity with women, Heydrich's alleged Jewish ancestry — and both turned to the Nazi Party as a surrogate for the armed forces, from which both were discharged.
No less critical, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or NSDAP, as the Nazi Party is known, offered not just a worldview, but also a career. This was no small lure for Himmler, who was working as an administrative assistant at a fertilizer factory when he joined the NSDAP in 1924. Himmler then blazed his own career path within the NSDAP with the SS — an organization that made Heydrich an offer he apparently couldn't refuse when, in 1931, his naval career sank.
This is one of the most disconcerting elements of both biographies: Himmler and Heydrich, along with the great majority of those who joined the SS, were careerists. This is not to say they were not anti-Semitic: They were, rabidly so. But fanatical anti-Semitism was also a good career move in Nazi Germany. As Gerwarth writes, Himmler and Heydrich, primed by the same mix of pseudo-science and potted history as was Hitler, saw life in terms of struggle, "in which the enemy was to be fought mercilessly, not out of cruelty or hatred, but out of the 'objective' biological necessity of winning the struggle of peoples for the survival of the fittest." Needless to say, the enemy was the Jew.
Ultimately, neither account ever makes clear which came first: professional ambition or ideological conviction. But even if we could tell, would it change our understanding of these men and what they wrought? What we do learn is already enough: With an admixture of motivations, Himmler and Heydrich were essential players in this appalling history. Longerich rightly rejects earlier efforts to describe Himmler as a mere bureaucrat. Instead, he created that very bureaucracy, gaining a "position of power geared completely to himself personally and defined by his specific predilections and peculiarities." As for Heydrich, not only did he hitch his wagon to the Third Reich, but he also whipped it furiously along its path. For Gerwarth, Heydrich was no more a "faceless bureaucrat" than Himmler was for Longerich:
He played a decisive role in developing and promoting the notion of an illusive (sic) conglomerate of political and racial enemies that could be defeated only by an ever-expanding terror apparatus that was unconfined by any laws.
That all three historians are at pains to assign full responsibility to their biographical subjects reflects the core historical debate between functionalists and intentionalists. For intentionalists like Lucy Dawidowicz and Daniel Goldhagen, World War II was "a war against the Jews." More specifically, it was Hitler's war, one that he had decided on as early as 1919. There are, of course, other intentionalists who also portray Hitler as the "decider" behind the Holocaust, but situate the fatal decision later. Richard Breitman, for example, identifies May 1941 — shortly before the invasion of Russia, in other words — as the moment when Hitler decides to answer, once and for all, the Jewish question.
Functionalists like Kershaw, Longerich and Gerwarth instead argue that Hitler did not make the decision; decisions were made. The passive construction is crucial: the Final Solution, it implies, was not Hitler's decision but the many decisions made by competing power centers in Nazi Germany, all attempting to divine and realize the wishes of the Führer. Moreover, they were engaged in this competition in the rapidly changing circumstances of wartime Europe. For functionalists, the Jewish question became paramount only after Germany's invasion of Soviet Russia, when millions of Jews suddenly fell under the Nazis' control. Only then could the Nazi bureaucracy lurch and stumble toward a solution — the solution.
Intentionalists worry that functionalism dissolves Hitler's ultimate responsibility in the Final Solution, diluting it in the labyrinthine world of the Nazi state. In their eyes, to embed Hitler in the vast polycractic bureaucracy he created — one over which he reigned, but did not rule — ultimately diminishes his role in the fate of European Jewry.
Is it possible, though, that neither the functionalist nor intentionalist position is ultimately satisfying? Whether it be in the effort to pinpoint the exact date when the Final Solution was visualized; the precise moment when Hitler, Himmler or Heydrich embraced his horrifying worldview, or the single document or order that launched the machinery of death, are we not subject to Zeno's paradox of the arrow? Approaching its target, the arrow halves the distance, then halves the distance again. And yet, as Zeno noted, if space is infinitely divisible, the arrow will continue halving the distance and never reach the end of its trajectory.
The paradox flies in the face of reality, of course. And yet, like that arrow, historians of the Holocaust, as they move ever closer to their target, always seem just shy of the mark. There is the reality of the Holocaust, and there will always remain the task of explaining it.
Robert Zaretsky teaches history at the Honors College, University of Houston, and is a contributor to The Occupy Handbook, just published by Little, Brown.