text:
NBC's Hillary Clinton Conflict Of Interest
Network's Clinton Miniseries Timed To Coincide With 2016 Election
Blog ››› ››› BRIAN POWELL
NBC Entertainment's plans to produce and air a miniseries about Hillary Clinton just ahead of the 2016 presidential election raises serious questions about NBC News coverage of the former U.S. Senator and secretary of state and whether it will be slanted or tainted by the parent company's commercial interests.
On July 27, NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt announced plans for a Clinton-based miniseries timed to precede the 2016 presidential race as part of a new NBC effort "to create 'event' programming that will draw viewers to the shrinking world of broadcast network TV."
NBC's chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd acknowledged the complication this will create in a series of posts on his Twitter account, surmising that "Clinton lovers or haters will assume some sort of NBC News involvement" and assuring his followers that NBC News "has nothing to do" with the miniseries.
NBC News, via Todd, appears to be publicly quarantining itself from NBC Entertainment, though the network itself has yet to address the thorny ethical issues raised by the close nexus between NBC News and NBC Entertainment and the financial interests at stake in NBC producing a miniseries connected to Clinton's potential political future. It remains to be seen whether American media consumers will accept the distinction and whether NBC's reputation for objective journalism will be tarnished by NBC's pursuit of ratings gold.
Even before a script has been written, NBC News is already hyping the miniseries. Maria Elena Fernandez penned a news article for Today's website on July 27 highlighting the film and its producers' choice of Diane Lane to play Clinton. Will NBC News programs continue promoting the fictional account as its air date draws closer?
Previous political biopics have not ended well for the networks that commissioned them. Most notably, CBS was forced to dump its miniseries on former President Ronald Reagan in 2003 after right-wing activists and the RNC convinced the network that the final product did not "present a balanced portrayal" of the conservative icon. Conservatives complained that Reagan was depicted as a caricature, a "disconnected, puppet-like simpleton." NBC runs the same risk - a fictionalized caricature of Clinton may make for more dramatic appeal, but diversions from reality are likely to blow back on NBC News.
In fact, the right is already pressuring NBC to adopt their ideological lens on Clinton or risk being tried and hanged as partisan lapdogs pushing a "puff piece." Fox Nation used the announcement to declare that "the media are now in a full court press to get Hillary Clinton elected president in 2016." Newsbusters commentator Noel Sheppard complained that the series will be a "four-hour puff piece specifically designed to present the former first lady in as favorable a light imaginable in order to assist her coronation." Fox News' America's Newsroom aired a segment in which guest David Webb speculated that the miniseries would be "revisionist history" if it did not include topics like the widely debunked "Whitewater" matter.
As Fox News suggested, will airing a Clinton miniseries pressure NBC to provide equal time to other presidential candidates? Greenblatt attempted to pre-emptively take the wind out of this criticism by noting that the network hopes to air the miniseries before any formal declaration of a Clinton candidacy. According to Greenblatt, this broadcast schedule would avoid the equal time problem. But he's arguing a technicality -- clearly the network is already presuming Clinton will be in the race. Is the network prepared to respond to the equal time criticism and deal with the conflict of interest, even in the absence of evidence to support the conclusion?
Instructions for signing up and claiming your comment history are located here.
Updated rules for commenting are here.


text:
For the past four years, many Americans have watched in disbelief as the Bush administration has led this nation into war with Iraq under false pretenses, scared the public with lame threats of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, waved the flag of patriotism in times of political need (rather than national unity), and has changed the terms of engagement in Iraq. All of this has been done to suit the political needs of this president. This past weekend Bush was at it again — going on a surprise photo-op and propaganda blitz in Iraq to build support for continuing his failed policy.
The question Americans must ask themselves is plain: When are they going to demand an honest accounting and assessment of the war effort and consequent action that puts the needs of the nation ahead of domestic politics?
In light of the much publicized report to be delivered to Congress next week by the Government Accountability Office, which states that 15 of 18 goals set by Congress to gauge progress made by the military and the Iraqi government have not been met, Americans already know the likely scenario. Though the GAO report is damning, Bush and the military will reject its findings and put a positive spin on their successes and plead for more time.
How can Americans find a voice to counter the president's spin machine? Only by communicating directly with their congressional delegations to let this administration know that it won't tolerate deception, outright lies and political power plays any longer. Furthermore, the public can adopt the attitude that anyone who continues to play games of deceit will be ousted at the polls in 2008 — and that impeachment is the next step if Bush and this administration continue to defy the public will, the congressional majority and common sense. It appears that only such a dire consequence will persuade this president to rethink his failed policies.
Americans surely recognize that Bush's need to stick by his military occupation of Iraq derives not from a sense of a likely military victory there, but rather from the political consequences of having failed so miserably. A pullout without political stability is an admission of defeat, and Bush's invasion of Iraq and consequent occupation will go down in history as one of the most egregious foreign policy blunders of all time. That's a tough rap with which to be saddled, and it's understandable that Bush and his advisors would adopt a strategy that hangs on to the purgatory we're in now, rather than embrace such a hellish legacy.
Courage and honesty would dictate otherwise, if this president had either.
That the Iraq occupation has been a failure is clear. Almost all of our allies have left the scene. The invasion, based on faulty information and willful deceit, has seriously damaged our international credibility. We have more enemies than ever before, and weaker friendships throughout the world. Bush's actions have helped swell the ranks of anti-American terrorists worldwide, and we have depleted our armed forces and our national treasury by a trillion dollars and counting — much of it in debt that will be a burden to our children for decades. (Bush will ask Congress for another $50 billion for the occupation, which is on top of $147 billion already slated for Iraq and Afghanistan this year, plus the $460 billion annual military budget. An interesting fact is that the United States will spend about as much as the rest of the world on its military this year.)
And yet this president would continue to deceive the public rather than acknowledge that the battle is going poorly. Such deception — with the war, as with numerous domestic issues — will be seen as Bush's most pervasive legacy.
But let's stay on topic. The original justification for the surge of military troops from 130,000 to 160,000 was that it would boost the effort in Iraq to achieve military and economic stability. Congress went along with the president back in January, but demanded accountability before it would continue funding the war. The president agreed with those demands because they were so politically reasonable he couldn't refuse.
Now, he and the military are trying to reframe the terms of success or failure. The goals were unrealistic, they now say. Progress is being made, Bush and Gen. David Petraeus are likely to report, just not in the ways set up by benchmarks eight months ago. You can bet that Bush has learned from his "mission accomplished" fiasco, and that he won't tout probable victory. But what he will do, as he has since things began to tour sour in Iraq, is to use fear to encourage Americans to stay the course. If we pull out, he and military generals will maintain, it will be much worse than if we maintain our occupation.
There is, of course, no way to disprove the statement. No one knows for certain what will happen if Americans begin a phased pullout; and there are those Americans still gullible enough to think this president has the nation's best interest at heart. And that, unfortunately, is one of the questions Americans have to ask themselves: Is Bush protecting his legacy by keeping troops in Iraq so that the eventual withdrawal will happen under the next president and he can escape full blame? Or does Bush have a reasonable plan for a military and political victory in Iraq?
It is a question of judgment that each American citizen must make. To many, it's an uncomfortable question to pose because it speaks of assessing one's character and intent, rather than policy. But character has become the issue with this president. For too long Americans have gone along with Bush based on what he has promised, rather than what he has delivered.
Americans now know, however, that he is not above lying and deceiving. We have seen him praise loyalty over honesty, protect those within his administration for outing a CIA operative, for lying to Congress and for rigging the judicial system in the most partisan of ways. He has created a military mercenary system that operates outside governmental oversight, and has beefed up a military-industrial complex that already has far too much power and influence.
In addition to those broader concerns, Americans can ask whether Bush's plan to continue Iraq's military occupation will provide for long-term peace and stability? They can ask whether America will be seen as a friend of the region if Bush's military occupation lasts through the decade? They can assess whether Bush's military "surge" has facilitated the political and economic progress in Iraq that the president promised.
If those answers are in the negative, Americans will know this president's intent and character and they must demand a change in policy in the most forceful terms. Otherwise this president and the Republican minority won't heed the message.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Canon 430EX II Speedlite Shoe Mount Flash
The Canon Speedlite 430EX II Flash is Canon's mid-range shoe mount flash, yet it offers many of the same advanced features as its bigger brother, the 580EX II. It is designed to fully support?the entire range of Canon digital SLR and G-series cameras.
The Speedlite 430EX II Flash is compatible with Canon's latest E-TTL II (Evaluative Through The Lens) auto exposure technology. When combined with a compatible Canon camera?and compatible lens, E-TTL II utilizes subject distance and other information that automatically modifies flash power, resulting in accurate flash exposure regardless of subject size, reflectance, or photographic composition. This is great for photographers that shoot high contrast or reflective subjects, like those encountered in wedding photography. Photographers can now capture every detail from the black of tuxedos to the white of wide smiles and wedding dresses.
The fully swiveling bounce head zooms automatically over a range of 24mm-105mm. Its Wireless E-TTL II compatibility permits it to function as a slave unit, triggered by a 580EX, ST-E2, or MR-14EX. Any number of 430EX and 550EX Speedlites can be combined as slave units for creative effects.
The Speedlite 430EX also automatically transfers color temperature information to recent models of digital SLR cameras. The camera then sets the best white balance setting for the flash shot. This feature works when the camera's white balance mode is set to Auto White Balance (AWB) or Flash white balance mode.Product Heightlights :
- Guide No. 141'/43 m at 105mm
- Supports E-TTL II
- Faster & Quieter Flash Recycling
- 6 Custom Functions
- Metal Foot
- 1 x Canon 430EX II Speedlite TTL Shoe-Mount Flash
- 1 x Hot Shoe Stand
- 1 x Soft Case
|Guide No.
|141'?(42.98 m) at 105 mm position
|Exposure Control
|Angle of Coverage
| 84° - 23.3°
Wide-Angle Adapter:?114° - 23.3°
|1/1 - 1/64
|TTL Dedication
|Bounce Head
|Swivel Head
|Zoom Head
|Full frame: 24 mm - 105 mm
|Off Camera Terminal
|Wireless Communication Channels
|Wireless Groups
|Power Source
|4x AA?Alkaline, Lithium, Rechargeable Ni-MH?Batteries
|Dimensions (WxHxD)
|2.8 x 4.8 x 4.0"?/?7.1 x 12.2 x 10.2 cm
|11.6 oz?/?329 g
We Also Recommend


text:
Great discussions are nothing new here on Lifehacker. Each day, we highlight a discussion that is particularly helpful or insightful, along with other great discussions and reader questions you may have missed. Check out these discussions and add your own thoughts to make them even more wonderful!
Discussion of the Day
Other Great Discussions
- Is phone-snatching a thing?
- Add a fake email address to your contacts to detect outgoing spam.
- Do you really need an alarm clock?
Great Discussions Any Time
To join or start great discussions on any topic, be sure to visit the Openthread forum.
And if you've got a cool project, inspiration, or just something fun to share, be sure to let us know in our Tips forum.
Happy Lifehacking, everybody!


text:
ONARCHITECTURE- No-tell motel: Clerk remembers the randy heyday
Ehrhardt suspects the Mercers simply ignored the property after she left in 1986, something the family's wealth allowed them to do.
"Shady things, probably," laughs Shirley Ehrhardt, 68, when asked what so many locals were doing when they visited the Airport Motel on Route 29 North during the 21 years she managed it. "If people really knew who stayed there, they'd be shocked," she says. "We used to call it 'the no-tell motel.'"
Our recent column on the iconic old place ["Terminal vacancy: The Airport Motel finally checks out," November 11], which will soon be demolished to make way for a Walgreens, sent Ehrhardt on a trip down memory lane. She ran the motel for several owners– including Richmond carpet king George Mercer Sr.– from 1965 to 1986. And while names of former guests (they must have liked the remote location just north of town) are safe with Ehrhardt– she still adheres to the hotelier's code of silence– our column did prompt a few stories.
She says Mercer Sr. bought the 2.3-acre property in 1969 for $65,000 and built his carpet store soon after. Today, the property is assessed at over $2.5 million.
"At that time, everything about the motel was beautiful," says Ehrhardt (who opened her own thrift store, Twice Is Nice in the Preston Avenue Shopping Center, 17 years ago). "A lot of tourists came there, airline pilots, people for football games... and, of course, a lot of locals, too."
Ehrhardt says Mercer Sr. made frequent trips to Charlottesville to check on the motel and his carpet store; she remembers that he never spared any expense in keeping the motel running smoothly. "I cared about that motel, " she says, "and I never had any trouble with Mr. Mercer. They had lots of money and would fix anything I asked."
Ehrhardt, who lived in a house on the hotel property and often visited the Mercer mansion in Richmond, also remembers little Tinsley Mercer, now one of NYC's leading socialites, as a "very, very nice little girl."
However, she suspects the motel fell into disrepair after Tinsley's father, George Mercer Jr., took over the family operations. "George Jr. had no interest in the place," she says. "And unless you're there to take care of things...."
Ehrhardt suspects the Mercers simply ignored the property after she left in 1986, something the family's wealth allowed them to do. The Hook attempted contact George Mercer Jr. using his Richmond phone number, but it had been disconnected. According to various news reports, Mercer now lives in Palm Beach, Florida.
"I wanted to buy the motel property before Mercer Sr. did," admits Ehrhardt, "but no one I talked to about investing was interested. Most people at that time thought that part of Route 29 North wouldn't amount to anything.
"But I knew it was a good investment," she says. "I knew all this development was going to happen eventually because it certainly wasn't going to go south. It had to go north. I just didn't have the money."
"At that time, everything about the motel was beautiful," says Shirley Ehrhardt, who ran the Airport Motel (seen here in 1984) from 1965 to 1986.VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF HISTORIC RESOURCES
Ehrhardt says the remote motel used to be popular with locals. "If people really knew who stayed there," she says, "they'd be shocked."


text:
A new biotechnology incubator called Bio, Tech and Beyond opened last week in Carlsbad.
The organization calls itself a "group of DIY bio-entrepreneurs, educators, engineers, scientists and hobbyists doing innovative bootstrapped basic research and building an open science community."
The City of Carlsbad has been a key advocate of this project. Remarkably, it has leased a 6,000-square-foot building to Bio, Tech and Beyond Founders Kevin Lustig and Joseph Jackson, for $1 per year for five years. The building, which is right in the center of a cluster of some 200 life sciences companies in Carlsbad, was vacant for eight years until Lustig and Jackson proposed to use the space as a community biotech incubator.
Lustig said his goal is to help initiate eight new startup companies out of this community space by the end of 2014. He said he wants to keep basic lab space use free to independent "citizen scientists," and as small companies begin to use the space, charge them a fee to keep the lab running.
"I'm convinced there are many people out there without the benefit of having been trained, or grew up in a poor environment — but are brilliant, and could accomplish great things in science if given a chance," Lustig said in an April interview. "With our community model, we think we could help people get into the lab with a low or no cost."
Bio, Tech and Beyond is currently using crowdsourcing site Indie Gogo with aims to raise $50,000 by August 30.
The Business Journal is the premier business publication in San Diego. Every day online and each Monday in print, the Business Journal reports on how local business operate and why businesses leaders make the decisions they do. Every story is a dose of insight into how to run a better, more efficient, more profitable business.


text:
Team Penske IZOD IndyCar Series driver Will Power underwent further testing in Indianapolis on Monday for a back injury suffered in a multi-car accident during the series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday, Oct. 16.
After experiencing pain in his upper back following the tragic accident that ultimately claimed the life of driver Dan Wheldon, Power was evaluated and released from University Medical Center in Las Vegas on the evening of the crash with no evidence of significant injuries.
On Monday, however, it was determined by series orthopedic specialist Dr. Terry Trammell that Power suffered a compression fracture of his fourth thoracic vertebra in the accident. Dr. Trammell expects Power to recover from the injury with rest and rehabilitation.
Trammell will consult further with Power in the coming days to determine the next steps in his recovery. Power hopes to be able to continue testing the 2012 IndyCar in the coming weeks and he is expected to be fully healed and ready to compete for Verizon Team Penske in the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series.
Related articles
- Indy – Dan Wheldon Cherished As Great Man, Champion At Indy Memorial (beyondtheredline.org)


text:
Forever smiling, forever young... That is how we remember and celebrate Maria. At the time her life was cut short in a tragic accident, she was full of happiness and promise. She lived life to the absolute fullest; we are certain she did not feel cheated.
God blessed her in so many ways and she embraced her gifts fully, giving back to everyone she touched. We want to continue keeping Maria's memory and spirit alive, continuing to give back through her Scholarship Fund and other events.
Join us for Smiles & Miles for Maria, 18-Sept-2011 @ 2:30PM. Register on-line here.


text:
The View From 1776
§ American Traditions
§ People and Ideas
§ Decline of Western Civilization: a Snapshot
§ Books to Read
Junk Science
Monday, July 27, 2015
Whether It Works Or Not, The Government Will Make You Swallow It
Read Ira Stoll's assessment, from The New York Sun webpage, of Hillary Clinton's green energy policy proposal.
Central Planning Emerges As a Classic ErrorIn Clinton's Strategy
Economics • Junk Science • (3) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • Permalink
Monday, May 25, 2015
The Boy Who Cried Wolf
The president continues to assert global warming effects that are not factual.
From the Forbes website: Updated NASA Data: Global Warming Not Causing Any Polar Ice Retreat
Updated data from NASA satellite instruments reveal the Earth's polar ice caps have not receded at all since the satellite instruments began measuring the ice caps in 1979. Since the end of 2012, moreover, total polar ice extent has largely remained above the post-1979 average. The updated data contradict one of the most frequently asserted global warming claims – that global warming is causing the polar ice caps to recede.
Junk Science • Thought Police & PC • (3) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • Permalink
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
The Information-Closed Universe of Liberal-Progressivism
Worshippers of the secular, materialistic religion of liberal-progressivism, particularly since Darwin's 1859 Origin of Species, accept as an unquestioned article of faith that there is a one-on-one relationship between edicts of the political state and results of such political action. If liberal-progressives conceive it, it is an accomplished fact.
Liberal-progressives have been energized by their doctrinaire certainty that God, through His externally imposed intelligent design, is no more than ignorant superstition. Their corollary faith is that all of life on earth is the product of random collisions of material force. This leads liberal-progressives to assert that, their superior intelligence having discerned this supposed reality, they are enabled by their superior knowledge to conquer nature and to structure political society in ways that guarantee perfection of humanity.
This faith in secular, materialistic religion, however, blinds them to the fact that matters seldom work as they predict.
We have seen this in spades during the past eight years in the Federal Reserve's dogged adherence to Keynesian economics, the product of an economic theory that posits the political state as the primary, if not sole, source of the nation's economic wellbeing. Ditto with regard to the entirety of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society entitlements programs and the president's ObamaCare.
As countless commentators have noted, liberal-progressivism excludes the possibility that individuals may know, better then the political state, what is best for them. Also banished from public square discussion is the age-old truth that the spiritual realm, most evident in the West's Judeo-Christian heritage, is ultimately more powerful than the political state's secular and materialistic religion.
Read Seth Mandel's There Is No Such Thing as a Secular Politics, posted on the Commentary website.
Junk Science • Political Theory • Tradition & Morality • (4) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • Permalink
Saturday, February 28, 2015
The Nature Of Evidence
Some leading advocates of man-made global warming and of regulatory actions to terminate use of the world's cheapest and most efficient sources of energy admit the truth: it's a secular religion masquerading as science.
Read U.N. Official Admits Belief In Global Warming Is Religious, posted on the Investors.com website.
We are repeatedly told by President Obama and mainstream media that all the world's scientists support the global-warming tenet. This is a lie in the nature of, "If you like your health insurance and your present doctor you can keep them." Increasingly so-called evidence of global warming is steadily being revealed as creation of fraudulent data or mendacious manipulation of data.
Global-warming believers nonetheless blandly assert the opposite.
Junk Science • Thought Police & PC • (3) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • Permalink
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Even Great Britain Admits That "Warmest Year" Is Unconfirmed
The UK has been one of the staunchest advocates of global warming and the need to wreck the economy with energy strangulation, on the assumption that liberal-progressive minds have god-like powers to control the universe. God-created nature, however, has for the last couple of decades failed to bend to liberal-progressive minds.
UK Met Office Confirms 2014 Continues Global Warming 'Pause'
Junk Science • Media & Opinion • Thought Police & PC • (5) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • Permalink
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Main-Stream Media's Tabloid Sensationalism
Wall Street Journal columnist Holman Jenkins uncovers the distortion and misrepresentation, either through ignorance or through propagandistic intention, characterizing main-stream media's reporting of recent false claims that 2014 was the hottest year on record.
Climate Reporting's Hot Mess
AP takes the cake in the relentless campaign by global-warming journalists to discredit their own profession.
By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.
Jan. 20, 2015 8:07 p.m. ET
News reporting of the latest climate alarm was not uniformly bad. Among hundreds of publications in the Factiva database, exactly one—the Mail on Sunday, one of those derided London tabloids—injected the phrase "statistically significant" into consideration of whether 2014 was in any meaningful sense the "hottest year on record."
A nonjournalistic source and not exactly an outfit of climate-change deniers, Berkeley Earth, also noted that, when it comes to 2014 and the other "hottest year" candidates, 2005 and 2010, the observed temperature difference was smaller than the margin of error by a factor of five, adding: "Therefore it is impossible to conclude from our analysis which of 2014, 2010, or 2005 was actually the warmest year."
To its credit, the Washington Post alluded to the possibly more important fact that "rising temperatures have not kept pace with computer simulations that predicted even faster warming."
The New York Times contributed nothing to reader enlightenment as usual, and the Associated Press committed a howler by claiming that "nine of the 10 hottest years in NOAA global records have occurred since 2000. The odds of this happening at random are about 650 million to 1, according to University of South Carolina statistician John Grego. "
This might be true if Earth's climate were dice, where rolling a six has no effect on the odds of the next roll being a six. But climate is a continuous process of incremental change. A unified theory of media idiocy on climate is beyond the scope of this column, but even someone with the apparently parched intellect of an AP editor should be able to look at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration charts and notice that cool years are grouped with cool years, warm years with warm years, and in-between years with in-between years.
Either NOAA's entire temperature history is a statistical anomaly of incomprehensible, galactic proportions—or AP has peddled itself a faulty assumption. And sure enough, Mr. Grego tells me AP specifically instructed him to assume "all years had the same probability of being 'selected' as one of the 10 hottest years on record." This is akin to assuming that, because you weighed 195 pounds at some point in your life, there should be an equal chance of you weighing 195 pounds at any point in your life, even when you were a baby.
The real mystery, though, would be if the warmest years did not bunch up in the post-1998 period, given the sharp warming observed from the late 1970s to the late 1990s.
When climate reporters robotically insist, as they did again this week, that the 2000s represent the hottest period in the rather skimpy, 134-year historical record, they are merely reiterating that the pre-1998 warming happened. No clear trend up or down has been apparent since then.
The bigger problem, of course, is that evidence of warming is not evidence of what causes warming. One would be astonished if mankind, with its prodigious release of greenhouse gases and other activities, were not having an impact on climate. But how and how much are the crucial questions.
But all this is magisterially beside the point in a sense. If the decades have validated any set of propositions, it's the following: Mankind is unlikely to do anything meaningful about carbon dioxide as a matter of concerted public policy, and anything it does will be in the service of domestic pork interests, having no impact on climate.
Even if humanity could assert bureaucratic control over climate, the cost-benefit case would remain problematic—the costs being huge and the benefits necessarily being as uncertain as man's role in causing climate change.
A carbon tax as part of pro-growth tax reform is one measure that might pass a cost-benefit test, thanks mainly to the nonclimate benefits of tax reform. Alas, no sign exists that a quorum of countries is ready to march together down this road. President Obama this week decided to use the tax-reform opportunity to pursue partisan class-warfare themes rather than advance a carbon tax proposal in exchange for lower rates.
So the climate problem, if there's a problem, likely won't be solved by some supreme effort of global bureaucratic will. But one could easily imagine it being solved by the normal, unwilled progress of technology. A battery—pick a number—five or 10 times more efficient than today's, holding more energy and charging and discharging faster, would so revolutionize world energy practices that scientists would have to consider how a sudden decline in human carbon-dioxide emissions might affect the climate.
Solar and wind collection don't have to be particularly efficient if storage becomes efficient. More solar energy reaches the earth's surface in a year than is contained in all remaining reserves of fossil fuels and uranium. And to the inventor the financial and reputational rewards would be extravagant—which explains why billions of dollars are flowing into battery research.
Junk Science • Media & Opinion • Thought Police & PC • (1) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • Permalink
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
United Scoundrels Of The World
In the name of "science," worshippers at the altar of man-made global warming excitedly misrepresent the facts.
The Most Dishonest Year on Record
If we take into account this margin of error, the most we can say is that 2014 was, so far as we know, just as warm as 2005 and 2010. There is no significant difference between these years. And that gives the lie to claims of runaway global warming. As the redoubtable Judith Curry recently pointed out:
"The real issue that is of concern to me is the growing divergence between the observed global temperature anomalies and what was predicted by climate models. Even if 2014 is somehow unambiguously the warmest year on record, this won't do much to alleviate the growing discrepancy between climate model predictions and the observations."
Junk Science • Thought Police & PC • (5) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • Permalink
Sunday, January 18, 2015
More Baloney From The Climate-Sausage Racketeers
Nasa climate scientists: We said 2014 was the warmest year on record… but we're only 38% sure we were right
Junk Science • Thought Police & PC • (1) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • Permalink
Monday, January 12, 2015
Global Warming And Free-Speech Hypocrisy
Let's all decry Islamic jihadists' murders of Charlie Hebdo writers and cartoonists in Paris. Meanwhile let's suppress open discussion of junk-science ideas such as global warming.
Read these links, courtesy of Benny Peiser:
Charlie: Challenging free speech
Crackdown ordered on climate-change sceptics
Climate change scientist claims he has been forced from new job in 'McCarthy'-style witch-hunt by academics across the world
Global warming: the chilling effect on free speech
Junk Science • Media & Opinion • Thought Police & PC • (2) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • Permalink
Friday, December 05, 2014
Union Of Concerned Busybodies
GMOs (genetically modified organisms) have been spectacularly successful in producing increased food crop yields, crops that are resistant to diseases and insects, and crops that need much less water than unmodified crops.
BUT corporations, those unredeemable products of evil capitalism, are making a profit from developing and marketing them. Therefore, liberal-progressive-socialists (who know what is best of you) MUST find reasons to ban them from use around the world, even through doing so will contribute to starvation of many of the world's peoples.
However, there is no scientific evidence to support liberal-progressive-socialists' destructive campaign. We can't let that stop their efforts, of course, because they are "caring," and their good intentions are more important than contrary real-world results of their socialistic programs.
Junk Science • Thought Police & PC • (8) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • Permalink


text:
Being Green Is Not a Sign of Health
by Gary Jason | Posted January 24, 2011
There are two new reports in the Wall Street Journal about flops in the green energy movement — further illustrations of how much hype there is in it.
The first (Jan. 19) reveals that the vaunted new "amazingly energy efficient," compact fluorescent light bulbs aren't so energy efficient after all.
Pushing the hapless consumer to replace incandescent bulbs with CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps) has been the received wisdom among lawmakers for years, and no more so than in California, the ever-green state. California's utilities alone spent $548 million over the past seven years in CFL subsidies. In fact, California utilities have subsidized over 100 million CFLs since 2006. And on the first of this year, the state started phasing out incandescent bulb sales.
Of course, when I say that the California utilities have been subsidizing the CFLs, I really should say that the aforementioned hapless consumers have been doing so, because all the subsidy money — about $2.70 out of the actual $4.00 cost of the CFL, i.e., more than two thirds of the actual cost — is paid by the consumer in the form of higher utility rates.
Naturally, the rest of the country — and, for that matter, the world — is set to follow California's lead on CFLs. A federal law effective January 1 of next year will require a 28% step-up in efficiency for incandescent bulbs, and bans them outright by 2014. One consequence of this federal policy — unintended, perhaps, but none the less foreseeable — is that the last US plant making incandescent bulbs has been shut down, and China (which now makes all the CFLs) has seen even more of a jobs expansion, and is able to buy even more of our debt.
The UN is also pushing CFLs to help solve global warming, estimating that about 8% of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide are caused by lighting. The World Bank has been funding the distribution of CFLs in poorer nations. Last year, for example, Bangladesh gave away five million World Bank funded CFLs in one day.
But now — surprise! — California has discovered that the actual energy savings of switching to CFLs were nowhere near what was originally estimated. Pacific Gas and Electric, which in 2006 set up the biggest subsidy fund for CFLs, found that its actual savings from the CFL program were collectively about 450 million kilowatt hours, which is only about one-fourth of the original estimate.
There are several reasons for the fact the switch to CFLs hasn't lived up to expectations. First, not as many of the heavily subsidized CFLs were sold as originally estimated. PG & E doesn't say why, but I will hazard a guess, based on personal experience. Many consumers dislike the light produced by CFLs, which they find dimmer or more artificial in its effect. Also, many complain that lights create static in AM radio reception. In a free market (i.e., one that, among other things, contains no subsidies), it is likely that few consumers would want to switch.
Surprise! — California has discovered that the actual energy savings of switching to compact fluorescent lamps were nowhere near what was originally estimated.
Second, the useful life of the CFLs is less than 70% of original estimates. Amazingly, the estimates were based on tests that didn't factor in the actual frequency with which consumers turn them on and off. CFLs burn out more quickly the more often they are turned on and off than do the old incandescent bulbs.
Not mentioned in the story is the fact that CFLs contain mercury, and so are supposed to be specially disposed of (which presents an added cost to the consumer in time, money, and energy). The alternative is for the consumer to throw them out in the regular trash, making toxic waste sites out of ordinary trash dumps, with future clean-up costs of God only knows what.
The second Journal story (Jan. 18) reports that Evergreen Solar has closed its Massachusetts plant and laid off all the workers there.
This is deliciously ironic. Evergreen Solar was the darling of Massachusetts. Governor Deval Patrick, devout green and all-around Obama Mini-Me, gave Evergreen a package of $58 million in tax incentives, grants, and other handouts to open a solar panel plant there. In doing so, he simply ignored Evergreen's lousy track record — a record of losing nearly $700 million bucks in its short life (its IPO was in 2000), despite lavish subsidies from federal and state governments.
Now Evergreen is outsourcing its operations, blaming competition with China, and whining like a bitchslapped baby about China's subsidies of its solar energy and its lower labor costs. But Evergreen has itself sucked up ludicrously lavish subsidies, and it knew all along about China's labor rates compared to Massachusetts'.
So Patrick winds up looking like a complete ass, and the taxpayers of Massachusetts wind up eating a massive loss.
But that's not all. Near the end of last year, the Journal (Dec. 20) revealed still another case of American crony capitalism, of the green sort. It turns out that the wind industry — aptly dubbed "Big Wind" — copped a one-year, $3 billion extension of government support for wind power. It was part of the end-of-2010 tax deal.
Originally, this government subsidy was a feature of the infamous 2008 stimulus bill, under which taxpayers were forced to cover 30% of the costs of wind power projects. The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) begged for the subsequent bailout, because without it 20,000 wind power jobs would be lost (one-fourth of all such jobs in America). But despite the billions in subsidies, Big Wind is sucking wind; its allure is dropping like a stone. The AWEA's own figures show a 72% decline in wind turbine installations from 2009, down to the lowest since 2006.
Besides trying to make the 30% subsidy(!) permanent, the AWEA is pushing for a national "renewable energy" mandate that will force utilities to buy a large chunk of the power they sell from renewable sources (mainly solar and wind), irrespective of the fact that the price of renewable energy is sky high. The association has gotten more than half the states to enact such mandates, with higher energy bills for consumers as the result. Not surprisingly, Big Wind is also pushing the EPA to make energy from fossil fuels vastly more costly.
According to the federal government's own figures, wind and solar take 20 times the subsidy to produce electricity than do coal and natural gas. So you can see why Big Wind keeps blowing smoke up the public's rear about the fabulous future of renewable energy. You can also see why Big Wind is such a big contributor to the campaign coffers of Democratic politicians. They are the only ones who keep this outrageous boondoggle awash in money.
Meanwhile, the promises of green energy look more and more hollow, every day.
Gary Jason is a lecturer in Philosophy and a senior editor at Liberty. His books can be found on Amazon.com.
Share This
Gary Jason
Just a few brief responses to Mr. Lofstrom's thoughtful comments.
1. I am certainly aware that there are better lighting technologies than the century-old incandescent bulb. But I also think that whenever a better technology comes along (one that is decisively and demonstrably better than the existing technology), consumers will embrace it voluntarily and enthusiastically.
The problem here is the the government is coercing people to adopt a technology with which they obviously have not been impressed. Worse, the people are discovering that the advantages touted as a justification that coercion are exaggerated.
I think both Mr. Lofstrom and I agree on the main point here, which is --as he so nicely puts it-- "...there must be a real market with believable economic signals of user preference." Indeed, sir.
2. I concur (and have noted in some of my prior writings for Liberty) that there are problems with obtaining rare earth materials, which complicate not only the search for high-quality CFLs, but green energy programs such as solar power, electric cars, and wind power. His remarks are very informative here. And we both seem to agree that new large-scale nuclear plants are the best available solution to replacing fossil fuel sources.
I am not so sure I share his enthusiiasm for solar power collected in space and transferred to earth. This seems to me to be as speculative as fusion power, another prospect that is feasible in theory and may or may not be cost-effective in practice. By all means the research and development should proceed. But I wouldn't let the possible best be the enemy of the existing good.
We should immediately dramatically upgrade and expand our system of nuclear power plants, aiming at deriving 90% of our electricity from it within thirty years. If space solar or fusion or any other kind of sweet technology of the future proves capable of the reliable production of huge amounts of electricity our country needs, we can just cease building the nukes and build the new stuff.
3. A point of disagreement between us and Mr. Lofstrom's contention that, "This planet was not designed to carry billions of people living at first-world consumption levels." First of all, in my view this planet wasn't "designed" at all. It is a natural environment within which a moderately rational species--homo spaiens sapiens--evolved naturally.
Second, and more importantly, I see not the least reason this planet cannot support the present population, or even double it, at first-world levels of consumption, clean air and water, if we just let markets work and people be free. Mind you, I am not saying I want double the people. I see no optimal number of people for the planet--be it half a billion, a billion, 6 billion or 12 billion. I am more concerned that people be free to have children or not as they see fit, as opposed to what some government or some group of environmentalist reliegious zealots tells them.
With just the technologies proven to work on a large scale--nuclear, natural gas, petrolem, and so on--supporting all people at first-world level is quite possible. And with the new technologies the mind of man will inevitably bring us, it will be even easier. The only barriers to this are the pointless ones constructed by governments and religious zealots, mostly of the green variety.
Tue, 2011-02-15 01:00
"All revolutions evaporate, and leave in their wake the slime of a new bureaucracy" - Kafka
The government can turn any good idea into a bad one. Energy does good, and increasing energy efficiency frees more energy to do more good. Higher efficiency lighting can save money and energy, increase safety, and give consumers more control of their visual environment. Or it can be done very badly, creating stress, pollution, and enormous expense.
Compact fluorescent bulbs are not created equal. The cheap garbage at Home Depot is made with inferior, temperature-sensitive electronics, and burns out quickly. Bulbs from Ikea and Panasonic (no longer available in the US, sigh) last a lot longer - partly because they come to full brightness more slowly. These minute-to-full-brightness bulbs behave differently than incandescents, sure. But after a year of adaptation, incandescent behavior becomes the anomaly. We don't consider incandescents inferior because they don't match the behavior of gas lamps and candles, do we?
Even the best CFLs are inferior to the latest developments in long-tube fluorescent fixtures. Electronic ballast T8 and T5 fixtures are more than twice as efficient, last longer, have better color spectra, don't flicker, and are instant on. Fixtures using the new DALI electronic ballast control standard allow them to be dimmed from 10% to 100%, controlled by computer, wired on a common circuit, save even more energy and last even longer.
New fluorescent tube designs such as Philips Alto increase life and reduce the mercury to a tiny fraction of previous tubes, and even if the tubes are thrown out rather than recycled, the mercury released is a tiny fraction of the mercury that goes up the smokestack of a coal power plant to power incandescents.
The biggest problem with long tube fluorescents is that the fixtures are ugly, and they remind us of long boring days in school. But look again - decorative fixtures are out there, and artists working with engineers could design fixtures far more attractive (and light efficient) than any on the market today. For this to happen, though, there must be a real market with believable economic signals of user preference. Let's hope that develops before the bureaucrats stifle the options with their rules and "guidelines".
One alternative that the "watermelon greens" (green on the outside, red on the inside) get wrong is LED lighting. Expensive and very bad for the environment, While LED lights operate cleanly, they are less efficient and wear out far faster than advocates claim, because they are often overdriven to get the maximum light from very expensive LED chips. This makes them dimmer and less efficient over time, with lifetimes far less than promised. The BIG problem with LED lights is the provenance of their materials - extremely toxic mines in China. The rare-earth materials used to make LEDs occur in nature combined with some really nasty stuff, like radioactive thorium.
We had such rare-earth mines in the US and Australia and elsewhere, but they were shut down because the materials extracted were not as valuable as the land destroyed by their pollution. Some are starting up again, using new technologies to confine the pollution and improve extraction efficiency. Improving these mines and transforming them into tolerable neighbors is an engineering problem, not a political one.
Scale up from tiny LEDs to the large motors in electric cars. The most efficient and lightweight motors are made with magnets using more than half a pound of neodymium, coming from those same dirty Chinese mines. The communist government in China uses its monopoly on rare earths to force higher "chinese made content" in LEDs and electric cars (typically lowering quality), and also uses its monopoly as a weapon to achieve diplomatic goals. It is big news when Russia cuts natural gas supplies to Europe (used to power the grid when the windmills are idle) to enforce foreign policy objectives. When China does the same with neodymium, the news is buried in engineering trade journals, although the diplomatic consequences are higher.
Green generation is also hampered by politics. Gary Jason's article does not mention it, but the problems with windmills are rooted in the behavior of wind - it doesn't blow when and where you need energy, and it can blow harder than the generators can tolerate. Because wind blows at night when power demand is lowest, and because new power transmission lines can take 15 years to study and permit and build (thank you, bureaucrats!) wind generators in Oregon spin uselessly, heating resistors in the desert rather than powering peak consumer demand. And peak wind gusts wear out generator bearings quickly - the windmills must be disassembled and repaired on an average 7 year cycle, rather than the lifetimes of 20 years or more promised by advocates. Oh, and those generators use huge amounts of neodymium. China and pollution again. See this essay on wind energy for more.
Wind power is a great way to do some things - pump water, recharge remote batteries, etc. It is a ridiculous way to power civilization. Only a government green could love it.
Done right, green is an opportunity for free individuals to explore surprising new ideas. Megawatt-scale mass produced fourth generation nuclear is far greener than any other alternatives - and of course the "greens" hate it, and hamstring the innovative young companies developing it.
Solar photovoltaic is enormously expensive and destroys habitat, but stratospheric areostat solar collectors, if proven feasible, will use little ground area and provide high efficiency, low cost, 24x7 power at industrial scale.
The big opportunity, long term, is power collected and used in space. The sun generates trillions of times as much energy as our entire civilization consumes, and sends most of it out into empty space, uselessly. Harnessing this energy "the NASA way" would be enormously expensive and polluting, but private, non-government-funded entrepreneurs are discovering the ways this may be done right. I am one of those entrepreneurs, see the server-sky website for more.
This planet was not designed to carry billions of people living at first-world consumption levels. Although government greens are hypnotized by CO2, there are some difficult global-scale environmental problems to solve, and both government and government-favored big businesses are ignoring them. You can read about the real problems, and some solutions, in Stewart Brand's "Whole Earth Discipline". Brand styles himself a "turquoise", a free-market green, and his book is surprising, informative, and hopeful.
It is too soon to say what will work and what won't. Most superficially plausible ideas will fail, and some surprisingly weird ones will transform the planet. If millions of inventors and entrepreneurs are free to experiment, contend, and compete, the market will select the winners, freeing the losers to try something else.
If we can bypass the government noise machine, there are some real opportunities to create real wealth, transforming the planet into a life-filled garden inhabited by peaceful, prosperous, and free people. The false dichotomies created by government - growth or sustainability - will vanish when we engage the creative talents of billions, rather than suppress them. Uncontrolled, exuberant, surprising innovation will never create a utopia, but it can create a better future if government focuses on its minimal but vital judicial role, and otherwise gets out of the way.
Thu, 2011-01-27 14:30
Slightly off-topic but related:
The recent Wilson Quarterly has an article on the supposed 'proven economic' benefits of urban trees. Yep, trees.
There's a screen-shot of a web-site illustrating the economic benefits, with big numbers. Until you read part way down: "Benefits of trees do not account for the costs associated with trees' long-term care and maintenance". Nor, I presume the removal costs.
"Economic studies" which examine income and ignore costs will probably be a large feature of tonight's annual lies from the President, but they really don't mean much.
Tue, 2011-01-25 22:21
Main menu
Search Liberty
Most Read
Monthly archive
- November 2010 (24)
- December 2010 (24)
- January 2011 (31)
- February 2011 (17)
- March 2011 (29)
- April 2011 (21)
- May 2011 (22)
- June 2011 (18)
- July 2011 (20)
- August 2011 (20)
- September 2011 (19)
- October 2011 (18)
- November 2011 (17)
- December 2011 (15)
- January 2012 (21)
- February 2012 (15)
- March 2012 (18)
- April 2012 (16)
- May 2012 (20)
- June 2012 (14)
- July 2012 (24)
- August 2012 (20)
- September 2012 (19)
- October 2012 (19)
- November 2012 (21)
- December 2012 (17)
- January 2013 (21)
- February 2013 (16)
- March 2013 (13)
- April 2013 (16)
- May 2013 (12)
- June 2013 (15)
- July 2013 (13)
- August 2013 (13)
- September 2013 (12)
- October 2013 (15)
- November 2013 (13)
- December 2013 (13)
- January 2014 (15)
- February 2014 (13)
- March 2014 (14)
- April 2014 (13)
- May 2014 (13)
- June 2014 (10)
- July 2014 (12)
- August 2014 (14)
- September 2014 (10)
- October 2014 (14)
- November 2014 (12)
- December 2014 (12)
- January 2015 (12)
- February 2015 (11)
- March 2015 (11)
- April 2015 (11)
- May 2015 (10)
- June 2015 (12)
- July 2015 (13)
- August 2015 (10)
- September 2015 (10)
- October 2015 (10)
- November 2015 (9)
- December 2015 (12)
- January 2016 (10)
- February 2016 (10)
- March 2016 (10)
- April 2016 (10)
- May 2016 (13)
- June 2016 (11)
- July 2016 (10)
- August 2016 (10)
- September 2016 (10)
- October 2016 (10)
- November 2016 (11)
- December 2016 (11)
- January 2017 (11)
- February 2017 (11)
- March 2017 (10)
- April 2017 (10)
- May 2017 (10)
- June 2017 (9)
- July 2017 (10)
- August 2017 (10)
- September 2017 (10)
- October 2017 (10)
- November 2017 (10)
- December 2017 (10)
- January 2018 (12)
- February 2018 (10)
- March 2018 (10)
- April 2018 (10)
- May 2018 (10)
- June 2018 (10)
- July 2018 (10)
- August 2018 (10)
- September 2018 (10)
- October 2018 (10)
- November 2018 (10)
- December 2018 (10)
- January 2019 (10)
- February 2019 (10)
- March 2019 (10)
- April 2019 (10)
- May 2019 (10)
- June 2019 (10)
- July 2019 (7)


text:
You are not dependent on accessing the Quiltingboard from your email.
If you want to come to the Quiltingboard without using email you can type www.quiltingboard.com in the window you use to go to any other website (url field). Just hit enter and you will come to the log in page.
Let's vote. How many of us knew this already? :)


text:
Patient Center
Contact Us
September 10, 20192:30 PM
**If you need to see be seen for a physical, please note that you must be a current patient and you must call the office at (970) 979-0836 to schedule your appointment.
Thank you for choosing Joan Primozich, FNP-C for your medical needs.
If you are unable to find a desired time, please contact the office directly at (720) 979-0836 and the receptionist will be happy to assist you.
To reschedule an appointment, please call us directly at (720) 979-0836.
Please note that we are unable to accept all forms of Medicaid and Medicare currently.
New patients, in order to finalize your registration process, please arrive 30 minutes before your scheduled appointment time. Please click here to download New Patient paperwork.
All established patients must check in 15 minutes prior to scheduled appointment time.
In order to expedite your visit, please bring the following items:
*A list of current medications
*Insurance card(s) and a photo ID
*Your co-payment
For questions about insurance and billing, call us directly at (832) 604-3636.
Thank you, again, and we look forward to seeing you!
Denotes required field


text:
Actress Olivia Wilde is set to become a mom – she's expecting a baby with fiance Jason Sudeikis.
The 28-year-old actress is due next year, according to People.com.
Wilde and Sudeikis began dating at the beginning of 2012 after meeting on the 2011 season finale of U.S. comedy show "Saturday Night Live." They became engaged in January.
The actress recently told Marie Claire magazine she was looking forward to starting a family with her husband-to-be, stating, "He's so good with kids."


text:
Enjoy storage for books and decorative accents in your home office, living room, bedroom, or elsewhere with this Medium Bookcase. The three adjustable shelves allow you to accommodate larger books or collectibles. The slight arch at the top of the bookcase and tapered feet in a rustic oak finish complete the look of this bookcase.
The Cross Island Medium Bookcase by Ashley Furniture at AHFA in the area. Product availability may vary. Contact us for the most current availability on this product.
The richly detailed mission design of the "Cross Island" collection features furnishings for your living room, home office, and entertainment spaces. Capturing the beauty of rich country style with a versatility that enhances any home decor, a medium brown oak stained finish is beautifully accented by the mortise through ornamentation to create the rustic beauty of finely crafted mission styled furniture. Design features such as thick posts, raised panel details, overlay slats and blocks ornamentation, spindle backs and sides, tapered feet and legs, cast mission ball handles in a dark patina finish, and cast hardware finished in an aged bronze color are seen throughout this versatile collection. Functional as well stylish, ample storage is offered in the form of shelves, drawers, and doors to fulfill your storage needs. Bring "Cross Island" home with you to achieve a rich and illuminating country atmosphere where relaxation is a guarantee.
The Cross Island collection is a great option if you are looking for Mission furniture in the area.
These images are representative of this group as a whole and may differ from this item.
Browse other items in the Cross Island collection from AHFA in the area.
This item has been tagged as: Bookcase, Book Case, Shelves, Shelving, Furniture, Office Furniture, Book Shelves, Storage Shelves, Display Shelves, Bookshelf, Etagere, Storage Bookcase, Open Bookcase, Closed Book Case, Bookcase with Hutch, Door Bookcase
Nothing on this page may be copied or reproduced without explicit permission.


text:
Great Partner
Fund: Sierra Ventures
Posted by Anonymous on 2008-04-12
I have been involved in VC-funded companies for many years, and dealt with all the major funds on my various boards. Sierra is proving to be the most value-add fund that I have dealt with. Tim Guleri is willing to dig in and help find the right high-level contacts for expanding our sales, and works those contacts as adroitly as any CEO I have seen. They are not a passive fund, but on the other hand they don't needlessly get involved either, finding the right balance that adds value. If you can get them to invest in your company, you will find it a great experience.PRIVATE: Members Only (131 Characters)


text:
Texas 130 extension a 41-mile experiment
State's first public-private toll road to open by Nov. 11.
Brandon Morales once was suspicious of toll roads. Why pay extra, he thought, when you can't even drive faster than everyone else?
That's before he tried out Texas 130, a toll road that stretches from Georgetown to south Austin. Not only could the San Marcos resident avoid Interstate 35 traffic, some of the worst in the state, he could also gun his engines: Passenger vehicles can travel up to 80 mph on Texas 130.
Soon, Morales can drive even faster. A 41-mile extension of the Texas 130 toll road will open in the next six weeks, connecting south Austin to Seguin at Interstate 10. It will have an 85 mph limit, the highest in the country.
That matters to Morales, a sales coordinator and shop manager for Ralph Lauren who drives an average of 450 miles a week for work. For him, time savings are worth the price of a toll.
"I don't mind paying for things that make my life easier," Morales said.
The speed limits might be the big incentive for some drivers. But the Texas 130 extension is significant for much more. It's the first toll road to open in the San Antonio vicinity. The toll collection system will be entirely automated, so vehicles will either pay via pre-purchased electronic tags or else get billed by mail.
Beyond that, Texas 130 is an experiment of sorts. Conceived as an alternative to I-35, the Texas 130 extension is the state's first public-private toll road to open to traffic.
The state owns the roadway and surrounding land, but two private companies, the Spanish firm Cintra and San Antonio-based Zachry American Infrastructure, are building it. Their connection to the project doesn't end there: Working under the name SH 130 Concession Company, they will also operate and maintain the corridor and keep most of the toll money. But the state gets a cut of the profits, too.
In all, Cintra-Zachry will invest $1.4 billion in the project. The state didn't spend a penny.
"Our company has assumed the risk for this project," said SH 130 Concession Company spokesman Chris Lippincott. The company will lease the property for 50 years, starting from the day the road opens to traffic. In that time, it hopes to make up what it invested through tolls.
Two other such road projects are under construction in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, both of which will include toll lanes and free lanes when they open years from now.
Texas 130 will open no later than Nov. 11, possibly earlier. An advertising blitz for the toll road starts Monday in San Antonio and Austin, with ads on television, radio, online, billboards and even gas pumps.
"I think people are going to be very interested in how many people use it," said Christopher Poe, assistant director of the Texas Transportation Institute. How fast will the road drum up traffic and economic development?
Those results could take years to see. "It's not something that pops up overnight," he said.
An alternative
The idea of an alternative to I-35 was under discussion for "literally decades," said Joe Krier, former president of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. He is one of two people not employed by the SH 130 Concession Company on its board. The goal was to take pressure off of I-35, especially as more commercial trucks began to clog the road.
The state financed the first Texas 130 segments between Georgetown and Austin but said it couldn't afford to build the remaining link to I-10. Enter the private sector.
The Texas Department of Transportation agreed in 2007 to have the SH 130 Concession Company build the toll road from Mustang Ridge, south of Austin, to Seguin. No such public-private partnerships are planned in Bexar County — yet.
"Statewide, I think they have become an important trend for larger (transportation) projects," said Vic Boyer, president and CEO of the San Antonio Mobility Coalition, a local transportation advocacy group. It's likely the Legislature will grant more public-private partnerships, he said, because the state can't afford to build new roads."I think we're looking at all options," said James Bass, TxDOT's chief financial officer. "We're not just focusing on just one. We're looking at all of the tools that have been made available to the department."
But cost savings to some can be a lightning rod for others.
Cintra and Zachry partnered on another ambitious but highly controversial project called the Trans-Texas Corridor, Gov. Rick Perry's planned 4,000-mile transportation network that included toll roads and significant private-sector investment.
The project was scaled back and effectively died in 2009, at least in name, after a public outcry from landowners and toll road opponents.
To Bexar County toll road opponent Terri Hall, the new Texas 130 is a throwback to the Trans-Texas Corridor and a way for Cintra-Zachry to get a foothold in the area and eventually build a toll project on a major corridor such as I-35.
Cintra is a partner on Texas' two other public-private toll roads. The company manages 21 toll projects around the world, such as the Indiana Toll Road, which Cintra and an Australian-based company leased from that state in 2006 for $3.8 billion. A 2011 story in Debtwire indicated traffic on that road has been less than expected and that the companies were near default. Cintra disputed the report and said that it was meeting all of its financial obligations.
"Basically, SH 130 to us is the poster child for Rick Perry's failed toll road policies in Texas," Hall said. "We were told, if you build it they will come — and they're not coming."
Initially, traffic on the existing section of Texas 130 exceeded estimates. But the growth started to flatten as the economy flagged, Bass said. Revenues have increased every year but were still below projections in FY 2011.
So Hall believes TxDOT is doing everything it can to get drivers to use toll roads. She points to TxDOT decisions that she says forecast its real intentions: raising the speed limit to 85 mph, for example, a move that meant Cintra-Zachry had to pay TxDOT an extra $100 million.
The state will put up signs on sections of eastern I-10 and southern Loop 410 indicating they are part of Texas 130. TxDOT spokeswoman Kelli Reyna said that's only so drivers will know how to get to the new toll road — it's not an indication that those roads also will be tolled.
"Since it's a new roadway, people may not know or understand where the roadway is or how you get on it," Reyna said.
Hall called the designation a ploy to attract traffic to "Cintra's toll roads."
"You're going to be taking free roads to get there and then you are going to be stuck out in Seguin with no way north except Cintra's privatized toll roads," she said.
Lippincott, the SH 130 spokesman, said his company is doing everything it can to ensure drivers have a safe and efficient driving experience, even using what he called a special type of paving to smooth out the road.
Contractors ran into some problems this summer after the drought caused cracks in the asphalt, damaging about 20 percent of its linear length and resulting in millions in added costs. Lippincott said the company has done significant preventative work on sections with similar soils.
"We want to do things now that will keep the road in good shape throughout the course of our 50-year lease," he said.
Who will use it?
The new Texas 130 segment will cut through rural Travis, Caldwell and Guadalupe counties, introducing a massive, controlled-access expressway — and possibly a lot of economic development opportunities — where before there was nothing but fields of sorghum and cotton.
Don Dykstra is banking on it. The Seguin resident co-owns 57 acres west of where Texas 130 connects to I-10.
"I bought it before 130 knew where they were going to build a road, and through my sales ability and prayer, I got them to put it exactly where I wanted it," Dykstra said, who is working with several partners on a venture called Eastridge Plaza and looking for buyers to develop it.
"We have some people (who) are interested now, but we're looking for tomorrow's price," he said. "We haven't found somebody that wants to pay tomorrow's price yet. So we can wait another year."
Similarly, Seguin city officials are betting on the toll road's success. In 2008, they annexed a thin strip of land east of I-10 near the interchange with Texas 130, about four miles from where the city limit had ended.
Lockhart, also in Texas 130's path, is beginning to grow to the west, Lippincott said. A planned community called Cherryville is under development over five square miles near where Texas 130 meets Texas 80.
The road "will change these communities," Lippincott said. "Our expectation is it will be for the better."
But Texas 130 isn't exactly an easy detour for the San Antonio driver. The road meets I-10, about 30 miles outside of the city limits.
The actual toll rates are still not set, but drivers can expect to pay more than $5 for the full 41-mile trip; larger commercial trucks probably will pay more than $20.
Whatever the cost, the toll road's developers hope it will become a convenient alternative for people such as Morales, or for commercial truck drivers who want to avoid I-35 congestion.
Roger Gomez, sales manager for San Antonio-based regional carrier Southwestern Motor Transport Inc., said whether his company's drivers use the toll road will depend on how much fuel and time they can save. Currently, the drivers only use toll roads in emergencies, such as when I-35 is closed because of an accident.
"It's all about time," Gomez said.
Most of the vehicles on the existing Texas 130 today are personal vehicles, according to TxDOT records. At least twice, TxDOT has offered discounts to commercial truck drivers to use it.
Scores of San Antonio motorists might not drive out of their way to catch Texas 130 in Seguin. But local drivers can benefit if enough traffic, particularly truck traffic, gets off I-35, Krier said.
"To the extent that happens," Krier said, "it makes our trips easier.
"The nice thing about it — if you don't want to pay a toll, stay on I-35."
Correction: The new extension of the Texas 130 toll road will open no later than Nov. 11. A headline on Sunday's page 1A of the Express-News and on mySA.com incorrectly stated when the road would open.


text:
Youth Action Council Meeting
Thursday, Jun 21, 2018
12:00pm – 12:30pm
Youth Action Council meets Thursdays during Core (12:07-12:27pm) Contact Ms. Cassella for more information.
We cannot address teen substance use, bullying, anxiety or depression without input from the young people in our community! We invite Valley students to join our coalition. Share your stories of teen life: what you love about our community and what you wish were better. Receive leadership training, learn about the 40 Developmental Assets and work side-by-side with community leaders to solve some of our area's challenges. Find your voice, share your ideas and help make our schools and neighborhoods even better!
Event LocationValley Regional High School, 256 Kelsey Hill Rd.
Deep River, Connecticut, 06417


text:
¡Hola! ¿Qué tal?
Hi, everyone! How are you? I have become a member of this forum because I (want to) love Lisp. We are at the beginning of the romance, so it's like a blend of fear and illusion,
I'm not a computer science professional, in fact, my job is about words more than numbers. I'm just a guy who wants to make his own life happier. Now, a little history about me: Many years ago when I was teen I bought a book for learning C++. I spent many nights with variables, arrays and, of course, too many bugs! But one night, not, one day (because sleeping frees your RAM) I decided I should to study some Maths basics for understanding and writing better C++ code. Some years after fighting with blackboards and chalks, I found out that giving up formulaes and functions in order to (re)learn C++ would be really stupid. My mother language is Spanish but my "Nature" language is Maths, so, why should I to throw all that knowledge out? Many friends titled my ideas as "nightmares of the Reason" -"learn Java", "learn VisualBasic"...- but I know I'm walking on the sunny side of the street That day I discovered Maths deserve respect and love forever. That day I decided I had to "speak" that ancient language called "LISP". If Lisp was a religion, Maths would be God. So, it's time to pray!!
Thank you for reading my presentation and a big hug for all "believers".
¡Hasta luego!
Postdata: My English level is basic so excuse me for mistakes!


text:
Forming-Simulation Provider Opens Southern U.S. Office
Engineering Technology Associates (ETA), developer of metalforming-simulation software, opened a new office in Lawrenceburg, TN, to service the Southern United States. The office is led by Randy Purcell.
ETA, headquartered in Troy, MI, provides DynaForm software for simulation of sheetmetal forming, and VPG (Virtual Proving Ground) for development of finite-element models.
See also: ETA Dynaform
Related Enterprise Zones: Software, Tool & Die
Reader Comments
There are no comments posted at this time.


text:
Organic Hazelnut Recall
First came peanuts.
Pistachios were next.
Now, hazelnuts (aka filberts) have been recalled because of potential salmonella contamination.
Willamette Shelling of Newberg, OR, recalled 114,350 pounds of shelled hazelnuts—both organic and nonorganic—after product sampling revealed the presence of salmonella in one production lot.
The nuts involved were processed in the company's facility between Oct. 12 and Nov. 25, under the following brand names: Kunze Farms, Evonuk Oregon Hazelnuts, Canadian Hazelnuts and Firestone Farms.
Unshelled hazelnuts are not subject to this recall, and no illnesses have been reported to date.
Whole Foods Market is one of the company's customers, so the grocery chain is recalling organic raw hazelnuts and nonorganic dry-roasted hazelnuts sold in bulk through stores in California, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington. Customers who purchased the nuts may return them for a full refund. If you have additional questions, please call (512) 542-0656.


text:
For any automaker or supplier doing business in China, Aston Martin's decision to recall 17,590 sports cars built since 2007 has got to be a nightmare.
To recap briefly, the British automaker discovered last May that the accelerator pedal arm in its cars was made of inferior counterfeit plastic and was subject to breakage.
Twenty-two of those pedal arms failed, according to media reports, although Aston Martin says it has not received any reports of accidents or injuries.
But the root problem -- substandard material that was substituted for DuPont's PA6 plastic compound -- should be deeply unsettling. In a Jan. 15 letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Aston Martin said a Tier 3 supplier received this counterfeit material in bags that carried the DuPont label.
Let's consider what Aston Martin and DuPont had to do to make sure no more counterfeit material was used. According to Aston Martin, a Chinese company called Synthetic Plastic Raw Material Co. supplied the counterfeit plastic compound.
So Aston Martin and DuPont sent representatives to Shenzhen Kexiang Mould Tool Co., maker of the accelerator pedal arms, to verify that each bag of plastic used was really made by DuPont.
One industry observer told me that bags of plastic compound labeled DuPont PA6 -- but with no bill of lading -- are easily available online.
Until now, counterfeit parts appeared to be the province of aftermarket suppliers that produced knockoffs of oil filters, spark plugs, tires and the like. But if your original-equipment supplier shaves a few pennies off the cost of your widgets by using inferior raw materials, you've got problems.
Big problems.
Last week, an Aston Martin spokeswoman confirmed that the automaker planned to transfer production of accelerator pedal arms to the UK "as soon as possible."
No kidding. I suspect a number of European purchasing execs are booking flights to northern Africa, eastern Europe and elsewhere and saying to hell with the much-ballyhooed "China price."


text:
0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic. Read 4841 times.
Hi guys, my first time posting here. I had a issue with one of my PLC1 a few days ago. I have one in the tube system, and one in the HT system. I have the one in the HT system configured for bypass on input four, and I am using the tape input as input five for my turntable.Well a few days ago I decided to play a LP in the HT system. I got the TT and phono stage going, lowered the arm on the LP, went to switch inputs from my tuner on input two to the phono input, but mistakenly hit input four, which of course produced no sound because that's HT bypass, then realizing that, I went straight to the tape input. The system then came on FULL blast, like the PLC let through the full volume to the amp. I dived for the volume control, but that had no effect, I had to hit the power switch on the amp to save the speakers.After I settled down from trying to figure out why that happened, muted the PlC then went to tape input again and the TT played normally.So what I would like to know for sure is, did that happen because I went from HT bypass to the tape input and the PLC was still in pass trough mode ?Will that happen only with the tape input ?Should I always get out of the HT bypass before going to the tape input.This was the first time I went straight from HT bypass to tape input, I have gone from HT bypass to the other inputs without any problems.I hope this can by explained, because I can't figure a reason why that should have happened except for some glitch. AB.
FYI - This happens with my PLC1 mkII as well - I need to watch out when I go from HT to Tape Loop mode. It is reproducible, not a random occurence. I am a heavy user of the tape loop and HT bypass, so I ran into the issue quickly after buying the PLC1 four months ago. My solution has been to get out of HT bypass before going to the tape input. It can be scary the 1st time it happens. Good luck,Well, good to know i am not the only one. Did you buy yours new or used ?Just wondering if you ended up with the one I had.ABJ
Dusty - sent you a PM with a youtube video link of the issue when switching from HT bypass to the tape loop.Regards,Jose
Who really use a tape monitor these days ? Why not just make #4 A regular input and forget tape monitoring.AB.
I think HT is much more popular than tape monitoring.AB.
Page created in 0.051 seconds with 28 queries.


text:
I find it interesting that some people are given forenames that exactly match their surnames. A few historically significant examples include:
- Henry Henry (1846-1908), Irish Catholic bishop
- James James (1833-1902), composer of the Welsh national anthem
- Morris Morris (1845-1906), Jamaican-American stage actor
- Morgan Morgan (1688-1766), early West Virginia settler
- Thomas Thomas (1804-1877), Welsh Anglican clergyman
- Thomas Thomas (1917-1998), Indian cardiothoracic surgeon
- Thomas Thomas (1880-1911), boxing champion
(Ford Madox Ford and Horst P. Horst don't count. They were born Ford Hermann Hueffer and Horst Paul Albert Bohrmann.)
There are also many forename/surname sets out there that come close to matching, such as:
Have you ever met someone whose first name and last name were identical (or nearly so)? Do you like these sorts of names?
Update – I just found out about Thomas McKean Thompson McKennan, 1794-1852, who served as U.S. Secretary of the Interior for a few weeks in 1850. This is as close to a double double as I've ever seen.


text:
Available for Purchase in Store Only
Price and availability may vary by location Find a Store
Every new strut deserves a Strut-Mate Mounting Kit. Monroe Strut-Mate Mounting Kits are designed to reduce noise and vibration and should be utilized when replacing conventional struts or springs. In addition, Monroe's full line will provide you with late model original equipment coverage, as well as complementing the ride control characteristics of Monroe struts.


text:
I paid $20 for the special edition (or whatever it is). I feel like I got $20 out of the alpha already, it's the best free game I ever played. That said, WTF did you do to the interface?
Some points:
> Why on earth do I need to have a destination selected before picking my race/class to go adventuring? Why can't I just select something to preview it?
> What is the purpose of your busy background illustration for the town? I figured you would be able to select certain buildings, or access them interactively. Instead you've got a series of ugly grey bars over top of it.
> Please god tell me there will be a way to skip the 20 minute tutorial! I know how to play the game, I didn't learn anything new. The game is not complicated and could have been explained in two dungeons rather than four.
> The goofy little signboards. Okay, I see the logic of having them during the tutorial. Then I started my first dungeon and found they were everywhere. All right, I figured at this point I would see each of the game tips and then they would be gone... WRONG! They repeat. And every time I hit one I get a popup I have to close out of (instead of having the option to not read them). Let me turn off hints altogether please, or just get rid of them. They don't add anything to the dungeon experience, trust me. Put them on the loading screen or something if you're attached to them.
> potions taking up an inventory slot: don't like it.
> let me preview what my conversion bonus is by hovering over the conversion symbol, without anything selected.
> having duplicate runes in dungeons: don't like it. I'd rather just get fewer runes.
> I can't view my spells/items and opponent at the same time. This is a royal pain in the a$$ and I very much hope you'll reconsider. Why would you do something like this?
> Last thing: my overall impression is that you tried to take a tight, exciting game and stretch the basic mechanics over more ground, things like having duplicate runes just make the game duller. I never played until the Aug 5 version, and I understand people complained before then about the difficulty. Well the new version certainly isn't difficult at the start! I thought the whole attraction of alpha DD was the difficulty?
Maybe I sound like a big whiner, but like I said, I got my money's worth in the alpha so I'm not sorry to support your work with my purchase. The alpha was fantastic. In fact, right now I feel like going back and playing it some more.


text:
Watch previews, scenes and cast interviews from some of your favorite American Masters programs. If you cannot find what you are looking for, please try our video player.
American Masters Programs
American Masters | Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise
Posted by
Watch Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 8pm on WMHT-TV | Journey through the prolific life of the I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings author and activist.Read More
American Masters | Sidney Lumet
Posted by
Watch Tuesday, January 3, 2017 at 8pm on WMHT-TV | Journey through the life's work of the socially conscious director of 12 Angry Men and Network.Read More
American Masters | Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future
Last Updated by
Watch Tuesday, December 27, 2016 at 8pm on WMHT-TV | Explore the life of the modernist architect behind visionary buildings like St. Louis' Gateway Arch.Read More
American Masters | Mel Brooks: Make a Noise
Last Updated by
Watch on WMHT-TV | Laugh along as comedy giant Mel Brooks shares stories about his personal life and career.Read More
American Masters | Norman Lear
Posted by
Watch Tuesday, October 25 at 9pm & Friday, October 28, 2016 at 10:30pm on WMHT-TV | Discover how the prolific "All in the Family" creator effected social change through his sitcoms.Read More
American Masters | The Highwaymen: Friends Till the End
Last Updated by
Watch Friday, May 27, 2016 at 9pm on WMHT TV | Discover the story behind the country music supergroup via new interviews and vintage performances.Read More
American Masters | Johnny Carson: King of Late Night
Posted by
Watch Sunday, May 8, 2016 at 3pm on WMHT TV | Explore the career, complexities and contradictions of the biggest star television has ever produced.Read More
American Masters | Janis: Little Girl Blue
Last Updated by
Watch June 2016 on WMHT-TV | Observe Janis Joplin's life through intimate letters and rare footage in the first in-depth celebration of the iconic rock singer.Read More
American Masters | Fats Domino and the Birth of Rock 'n' Roll
Last Updated by
Watch Friday, February 26, 2016 at 10pm on WMHT TV | Discover how Fats Domino's New Orleans rhythm and blues became rock 'n' roll and aided integration.Read More
American Masters | Harper Lee: Hey, Boo
Posted by
Watch Sunday, February 21, 2016 at 11:15pm on WMHT TV | Explore the mysterious life of Harper Lee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of To Kill a Mockingbird.Read More


text:
To order an image, navigate to the fulldisplay and click "request this image"on the blue toolbar.
Engraving by H. W. Smith
Approximate size of image: 9 cm x 8 cm; whole page (visible in large image): 21.8 cm x 14.7 cm
From Portraits of American Abolitionists (a collection of images of individuals representing a broad spectrum of viewpoints in the slavery debate)Photo. 81.393
This portrait depicts John Keep, (1781-1870).


text:
Nicolette SheaRequest Her Follow
Model Information
Measurements: 36D-22-36
Nude model Nicolette Shea is a busty blonde with the centerfold look who burst onto the scene with one of the most monumental debuts in porn history. With over a million social media followers, Nicolette is bringing back the bleached blonde with big, fake tits look to the porn world, and the camera flashes will blind you when she's around. With her statuesque beauty, bubble butt, and substantial sexual skills, Ms. Shea's goal isn't just to do porn: she wants to be a porn star. Nicolette says she's always been super sexual, but wanted to be more of an exhibitionist. Her love for the camera gained from modeling for companies like Maxim and FHM led her to make the push into porn, and this poker-playing XXX crossover star is poised to achieve her goal: becoming the new Jenna Jameson! From the bleached blonde hair atop her 5'11" frame, to her massive 34DDD boobs, right down to her bangin' bubble butt, whether she's feature dancing or fucking on film, Nicolette Shea is one picturesque beauty you simply cannot help but take a mental picture of.
Subscribe to this page Like
908 Likes, 46 Dislikes
86,449 Views


text:
We stopped by Playmobil today and visited with Michelle Winfrey. Last year you'll remember we gave the Playmobil Egyptian setting our Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award. Each year we wonder what will be the big new theme. This year, there were several new sets that I think will be a hit with our testers. The two biggest sets are the Dragons – complete with Castles that can connect by a bridge. It made me think of that portion of the original Shrek movie. (Of course here the dragons are not trying to court Eddie Murphy, but hey it's pretend so I guess anything's possible!). You can take a closer look by watching our video with Michelle.
The next set that really caught our attention was the Fire Fighters. What we love about Playmobil is the attention to detail in planning a series. As you'll notice in our video of the Fire Fighters series, there's not only a really cool looking fire station (complete with pole), there are two different fire trucks, a fire chief's truck and a fire boat.


text:
Our growing team of more than 500 employees throughout 19 offices brings a national perspective to the local level.
What does it take to help clients succeed, time and again? Perspective. ESA brings to each project a broad point of view that comes from more than 40 years of working with federal, state and local agencies, private developers, municipal utilities, and the public. Our local teams know the unique regulatory environment, area, and stakeholders, providing insight and expertise that informs a variety of environmental solutions–backed by the resources and perspective of a leading environmental firm with a national presence. We perform at the local level with the knowledge it takes to clearly communicate. We are experts at presenting complex concepts in terms that every stakeholder can understand.


text:
A photographer takes a picture. An artist captures the essence of the model. The difference is dramatic: the first is a snapshot, the second is erotic art. And this difference is what makes every gallery contained in the Errotica Archives completely unique. The erotic art photos contained in the Errotica Archives are reflections and impressions of the beautiful women who pose in them. In these photos you'll find the moods, the dreams, the fantasies of the world's most beautiful erotic models. What you see here isn't something a photographer dreamed up - the beauty, honesty, and intimacy captured in the Errotica Archives is what these exquisite females want you to see. And when you've experienced the Errotica Archives, the way you experience erotic art will be changed forever.
Friendly Sites highly recomended for visit:
|Beautiful Nude Girls
|Sexy Mpegs
|Met Art Perfection
|High Quality TGP
|Naked Nature Girls
|Ideal Babes
|Erotic Perfection
|Daily Sweet Lady
|Eva's Free Galleries
|Met Art News
|Undress Me Slowly


text:
This is a very special kite for me.
One of those kites that is exciting from the moment you unzip it from its luggage like bag.
The spirit of the blue graphics really looks sharp, and the color scheme gives the kite an overall darkness to it without being black.
Some riders prefer dark kites because they are easier to track out of the corner of your eye when the conditions are grayed out by cloud cover or rain.
We have some of the toughest conditions in the world here in the NW.
Gusty shifty storm winds and piles of rocks, sticks and logs we call beaches.
This is what this kite can handle and this is what this kite loves.
Ross Harrington chose construction techniques and materials designed to handle frequent cycles of aerodynamic stresses and extreme conditions.
There are mulitple layers of reinforcement to the canopy and leading edge, including the kite saver...a spanwise shock strip woven into the structure of the panels and struts. This is a proven system for absorbing significant amounts of energy during an extreme impact or stress and saves the seams and fabric from tearing or popping loose. I think it helps give OR kites amazing control too, by unifying the wing in a way that eliminates canopy distortion. OR kites all fly super clean in the top end of their wind range because of this.
The one pump inflates fast, and the bridal is simple and strong with 2 tuning points on the kite for each line attachment.
You can fine tune this kite for your style or wind condition, from a bow like to a C like feel at the bar.
Its easy to self launch and from the moment I put this kite into the air, I noticed how compact and aerodynamic it felt. It slips wonderfully through gusty shifty winds in the 20's and 30's for me without much de-power at the cleat. I haven't tested the high end, but it feels like it could pull my 200lbs weight through winds up to 40 safely but probably with huge amounts of power. The tracking is rock solid and easy to park, and turning is progressive and fluid. I loved how easy it was to adapt to.
The way this vented kite allows you to point upwind effortlessly, then how calm and slow it can fly when you point downwind...like some dutiful servant awaiting your gentle input to zoom into traction once again so smoothly with just the right amount of bar pressure so you can feel where the kite is...this really inspires confidence when you are focused on riding. It feels like this kite can handle anything with a calm that can smooth out even the gustiest bitch of a wind. Its the perfect wave hunter IMO.
Yet, when you are ready to do some flying, there is an awesome power inside this blue beauty as well.
I'm talking about the way this 2nd generation vented SLE engages traction during a power stroke.
The feel of the "pop and pull" vertical hangtime is clean and smooth though out the stroke pattern and there seems to be a generous margin of recovery for overflight or backstalling. This is the easiest Rise yet for jumping big and long, and coming down with excellent control for any type of landing you want. And if you do lose it, the water re-launch is superb.
I get excited when I think about this deep blue 8m Rise that the BKB has let me demo this winter, its one of the "must try" kites of 2009 for sure.


text: Bonnie Rotten and Skin Diamond are hanging out at the bar when they her a punk band start playing. Well Bonnie and Skin think that they\'re more punk than the band and they set out to prove it by fucking each other with a double ended dildo right on the bar. What else can these two women get into to show they don\'t play by the rules? Well, they could share the bartender\'s cock of course. These two bring a no holds barred session of fucking, sucking, and squirting to the bar. Forget about anarchy in the UK, Bonnie and Skin bring anarchy to NA.


text:
In order to better serve our customers, WebzPro is making an important upgrade in your server's default configuration.
The default version of PHP on our servers will be updated to PHP 5.4. This change will ensure a more secure and stable hosting environment going forward.
Final version of PHP 5.3 will be released on 6/29/2014 and at that time we will update the servers with PHP 5.3.29. On 7/3/2014 around 4:00 AM CST we will update all servers to PHP 5.4.
1) Why are you making this change?
The default version of PHP that our servers are currently utilizing; PHP 5.3 has been deprecated for some time and end of life for that version will be 6/29/2014. As such, we would like to see your sites enjoying the security and performance benefits of the newer versions of PHP which we already have available on your server.
2) How can I make sure my sites will work?
To test your sites please login into your cPanel and you can change your current PHP version by following the instructions in our Knowledge Base, PHP Selector Choose PHP 5.3, 5.4 or 5.5, https://www.webzpro.com/wbill/knowledgebase.php?action=displaycat&catid=35
Once finished testing reverse the above steps and run the native version of PHP.
3) Will my site experience any down time?
Once the Sysadmins recompile the server configuration servers will be rebooted and require about ten minutes for service to come back up.
4) Who can help me update my site/script to use a newer version of PHP?
While we can assist you with changing the version of PHP your script utilizes, we will not be able to recode your site to be compatible with newer versions of PHP. You should contact the script's author/developer to inquire as to whether or not they currently have or plan to re-design their code to utilize later versions of PHP.
5) Software and versions compatibility?
Most main stream software if not all will already be compatible with PHP such as the following.
WordPress (versions 3.0 and above)
Joomla (2.5 and above)
Drupal (7 and above)
Again please contact your software vendors and developers to check for compatibility issues if any.
If you have any questions do not reply to this email, open a support ticket under Billing/Management and we will do our best to address your concerns.
יום חמישי, יוני 19, 2014


text:
Since 1981, CLM Services has been managing and servicing outdoor recreation facilities.
Learn More
CLM Services currently manages several hundred campground facilities in California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.
Interested in being a camp host? CLM employs hundreds of workers during the summer months.
CLM Services is comprised of several companies dedicated to the operation of outdoor recreation facilities and related hospitality services. CLM Services also offers a variety of consulting services in these same areas of expertise including:
2019 season job opportunities are now being listed.
This listing will change frequently, so check back often.
See The List
To make reservations for Chief Timothy Park, click on this link...
Campground reservations are encouraged to ensure you have a campsite waiting for you when you arrive.
Reserve Onlineor phone1-877-444-6777
CLM Services Corporation 675 Gilman Street Palo Alto, CA, 94301, USA Tel: (650) 322-1181Fax: (650) 322-1194or email us firstname.lastname@example.com
We use cookies to improve your experience. By your continued use of this site you accept such use. I understand


text:
Gift ideas for the hipster who has everything
Posted by
Nicole |
View all posts by Nicole
Leave a comment!
The hardest people to shop for during the holidays are those who have everything.
My solution?
Get them something that accessorizes items they already own and love.
Here are 6 holiday gift ideas for those who have everything and enjoy living the bohemian lifestyle.
1. Jonas Damon Tool Set , $95.
2. Thomas Paul Big Business Pad/Tablet Envelope, $38.
3. Thomas Paul Orinthology Scarf, $120.
4. Singgih Kartono Magno Wooden Radio, starting at $150.
5. Vers Iphone Shell Case, $40.
6. FUZ bags, starting at $39.