text:
Pittsburgh Modular Foundation 2.0
[No Longer In Production]
Complete Voice Analog Modular Synthesizer
The Foundation is a fully modular, eurorack, analog synthesizer. A patchable system styled after the great monosynths of the past with no hardwired signal path or fixed voice architecture to restrict creativity. Driven by two wide range analog oscillators the Foundation produces a huge, warm sound that can't be matched by digital or VST synths. All of the elements of a classic voltage controlled synthesizer are available as an open, patchable, modern synth.
The Foundation is a "complete voice". It contains all the modules needed to produce a wide variety of complex sounds such as monster analog bass, cutting leads, evolving pads, and short percussive hits. All of which can be controlled directly using the Foundations' 42 knobs and switches then played with any standard Midi controller. The Midi module included in the Foundation allows for monophonic / duophonic / and dual monophonic patching for maximum flexability.
An unpatched Foundation offers a clean slate for sonic exploration and sound design. The open format of a modular synthesizer allows for greater control and a deeper understanding of synthesis. The Foundation is comprised of a heavy duty eurorack case and individual eurorack modules designed to work together and as part of a larger modular system. Modules within the Foundation can be rearranged easily or replaced as a system grows or individual needs change.
Foundation 2.0 Modules
Multiple Analog Waveforms
Wide Frequency Range
2 Independent Low Frequency Oscillators
3 Modes
Multifunction Module
4 Channel Mixer
4 Independent Attenuators
Lowpass, Highpass, Bandpass, Variable Outputs
Voltage Controlled Frequency and Q
Filter and Oscillator Modes
4 Stage (Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release)
Fast and Slow Modes
Attenuated CV Input
Individual and Mix Outputs
Stereo or Dual Mono Outputs
Monophonic/Duophonic/Dual Monophonic Modes
Dual CV Out
Dual Gate Out
Clock Sync Out
Signal Splitter and Dual Unity Gain Mixer/Splitter
Audio and Control Voltage Signal Router
Foundation Specs
Heavy Duty Custom
90hp Eurorack Case
Sliding Nut Mounting Nut System
Removable Lid
Dimensions with Lid: 19.25 x 6.25 x 6
Integrated Power Supply
+12v 800mA / -12v 500mA / +5v 250mA
External 15v DC Power Adapter
15 3.5mm Patch Cables from
5x 6"
5x 12"
5x 24"
¹The Ad Infinitum patch cables are fully-molded patch cables constructed of 26AWG stranded copper wire with a low-loss 95% spiral-wound copper shield in a 2.8mm PVC jacket. The copper is 99.99% pure and oxygen-free. The connectors are nickel-plated, providing high corrosion resistance.


text:
We specialize in renting three, four, five and six bed roomed privately owned
villas all with their own swimming pool. Imagine coming home from the attractions
and spending a relaxing night by your own swimming pool.
Experience the enjoyment of being able to cook your own meal or order a pizza
and not having to worry about sitting in your hotel room eating your meal.
Villa rentals in Florida are on the increase every year. Please take the
next step and search our website for a villa that fits your needs.
Your reservation will be handled directly by one of our reservation staff.
They will offer you very competitive prices, excellent value for money and
friendly help and advice.
We look forward to hearing from you!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Pittsburgh Steelers Tote Bag With Accessory Case
Officially licensed. Tote features Pittsburgh Steelers logo and artwork on softly quilted fabric. Metallic logo zipper. FREE accessory case!
Measures 14" W x 11" H with a 9" drop
- Price:
- s&s◇
Show your Steelers pride and carry winning fashion everywhere you go with this Pittsburgh Steelers tote bag, available exclusively from The Bradford Exchange. Officially licensed by NFL Properties LLC, this Pittsburgh Steelers bag is the perfect Steeler Nation accessory, proudly displaying striking artwork of a Steelers helmet, Steelers logo and the official NFL logo in a fashion-forward design.
Handcrafted in a luxurious quilted fabric, this football tote bag is designed for lasting style with two interior slip pockets, one zippered pocket and a zipper closure featuring a golden metallic Pittsburgh Steelers team logo zipper pull. Plus, you'll also get a FREE coordinating, zippered cosmetic case - perfect for game day or any day! Strong demand is expected, so don't wait. Order now!
- Gear up for game day and show your Steelers pride with this Pittsburgh Steelers tote bag, available only from The Bradford Exchange
- Officially licensed by NFL Properties LLC
- Handcrafted from a high-quality, quilted fabric with 2 slip interior pockets, a zippered pocket and zipper closure. Imported.
- Football tote features striking artwork of a Steelers helmet, the Steelers logo and the official NFL logo
- Comes with a FREE zippered cosmetic cases in a coordinating design for extra storage
- Golden metallic zipper pull brilliantly sculpted in the shape of the Pittsburgh Steelers team logo
- 90-Day Money-Back Guarantee
- Measures 14" W x 11" H with a 9" drop; 35.6 cm W x 27.9 cm H with a 22.9 cm drop; cosmetic cases measure 8" W x 4" H x 2" D; 20 cm W x 10 cm H x 5 cm D
©2011 The Bradford Exchange. All rights reserved.


text:
POUGHKEPSIE, N.Y. – Playing on the road for the final weekend of the season, the MIT women's tennis team traveled to New York; with its first stop Vassar College. In the end the No. 27 Brewers prevailed by a final of 7-2, with the Engineers claiming one doubles and one singles match for their points.
MIT picked up its doubles point early on as the No. 1 team of sophomores Julia Hsu (Knoxville, Tenn.) and Lauren Quisenberry (Corpus Christi, Texas) took down Vassar's pairing of Joy Backer and Ava Sadeghi by an 8-2 margin. At No. 2 the Engineers' team of senior Anastasia Vishnevetsky (Orange, Conn.) and freshman Michelle Dutt (Gurnee, Ill.) came close in their match, but fell in the end in a close contest by an 8-6 score to Jennifer Beckerman and Samantha Schapiro.
Freshman Vynnie Kong (Cupertino, Calif.) scored the other point for MIT during the match, taking her No. 5 singles contest in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2 over Jennifer Ruther. Vassar prevailed in rest of the singles matches, however, taking all of them in straight sets over the Engineers. In the No. 1 match Vishnevetsky attempted a comeback attempt in her second set against Beckerman, falling by a 6-4, 7-5 score. Dutt had a similar outcome in her contest at No. 3 with Backer, falling 6-3, 7-5.
MIT will close out its 2011-12 regular season schedule tomorrow with an 11:00 a.m. match scheduled at Skidmore College.


text:
Bas Bakker necesitaba un nuevo diseño de página web y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 55 diseños de 14 diseñadores freelance.
Bel Air Hotel
We are a Website Lease company that helps small business professionals to build simple but effective websites. Our focus is conversion. We believe that self employed have to do what they like, and we help them to spend less time in online sales and marketing.
We need and elegant web design for a hotel in the Netherlands. There current website is to basic and to hard to understand for web visitors. The most important aspects are the visual and emotional, these two must improve.
Current website of the Hotel: http://bit.ly/beuS1x
1. Business people: booking conference rooms.
2. Consumers: booking hotel rooms for there stay in Den Haag / Netherlands
Keywords of professional
Here are some keywords that describe the small business.
- Visual and emotional
- elegant, kinky, essential, relaxed, professional, clear
Use these requirements in your design
- Use (1 or 2) colors from this colorsheme http://www.colourlovers.com/palette…in_rainbow
- Minimal screen resolution: 1024 x 768
- Logo, see uploads
- Visuals, see uploads
- Use http://www.adobeusergroup.nl/site as visual example / inspiration
Hotel design Inspiration
If you want some design inspiration, here are three hotel designs we like.
- http://www.icehotel.com/uk/ICEHOTEL/
- http://www.alberthotel.lv/
- http://www.thistle.com/en/index.html
Website goals
- The website must contain the feeling you get when you are at the hotel.
- The visitors must be able to make a quick reservation.
We uploaded wireframes, all information elements must be used in the design. The wireframes contains various elements which you can use in the design. The direct reservation widget, distinction between business and consumer and the multi-language are a must. The rest of the content is up to you.
End result
The end result we want to see are the following page.
- Concept Homepage


text:
Marisa Axelrod, 22
Brooke Jackson, 24
Graphic Designer
These charming southern belles are best friends and are up for any challenge. They want to prove to the world that theyre not just cute blondes and that they can be athletic, cut-throat competitors.
Marisa is currently a broadcast journalism student at the University of South Carolina. She describes herself as ambitious, witty and spontaneous. Her extensive dance training has taught her to be focused and determined, skills that could help her to do well on the race.
Brooke is fascinated with other cultures and cant wait to try out some of the Spanish she learned while living in Spain. She works as a graphic designer and enjoys traveling, painting and being outdoors. She believes that her take-charge attitude will be enough to get them through the rigors of the Race.
She and her best friend are certain this adventure will make them even better friends. And if they have to do a little flirting along the way, theyre not opposed to that either whatever it takes to cross the finish line in first place.
source: www.cbs.com


text:
MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. – The No. 3 Georgia College baseball team (13-2) beat Philadelphia University (0-4) 8-4 Sunday, finishing off a four-game sweep of the Rams. GC out-scored PhilaU 76-8 over the four games.
The Bobcats scored in each of the first five innings, opening up a 7-2 lead. GC stole nine bases on the day.
Rightfielder Shawn Ward (Evans, Ga.) was one of the biggest sluggers today, hitting 3-for-4 with two RBI, while scoring three runs and ripping his first home run of the young season. Leftfielder Ikaika Anderson (Austell, Ga.) also homered as part of his 2-for-5 day, scoring twice and driving in one. Second baseman Luke McKay (Augusta, Kan.) added his first GC home run, a solo blast.
Junior righty Chris George (Woodstock, Ga.) got his first career victory (1-0), throwing five innings, allowing just three hits and two runs while fanning seven.
GC remains undefeated at home, a perfect 9-0.
The Bobcats are back in action Tuesday, March 1 at 3 p.m. taking on Benedict College at John Kurtz Field.
The Georgia College Department of Athletics, back-to-back winners of the PBC Commissioner's Cup, sponsors 10 varsity athletic programs at the NCAA Division II level. As a Division II program, Bobcat Athletics prides itself on balancing the life of the student-athlete, evidenced by the teams' multiple appearances in post-season competition as well as documented academic success and community-service involvement. Sign up at www.twitter.com/BobcatSports and www.facebook.com/gcbobcats for up-to-the-minute reports, and visit www.GCBobcats.com for more information, and to nominate your favorite former Bobcats and Colonials to the GC Athletics Hall of Fame.


text:
Afghan exodus 'set to rise'
THE number of Afghans arriving at the world's borders seeking asylum is tipped to increase with the withdrawal of foreign forces from the country next year.
Facing dire forecasts for the stability of their country, many Afghans are already preparing to leave.
''While there is tremendous variation between the migration options facing elites and the poor, overall there is a platform for more diverse, bigger, faster and more distant migration,'' a report by development consultancy STATT says.
''Many countries that already receive regular and irregular migrants from Afghanistan are likely to see these flows increase.''
There are almost 3 million Afghan refugees, one in every four refugees in the world. Afghan refugees are in 79 countries, but 95 per cent of them live in Pakistan or Iran.
Australia, a minor destination by world standards, is likely to remain a final destination of choice for Afghans who can afford it, particularly members of the ethnic Hazara minority, many of whom have family connections in Australia, and who face significant persecution in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The number of Afghans seeking asylum in Australia fell in 2011 for the first time in six years, but UNHCR figures show a significant increase in the first half of last year.
There were 2126 claims in the first half of the year, more than four times as many as in the same period of 2011.
From more than 20,000 interviews, STATT researchers found many Afghans with the wherewithal to leave were already talking about doing so.
STATT managing director Jacob Townsend said anecdotal evidence pointed to a further exodus.
''We have heard lots of references to 2014 from people who seem quite desperate to leave.
''The fact is, if that is happening already, then it can become that potentially self-fulfilling cycle; if there is a lot of talk about people leaving, that's really going to hurt the prospects for peace and development post-2014.''
Keeping Afghanistan's leaders - those best placed to rebuild the country - would be a challenge once foreign troops, aid organisations and money left, he said.
''One significant factor is elite pessimism about the future of the country. You're not going to be able to convince Afghanistan's middle class to stay if their leaders are not going to stay.''
The signs of those people preparing to leave are already apparent in the capital.
The bubble of Kabul property prices has well and truly burst, with values crashing by about 50 per cent. Up to a third of the ''narco-palaces'' that populate the city and once commanded rents of $50,000 a month, now sit vacant. Valuables are also being spirited out of the country.
There are reports of hundreds of gold bars being flown out on commercial flights, and Afghanistan's central bank says about $4.5 billion in cash left through Kabul airport in 2011.
Iran and Pakistan are likely to shoulder much of the Afghan asylum burden, as they have done for generations. But regional attitudes have hardened. Pakistan plans to cancel refugee visas in June and wants to repatriate as many as it can of the 1.7 million Afghan refugees living there legally (1 million more are estimated to be in the country illegally).
Australia is an increasingly expensive destination for Afghans. ''Between 2000 and 2012 Afghan GDP per capita increased by roughly 50 per cent, but secure transit to a refugee place in Europe or Australia that cost around $5000 in 2000, now costs $15,000,'' the STATT report says.
With AFP


text:
PRONTO Door Handles on 32mm B01 Backplate for Euro Locks
PRONTO Solid Stainless Steel Door Handles on 32mm B01 Backplate for Euro Style Locks
The PRONTO Door Handle is available on several Rose or Backplate options. You can view our B01 Backplates for Euro Style Locks here or view the rose or other backplate options in the separate rose or backplate collections.
All of our products are available in our standard finishes; Satin Stainless Steel, Polished Stainless Steel, Satin Black Chrome, Satin Brass, Polished Brass, Antique Bronze and Antique Brass.
Satin Stainless Steel and Polished Stainless Steel are our standard timeless finishes. Satin Black Chrome offers you an extremely durable, high quality finish in a beautiful matt black and is our most sought after custom finish. Brass and Satin Brass are also extremely popular, and we offer a flawless Brass electroplate in a combination of 24k Gold and Brass particles. The 24k Gold and Brass components stop the product from tarnishing, therefore we DO NOT clear lacquer this finish. Antique Bronze is electroplated in a copper base and Antique Brass is electroplated in a brass base. Both finishes are then oxidised, and hand rubbed to give a beautiful, luxurious, old world finish and are designed to continue to age and tarnish over time. Due to the intricate nature of plated finishes we recommend ordering as a complete batch to achieve a consistent finish. We also recommend if you are matching an existing electroplated product i.e. tapware you should bring in a sample so we can get as close as possible to the desired outcome.
We also do Custom Electroplated, Baked Enamel, or any Powder Coated Finishes.
A Powder Coat finish offers you even more choice by allowing you to compliment your interior/exterior surroundings by choosing any Dulux or Interpon Powder Coat Finish such as Jasper, Monument, Sable CoreTen, Zuess White and so on.
A baked enamel or two-pack finish gives you any choice of colour including metallic finishes commonly used in the motor industry.
Shop online or drop into our showroom to view your favourites.
Finish Your Design with Style


text:
Rainbow Dust Edible Silk Range - PEARL PALE PACIFIC BLUE
Rainbow Dust
Rainbow Dust Edible Silk Powder Colours - PEARL PALE PACIFIC BLUE
Pale Pacific Blue is from the Rainbow Dust Edible Silk Pearl range.
Rainbow Dust Pearl edible Silk colours are beautiful soft pastel tints with a gorgeous pearlescent finish. Ideal for adding a luxurious silky finish to your sugarcraft items. Excellent for fabric effects. Pearl Pale Pacific Blue is a turquoise blue colour
The Edible silk range includes a wide range of colours and finishes including iridescent, metallic, pearl, starlight and shimmer ranges.
- 100% edible
- vegetarian and vegan
- nut, lactose, and gluten free
- GM free
- Suitable for Kosher and other religions
The average Nett fill weight across the range for each pot is 3g making the Rainbow Dust Iridescent range one of the most cost effective lustre powder colours on the market.
Rainbow dusts only use EU approved food colours in their edible powders.
Check out all the colours in the Rainbow Dust Edible Silk Range including some great value sets.
Find all lustre colours at PartyAnimlaOnline here.
Instructions and Tips for Use
Rainbow Dust Edible Silk lustre colours are ideal to use by dry dusting onto frills and flowers, plaque edges and many other products, but they can also be mixed with alcohol or rejuvenating fluid to paint onto the surface to give a deep lustre. For an even better and long lasting finish use Rainbow Dusts new Paint Creator liquid which also seals the finish and puts an end to the dust coming off again once dry!


text:
Last year's total figure is down 26% from 2012 and is less than 53% from the peak of 2.9 million properties with foreclosure filings in 2010, RealtyTrac said in its yearend foreclosure market report.
One in every 96 housing units nationwide had at least one foreclosure filing during the year, which is down 1.4% from a year ago.
"The shadow cast by the foreclosure crisis is shrinking as fewer distressed properties enter foreclosure and properties already in foreclosure are poised to exit in greater numbers in 2014 given the greater number of scheduled foreclosure auctions in 2013 in judicial states—which account for the bulk of U.S. foreclosure inventory," says Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.
Total foreclosure activity increased in 10 states compared to the prior year, including Maryland (up 117%), New Jersey (44%), New York (34%), Connecticut (20%), Washington (13%) and Pennsylvania (13%).
Scheduled judicial foreclosure auctions rose by 13% on a yearly basis. This is the highest level in three years, the Irvine, Calif.-based firm said. Foreclosure auctions were also the only foreclosure document type to post a year-over-year increase.
Some of the biggest increases in scheduled judicial foreclosure auctions was found in Maryland, up 107%, New Jersey had a 64% rise, Connecticut was up 55%, and Florida at 53%.
"The push to schedule these auctions is certainly coming at an opportune time for the foreclosing lenders," Blomquist added. "There is unprecedented demand from institutional investors willing to pay with cash to buy at the foreclosure auction, helping to raise the value of properties with a foreclosure filing in 2013 by an average of 10% nationwide."
More than 747,000 housing units across the country began the default foreclosure process in 2013. This represents a 33% decline from the previous year and is the lowest annual total since RealtyTrac started reporting on foreclosure starts in 2006.
Meanwhile, 13 states did not follow the downward trend, with Maryland, Arkansas, New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, and Nevada all seeing respective increases in foreclosure starts ranging from 194% to 21%.
Additionally, there were 462,970 properties repossessed by lenders over the course of 2013, a yearly decline of 31%. REO activity decreased in 2013 compared to 2012 in 38 states, with California, Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Illinois experiencing the greatest drop-off.
The government-backed enterprises Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, have the highest inventory of bank-owned assets with a combined 41%, RealtyTrac noted. Other top beneficiaries were Bank of America (11% of all active REO inventory), Wells Fargo (11%), JPMorgan Chase (8%), US Bancorp (7%), Deutsche Bank (5%) and CitiGroup (4%).


text:
Melissa Giraldo is arguably the most popular model in her home country of Colombia. A native of Medellin (of Pablo Escobar fame), this attractive lady is drawing comparisons with none other than fellow Colombian hottie Sofia Vergara. While we fail to see the similarities between both women (they have different kinds of um… assets), we hope that Melissa makes it big in the States. For now, though, we'll have to settle on this gallery of the Colombian cutie.
More About: Colombia,Melissa Giraldo,Models


text:
Lookit, I have long been a proponent for women's Halloween costumes which present the simple concept of dressing like an indian, nurse, police officer (gotcha) or cowgirl and combine it with looking like an slutty, slutty whore. It's good for men, it's good for America.
But the key word in the above sentence is "woman".
This year, what can only be described as an "ass-load" of Halloween costume companies seems to be trying to A) turn your "tween" daughter into a whore and B) get this guy, in trouble. (I'm kidding, that's Eddie Pepitone, a gifted comic actor living in LA, buy his CD here so he doesn't get mad at me for using his picture.)
So, WTF, Halloween costume making companies, are you staffed entirely with pervs? People want to trick or treat in their neighborhoods, not the seedy-side of a town in Thailand! Look at some of these costumes!
A Geisha girl? Are you shitting me? Great. Halloween costumes for peds with Asian fetishes!
Here' s the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion from "The Wizard of Oz", apparently the remake directed by Larry Clark!
Yo, ho, ho- in a big friggin' way. Yeah, send your daughter out in this, next year she'll be going as a rape victim!
What Sucks Bonus…Sexy Ghostbusters
Once again, I'm all for whoring it out this time of year for adults, but come on- sexy Ghostbuster?
WTF? This wasn't even in the movie? I'm all for whoring it up on Halloween but come on- have we really exhausted every single possibility that you now need to start making up, potential whory costumes? Did I miss "sexy accountant" and "sexy repo-girl"?


text:
Welcome to Uganda Videos! We are sure you have already figured out the stuff for yourself, but we thought we would give you a helping hand, just in case you missed something.
First, we should mention that Uganda Videos has got two sides to it - there is http://www.ugandavideos.com and there is http://apps.facebook.com/ugandavideos. Look at it as two doors to the same house. What you can do on http://apps.facebook.com/ugandavideos, you can also do on http://www.ugandavideos.com. Well, almost.
Now that we have that cleared up, lets get to the exciting stuff!
So, what exactly can Uganda Videos do for you? Or rather, what can you do on Uganda Videos?
How it works:
Now that we have wowed you, we are sure you want to know how it all works. This is the best part: it works like magic. No complicated instructions. You want to share a video? Click "share". You want to add a video from YouTube or Facebook? Click "Add Media". You want to add a video to your channel? Click "+MyList". You want to remove a video from your channel? Click "-MyList". You want to share your channel? Click "Share It". You are stuck or something doesn't work as expected, or you have a brilliant idea for us? Leave a comment here, or send us an email at: admin[at]ugandavideos[dot][com]
Enjoy it!


text:
OTTAWA - Stephen Harper, we hardly know you.
Almost seven years after Harper led his Conservatives to office and ended more than a decade of uninterrupted Liberal power, the prime minister remains a polarizing figure who inspires a bewildering array of reactions.
Steely ideologue, pragmatic centrist, unprincipled partisan: Harper's political management has inspired all these descriptions — sometimes on the same file or issue.
With political 2012 now in the books, Harper has finally completed his first full, unfettered year with a majority mandate. Are Canadians any wiser about the man and his Conservative party that are leading the country?
"If success is measured by getting your agenda accomplished, I think for the most part they have. They're making strides," says Alex Marland, a political scientist at Memorial University in St. John's, N.L., who specializes in political messaging.
"In some ways you could make the argument that they've been quite successful, and yet for some reason in the public opinion polls, they just can't seem to move. That's the disconnect that I find interesting."
The prime minister dished up a textbook example to close out a year of mixed government signals and muddling along.
Harper permitted a Chinese state-owned company to buy up a significant Canadian-owned player in the Alberta oilpatch, but in so doing, he effectively barred further such ownership bids.
The Solomonic decision managed to inflame equally strident — and contradictory — opinions from around the dial.
Harper also attempted to turn the page on a multi-year propaganda exercise designed to sell Canadians on the F-35 stealth fighter. Government stonewalling over the ballooning cost of the developmental jet helped spark the 2011 election, when Conservatives said it was the only option and vowed to complete the purchase.
The government announced on Dec. 12 that it was "hitting the reset button" — a term heard so often that day, it was surely tested extensively with focus groups — on the F-35 procurement.
Conservatives took a pounding on the F-35 file for a variety of sins, from mismanagement to deceit — "incompetence tainted by arrogance," in the words of NDP Leader Tom Mulcair — but ultimately made the right call.
Perhaps that was why Harper, usually an efficient but dour performer in the Commons, appeared uncommonly jovial in the final sitting days, unburdened at last of weighty decisions on foreign investment and military procurement.
"I think the issues are getting rougher for them," Bob Rae, the Liberal interim leader and former Ontario premier, said of the Conservatives and Harper in a year-end interview.
"I think every government learns from experience. He's a very shrewd guy. I don't underestimate him at all."
But Harper, Rae argued, is "limited by the nature of his message and he's limited by the kind of (political) movement that he felt he had to create."
If so, 2012 was a year that showed Harper testing the boundaries of those perceived limitations.
On April 26, Harper's government whip, Gordon O'Connor, led off the Conservative response to a private member's bill (from a Conservative backbencher) that would have re-opened Canada's abortion debate.
"I cannot understand why those who are adamantly opposed to abortion want to impose their beliefs on others by way of the Criminal Code," O'Connor stated in a speech that cited the prime minister's own feelings on the issue.
"There is no law that says that a woman must have an abortion. No one is forcing those who oppose abortion to have one."
The legislation was defeated. And although much was made of the fact 10 cabinet ministers defied Harper and voted in favour of the bill, the message from the top was clear.
On gun control, the Conservatives vanquished the long-gun registry that was such a touchstone for the party.
Yet by autumn the government was clearly reining in any signs of firearms triumphalism, choosing to downplay developments such as the destruction of the registry data.
Harper ended the year with a public rebuke of the government's own, hand-picked firearms advisory committee, which has been pushing for further easing of gun control regulations.
Communications consultant Gerry Nicholls, a longtime conservative commentator and former colleague of Harper at the right-wing National Citizen's Coalition, said 2012 tells him that Harper "is not a conservative prime minister or an ideological prime minister."
"If anything, his actions of the past year prove he's first and foremost a pragmatic politician pursuing pragmatic political policies," Nicholls said in an email.
And lest you take that as praise, Nicholls concludes that "he isn't motivated by what's good for the country or by what's good for conservatism; but by what's good for the Conservative party."
Yet despite Nicholl's harsh assessment, ideology remains.
It was a year that saw several courts begin to chip away at the government's punitive new suite of mandatory minimum sentences, but no evidence of any softening in the Conservative "tough on crime" stance.
An unrelenting emphasis on expanding trade helped in part explain Harper's extensive global travels, which included separate trips to China, India, Australia, Russia, Colombia and the Congo.
Almost inextricable from trade was the government's focus on resource extraction, pipelines, the oilpatch — and the demonization of those opposed to environmental deregulation.
"Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade," Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver wrote last Jan. 9 in an open letter that would set the government's tone for the year.
On Dec. 13, the last sitting day of the fall session of Parliament, Harper blasted the NDP for being "against the development of the oilsands entirely."
"People know the only government that will defend the interests of this industry and Canadians is this government," the prime minister concluded.
Through it all, the unparalleled Conservative fundraising machine has not faltered.
The party raked in $12 million in heavily taxpayer-subsidized donations through the first three quarters of 2012, down somewhat from the 2011 election year but exactly matching its total through nine months in 2010.
By contrast, the NDP and Liberals together raised only $10.5 million in the first three quarters of this year.
Perhaps not coincidentally, what would a year in Canadian politics be without the Conservative party battling its perceived institutional enemies?
That persecution complex helps drive the party fundraising machine but it may also feed a chippy, paranoid and ruthless governing style that's willing to cut corners and bend rules.
An ongoing investigation into fraudulent election calls from 2011 raised a great cloud of smoke, but as yet no fire — pending the outcome of an Elections Canada investigation into a seemingly widespread voter suppression scheme by parties unknown.
The government fought the parliamentary budget officer, nursed new media grudges and lambasted environmentalists, "big union bosses," the United Nations, immigrant "queue-jumpers" and crooked consultants.
Harper has been compared to William Lyon Mackenzie King, the Liberal prime minister who was unloved and little understood but governed Canada for a record 22 years using wile, guile and political street smarts.
Harper's also fortunate to have the same kind of fractured opposition that helped Jean Chretien to three consecutive Liberal majorities from 1993 to 2000.
As Parliament's fall sitting wrapped up, the NDP's Mulcair was asked about the prospect of co-operation among Canada's "progressive voters."
Standing behind a podium bearing an almost comically oversized "Official Opposition" placard, in both official languages, Mulcair responded: "My No. 1 job as leader of the NDP is to rally all progressive forces in Canada under the NDP banner and defeat Stephen Harper in 2015."
A phalanx of NDP MPs posed behind him whooped and applauded.
Conservative MPs were likely applauding, too, as they watched the Mulcair scrum on TV. For the same reason, Tories could be cheering on Justin Trudeau and Liberal fortunes in the coming year.
If it seemed to some that Harper's Conservatives just muddled along in 2012, it should be remembered that's how governments in Canada frequently survive.
"I don't think this is a government that is doing stuff with immediate big bangs," said Marland, the Memorial University professor, who credits "incremental conservatism."
He cites the termination of the penny, a tiny move "that affected every single Canadian," as emblematic.
"Is it a hidden agenda?" asked Marland. "Well no, it's an agenda that's in plain sight."
Successful Liberals, the once "natural governing party," campaigned on the left and governed from the centre.
Marland posits that "you could possibly make the same argument that Conservatives, in some ways, campaign on the right and govern from the centre."
It's an assessment that will satisfy no one in the polarized debate over Canada's 22nd prime minister — a state of affairs that just might make Harper happy. He certainly looked it at year's end.
Also on HuffPost


text:
Release Date: 2011 |
conradtao EMERITUS (4.5)Björk's ecstatic cry of "what a wonderful world"......greg84 EMERITUS (4.5)Beautifully textured and downright cerebral, "Biophilia" sounds just as refreshing as Bjor...Jeffort23 (3.5)Music I'd rather admire than listen to....perUmbram (5)One of the most ambitious albums ever, and one of the most accomplished: Biophilia moves t...
Tunaboy45 (4)An enchanting collection of songs based on nature, relationships and the parallels one can...ednights (4)An experimental and abrasive record that remains beautiful in its magnitude....
Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound OffMedúlla, shoddily executed? Clean your ears, fool.
In all seriousness, good review.
Album Rating: 4.0Nick "I didn't have this dibbed but I'll review it anyway" Butler strikes again :p.
of course this is a good review
Album Rating: 4.0great review but like conrad i somewhat disagree with your assessment of medulla
Album Rating: 3.0 | Sound Off
great review but like conrad i somewhat disagree with your assessment of medulla
Album Rating: 4.24s all up in this place
Digging: Angel Olsen - All Mirrors
Album Rating: 5.0Rejoice kids, Bjork is back!
Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Offyea medulla ruled, great review
Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound OffAnother thing: where the FUCK are the umlauts in her name!?!!!?!??*!!*!?
Album Rating: 4.0I agree with a lot of the statements made but not to the degree they were made. I liked her last two
albums just fine but still see this as an improvement. This "maximum effort/minimum end product rut"
you speak of I recognize but I feel you may be being a tad harsh.
Sputnik has a slight problem with those umlauts, conrad. And generally English speaking people mostly have problems with pronouncing it so.. yeah.
Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound OffHm.. I've never ran into a problem with the umlauts.
Although your qualms about "English speaking people" having problems pronouncing Björk properly (newsflash: it doesn't rhyme with dork, it rhymes with jerk) strikes me as being slightly silly. Then again, I'm the ass who will write "deëmphasize" just to piss people off, so you probably shouldn't listen to me..
Album Rating: 4.0Not Jerk Murk
Album Rating: 4.2If Bjork had the umlaut then users wouldn't be able to put Bjork in their lists
diaereses own
Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Offright now
I want to like this album, but it just doesn't do much for me.
dunno what to think yet. it's too minimal for bjork but not as minimal to be as good as medulla. SHE FOUND A MIDDLE GROUND AND IDK
liking all the random breakcore segments though
Album Rating: 4.0She is wonderful and you know it.
Bands: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z


text:
Kurt Busch Proud of Seven-Year Winning Streak
November 25, 2008
MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Nov. 25, 2008) - When Kurt Busch scored his first victory as a full-time competitor on the elite NASCAR Sprint Cup tour on March 24, 2002, little did he know that he'd start a winning streak that would continue now for seven straight seasons, placing him in a tie for second-place on the continuous winning seasons list.
Busch's streak began with that 2002 victory at Bristol in only his sixth race as a fixture on the circuit and continued with his win at New Hampshire in June of this year, his 18th career victory.
"That's something that I am really proud of, to have been to Victory Lane at least once during each and every season that I've been a full-time driver," said Busch. "When you look at great racers like Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick who were not able to continue their winning streaks this season, it certainly magnifies the value of what we've been able to do through the years."
Only Tony Stewart, who was able to extend his annual winning streak to 10 years with his controversial victory at Talladega in October, has a longer winning streak. Busch is tied with three-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson for second.
When Busch moved to Penske Racing in 2006 to take over the driving duties for the Miller Lite Dodge Team from retiring racing legend Rusty Wallace, he was able to win the March race at Bristol in only his fifth start for the team. His wins over the last three seasons have been responsible for boosting Penske Racing's continuous winning streak to 18 years.
"That's gotta be a great trivia question that you can use at the bar while you're enjoying a cold Miller Lite," Busch said of the Penske Racing streak which is the second-longest in the sport. "Our winning streak at Penske is second only to Hendrick Motorsports (23 years). It's longer than Roush Racing's (12 years), longer than Joe Gibbs' Racing's (16 years) and longer than Richard Childress Racing's (four years). Even through the difficult seasons like we had this year, we've still been able to win races. That fact is certainly something that our team takes great pride in."
Busch points to the 2008 season being the first year for running the new COT model cars exclusively as an additional reason to treasure any taste of victory you could get.
"We didn't make the Chase this season and that was extremely disappointing," said Busch. "But when you look at it from the angle of who won races and who didn't, it was quite incredible that when the Chase began after the September Richmond race, five of the 12 drivers had not won races.
"Like I said several times this season and I still stand behind my belief that the new car didn't produce the results NASCAR was looking for, or at least it hasn't yet." Busch offered. "This car was supposed to create more parity. It was supposed to create an equal playing field for everybody. What it has done is it has separated a select few and allowed them to win all the races. When I first started in 2001, there were 19 different winners. I think that might be the record. There were guys that were 25th in points winning races (three winners from outside the top 25) because cars handled different and the cars drove different.
"It just seems like with this car, if you get hot, you're hot," Busch added. "Looking back on the year, Jimmie Johnson had seven wins. My little brother had eight wins. Carl Edwards won nine races. Carl more than doubled his win total in one season with the year he had. When you are hot with this car, you stay hot.
"I certainly don't want it to come off sounding like sour grapes because we had the same opportunity as all the other teams out there. It just shows how much our team and others have struggled with the new car. We're scratching and clawing to get back up there at the top and be consistent threats to win. That's our main goal as we put this season behind us and look ahead to the 2009 season."
Busch, the 2004 NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion and first under the current Chase format, suggests that maybe it's time for some tweaking to the system in order to have additional fan appeal.
"I think it was Darrell Waltrip who came up with the best modification to the Chase I've heard," said Busch. "It's just a minor change that would make the Chase format better. His idea was to include all the guys who are in the top-12 in points after the 26th race concludes at Richmond, but also give eligibility to any other driver in the top 20 in points who had won races. It would add a big premium to winning.
"This season, that move would have added Kasey Kahne, Ryan Newman and our team to the field and it would have been up to 15 teams that were eligible," said Busch. "I know that may sound a little self-serving because we were in that group, but I really am looking at the big picture when I say that I totally support DW's idea.
"Just look back at 2007 when we made the Chase," Busch said. "That change to the format would have allowed Casey Mears, Jamie McMurray and Juan Pablo Montoya into the Chase. NASCAR bumped it up to 12 drivers eligible from 10 after the first year and I think this would be a great extension of that line of thinking to make the Chase more interesting and competitive."
Such a setup for the Chase would have added Jamie McMurray, Kasey Kahne, Rusty Wallace and Greg Biffle to the field in 2004. Kevin Harvick, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch and Kasey Kahne would have been added in 2005, while the elder Busch would have been included in the 2006 Chase roster.


text:
Drawing Inspiration from Ancient Times
Recently, I came across this amazing relic of ancient times that's on display at the Getty Museum in LA – a Greek marble relief that dates back to 100 BC. It's like the IT department has presented her with a laptop still running Windows 2000 and she's thinking to herself, "What have I gotten myself into?" Could it be one of the first sources of inspiration for Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), found in a carving thousands of years old? Judging from this, it looks like people have wanted to bring their own devices to work for a lot longer than we might have previously thought!
In fact, many people today are choosing to bring in their own devices to work. It makes sense; we know how our own devices function, for starters. According to recent studies, when people bring their own devices, they have higher job satisfaction and are more productive. Businesses are quickly realizing this and are getting on board with the BYOD trend, using services like Cisco's Smart Solutions to help them do that. Being able to work your way isn't a new concept –technology has just finally caught up to make it happen.
That ancient Greek slab of marble has me thinking: What other examples of new tech can we find in long-lost civilizations?
In an effort to keep conversations fresh, Cisco Blogs closes comments after 60 days. Please visit the Cisco Blogs hub page for the latest content.


text:
Follow RFF News on your cell phone. Text follow rff to 40404 you will receive txt messages with RFF News
0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.
yes howie I am still here I am fine with all the excitement woohoo all feeds on russ playing solitaire FF to jordan taking a bath all feeds
Page created in 0.078 seconds with 35 queries.


text:
1. Location- San Jose, CA
2. Favorite Current Shark- Dan Boyle and Joe Pavelski
3. Favorite Former Shark- Owen Nolan
4. What other teams in the NHL do you root for? None
5. Other sports you enjoy? What other sporting teams do you root for? I only follow hockey
6. Anything else you care to share? It's going to be interesting to see who goes, who stays. In DW I trust.


text:
Why Does Barack Keep Making Weird Jokes About Michelle?
Clinical psychologist Steven Berglas will put Washington on the couch, starting with today's debut of The POLITICO Shrink. An expert on the psychological consequences of success, he will use the column to peer into the psyches of the leaders who run our country.
Story Continued Below
As obsessed with message control as President Obama might be, every so often the mask slips and we get a glimpse of him as a regular guy, not the most powerful leader on Earth. One such moment occurred in September, when a microphone picked up a casual conversation between Obama and a United Nations official at the General Assembly gathering in New York. When asked if he had quit smoking, the president said he hadn't had a cigarette in six years, adding, with a huge grin, "That's because I'm scared of my wife."
You might reasonably conclude that this was a harmless joke, a light-hearted moment of male bonding. Not me; I'm one of those quasi-Freudians who believe that jokes, like dreams and slips of the tongue, reveal repressed feelings, the emotional content of our lives that we would rather not address head-on. This joke—and other seemingly offhanded remarks Obama has made about his wife—tell us a whole lot about both the president's self-esteem and his relationship with Michelle.
One aspect of joking that Sigmund Freud dealt with extensively in his 1905 treatise, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, was what he termed "tendentious humor"—hostility "disguised" as a jape or jibe to give the joke teller plausible deniability.
Consider the following bit of presidential humor. At a fundraiser for LGBT supporters last summer, Obama made a point of thanking Ellen DeGeneres, one of Hollywood's most prominent lesbians, for introducing him: "I want to thank my wonderful friend, who accepts a little bit of teasing about Michelle beating her in pushups… but I think she claims Michelle didn't go all the way down."
Reactions were immediate. "Did President Obama make a blowjob joke?" BuzzFeed asked. The White House pool report noted that the president "let [the line] hang, naughtily, provoking laughter from the crowd." Maybe that was the point: The comedic pause meant Obama could deny hostile intent by doing a "What, me funny?" imitation of Alfred E. Neuman. (As for the idea that the president stumbled into this obvious double entendre by accident—certainly that's what many Beltway insiders ultimately concluded, to which I say: Come on, we're talking about one of the world's most renowned public speakers.)
To me the important question is: What does it say about President Obama's feelings for his wife that he made what certainly seems to be an oral sex joke about her in front of a room full of people?
Let's take a look at some other comments the president has made about her. In an interview the First Couple did with Vogue earlier this year, they were asked what they each have learned from each other. Mrs. Obama answered: "I've learned to let go and enjoy … not take things too personally." Mr. Obama's response? "What Michelle has done is to remind me every day of the virtues of order," he said. "Being on time. Hanging up your clothes."
Should we infer that President Obama sees the first lady as a controlling martinet who is not too enthusiastic about unconventional sex? Probably not. More accurately, we might wonder whether the president's barbed comments about his wife suggest that he resents needing her. It's hard to be a divorced politician, after all. If you believe that "a thing said in jest, is half confessed" you'd have to conclude that much of what the president says about his wife reveals at least some degree of contempt for her.
But why? Michelle Obama is a veritable superwoman—a Princeton- and Harvard-educated attorney, stylish companion, loving mother and unwavering supporter of her husband. What's not to like?
The Vogue interview offers some clues. "Michelle grew up in a model nuclear family: mom, dad, brother," the president said. "There's just a warmth and a sense of belonging. And you know, that's not how I grew up. I had this far-flung family, father left at a very young age, a stepfather who ended up passing away as well. My mother was this wonderful spirit, and she was adventurous but not always very well organized."
The first lady, in other words, grew up in an Ozzie & Harriet-type family—the kind Obama has said he wishes he'd had, sometimes even distorting his history to convince himself that he did. In his autobiography, Dreams From My Father, the president idealizes the man who married and then dumped his mother. You can try to spin this all you want, but the fact is that a man who is abandoned in infancy by his father is psychologically scarred for life.


text:
Exports: Checklist
Maintained by Davo Smith
This is a grade export plugin which will create an Excel spreadsheet containing all the checkmarks from a single checklist.
895 sites
422 downloads
26 fans
Current versions available: 2
This is a grade export plugin which will create an Excel spreadsheet containing all the checkmarks from a single checklist.
You can customise the included fields by editing the included file 'columns.php'.
It will not work without the checklist module - which can be downloaded here: http://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=mod_checklist
This plugin is part of set Checklist.
Please login to view contributors details and/or to contact them
Show comments
- Wed, Jul 16, 2014, 12:52 AMAny suggestions for how I can get Moodle to recognize it's there? It says missing from disk when I go to notifications. Last change log entry is * 2012-07-07 - Tested against Moodle 2.3 so this is the latest version of the plugin I take it...
- Wed, Jul 16, 2014, 1:06 AMIf it needed any changes to work with later moodle versions, I would have made them before updating the 'compatible' version number.
All the times I've installed it, the process was: put the files in the right place, login as admin, visit the front page. If that doesn't work, then check all permissions, to make sure your webserver can read / execute all directories.
- Wed, Jul 16, 2014, 1:55 AMStrangely, it finally recognized it and prompted update. So good to go.
- Mon, Jan 26, 2015, 10:31 AMWe wil be trying this with 2.8+ this week. Can anyone confir,m that it works with this version?
- Tue, Jan 27, 2015, 3:18 AMI can confirm that it works with 2.8, apart from the 'auto check-off' feature, which does not work if you have activity completion tracking off and have switched over to the new logging system (default for Moodle 2.8). This is because the log data is written to a different table and I've not switched over to using this yet.
I have, however, not tested every feature fully (there are a lot of settings!), but I hope to write some automated testing at some point, to make upgrade testing a little easier.
- Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 8:13 PMIs it compatible with version 3.xx? TIA
- Sun, Dec 27, 2015, 11:51 PMProbably - what happens when you try it?
- Tue, Jan 5, 2016, 9:48 AMAnything Dinis?
- Tue, Jan 5, 2016, 6:27 PMWe use checklists a lot and have several checklists with comments. Is there any way that these comments can also be exported when the checklists are exported?
Many thanks
- Tue, Jan 5, 2016, 6:44 PMHi Sue - that is certainly something that I could look at developing, but I'm not sure when I've got a spare evening to do so (I had hoped to do a bit of 'hobby' Moodle dev over Christmas, but that didn't seem to happen).
- Tue, Jan 5, 2016, 6:49 PMThanks Davo, it would be really useful but I am aware that you are developing this in your spare time now. Very much appreciated
- Thu, Nov 24, 2016, 4:40 AMAll automated tests passing in Moodle 3.2, with minor tweaks to the behat tests.
- Mon, May 28, 2018, 8:33 PMThis plugin seems to interfere with Define Role and the table where you change capabilities. I´ve got the problem after upgrade to 3.4. I found this forumpost with the same problem and the probably cause: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=371157#p1496199
- Mon, May 28, 2018, 11:06 PM@Peter - thanks for the heads-up on this. It was a very small typo in the access.php file, but it had a bit effect on the role definitions page (just surprised I didn't manage to spot the problem earlier ...).
- Fri, Jul 20, 2018, 2:39 PM@Peter and @Davo- thanks so much for picking up on this (apologies for not contacting you direct)- Glad you've worked out the bug with access.php file, i'll reinstall and see if it works now.
Please login to post comments


text:
yes...today is the fated day. The day when sam and steve finally re-enter our lives. The first comic has been added, one more is to come late tonight. So keep checking back all day. Also along with the second update will be a new product at the store so check that out even if you don't want to buy it. So far only me, a couple of my dear friends, someone from connecticut, and finland have bought my products. Feel free to add yourself to that list today.
- Austin (Creator of Sam the Clam)


text:
Federal prosecutors believe Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, a potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate, illegally coordinated fundraising with conservative groups as part of a nationwide "criminal scheme" to violate election laws, according to court documents unsealed Thursday.
No charges have been filed against Walker or any member of his staff. The documents were made public as part of an ongoing lawsuit challenging the probe by the conservative group Wisconsin Club for Growth. A federal appeals court judge ordered them publicly released Thursday after prosecutors and the Wisconsin Club for Growth did not object.
One of the filings from lead prosecutor Francis Schmitz outlines previously unknown details about the investigation that began in 2012 as Walker was facing a recall election. No charges have been filed as a result of the investigation.
Prosecutors said Walker, his former chief of staff Keith Gilkes, top adviser RJ Johnson and others were discussing illegal fundraising and coordination with a number of national groups and prominent figures, including Republican strategist Karl Rove.
The court document quotes an email Walker sent to Rove on 4 May 2011 in which he talks about the important role Johnson played in leading the coordination effort.
"Bottom-line: RJ helps keep in place a team that is wildly successful in Wisconsin," the quoted email fromWalker said. "We are running 9 recall elections and it will be like 9 congressional markets in every market in the state (and Twin Cities)."
Johnson, in addition to being Walker's top campaign strategist, also was an adviser for Wisconsin Club for Growth. He did not immediately return a message left on his cellphone.
Walker's campaign spokeswoman Alleigh Marre declined immediate comment. Gilkes did not return a message placed on his cellphone. While he eyes a run for president in 2016, Walker is seeking re-election this year against likely Democratic nominee Mary Burke. Both Gilkes and Johnson are working on his re-election campaign.
It's been known for months that the investigation, known as a John Doe, focused on allegations of illegal coordination between Wisconsin Club for Growth, Walker's campaign and other conservative groups during recall elections in 2011 and 2012.
But until Thursday it wasn't clear that prosecutors saw Walker as having such a central role.
"The scope of the criminal scheme under investigation is expansive," Schmitz wrote in the Dec. 9 court filing, objecting to an attempt by Walker's campaign and other conservative groups to quash subpoenas. "It includes criminal violations of multiple elections laws" including filing false campaign finance reports, Schmitz wrote.
The investigation has been on hold since May when US district judge Rudolph Randa ruled in a lawsuit brought by Wisconsin Club for Growth and its treasurer Eric O'Keefe that the probe was a breach of the group's first amendment free-speech rights and issued a preliminary order stopping the investigation.
Prosecutors, including Milwaukee County district attorney John Chisholm and Schmitz, have appealed to the 7th circuit court of appeals.
Wisconsin Club for Growth attorney Andrew Grossman argued the public has the right to see the documents.
"These documents show how the John Doe prosecutors adopted a blatantly unconstitutional interpretation of Wisconsin law that they used to launch a secret criminal investigation targeting conservatives throughout Wisconsin," Grossman said in an email Thursday. "Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and this is a story that needs to be told to prevent more abuses and to hold the John Doe prosecutors accountable for violating the rights of Wisconsinites."
An attorney for prosecutors, Sam Leib, did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
Prosecutors have defended the investigation as a legitimate probe into whether Wisconsin's campaign finance laws had been violated. They have rejected the argument that they were on a partisan witch hunt.
Walker rose to fame shortly after taking office in 2011, passing a bill that effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers. The uproar over that law led to Walker's recall election in 2012, which he won, making him the first governor in US history to ever defeat a recall.


text:
Friday, November 13, 2015 at 9:59 AM | Post a Comment | Email Article | | Permalink
by Debbie Ridpath Ohi tagged autumn, squirrel in Comics for writers
|My other social media.
Writer comics by Debbie Ridpath Ohi are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
More details: Comic Use Policy


text:
How much does it cost to buy a country? Ask Vladimir Putin. He just got a great deal on one. For $15 billion in loans, a steep discount off Russia's regular gas price this freezing winter and who knows what other undisclosed terms, Putin on Tuesday cemented his pact with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. It's the payoff for Yanukovych's decision to turn Ukraine back east into Putin's sphere of influence— and reject the painstakingly negotiated accession agreement to the European Union he was supposed to sign a couple weeks ago. Der Spiegel calls this Ukrainian maneuver the capstone of Putin's " most successful year yet."
Of course, there's the matter of the 45 million Ukrainians themselves, who overwhelmingly oppose this sellout by their president and have taken to the streets by the hundreds of thousands to demand a future for Ukraine in the West.
Story Continued Below
In doing so, they've once again made poor Ukraine, with its disastrous economy, toxic corruption and dangerous proximity to a Russia that's never fully given up imperial claims to its territory, into a geopolitical fault line, pitting the crass ambition (and attractive payouts) of Putinism against the nobler sentiments (and tough-love economic prescriptions) of the European Union and the IMF.
Nobody on either side of this fight is under any illusions about the broader stakes involved.
"It's about Russia. It's about Putin's desire to restore his influence in the near abroad, the old portions of the Soviet Union that were lost," says Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). McCain, an implacable critic of Putin's, was just off the plane after a weekend visit to the chanting crowds in Kyiv, and he told me his appearance in front of 200,000-plus protesters Sunday in the main square now known as the Euromaidan was "one of the most remarkable experiences of my life." When the Ukrainian pop star whose song "Stena"—"Wall" —has become the unofficial anthem of the uprising roared from the stage, "Jump if you don't like Russia," the response, McCain said, was "200,000 people jumping up and down all at once."
If McCain was dazzled by the people power in the square, so was another Putin foe who showed up in solidarity: former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. When I spoke with him after his own star turn addressing the protesters (in Ukrainian no less, learned during his Soviet university days there), Saakashvili was insistent that, no matter what the short-term outcome, the massive demonstrations marked a decisive rebuke of Putin and turn to the West, a choice by the people of Ukraine if not their leaders to pivot to Europe.
"It's a geopolitical revolution," he said, "because people there are shouting 'Europe, Europe' and basically they're extremely anti-Russian…. It's irreversible in terms of geopolitical orientation, [and] in the mood of the people it's totally irreversible…. People associate poverty, mismanagement and corruption with Russia." In many ways, he argued, it was about Putin overplaying his hand. "What Russia attempted to do," he said, "was hijack a big, promising European country basically on the way to Brussels."
But, if anything, talking with Saakashvili was a reminder of why it's a mistake to put too much faith in people power in the former Soviet Union, a part of the world where rigged institutions and naked power politics often conspire to restore a status quo that leaves the people out of the equation entirely.
Just a decade ago, Saakashvili was the hopeful archetype of post-Soviet people power, boosted to office by the Rose Revolution in his country after protesting a rigged election. That revolution and the Orange Revolution Saakashvili inspired the next year in Ukraine against the fraudulent installation of Yanukovych, the Kremlin-backed candidate , earned him the eternal enmity of Putin. Putin even invaded Georgia during his tenure, though he failed to immediately dislodge the pesky Saakashvili. That was left to the Georgians themselves, who finally turned on Saakashvili after 10 rocky years during which Saakashvili allied his country with the United States, tried and failed to join NATO, and enacted a broad reformist agenda while also earning a reputation as an autocrat in training. Now out of office and not returning home to Georgia for fear of arrest (it's not exile, he insists: "I told my people they need a break from me," he told me by phone from New York, where he had flown after his Ukraine trip. "I was too much for too long."), Saakashvili struck me as a chastened figure, no longer making revolutions but cheering on those of others.
Perhaps the most telling moment of this Ukrainian uprising happened not long after Saakashvili's visit to the protesters, when they finally managed to topple an old statue of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin. To many outside Ukraine, the surprise wasn't that they took down Lenin, but that this icon of the Russian revolution was still holding court over Kyiv all these years after the Soviet collapse. The symbolism certainly wasn't lost on Vladimir Putin.


text:
More controlerifous than LittleBigPlanet 2's 'Creatinator,' with smoother handling than its 'Grabinator,' Sackboy's newest tool—the 'Controlinator'—makes piloting and steering anything in the PlayStation 3 sequel so much simpler.
We doubt you'll miss the roundabout ways you used to make things controllable in the original LittleBigPlanet after experiencing the wonders of the Controlinator, which as this new LBP2 trailer shows makes driving a caterpillar a breeze. Creating new game types in LittleBigPlanet 2 looks so painless this time, even I might try to recreate a Super Mario Bros. level or two.
LittleBigPlanet 2 is coming to the PS3 on January 18, 2011.


text:
The series of events and coincidences that would change my entire life began on April 27, 1975, when Sibel happened to spot a purse designed by the famous Jenny Colon in a shopwindow as we were walking along Valikonagi Avenue, enjoying the cool spring evening. Our formal engagement was not far off; we were tipsy and in high spirits. We'd just been to Fuaye, a posh new restaurant in Nisantasi; over dinner with my parents, we'd discussed at length the preparations for the engagement party, which was scheduled for the middle of June, so that Nurcihan, Sibel's friend since her days at the Lycée Notre Dame de Sion, in Paris, could come from France to attend. Sibel had long ago arranged for her engagement dress to be made by Silky Ismet, who was then the most expensive and sought-after dressmaker in Istanbul, and that evening Sibel and my mother discussed how they might sew on the pearls that my mother had given her for the dress. It was my future father-in-law's express wish that his only daughter's engagement party be as extravagant as a wedding, and my mother was delighted to help fulfill that wish as best she could. As for my father, he was charmed enough by the prospect of a daughter-in-law who had "studied at the Sorbonne," as was said in those days among the Istanbul bourgeoisie of any girl who had gone to Paris for any kind of education.
It was as I was walking Sibel home that evening, my arm wrapped lovingly around her sturdy shoulders, and thinking with pride how happy and lucky I was, that she said, "Oh, what a beautiful bag!" Though my mind was clouded by the wine I'd drunk at dinner, I took note of the purse and the name of the shop, and the next day I went back. In fact, I had never been one of those suave, chivalrous playboys who are always looking for the slightest excuse to buy women presents or send them flowers, though perhaps I longed to be. In those days, bored Westernized housewives in the affluent neighborhoods of Sisli, Nisantasi, and Bebek did not open "art galleries," as they did later, but ran boutiques, stocking them with trinkets and entire ensembles smuggled in their luggage from Paris and Milan or with copies of "the latest" dresses featured in imported magazines like Elle and Vogue, and selling these goods at ridiculously inflated prices to other rich housewives who were as bored as they were.
The proprietress of the Sanzelize (its name a transliteration of the legendary Parisian avenue), Senay Hanim, was a very distant relation on my mother's side, but she wasn't there when I walked into the boutique at around twelve and the small bronze double-knobbed camel bell jingled two notes that can still make my heart pound. It was a warm day, but inside the shop it was cool and dark. At first I thought that there was no one there, my eyes still adjusting to the gloom after the noonday sunlight. Then I felt my heart rise into my throat, with the force of an immense wave about to crash against the shore.
"I'd like to buy the handbag on the mannequin in the window," I managed to say, staggered by the sight of her.
"Do you mean the cream-colored Jenny Colon?"
When we came eye to eye, I immediately remembered her.
"The handbag on the mannequin in the window," I repeated dreamily.
"Oh, right," she said and walked over to the window. In a flash she had slipped off one of her high-heeled yellow pumps, extending her bare foot, whose nails she'd carefully painted red, onto the floor of the display area, and stretching her arm toward the mannequin. My eyes travelled from her empty shoe over her long bare legs. It wasn't even May yet, and they were already tanned.
Their length made her lacy yellow skirt seem even shorter. Hooking the bag, she returned to the counter and, with slender, dexterous fingers, removed the balls of crumpled tissue paper, showing me the inside of the zippered pocket, the two smaller pockets (both empty), and also a secret compartment, from which she produced a card inscribed "Jenny Colon," her whole demeanor suggesting mystery and seriousness, as if she were showing me something very personal.
"Hello, Füsun," I said. "You're all grown up! Perhaps you don't recognize me."
"Of course, Kemal, sir, I recognized you right away, but when I saw that you did not recognize me I thought it would be better not to disturb you."
There was a silence. I looked again at one of the pockets she had pointed to inside the bag. Her beauty, or her skirt, which was in fact too short, or something else altogether, had unsettled me, and I couldn't act naturally.
"Well . . . what are you up to these days?"
"I'm studying for my university entrance exams. And I come here every day, too. Here in the shop, I'm meeting lots of new people."
"That's wonderful. So, tell me, how much is this handbag?"
Furrowing her brow, she peered at the handwritten price tag on the bottom: "One thousand five hundred liras." (At the time, this would have been six months' pay for a junior civil servant.) "But I am sure Senay Hanim would want to offer you a special price. She's gone home for lunch and must be napping now, so I can't phone her. But if you could come by this evening . . ."
"It's not important," I said, and, taking out my wallet—a clumsy gesture that, later, Füsun often mimicked—I counted out the damp bills. Füsun wrapped the purse in paper, carefully but with evident inexperience, and then put it into a plastic bag. Throughout this process she knew that I was admiring her honey-hued arms and her quick, elegant gestures. When she politely handed me the shopping bag, I thanked her. "Please give my regards to Aunt Nesibe and your father," I said, having failed to remember his name in time. Then, for a moment, I paused: my ghost had left my body and was now, in some corner of Heaven, embracing Füsun and kissing her. I made quickly for the door. The bell jingled, and I heard a canary warbling. I went out into the street, glad to feel the heat. I was pleased with my purchase; I loved Sibel very much. I decided to forget this shop, and Füsun.
Nevertheless, at dinner that evening I mentioned to my mother that I had run into our distant relation Füsun while buying a handbag for Sibel.
"Oh, yes, Nesibe's daughter is working in that shop of Senay's, and what a shame it is!" my mother said. "They don't even visit us for the holidays anymore. That beauty contest put them in such an awkward spot. I walk past the shop every day, but I can't even bring myself to go inside and say hello to the poor girl—nor, in fact, does it even cross my mind. But when she was little, you know, I was very fond of her. When Nesibe came to sew, she'd come, too, sometimes. I'd get your toys out of the cupboard and, while her mother sewed, she'd play with them quietly. Nesibe's mother, Aunt Mihriver, may she rest in peace—she was such a wonderful person, too."
"Exactly how are we related?"
Because my father was watching television and paying us no mind, my mother launched into an elaborate story about her father, who was born the same year as Atatürk and, just like the founder of the Republic, attended Semsi Efendi School. It seems that long before my grandfather, Ethem Kemal, married my grandmother he had made a very hasty first marriage, at the age of twenty-three, to Füsun's great-grandmother, who was of Bosnian extraction, and who died in the Balkan wars, during the evacuation of Edirne. Though the unfortunate woman had not given Ethem Kemal children, she had already had a daughter, named Mihriver, by a poor sheikh, whom she'd married when she was "still a child." So Aunt Mihriver (Füsun's grandmother, who had been brought up by a very odd assortment of people) and her daughter, Nesibe Hanim (Füsun's mother), were not, strictly speaking, relatives; they were more like in-laws, and though my mother had always emphasized this she had still directed us to call the women from this far branch of the family "Aunt." During their last holiday visit, my mother had given these impoverished relations (who lived in the backstreets of Tesvikiye) an unusually chilly reception that had led to hurt feelings, because, two years earlier, Aunt Nesibe, without saying a word, had allowed her sixteen-year-old daughter, then a student at Nisantasi Lycée for Girls, to enter a beauty contest. My mother, on subsequently learning that Aunt Nesibe had in fact encouraged her daughter, even taking pride in this stunt, which should have caused her to feel only shame, had hardened her heart against Aunt Nesibe, whom she had once so loved and protected.
For her part, Aunt Nesibe had always esteemed my mother, who was twenty years older and had been supportive of her when she was a young woman going from house to house in Istanbul's most affluent neighborhoods, in search of work as a seamstress.
"They were desperately poor," my mother said. And, lest she exaggerate, she added, "Though they were hardly the only ones, my son—all of Turkey was poor in those days." My mother had recommended Aunt Nesibe to all her friends, and once a year (sometimes twice) she herself would call her to our house to sew a dress for some party or wedding.
Because these sewing visits almost always took place during school hours, I didn't see her much. But in 1957, at the end of August, my mother, urgently needing a dress for a wedding, had called Nesibe to our summer home, in Suadiye. Retiring to the back room on the second floor, overlooking the sea, she and Nesibe set themselves up next to the window, from which, peering between the fronds of the palm trees, they might see the rowboats and motorboats and the boys jumping off the pier. When Nesibe had unpacked her sewing box, whose lid was adorned with a view of Istanbul, they sat surrounded by her scissors, pins, measuring tape, thimbles, and swatches of lace and other material, complaining of the heat, the mosquitoes, and the strain of sewing under such pressure, joking like sisters, and staying up half the night to slave away on my mother's Singer sewing machine. I remember Bekri, the cook, bringing one glass of lemonade after another into that room (the hot air thick with the dust of velvet), because Nesibe, who was twenty and pregnant, was prone to cravings; when we all sat down to lunch, my mother would tell Bekri, half joking, "Whatever a pregnant woman desires, you must let her have, or else the child will turn out ugly!" And, with that in mind, I remember looking at Nesibe's small bump with a certain interest. That must have been my first awareness of Füsun's existence, though no one knew yet whether she was a girl or a boy.
"Nesibe didn't even inform her husband—she just lied about her daughter's age and entered her in that beauty contest," my mother said, fuming at the thought. "Thank God, she didn't win, so they were spared that public disgrace. If the school authorities had got wind of it, they would have expelled the girl. . . . She must have finished lycée by now. I don't expect that she'll be doing any further studies, but I'm not up to date, since they don't come to visit on holidays anymore. . . . Can there be anyone in this country who doesn't know what kind of girl, what kind of woman, enters a beauty contest? How did she behave with you?"
This was my mother's way of suggesting that Füsun had begun to sleep with men. I'd heard the same from my Nisantasi playboy friends when Füsun appeared in a photograph with the other finalists in the newspaper Milliyet, but as I'd found the whole thing embarrassing I tried to show no interest. After we both fell silent, my mother wagged her finger at me ominously and said, "Be careful! You're about to become engaged to a very special, very charming, very lovely girl! Why don't you show me this purse you've bought her. Mümtaz!"—she was calling my father—"Look! Kemal's bought Sibel a purse!"
"Really?" my father said, his contented expression suggesting that he had seen and approved of the bag as a sign of how happy his son and his son's sweetheart were, though not once did he take his eyes off the screen.
Once I'd graduated from business school in America and completed my military service, my father demanded that I follow in my brother's footsteps and become a manager in his business, which was growing by leaps and bounds, and so when I was still very young he appointed me the general manager of Satsat, his distribution-and-export firm. Satsat had an inflated operating budget and made hefty profits, thanks not to me but to various accounting tricks by which profits from my father's other factories and businesses were funnelled into Satsat (which could be translated into English as "Sellsell"). I spent my days mastering the finer points of the business from worn-out accountants, twenty or thirty years my senior, and large-breasted lady clerks as old as my mother; mindful that I would not have been in charge if I weren't the owner's son, I tried to show some humility.
At quitting time, while buses and streetcars as old as Satsat's clerks rumbled down the avenue, shaking the building to its foundations, Sibel, my intended, would come to visit, and we would make love in my office. Despite her modern outlook and the feminist notions she had brought back from Europe, Sibel's ideas about secretaries were no different from my mother's. "Let's not make love here. It makes me feel like a secretary!" she'd say sometimes. But, as we proceeded to the leather sofa in the office, the real reason for her reserve—that Turkish girls, in those days, were afraid of sex before marriage—became obvious.
Little by little, sophisticated girls from wealthy Westernized families who had spent time in Europe were beginning to break this taboo and sleep with their boyfriends before marriage. Sibel, who occasionally boasted of being one of those "brave" girls, had first slept with me eleven months earlier. But, by this point, she felt that the arrangement had gone on long enough and it was about time we married. I do not want to exaggerate my fiancée's daring or make light of the sexual oppression of women, because it was only when Sibel saw that my "intentions were serious," when she was confident that I was "someone who could be trusted"—in other words, when she was absolutely sure that there would, in the end, be a wedding—that she gave herself to me. Believing myself a decent and responsible person, I had every intention of marrying her; but, even if I hadn't wished to, there was no question of my having a choice now that she had "given me her virginity." Before long, this burden cast a shadow over the common ground between us, which we were so proud of—the illusion of being "free and modern" (though, of course, we would never have used such words for ourselves), on account of having made love before marriage—and in a way this, too, brought us closer.
A similar shadow fell over us each time Sibel anxiously hinted that we should set a date soon, but there were also times when she and I were very happy, making love in the office, and I remember wrapping my arms around her in the dark, as the noise of traffic and rumbling buses rose from Halaskargazi Avenue, and telling myself how lucky I was, how content I would be for the rest of my life. Once, after our exertions, as I was stubbing out my cigarette in an ashtray bearing the Satsat logo, Sibel, sitting half naked on my secretary's chair, started tapping at the typewriter, and giggling over her impression of the dumb blonde who featured so prominently in the jokes and humor magazines of the time.
Over dinner at Fuaye on the evening of the day I bought the purse, I asked Sibel, "Wouldn't it be better if from now on we met in that flat my mother has in the Merhamet Apartments? It looks out over such a pretty garden."
"Are you expecting some delay in moving to our own house once we're married?" she asked.
"No, darling, I meant nothing of the sort."
"I don't want to skulk about in secret apartments, as if I were your mistress."
"You're right."
"Where did this idea come from, to meet in that apartment?"
"Never mind," I said. I looked at the cheerful crowd around me as I brought out the purse, still hidden in its plastic bag.
"What's this?" Sibel asked, sensing a present.
"A surprise! Open and see."
"Is it really?" When she opened the plastic bag and saw the purse, the childish joy on her face gave way first to a quizzical look, and then to a disappointment that she tried to hide.
"Do you remember?" I ventured. "When I was walking you home last night, you saw it in the window of that shop and admired it."
"Oh, yes. How thoughtful of you."
"I'm glad you like it. It will look so elegant on your arm at our engagement party."
"I hate to say it, but the purse I'm taking to our engagement party was chosen a long time ago," Sibel said. "Oh, don't look so downcast! It was so thoughtful of you to go to all the effort of buying this lovely present for me. . . . All right then, just so you don't think I'm being unkind to you. I could never put this purse on my arm at our engagement party, because this purse is a fake!"
"This is not a genuine Jenny Colon, my dear Kemal. It's an imitation."
"How can you tell?"
"Just by looking at it, dear. See the way the label is stitched to the leather? Now look at the stitching in this real Jenny Colon I bought in Paris. It's not for nothing that it's an exclusive brand in France and all over the world. She would never use such cheap thread."
For a moment, as I looked at the genuine stitching, I asked myself why my future bride was taking such a triumphant tone. Sibel was the daughter of a retired ambassador who had long since sold off his pasha grandfather's land and was now penniless; technically, this made her the daughter of a civil servant, and this status sometimes caused her to feel uneasy and insecure. Whenever her anxieties overtook her, she would talk about her paternal grandmother, who had played the piano, or about her paternal grandfather, who had fought in the War of Independence, or she'd tell me how close her maternal grandfather had been to Sultan Abdülhamid. But her timidity moved me, and I loved her all the more for it. With the expansion of the textile and export trades in the early seventies, and the consequent tripling of Istanbul's population, the price of land had skyrocketed throughout the city and particularly in neighborhoods like ours. Although my father's fortune, carried on this wave, had grown extravagantly over the past decade, increasing fivefold, our surname (Basmaci, "cloth printer") left no doubt that we owed our wealth to generations of cloth manufacture. It made me uneasy to be troubled by the "fake" purse, despite all our cumulative progress.
When she saw my spirits sink, Sibel caressed my hand. "How much did you pay for the bag?"
"Fifteen hundred liras," I said. "If you don't want it, I can exchange it tomorrow."
"Don't exchange it, darling. Ask for your money back, because they really cheated you."
"The owner of the shop is Senay Hanim, and we're distantly related!" I said, raising my eyebrows in dismay.
Sibel took back the bag, whose interiors I had been quietly exploring. "You're so knowledgeable, darling, so clever and cultured," she said, with a tender smile, "but you have absolutely no idea how easily women can trick you."
At noon the next day, I went back to the Sanzelize Boutique carrying the purse in the same plastic bag. The bell rang as I walked in, but once again the shop was so gloomy that at first I thought no one was there. In the strange silence of the ill-lit shop, the canary sang chik-chik-chik. Then I made out Füsun's shadow through a screen, between the leaves of a huge vase of cyclamens. She was waiting on a fat lady, who was trying on an outfit in the fitting room. This time, she was wearing a charming and flattering blouse, a print of hyacinths intertwined with leaves and wildflowers. When she looked around the screen and saw me, she smiled sweetly.
"You seem busy," I said, indicating the fitting room with my eyes.
"We're just about finished," she said, as if to imply that she and her customer were just talking idly at this point.
My eyes caught the canary, fluttering up and down in its cage, a pile of fashion magazines in the corner, and an assortment of accessories imported from Europe, but I couldn't fix my attention on anything. Much as I wanted to dismiss the feeling as ordinary, I could not deny the startling truth that when I looked at Füsun I saw someone familiar, someone I felt I knew intimately. She resembled me. The same sort of hair that grew curly and dark in childhood only to straighten as we grew older. On her, it was now a shade of blond, which, like her clear complexion, was complemented by her print blouse. I felt that I could easily put myself in her place, could understand her deeply. A painful memory came to me: my friends referring to her as "something out of Playboy." Could she have slept with them? "Return the purse, take your money, and run," I told myself. "You're about to become engaged to a wonderful girl." I turned to look outside, in the direction of Nisantasi Square, but soon Füsun's reflection appeared ghostlike in the smoky glass.
After the woman in the fitting room huffed and puffed her way out of a skirt and left without buying anything, Füsun folded up the rejected items and put them back where they belonged. "I saw you walking down the street yesterday evening," she said, turning up her beautiful lips. She was wearing a light-pink lipstick, sold under the brand name Misslyn, and though it was a common Turkish product, on her it looked exotic and alluring.
"When did you see me?" I asked.
"Early in the evening. You were with Sibel Hanim. I was walking down the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Were you going out to eat?"
"You make a handsome couple!" she said, as the elderly do when taking pleasure in the sight of happy young people.
I did not ask her how she knew Sibel. "There's a small favor we'd like to ask of you," I said. As I took out the bag, I felt both embarrassment and panic. "We'd like to return this bag."
"Certainly. I'd be happy to exchange it for you. You might like these chic new gloves and we have this hat, which has just arrived from Paris. Sibel Hanim didn't like the bag?"
"I'd prefer not to exchange it," I said shamefacedly. "I'd like to ask for my money back."
I saw shock on her face, even some fear. "Why?" she asked.
"Apparently this bag is not a genuine Jenny Colon," I whispered. "It seems that it's a fake."
"I don't really understand these things," I said helplessly.
"Nothing like that ever happens here!" she said in a harsh voice. "Do you want your money back right now?"
"Yes!" I blurted out.
She looked deeply pained. Dear God, I thought, why hadn't I just disposed of the bag and told Sibel I'd got the money back? "Look, this has nothing to do with you or Senay Hanim. We Turks, praise God, manage to make imitations of every European fashion," I said, struggling to smile. "For me—or should I say for us—it's enough for a bag to fulfill its function, to look lovely in a woman's hand. It's not important what the brand is, or who made it, or if it's an original." But Füsun, like me, didn't believe a word I was saying.
"No, I am going to give you your money back," she said in that same harsh voice. I looked down and remained silent, prepared to meet my fate, and ashamed of my brutishness.
Determined as she sounded, I sensed that Füsun could not do what she intended to do; there was something strange in the intensely embarrassing moment. She was looking at the till as if someone had put a spell on it, as if it were possessed by demons and she couldn't bring herself to touch it. When I saw her face redden and crinkle up, her eyes welling with tears, I panicked and drew two steps closer.
She began to cry softly. I have never worked out exactly how it happened, but I wrapped my arms around her and she leaned her head against my chest and wept. "Füsun, I'm so sorry," I whispered. I caressed her soft hair and her forehead. "Please, just forget this ever happened. It's a fake purse, that's all."
Like a child, she took a deep breath, sobbed once or twice, then burst into tears again. To touch her body and her beautiful arms, to feel her breasts pressed against my chest, to hold her like that, if only briefly, made my head spin. Perhaps it was because I was trying to repress my desire, stronger each time I touched her, that I conjured up the illusion that we had known each other for years, that we were already very close. She was my sweet, inconsolable, grief-stricken, beautiful sister! For a moment—and perhaps because I knew that we were related, however distantly—her body, with its long limbs, fine bones, and fragile shoulders, reminded me of my own. Had I been a girl, had I been twelve years younger, this was what my body would have been like. "There's nothing to be upset about," I said, as I caressed her blond hair.
"I can't open the till to give you back your money," she explained. "Because when Senay Hanim goes home for lunch she locks it and takes the key with her, I'm ashamed to say." Leaning her head against my chest, she began to cry again, as I continued my careful and compassionate caressing of her hair. "I just work here to meet people and pass the time. It's not for the money," she said, sobbing.
"Working for money is nothing to be embarrassed about," I said stupidly, heartlessly.
"Yes," she said, like a dejected child. "My father is a retired teacher. . . . I turned eighteen two weeks ago, and I didn't want to be a burden."
Fearful of the sexual beast now threatening to rear its head, I took my hand from her hair. She understood at once and collected herself; we both stepped back.
"Please don't tell anyone I cried," she said, after rubbing her eyes.
"It's a promise," I said. "A solemn promise between friends, Füsun. We can trust each other with our secrets."
I saw her smile. "Let me leave the purse here," I said. "I can come back for the money later."
"Leave the bag if you wish, but it'd be better if you didn't come back here for the money. Senay Hanim will insist that it isn't a fake and you'll come to regret that you ever suggested otherwise."
"Then let's exchange it for something," I said.
"I can no longer do that," she said, sounding like a proud and tetchy girl.
"No, really, it's not important," I offered.
"But it is to me," she said firmly. "When Senay Hanim comes back to the shop, I'll get the money from her."
"I don't want that woman causing you any more upset," I replied.
"Don't worry, I've just worked out how to do it," she said with the faintest of smiles. "I'm going to say that Sibel Hanim already has exactly the same bag, and that's why she's returning it. Is that all right?"
"Wonderful idea," I said. "But why don't I say that to Senay Hanim?"
"No, don't you say anything to her," Füsun said emphatically. "Because she'll only try to trick you, to extract personal information from you. Don't come to the shop at all. I can leave the money with Aunt Vecihe."
"Oh, please, don't involve my mother in this. She's even nosier."
"Then where shall I leave your money?" Füsun asked, raising her eyebrows.
"At the Merhamet Apartments, 131 Tesvikiye Avenue, where my mother has a flat," I said. "Before I went to America, I used it as my hideout—I'd go there to study and listen to music. It's a delightful place that looks out over a garden in the back. . . . I still go there at lunchtime, between two and four, to catch up on paperwork."
"Of course. I can bring your money there. What's the apartment number?"
"Four," I whispered. I could barely get out the next three words, which seemed to die in my throat. "Second floor. Goodbye."
My heart had figured it all out and was beating madly. Before rushing outside, I gathered up my strength and, pretending that nothing unusual had happened, gave her one last look. Back in the street, my shame and guilt mixed with so many images of bliss in the unseasonable warmth of that April afternoon that the very sidewalks of Nisantasi seemed aglow with a mysterious yellow. My feet chose the shaded path, taking me under the eaves of the buildings and the blue-and-white striped awnings of the shopwindows, and when, in one of those windows, I saw a yellow jug, I felt compelled to go inside and buy it. Unlike any other object acquired so casually, this yellow jug drew no comment from anyone during the twenty years that it sat on the table where my mother and father and, later, my mother and I ate our meals. Every time I touched the handle of that jug, I would remember those days when I first felt the misery that was to turn me in on myself, leaving my mother to watch me in silence at dinner, her eyes filled half with sadness, half with reproach.
Arriving home, I greeted my mother with a kiss; though pleased to see me early in the afternoon, she was nevertheless surprised. I told her that I had bought the jug on a whim, adding, "Could you give me the key to the Merhamet Apartments? Sometimes the office gets so noisy I just can't concentrate. I was wondering if I might have better luck at the apartment. It always worked when I was young."
My mother said, "It must be an inch thick with dust," but she went straight to her room to fetch the key to the building, which was attached to the apartment key by a red ribbon. "Do you remember that Kütahya vase with the red flowers?" she asked as she handed me the keys. "I can't find it anywhere in the house, so can you check to see if I took it over there? And don't work so hard. . . . Your father spent his whole life working hard so that you young ones could have some fun in life. You deserve to be happy. Take Sibel out and enjoy the spring air." Then, pressing the keys into my hand, she gave me a strange look and said, "Be careful!" It was the look that she would give us when we were children, to warn us that life held unsuspected dangers that were far deeper and more treacherous than, for instance, failing to take proper care of a key. ♦
(Translated, from the Turkish, by Maureen Freely.)


text:
From the reliable comfort of day-to-day women's bras, to something that's as colourful, vibrant, and catwalk fresh as you dare to go, get inspired with this season's fabulous picks - we've got it all. For the health conscious fitness gurus out there planning those running, workout, and yoga sessions, see our grab-and-go range of sports bras. Stick to your personal comfort preferences and match your style to your active daily and dressy needs with our collection of front fastening and non-wired Bras.
Refine your search…
clear all
You have chosen
New In
Bra Cup Size
Bra Back Sizeclear
Cup Type
Next Day Delivery
Value Packs
Special Offers
Review Ratingclear
Sort By:
14 Items Found for Bras
Triumph Doreen Non Wired Black Bra
Triumph Doreen Non Wired Skintone Bra
Triumph Doreen Non Wired Navy Bra
Triumph Doreen Cotton White Bra
Triumph Doreen Skintone Longline Bra
Triumph Delicate Doreen Black Bra
Triumph Doreen Cotton Non Wired Bra
Triumph Doreen Cotton Black Bra
Triumph Delicate Doreen White Bra
Triumph Delicate Doreen Nude Bra
Triumph Doreen Non Wired White Bra
Triumph Doreen Luxury Skintone Bra
Triumph Doreen Luxury White Bra
Triumph Doreen Non Wired Green Bra
If you continue, we assume that you consent to receive all cookies on all our websites. You can find out more information about cookies here.


text:
|< Previous: Ralph W Babb Jr
|Next: Jeffrey H Schwartz >
|Total Compensation
$6.99 mil
5-Year Compensation Total
$17.90 mil
William E Mitchell has been CEO of Arrow Electronics (ARW) for 5 years. Mr. Mitchell has been with the company for 5 years. The 64 year old executive ranks 11 within Technology Hardware & Equipment
College: Princeton BSE
Graduate School: University of Michigan MSE
|See Org Chart for ARW
|William E Mitchell's Compensation Vs. Technology Hardware & Equipment Medians
|$1.05 mil
|$0.95 mil
|$1.24 mil
|$1.27 mil
|$4.70 mil
|$1.53 mil
|Stock Gains
|$1.60 mil
|Total Compensation
|$6.99 mil
|$9.89 mil
|Arrow Electronics
50 Marcus Drive
Melville, NY 11747
New York
|< Previous: Ralph W Babb Jr
|Next: Jeffrey H Schwartz >
Rank |
Name |
Age |
Company |
Total Compensation | 5 Year Compensation | Market Value
Compensation rank is based on total compensation for latest fiscal year. Total compensation for each chief executive includes the following: salary and bonuses; other compensation, such as vested restricted stock grants, LTIP payouts and perks; and stock gains, the value realized by exercising stock options. Efficiency rank is based on our chief executive's performance/pay score. Ranks are given only to chief executives who have a six-year tenure and six-year compensation history. The most efficient rank is 1 and least efficient is 175. Compensation rank is based on total compensation for latest fiscal year.
Total returns and value of stock owned (including all classes) is based on Apr. 10, 2008 stock price. Compensation percent change is based on combined salary and bonus. Annualized total return during tenure covers the tenure of the executive or from the time of the IPO or available stock history. Relative to market is the ending value of $100 invested in the stock, divided by the ending value of $1 invested in the S&P 500 (a score of 100 = the S&P 500).
NA: Not available or not applicable.
2Four-year total.
3Three-year total.
4Less than 0.01%.
5Prior-year data.
6New chief executive; compensation may be for another executive office.
7Less than $100,000.
8Received options or restricted stock in lieu of portion of salary.
9Received options or restricted stock in lieu of portion of bonus.
10Includes shares indirectly held.
Sources: Company SEC Filings; FT Interactive Data and LionShares via FactSet Research Systems; Forbes