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Photo By: Tray Waller
Final Presser Reveals More Barbs Against TMT
For anyone who has ever seen Marcos Maidana fight you know that he is wild and fights with a reckless abandon.
In his first fight against Floyd 'Money' Mayweather he swung wild, hitting the undefeated pound for pound king with low blow, elbows and roundhouse rights.
On Thursday July 17, the final stop on the five city promotional tour, it was his trainer Robert Garcia's turn to throw some wild verbal shots at The Money Team.
Garcia stood on the stage at Pershing Square amid the bright sunshine of Downtown Los Angeles and dug into Mayweather's entourage in advance of the September 13 confrontation rematch between Mayweather and Maidana.
"Floyd you have a lot of beautiful women with you today," Garcia said pointing to the women frequently accompanying the champ. "They are all on your pay roll! When your money is gone they will also be gone."
Garcia wasn't done. "I watched the (late) Diego Corrales (in 2001 against Mayweather) with my kids and they were on the edge of their seats. I bet if your kids watch any of your fights after the fourth round they will be fall asleep."
The champ stood by wearing a brown pen stripe suit and open collar white shirt and adjusted his diamond-studded watch and then rubbed lotion into his hands.
The day before, Maidana shoved Mayweather during that face-off following their fourth stop on the promotional tour.
Mayweather never responded to Garcia's jabs and instead thanked his mother, trainer father Floyd Sr. grandmother Bernice, the fans and Richard Scheafer who made his first public appearance since his split from Golden Boy Promotions.
"I love Richard Schaefer and I want to thank him. He is responsible for taking Golden Boy from the bottom to the top where they are right now," Mayweather praised.
While he also thanked CBS/Showtime and Showtime CEO Victor Espinosa, there was no mentioned of his advisor Al Haymon, although Haymon's trusted lieutenant Sam Watson stood near by Mayweather on stage.
Clearly the hundreds of fans were divided along racial lines, with Blacks rooting and cheering for Mayweather and the Argentines and Latinos screaming for Maidana.
As they waiting patiently for the fighters to walk the red carpet on the stage, they were treated to a big screen televised showing for the first showdown between the two combatants.
Bookmakers have already installed Mayweather as a prohibitive 11-1 favorite to win on the fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and on world Pay Per View distributed by Showtime, but if there was a judge during the five city promo tour then Maidana and his team was declared the clear winner on verbal winner.
Mayweather dedicated the September 13 fight to his four kids who were sitting at the dais on the stage.


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subset: commoncrawl


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Searching in the Census with a Surname
This post was written by Lorel Kapke about her personal research.
Searching in the Census with a Surname; can't find 'em but you KNOW they are there!
Searching the census for my great grandfather and family by surname in a small town would prove to be challenging. They are listed in the 1905 State Census and the 1920 Unites States Census. But where were they listed in the 1910 Census? I know they did not move viewing surrounding census records and other documents. Referring back to the (SYS folders) censuses (see attachment) I quickly referred to previous and future censuses for the street names and neighbors who lived nearby. Paging through one or two census pages I found something I never thought existed, a census included "location, relation, personal description, nativity, citizenship, occupation, education, ownership of home, but did not include names at all! Written on the left side of the census page was the following message:
"Sheet made from cards already punched by order of Mr. Hunt- Feb 9 -11, Original sheet lost after cards were punched".
Fortunately, they did offer enough information to peace the puzzle together.
I found three people living in the correct location, ages, birth year, place, race, gender, marital status, father and mothers birth place all added up to a match that is difficult to ignore.
Don't let surnames get in the way, if you have your files in order, a simple review of an organized data can guide you through your brick wall!
Follow Friday – August 17, 2012
Here are a few posts we enjoyed recently.
Midwestern Microhistory's Is An Obituary an Original Source? Does It Matter?
MoSGA Messenger Texas State Library and Archives Online Collections
The In-Depth Genealogist – Check out their new State Resource pages. New states are being added weekly!
What blog posts have you enjoyed recently? Which ones gave you an AH-HA moment to aid your research? Please share in the comments below.
© 2012 Lorel Kapke, 19201 Sonoma Hwy. #341, Sonoma, CA 95476-5413


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It's only September, but Tuesday News Day is already home for the holidays. This week, we have a list of the top toys kids want and a first look at holiday sales.
Not feeling the spirit of the season quite yet? Check out a new technology that is making grocery lines shorter, designer duds for $60 or less, and find out why one airline sold $5 tickets last week.
1. Toys R Us rolls out holiday deals earlyToys R Us isn't waiting till Black Friday. They say customers want to avoid hectic December shopping, so they're offering big holiday discounts starting right now. Deals include 20% off your entire purchase and a new program that gives customers 10% back in rewards dollars now through the end of October.
Source: dailyfiance.com
2. Choose Christmas present the kids really want.
Wal-Mart went straight to the source to identify top holiday toys. They asked 1,000 kids to test and choose their favorites, which include a Barbie Dreamhouse, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Secret Sewer Lair and a robotic Furby. The top 20 toys will be designated "Chosen by Kids" and featured on special displays in stores and online.
Source: bigstory.ap.org
3. Spend less time at checkout with new grocery technology.
Ralphs supermarkets have installed QueVision, hidden infrared cameras that detect body heat to track how many customers are shopping. They use this information to determine the number of cash registers that should be open at any given time. With the new technology, Ralphs says it only takes about 30 seconds for shoppers to get to the front of the line compared to the national average of 4 minutes.
Source: latimes.com
4. Target announces their next designer collaboration.
Last week, we reported that Phillip Lim's Target collection was launching and since then, much of the collection has already sold out. If you missed your chance, have no fear! Target announced their next designer collaboration with British designer, Peter Pilotto. It's coming to stores February 9 and will feature around 70 pieces of women's fashion for around $60 and under.
Source: usatoday.com
5. United's error leads to cheap travel for some travelers.
Some travelers got very lucky last Thursday. Due to a human error on United's part, many consumers were able to score flights for $5-$10. The glitch lasted for about two hours and appears to have only applied to domestic fares. Kudos to United, who later announced that they would honor these tickets.
Source: money.cnn.com


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Degree Works
DegreeWorks (MyDegree) is in the development phase and currently only available to advisors. Any student may visit their advisor for access to this tool.
What is DegreeWorks (MyDegree)?
DegreeWorks (MyDegree) is a web based tool to help students and advisors monitor a student's progress toward degree completion. MyDegree combines WVU at Parkersburg's degree requirements and the coursework a student has completed in an easy-to-read worksheet that helps the student and advisor see how courses completed count toward degree requirements – which helps the student and advisor see what courses and requirements are still needed.


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UEFA Champions League: Bayern 5 Viktoria Plzen 0
Bayern Munich maintained their 100 per cent record in UEFA Champions League Group D by thrashing Viktoria Plzen 5-0 at the Allianz Arena.
Franck Ribery scored twice to take his tally to three goals in his last two Champions League games as the European champions sent out another message of intent.
Pep Guardiola's side dominated from start to finish, with David Alaba, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Mario Gotze also on target as Czech champions Plzen were totally outclassed.
Free-scoring Bayern have scored 11 goals in their first three Group D matches and they will take some stopping on this evidence, while Plzen are yet to pick up a point.
Ribery (ankle) was passed fit to return to Bayern's starting line-up as Thomas Muller dropped to the bench.
Guardiola drafted in left-back Diego Contento to partner Daniel van Buyten at the heart of the Bayern defence in the absence of Dante (ankle) and Jerome Boateng (suspension).
Plzen, meanwhile, were boosted by the return of defender David Limbersky from a calf injury after a month on the sidelines.
The Germans wasted no time in putting the Czech champions on the back foot and Arjen Robben should have scored just five minutes in, when Mario Mandzukic nodded the ball into the Dutch winger's path, but he failed to hit the target from six yards out.
Plzen were struggling to contain the European champions and they fell behind after 26 minutes, when Robben waltzed into the penalty area and was upended by Roman Hubnik.
Ribery cooly placed the resulting spot-kick into the bottom-right corner of the net for his second Champions League goal of the season.
It was one-way traffic, and Bayern and could have had a second goal two minutes later as the lively Robben released Mandzukic and the Croatia striker dragged the ball back inside, only for goalkeeper Matus Kozacik to come out to narrow the angle and deny him.
Kozacik then kept out a Van Buyten header from close range, but he could do nothing to prevent Alaba doubling Bayern's lead eight minutes before half-time when the Austrian full-back cut inside and found the bottom corner.
Plzen looked mesmerised by Bayern's slick movement and another fine spell resulted in Ribery crossing for Mandzukic to slot home from close range, but the striker was adjudged to be offside.
France winger Ribery then opted to go it alone after 61 minutes, when he turned his marker inside out on the edge of the box before dinking the ball over the advancing Kozacik and into the net.
Three minutes later, Gotze made an instant impact after coming off the bench as he laid on a fourth goal for Schweinsteiger, who turned sharply and produced a clinical finish.
Gotze then got his name on the scoresheet in time added on when he converted Robben's inviting cross to seal the win.


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Handmade Silver Bracelets
Our delicate handmade silver bracelets tell the story of the rich Mexican culture. Each and every one of our bracelets has a spectacular design, so choose from our unique array of shapes, sizes and colours the one that will refine your personal style. Carefully crafted by talented artisans in Taxco, Mexico, our handmade silver bracelets are long-lasting accessories that will set you apart from the crowd.
Do you like the classic design? Or do you prefer something bold and fun? Take a look at our bracelet collection: silver bangles, beaded bracelets, statement bracelets, you will certainly find something that fits your personal style.
Circle Silver Flower Bracelet (42)£28.00
Circle Silver Flower Bracelet (38)£28.00
Heart Silver Flower Bracelet (04)£28.00
Rectangle Poppy and Rose Siilver Flower Bracelet (37)£28.00
Handmade in Mexico
All our handmade silver jewellery comes from Taxco in Mexico. We buy directly from small family businesses and independent designers, handpicking each piece ourselves to ensure a high level of quality and have an input into some of the designs. We aim to source beautiful and unusual silver jewellery.


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True or false? Irish whiskey is practically the same as Scottish whisky. Did you answer true? You lose. Their rich shades of amber are about the same, but in tradition and taste, the two couldn't be more different.
And I have to admit, I didn't know that either, until I embarked on a journey to Ireland, a country I've had a romantic fascination with since I was a child.
I didn't visit just for the whiskey, of course, but for its legendary beauty, architecture and culture. Still, it was the whiskey that held the most intrigue.
This tiny island is surrounded by the cold waters and salty mist of the North Atlantic and the Irish Sea. Rain is often and plentiful. This pure, sweet water is the base of Irish whiskey. And while it may be true that the Irish like their Guinness, it's even truer they like a drop of the hard stuff.
Irish whiskey, relatively speaking, hasn't been around long.
The process of distilling dates back to about AD500, to the Arabs who extracted oil from plants to make perfume. Thus began the unique process of evaporation and condensation that is essential to whiskey-making today.
Later on, Celtic Christian monks, who travelled throughout Europe spreading the gospel, used those same principles to creatively distil local ingredients into alcohol.
In France, for example, grapes were distilled for eau de vie, the cognac and brandy of today. Scandinavian countries produced aqua vit, while in Ireland barley yielded uisce beatha. All of these romantic-sounding words simply translate to "water of life".
In the late 1400s, the first accounts of grain distilling appeared in Scotland. To distinguish themselves from their Irish cousins, the Scots left the "e" out of whiskey.
The first official license for distilling was granted in 1608. And here begins our journey.
Our tour group began its whiskey education in Dublin, touring narrow flower-lined streets resplendent with statues, churches, shops and pubs. Lots of pubs, where the whiskey pairs well with local dishes like corned beef and fish pie.
The Old Jameson Distillery in Dublin was where we teamed up with Emer, our bubbly, happy guide.
"We take whiskey-making seriously here at Jameson," she said, before missing a significant beat, then adding with a wink, "but we also take drinking it seriously".
As we toured the distillery, which dates back to 1780 but closed as a working distillery in the 1970s when operations were moved to Midleton Distillery in County Cork, Emer explained that the biggest differences between Irish whiskey and Scottish whisky is that the Irish version is triple-distilled and doesn't have the smoky, peaty taste that is the hallmark of scotch.
She then took us through the complicated process of making whiskey, which begins with barley that's malted in a kiln – the Gaelic word for oven – before it is milled to a flour-like coarseness.
Next, it is mixed with pure Irish water in the mash-tun to produce wort – it sounds nasty but is actually sweet – which is then fermented to convert the sugar into alcohol. From there it is distilled to separate the water from the alcohol before being placed in handmade barrels for maturation.
With whiskey information overload, we finished our tour at the visitor's centre, where a quarter of a million people come each year, before heading south to Cork to visit the Old Middleton Distillery at the Jameson Heritage Centre.
While you can't tour the working distillery, you can take an educational and historical tour of the superbly preserved former distillery to learn more of Jameson's time-honed craft, have lunch at the Malt House Restaurant and browse the gift shop.
"We hold on to the traditions of the past," says master distiller Barry Crockett as he shows off the world's largest pot still and a "ye-olden-days" waterwheel that once powered all of the machinery in the distillery.
Crockett confirms that Irish whiskey is triple distilled, declaring the final product is "cleaner, more pure, and sweeter in taste, like apples, pears, and peaches".
Following an afternoon stop at the famed Ballymaloe Cookery School in Cork, our group, heads filled with a cornucopia of fruity images, travelled to County Westmeath to Kilbeggan to visit another gorgeously restored working distillery.
One of the things I most enjoyed about Kilbeggan, which dates back to 1757 and draws about 45,000 visitors annually, was its amalgamation of unusual sounds, from the rhythmic ba-ba-boom, ba-ba-boom of mechanical gears grinding together to the flip-flipping of waterwheels and the gurgling of bubbling streams.
Andrina Fitzgerald, who at 24-years-old is one of the youngest whiskey distillers in Ireland, showed us a 185-year-old pot still. (Funny, it didn't look a day over a hundred.)
Northern Ireland was next in our sights, and the village of Bushmills in County Antrim.
As we drove north, I sighed contentedly as the lush scenery of Ireland's pastures and craggy cliffs sauntered past. It's not called the Emerald Isle for nothing, and the serene countryside is punctuated by the bones of ancient castles, pastoral stone fences, and masses of fat, happy sheep and cattle.
Finally arriving in Bushmills after a stop at the mythical Giants Causeway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, we found a quiet village crammed with taverns, shops, and restaurants. From our accommodations at Bushmills Inn, the distillery, was less than a half-mile walk.
"Bushmills is the heart of the Irish whiskey industry," said Robert Galbraith, our guide and Bushmills ambassador, before explaining that its distilling process really hasn't changed in the more than 400 years since King James granted the first license to distil in 1608.
We had booked a premium tour, so Galbraith took us to a comfortable tasting room. Before us sat glasses of whiskey, shimmering like gold in the light pouring in through the windows.
The whiskey went down smoothly as we sipped our way through several centuries of whiskey-making traditions. Quietly I raised a glass and cheered "slainte" silently to King James.
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This story Administrator ready to work first appeared on Nanjing Night Net.


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Latvia/ 3. Competence, decision-making and administration
3.2 Overall description of the system
The institutions that set the general policy guidelines, legislation and budget of the Republic of Latvia are: the Saeima (Parliament, 100 members voted every four years) and the Cabinet of Ministers (highest executive body of the country, formed by a Prime Minister invited by the State President). In 2014, there were 13 Ministries and 13 Ministers respectively in Latvia. As a result of reorganisation, one ministry in 2011 has been closed down: the functions of the Ministry of Regional Development and Local Government have been taken over by the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Welfare.
According to its Constitution (Satversme) Latvia is a unitary state, made up of 4 regions (Vidzeme, Latgale, Kurzeme and Zemgale), which are prescribed by international treaties and are not administrative territories. Therefore, in Latvia there is no administrative division similar to federal states in the EU.
Local governments
At the end of 2008 the regional reform was adopted finally by the Parliament. Previously, Latvia had numerous small municipalities operating on two territorial levels of local administration. In 2008 there were 525 local governments operating at local or first territorial level (including 52 towns and 7 cities; 36 amalgamated local municipalities; 430 parishes), and 26 counties operating at regional or second territorial level. The aim of the reform that started 1992 was to reduce the number of administrative levels and to increase the capacity of local administrative units.
Since 1 July 2009 there are 109 local governments (counties) and 9 republican cities, instead of more than 500 administrative units.
The reform was carried out based on the Administrative-Territorial Reform Law (1998, significant amendments in 2005).
According to the Regional Development Law (2002) 5 administrative units, one per each of 5 Planning regions, have been established. The Planning regions will ensure the planning and co-ordination of regional development and co-operation between local government and other state administrative institutions. The Planning regions have taken over the coordination functions in the field of culture, thus substituting 28 regional cultural experts previously employed by the Ministry of Culture and executing the task of state cultural policy planning on a regional level. In this respect the Ministry of Culture is collaborating with the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development. For more on the reform see the presentation "History and Progress of Administrative-Territorial Reform in Latvia".
The Law on Local Governments (1994) defines the division of labour and responsibilities between the state and local authorities in providing services, including those in the cultural field. Section 15 of the Law on Local Governments defines the autonomous functions of local governments including the following: "to maintain culture and facilitate the preservation of traditional cultural values and the development of creative folk activity (organisational and financial assistance to cultural institutions and events, support for the preservation of cultural monuments, and others)".
Decentralisation in the field of culture is connected to the long and complicated process of regional administrative reform that was completed in 2009. Step by step, municipalities are developing their own cultural policies and are becoming more independent regarding the content and character of cultural life in the regions.
Ministry of Culture
The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia is responsible for strategic development, implementation and supervision of cultural policy and cultural education policy. The Ministry co-operates with municipalities and with non-governmental bodies, such as consultative councils, creative unions, funds etc. The Ministry of Culture and municipalities share responsibility for co-operation programmes and financing in the cultural field in Latvia. It is the Ministry of Culture that plays the most important role in the development of cultural policy and financing cultural activities, particularly professional art.
According to the statutes of the Ministry of Culture, it has responsibility for the following sectors: copyright, architecture, libraries, museums, music, fine art, folk art, theatre, literature and books, film arts, cultural education, and the protection of monuments and archives. Since 2011, the Ministry of Culture is responsible for integration and for the Social Integration Foundation. The Ministry of Culture is also responsible for the operation of institutions and organisations in each of the respective sectors. See also chapter 2.1 concerning the Ministry of Culture and http://www.latvia.lv.
Councils and Advisory boards
The National Board of Culture, established in 1995, is the most important advisory body to the Minister of Culture in the fields of cultural policy and cultural economy. Its main tasks are to promote public participation in cultural life and to enhance co-operation between the state, public institutions and individuals. Its functions are to analyse and make proposals regarding the strategic direction of some cultural sectors, to participate in the preparation of the cultural budget, draft plans for laws and investment policies.
In relation to policy making and implementation, the Ministry of Culture must consult with non-governmental organisations to further social dialogue and has to involve society members in the state administration. It carries out this role via boards and working groups; the boards have consultative functions and the working groups are created to solve specific tasks during the specified period of time.
Advisory councils to the Ministry of Culture include the Council of Literature and Publishing (2003); Latvian Music Council (2002); National Council of Theatres (2000); Latvian Film Council (2004); Visual Arts Council (2001); National Council of Museums (1998); National Library Council (1998); National Architecture Council (2009); the Consultative Council for Creative Industries (2011; re-established in 2014), and the Council of Archives (2011). The Ministry of Economics established the Design Council in 2008 which currently operates at the Ministry of Culture. The Ministry of Culture is consulting with the associations of cultural operators on a regular basis. This dialogue intensified during the period of the economic crisis, and since then cultural operators have established several umbrella organisations, e.g. the association Time for Culture (2010) for major public cultural institutions, the Association of Contemporary Culture NGOs (2007) and the Alliance of the Association of Contemporary Arts NGOs and The Council of the Creative Unions of Latvia (2009). In 2012, these three associations signed a Memorandum with the Ministry of Culture about regular cooperation in cultural policy development and monitoring. This initiative is a unique model of direct participation by the non-governmental sector in public cultural policy development. Meetings with the Minister take place on a regular basis, usually once per week.
Policy documents
According to the state policy planning system, the main long-term policy document is the Sustainable Development Strategy of Latvia (endorsed by the Parliament in 2010; downloads in English and Russian here, see also chapter 4.2.8).
The main medium-term policy document is the National Development Plan 2014-2020 adopted by the Parliament in 2012. At the moment all high level policy planning documents in Latvia include essential paragraphs on culture.
Mid-term policy documents in different sub-sectors are subordinated and harmonised with the above mentioned policy documents. The Cultural Policy Guidelines 2014-2020 "Creative Latvia" was adopted by the government in 2014. Some issues in this document are interlinked with policies in other sectors, like the National Policy Guidelines of Identity, Civil Society and Integration (2012-2018) (adopted in 2011, available in Latvian), Guidelines on Industrial Policy 2014-2020 (adopted in 2013, available in Latvian), Guidelines on Regional Policy (adopted in 2013, available in Latvian), and Guidelines on Education Policy 2014-2020 (due to be adopted in 2014).
The most important political guidelines are included in the Declaration of the Intended Activities of the Cabinet of Ministers for the governance period of the respective government.
During recent years several cities have developed mid-term cultural strategies. Although the major cultural responsibility of the cities is amateur art, the cultural strategies of the cities stress that art and culture stand for more than amateur choirs and folk dances and could be used as a critical strategy for regional development.
Chapter published: 17-07-2018


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Let $K_n$ be the sets of vectors $x \in \mathbb{Z}^d $ with each coordinates $x_i$ between $1$ and $n$. For any subset $A$ of $K_n$, let $S(A)$ be the set of points $x \in K_n$ which are on some line containing at least two points of $A$ (in other words, $S(A)$ is the union of the lines passing through - at least - two points of $A$).
Such a set $A$ is said to generate $K_n$ if $S(A) = K_n$. Now let $r_d(n)$ be the smallest size of a generating subset of $K_n$.
Question : What are the best known bounds on $r_d(n)$ ? (The first non trivial case is $d=2$)
This problem may be "well-known" ; I'm almost sure this question has already been studied, but I didn't find any reference, and Google gives nothing.
The trivial bound is $r_d(n) \gg_d n^{\frac{d}{2}- \frac{1}{2}} $ : taking a generating subset of size $r_d(n)$, there are at most $O(r_d(n)^2)$ lines to consider, each one intersecting $K_n$ in at most $n$ points, so that $|K_n| \ll r_d(n)^2 \times n$.
A refinement of this argument (a typical line contains much less than $n$ points of $K_n$) gives a lower bound $r_d(n) \gg_d n^{\frac{d}{2}- \frac{1}{4} - \frac{1}{4(2d-1)} } $.


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Subscribe To Jude Law Reveals Two Different Eras In Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel Updates
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There are some things we have come to expect from Wes Anderson movies: quirky characters, deadpan dialogue, vivid color pallets, and nostalgic and dreamy soundtracks. However, the plot details from one movie from the next are impossible predict. He's gone from a heist narrative to a love triangle tale to a family saga, high-seas adventure, India roadtrip story, mid-life crisis cartoon, and first love romance. So when it comes to what we should expect out of his next venture, tantalizingly titled The Grand Budapest Hotel, we're admittedly at a loss.
Details on the film's premise are under wraps, but we do know it's a comedy that stars Ralph Fiennes as an unflappable concierge. Anderson himself dropped some hints, sharing that it would "mostly" be set 85 years ago and that it is inspired by the films of Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder. And now Jude Law, a newcomer to Anderson's growing acting ensemble, has revealed some new information on this mysterious movie.
The Grand Budapest Hotel is now in production in Germany, and Law, having recently wrapped on his five days of shooting, described his role as "tiny tiny," when speaking with The Playlist. But this is by no means a complaint. As an admitted "huge fan" of Anderson's works, Law gushed, "it was really, really wonderful to be on one of his projects."
He then went on to talk about the film's setting. Based on the aforementioned comments from Anderson, we'd expected the movie to be set in the late 1920s; however, Law corrects that misconception, clearly stating, "It's mostly set in the '30s," before adding the curious note, "and my segment's set in the '60s."
Law gave no further clues about the movie's plot or his character, and so we're left to wonder what this all means. Of course, Anderson's involvement is enough for us to be interested in The Grand Budapest Hotel. And our expectations are high considering his cast includes a slew of recurring Anderson collaborators from Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, and Jason Schwartzman, to Tilda Swinton, Jeff Goldblum, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Harvey Keitel and Willem Dafoe, as well as newcomers to the auteur's romantic aesthetic like Law, Saoirse Ronan, and Mathieu Amalric. The only downside as far as we see is that this curious comedy isn't expected to hit theaters until 2014.


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by Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, foto8 Magazine, March 2008
The most political decision you make is where you direct people's eyes"
Wim Wenders, The Act of seeing.(ii)
"The tremendous development of photojournalism has contributed practically nothing to the revelation of the truth about conditions in this world. On the contrary photography, in the hands of the bourgeoisie, has become a terrible weapon against the truth. The vast amount of pictured material that is being disgorged daily by the press and that seems to have the character of truth serves in reality only to obscure the facts. The camera is just as capable of lying as the typewriter"
- Bertolt Brecht,1931(iii)
A recent photograph, taken during the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007, captures the essence of the photojournalistic image as it was originally conceived by early pioneers like Robert Capa. Taken an instant after the bomb detonated, at a distance of just 10 meters from it's epicentre, it is not really a photograph at all, but a blur, a piece of smudged evidence that testifies to the fact that our journalist was there, as close as he could possibly be to the lethal action, when the shutter opened and closed.
Photographs hardly ever break the news these days. In Scotland Yard's recent investigation into the series of events that lead to Bhutto's death, videos taken on mobile phones, rather than the work of professional photojournalists (like this one above), were used as evidence. In recent years some of the most striking visual images of major news events, such as 9/11, Abu Ghraib, the Tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina, have been captured by ordinary people who just happen to be there with their mobile phones or video cameras. Where does this leave the photojournalist who has been acting as our brave proxy, sending us reports from the front line of life since the Spanish Civil War?
The World Press Photo has been handing out annual awards to professionals for the past 51 years, and has just announced its winners for 2007 (the photograph above won first prize for 'spot news'). We were asked to participate as jury members in awarding the prizes this year; a good opportunity to gauge the vital signs of a photographic genre in crisis.
The impact of the awards on the industry cannot be underestimated. An exhibition of the winning images are seen by over 2 million people in 50 different countries and 45,000 copies of the book circulates in six languages. Clearly they have a profound affect on the way world events are represented by professional photojournalists.
Flicking through the 81,000 images originally submitted a sense of deja vu is inevitable. Again and again similar images are repeated, with only the actors and settings changing. Grieving mothers, charred human remains, sun sets, women giving birth, children playing with toy guns, cock fights, bull fights, Havana street scenes, reflections in puddles, reflections in windows, football posts in unlikely locations, swaddled babies, portraits taken through mosquito nets, needles in junkies' arms, derelict toilets, Palestinian boys throwing stones, contorted Chinese gymnasts, Karl Lagerfeld, models preparing for fashion shows backstage, painted faces, bodies covered in mud, monks smoking cigarettes, pigeons silhouetted against the sky, Indian Sardus, children leaping into rivers, pigs being slaughtered.
The twelve strong Jury must endure a barrage of photographic cliche?s over a period of seven days and nights, in order to locate one single image, the World Press Photo of the year. There are also prizes for photographs in a variety of categories, but it is this single image that gets the real attention. How do twelve people reach a consensus? And what criteria could possibly be used to nominate just one image?
First we were assembled into a windowless room in Amsterdam, squeezed between a digital projector and a coffee machine, and sworn to secrecy. We are six photographers specializing in war, nature, sports, editorial and art photography, plus five photo editors and a curator.
The World Press Photo awards have been running for over 5 decades and in that time a clear procedure has evolved. It is a highly disciplined, mathematical system designed by psychologists to elicit consensus from a group of diverse, opinionated individuals. The total number of images had already been reduced to17,000 the previous week by the first round jury. Most of the pornography and pictures of domestic cats had been removed. Our job was to reduce that number to one. Each of us clasped a voting button in the half darkness, and as the images flashed across the screen we voted anonymously to keep it in the competition or "to kill it". As we progressed the long serving secretary and master of ceremonies, Stephen Mayes, announced in dry tones the results of each round of votes, a stream of IN's and OUT's, occasionally elaborating, "birds of paradise IN, snakes OUT, suicide bomb IN, dead children OUT, women with acid burns IN, Chairman Mao impersonator OUT, Guantanamo Bay detainee IN, sumo wrestles OUT..." The mechanism used for voting, nine buttons connected to a central computer display was originally developed for a Dutch TV game show.
At this stage caption information is not available; each image must be judged on aesthetic grounds, outside of the context for which it was created, severed from words of explanation. This is simply practical; the sheer volume of images precludes more intense scrutiny. But without names, dates, locations, or interviews with the photographers the decision making process regresses into using only formal considerations; composition, lighting and focus. At times this feels obscene. We are asked to judge whether for example a photograph of a child suffocating to death in a mudslide is sufficiently beautiful to win a prize. On this occasion it seems not.
In the tradition of the World Press Photo awards, a photograph that relies on its caption to create meaning is impotent. This is a strange prejudice, considering every one of the images in the competition would have been accompanied by text in its original context. Susan Sontag warns against the decontextualisation of images in her book Regarding the Pain of Others, when she describes how during fighting between Serbs and Croats at the beginning of the Balkan wars, the same photographs of children being killed in the shelling of a village were passed around at both Serb and Croat propaganda briefings.(iv)
One submission that was eliminated because of this prejudice, showed a full frame of spectators holding up their mobile phones in order to photograph something out of frame, something going on behind the photographer. It could have been taken at any sporting event or music concert. It turned out to be a public execution in Iran. This photograph is not simply reporting an event but alerts us to something more disturbing, our desire to look at the spectacle of a man being executed, and the role of photography as a facilitator. It is precisely the image's ambiguity, its reliance on its caption that makes it so much more interesting than the image of the prisoner himself, hanging from a rope, which the photographer also captured, and which made it into a later round before being eliminated.
Another image that did eventually win a prize in the general news category and was contentious for the same reason, depicts a drawing of a battle plan from Darfur, sketched into the sand on the floor of a hut. Without a caption it is a meaningless squiggle. But together with the explanation the image is suddenly transformed into something truly menacing; a real insight into the low-tech horror of the genocide.
Judging the World Press Awards feels a bit like ingesting a highly concentrated version of the years' news in a single sitting. The effect is numbing. When you see hundreds of pictures, many of them describing human pain, and all seamlessly stuck together in a power point presentation, each individual image becomes less demanding. One persons suffering is instantly cancelled out by the next.
The submissions attest to our insatiable hunger for images of suffering. "Sight can be turned off; we have lids on our eyes", says Sontag.(v) But sometimes we just can't resist taking a look. Since its inception photojournalism has traded in images of human suffering. If one of its motivations for representing tragedy has been to change the world then it has been unsuccessful. Instead the profession has turned us into voyeurs, passively consuming these images, sharing in the moment without feeling implicated or responsible for what we are seeing. Roland Barthes summed up the analgesic effect of looking at images of horror when he wrote "someone has shuddered for us; reflected for us, judged for us; the photographer has left us nothing - except a simple right of intellectual acquiescence"(vi). Put another way, we look at events in photographs and feel relieved that they're not happening anywhere near us.
For seven days the Jury deliberated; we viewed and discuss photographs together, ate meals together, smoked cigarettes together, often for 20 hours at a time. We worked together to identify the winners and runners-up for each category and to narrow down the selection for the most important award – the World Press Photo of the year. It is interesting to look back at five photographs that over the course of judging received a great deal of attention and through them examine how we arrived at our decisions.
The first of these images cannot be shown because it failed to win an award in any category. It is worth describing however, for the sake of this discussion. This tightly cropped photograph of a young Thai prostitute lying on a bed with a client, was shot from above looking down, showing her head, shoulders and naked breast. The client's hand cups her breast, his lips touch her neck while her head turned away from him in a gesture of quiet resistance. The image is carefully lit and composed with consideration normally reserved for fashion photographs, making it appealing and seductive and for this reason extremely unsettling. If we feel beguiled by it then we are somehow implicated in the act. The jury called for answers. Who was the women in the picture? What was the relationship of the photographer to the girl? Did the photographer have her full consent. Can a vulnerable women operating in the environment of a brothel even give or deny consent? Did money change hands? Did it matter? Ultimately the photograph was eliminated from the competition. It is important to note, for the record, that the integrity of the photographer was not in question.
The second photograph was from a series depicting makeshift huts built by African immigrants in northern France. In the European press there has been a deluge of images of immigrants trying to enter Europe– crammed into trucks, overflowing rubber dingies, languishing in asylum centres–images that serve to reinforce the European fear of a barbarian invasion by nameless hoards. The photographs of these huts were different. The photographer had employed a deceptively simple methodology; the hut dwellers themselves were not in the pictures and the huts were placed in the centre of each frame, at the same distance from the camera. These images cut through with a more complex and sophisticated visual language and attest to a level of human ingenuity and a desperate need to survive. For some Jurors however it was "a step too far". What exactly did they mean?
Within the tradition of the World Press Photo awards, and in the category of News in particular, there is the largely outdated expectation that a photograph should mirror the scene witnessed by the photographer–it must be unmediated. Yet the dubious relationship between photography and reality is by now widely accepted. After all some of the most iconic 'documentary' images etched in our minds have been staged, for the camera. For this Jury however the possibility of a 'constructed' news image was worrying. By contrast the author of these photographs is not playing the role of reliable witness, dutifully recording events without bias. He announces himself present at the scene, making a simple conceptual framework and a level of artifice visible that interrupts the idea of the photographer as invisible, and the photograph as evidence. This is refreshing.
The third photograph was a black and white image of a mother and child. This is familiar territory for press images and a motif that rarely fails to have the desired impact. In this instance an HIV positive mother is tenderly caressed by her infant daughter. Reminiscent of the Pieta, it is an image that has been replicated many times to illustrate famine and pandemic since the inception of photojournalism. The walls of the World Press offices in Amsterdam are crammed with them. If our job was to award original and innovative photography then it's hard to see how this could be a contender for a prize. Yet opinion in the room was divided.
The fourth image shows a dead gorilla tied to a wooden stretcher being carried through the jungle in Eastern Congo by a group of men. It's easy to see why this one was appealing enough to make the final round. Its references to Christian iconography, specifically the crucifixion, is striking. Nature here becomes the martyr, sacrificed for our greed. A convincing plea for this photograph by a renowned nature photographer and world expert on gorillas (who once spent 19 days in a tree waiting to photograph one) failed to convince other jury members to take it through.
The fifth and final photograph, a portrait of an exhausted soldier, was taken during a battle in Afghanistan against Taliban forces. It is a stolen image, catching the young American off guard as he wipes the sweat from his forehead with one hand. The blurred focus, and pixelated JPEG compression make this image feel accidental and urgent, aesthetic codes that translate as 'Real'. For some members of the jury it was also 'painterly'–a vague term often used to describe photographs that reference certain painting techniques; the lighting of a Rembrandt portrait or Caravaggio's techniques of Chiaroscuro, the sublime light of a Turner or a Friedrich. All conventions that help us to identify the photograph as something 'beautiful'.
As with the Madonna and child photograph this is a predictable World Press winner; an amalgam of all the images of war and death that we have embedded in our memory. It recalls the terror of Don McCullin's marine during the Battle of Hue in 1968, the resignation of the wounded marine in Larry Burrows' image taken in South Vietnam in 1966, the urgency of Capa's Republican soldier dying in 1936. The images referents go further back; the shape and stance of the soldier clearly reminds us of Goya's Disaster's of War etchings of 1863. It seems we are casting the world in the same mould over and over again.
Tim Hetherington, who took this photograph, later told us the following illuminating anecdote. His photographs were first published by Vanity Fair who also happened to be running a feature on Francis Ford Coppola in the same edition. Both Tim's photographs from Afghanistan and stills from Coppola's Apocalypse Now were being printed on the office zerox machine. A staff writer came to collect the fictional stills and accidentally walked away with the real thing.
A resemblance to the famous Vietnam images by Burrows and McCullin, is not coincidental – this image represents a nostalgia for the days of photojournalism at it's sexiest, most lucrative and effective; the days when the press image was morally significant. In order to take a photograph like this these days the photographer must be embedded with the American forces. Although censorship has eased since the Gulf War, the US military still attempts to control representation of American casualties, bodybags, the funerals of servicemen and prisoners. Publications are offered access to troops with a tacit understanding that certain images will not be reproduced. Indeed, a study in the Los Angeles Times found that between September 11th 2004 and February 28 2005, neither that paper, nor the New York Times, The Washington Post, Time Magazine or Newsweek, published a single picture of a dead American soldier(vii). News corporations always concerned to keep major advertisers happy, operate what has been termed 'privatised censorship'.
This is important because war photographers have a tendency to think of themselves as anti-war photographers, operating outside of the machinery of conflict. James Nachtwey who has photographed in conflict zones for almost three decades qualifies this as follows. "At the very beginning, I think I was still interested in the dynamics of war itself as a kind of fascinating study. And it evolved into more of a mission whereby I think to present pictures of situations that are unacceptable in human terms became a form of protest. So I found that my pictures were actually specifically trying to mitigate against the war itself..."(viii) Sadly the photographers' intention does not always inform the meaning of a photograph and it is hard to see how the images produced by Nachtwey or this years winning picture can be perceived as critical of war. What makes the profession a secure one, and what ultimately nullifies the political force of any of the images, is its reliance on one pretty dependable thing – the world's permanent state of war. As Sontag remarks, "War making and picture taking are congruent activities". (ix)
Hypocritically, the ethical debate about the image of the Thai prostitute was conspicuously absent when the setting changed to a conflict zone. Another image submitted to this years' competition illustrates the point. It shows a portrait of a dead man lying on a hospital bed with his head in a plastic bag, a victim of a suicide attack in Iraq. Here the angle of the camera, the proximity of the photographer mirrors exactly the portrait of the prostitute. Yet significantly we the jury failed to make the same demands; Who is this guy? Did the photographer have permission? What was the agreement? Did money change hands? As we know by now, we are far more likely to get a full frontal of the dead if they are not from anywhere near where we come from.
In the final analysis we were chosing between a French landscape, a dead guerrilla, an HIV positive mother and an American soldier. A strange task. Rather predictably the majority vote went to Tim Hetherington's soldier.Yet comparing so many diverse images and ultimately declaring one of them a winner feels meaningless. Do we even need to be producing these images any more? Do we need to be looking at them? We have enough of an image archive within our heads to be able to conjure up a representation of any manner of pleasure or horror. Does the photographic image even have a role to play any more? Video footage, downloaded from the internet, conveys the sounds and textures of war like photographs never could. High Definition video cameras create high-resolution images twenty-four photographs a second, eliminating the need to click the shutter. But since we do still demand illustrations to our news then there is a chance to make images that challenge our preconceptions, rather than regurgitate old cliche?s.
There is one more photograph to consider. It was knocked out of the competition late in the bargaining then brought back at the end for an honourable mention. The photograph depicts a hand painted shooting target, probably made by a member of a German army unit, depicting a lush, green landscape placed in the arid Afghanistan landscape. The photographer highlights the juxtaposition and through this visual strategy suggests that this is perhaps a portrait of a European psychological landscape projected onto the foreign, barren one. An interesting question about the nature of the war starts to form. Compared with the photograph taken during Bhutto's assassination this mode of image-making transforms the photojournalist from an event-gathering machine, into something slightly more intelligent, more reflective and more analytical about our world, the world of images and about the place where these two worlds collide. As Tod Papageorge, photographer and professor of photography at Yale University recently remarked in a live debate at the New York Public Library, "If your pictures are not good enough, you aren't reading enough".(x) Perhaps this re-working of Capa's oft repeated mantra offers a clue towards a new language in photojournalism – one that presents images that are more aware of what they fail to show; images that communicate the impossibility of representing the pain and horror of personal tragedy.
Resources Links:
Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin - www.broombergchanarin.com
World Press Photo - www.worldpressphoto.nl
Tim Hetherington - www.mentalpicture.org
Justin Maxon - www.justinmaxon.com
Stanley Greene - www.noorphoto.com
Jean Revillard - www.rezo.ch
Christoph Bangert - www.christophbangert.com
(i) The epitaph on Man Ray's grave.
(ii) Wim Wenders: The Act of Seeing (Faber and Faber, London, 1997) in David Levis Strauss: Between The Eyes, Essays on photography and politics. (Aperture Foundation, New York, 2003) p.1.
(iii) From the tenth anniversary issue of A-I-Z magazine in Douglas Kahn, John Heartfield: Art & Mass Media (Tanam Press, New York, 1985) p.64 in Ibid., p.15.
(iv) Regarding The Pain of Others, Susan Sontag (Penguin, London, 2003). P.9.
(v) Ibid,. P.105.
(vi) Roland Barthes, The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies (New York, Hill and Wang, 1979) p.71. quoted in Body Horror: photojournalism, catastrophe and war by John Taylor (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1988) p.17.
(vii) Beautiful Suffering: Photography and the traffic of pain. Edited Mark Reinhardt, Holly Edwards and Erina Duganne. Williams College Museum of Art/The University of Chicago Press. P. 18
(viii) From a transcript of James Nachtwey in conversation with Elizabeth Farnsworth, a NewsHour with Jim Lehrer production for PBS.
(ix) Ibid,. P.66.
(x) "Collapsing images" A talk hosted by Blind Spot at The New York Public Library on November 3, 2007. Part III of the series Truth and Authenticity in Photography".


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But what about dual wield?
[edit. Much of this is, while accurate, misleading. Please read More Melee for clarity.]I just finished discussing one vs two hander. And inevitably, "fine, but I use dual wield" comes up. Let's start with the bottom lines, and then go to numbers, ok?
Before you add talents, spells, enchants, or other specials, two handers do the most DPS, single hand is second, and dual wield is last. If you are looking at flat base DPS, this is the important line.
Before you add talents, spells, enchants and other specials, the most hits per battle will be done by dual wield, followed by single hand, followed by two handers.
Let's break some numbers.
Again, let's stick with a nominal fact – a 2 hander does 1.33 times the DPS of its 1 handed cousin. Let's add a second nominal fact. A 2 hander tends to be 50% slower than its 1 handed cousin. So if your one-hand has a weapon speed of 2, its two handed version will be about 3.
We need to add one more fact – hit chance. The base chance of hitting with a one and two handed weapon is 95%. Yes, it can be adjusted both by +hit gear and talents, not to mention the fun of fighting mobs and players of other levels than ours. But I'm sticking to the basics here. So basically, for our sub-40 player, the base chance to hit is 95%. Dual wield has an additional 19% penalty, which means that EACH weapon wielded has a hit chance of 76%.
One more fact and we can get to thinking about the implications. When dual wielding, the offhand weapon does 50% its normal damage.
With this, we can figure the "true" dps of all three category of weapon. We'll assume our nominal 10 dps onehand – adjust to your level.
Our one hand is .95 * 10 = 9.5 DPS.
Our two hand is .95 * 1.33 * 10 = 12.635 DPS
Our dual wield is (.76 * 10) + (.76 * 10 * .5) = (.76 * 15) = 9.234 DPS
"But," you cry, "Then why bother dual wielding? I mean, besides it looking cool and everything…" Because of talents and spells and enchants.
The rogue's got a talent (or did, haven't checked recently) that makes the offhand have a damage of .75 instead of .5. For that player, the dual wield is (.76 * 17.5) = 13.3 DPS. That's pretty much a no-brainer. For the other players, the magic is in the number of hits. (Actually this matters to the rogue too, but we'll ignore those scurvy fellows for a bit, shall we?)
The magic phrase, regardless of talent/spell/enchant, is "chance on hit". "chance to" is a proc per minute effect, which means you'll get that many over a minute regardless how many times you hit. Well, with some "instant" caveats that I'm not going into at this time. Anyway, "chance on hit" is a flat percentage chance, and the more often you hit the more often you'll see this proc. One limiter to it, of course, is what's called the "hidden cooldown". Some serious theorycrafters think they've identified some of these – times when regardless what the odds say, if it's too soon, the proc just doesn't trigger. I'm going to ignore this too, for a moment – basics, remember?
Let's assume our nominal WS2 single (and dual wield)/ WS3 twohand in a full one-minute fight. (I know, but we need the time to see the effect). Remember our hit chances apply.
Single is 60 (seconds in a minute) / 2 (second per swing) * .95 (chance swing hits) = 28.5 hits per minute (HPM)
Dual is 2 (weapons) * 60 / 2 * .76 (all the rest same sequence) = 45.6 hpm
Two-hand is 60 / 3 * .95 = 19 hpm.
So anything "on hit" is almost three times as likely with dual wield as it is with a two hander.
Which means that if frequency of hit is the key, dual wield wins.
One more bit of adjustment before I quit, though it's not going to apply to the under 40 crowd – in fact, probably not for anyone under 60 for the most part. That's a return to that bit about "hit rate".
If you plan to dual wield "just because", then +hit gear is extremely important. Remember that our "base" DPS is 9.234, and the two-hander blows it away with12.635. Let's assume, for a moment, that you get enough hit rating to cap both – 99% all the way around. Yes, the twohand wielder needed less +hit than you, but bear with me.
2hand: .99 * 1.33 * 10 = 13.167.
Dual: .99 * 15 = 14.85
Yeah, that's the ticket. So to repeat myself…
If you've no talents or other multipliers, then for DPS consideration alone 2 hand beats 1 hand beats dual wield. For number of hits per interval, dual wield beats one hand beats two hand.
Which is better depends on what you need. Plus, of course, what talents, enchants, gear, and other things you have which shift the numbers. Still, there's the basics.
Have fun.
One Response to "But what about dual wield?"
You wanna check your math? For me, 15 * 0.76 = 11.4. And second, physical attacks, unlike spells, cap at 100%, so your hit-capped 2-hander vs dual-wield = 13.3 vs. 15.
Oddly, shamans are the only class that can make the hit cap vs. raid bosses with yellow attacks with only talents. But only when dual wielding.


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The body of a U.S. Air Force pilot reported missing off the coast of Italy has been found, officials said.
Captain Lucas Gruenther, 32, of Twaine Harte, Calif. was killed when his F-16 fighter jet disappeared after taking off from Aviano Air Base Monday. He was taking part in a nighttime training mission at the time of the crash.
A shipping vessel found some fragments from the plane Tuesday. According to the family, they included Gruenther's drogue parachute and helmet that was intact. His family was optimistic that he would be found alive.
Ongoing search efforts in the area were hampered by heavy fog. Then, on Wednesday, Gruenther's body was recovered in the Adriatic Sea, officials said.
"A compassionate husband, a loving son, and a devoted brother; Luc leaves behind a family who loves him dearly and a legacy of achievement," a family statement reads.
"We will never fully recover from our loss, but take heart in the knowledge that during his all-too-short time in this world, he made a significant difference in the lives of all whom he met."
Sacramento television station KCRA reported that Gruenther was from Twaine Harte in California's Central Valley.
The pilot had married Cassy, his high school sweetheart, who is expecting the couple's first child, Serene, in a few weeks.
She spoke of her husband to the base website, describing him as a "health nut" who learned to speak fluent Italian and loved to go sky diving, rock climbing and scuba diving. The couple documented many of their travels on their blog "Luc and Cassy."
Gruenther served six months in Afghanistan and was the grandson of Army Gen. Alfred Gruenther, who served as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe from 1953 to 1956.


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ISS016-E-026125 (30 Jan. 2008) --- Astronaut Peggy Whitson, Expedition 16 commander, participates in a session of extravehicular activity (EVA) as maintenance and construction continue on the International Space Station. During the 7-hour, 10-minute spacewalk, Whitson and astronaut Daniel Tani (out of frame), flight engineer, replaced a motor, known as the Bearing Motor Roll Ring Module (BMRRM), at the base of one of the station's solar wings. The BMRRM is part of the Beta Gimbal Assembly, which experienced electrical failures Dec. 8. A blue and white Earth and the blackness of space provide the backdrop for the scene.
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Not a marketing exercise but an awesome machine.
It defines this sector and should be its default buy. You simply can't go wrong.
It's taken Volkswagen a surprising amount of time to get here, but finally we have a Golf Estate that's up with the best.
Overlook the fact it's so good that it's almost joyless: the latest Golf GTI is very desirable indeed.
After a classy cabrio but don't have Audi-like cash? Try this. GTI expensive but worth it; R perhaps not
The latest Tiguan feels solid, sensible and laser-guided at its target market
The e-Golf is an EV that works for most of us, most of the time. A truly convincing electric car.
Volkswagen serves up more of the same and it's now better than ever.
Just what the market ordered. Stylish crossover for people who don't need family space. But don't dig too deep beyond that
Better than the car it replaces, but not interesting, exciting or memorable.
It's a sizeable leap, and enough to shove the Polo up to the upper reaches of the supermini order.
Good looking, spacious and well equipped, but it's missing on that oh-so-important 'buy-me' factor...
It's big, expensive and not especially clever, but it is really, really good at ferrying lots of people about. Really, really quietly.
Like your cars straightforward, fuss-free, and practical? You'll really like this. (Very) quietly excellent without ever being memorable.
If the Passat is too dull but you still have a sensible side, the CC could be just the car for you
There's nothing wrong with the Volkswagen Jetta, but why on earth would you get one when the Golf is so much more versatile?


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Sarah Lawrence Tops List of Most Expensive US Colleges
(NEW YORK) -- A college degree may be losing its value, but the price tag for a four-year education continues to rise.
The cost to attend college for one year exceeded $60,000 for the first time this year, according to Campus Grotto, a college publication that compiles an annual list of the most expensive colleges.
Tuition at more than 70 colleges is more than $55,000, according to Campus Grotto, and the sticker price often makes it necessary for students to seek financial assistance through student loans and other means.
Last year, the total student debt surpassed $1 trillion.
According to a report from the Pew Research Center, nearly one in every five U.S. households is saddled with student loan debt.
The Pew Report found that 40 percent of all households headed by those younger than 35 had student loan debt. Among households owing on student loans, the average outstanding loan balance increased from $23,349 in 2007 to $26,682 in 2010, according to the Pew Research Center.
In the meantime, the cost of a college degree continues to climb.
This year the cost to attend the most expensive college, Sarah Lawrence College, for one year was more than double the average outstanding loan balance in 2010. The private college in New York's Westchester County charges its students $61,236 a year for tuition, room and board and fees.
Here's Campus Grotto's list of the top 10 most expensive colleges:
1. Sarah Lawrence College
Total Cost: $61,236
2. New York University
Total Cost: $59,837
3. Harvey Mudd College
Total Cost: $58,913
4. Columbia University
Total Cost: $58,742
5. Wesleyan University
Total Cost: $58,202
6. Claremont McKenna College
Total Cost: $58,065
7. Dartmouth College
Total Cost: $57,996
8. Drexel University
Total Cost: $57,975
9. University of Chicago
Total Cost: $57,711
10. Bard College
Total Cost: $57,580
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio


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I was checking the Twitterstream one day and saw an interesting tweet directing me to Ignite! I really liked the concept of having five minutes to discuss anything, so I thought about what I would say in five minutes. I thought long and hard…five minutes to make a difference, what could I possibly say that could bring something to someone?
I decided I had a great topic and would share my trials and tribulations of being fired four times (plus I was looking for speaking opportunities for practice and to put myself out there). So I submitted my proposal for my five minute inspirational presentation about being fired four times and how I was still standing on my own two feet.
It was accepted!
Then I realized the true challenge of having five minutes…there would also be a 20 slide presentation to accompany the slide. The 20 slides would automatically rotate every 15 seconds. Crap.
As the deadline approached, I became nervous because it was down to the wire and I waited until the last minute to gather my thoughts. Although it was a personal story and I knew I could tell it with my eyes closed, I had to find a theme for 20 slides and coordinate my speech!
It was the true definition of the old saying "To speak for an hour, you can prepare for five minutes. To speak for five minutes, it will take an hour." Well this took about four hours just to outline.
I wrote my speech in slides. I created the slides, then went back to tweak my presentation, making it more and more informal and tried to insert quick one-liners. I made the slide deadline and had four days to practice and perfect. Due to other obligations, I only used about three of the 96 hours.
Two hours before the presentation, I panicked! Was I prepared? I never practiced in front of anyone else, was I prepared to speak in front of a few others? What if I got flustered and stumbled? I decided I didn't want to do it. Then I realized I drove two hours to get there and if I didn't do it, I would have to tell everyone I chickened out. That was not going to happen.
I went up to give my presentation where the organizer promptly told me there were 500 people in the crowd. I instantly felt my body temperature rise. 500?! I thought there were only going to be about 50! Eeeek!
It was my turn.
I brought my notes with me so I would have something in my hand and something to reference if I started floundering.
I introduced myself and the five-minute clock started ticking.
I spoke slide-by-slide and told my personal story with passion. I knew what I wanted to say and added my own spin while I was in the flow. The laughs and nods from the crowd served as instant validation, but I was hoping they couldn't see my knees knocking, hands shaking and hear my voice fumbling.
When it was over, I exited the stage…and almost fell off. My legs felt so weak, but I was relieved and excited! I walked over to my business partner who had the biggest smile I'd ever seen on his face! I nailed it!
Then came the best part of the night…Audience members approached me during the intermissions to say I was inspiring and to thank me for sharing my story. No one said I looked nervous or messed up; they just thanked me and congratulated me on a job well done.
It was exciting and it felt great to accomplish the goal I set when deciding to seize the opportunity! If I made one person feel inspired, positive or excited, it was worth it.
The connections and people I met that night were great. The experience gave me confidence to continue to inspire and to seek out additional opportunities to make a difference through the gift I was given…The gift of speaking.
-Jennifer Cohen
Something Creative LLC
Related posts: Pushing yourself to speak: Ignite!


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Located In The Main Sanctuary
A serene candlelight service of prayer, reflections, silence, and music, this contemplative worship in the style of Taizé has steadily grown in popularity. With Br. Dennis and Sr. Greta officiating and Phil Smith directing the music with a guest soloist each week, this service offers a deeply rich contemplative worship experience. All are welcome.


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asting their eyes toward the rich, arable lands of Pennsylvania, members of the Moravian community purchased a 500 acre tract of land north of Philadelphia in 1741. There, along the Lehigh River, they organized and built the communal society of Bethlehem, which became the base location for all Moravian missionary activity in North America. In 1780, an observer wrote:
The first time I visited Bethlehem...[when] issuing out of the woods at the close of the evening in the month of May, [ I ] found myself on a beautiful extensive plain, with the vast eastern branch of the Delaware on the right, richly interspersed with wooded islands, and at the distance of a mile in front the town of Bethlehem, rearing its large stone edifices out of a forest, situated on a majestic, but gradually rising eminence, the background formed the setting sun. So novel and unexpected a transition filled the mind with a thousand singular and sublime ideas and made an impression on me never to be effaced.1
¹Remarks made by Grieve, the translator of the Marquis de Chastellux, Travels in North America in the Years 1780, 1781, and 1782, (reprint, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1963), 648-649.
About This Lesson
Getting Started: Inquiry Question
Setting the Stage: Historical Context
Locating the Site: Maps
Determining the Facts: Readings
Visual Evidence: Images
Putting It All Together: Activities
How the National Register
This lesson is based on the Central Bethlehem Historic District, one of the thousands of properties and districts listed in the National Register of Historic Places.


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Snap Neck Nursing Tankinioh044
Product Details
Another great Maternity Nursing Tankini from OceanLily... This suit will take you full term as a maternity swimsuit and then work post partum as a nursing swimsuit. The double fabric bust area has inner molded cups and an outer layer of fabic that is easy to let down with a snap behind the neck. Baby gets full breast contact on one side while the other side remains covered. Below the bust is form fit to below the belly. After delivery the tankini will still fit fairly close. Side drawstrings allow fine adjustment of the length although this maternity cut tankini is generally designed to stay below the belly with little or no belly exposure. You may pull it down really low if desired. The bra construction is two layers and very supportive. The loose cut of the outside bra layer can create some drag while swimming so this is not really a good maternity lap swim suit. Bikini bottoms are a full cut with 1" waistband and ride below the belly. Flat seams throughout. The stretchy nylon / lycra fabric is tight woven and grows with your changing body.


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Kevin Pietersen believes embattled England captain Alastair Cook is only still in the job because it would be a "yet another PR disaster" for the England and Wales Cricket Board to sack him now.
Pietersen has also urged Cook to relinquish the captaincy and seek emergency help for his batting - for the good of himself and England.
Cook has found himself under increasing pressure both as skipper and as opener following a miserable run which has seen England lose seven of their last nine Tests and the 29-year-old score just 129 runs in nine attempts.
The outspoken Pietersen, who was axed by England in February following the team's nightmare winter tour to Australia, feels Cook must now resign as captain and suggested it is only politics that are still keeping him in the role.
Writing in his column in the Daily Telegraph, Pietersen said: "At the moment only politics are keeping Cook in a job because the England and Wales Cricket Board backed him so much that it would be yet another PR disaster if it sacked him now.
"But the ECB needs his runs back more than anything else so a big decision has to be made. Forget the bad headlines for once."
The South Africa-born batsman does, though, believe Cook still has a lot to offer England if the left-hander can rediscover the form that has earned him a national record 25 Test centuries - two more than Pietersen.
"He should do what is right for England and resign the captaincy. He has shown he does not have the tactical brain to lead the side," said Pietersen.
"England badly miss Cook the opening batsman scoring 150 to set games up at the top of the order and, relieved of the captaincy, I don't think it is too late for him to rediscover this form.
"He could have another 10 years left but his batting requires emergency help and he needs to speak to someone away from the England set-up. He has to be honest with himself."
Pietersen feels Cook should seek advice from the many former internationals currently working as pundits, saying that is a valuable resource that is going to waste.
He said: "Cook needs people with experience of international cricket around him, which (England coaching team) Peter Moores and Paul Farbrace lack.
"Look at Marvan Atapattu working with Sri Lanka, Rahul Dravid with India, Shane Warne with Australia. How many ex-international players have England had recently working with them? None. There is so much knowledge in English cricket going to waste.
"There are so many great cricket brains in the Sky studios. Put that radio in your ear, listen to them on the balcony or in the dressing room and Mike Atherton, Nasser Hussain, Warne or whoever could be saying something you didn't know and could implement in the game."
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In Search of the Novel: About the Series
Workshop Overview
Workshop 1 Who Owns the Novel?
This workshop probes the living nature of the novel by illustrating
how each reader makes a novel his or her own. It shows that the interpretation
of a novel changes, depending upon the reader's culture, class, generation,
sex, and personality. In the video, novelists, teachers, and students
explore the mystery of how readers assume ownership of the novels
they read.
Workshop 2 Whats the Story?
Many different ways of telling a story are discussed. What are the conflicts, the crises, and the resolutions? This workshop explores how an author spins a story and why it is the most important aspect of the novel. In the video, participants examine the importance of the hook and the story itself, and the "why" behind the events. They also consider various ways into difficult novels.
Workshop 3 Are Novels Real?
Characters, their motivations, their stories, and the times and places should bear some likeness to reality. Or should they? This program explores how novels connect with the reader. In the video, teachers, students, and novelists probe the origins of stories.
Workshop 4 Where Do Novels Come From?
This program explores the genesis of the characters, plot, themes, and interpretations from the novelist's point of view. In the video, participants examine the relationship between the novel and the objective reality from which it may spring.
Workshop 5 Why Do I Have to Read This Book?
The qualities of the ten novels chosen are explored to see why they appear on recommended reading lists and what makes them award-winners. The program also looks at the essential elements of good writing and storytelling. The video examines various ways in which novels are challenged by students as well as by communities, and it explores positive reasons for reading.
Workshop 6 Whats In It for Me?
A novel can transport readers to other places and times, real or imaginary, allowing them to meet people and experience life in many different ways. In the video, teachers explore ways to help students respond to novels on deeply personal levels.
Workshop 7 Who Am I in This Story?
The reader steps into the novel in various roles: the protagonist, the narrator, the author, or another character. In the video, students and novelists examine the complex ways readers may identify with characters in a novel.
Workshop 8 Am I Getting Through?
In this summary, teachers examine their own effectiveness in helping students comprehend and appreciate novels and in setting them on the road to become lifelong readers. In the video, teachers discuss and demonstrate strategies for evaluation.


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Steam now offers presales of A Valley Without Wind 2, the upcoming platformer sequel. Those who purchase the game prior to its release in February will get immediate access to the beta version, and will also receive a free copy of the original A Valley Without Wind. If this all doesn't provide enough incentive, the game is currently on sale for 60% off the regular price.
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'wide viewing angles'
'the screen is larger without making the phone bigger.'
'The phone is available in your choice of white or black with faux chrome trim, and I think the visual and textural treatment looks nice.'
'It's a very sharp display, and even tiny text has superb clarity. '
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
Fantastic keyboard
Fast performance and data speeds
Solid mid-range phone
Solid 5-megapixel camera
Great calling quality
Fast data when available
Powerful dual-core processor
ReviewGist helps you find the best products to buy by making sense of online reviews.
We are currently aggregating 376,500 reviews
covering over 29,474 products.
© 2019 ReviewGist.com. All Rights Reserved.


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Cream Lace Brazilian Knickers - 8tuc134409645
Check stock
Tell us where you are to check stock:
Delivery & Returns
Next day collection
- Order before 2pm
Home delivery
- 1 to 2 days
Free returns to store
30 days
Design details
These cream Brazilian knickers will add an elegant touch to your lingerie collection. With eyelash-edged lace detailing to the sides and back, they're classic and comfortable.
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- Machine Washable
The small print
*Prices correct as displayed but are subject to change.
The customer and brand answers you'll see above are submitted independently. As we don't review these answers, we can't take responsibility for anything they may say. The responses from Argos colleagues are accurate at the time of publishing. For the latest info, you should check the product page.


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Hallo and welcome to our vibrant community for Karlsruhe expats! If you're looking to relocate to this German city, nestling on the banks of the Rhine, look no further, as our friendly community of InterNations expats has all the answers! As part of a global network spanning some 390 communities, our resource links you up with expats already living their dream life in Karlsruhe, enabling you to ask questions about every aspect of your move, which will be answered from their own personal experience. And for the more practical side of things, our well-researched guide articles serve you with introductions to German healthcare, taxes, and so on.
With InterNations, you never stand alone. Whether you move to another city or go on a business trip somewhere — our communities are there to make you feel at home wherever you are in the world. Feel free to also check out our other vibrant InterNations Communities like the ones in Dubai or Khobar (Eastern Prov.).
Attend our monthly events and activities for Karlsruhe expatriates to get to know like-minded expatriates in real life.
Get trustworthy advice and local insights from fellow members in our Karlsruhe expat forums.
Lying at an altitude of between 100m and 320m, Karlsruhe's central point is marked by the palace tower, with 32 streets spanning out from it, hence its nickname of "fan city" or Fächerstadt. Founded in 1715, the city is steeped in history and features many ancient landmarks, such as the Evangelische Stadtkirche (Lutheran church), with the tomb of the city's founder, Margrave Charles III William, lying within. Boasting a buoyant economy, Karlsruhe is further home to Germany's largest oil refinery, one of the largest electricity utility companies (Energie Baden-Württemberg), and a host of high-tech industries. There is an excellent public transport network and modern shopping malls at Kaiserstraße, Karlstraße and Waldstraße.
InterNations is the largest global network for expatriates, with communities in 420 cities across the globe. Get to know fellow internationals in your city, before you're moving, or when traveling somewhere and never feel like a stranger. InterNations makes it easy for you to stay in touch with your expat friends, both online and offline, so you can grow your network of friends and contacts from all over the world. Whether they live in Abu Dhabi or Jeddah, InterNations allows you to be close to them even if they are miles away.
By linking up with fellow expats through InterNations, you will quickly find the answers to all your queries about life in Karlsruhe. There's plenty to do, from sight-seeing in the Black Forest, to enjoying the local cuisine — a fusion of German and French fare. We also regularly arrange opportunities for members to meet like-minded expats face-to-face in a safe, secure environment, through InterNations Official Events and smaller, member-organized gatherings based on their own interests.


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mnew9 » June 9th, 2017, 5:35 pm wrote:A strong coincidence that this so called 'terror attack' occurred at the same time that the highly secretive Bilderberg group meeting was taking place in Virginia USA. Their secret talks lasted from 1-4 June.
pov603 » June 11th, 2017, 2:35 am wrote:bto
Though I agree that a lot of these things/places/people [Area 51/GCHQ/Bilderbergs etc] are rabbit holes it isn't the fact that they exist which is so secret but what goes on inside them.
If we can agree that TPTB are exerting their control over and above that which the average 'man' would accept were he/she to only open their eyes/ears, then we must accept that this is done 'somewhere'.
Rather than keep it 'secret', better to now simply arrange them in nice locations with prior notice given to the favoured journos.
Prescient » June 7th, 2017, 7:38 am wrote:More football...A football fan has spoken of how he was stabbed eight times by the London Bridge attackers as he attempted to single-handedly fight off all three of them unarmed.
Roy Larner, 47, told reporters he shouted "Fuck you, I'm Millwall".
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... -attackers
No, "Fuck you" Roy, you are the weakest sim. Goodbye.
Return to London, Madrid, Oslo and other faked terror events: the psyops are everywhere
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Frontier Bag Company is a custom manufacturer and wholesaler of bags and packaging products headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. As a family-owned company with strong Midwestern values, we have set the industry standard for quality and reliability since 1946.
From handbags to sand bags, custom designs to commercial bulk orders, industrial poly to organic canvas, Frontier Bag Company offers thousands of products in every size, shape, material and color imaginable. Each is held to the highest standard of quality. What makes Frontier Bag Company unique isn't just our dedication to craftsmanship—it's our dedication to partnership. We put our industry experience and manufacturing expertise to work every day to ensure 100% customer satisfaction on every project.
With literally thousands of products in our portfolio, it's difficult to show everything on a website. So if you don't see the specific item you're looking for, just give us a call. We'll help you find what you need. From everyone at Frontier Bag Company, thank you for visiting.
We look forward to working with you,


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Please join Patty for a bi-weekly Psychic & Fundamental Development Circle where we will vibe together as a group and grow together as a whole. During your time together Patty will take you each and every week into a Guided Group Meditation and connect you with your Spirit Guides and Teachers as we prepare ourselves for the work in class. Patty will tell you that meditation is key and a discipline she believes is important to each and every person as a way to develop a rapport with your Guides and Teachers in the Spirit World as you develop your own individual gifts. Each week we will cover different topics and do some different exercises as a way to connect you the tools that are available to you as you open up to the beauty within you.
This circle is for the Medium, the Healer, the Empath, the Intuitive and the Novice in you as this circle will represent your individuality. Please know that when you gather together as a group all levels of development are enhanced and amplified as we learn from one another and get the opportunity to practice our individual development in a safe and loving environment. There is no requirements to be a part of this circle all that is asked of you is that you come to class with an opened mind and a loving heart and understand that Spirit will take care of the rest. Please know that you all have a team of guides within the Spirit World waiting for the chance to work with you and this class is a great opportunity to open the door to your own personal development as you allow your gifts to blossom.
These classes will be expansive as we build upon our own developments as the week's progress. I ask you to be kind, gentle and loving with yourselves as you grow within the group for there is no hurry and you will develop at your own pace. Be prepared to have fun and to make new friends as we share our experiences within this loving environment.
Please bring your journals and a pen to write with each week as journaling will become a part of your daily work for it is through the pen and onto the paper that the wisdom from within each of you will be revealed as you come into your own.
Sept. 15th & 29th Oct. 13th & 27th Nov. 3rd & 17th Dec 1st & 15th


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Cosmos Pkg 1, Cosmos Pkg 2, Cosmos Pkg 3, Cosmos Pkg 4, Cosmos Pkg 5, Cosmos Pkg 6, Cosmos Pkg 7
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Conceding that sometimes making a quick drawing on a piece of paper still has the occasional benefit over sketching on a tablet, Wacom has updated its touchscreen-friendly Bamboo stylus with a capped ball point pen on one end.
The other side still features the soft conductive rubber tip which works just like a finger on a touchscreen device, minus the grease and fingerprints left behind. The Bamboo Stylus Duo, as it's now known, will be available for £25 sometime this month. Separately, Wacom's free Bamboo Paper app—which lets you create and organise notes and sketches—arrives in the Android Market today. The stylus doesn't have to be exclusively used with the company's app, but as a simple digital notebook, the price is certainly right.


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Clues and Answers
Some time ago, my father called me up and requested that I do something I couldn't decline. My grandma was dying from lung cancer in Florida and my dad asked that I go down and pay my final respects. I'd never been all that close to Dottie, but she was my grandmother, and I felt both obligated and a bit curious as to what we all might say to each other. So I went.
I arrived at their house in Florida, along with my brother and dad, and entered what typically might be called a parlor, if my grandparents had been typical grandparents. But they weren't. They had spent much of their lives traveling and living in various parts of Asia, and the dim cool room in which my grandma sat was filled with Buddhist artifacts. Teak dressers, and framed kimonos. In the middle of the room sat Dottie, presided over by my stoic, intensely private and loyal grandfather. Her legs were covered in a quilt and she was surrounded by what I will always equate my grandma with- copious amounts of books, mostly large print. We all exchanged pleasantries and sipped coffee and took turns trying to escape from the horrible discomfort the situation presented.
Not more than half an hour went by and we were getting ready to leave. It was then that my grandma surprised us all. It was if she had had enough of the trivial chitchat and was ready to address the issue of why we were stuttering amongst ourselves. Saving us all from our awkwardness, she leaned forward, looked at us squarely in our eyes and asked, "Does anyone want to know my final wish before I die?"
And there it was. The word death had been spoken, let out of its cage to run loose around the room. The relief was so great because I immediately had a task to accomplish. Not only might I possibly learn from her the greatest regret that she waited until her death to confess to, but perhaps I could even fulfill her final dying wish. I would be free from feeling so useless standing before this woman who only wanted one thing. I could be her savior.
My grandma picked up the daily crossword puzzle from the table next to her- the crossword puzzle that she had religiously completed every morning of her life. She proclaimed to us all with a sneer that the current editor of the New York Times crossword puzzle, Mr. Will Shortz, in her opinion, couldn't edit his way out of a paper bag. And that her wish, her final desire, was for the previous editor, the ball-busting esoteric granddaddy of all crosswords, Mr. Eugene Maleska-- that Eugene would resume his position as editor due to Will Shortz's incompetence.
Now I ask you, what the hell kind of last wish is that? Even I, a bona fide word geek who would rather read the dictionary than have sex some nights, even I wouldn't squander my last wish on something consisting of patterned number squares and corresponding word clues. I mean, what's the sense in that? Why not wish for a trip to the Alps, or make a pilgrimage to your ancestral homeland, or hell, ask to shoot a bear like that kid with cancer did through the Make A Wish foundation? And what's more, I ask any of you puzzlers, is there that much of a difference between editors? After all, everyone knows that a Sicilian spewer is Etna, that Nick and Nora's dog is Asta, and that butter substitute is oleo. And Napoleon's isle of exile is and always will be Elba. So what's the big deal?
Honestly, when I think back now as to why my Grandma asked for such a surprising, random wish- why she really wanted Eugene Maleska back at his post as the editor, I can only answer that it's because she was used to the guy. I guess when one is in the final stages of life, or death, confronting the end and not knowing what is going to happen, it's not so crazy to want to do a puzzle that you know well, that you've become used to over the years, that offers clues and hints that are certain and known and leave absolutely no room for any more questions.
But my grandmother should have known that Eugene Maleska dies back in 1991. All of the geeky old-timer addicts know that! Just as I knew that day in my grandma's living room that I wasn't going to be anyone's hero.


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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama warned on Tuesday that a U.S. debt default could wreak havoc and he would talk to congressional Republicans about any topic but urged them to raise the debt limit without conditions.
Obama said he told House Speaker John Boehner in a phone call that he would not hold talks under the threat of a debt default or of keeping the government shut.
(Reporting By Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Sandra Maler)


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On Friday, November 2nd, Strangelove honors those who have passed by celebrating Dia de los Muertos - the Day of the Dead - at The Cat Club (Folsom and 8th, San Francisco).
In the back room, DJs Tomas Diablo (Villainy - R.I.P.) and Bryan Hawk (Asylum - R.I.P.) play the best of Dark Electro, Industrial, New Wave, and Goth. In the front room, enjoy spooky sounds and surprises from New York's Saint James (Limelight - R.I.P.) and local legend Andy T. (Covered Wagon - R.I.P.)
Of course, it wouldn't be a proper Day of the Dead celebration without macabre activities!
SKULL FACE PAINTING! Make-up artists will put a ghoulish grin on your face. It's FREE for everyone, though tips are always appreciated.
ALTAR TO THE DEAD! Bring a picture of a deceased loved one or celebrity to add to our altar. Please respect the altar and do not take anything from the ofrenda - items there are for the spirits.
PINATA! How often do you get to savagely swing a big stick in a nightclub (without getting arrested)? Whoever breaks it open will win a gift certificate from Amoeba Music, a Strangelove t-shirt, AND a pair of tickets to see The Birthday Massacre with Aesthetic Perfection at Slim's on Thursday, November 15th.
RSVP on Facebook HERE!