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Leave a Review
I used Organic Valley heavy cream instead of half and half. I served it over brownies with vanilla ice cream and it was amazing! I tend to stay away from corn syrup for health reasons, so I was happy to find this recipe!
This sauce has a nice flavor and is fast and easy to make, and I would use it again IF I were cooking for someone who had to avoid corn syrup (e.g., for allergies) or I wanted a quick sauce and had no corn syrup in the house. However, the March 2005 Hot Fudge sauce recipe at this site, which uses corn syrup instead of butter, has a much better texture, especially when chilled and reheated. This one has to be reheated extremely carefully as even a few seconds too long will cause the butter to separate out and be impossible to reincorporate. The other one is a bit deeper in chocolate flavor, too, though, as written, it is also a bit sweeter which some may not prefer.
This was an easy recipe, although I mistaked using whole milk- I didnt have half and half. It seemed VERY thin when I stirred the chocolate in, and then I stuck it in the fridge to chill for about 10 minutes to see if it would make a difference. However, it didnt so I waited a little bit longer, till it was slightly warm, and it had thickened slightly... it tasted REALLY good cuz i used some german chocolate(the more inexpensive kind to cook it with. I poured it over my icecream with wipped cream ontop, and it got a little bit chewy, which was good :)
This is one of the easiest hot fudge recipes I've found. A group of us worked together on brownies with hot fudge, but we couldn't find corn syrup, which made this recipe even better! We ended up using 10 fl. oz. of double cream instead of a cup of half and half, but the end result was really wonderful. Since the fudge was going over brownies, it didn't need to be particularly sweet (which was good, considering that we used too much cream), and the texture was wonderful.
Made it for my husbands birthday! Very easy and deliciouse. I used good quality milk chocolate chips and didn't have half and half so I used heavy cream instead. I liked this recipe better then others because of the simplisity, no corn syrup needed!
With this fast and easy recipe, no one should ever use pre-processed fudge sauce again. Home made is just so much better! Do use the best possible quality chocolate. Belgian-made Cote d'Or Noir (dark) (with the elephant) is fabulous.
I made this to go over pound cake for a birthday at work. Everyone loved it, but me. I thought it was too thin and could have been sweater (duh, no added sugar)!


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Group and Trade Visits
Sir Harold Hillier Gardens makes the perfect setting for a memorable day out. Explore, relax and discover these award winning 180 acre Gardens.
We host a range of excellent facilities and attractions:
A magnificent collection of thousands of trees and shrubs from around the world.
Restaurant and Tea Rooms.
Summer Art in the Garden exhibition.
Gift Shop.
Plant Centre.
Dedicated free coach parking.
All ability path network and mobility scooters for hire.
Indoor art/craft exhibitions throughout the year.
The Gardens have a dedicated coach drop off point and fast track entry to make your trip stress free.
We recommend that all group visits are booked in advance, to ensure your day runs smoothly. To book online, please complete the booking request form.
Once we receive your completed booking form, we will then contact you to confirm arrangements.
We are happy to help with any queries you may have, please contact the team on 01794 369318 or email email@example.com.
Seasonal Highlights
One of the most delightful times to visit the Gardens with Magnolia Avenue and Spring Walk. See the carpets of spring bulbs in full bloom and Japanese flowering cherries in full glory. Head into Brentry Woodland, a must-see spectacle of vibrant rhododendrons and colourful Azaleas.
Iconic Centenary Border –the longest double herbaceous border in the UK. A kaleidoscope of colour, simply stunning from May through to October. Also enjoy the tranquility of the Pond, banked by lush foliage and giant Gunnera.
Sir Harold Hillier Gardens is world-renowned for its display of Autumn colour, with hundreds of Champion Trees on show. Autumn is a great time to see the autumn fruits, berries and fungi. Not forgetting the Heather Gardens, awash with pretty purples hues.
Enjoy one of the largest Winter Gardens of its kind in Europe, with plants specially selected to be at their best between November and March. See the bold stem and bark colours and smell the incredible scents. Don't miss the Hellebores, drifts of snowdrops and carpets of cyclamen.
Our contemporary 100-seater Pavilion Restaurant, with open terrace panoramic views across the Gardens is ideal for groups. A range of delicious home cooked meals are available, using locally sourced seasonal ingredients. Ask about our set menu options.
Afternoon Teas
Jermyn's House, the Victorian manor house is an idyllic setting within the Gardens. Enjoy light lunches and delicious cream teas, served in the house or on the lawn. Pre-purchase catering vouchers are available for groups.
Guided Tours
Why not book a guided tour with our knowledgeable horticultural experts, these tours are competitively priced and can be booked in advance (some foreign language tours maybe available). Lasting around 1.5 hours these seasonal tours are helpful and informative with the opportunity to ask questions.
Want to discover on your own? All group members receive a free 'plants of current interest' leaflet and colour map, ideal for self-guided visits.
The Gardens and buildings are accessible with an all-ability path network and accessible toilets.
Four wheelchairs are available free of charge but must be booked in advance. To book a wheelchair please indicate on your booking form or contact us on 01794 369318.
Nearby attractions
The Great Hall, Winchester (10 Miles) -
Salisbury Cathedral (20 miles)
Romsey Abbey (3 Miles) -
Portsmouth Historic Dockyard (30 miles)
Sir Harold Hillier Gardens is just 3 miles from the picturesque market town of Romsey. Tourist attractions in the town include Romsey Abbey and King John's House.
If you wish to combine your visit with another local attraction, Sir Harold Hillier Gardens is conveniently located just 7 miles off the M27 (J3) close to Bournemouth, Winchester, Portsmouth, Salisbury and The New Forest.
For school bookings
Group Benefits
Special group rates (for parties of 10+)
Free coach parking, easy drop off and collection point
Free 'plants of interest' leaflet and colour map
Free refreshment voucher for the coach driver
Free entry for the coach driver

subset: commoncrawl


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A federal report says the government is moving so slowly to clean up the most polluted sites in the Great Lakes that it will take 77 more years to finish the job at the current pace.
The inspector general's office with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the report this week.
It deals with 31 so-called "areas of concern," which are river bottoms, harbors and other spots where sediments are heavily contaminated with toxic chemicals. One of those areas is where the St. Louis River empties into Duluth harbor.
The report estimates it will cost more than $2 billion to finish the cleanup.
It calls on EPA to establish a plan with clear lines of authority and accountability for each site.
The report says the agency has agreed to develop a limited management plan but hasn't gone far enough.


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As the first single released in advance of Jesu: Pale Sketches DeMixed, Justin K. Broadrick's Ghostly debut as Pale Sketcher, "Can I Go Now (Gone Version)" is more than a fine introduction. The track contains everything Pale Sketcher does best: trash-compactor beats, gently swelling synth pads, and an air of beautiful, post-apocalyptic decay. Broadrick's vocals float above it all, vocoded and reverbed, lending a touch of humanity to the song's mechanized melancholy.
Danish duo Syntaks' remix of "Can I Go Now" employs a double-time rhythm and a cloud of shoegazey guitars to bring the track to ethereal new heights; while Donnacha Costello's take tosses Broadrick's vocal into a pool of sky-blue synthesizers, recalling Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works while adding a romantic tilt to the song's downcast melody.
Can I Go Now (Gone Version)
Download (MP3) | $2.97 | Add to Cart |
All MP3 Downloads encoded at 320 kbps unless otherwise specified.


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Monday, June 16, 2008
what exactly IS a phiaro?
So I present to you:
pattern: Phiaro scarf by Katie Himmelberg from Knitscene Winter 08/Spring 07
yarn: Eden Madil 100% bamboo (colourway #630)
needles: 5mm
(Little bit of a boob-showcase in that shot oopsy. Damn this shelf of mine!)
First of all, this yarn is really nice. It's my first time knitting with bamboo, and it it is silky soft ...like buttah. The stitches even dropped like buttah (which was a pain if you "accidentally" dropped one, but heaven for a pattern like this). Next Clapotis I make will definitely be made in this. When I think back to how I had to sometimes "pick" dropped stitches apart on the other two I made...this yarn would definitely render that particular problem null and void. That said I would highly recommend it to anyone knitting a clapotis (would I recommend it for this pattern though? not sure...likely to recommend something with a tad less drape). It's got MAJOR drape (which feels amazing on...), and after it was blocked, just that much silkier. Though to be fair...what makes this yarn nice is also what at times made it a pain in the ass...it NEVER stayed balled up, and it was kinda splitty sometimes too.
If I made it again I would likely cast on about half as many stitches. It is H-U-G-E. I know it's supposed to double as a shawl (and I *was* kind of thinking about it for a wedding in September...), and is meant to be big, but really, it is a giant. No, I did not check my gauge. It's a scarf! And, I like my scarves big. The bigger the better in fact. But uh....still too big I think for a saner person than I.
All of the magic with this project happens at the VERY end. Here's what it looked like when I finished knitting it:
SNORE. It's just a big ol' giant tube. And then, you drop a TERRIFYING number of stitches (particularly in light of all that endless stockinette).
And I do mean terrifying:
(image deleted)
Once you're done dropping all those stitches (a task that begs the question "SURELY there is another way?!) you then have to CUT through it in order to de-tube and make it a scarf. Also terrifying.
By far the most tedious task though was the braiding of the fringe.
(image deleted)
This literally took me TWO full evenings, and in the end I wound up chopping them in half further because the scarf was so long already. I should have measured it...it has to be at least nine feet (unstretched) I'd say. And the whole thing was so curly after all that knitting that not blocking it wasn't an option.
So there you have it. As I was knitting it I was thinking "what have I gotten myself into? it will never be done!", a prospect made all the more real by how boring of a knit it was. But the reality is, I was only knitting it at work...the odd lunch hour here or there and I was still done it in about three weeks. Given that I plan on knitting the next one about half as big, and have been quite pleased with the results, I'm now thinking that this is actually a quick and easy knit. I for sure would recommend it with some tweaking, and probably hit up ravelry for some other hints on this.
Or I guess I could just make another clapotis.
12 comments:
- whistlepeaknits said...
That's a crazy construction! It's lovely.
I used Eden Madil for my Picovoli and I loved working with it but I also found it super splitty. - 8:41 AM
- Julia said...
Aha! I SO didn't get the tube/scarf thing - thanks for clearing that up! Love the colour and it looks very slinky and drapey - gotta love bamboo!
Oh NOW I get it! Cool! How much yarn did you use in the end? I have a few balls of bamboo languishing in the stash...
- Reckless Glue said...
I think I used five...I'm sure you could get away with three!
- The Happy College Knitter said...
Oh my gosh that's hilarious. Your face is priceless in that one shot of you behind the yarn! The finished product looks fantastic and well worth the hassle of going through that entire process! I want one!
- Lolly said...
okay, this is awesome. i love the yellow!
- Charisse said...
I just love how this turned out! Well worth the endless stockinette :)
- Sarah said...
What a crazy construction, would not have worked that out in a million years
Love the colourway and think it makes a great shawl/mega scarf - 11:25 PM
- aleksandra said...
oh i love love love this! it's got the simplicity of a clapotis, but is even more open. the idea of dropping stitches appeals to me a lot.
well, maybe one day it will be my turn. :D for now i'm in a sock hype. - 6:07 AM
- Reckless Glue said...
thanks everyone for your great comments!
- Wendy said...
I LOVE the way this came out! I'm putting it in my queue! i love working iwth bamboo and I've adored each project I've made with it. I can only imagine how wonderful it would feel to be wrapped up in this lovely drap.
- Norma said...
I am trying to knit this on a Magic Loop - I am using a size seven 40 inch round needle and making one loop in the middle. So far it's working but is aggravating......


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Not many people enter marriage thinking it will lead to divorce. While accurate divorce rates are difficult to calculate and often unreliable, many social scientists conclude that up to 40% of marriages are terminated. The chances are fairly high that you or someone you know will get divorced.
"It can be the worst thing you've ever gone though in your life," says Brette Sember, a former divorce lawyer and author of a series of divorce books, including The Complete Divorce Handbook (Sterling, 2009). "You're hurt, sad, frustrated, scared and can't think clearly."
Regrettably, it is also one of the most important times to keep your wits about you, as the decisions you make during this time can affect you for the rest of your life. While divorce laws vary from state to state, here are some basic, but vitally important, guidelines to keep in mind.
Keep Your Business Head
A divorce can be an emotionally wrenching time. The first thing you might want to do is burn your husband's belongings, slash his tires, grab the kids and the stock portfolio and make a run for it. Don't do any of it! Remember that everything you do from here on out will be taken into account by a judge ready to decide your fate.
"Setting the lawn mower on fire is destroying marital assets," says Sember. "The judge will not be happy with you. Don't burn his baseball cards, don't e-mail threats to the new girlfriend."
Sember recommends doing everything you can to think rationally during this time: See a therapist, join a divorce support group and rely on close friends. She adds: "When you are angry, you can make impulsive decisions that are not good for you in the long run, like saying, 'Fine, keep the house!' Divorce is a business negotiation, and you've got to get your business head on." As long as you are not in danger, it's better to stay in the house so you can continue to gather financial and other information.
Grow Up and Take Control
Unfortunately, many women, even powerful professionals, are still in the dark about household finances. "Even the women who could be in charge of lots of money at work just step away from being financially responsible in their personal lives," says Margery Rubin, divorce coach and author of What Your Divorce Lawyer May Not Tell You (Simon & Schuster, 2009). "It's that 'Daddy will take care of me,' type of thing. I call it the 'Little Girl' syndrome."
But when you are divorcing 'Daddy,' it's time to grow up. You need to dig deep into the finances–copy your husband's tax return or your shared tax returns. Many women, say lawyers, still just sign on the dotted line, or have their husband sign, without taking a good look at the information. Compile all the credit card statements, banks accounts, bills and a list of out-of-pocket expenses so you can make a budget and know what you're entitled to ask for financially.
"Literally, take the whole filing cabinet to Kinko's and photocopy everything," says Chicago divorce lawyer Beth Fawver McCormack, who also recommends "dumpster diving" for information that was thrown in the trash and putting keyboard sweeping software on shared home computers to find out about hidden bank accounts, businesses or other information. (If it is not a shared computer, but one used solely by your husband, seek counsel first.)
If you plan on charging that joint marital assets were squandered on a mistress, drugs or gambling, you can most likely get some of that money back, but you need proof of what was spent. More reason to dig through the trash, credit card bills and shared computer. By the way, if you find out about an affair and then resume a relationship with your husband–go on vacation or even have marital relations–you can no longer hold the affair against him in court. So if it's over, make sure it's over!
Hire a Lawyer Who'll Work With You
This may seem like an obvious one, but women often go from letting a man at home dictate their lives to letting a lawyer do the same, says Rubin. "You need to educate yourself about your rights, so you can direct the lawyer. The lawyer is going to walk away, he'll be paid and you'll never see him again. Meanwhile, you have to live with his decisions forever."
Rubin shares how, during her divorce 15 years ago, her lawyer routinely made decisions without consulting her, and even went so far as to tell her that she didn't "need" a car when she requested one of the family automobiles. "I should have known from the beginning that he was talking down to me," she says. "The way your lawyer talks to you is a big deal."
It's better to fire a lawyer you feel uncomfortable with sooner rather than later, says Rubin, because after a while, he or she will be too entrenched in your case. "If you are always being forced into a corner and constantly giving in to the other side, that is a bad sign."
Face Today's Tough Economy
The economic downturn has made divorce more complex than ever. Because a couple's largest asset is often their home, and most homes have lost some if not all of their value, selling a home and splitting the sale 50-50 is less attractive than ever. The situation is so bad, says Nancy Chemtob, a New York City divorce lawyer with celebrity and billionaire clients, that many couples are putting off divorce until their financial situation improves. This way, homes and stock options don't have to be sold and split with neither party making a dime.
"They might agree to stay together until the fair market value of the house is X amount of dollars," says Chemtob. However, since 2008 tax returns are used for a divorce filed in 2009, some parties might decide to take their chances and "cash out" of the marriage before things get even worse. One may hope for a lower than usual valuation on assets, so that they can buy out the other party at a discount.
Consider Legal Alternatives
Divorce can be acrimonious, but for those couples that are amicably going their separate ways, or maybe just want to avoid the trauma of a courtroom, something called Collaborative Law, a fairly new process offered as an option in most states, may be the way to go. "At the end of the day, it can be a better outcome because both parties arrive at a solution, rather than leaving it to someone in a black robe," says McCormack, who says about 10% of her clients decide to use the collaborative method. It can also be much less expensive and less taxing on children.
While each party is represented by attorneys who are certified in collaborative law, each must also sign a contract committing to stay out of court. If the process falls apart and the parties decide to take it to court after all, they need to start from scratch and hire new lawyers. "You don't put away the law, but you become a team dedicated to deciding what is best for the future of you both," she continues. More information can be found on collablaw.com.
Other people might choose to use a mediator, a somewhat different approach. Here, an independent third party trained in mediation is retained to help each party reach an agreement. Lawyers can be consulted during the mediation process, but usually aren't (to save money). However, each party must individually consult a lawyer before the mediation agreement is signed. Mediators (you can locate one near you on Mediate.com) can recommend "mediation-friendly" lawyers. Depending on how complex the divorce is, one can have anywhere from a few to a dozen mediation sessions. Divorce coach Margery Rubin warns that mediation will not be successful unless both parties are communicative and trust each other.


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Menchie's Frozen Yogurt Debuts New Samoa-Inspired Flavor
Frozen Samoa goodness
Photo courtesy of Alyssa Bermudes
When I first watched The Addams Family ,at age 10, I immediately found a new hero in Wednesday Addams for the way she cleverly turned the tables on a persnickety Girl Scout. I then proceeded to steal this joke and repeat it to people when I was trying to sell cookies as a Girl Scout. (Almost no one laughed.)
Girl Scout cookies may not be made from real Girl Scouts, and in fact contain a host of far scarier ingredients, but damn they taste good. I'm a fan of the old classics: Trefoils, Tagalongs, Thin Mints, and, of course, Samoas. I swear as a small child a single Samoa cookie could satisfy me; now, I could eat the whole box in no time flat and still be game for more.
Menchie's also offers crushed Thin Mints and Samoas as toppings.
Photo by Joanna O'Leary
To save myself some calories (and post-binge shame), I will instead go to Menchie's, which recently debuted an official, Girls Scouts-sanctioned "Samoa" frozen yogurt.
The Samoa fro-yo has all the creamy coconut flavor of the cookie, as well as subtle hints of cocoa. If you miss the crunch of the Samoa, just add some toppings for texture. Menchie's offers multiple types of crushed cookies and candies, but in keeping with the theme, I suggest a hefty scoop of either actual crushed Samoas or Thin Mints. Both are available as toppings for a limited amount of time at most Menchie's.
Menchie's Samoa Frozen Yogurt
Photo by Joanna O'Leary
Now, I know it's easy to overdo it when concocting your ideal cup of frozen yogurt. ($8? Really? For frozen yogurt? Damn that scale!) For that reason, I suggest going to Menchie's during one of their happy hours (times vary by location), during which period all cups are $5 regardless of weight.
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That's how I ended most of my conversations in KOTOR, thank you very much. I wonder if that's why Bastila never fell for me? So if I'm hearing this right, it's harder to get through the story because you can only get so powerful, but nothing is utterly blocked off, as in "you must be level XX or higher to accept this mission"? I should've just titled this thread "explain MMOs to Cooper, please".
You earn experience by completing quests and killing enemies. You earn three-quarters of what subscribers earn as a FTP player. Experience increases your character's level. New quests open up as you increase your character's level, from 1 to 50.
Three quarters at most, that is. Subscribers can get double rested XP, which is a bonus unavailable to F2P.
So you can level as high as you want, it's just a lot harder. And the lower your level, the harder the game is generally.
If you just want to play through once, you can probably do it in a month just playing several nights per week for a few hours. I suggest just signing up and paying for one month. It might take you an extra couple weeks to play through the whole thing with the F2P handicaps. In general, if you just want the story, the easiest way to get through everything would be to always be ahead on experience and levels the whole way through. I'd suggest the following: If you're a subscriber, always log off from a cantina or other rest area to build up the XP bonus for resting Occasionally play space missions on your ship for experience and credits Occasionally group up to do side quests (Flashpoints on the space station, Heroic missions on the planets) Occasionally join the queue for P2P arenas. You get credits and experience win or lose. Also, if you want story, you definitely want to do two particular Flashpoints on the space station. On the Republic side, they involve Revan. Forget the names of the missions, but they are not located on the main space station, but on another ship at the fleet.
Those flashpoints (Taral V, Maelstorm Prison, Boarding Party, and The Foundry, which occur in the 30s level wise, involve Revan on both sides - the Republic portion happens chronologically prior to the Imperial portion (such temporal manipulation happens in a few other areas, such as on Balmorra and Taris). Additionally the culmination of the overall TOR storyline, revealed to date, takes place in the final two flashpoints that occur only at lvl 50 on Ilum (Battle of Ilum and False Emperor), involving Malgus. These require endgame gear to complete, so FTP is effectively frozen out. There are several other endgame flashpoints as well for story - Directive 7 (droid revolution plot), and Kaon Under Siege + Lost Island (Rakghoul plot, though Lost Island is a royal pain in the Force). Technically the bonus XP only applies to what is gained killing enemies, not via questing, and questing is the primary XP source. Even so, with judicious management bonus xp amounts to hundreds of thousands out of the roughly 8 million total necessary to reach lvl 50.
Ah. I hadn't realized that it was so little. I knew that it applied only to enemies but I thought it had a larger overall role. Can flash points -- at least early ones -- be soloed? I've stopped playing my consular in favor of a knight but my consular is in the forties. Coop, be warned that the consular hat and robes only really look good with female characters. I believe the technical term for male consulars is "derpy". So if that's an issue, then you may want to avoid the consular. Alternatively, you may want to play a male knight because the female knight armor is a bit stripperific. I can post pics of the consular hats later. I quite like them. Misa ab iPhono meo.
Some of the Consular hats are ok, others... less so. Sith gear is even more... flashy, although some of it is arguably cooler-looking (in-game, one JK companion even snarks that its like all the fashion designers have joined the darkside). There is an option to hide your character's head gear... but its not available to F2P. You can buy the option in the Cartel Market (and there's no way to get Cartel Coins in game, only with real money I think), its just somewhat annoying with some masks (not Consular but some Agent/smuggler gear is like that) covering your character's face in cutscenes. Not that the animation is super-good or anything, but I don't much care for that echo effect they add. Rested XP does help somewhat, it at least speeds things along a bit, but the rewards from quests are still the largest amount. Also depends on how high or low level you are compared to the current enemies. Being several levels below the recommended level for a planet means... 1000xp from Strong or Elite enemies or something like that, so it helps somewhat, but the quests are still the biggest chunk of XP. It just gets really boring repeating the planetary quests for the fourth time (have 4 Republic characters) in some cases. Not sure what you mean by solo flashpoints. At low levels you're not going to have all that much gear, so something like the Esseles and Black Talon are probably impossible alone, or even with just two people, guess it depends. You can go back and do them when you're higher leveled, just not much experience reward then. Don't think even the higher level flashpoints are able to be run solo, unless you're wearing really good raid gear or can sneak through or something (don't know that much about group content). You do need to level up eventually, unfortunately, to get past the story bosses... and if you're under-leveled, you are in trouble. The stealth classes (Shadow, Scoundrel, Assassin and Operative) can help you to avoid fighting through every mob on the way to the story sites, but you need to level up eventually, so the experience helps. Unless you can find someone high level willing to help you win all the boss battles, they can join you, otherwise levelling up takes a while, a long while especially above level... 35, I'd say. Unless you have a lot of rested XP, you usually have to do just about every single non-Heroic mission on a planet to stay near the recommended level. You can still get by, especially if you're a healer, but not sure how much harder it would be for F2P since they can't equip some of the better gear. Oh yeah, I think F2P has to revive at the medcenters, and can't just revive where they died, which is... inconvenient. Also I think there are really 3 tiers of players- subscribers who get everything, F2P who are missing a lot, and preferred (former subscribers or those who have bought at least one thing off the Cartel Market) who aren't missing quite as much as F2P. Not entirely sure about the details, its probably listed somewhere on the main site.
That's the source of my dilemma in choosing whether I want to play a male or female consular when the time comes. The clothing is a lot better with the female characters, but I personally much prefer the male voice actor. Do I want to look dignified, or sound dignified more?
This thread is exhausting. Okay, one more question. People are talking about "soloing" flashpoints, but I thought there were NPC companions built into the plot the same way they are in KOTOR. It's one thing to go into a flashpoint without other human beings, but I was under the impression I would be able to control a group of NPCs a la KOTOR when necessary.
Essentially, every class has access to five companions that you acquire over the course of your story, all specializing in a particular role: healing, melee damage dealing, ranged damage dealing, ranged tank, melee tank (a tank being a person that sucks up all the damage and enemies attention while other people put the smack down on). However, it's not quite like KOTOR, in that you can have two companions with you. They still want to encourage cooperation (BOO!), so you can only have one out at any time, but unlike KOTOR, you can switch at literally anytime outside of combat. So, Flashpoints are the games equivalent to dungeons. It is entirely possible to solo most of the Flashpoints, but if you want to do that, you must be of a significantly higher level than what's recommended, since the level recommendations are targeted at groups. The maximum group amount is four people, and your companions count as a group member. So, if you were to find one guy who wants to run a flashpoint with you, you could both have a companion out, and you would have a group of four "people". Obviously, your companion will be nowhere near as powerful as an actual player, but they are great help, and invaluable when you're by yourself. The level 50 flashpoints, however, will definitely require a group of some kind in order to get through it. Personally, I wish there was an "easy mode" of every flashpoint, so you could see the scenario without having to find a group.
You have companions, each class has five that join you over the course of the game, but you can only have one with you at a time, though you can swap between them at any time. They also sometimes change conversations (they offer their own opinion or if they're related to the subject of the conversation). They're basically support, each class has one healer, several tanks, several damage-dealing ones. Just like KotOR or Mass Effect, you can change their gear out too, but between yourself and your companion, that's at least... 20 pieces to manage? And that's not even going into which stat to focus on (each of the four classes have a main stat, your companion usually falls into one of those four categories). Basically for most of the game its you and one support character, and you will really need their help, especially for boss fights. But even with that support character healing you (or doing something else), the group content is still pretty hard if not impossible with normal gear. For flashpoints, if its labeled as level 10 and you go in there with your companion at level 10... you will be slaughtered. If you go in there at level 20, most shots will bounce off you. Of course, at level 50 that's the limit, but by then that's going into endgame post-class story content, so probably not that relevant to this thread, although the Malgus stuff is restricted to those level 50 flashpoints.
I was pretty much in the same boat, when it went F2P I downloaded it and got it. Did Sith Inquisitor/Assassin as I like that kind of thing, and got screwed over by the whole thing. I ended up dying roughly 80 times before I was off Korriban, just because of the ridiculous prices assigned to medpacs on F2P, the fact that cooldowns on medpacs mean you can only use one once per battle, the fact that your gear degrades in quality every time you die (and costs loads to fix on F2P) and the fact that I couldn't level as fast as the quests were. Not long after getting to Dromund Kaas I just gave up and bought a 6 month subscription, because annoyingly the story was actually pretty good. Since then I started a new character as JK/Marauder and I'm finding it a great deal easier, though whether that's because I'm getting the benefits of rested XP and non-F2P prices or just because my play style suits tanking more than ranged DPS, I don't know. But yea, be prepared to suffer a lot in early levels. Also, I've not done any flashpoints, only grouped a few times with some F2P friends who pretty much hate it (and once when one bloke randomly added me to his group), and intentionally chose the least populated RP/PvE server in existence (an Australian one, I believe) so I didn't have to actually come into contact with any other players. Chances of me doing any PvP are practically zero. I don't get it though. This could have been the best RPG ever, with 8 different class stories and quests and everything. Why make it an MMO where you have to deal with all this annoying crap and laggy servers?
As other have hinted Coop, the most fun the game gets if you actually play it together with a friend and you just do all the quests together, because you will be powerful enough to do just about everything and grinding through the hordes of creatures that keep blocking your way to the mission points becomes a lot easier if you are 2 people and each have a NPC helper out. Other than the class quests and Flashpoints (even those are not really worth playing more than once or twice to see the different outcomes) there is also not that much fun to be had, as normal missions are just kill and fetch quests.
Not necessarily true, actually. With sufficient presence a companion can actually be more powerful than an actual player, at least in the early game. If you get the five conversation legacy unlocks and the human species unlock (netting +150 presence) you companion will destroy things for the first 20 or so levels. Money ultimately, but money does influence how content is produced. There are certain economies of scale at work with MMO development that do benefit the story. Notably, the diversity of companions. There are 43 companions in the game (5 for each class + 2 ship droids + HK-51), all of whom are fully voiced and have their own in-depth stories, several of whom play significant roles in the stories of the class characters. A traditional RPG wouldn't have that many characters of consequence. Basically making TOR an MMO allowed them to budget for more content than any single-player game would possess. There's more story to TOR than to, say, Skyrim. The MMO structure also means you have to spend more time playing through the game to see all of the story. I can't imagine a single player RPG that would be based aroudn a storytelling structure that was viable for 8 play-throughs, having two distinct paths is unusual enough. Not that TOR is perfect obviously, it has many flaws in both its single-player and MMO facets (though it is incomparably better than when it launched regarding the later, it took six months to implement the group finder). I would add, TOR is my first and so far only MMO experience. I initially shied away from the co-op elements to the extreme as well, but I've come to play them more and more. There's two reasons. First, after you become good at the game the leveling process for new characters becomes very sloggy and not very challenging at all (especially if you craft-supplement), so the late-game content is the most fun in that way. Second, it really isn't that hard to group up. TOR is extremely role-dependent. Aside from the operations most group instances don't require any active communication with other group members at all (at least, assuming you learn the boss fights for flashpoints) so long as everyone holds to their role.
Definitely true early in the game, but for the one class I've beaten, Jedi Knight, I found my companions to begin to lag behind in the later levels, even if they remained invaluable (I made sure to get the affection level for all of them to maximum, and keep them geared). I was particularly disappointed in Lord Scourge; I know it's a gameplay necessity, but man, for the Emperor's right hand man, he was quite weak
Did you ever play Pokemon? You know how it's completely impossible for your level 10 Pikachu to stand a chance against a level 40 Charizard? It's like that in TOR. While I think you can still travel to other planets regardless of level, you're restricted to what you can do based on your level. For example, I'm a Jedi Consular. As you complete all the quests on Tython (the planet you start on), you'll grow from level 1 to level 10. The next planet is Coruscant, where your enemies and quests are from level 10-15 I think (just started TOR and Free To Play a month ago, it's only the second MMO I've ever played). It's almost impossible for you to complete a quest that's more than a couple levels about your character's level, because it will probably deal with fighting enemies at the same level as the quest level. If you want to complete the whole story, you're going to have to work up to level 50. But that should be easy, since that's how the game was built. Just like how your Pokemon should naturally be around level 50 or higher by the time you finally got to the Elite Four.
Thing is, TOR cost some 200+$ million you could actually have made 8 quality normal PC games for that price (even insanely high budget games like the Call of Duty series only cost some 40 Million to make) and properly made more money whilst telling a better story and having actually more fun games, especially if they could just make use of the same engine for them.
I'm playing a Light Side Imperial Agent, and it's awesome. I'd definitely recommend the IA storyline, if you're in it for the story. I've also tried Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior, and far and away I'd say Agent takes the cake. But I haven't gotten very far with those last two classes, and I'm almost finished with the IA storyline (I'm level 42 or something).
I don't even get how "light-side Imperial agent" would work - "Damn it, Carl, I told you to execute that guy!


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Arrangements of mixed roses and votive candles inside hurricane glasses were placed on each table. Floral decor was provided by Arthur Pfeil Smart Flowers in San Antonio, and from start to finish, Allison employed the help of wedding planner Celina Stabell of Belle of the Ball.
- Featured In: Intimate Outdoor Wedding in San Antonio


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Isn't North West a little too young for bling? That is evidently not the case since her mother, Kim Kardashian, posted an Instagram photo of the baby's hand holding Kim's engagement ring from Kanye West.
On New Year's Eve, Kim posted the rather adorable photo of the six-month-old baby's hand looking positively tiny up against mommy's giant diamond.
It's a safe bet that Kardashian took back her jewelry once the photo shoot ended. Nothing is safe in the hands of an infant, not unless you want it in the kid's mouth.
The message, however, is very clear: Kim Kardashian has had a great year. Not only did 2013 witness the birth of her first child, but Kardashian also got engaged (not for the first time) in an extreme party held at a baseball stadium. She also got to co-star in West's most recent video.
All in all, that's not a bad year — even if you don't count the incredible ring.


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The Sheriff's Office is notifying the public that a Baxter County man has registered as a Sex Offender at the Sheriff's Office and is now residing in this County.
HOME ADDRESS: 61 Doreen Dr.
Mountain Home, Arkansas 72653
The offender was convicted in Randolph County, Arkansas on 04/11/2016 of two counts of Sexual Assault and placed on probation.
This offender has not yet been assigned a Risk Level by SOSRA (Sex Offender Screening and Risk Management).
This person is not wanted by law enforcement at this time. This notification is not intended to increase fear; rather it is our belief that an informed public is a safer public. This information cannot be used to threaten, intimidate, or harass Registered Sex Offenders. Citizen abuse will not be tolerated. Such abuse could potentially end law enforcement's ability to do community notification.
/s/ John F. Montgomery
Baxter County Sheriff
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GangbangMomma A young and curvy Texas momma who just loves wild group sex with older experienced guys
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"Double Penetration"This is another triple-team, wherein hubby arranged for me to do a longtime lover (you might recognize him as the pool guy, among others) and a new fan-pig you haven't seen before. In fact, this latter gentleman really out-did himself by bringing his woman for me to fuck at the end of the year. Twice! Some men just like to see their women acting the slut! I think it's part bragging-rights and part property rights. He wants to say, "I'm in charge of your pussy! I own it, so I can share it or keep it to myself, as I like! If I want to pass you around between multiple strange men, then that's what you're going to do!" I am my husband's fuck-toy, after all. I'm his slut and his whore, too... in a way, I guess I'm all those things to you, too, you Shaft-Stroking Cum-Squirting PERVERT!


text: This Japan-Only Xbox 360 Game's Graphics Are DisappointingBrian Ashcraft4/13/10 6:00amFiled to: Strike witchesAnimeMangaXbox 360PSPpsWiiXblaOmega FiveHudsonNewsJapan91EditPromoteShare to KinjaToggle Conversation toolsGo to permalink Strike Witches is a popular anime and manga series. It is coming to the Xbox 360, complete with not-very-good graphics. A shame! Advertisement Those on the Japanese internet are saying that the game looks like a Wii title, an Xbox LIVE Arcade title, a PSP title or even an original PlayStation game. The sailor suit material isn't so bad, though! That price point, however, is. The controversy is not about Xbox 360 rendering power. Instead, what is causing such an uproar is that this game will be sold at full price (¥7,329 or US$79!), instead of for like 800 Microsoft Points or $10. It doesn't look like a boxed title!Compare this Xbox 360 Strike Witches to another Xbox 360 scrolling shooter, Omega Five. That game was released for 800 Microsoft Points on Xbox LIVE Arcade. In 2007. Advertisement Advertisement Xbox360から出るストライクウィッチーズのゲームが酷いと話題に [痛いニュース(ノ∀`)]Reply91 repliesLeave a reply


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CHICAGO – Chicago police have arrested 38 suspected gang members for selling drugs on the city's South Side.
In a press release Saturday, Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said one of the open-air drug markets was near a school. A second undercover investigation found three street gangs were working together to sell drugs.
McCarthy said dismantling the drug markets is critical to reducing gang violence and other criminal activity.
He said police executed search warrants and seized firearms, two vehicles, cash and heroin, marijuana, ecstasy and crack cocaine.
The suspects were charged with drug and gun offenses, including possession and delivery of a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school.


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Pets Up For Adoption In Marion County
Pets at Animal Services in Marion County are in need of a new home.
Pepper is a 2 year-old female lab mix. She knowns several commands including sit, shake, and rollover. She's well behaved and does great on a leash.
Penny is a 2 year-old wirehair Jack Russell terrier who was an owner surrender, then fostered, and is now looking for a good home. She's sweet, playful, and loves treats. She also gets along well with other dogs.
4 cockatiels, 2 finches and 3 parakeets are also availabe for adoption.
The adoption fee is 40 dollars for dogs, 5 dollars for finches and parakeets, and 25 dollars for cockatiels. All of the animals are current on vaccinations and have microchips.
You can call Marion County Animals Services at 352-671-8700 for more information. Their offices are open for an in person visit Tuesday through Saturday. To see all the animals available, you can visit their website marioncountyfl.org/animal.htm.
Related Stories
- Marion County Adopt-A-Pet 5/20/15
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- Marion County Adopt-A-Pet 7/22/15
- Adopt A Pet 12/2/15
- Marion County Adopt-A-Pet 04/18/14
- Marion County Adopt-A-Pet 04/30/14
- Marion County Adopt-A-Pet: 07/02/14
- Marion County Adopt-A-Pet:07/09/14
- Marion County Adopt-A-Pet
- Marion County Adopt-A-Pet 3/26/14


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Inside the World of Blizzard
"Why does Blizzard succeed where others don't?" asks Jay Wilson, a lead game designer with a shock of spiked hair and a wry disposition. "It isn't a magic trick. We work at it, and if a product isn't good enough, we cancel it."
Blizzard Entertainment, of course, is the Irvine (Calif.)-based maker of the world's most popular and profitable online game, World of Warcraft (WoW), which boasts nearly 11 million monthly subscribers around the globe. The company is also at the heart of the recent $18.9 billion merger with Activision, primarily a maker of console titles such as Guitar Hero and Call of Duty. Born in early July, the newly combined entity, Activision Blizzard (ATVI), is now the industry's biggest player, with projected annual revenues of nearly $4.5 billion.
But Activision is acquiring much more than World of Warcraft. Blizzard is behind a string of best-selling, industry-shaping PC games including the StarCraft and Diablo series, which have sold nearly 10 million and 20 million copies, respectively. The new company is also tapping into a corporate culture that champions creativity, both productive and experimental, inspiring enduring devotion from paying players.
Company Changed Hands Several Times
Blizzard began life in 1991, founded by UCLA graduates Allen Adham, Frank Pearce, and Michael Morhaime, currently the firm's CEO, as a group of coders-for-hire toiling on other companies' games. The 1994 release of Warcraft vaulted the company toward becoming one of the most admired and profitable game makers in the world. (That year, the company was purchased for $10 million by distributor Davidson & Associates and changed hands a number of times before finally coming under the control of Vivendi Universal (VIV.PA) in 1998.) Like Disney's (DIS) Pixar animation studio or electronics impresario Apple (AAPL), Blizzard has stayed ahead of competitors.
Indeed, the 250-person outfit has become one the games industry's leading innovators, creating games that players crave and profitable new businesses that rival executives envy. "[They're] essentially design geniuses, making games easy enough for casual players and deep enough to attract and hook hard-core players," says Jeff Green, editor-in-chief of online gaming magazine 1Up.com. "Simple to learn, difficult to master is the holy grail of game design," he adds. "Blizzard does this every single time."
As Wilson suggests, Blizzard's purpose is simple: to make fun games. Sounds easy enough, but the task is complicated by the nature of modern video games, which can require development budgets rivaling those of blockbuster Hollywood releases or major corporate product rollouts. As the games industry has emerged as a serious business, Blizzard's hallmark has been its effective and persistent effort to remain in touch with players.
Learning from Criticism
It's also learned to feed on criticism. Betas of future expansions to World of Warcraft include reporting software that allows players to offer instant feedback from within the game. Employees endlessly play and replay games both on and off the clock, constantly looking to make improvements. At lunch, "strike teams" play concentrated sessions of games in development to provide feedback. "You know a game is ready when management has to send e-mails out after lunch begging people to get back to work," jokes Wilson.
Some designers even plan vacations to coincide with major release dates in order to play alongside regular consumers.
And the company has boldly canned numerous products, even nearly finished games it deemed "not fun enough." An adventure spinoff based on the Warcraft franchise was ditched in 1998 despite widespread press coverage and high consumer anticipation. Blizzard executives make a habit of listing the many games that never made it out the door, including a long-delayed StarCraft-themed game for consoles that was first announced in 2002 but put on hold indefinitely in 2006 as the company grappled with the difficulties of the different platform. New games, meanwhile, are announced with ship dates of "when it's done."
These days, Blizzard presides over an ever-expanding universe composed of not only blockbuster games but also action figures, novels, manga, board games, pen-and-paper role-playing games, apparel, and conferences. In South Korea, where competitive video gaming is a televised sport, Blizzard's decade-old game StarCraft inspires such fervent loyalty that tournaments still draw some 700,000 spectators a year, nurturing a niche industry worth $40 million annually. Legendary Pictures, the studio behind blockbuster comic book adaptations like Batman Begins and 300, is currently working on a big-budget, live-action film based on WoW slated for 2009.
Bringing Together Two Well-Oiled Machines
Unlike other mergers, aimed at bolstering sagging businesses or nabbing market share, analysts widely deem Activision Blizzard to be the rare union of two well-oiled machines. Steve Bailey, an analyst with London market research firm Screen Digest, notes that Activision's console expertise could help Blizzard make the jump to the dedicated game systems produced by Microsoft (MSFT), Nintendo (7974.T), and Sony (SNE). According to Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles, the deal should insulate Activision from the more seasonal console market, which peaks in a parental buying frenzy at Christmas. Instead, some of WoW's profits—as much as $600 million annually—can be put toward new products.
But for all the ink spilled over the Activision-Blizzard mega-merger and the attention paid to World of Warcraft—the game has been used in Toyota (TM) truck ads and parodied by South Park—the company's biggest releases could lie ahead. Executives have committed to releasing one new WoW expansion pack every year to keep the title competitive and to keep players paying the $15 a month subscription fee. Last year, it announced StarCraft II, a sequel to the firm's science-fiction strategy game. And, in June, the company showed the first footage of Diablo III, another highly anticipated sequel in development since 2005.
Some fans howled at Diablo III's public unveiling, complaining that the art direction too closely resembled that of World of Warcraft. The flap, to which designers quickly responded with an open letter explaining their choices, is evidence that Blizzard could yet stumble. Now, the game maker must deliver on its widening roster of games while making inroads into new genres and markets—all without abandoning the methods that, to date, have made it a darling with players and executives alike.


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Orville Stull, 88 - July 13, 2011
Services will be 10 a.m. Monday July 18, at the First United Methodist Church with Dr. Douglas Delp officiating. Burial with full military honors will be at Fort McPherson National Cemetery near Maxwell.
Visitation will be Friday from 12 noon to 9 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 12 noon to 6 p.m. with the family receiving friends from 5 to 6 p.m.
Stull was born on March 20, 1923, in Plattsmouth to Ira and Alice (Owens) Stull.
He attended Gothenburg High School before entering the U.S. Navy where he served on the U.S.S. Princeton during World War II. After his discharge he returned to the Gothenburg area.
On Feb. 17, 1950, he married Wahnita Boyer in Lexington. The couple made their home on Jeffrey Lake south of Brady where Stull owned his own construction business.
Stull was a member of the First United Methodist Church in North Platte and the Gothenburg VFW.
He was preceded in death by his parents, several brothers and a daughter, Sharon Aden.
Survivors include: his wife Nita of North Platte; three children—Jerry (Zena) of Florissant, MO, Jim (Trish) of Staplehurst, and Bob of Yuma, AZ; 10 grandchildren; 20 great-grandchildren; one great-great-grandson; one sister, Bell Cohdell of Springfield, MO.
A memorial has been established in his name.
Adams & Swanson Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.


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Students are introduced to the carbon cycle through discussion, modeling and a game. Students then complete activities and investigations on Greenhouse gasses, photosynthesis, cellular respiration and ecosystem services (functions and values of... (View More) intact ecosystems to humans). The unit is one of four under the Chicago Botanic Garden curriculum entitled, "Climate Change in My Backyard." (View Less)


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No. 11 UK basketball wins 84-79 over Missouri
Aaron Harrison scored 21 points and James Young added 20 to help No. 11 Kentucky beat Missouri 84-79 on Saturday.
The Wildcats (16-5, 6-2 Southeastern Conference) kept their poise one game after calling a player-only meeting to discuss the team's issues away from home. Andrew Harrison's 3-pointer just 1:42 into the matchup gave the team a lead it wouldn't relinquish.
Jabari Brown finished with a career-high 33 points and Jordan Clarkson scored 28 to keep Missouri (16-5, 4-4) in the game. Clarkson's layup with 51.9 seconds remaining narrowed the Tigers' deficit to 80-77, but Aaron Harrison answered with a layup 30 seconds later to end the threat.
Missouri's frontcourt offense only mustered three points. The team fell to 43-3 at home under third-year coach Frank Haith, but has lost two of its last four.


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have had two LR3's, one with problems one without. The current deals are the $699, no money down and they pay first payments, tax and fees extra. They will get demo's in NYC and Long Island as the people who drive Range Rovers wont settle for an LR2 when the car is in the shop. The one disappointing thing is that they nickel and dime on the service. My LR3 was fully covered on regular maintenance, but this one is not. That is rather foolish behavior from Land Rover in my opinion. They told me they cover the first service, the second is on me and they cover the third. Petty. I have seen a well equiped GL450 for the low $800 with nothing down.
post #76 of 78
3/23/11 at 4:24pm


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Cars > Challenges > "**COMFORT ZONE" Vs ""The Dodge""
1921 Dodge Brothers Touring Car Wood Spoke Wheels
""The Dodge""
Head to Head
About "**COMFORT ZONE"
About ""The Dodge""
1921 Dodge Brothers Touring Car. We are the second family to own this car since new. 94 years old and still drives and goes to cruse nights. That is Bart Simpson in the back seat, he buckles his seatbelt and goes with us to shows.
Specs for "**COMFORT ZONE"
No specifications listed.
Specs for ""The Dodge""
4 Cyl engine. 12volt chain drive starter generator. 32 inch wood spoke wheels with "Non-Skid" tread tube tires. Bone stock. as it came out of the factory. No Fuel pump it has a tank that sucks the gas from the tank in the back of the car to a holding can then it is all gravity feed from there to the all brass 1 moving part carb.
Vote This challenge has ended!
Points for **COMFORT ZONE | Total Votes | Points for "The Dodge" |
162 | 55 | 113 |
Cars > Challenges > "**COMFORT ZONE" Vs ""The Dodge""


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The newly designed Hobie SUP E-Series BCXC 14-0 Stand Up Paddleboard is fast and efficient in all conditions while providing a stable confident feeling on the water. The Hobie E-Series (Elite Series) is a product of countless hours of design and on-the-water testing. They feature new BCX+C construction which brings together the natural strength and flexibility of a thin veneer of Bamboo sandwiched between multiple layers of fiberglass compressed into a mold to create a strong and lightweight high performance outer shell over an EPS core. The rails are then capped in Carbon fiber adding extra stiffness and rail strength. The result is a light, rigid and impact resistant board sure to perform in any condition. This board suffered some freight damage and has some scratches and dings on the underside of the board. Additional pictures coming soon.
Item #: | 12948 |
Length: | 14 ft / 4.27 m |
Width: | 29 in / 73.66 cm |
Weight: | 28 lb / 12.7 kg |
Volume: | 75.5 gal / 285.7 L |
Hull Type: | Displacement |
Construction: | Composite |
Primary Use: | Touring |


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Can you forgive me?
Fiction, BDSM, Male/Female, Torture
Author's infos
Gender: N/A Age: N/A Location: N/A
Posted Sun 29th of May 2011
I went to a lot of trouble to get even with her and it didn't work out how I thought
Can you forgive me
She stood glistening under the neon lights, beads of sweat trickling from her matted hair, the criss cross wheals across her back bearing testimony to my accuracy with the whip.
She turned towards me pivoting on the spot directly below the hook from which she was partially suspended by her bound wrists and tried to speak, her brown eyes almost pleading. I laid the whip down, and loosened the gag and pulled it from her mouth.
"I'm truly sorry, John, you must believe that, please," she pleaded.
"Is that it, you don't want food or a drink, or anything?" I asked her.
She shook her head, and I resumed, just hard enough to make her squeal not enough to break the skin, the black leather criss crossing her back and buttocks leaving the red marks like a checker board, neat and regular.
Her squeals now echoed through my basement, I paused again, my shirt was soaked with perspiration, I ripped it off and threw it in the corner of the room.
"Yes, you wanted to say something?" I asked, as she stared at me.
She shook her head again, I thought I saw a tear, I moved up close, checking the clothes pins, the one on her left nipple was not quite straight any more and the eight or nine around it were no longer symmetrical so I changed them, a tiny trickle of blood showed where she had bitten her lip to stop herself crying out.
The clothes pins on her labia were fine, but the one on her clit hood had fallen off again.
"Anything to say now?" I asked.
"Forgive me, that's all." she replied quietly.
I ratcheted the rope higher, making her stand on tip toe then I clamped the fleshy part of her foot with a clothes pin, her leg jerked, and she screamed and swung wildly from the rope. I caught her, steadied her and helped her regain equilibrium.
I clamped all five toes of her left foot from underneath then lifted her up right foot so she stood agonisingly on tip toe supported by the pins or swung agonisingly from the ceiling by the ropes binding her wrists together.
I did the same with her other foot, she started sobbing, "Please forgive me, Please say you will before you kill me." she pleaded.
I turned towards her again and set the whip down, "No, it's not that easy, I'm not going to kill you." I took much of her weight lifting under her arms.
"Do you really think I would do that to you?" I asked.
She whispered, "I deserve to die."
"No you don't deserve to die, but a finger tip, or maybe a toe, or some teeth, something to remember me by for the rest of your life." A keepsake, the top finger joint, with finger nail, neatly severed and preserved in aspic on my desk to remember her be, and a missing finger tip for her to remember me by every time she held a pen.
"That would be right, if you could forgive me, that would be very up fair." she agreed.
"What?" I could not believe this.
"Yes, a finger, if you will accept a finger, and forgive me, then please do it, cut it off, I shall bear the pain as a penance, I shall bear it, it's only fair." she whispered.
I lifted her more until the rope fell from the ceiling hook and then lowered her to allow her to sit on the ground.
I started to pack the clothes pins away, clipping each to its cardboard support as I took them from her, her feet kicked involuntarily as I removed the pins from the flesh and toes, then the ones from her thighs, and those round her breasts, those wonderful pear shaped breasts and finally those on her nipples.
She cried out as the blood returned to her nipples, they changed colour like a chameleon and strained as if aroused.
She sat legs wide apart, we both saw the moisture around her crotch, sweat or anticipation, only she knew.
"I think it's time." she said.
"Yes, but not here," I agreed.
I undid her wrists, unwinding the ropes swiftly and as the blood again reached them the colour returned to her bleached white fingers, and she cried with the pain.
I walked to the door, opened it and looked back. She followed, walking past the chair where I had neatly laid her jacket, skirt and underwear when I undressed her earlier that evening, she followed meekly barefoot and naked.
Up the stairs to the ground floor then on up to my bed room. A nightdress lay across the bed covers, where I had laid it. I held it out for her. "For you."
"Thanks, can I wear it tomorrow, only my back is sore."
"Tomorrow?" I asked, that was not in my plan.
"If you let me stay."
"Yes, stay as long as you want," I said in disbelief.
She climbed into my bed, "I'm not very experienced so please be patient with me."
I smiled at her "I have screwed hundreds of fifty dollar trailer trash whores, black, white, yellow so I guess you are much the same, but I'll use a condom to protect you.
"No John,If you have a disease I deserve it too." she was getting seriously weird but I climbed beneath the covers.
She kissed me, and I kissed her, and she was holding me guiding my manhood towards her womb and suddenly I was inside her, I found myself looking at her face as I fucked her, seeing her face, not looking into the eyes of some cheap hooker imagining it was her but the real thing, and it was good, damn good.
"Need you" she whispered, "Please forgive me, say you will."
I felt the moment approach, and as the love juices exploded from me, "I forgive you, "I love you, I always have, I could have added.
"Thank you, I love you."
I remembered her words from the last time, out in the woods, after the prom, when we made love for the first and only time beneath the stars. "I love you." she said.
I walked her home, we kissed on the porch, and first thing next morning the cops arrested me.
Her folks had complained I raped her, and she went along with it, unable to believe their little girl had grown up, physically at least. Rape not consensual statutory rape, she was eighteen, but like I forced her, chased her to the woods and forced her.
I was all lies, yet she agreed that was what I happened.
It was not my fault my folks died in a car wreck without insurance leaving me to the mercy of my Aunt, that I had worked to pay my way through high school, that I could not afford to go to university, that I was going to work for a betting shop down town instead of being a hot shot accountant.
It just mattered that I was not good enough for their precious daughter Jane.
"Plead guilty, say you were drunk." the bored legal aid lawyer doing his pro bono couple of hours for the week advised, "Spare the girl the ordeal of appearing at the trial."
So I got ten years. They let me out in five, that was two years ago.
No home, no Job and half a million owed to me by bookmakers all over the states.
My boss was never in any doubt I was innocent, but there was no way he could say so and stay in business, but he respected some of the bets I has proposed and my thoroughness and my success rate, winning on average thirty three per cent, more than I bet where most people manage to lose about the same amount.
So using the pay he owed me as a stake he put bets on for me, farming them out to other businesses when he realised I was winning, putting his own money on as well and then when I was due for release, he got me a job here out east. It cost me ten thousand dollars, the job, because I was a convicted rapist, yes, you can have a job, so the Probation Officer can agree to your release, ten thousand dollars. I would have paid a hundred thousand to escape from that hell hole, segregated with real perverts, real serial rapists and torturers, fortunate really as none of us were gay unlike the regular inmates, and I sure learned about torture and how to build or where to purchase hardware.
My house cost a big chunk of my winnings it was a decent size in a big plot with plenty of space between it and the neighbours and it had a huge basement, where the previous owner an old guy who had died had a huge model rail road, really old and big the cars being about two feet long, It came complete with locomotives and cars with the house sale and I kept it, I showed it to a couple of neighbours so they thought they knew why I spent so much time down there. But my real interest was a separate store room which I converted to my dungeon.
A spoked wheel eight feet round, a full size cross, hooks in walls and ceiling, lockers for gags and whips and ropes, handcuffs, all manner of torture items, which I got mail order.
All for Jane. In memory of our last kiss, on her porch, when I went home planning how I could ask her to marry me while she went home to cry rape.
In my mind she would struggle as I cut her clothes from her body and then go from demanding her release and threatening me to begging to be released as hunger overtook her, and pain, hanging from the ceiling while I criss crossed her back and buttocks with my whip.
She would remain tied, standing, either suspended from a hook or on the cross or wheel sooner or later she would need the bathroom, perhaps the thought of me watching her disgrace herself would make her beg, perhaps she would be tied upside down as relief came, but it would be fun.
She would suffer until she begged me to forgive her. Perhaps I would kill her, perhaps cut off a finger or a toe, but she would never forget, if she survived.
My plans went wrong right from the word go, my probation officer gave me a list of whores in case I needed a woman, he figured I would stop raping women if I could just pay a few dollars for the pleasure, and I wasted many hours in their company, but while great in bed, they were no great shakes conversation wise and I ended up visualising Jane's face most times as I screwed them, well every time, I could not get her out of my mind.
Then when I got a detective to track Jane down he was was not discrete enough and Jane's folks knew I was searching for her.
They warned her, I was just a hundred miles away. "Be careful, get a restraining order," they warned.
She got in her car and came straight over, straight away, no luggage, she got straight in her little Mazda and hit the freeway, and when I got home from work she was waiting.
"Hello John, do you remember me."
"Hi Janie" my heart had pounded, "How could I forget."
I unlocked my front door unsure what she was expecting of me.
She walked towards me as if to follow me inside.
"Come in," I suggested sarcastically. "How are you?"
"Fine, but we have unfinished business."
"I built you a special room," I told her, "I was going to fetch you."
"Show me." she said.
"A torture chamber, dungeon." I continued.
"Show me," she said again
I lead her to the basement and unlocked what appeared to be a closet door which led to my chamber. It was warm in there, she looked around.
"For me?" she asked.
She was older, more self assured, not fearful, but no less beautiful than the girl I loved. I imagined her with her husband, kids, I could see how a missing finger tip would forever remind her how she ruined my life.
"Yes I did it all for you." I replied. "Made most of it, bought the rest."
"So you never used it I guess you want to punish me, " she suggested.
"Yes." I said simply.
I laid hands on her for the first time since the night, seven years ago. I went to tear her jacket, but somehow I could not do it so I eased it from her shoulders and placed it over the chair, she handed me her skirt and underwear stood before me barefoot and naked.
"Will you tie me up." she asked holding out her hands.
I nodded and fetched the rope, winding it round and round her wrists then I moved her so she was under the pulley hanging from a hook on the ceiling, I pulled small hook on the rope round the pulley, hooked the rope round her wrists to it and then wound up the rope with a winch to raise her hands above her head, the ratchet clicked ominously in the confined space.
I gagged her, she opened her mouth wide to take the red ball of the gag, she looked calm, collected composed, and she watched expectantly as I took a whip from the cabinet and flicked it experimentally.
I hung my jacket on a hook, and taking a firm grip on the whip I started to whip her, across her bare buttocks and lower back left to right then right to left alternately, trying to get that checker board appearance.
I rested and added some clothes pins to her nipples and down to her sex, adding pins to her Labia, she bore the pain, without struggling to escape, and the anger even the hate I felt was ebbing away.
I tried whipping her again then as I rested again I tried adding a sunburst of clothes pins to each breast and around each nipple. I tried to get one on her clitoral hood but it would not grip very well.
That's when she wanted to speak, no begging to be released, just for forgiveness.
My shirt was wringing with sweat, It tore as I pulled it over my head and I threw it into the corner, that's when she asked for forgiveness,
She had bitten into her own lip to stop from crying out when I removed her gag, and suddenly it was clear that she needed to be punished, at least as much as I needed to punish her.
The thoughts raced around my mind as I lay half asleep in my bed dreaming.
I thought I must be dreaming. I woke with a start, and she was there with me in my bed, and the bed was wet and sticky, I thought for a second it was Jane, the girl who I supposedly raped and then suddenly I realised, yes it was her, the events of the evening came back.
She looked so lovely sleeping there, I felt bad about the marks where I whipped her, and as the first grey streaks of dawn appeared I shut off my alarm.
When I woke, again, she was looking at me.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
"My back stings, but otherwise, I'm fine." she replied.
"I have some balm somewhere, I rub it on" I offered."Did you sleep well apart from that?"
"Yes, like a baby, no nightmares." she confirmed.
"Nightmares? I asked.
"Yes, ever since they made me say you raped me, I had nightmares," she explained.
"But not last night?" I asked.
"No, not last night." she agreed
"What now?" I asked her.
Her hand reached out and cupped my balls, a finger ran along my shaft and suddenly I was hard.
"Oh!" She exclaimed, "You are eager,"
I slid my hand between her thighs, and parted her lower lips, "So are you."
We took our time, getting to know each other.
I was kissing her nose, locked together my penis deep in side her, rocking dreamily.
"You have a son." she said.
"Wha" I exclaimed as I lost what control I had and I shot my load in her again.
"That night, I got pregnant, He is six now, my aunt raises him, are you cross."
I was stunned
"Gee, a kid," I gasped.
"Mom made me, The Police, giving John to Aunt Maude to bring up. everything," she told me she seemed upset.
I kissed her mouth for a while till I got hard again and showed her my feelings in a way words can never convey, my poor aching balls delivered their seed once again and then I lay back, the love bites were embarrassingly prominent on her neck, I scarcely remembered leaving them, and she was smiling.
"What" I asked.
"Your neck" she replied and there in the mirror was the evidence that she had also bitten me.
We showered and I rubbed lotion into the marks across her lower back then she led me to the Dungeon, and stood waiting, expectantly, I picked up the whip and put it in the cabinet. "it's over" I told her, as I handed her, the panties and bra she had discarded.
"Not us, surely?" she replied.
"No the need for all this." I waved at the equipment.
She dressed, somehow dressing seems so much sexier than undressing and when she saw how excited I had become she again led me to the bedroom where she discarded her panties and pantihose, and we made love again.
We talked, we went shopping, some things for her to wear, dinner at a decent restaurant, talking, then the deep stuff and we travelled to her place collected some documents and we married in Vegas. My probation officer was somewhat surprised but five thousand dollars smoothed his objections.
She moved in with me and her company found her a job down town, things were great, except we had a kid, somewhere and we wanted him with us.
I came home early and heard noises from the dungeon, Janie was flaying the wall with a whip, dressed only in a black basque, and black stockings.
"Janie" I called.
She dropped the whip. "Oh dear, sorry John, I got carried away."
"Is that me," I asked.
"Mother" she answered, "She wrote me, says I am deranged, mad to marry you, I hate her John."
"You want to whip her?" I asked "Humiliate her." She nodded. "Really?" she nodded again. "Then call her, have her visit then be my guest."
I sat by as she phoned her mother, she had no idea we were married and we knew she would round real soon.
She arrived by Taxi, she was younger than I remembered, glamorous, in a tarty sort of way, the Taxi driver carried her expensive leather luggage to our porch and soon she was sitting in my house drinking my Coffee and telling my wife why she should leave me. Janie showed her over the house.
"Come see the basement mom," Janie suggested, and then as Janie led her down, I waited.
To be continued.
ABS 2007 rev 2011
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Deacon Brodie
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3 comments
2015-09-01 10:34:21
This is a story that really needs finishing. I know, your total lack of commitment to anything that requires a mature act of completion and finality is beyond your immature development, but grow up, and show a bit of maturity.
anonymous reader
2013-10-26 13:50:52
6AKASb Really informative blog post.Really looking forward to read more. Awesome.
anonymous reader
2013-01-18 17:16:45
Omg that so that was so fucking amazing she really love him no matter how much he tourch her and she would ask for his forgiveness awesome story please please write part 2 of this story I love to know what she would do to her mother and will they get there son as well I really want to know and read more of it
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The APC won the bye elections last week at Constituency 066 in the Tonkolili District – in the area where the biggest iron ore mining company, Shandong Minerals, is located; and where the largest hydro-electric facility in the country, Bumbuna Dam, is also located: 7,393 votes for the APC's Rosemary Bangura (61%); and 4,678 votes (39%) for the SLPP's Musa Bendegu. But, the SLPP are jubilant. They lost; but, they, paradoxically, felt they 'won'. How so?
In the 2012 presidential election, the APC polled 145,479 votes in Tonkolili District – 92.6% of votes cast. In the abovementioned Constituency 066, the APC candidate, Hon. Taworo Tara-Koroma, won 88.21 % of the votes cast – juxtapose that with Rosemary Bangura's 61%, and you can see why the SLPP are rejoicing: the APC candidate scored 27% LESS votes in 2017 than in 2012. The SLPP is apparently hoping that this could be a trend in the APC strongholds in the Northern Province.
The SLPP did not get high votes; Musa Bendegu did "It was not the SLPP that scored that high a vote in Constituency 066, it was the candidate that the SLPP put up, Musa Bendegu, that caused the high SLPP vote. It was more of a vote FOR Bendegu, and less of a vote AGAINST the APC", said Hon. Hassan Abdul Sesay, when I interviewed him at Parliament Building on February 21, 2017. Hon. Hassan Sesay of Constituency 059 in Tonkolili District said that it was simple TRIBALISM that won the SLPP candidate the high votes; that was the same view of Hon. Abubakar Sesay of Constituency 063 (also Deputy Chairman of the APC in Tonkolili District). This was what was explained to me.
The bye election came about because the former MP in Constituency 063, Hon. Taworo Tara-Koroma, died. He was from the Bendugu area of the constituency. In the 1996 Proportional Representation system, and in the 2002 to 2007 parliament, the MP for Constituency 063, Hon. Alie Sankoh, was from from Bendegu also. The choice of Rosemary Bangura – who Hon. Abubakar Sesay said is "classed as a Limba", from Mobenthor village – as the APC candidate could have angered the Korankos of Bendegu (there is also the macho culture of the Korankos that got many males to say, "It is unthinkable to have a woman being out leader!!"), and stimulated what Hon. Hassan Sesay called a "protest vote". How so?
Hon. Abubakarr Sesay explained to me how the choice of Rosemary Bangura came about. When it was time for the APC in the district to choose a candidate for Constituency 063 bye election, the District Executive Council conducted an interview of the 10 aspirants. This District Executive comprise of all MPs in the district; all chairpersons in the constituency; all other party executives: they number 39 persons. The interview of the aspirants took place in January, 2017, at the Teachers' Center in Magburaka Town. Hon. Abubakarr Sesay chaired the meeting. Rosemary Bangura emerged as the favorite among the APC aspirants who were interviewed; but, there was some dissent as to the suitability of Rosemary Bangura. Since the choice of Rosemary Bangura was not unanimous, the Constituency Chairman, Hon. Minkailu Bah (the current education minister), advised that the matter should be referred to the Governing Body of the APC in Freetown. Rosemary Bangura was again endorsed by this higher body. Why?
According to Hon. Abubakar Sesay, Rosemary Bangura would actively participate in all district APC meetings; she has a great working relationship with all the APC executives in the district; and in APC meetings in Freetown, would always be part of the those representing Tonkolili District .
He who provides jobs is our savior Musa Bendegu , the SLPP candidate, had earned his immense popularity this way: He had gotten a contract to fix stones on the railway tracks to keep them firm – tracks being constructed by the African Mineral Company (AML) when they started operation about 2009. Musa Bendegu consequently gave a lot of jobs to men, women, and youth in the constituency and district. Musa Bendegu adopted a tactic of spreading out jobs to as many people in the area as possible; in some cases, even 'withholding taxes' from those he would employ, and giving it as charity to others in the area who he would not be able to employ. Hon. Abubakar Sesay said that the slogan of Musa Bendegu chanted by his supporters was "He who gives us jobs has given us life". Musa Bendugu's reputation as a job provider, and his Koranko ethnic genes, got the Koranko people to massively vote for him in Constituency 063.
Demands on government and Expectations Hon. Hassan Sesay and Hon. Abubakar pointed out to "voter apathy" in the constituency. This he said has been stirred by some of the grouse of the people that the government has not been able to address. "The road between Bendegu and Bumbana are horrible", Hon. Abubakarr Sesay said. The people in the area felt cheated that they would have such poor roads when the American Mineral Company is operating in the area. Another serious complaint is the inability of the people to use their mobile phones almost always. They have lobbied for government to get one of the mobile server companies, Airtel or Africel, to construct a mast that would make communication as easy as it is in Makeni, for example. They are not sensitive to the reality that Africel and Airtel are private companies, and they respond to the capitalist logic of demand and profit.
The Youth Factor and Great Expectations Hon. Abubakar Sesay told me that youth in Tonkolili District generally are "disgruntled". They bitterly complained that the African Minerals mining company (now Shandong) has employed only a few of the indigenes in the district in significant positions; preferring outsiders. Hon. Hassan Sesay told me that the "expectations of the youth are quite out of proportion to the resources available to parliamentarians, indeed, resources of government". To cater to the regular demands of the people, both parliamentarians said they have been using their own personal funds. "I spend about Le50 million every year to pay school and colleges fees for children and youth in my constituency". That does not include what both MPs say they spend every week on funerals and marriage ceremonies; hospital bills; on Poro, Ojeh, and Sande rite-of-passage ceremonies, etc. According to Dr. Abubakarr Sesay (who told me, "I have 45 people in my house at Makeni that I daily feed!!") the people don't even seem to appreciate what politicians like him are doing. "When I was a medical doctor at Yele, I was a hero. I performed over 200 hernia surgeries at the hospital at Makeni; now, I am a politician, too many people are cussing me. I am frustrated by this; angry at the selfish attitude of too many people in my constituency", said the bespectacled medical doctor, Dr. Abubakarr Sesay. He showed me a Whatsapp message in his phone from a youth with an ominous ring: "Dark clouds are gathering for you".
Work done in their constituencies Both Tonkolili parliamentarians reeled out to me development work they have stimulated in their constituencies. Hon. Hassan Sesay said that in the Mayatah Section of his constituency he put his personal funds to help build a community center. And in the Linelenken Section, he again used his personal funds to provide 85 desks and chairs for the Nursing Training School of the Masanga Hospital. (More on this later).
Hon. Abubakarr Sesay, a medical doctor trained in Malaysia in the 1990s, has an illustrious track record of helping his people with their medical needs – since 2002 when he started constructing the 70-bed Magbenthe Community Hospital. He also takes credit for "Taking the Dutch to Yele" – an impressive and model development project that involves a mini-hydroelectric project; an oil palm plantation, and soap making factory, and, a referral hospital; now being managed by a Dutch medical team. (More on this later).
Lessons for the APC Hon. Hassan Sesay said that the surprising good showing of the SLPP has "given us an opportunity to know that we have more work to do. Parliamentarians should consistently and constructively engage the people". MPs of governing parties have to show on the ground what they have done, and what their government in power has done: both men gave me a long list of achievements that cannot be captured in this article.
Judging from what the two men told me, I have my own lessons for them – and, implicitly, for all the APC. Most of Africa's educated elite, especially politicians, most often than not fail to CONFRONT problems, and would keep on clinging to small lies and Big Lies until bad situations become worse, until political parties lose power. In Sierra Leone, there is the over-reliance of both the SLPP and APC on their principal ideological weapon: Political Tribalism. How come the Korankos of Constituency 063 who had traditionally voted for the APC… this time stuck together as an ethnic group for a Koranko man, and swung their votes to the opposition SLPP? (Remember what happened to Solomon Berewa's candidacy in 2007 when Charles Margai's PMDC was able to woo away votes from the SLPP in what was believed to be the religiously fanatical Mende-speaking/SLPP people of the South East?).
Another thing is the failure of the parliamentarians to continually showcase what they have achieved; and, importantly what government has achieved and how it has positively impacted the ordinary people in their constituencies. A lot of video documentaries and video dramas would have to be done to educate the people. Importantly, the parliamentarians appear not to know how to MANAGE THE EXPECTATIONS OF THE YOUTH. In the 21st Century, political parties in Africa, where the youth are the disproportionate majority, that fail to manage the expectations of the youth, fail to harness the energies and ingenuities of the youth, are doomed to failure. The spike in the votes for the SLPP in the traditional APC stronghold of Constituency 063 should be a wakeup call for the APC countrywide.
The 26th biennal conference of the Internatonal Peace Research Association (IPRA) is billed to take place in Freetown, Sierra Leone in November 2016, marking the second time Africa has hosted the conference since the founding of IPRA in 1964. This was announced following the re-election of the two IPRA Secretaries-general, Dr Ibrahim Seaga Shaw (pictured) and Dr Nesrin Kenar, who co-ordinated the 25th IPRA conference in Turkey, at the organisation's administrative meeting on August 14 during the 25th IPRA conference in Istanbul to serve a second term of two years.
In Sierra Leone, the notion of corporate social responsibility has always been associated with the private sector. No wonder some people see the active involvement of the National Revenue Authority (NRA) in corporate social activities as strange, and many have opined that a tax collecting body should not be engaged in corporate social responsibility activities.
However, the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on corporate image is immense, even for tax collecting bodies. The perception that tax collectors are monsters vigorously bent on collecting people's earnings with no care for the environment or the vulnerable in the community they operate is evolving. Indeed, many revenue authorities in Africa are today socially responsible.
The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) in an article in its website argues that "the nature of Revenue Collectors' mandate makes them the hill of the nation such that whatever they do is mirrored and echoed by many".
The 4th session of the China Africa Press Center (CAPC) Program hosted by the China Public Diplomacy Association (CPDA) was officially launched on Wednesday 1st March 2017 in Beijing, China. This year's event is running simultaneously with the China South Asia Center 2017 program. Both programs brought together forty-four journalists from Africa and South Asia.
The program you will give journalists the opportunity to cover major domestic and international events in China such as the upcoming Two Sessions, i.e, the 5th Session of the 12th National People's Congress (NPC) and the 5th Session of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese
People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) (similar to Parliamentary sessions in many countries) in March, the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in May and the 9th BRICS Summit in Autumn this year.
Dr. David Tam-Baryoh is a household name in Sierra Leone, mostly because of his"Good Governance" popular radio programme called monologue. In fact the programme has become sopopular that most people prefer to call the presenter "Mr. Monologue". Recently Mr. Monologue said in two or three of his programmes that he would be going intopolitics. It looked like a joke the first time he said it. But after saying it over threeor four times it is no longer a joke.
So Dr. David Tam-Baryoh is going into politics in 2018. Those who are very closeto him will tell you that this is a fact. The Doctor has made up his mind. Afterdiscussing and editing serious national issues on newspaper pages and on the airwaves for almost twenty five years, hehas decided that he cannot achieve much for the people behind the microphone and the pen. He now wants toengage into something that will make a direct impact on the lives of Sierra Leoneans.
And the Doctor thinks politics is the best way to do this, if we look at politics as"the authoritative allocation of scarce resources within a nation state." He wants tobe part of the allocation of Sierra Leone's scarce resources.
By late 2001, the Anti Corruption Commission arrested then Sierra Leone's transport and communications minister, together with his wife, "for involvement in illegal diamond mining" in Kenema district. Large quantum of illicit diamonds had been found in their possession, according to a BBC report at the time.
With some diamonds said to have been smuggled out of the country by the minister, the incident happened at a time when the rebel war was raging and the key perpetrators- the RUF were also seriously involved in illicit mining and smuggling. The minister was later jailed in 2003 for two years for illegal possession of diamonds.
Amongst other factors, Sierra Leone's civil war was fuelled mainly by diamond, specifically "conflict diamonds"- those diamonds that originated from territories controlled by rebel forces (UN definition).
The Legal Aid Board's Alternative Dispute Resolution on Tuesday, 7 March 2017 resolved a long standing dispute in respect of a property on Newcastle Street, in Kissy, Freetown between one Mr. Solomon Samba Mansaray and his seventy-seven year old elder sister Madam Marian Kamara who is in the country on holiday from the United States of America.
The two who had not been on speaking terms were reconciled. Both promised to work together in the interest of peace in the family. In this vein, Madam Marian Kamara agreed to cancel a U$ 400 debt owed by Mr. Mansaray.
While the tension between the two had been lingering several years,Mr. Mansaray decided to report the matter to the Board in Freetown when he got information that Madam Marian Kamara was planning to sell theproperty. The owner of the property who is the sister of both parties had died over a decade ago without leaving a will.
As the Legal Aid Board prepares to provide legal assistance to indigents and children engaged in election related violence, it has successfully secured the discharge of a twenty-five old from Wilberforce in the West of Freetown charged with violence.
The Legal Aid Defence Counsel Hadiru Daboh secured the discharge after drawing the court's attention to the failure of the complainant to attend court sittings for seven consecutive adjournments. What's more, the complainant has not furnished the court with any reasons for his absence. Magistrate I.S. Bangura agreed with the Defence Counsel and discharged the matter. He noted that discharge would not stop the prosecution from reinstating the matter in future.
The accused, Alpha Kanuwho plied his trade as driver and apprentice at the Wilberforce lorry park got involved in a fight with his boss Michael Aruna in February 2017. He was arrested and taken to the Congo Cross Police station following a complaint by his boss. According to Alpha Kanu, his injuries were ignored by the police even though they were more serious. He spent fifteen days at the Congo police station before the matter was charged to court.
During March 23-31, the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) issponsoring "Obangame Express", an in-port Command Post exerciseand at-sea maritime exercise designed to enhance maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea.The exercise includes 33 partner nations, as well as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS).
The exercise is designed to improve cooperation andinformation sharing, and to refine tactics, techniques and procedures among participating nations.
The "Obangame Express"exercise will be based on realistic modern-day scenarios such as piracy, illegal fishing and hijacking. During the exercise,Maritime Operations Centers (MOCs) will be challenged to recognize illicit acts and share trackinginformation with other MOCs throughout the region.
The winner of the Pride of Australia Award, Ansumana Usman Koroma popularly known as AUK has called on all Sierra Leoneans within and outside Sierra Leone to support and fully participate in both the ongoing voter registration that has started March 20 to end April 19 2017 and the forthcoming nationwide civil registration process slated April 24 to June 11 2017.
AUK who is a Political and Policy Analyst working in Australia said the mass registration of every citizen is a very important process in the development agenda of the country. He therefore appealed to all Sierra Leoneans to put politics aside and understand that the process would help government consolidate citizens' data and enhance effective service delivery and improve monitoring of government programmes and policies.
He stressed that the national civil registration authority is created to promote a greater sense of nationalism and common identity.