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In the 19th century the speedy victory of the Prussian army over France in 1870 convinced Europeans that rapid mobilisation by railroad and quick-firing artillery would make wars last shorter. In the 1930s, strategists started to believe that in air-power. In 1990-91, America demonstrated during the first Gulf war what "a combination of its precision-guided munitions, new intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance methods, space-based communications and stealth technology could achieve." Then 9/11 took place and wars 'took a different course'.
Incorporated insurgents methods and tactics into a larger strategy of 21st-century hybrid or asymmetry war, would involve fomenting popular protests, using covert military measures and deploying special operations forces, often under the guise of peacekeeping or crisis management. Such tactics had been used by the United States for decades. As circumstances change, you step back and see how everyone else reacts. You have to be willing to adapt and have a range of backup plans to keep one step ahead of your adversaries. If the military part of an operation runs into a problem, for example, try another approach. If diplomatic efforts don't bear the fruit you want, look elsewhere. You just have to be willing to use all methods available — and be ruthless to achieve your goals. Fiona Hill
Founded by Central Asian Muslim tribes in 1299, at its height in the late 17th century the Ottoman empire spanned three continents, taking in the Balkans in southern Europe, Arab lands from Mesopotamia to Morocco, and much of Asia Minor. Since the beginning of the 18th century Istanbul found itself almost continually at war with Europe's imperial powers. Invariably, it came out on the losing end. Egypt and most of North Africa were lost to Britain and France by 1882, while Russia gobbled up one province of eastern Anatolia after another.
Nor were the predations of the Great Powers the only serious problem. The Ottomans were mired in internal conflicts between the dominant Turks and the many other peoples who paid allegiance to the Sultan in Istanbul, including Serbs, Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians, and Arabs. These groups had begun to absorb Western ideas of nationalism and self-determination—ideas that sparked numerous rebellions and crackdowns on suspected subversives within the Empire. The most notorious of the latter would ultimately fester into the 1915-1916 deportation-mass murder campaign against the Christian Armenians from their Anatolian homelands. As many as a million defenseless Armenians lost their lives.
It was not a foregone conclusion that the Turks would fight in World War I at all. Many leading political figures in Istanbul favored neutrality as the surest road to bringing about long-overdue administrative and economic modernization with the aid of investments from all the European powers. In the end, however, the triumvirate of pashas who ruled the Empire came to believe an alliance with an ascendant Germany, in which Berlin would pay for much of the war effort and military training, would be the surest path to re-conquest of lost provinces, the shoring up its faltering influence in the Middle East, and internal modernization. It was the Ottoman entrance into the war on the side of the Central Powers that transformed a European war into a truly global conflict.
For their part, the Germans gained the use of a large Ottoman army that could take the pressure off their inevitable battle against Russia in the East by launching a campaign in the Caucasus. More important, Germany hoped to exploit the Ottoman sultan's role as caliph over the entire world community of Muslims. Of course, the British, Russian, and French empires contained millions of Muslims. The Germans wanted the Caliph to declare a jihad against their adversaries, hoping to bring about mass uprisings that would cripple the war efforts of the Triple Entente, and the Caliph was happy to oblige.
The initial Ottoman campaigns did not go well. Enver Pasha, the Ottoman minister of war, hoped to duplicate the Germans' masterful envelopment at Tannenberg against the Russians, prompting the destruction of an entire Russian army. Geography, poor weather, and inadequate logistics, however, led to a crushing Ottoman defeat and the loss of 80,000 troops. Several divisions of Armenian Christians fought on the Russian side in the campaign, and in the wake of the loss, the large Armenian population within the Ottoman Empire found themselves victims of the 20th century's first genocide. Rogan unpacks the complicated tragedy of the Armenian persecution deftly and sensitively, concluding that "the bitter irony is that the annihilation of the Armenians and other Christian communities in no way improved the security of the Ottoman Empire," though that was its primary object.
Rogan unpacks the complicated tragedy of the Armenian persecution deftly and sensitively, concluding that "the bitter irony is that the annihilation of the Armenians and other Christian communities in no way improved the security of the Ottoman Empire," though that was its primary object.
Next, the Ottoman 4th Army attacked the British defending the Suez Canal across the Sinai Desert, but the thrust was detected by aerial scouts and repulsed handily. The first two Ottoman campaigns, observes Rogan, "revealed Ottoman commanders to be unrealistic in their expectations and the average Ottoman soldier to be incredibly tenacious and disciplined even under the most extreme conditions."
These early Allied victories lulled the Allies into a "false complacency about the limits of Ottoman effectiveness." Prompted by a Russian plea to mount a diversionary campaign, Britain and France decided in spring 1915 to go for a knockout punch. They launched an ambitious amphibious attack through the heavily mined Dardanelles straits on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Such an attack would threaten Istanbul itself—if successful. Now it was the ordinary Allied soldiers' turn, particularly the Australians and New Zealanders, to suffer at the hands of their commanders' incompetence.
For eight months, the agony in the trenches at Gallipoli continued, with little substantial Allied progress. Here Colonel Mustafa Kemal—later called Ataturk, leader of Turkey in its successful war of independence of 1919-1923—first distinguished himself, as did the entire Ottoman army in their heroic defense of the Peninsula. Suffice it to say that in the years between the two world wars, the Gallipoli campaign was held up as proof by leading military strategists that the amphibious assault against a well-defended beach would never again succeed. The U.S. Marines, however, weren't buying the message. They conducted an extensive study of Gallipoli, determining that the British and French had made a complete hash of the operation, and that, with proper training, specialized doctrine and equipment, heavily fortified beaches could indeed be taken. (In this they were correct, as World War II proved.)
Impending defeat at Gallipoli prompted London to order a British-Indian army to march on Baghdad to rekindle support for the war at home, and assuage suspected Muslim restiveness within their Empire. Once again, the tough Turks managed to repulse the British drive, capturing 13,000 Indians and Britons at the Siege of Kut.
After Kut, the war generally went quite badly for the Ottomans. A crucial factor in their misfortunes was Istanbul's failure to win over the Arab tribes, loosely united under Sharif Husayn of Mecca, the great-great grandfather of Jordan's current head of state, King Abdullah II, to fight for the Empire rather than against it. The Turks were badly outmaneuvered on the diplomatic front by the British, who concluded an alliance with Husayn in March 1916 in which false promises of postwar independence for the Arabs played no small role. The Arab Revolt was born. For the rest of the war, Husayn and his trusted adviser, T.E. Lawrence, effectively tied down Ottoman forces with guerrilla operations against (already thin) supply lines in Palestine, Syria, and the Arabian Peninsula.
Meanwhile, the Ottoman Sultan's call to jihad utterly failed to strike a chord among the Muslims within the Allied empires, mainly because their clerics saw cynical German aspirations behind the call. In addition, as scholar Bernard Lewis has written, "The moral significance of an Arab army fighting the Turks, and still more, of the ruler of the holy places [Sharif Husayn] denouncing the Ottoman Sultan and his so-called jihad, was immense, and was of particular value to the British and incidentally to the French empires in maintaining their authority over their Muslim subjects."
In fall 1917, a bold and very smart British general, Edmund Allenby, assumed command in the Middle East. He broke the main Ottoman defensive line in Palestine, centered on Gaza. The Turks retreated, surrendering Jerusalem without a shot. By this point, as Rogan points out, the Ottomans' ambitions "had been narrowed from victory to survival."
Setbacks on the Western front forestalled Allied operations in the Middle East until fall 1918. The Turks, badly in need of reinforcements and resupply that would never come, grimly held on. In a three-day operation in September around Megiddo in Palestine, Allenby used his cavalry to sweep around Ottoman forces, capturing tens of thousands before going on to completing his conquest of demoralized Ottoman forces in Syria.
With the final defeat of the Ottomans and Germany in 1918, European imperialism replaced Turkish rule throughout the Middle East. After four centuries united in a multinational empire under Ottoman Muslim rule, the Arabs found themselves divided into new states under the control of Britain and France. The 200-year retreat of Islamic power before the West had run its course. New boundaries were established to suit the expansionist designs of the conquerors, and, as Rogan points out in his excellent Conclusion:
The borders of the post-war settlement have proven remarkably resilient—as have the conflicts the post-war boundaries have engendered. The Kurdish people, divided between Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, have been embroiled in conflict with each of their host governments over the past century in pursuit of their cultural and political rights. Lebanon, created by France in 1920 as a Christian state, succumbed to a string of civil wars as its political institutions failed to keep pace with its demographic shifts and Muslims came to outnumber Christians. Syria, unreconciled to the creation of Lebanon from what many Syrian nationalists believed to be an integral part of their country, sent in its military to occupy Lebanon in 1976—and remained in occupation of that country for nearly thirty years. Despite its natural and human resources, Iraq has never known enduring peace and stability within its post-war boundaries, experiencing a coup and conflict with Britain in World War II, revolution in 1958, war with Iran between 1980 and 1988, and a seemingly unending cycle of war since Saddam Hussein's 1991 invasion of Kuwait and the 2003 American invasion to topple Hussein.
Hamilton at Gallipoli
During World War I, German General Erich Ludendorff famously observed, "The English fight like lions." "Yes," a staff officer famously replied, "but they are led by donkeys."
British General Sir Ian Hamilton might not have been a full-fledged ass, but he was certainly a bumbling Ferdinand the bull—shy, courteous and overly accommodating. Unfortunately, Lord Kitchener, Britain's Secretary of State for War, gave him command of the 1915 invasion of Gallipoli—the amphibious landings by British, French and ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) troops intended to take Turkey, a German ally, out of the war. The campaign demanded an assertive, tactically brilliant, take-charge commander. Instead, the Allies got a kindly uncle who really didn't want to interfere with his brigadier nephews.
Not that a promising young Winston Churchill had done any better. As First Lord of the Admiralty in 1915, he proposed that a task force of 18 aging battleships charge through the Dardanelles, the narrow 38-mile-long strait that led toward the Turkish capital at Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul). Forts flanked the high-bluffed Gallipoli Peninsula west of the strait, so Churchill's strategy was akin to taking a convoy of vintage Cadillacs on a thunder run through central Baghdad. The British lost five battleships, mainly to mines but also to Turkish coast artillery.
This should have been a hint, not that Gallipoli was impregnable, for the Turks really didn't have a modern army or much in the way of good artillery, but that the commanding terrain made a frontal attack potentially suicidal. Indeed, the Greeks—the Turks' neighbors and longtime adversaries—had formulated a war plan in case the Gallipoli Peninsula ever needed to be attacked, and it called for 150,000 men. Lord Kitchener scoffed at that estimate. Johnny Turk would cut and run at the first sign of the Allies, he insisted, and half as many troops would do just fine.
Thus, early on the morning of April 25, 1915, Hamilton launched his enormously ambitious amphibious landing. An outline of the beachhead assault might read like a description of the D-Day landings were it not for the absence of any specialized landing craft. Armored assault boats did exist back in England, but they remained a well-guarded secret; heaven forfend invaders would use them and thus spill the British beans. Instead, huge warships towed ponderous strings of cockleshells—essentially lifeboats—toward shore, then split the strings and transferred the towing job to slow, shallow-draft launches. Oarsmen stroked the final few yards onto the beaches.
The action most often memorialized in paintings of the landing was the beaching of the old steamer River Clyde to allow soldiers to emerge from its sally ports (doors along the hull at the waterline) and stroll ashore on gangplanks. Unfortunately, it was equally easy for Turkish machine gunners on the heights to pick off troopers one at a time as they popped from the sally ports like mechanical ducks in a shooting gallery. Of the first 200 soldiers to step from the ships, just 21 made it to the beach alive.
General Hamilton chose the battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth, the grandest ship available, as his command vessel. While it made sense to oversee the battle from somewhere offshore, an oceangoing capital ship engaged in long-range bombardment wasn't the ideal platform. Hamilton was too far from the beaches to see what was going on (chaos, for the most part), and his corps commanders were also literally and figuratively adrift during the crucial early hours of the invasion. Communications both ashore between units and from ship to shore ran the gamut from primitive to nonexistent, so junior officers on the beach were largely left to their own devices.
Two thousand Brits had landed at a providentially undefended spot called Y Beach and climbed the cliffs unopposed. Having nothing else to do, no commanders to enact Plan B and no direction from Hamilton, they simply hunkered down and boiled water for cuppas. They heard distant firing but had no idea it signified the slaughter of ANZACs at the beachhead to their north. While the Turkish defenders were relatively few in number, they commanded the high ground with machine guns. A flanking maneuver by 2,000 Tommies could have ended the battle in minutes, but it was not to be.
To this day ANZACs haven't forgiven the English for "sittin' on their arses brewing tea and havin' a smoke" while Aussies and Kiwis who had never before experienced war were dying by the hundreds only hours away.
Due to Hamilton's haphazard planning, the beachheads ANZAC forces were able to secure were cramped and highly vulnerable. In fact, British corps commander General Sir William Birdwood suggested an immediate evacuation, to which Hamilton replied: "There is nothing for it but to dig yourselves right in and stick it out….You have got through the difficult business, now you have only to dig, dig, dig until you are safe." (Australians have since borne the fond nickname "Diggers.") At one point, the clueless Hamilton wired Kitchener, "Thanks to the weather and the wonderfully fine spirit of our troops, all continues to go well."
After eight months of pointless trench warfare, Hamilton's forces evacuated the bloody beaches. Half a million men on both sides had died for nothing in a true standoff— combined British and French losses numbered just 700 men more than Turkish losses. Each year on April 25, the invasion anniversary, Australia and New Zealand celebrate ANZAC Day, marking their painful emergence into true nationhood.
Burnside at Fredericksburg
The Battle of Fredericksburg was a humiliating meat-grinder of a defeat for the Union Army, and the fault lies squarely with General Ambrose Burnside. Burnside admitted as much after the war, while many another general played the blame game. The man would be forgotten today but for the fact that he lent his name to excessive cheek hair. Yes, sideburns were indeed originally called burnsides, and Burnside himself looked like he had a pair of squirrels hammocking between his nose and ears.
President Lincoln gave Burnside command of the Union Army of the Potomac because General George McClellan had turned out to be diffident, slow-moving and cautious. Burnside, also a West Pointer and among McClellan's best friends, was determined not to make the same mistakes. Unfortunately, he made others.
In December 1862, Robert E. Lee's rebel forces were precariously divided at Fredericksburg, Va., a rail terminus about 50 miles from Richmond, the crucial Confederate capital. Burnside felt that if he moved rapidly and decisively, he could end the war by eliminating the defenses at Fredericksburg and taking Richmond. Burnside commanded some 118,000 troops—the largest army in U.S. history up to that time.
Some of Lee's troops were defending Fredericksburg itself; the rest, under the famed T.J. "Stonewall" Jackson (so named for his stubborn resistance at the 1861 First Battle of Bull Run), were about three and a half miles south at Prospect Hill. A good tactician might have assessed the situation and said, "Take Prospect Hill pronto with your superior numbers, turn north and finish off Fredericksburg with a flanking maneuver, then on to Richmond. Game over."
Instead, Burnside chose to confront the Fredericksburg defenders with his main force and send General George Meade to deal with the rebels at Prospect Hill. Driven back by Jackson, Meade begged for reinforcements, but by that time Burnside was busy head-butting Fredericksburg.
Burnside first tried to traverse the Rappahannock River with pontoon bridges—Lee had burned all the existing spans—but Confederate sharpshooters on the far bank proved too much for the exposed, unarmed Union engineers desperately trying to lay planks across the boats. Burnside ultimately used the pontoons as makeshift assault craft to mount one of the earliest amphibious assaults in U.S. history. It didn't help that a sudden December thaw and heavy rain had turned the far bank of the Rappahannock into boot-sucking, wheel-clogging mud. The river crossing cost an entire day, exactly what Jackson needed to force-march his troops to Fredericksburg and link up with its defenders.
An infuriated Burnside tried to level Fredericksburg with his artillery, but the Confederates fell back to what would prove to be the finest defensive position Lee would ever hold: Just west of town was a broad cow pasture bordered by a substantial stone wall, built to keep the cattle out of the adjacent sunken road. Confederate soldiers who took up position behind this wall didn't even have to crouch—just stand and deliver. Behind them was a ridge, beyond which Lee emplaced his artillery, hidden from direct fire.
Inexplicably, Burnside threw 14 brigades at the stone wall, and rebel infantry scythed wave after wave of blue uniforms. Burnside became obsessed with the deadly Southern redoubt, perhaps assuming the Confederates would at some point run out of ammunition or morale. Neither happened, and by nightfall on December 13, 1862, after nine direct assaults, more than 12,000 Union troops lay dead or wounded, a carpet of blue on a meadow where the temperature soon plummeted to 15 degrees. The thaw had ended.
Navarre at Dien Bien Phu
Hubris—exaggerated pride or self-confidence—often afflicts Western military men when they confront Eastern armies, navies and air forces. So it was in 1905 at Tsushima when Japanese ships stunningly sank nearly every trace of the imperial Russian navy. So it was in 1942 when superior Japanese Mitsubishis flown by pilots whose skill stunned the Americans and British shot down Grumman Wildcats, Brewster Buffalos and Gloster Gladiators almost at will. And so it was again in 1954 when a Viet Minh peasant army dismantled haughty French commander Henri Navarre's 16,000 largely elite troops at Dien Bien Phu.
Navarre's biggest blunder was to underestimate the courage, capability and skill of General Vo Nguyen Giap and Viet Minh forces. How could rice farmers wearing black pajamas and shower clogs possibly defeat skilled French artillerymen and Legionnaires defending a fortified garrison supplied by aircraft—the latter a technological marvel to which the Viet Minh had no access?
Placing a garrison at remote, jungle-bound Dien Bien Phu in the first place was a decision an ROTC freshman might have questioned. The French depended on air support for everything from beurre to bullets—and, above all, reinforcements—but C-47s couldn't carry enough to keep the fortress supplied. Complicating matters, Navarre somehow got the artilleryman's credo backward and took the low ground (Dien Bien Phu was in a valley), which meant Giap's surprisingly skilled antiaircraft gunners could shoot down at landing planes. The weather between Hanoi and Dien Bien Phu was often dicey, and though the base initially had the luxury of two airstrips, the Viet Minh quickly put both out of action, forcing the French to parachute in supplies—about half of them, including stacks of artillery rounds, landed in enemy hands.
When the Viet Minh first attacked Dien Bien Phu in November 1952, it was little more than an outpost, and the tiny French garrison bugged out.
It was a logical move, but one that rankled the French, who had been humiliated in World War II. The all-important honneur de l'armée was at stake, and they were intent on reoccupying and holding Dien Bien Phu at all costs.
"Giap has no logistics," Navarre's advisers had repeatedly assured him. Au contraire, mon général. Giap had tens of thousands of worker ants chugging everything from trucks to bicycles over impossible mountain roads and trails to the hills surrounding Dien Bien Phu. Giap also understood the vulnerabilities of French logistics. His guerrillas snuck on to French air bases and destroyed countless planes on the ground. On Giap's orders, they ignored the French Bearcats and B-26s—powerful combat airplanes—and firebombed only the unglamorous cargo craft.
Navarre had imagined Dien Bien Phu as a powerful, ornery hedgehog, a prickly offensive base from which French infantry and armor could range at will. Instead, the garrison played possum, its starving defenders, outnumbered four to one, hunkered down in mudholes under relentless fire from artillery Giap had somehow manhandled to the site. The Viet Minh general had placed his main batteries in secure positions behind the ridges and concealed those guns on the forward slopes in spider holes the French artillery was unable to hit.
In the end, Henri Navarre lost to a smarter, more focused commander whom he had totally underestimated. Hubris? Navarre conducted his war from an air-conditioned office in Hanoi. Giap commanded from a cave.
Baratieri at Adwa
Only one obscure movie—a 1999 Ethiopian docudrama—recounts the 1896 Battle of Adwa, in which the Italian army went up against the Ethiopians. Yet like the 1964 Michael Caine classic Zulu, Adwa had all the elements Hollywood loves. Fought on an epic scale over stunning terrain, the conflict involved more than 150,000 men—and one woman, Ethiopian King Menelik II's consort, the Empress Taitu, who headed a reserve force that ultimately drove the Italians into their final, pell-mell retreat. Adwa represented the clichéd confrontation between cultured Europeans and benighted Africans, between the forces of enlightened civilization and presumed savages. It also offered the classic David vs. Goliath confrontation, though it could be argued that Goliath was Ethiopian. Props included bronze shields, colorful uniforms and feathered headdresses bright as parrot plumage. Menelik's troops wore the red, gold and green favored today by Jamaican Rastafarians, the Ethiopians' ideological descendants.
Adwa also had a villain: Italian General Oreste Baratieri, who so badly underestimated his Ethiopian opponents that he suffered the worst European defeat ever at the hands of Africans. But, as is often the case, the defeat wasn't entirely Baratieri's fault.
Italy had come late to the let's-carve-up-Africa party. England, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Belgium and even Denmark and Sweden had colonized the continent, leaving Italy with impoverished Somalia and Eritrea. If the Italians could finagle a takeover of Ethiopia, the tribal land that sat between the two, they could at least boast a neat arc of captive nations.
In order to befriend King Menelik, Italy grandly presented him with thousands of their most sophisticated rifles and fieldpieces, plus tons of ammunition and artillery rounds. It apparently never occurred to them they might someday be facing this very same weaponry. The Italians first attempted to annex Ethiopia through a mix of politics and guile, but failed. Meanwhile Menelik, realizing he was being gulled, beefed up his arsenal with the best guns he could buy from U.S. and European suppliers and quietly trained an army of superbly equipped riflemen and cannoneers.
Baratieri did score some initial successes against his opponents. Returning briefly to Rome, he boasted that next time he would bring back Menelik "in a cage."
The remote settlement of Adwa sat amid a lunar landscape—precipitous, rocky, pimpled with bare peaks, confusing and featureless. The Italians had poor maps, scant communication equipment and thin-soled boots ill suited to the terrain. Worse still, Baratieri, trying to save a few lira, gave his troops slow-firing Remington rifles that were less accurate than the Ethiopians' weapons: He wanted to use up the stocks of obsolete cartridges that fit them.
The two armies faced off and waited. Baratieri had 25,000 dispirited troops, most of whom were native Eritreans and either homesick or green, while Menelik fielded more than 100,000 fanatical soldiers, more than half packing high-powered rifles. Both sides were on short rations in this barren land, each trying to outlast the other. Menelik blinked first. He planned to pull out on March 1, 1896.
To Menelik's astonishment, however, a mounted scout tore into camp on the eve of the retreat and announced that Baratieri was marching toward them. Menelik welcomed the confrontation.
Baratieri had been stung by a telegram from Italian Prime Minister Francesco Crispi, demanding that he take action or consider his status downgraded from hero to coward. The general had little taste for the fight—he knew he was outnumbered, though he had no idea how thoroughly he was outgunned—but his brigadiers urged him on.
Baratieri's surprise nighttime assault proved far too complex for the terrain and the mapless Italians. His four brigades stumbled into each other and left miles-wide gaps in the line of advance. Some got thoroughly lost.
The actual battle began at first light on March 1 and was over by early afternoon. The Ethiopians were enraged, pitiless and gave no quarter. More than 10,000 of Baratieri's troops were killed, wounded or missing, while the Ethiopians lost 17,000 dead and wounded. But in a single morning, Ethiopia had risen from medieval obscurity to claim membership among the modern nations.
Custer at the Little Bighorn
Perhaps no battle in history has been as studied, dissected, analyzed, theorized over and wildly guessed about as the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana, where Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and 200-plus U.S. officers and cavalrymen were slaughtered to the last man (save one Crow scout who ducked out early). Nobody but the attacking Sioux and their allies actually knew what happened, and the Indians weren't rushing to admit how brutally they had treated the supposedly crack 7th Cavalry.
Only since the mid-1980s have archaeologists methodically cataloged artifacts in a way that allows a picture of the short but intense battle to emerge. Until that time, what registered on the national consciousness were lurid panoramas commissioned by beer companies for display in saloons, showing the golden-haired, long-locked Custer fighting for the glory of his regiment in the midst of a neat defensive perimeter. That Custer was crew-cut at the time of the battle is the least of the mistakes depicted, for the location of bodies, bullets and cartridges suggests it was more a confused, leaderless rout than a battle.
The spin continues. Custer graduated dead last in his West Point class, by some accounts an arrogant goof-off who learned little more than how to infuriate his superiors. Yet one 7th Cavalry Web site today proudly notes that Custer "graduated 34th in one of the brightest classes that had graduated to date," neglecting to mention there were only 34 men in the class.
What is known is that with five companies of about 210 men, including packhorse drivers and mercenary Indian scouts, Custer mounted a frontal attack on some 2,000 infuriated Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne warriors. Their reaction has been likened to what might happen if you jab a stick into an anthill and stir hard. It was the biggest battlefield blunder Custer ever made—and, of course, the last.
Why Custer thought he could go hey-diddle-diddle-right-up-the-middle into a swarm of angry Indians remains inexplicable. The Plains Indians were among the finest cavalrymen the world had ever seen, and when the repeating rifle came into their hands, they weaponized that Spanish import the horse. In less than 200 years, they had assimilated two warrior technologies with unprecedented success.
For Custer's men—many of them immigrants, others inexperienced conscripts—pitting their ponderous warhorses against the Sioux was about like a bunch of pickup-driving carpenters challenging a thousand Italian and Brazilian Formula 1 aspirants to a drag race. Some 7th Cavalry horses bolted, balked, even took their luckless riders straight into the Indian encampment.
The war against the Plains Indians, which stretched from the 1820s until the final clash at Wounded Knee in 1890, was not a simple territorial dispute. The Indians had little concept of land ownership. To them, it seemed as silly as owning the air: There was plenty of it, available for anyone's use.
Plains tribes were nomadic. Most of their needs were met by vast herds of American bison—a mobile, self-perpetuating crop that provided food, clothing and the raw materials for their tools and tepees. When settlers flooded west, the railroads followed, as did buffalo hunters to supply the work crews. Soon the bison were all but gone, and the Indians fought furiously to preserve their way of life.
So furiously the 7th Cavalry never stood a chance. Notes from the battlefield suggest even Custer was stunned when he first saw the encampment of some 7,000 Indians (including women, children and nonwarrior males), yet he attacked at once with tired troops and horses that had just completed a grueling 30-mile march. He maneuvered to block the Indians' escape—picture an angry drunk locking a barroom door to "trap" two dozen Hells Angels wielding broken pool cues. The cavalry held the high ground, and Custer wouldn't have expected the Indians to attack uphill. But they did.
Prior to the battle, Brig. Gen. Alfred Terry had advised Custer to await the arrival of two columns (one under Terry himself) before engaging the enemy. These reinforcements were approaching at the time of the attack. So why did Custer disregard Terry's warning? Some historians suggest Custer had lost the element of surprise and was compelled to attack. Author Mari Sandoz suggested it was because he wanted to be president; the Democratic National Convention was to begin in St. Louis in two days, and news of a victory would certainly boost one's presidential ambitions. Dozens of other theories abound. The truth died with Custer and his troopers in the grass along the Little Bighorn.
Tsushima, 1905.
By the end of the 19th century, Japan, awakened from a centuries-long slumber, was expanding into Manchuria and Korea. Inevitably, she encountered Tsarist Russia, pushing southward from Vladivostok. Equipped by the British, Japan's navy was probably the best trained and most efficient in the world -- moreso, even, than the Royal Navy of that time. In February 1904, the Japanese -- in a mini-Pearl Harbor -- inflicted a stinging defeat on the Russian fleet, at her key base of Port Arthur, knocking out seven battleships at a cost of two of her own.
Outraged at this humiliation by a tiny country of paper parasols and Madame Butterfly, the Tsar decided to send a fleet round the world to reinforce Vladivostok and avenge Port Arthur. Its commander, an irritable 53-year-old aristocrat, Admiral Zinovy Petrovich Rozhdestvensky, seemed to have reckoned that it was doomed from the start. His ships were "untested or badly built" and he had "not the slightest prospect of success."
It began badly. In the North Sea, the Russians ran into some British fishing trawlers, taking them to be Japanese and sinking one at 100-yard range, killing two British fishermen. Public opinion clamored for war with Russia; in consequence, all British coaling stations along the 5,000 mile route were denied to the Russians. After nearly eight months at sea, his 42 ships had reached 50-mile wide Straits of Tsushima (meaning "Island of the Donkey's Ears" in Japanese) between Japan and Korea. Neither ships nor crews were in any condition to fight.
Early in the afternoon of May 27th, 1905, Admiral Togo was waiting, and in a classic naval maneuver, he twice "crossed the T" of Rozhdestvensky's column. Within minutes, the leading three of Russia's battleships were wrecks; Rozhdestvensky was so wounded that he had to hand over command. At 1130 hours on the following day, the Russians ran up the white flag, to the surprise of the Japanese, steeped in the samurai traditions of no-surrender. Only two Russian destroyers and a light-cruiser limped into Vladivostok. There were 4,830 Russians killed, at a cost of 700 Japanese.
It was the most complete naval victory in history. In Russia, news of the defeat provoked the 1905 Revolution, opening the door to Lenin 12 years later. Japan, filled with a sense of invincible Imperial destiny, became a major power, with dire consequences down the line.
Verdun, 1916. After the Battle of the Marne in 1914, when the Kaiser's armies failed to defeat France, the Germans stood on the defensive in the West while they attacked in the East. Only once, until 1918, did they deviate from this strategy -- at the beginning of 1916. The Chief of the German General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, a withdrawn, unpopular figure with a curious mix of ruthlessness and indecision, came up with a novel concept in the history of warfare.
Instead of trying to defeat the French outright, he would bait it into defending a point in the line it could not afford to abandon. There he would "bleed it white", the very terminology of a war which, more than any other, treated soldiers' lives as little more than corpuscles.
He selected Verdun, rated the world's strongest fortress, with a centuries-long tradition in la défense de France, and only 150 miles east of Paris. The 1914 campaign had left it in a narrow salient, vulnerable on three sides to overwhelming German superiority in heavy artillery.
On the 21st of February, 1,220 German guns opened up on a frontage of barely 8 miles, launching the most savage artillery barrage in history. The French lines sagged but held, at tremendous cost. The immortal slogan "They shall not pass" was coined. In what became an affair of national honor, France rose to the bait. For ten hideous months history's longest battle raged.
The tragic irony was that Verdun also bled the attacking Germans almost equally. What began as a small affair resulted in combined casualties of over 800,000 men -- most of them inflicted in an area not much bigger than New York's Central Park.
Verdun cost Germany her last chance at defeating the Allies in the West, but the impact on France, elevating the defeatist Marshal Pétain as its hero, went far deeper. French losses led to the demoralization that defeated her in 1940. The Pyrrhic victory par excellence, Verdun was a murderous blunder for both sides.
Singapore, 1942. On Sunday, February 15, 1942, British Lieutenant General A.E. Percival, with moustache and rabbit teeth, surrendered Singapore, reputedly the world's most impregnable bastion, and over 100,000 troops to a motley force of Japanese of little more than half that number (62,200) under General Yamashita. A heavy share of responsibility fell on Churchill, who wrote years later that it was "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history."
Churchill's eyes were riveted on Hitler -- on Europe and North Africa. His policy on the Far East was to rely on the Americans and "hope for the best." But America had her hands more than full after Pearl Harbor. The legendary 15-inch guns of Singapore faced out to sea, not towards the narrow strip of water called the Johore Strait, only a few hundred yards separating Singapore Island from the supposedly impenetrable jungle of Malaya to the north. No effort had been made to form a Malaya defense force.
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese landed at Khota Bharu in the north of Malaya, and began working their way down through the jungle. The following day, two of the most powerful ships in Southeast Asia, the Repulse and the almost new Prince of Wales (which had taken part in sinking the mighty Bismarck the previous year), headed north to intercept the landings. But as his escorting aircraft carrier, Indomitable had run aground off of Jamaica, the commander, Admiral Sir Tom Phillips, was dependent on local airfields for air cover.
So Phillips decided to head back to Singapore, but not wanting to break radio cover, he failed to request air cover. He was spotted by Japanese planes on December 10, and within minutes, the two great ships were sunk. Phillips and 700 men went down with them.
Abruptly, the balance of the whole campaign shifted. Malaya lay virtually unprotected from the sea. The back door to Singapore was now open, its British, Australian, and Indian defenders demoralized by the loss of its two capital ships. A month later, Yamashita captured Kuala Lumpur, with vast military stores. By the end of January, Percival had withdrawn to Singapore Island, but he still had a force far superior to the attackers, who were exhausted and nearly out of ammunition.
On February 8, Yamashita's men crossed the Straits. A week later, the "impregnable" fortress surrendered, without much fight, and despite Churchill's order for "every inch of ground to be defended." One of Yamashita's senior officers wrote later, "If the British had held out a few more days, they would have defeated us."
At a cost of 3,500 killed, the Japanese had smashed forever the British Empire in the East, and with it the myth of White Superiority. Had the defenders foreseen that three-and-a-half years of captivity in the most atrocious conditions lay ahead -- many of them were among the 12,000 POW's who died on the Burma Railway -- they might well have fought on.
Advance on the Yalu River, 1950. On September 15, 1950, the troops under the command of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, CinC of the UN Command since July 10, landed at Inchon. The landing followed a surprise attack by Kim Il Sung's Communist North on June 25, which had all but defeated the South Koreans, and the handful of Americans rushed from Japan to support them.
One of warfare's most inspired amphibious operations, Inchon caught the North Koreans completely off-balance and changed the course of the Korean War. By the beginning of October, MacArthur's victorious forces were pursuing a broken enemy across the 38th parallel. Brimming over with hubris and determined to smash the Communist forces once and for all, MacArthur convinced President Harry S Truman to allow him to proceed to the Yalu River, the sensitive border with both the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union. This despite intelligence from Delhi that China would intervene.
Undetected by Western Intelligence, hundreds of thousands of Chinese "volunteers" began infiltrating by night, with great skill, across the Yalu. As the UN forces moved north from Pyongyang, MacArthur's commander, General Walker, found himself heading with a mixed force of 100,000 men into rugged, wintry country, and covering a front several times wider than the much more defensible 38th parallel.
Inevitably, the force became divided. On November 25, as Walker was preparing his final blow, the Chinese struck with devastating force along the Chongchon Valley, with eight armies of thirty divisions, totalling more than 300,000 men, several times the available strength of the UN forces. It was a great ambush.
Walker's right wing crumpled. Swiftly, the line buckled, and MacArthur's troops, in an unparalleled reversal of fortune, reeled back to the 38th parallel. For the US forces caught up in the "bug-out" in appalling winter conditions, it was one of the worst defeats in American history.
Thirteen thousand casualties were suffered in withdrawal, and the legendary, untouchable, invincible MacArthur was sacked a few months later. But the longer-term consequences were far greater. The Korean War could no longer be won, by either side, and would drag on for another two-and-a-half bitter years, costing 54,000 American lives and many more Koreans and Chinese. The PRC became a major power. As a decisive defeat of the West by the East, it stood in line with Tsushima and Singapore, and led to Vietnam.
Ancient era
Medieval era


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47 Ronin
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A band of samurai set out to avenge the death and dishonor of their master at the hands of a ruthless shogun.
2013, UNIVERSAL, Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some disturbing images, and thematic elements
CVLI does not necessarily endorse the entire content of any movie listed. Before showing any movie, in whole or in part, please preview and determine if the footage is appropriate for your intended audience.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
War of words notwithstanding, SAD,BJP may contest BMC polls together
Amid the ongoing war of words between Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the sudden decision of both parties to contest the Bathinda municipal corporation (BMC) elections together has surprised the local BJP leaders.punjab Updated: Nov 23, 2014 20:22 IST
Amid the ongoing war of words between Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the sudden decision of both parties to contest the Bathinda municipal corporation (BMC) elections together has surprised the local BJP leaders.
The decision to keep the alliance intact has come after nearly a week after BJP district president (urban) Parminder Goyal had claimed that BJP was all capable of going alone in the MCB elections.
However, reports also suggest that SAD, BJP may stick to the old formula of the SAD playing Big Brother and keep the chair of mayor with it.
Interestingly, except Parminder Goyal, no other local leader came forward to confirm the development despite the fact that the SAD has already extended an invitation for a joint press conference by both parties to announce the decision on Monday.
However, in-charge of BJP affairs in the district, Sandeep Renwa, declined to confirm any such development. "I do not know about any press conference. If there would be any press conference, I must have information about it." When he was again reached after SAD issued a press release on the press conference, , Sandeep again declined to comment.
It was not only Sandeep, but all the other eleven members the district-level core group of the BJP also expressed ignorance about the press conference.
Asked why no meeting of the core group was held before taking the decision on the alliance, Goyal said, "Such decisions are taken by the high command and the core group meeting has been also been called as per instructions from the high command."
On reaction of Sandeep Renwa, he said, "Sandeep is aware about the situation and he will be present in the press conference."
However, according to reports, not all the members of the core group may participate in the meeting to be held on Monday before announcements.
"We are surprised. No one was taken in confidence as the BJP high command has been misguided. First, we made statements about going alone in the BMC elections and then suddenly backed off. It has demoralised BJP workers," said a core group member.
First Published: Nov 23, 2014 20:18 IST


text:
Our comprehensive Creston Fishing sports and leisure guide provides listings of things to do all year round, indoors and outdoors throughout the area.
Customer Listings
RR Getaway Fishing CharterRR Getaway Specializes in Fishing Charters on Kootenay Lake for the world famous Gerrard Rainbow Trout, Kokanee Salmon, and Bull Trout (Dolly Varden).
Creston Fishing
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Enjoy the many activities the Kootenay Rockies has to offer. Our Kootenay Rockies Recreation Guide includes listings of year round pursuits found both indoors and outdoor.
If you are not sure about either the area or the category leave the choice to "Display All". You have to specify only one of "Category" or "Region".


text:
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A Mad World My MastersBy: Thomas Middleton (author), Sean Foley (editor), Phil Porter (editor)Paperback
Up to 2 WeeksUsually despatched within 2 weeks
Description"London, Soho - 1956. Where glamour rubs up against filth, and likes it; where the posh mix with musicians, whores and racketeers; where 'virginity is no city trade', and where a dashingly impecunious bachelor in need of quick cash and a good time has to live on his wits. Turning conman to fool his rich uncle, he variously becomes a lord, a high-class call girl, and - God forbid - a poor actor. But a beautiful Soho tart is also on the scam: a whore to some, a religious instructor to others, and a debutante in need of an eligible bachelor to yet more...
About Author"Thomas Middleton (1580 - 1627) was an English playwright and poet, among the most successful and prolific of the Jacobean playwrights. He was one of the few Renaissance dramatists to achieve equal success in comedy and tragedy. He remains one of the most noteworthy and distinctive of Jacobean dramatists. Sean Foley is an actor, writer, and director. A double Olivier Awardwinner, he co-wrote and starred in The Play What I Wrote, and Do You Come Here Often?, and his work has eight further Olivier nominations. His most recent work includes the world premiere of The Painkiller, Joe Orton's What The Butler Saw, and the West End hit comedy The Ladykillers. Phil Porter is a playwright. His plays include Blink, Stealing Sweets & Punching People and The Cracks In My Skin, for which he won a Bruntwood Award. His other work for the Royal Shakespeare Company includes original play Here Lies Mary Spindler and edited versions of The Tempest and Pericles."
Product Details
- publication date: 07/06/2013
- Format: Paperback
- Number Of Pages: 96
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- Saver Delivery: Yes
- 1st Class Delivery: Yes
- Courier Delivery: Yes
- Store Delivery: Yes


text:
Birds Series ATCs-May 2008
Originally uploaded by lubsy1uk
These are a series of bird ATCs I recently created. They're made using fabric and paper and I've stitched elements on to some cards and stamped onto others.
Birds and all things bird related are quite popular at the moment and that's really good I think - we should be more aware of nature and the beauty of God's creation all around us. I know it's made me notice the birds in my garden more and I actually like observing them and the funny little antics they get up to. It's only when we notice and observe, do we truly appreciate the wonder of creation.
Well these cards are all available for trade - you can see each of them separately on here - get yours before they fly away!


text:
- Make
- Skeeter
- Price
- $40,000 (£30,919)
- Model
- Tax Status
- Tax Unpaid
- 7 m
- Year
- 2011
- Beam
- 2.6 m
- Engine Make
- Yamaha
- Draft Max
- 0.4 m
- Engine Count
- 1
- Hull Material
- Fiberglass
- Fuel
- Gasoline
- Boat Type
- Power
- Location
- Orange Park, Florida
- RB Ref
- Country
- United States of America
About this Skeeter ZX2250
Rigged for the Avid Angler! Yamaha Powered, Hydraulic Jack Plate and Anchor Pole! If you are in the market for a bay boat, look no further than this 2011 Skeeter ZX2250, just reduced to $40,000 (offers encouraged). This boat is located in Orange Park, Florida and is in good condition. She is also equipped with a Yamaha engine that has 582 hours. We are looking for people all over the country who share our love for boats. If you have a passion for our product and like the idea of working from home, please contact seller to learn more. Please submit any and ALL offers - your offer may be accepted! Submit your offer today! At POP Yachts, we will always provide you with a TRUE representation of every vessel we market. We encourage all buyers to schedule a survey for an independent analysis. Any offer to purchase is ALWAYS subject to satisfactory survey results. Take a look at ALL ***82 PICTURES*** of this vessel on our main website at POPYACHTS DOT COM. We appreciate that you took your time to look at our advertisement and we look forward to speaking with you!


text:
Tied up: untangling red tape a windfall for construction sector
Last month the federal government introduced legislation and tabled documents to repeal over 10,000 unnecessary and counter-productive pieces of legislation and regulations. For the construction sector it can't come soon enough.
Chris Williams reports exclusively for IndustrySearch.
With two weeks to go until last year's federal election Tony Abbott made a promise to cut red tape by $1 billion a year, every year. It may not have been the most high profile of election promises, but for the construction industry – along with the pledge to close the infrastructure 'gap' – it was the most important.
Of course promises aren't guarantees. We learned our lesson on that one back in 1996 following John Howard's infamous "non-core promises" speech, but seven months after Tony Abbott came to power action is now being taken, and there is reason for cautious optimism within the construction industry.
The announcement coincided with the release of Ai Group's CEO survey Burden of Government Regulation (read full article here), that claimed construction sector CEOs experienced a medium to high regulatory burden, in large part as a result of industrial relations, OH&S, as well as payroll, state and national taxes.
Open for business
Master Builders Australia CEO Wilhelm Harnisch welcomed the introduction of the red tape repeal legislation, saying less red tape would mean more jobs in the building and construction industry.
He said the reforms would help tackle both the undersupply of housing and housing affordability, at the same time accelerating investment in projects in the commercial building sector.
"The Bill is another important signal that the government is open for business in following through on its election commitment to slash the burden of over regulation and associated compliance costs," Harnisch said.
"Red tape may sound mundane until you connect it with business people spending hours grappling with excessive paperwork instead of directing their energies to the productivity of their businesses and creating new jobs.
"Building and construction is one of Australia's most intensely regulated industries and the nation's third largest employer. Cutting red tape will boost the productivity of the industry allowing it to generate more jobs and provide better value to consumers."
A stunt?
Harnisch insisted however that the process needed to be ongoing, and not a 'one shot' wonder, a fear shared by the population at large. A recent poll found 53 per cent of Australians surveyed thought red tape repeal day was nothing more than a stunt.
Stunt or not, a report for the Australian Building Codes Board found simplification of national regulations covering the building sector would benefit the economy to the tune of $300 million per annum, through reform to the National Construction Code and the work of Standards Australia.
Tony Maher, president of construction union CFMEU, is firmly in the 'stunt' camp, claiming the Tea Party-style repeal day was an attempt by the government to blame red tape for job losses, and the real culprit was the government's lack of investment in jobs.
"The red tape they intend to cut are (sic) in many cases the exact measures that were put in place to stop unemployment from rising – things such as better enforcement of 457 visa regulations, the Australian Jobs bill which aims to give opportunities to Australian suppliers on major projects, and government procurement rules which attempt to create local jobs," Maher said.
"For months now we have been warning that with higher unemployment on the horizon the government should focus on the real issues facing workers instead of undoing and lowering taxes.
"(But) the Abbott government has made its priorities clear: instead of working to save jobs they have spent their time in office so far pursuing vendettas on behalf of their mates at the big end of town."
What will change
For those operating a construction business however, the winding back of certain regulations can't come soon enough, and the extent of regulations under review is considerable.
The government's proposals include streamlining of the environmental approvals processes for new developments into a one-stop-shop; doing away with the requirement to register construction equipment hired for more than 90 days; eliminating the need for contractors in the building industry to report to the ATO every transaction they have with another contractor; and overhauling the Australian Government Building and Construction OHS accreditation scheme.
Among other changes, businesses operating in two or more states or territories will now be able to access a national scheme for self-insurance, reducing their regulatory burden by accessing one national workers' compensation scheme, rather than one in each jurisdiction.
The government also plans to remove other regulatory imposts that apply to more than 20,000 annual tender processes for Commonwealth agency work that currently impose additional costs on companies compared to contracts in the private sector.
With Australia's home building industry worth some $70 billion to the economy each year, its peak body, the Housing Industry Association (HIA), also threw its support behind the repeal day initiatives.
"The allocation of parliamentary sitting time to freeing up builders and the economy by reducing laws, rather than introducing new ones, shows a genuine commitment by government to addressing this chronic problem," HIA Chief Executive – Industry Policy and Media, Graham Wolfe, said.
"Inefficient and unnecessary regulation is a real bugbear of the building industry and adds costs to building a new home.
"An obvious example is the ATO contractor reporting requirements that was placed on the home building industry.
"These laws unfairly transfer the burden of information collection from the ATO onto small business principal contractors and builders, imposing considerable additional administrative and accounting red tape."
Wolfe said that in 2011 Treasury had estimated that businesses required to prepare and lodge a report would be hit with a one-off cost of $90, but that in fact his members had advised they spent an additional 17 to 18 hours on paperwork, and faced extra costs of $1,621 on average.
"It is not uncommon for the bureaucracy to underestimate just how time consuming compliance can be, so it is essential these tasks are not duplications, involve inconsistent definitions across portfolios or pass the burden from government to small business," Wolfe said.
Master Builders' Harnisch concurs, particularly in the area of ATO contractor reporting requirements.
"This is has led to a massive red tape nightmare for the industry and is a classic case of regulatory overkill where legitimate contractors are being penalised in order to catch a small minority who break the law," he said.
Where to from here?
Harnisch stressed however that as important as eliminating inefficient and redundant regulations was, reforming the process by which future regulations were made was equally as crucial if we were to prevent mountains of red tape from recurring.
"New regulation should only ever be considered following a rigorous assessment about whether it is needed in the first place including a requirement to closely consult with business," he said.
Dr Bronwyn Evans, Chief Executive Officer for the country's peak standards body, Standards Australia, went further, saying proper and appropriate consensus-based standards negated the need for regulation in many instances.
"Rather than opting for regulatory remedies in the first instance, we should instead turn to standards and codification," she said.
"More often than not, voluntary and consensus-based standards are able to guide the market, or society, to the desired outcome, leaving regulators needing only to apply a light touch.
"Legislation is prone to amendment or disbandment due to the unintended consequences it tends to generate. "
Dr Evans said of the 6,500-plus Australian Standards, three-quarters remained voluntary and only about one-quarter became mandated either through law or contracts. This meant, Dr Evans said, that the carrot beats the stick on three out of four occasions.
"Sensible, measured, consensus-based Australian Standards offer the remedial power to affect lasting change," she said.
"Government intervention should be the last resort, appropriate standards should be the first."
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Tsubasacon is celebrating their tenth year of conventions on October 11th-13th in Huntington at the Big Sandy Conference Center. Like last year, the Mayor of Huntington will honor the con during Opening Ceremonies by declaring this "Tsubasacon Weekend", but also this year a representative from the Governor's office will be there.
Voice actor guests at the con are David Vincent (Bleach, Code Geass, GunxSword), Chris Cason (FMA, DBZ, Hetalia), Danielle McRae (LoL, WoW, SkullGirls), and Laura Post (LoL, Skullgirls, Wow). Music guests singer songwriter Junko Fujiyama and nerdcore act 2d6. Special programming guest is game show host Greg Wicker (Greggo).
Things to see and do at the con include a viewing room, CCG tournaments, fan panels and demonstration, autograph sessions, games shows, guest Q&As, video games and tournaments, music concerts, artist alley, photo shoots, formal masquerade ball, vendors room karaoke, AMV contest, martial arts exhibition, League of Legends tournament, Saturday night rave, Random Battle Group (non contact mock JRPG style battles), and cosplay contest.
New this year is the Button Scavenger Hunt, pre-register for $25 and you get a special lanyard and buttons that you need to trade for other ones for points. The Tsu Region Pokémon League Challenge for the Game Boy DS, where you get to play against the con's Gym Leaders. I will have six panels during the con, under the name of Otaku@DEEP. If you attend all six I will give you a special prize. The con is helping out two charities this year. A canned food drive for the Huntington Area Food Bank and Foster Care Tote/Luggage Drive
For those with smart phones, you can download the con's new app.
A con for fans of anime, video games, card games, cosplay and even My Little Pony and Homestuck. At door registration is $40 for the weekend, $25 for Friday, $35 for Saturday, $15 for Sunday, and special rates for children.


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Slide One
Oh this wedding! I love everything about it. Rebecca is a drop dead gorgeous classic beauty and was a joy to photograph. Adam warmed to the idea of having his … Continue reading
I don't think I have photographed a happier bride than Claire. Her complete and utter joy on her wedding day is surely what getting married is all about? She married … Continue reading
This is an unusual post for me as I feel sadly detached from it. We are often asked 'What happens if you are ill on the day of our wedding' … Continue reading
Now I know I've said in the past that it doesn't matter if it rains at weddings because it makes for a great atmosphere but sometimes I really, really don't … Continue reading


text:
Product detailsHighlights
- Loose fit
- Available in elegant trendy colours
- Small side slits
Colour: Grey, Red, White Colour: Grey, Red & White Material: 95% Cotton, 5% Elastane More details:
- Complete length: 61cm in size M
- Sleeve length: 16.5cm in size M
- V-neck
Care: Machine Wash 30 °C Product Code: 79938
Payment & delivery informationShipping with
Payment methods
- Free delivery and returns on orders over €60,00 to Ireland, Slovakia, Finland, Poland, Czech Republic. *
- Returns period until 31/01/2019
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text:
All three past champs alive in Supers quarterfinals
The three career winners of the Pine to Palm Super Seniors division lead the quarterfinals field into Friday's morning's duels.
Last year's champion Doug Gillam and the first Supers' champion Paul Krueger will square off in the opening match at 8:44 a.m., Friday, Aug. 10.
Gillam handed No. 16 Joe Sauer a 3&2 defeat. No. 8 Krueger took out No. 9 Ronald Vincelli 4&2.
Six-time champion Chuck Renner and No. 13 Dan Elton renew last year's quarterfinal match that Renner won 5&4. Renner advanced with a 5&3 victory over No. 12 John Hagge. Elton defeated No. 4 Bob Jamison 4&2 in the only victory from golfers in the bottom half of the field.
Co-medalist and No. 2 seed Doug Taylor finished quickly in a 5&4 win against N0. 15 Bob Theriault.
Taylor plays No. 7 David Andrisen, who won 3&2 over No. 10 Tim Rubis.
The final pairing features No. 3 Don Bradford, the other co-medalist, and No. 6 Michael Howell.
Bradford needed extra holes for a 1-up victory over No. 14 Scott Peters.
Howell defeated No. 11 Doug Gillund 6&5 to advance.
Gillam and Krueger start Friday's play with the past champions rematch at 8:44 a.m. on the first tee.
Pine to Palm Super Seniors quarterfinal matchups
Doug Gillam (1) Vs Paul Krueger (8) fri 8:44 (1)
Dan Elton (13) Vs Chuck Renner (5)
Doug Taylor (2) Vs David Andrisen (7)
Don Bradford (3) Vs Michael Howell (6)
First round match play results
1 Doug Gillam (3&2) 16 Joe Sauer
8 Paul Krueger (4&2) 9 Ronald Vincelli
13 Dan Elton (3&1) 4 Bob Jamison
5 Chuck Renner (5&3) 12 John Hagge
2 Doug Taylor (5&4) 15 Bob Theriault
7 David Andrisen (3&2) 10 Tim Rubis
3 Don Bradford (1-up) 14 Scott Peter
6 Michael Howell (6&5) 11 Doug Gillund
Super Seniors Past Champions
2017 Doug Gillam
2011-2016 Chuck Renner
2010 Paul Krueger


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There was a period some years back when a pal of mine would receive regular phone calls from Mr. Doyle. You would assume that taking to one of the more revered living free jazz giants would be pretty interesting, but Arthur Doyle is apparently a dirty old man. Rather than talk business (my friend put out one of his records) Doyle was only interested in trying to have phone sex with my friend's wife. I'm not sure if this makes me like him less or more. As expected you get some pretty heavy blowing that strikes at the ear drums with sadistic revelry. But what makes this one worth it is the unexpected bizarro vocalese. A pretty fucked cover of Groovin' (now titled Grovery) is a prime example of how a bum singing on a street corner can sometime sound like an angel (albeit one fucked to high heaven).
Luke Eargoggle / Stranger Destiny (1999-2009) [2018]
25 minutes ago


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After one week of no post, I'm bck with the usual Sunday segment! This week goes to none other than Dazzel Uchiha!
Do duel with him sometimes!
Additional Note:
Today's ranking tournament at Thousand Taste was quite epic, Wesley winning Putra 2-1 with Suppressor Dragons, kicking Putra's Prophecy to 2nd place. Hmm, looks like Suppressor Dragons is really threatening now...
Taglines for the day: Wesley wins Putra in Game 1......with 10k lifepoints remaining lol.
Sorry Putra, I just had to say it.
Thats all for today!


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Redlingfield Family Fun, Buffet and Race Night 9th April at Horham Community Centre: You may have read in the latest Athelington, Horham and Redlingfield News that we are holding another fundraising evening on 9th April at Horham Community Centre, which will include a "Race Night". Last year's event was well attended and very successful – raising over £800 for the village.
This year's event will start at 7pm. There will be a table buffet and the Race Night event is provided by On Course Race Nights – who did an excellent job for us last year. It's going to be a lot of fun – so, if you can, please do come along. You might even win some money! Tickets are £5 each and accompanied children under 16 are free. We are only printing 80 tickets – so book yours early to avoid disappointment!
The Buffet & Race Night is being organised on behalf of the village by the Village Committee – a group of some 16 volunteers who raise funds for the village. All the money we raise will go towards maintaining and improving our village facilities, which include expanding our Doorstep Green and creating vehicular access to it and the church. We are also fundraising to repair and improve our 11th century village church so that it can host more village events.
As a parish, we do not raise a local rate, instead we hold fundraising events such as this to gain the income we need to look after the village and its facilities. It's an unusual way of doing things – only a handful of parishes in Suffolk don't raise a rate.
If you would like tickets you can contact me, Joyce Saunders or any of the members of the Village Committee. (Andrew Abbott, Graham Abbott, Katie Abbott, Mike Ager, Jeanette Brierley, Susan Chapman, Allan Chapman, Will Edwards, Lesley Freitas, Tony Freitas, Chris Gibbons, Pat Kelly, Russell Kerry, Jacqueline Love, Manday Miller and Janet Norman-Philips).
Janet Norman-Philips
01379 678835


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From publisher blurb:
"Day in the Life" sessions allow a lot of different non-combat things to happen in a gameplay style that satisfies the desire to utilize character abilities and gifts while still focusing on deep story development and roleplay. To do a Day in the Life session, just get everyone at the table as usual, and ask them to think about what they want to accomplish on the day or period of time in question...
The Day in the Life rules hack makes resolving all of those between-the-adventures activities gamable and a lot more fun, with very tangible rewards and benefits as well as excellent narrative and roleplay consequences. Every player at the table will be able to choose from the following Activities for their Day in the Life session:
With rewards like Adventure Cards, Bennies, Information, Contacts, and more, players will enjoy getting to play out Day in the Life sessions as much as regular adventures. GMs will greatly appreciate the added opportunities to leverage Hindrances and instigate new Plot Hooks.
Though designed initially for the Shaintar product line, GMs of any Savage Worlds setting (or, really, any game) will find this system extremely useful for their campaigns.


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Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Cheery! How much musicians need to sell online to make minimum wage. Hyah!
Click on this link to see a fascinating infographic that indicates what musicians selling their music have to sell in order to make the (USA) minimum wage. There's debate as to how accurate the data is (if you read the comments) but even as a rough calculation, it's pretty telling stuff.
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Sweden's Death/Thrash Metal group Septekh recently performed live in Stockholm at Copperfields. A full recording of their set from May 12th, 2012, has been posted on Youtube for all to watch!
If you like what you see, you can pick up their latest EP, The Seth Avalanche now through Abyss Records.
Article based on a press release from Clawhammer PR.


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NASCAR: Buckshot Jones and Jina Cadena Exchange Wedding Vows
22 December 1998Spartanburg, S.C. - On Saturday, December 19, 1998, among candles and Christmas trees, NASCAR Winston Cup driver Buckshot Jones and longtime girlfriend Jina Cadena married at the First Baptist Church of Duluth in Duluth, Ga. The newlyweds gathered at Sugarloaf Country Club following the ceremony with more than 500 family and friends to celebrate their marriage.
One year ago, Jones devised a plan with the help of his friend, country singer Tracy Byrd, to propose to Jina. He arranged to take a group of friends to Byrd's concert in Kennesaw, Ga., and got down on bended knee and popped the question to her on stage. Byrd serenaded the two with his song "Keeper of the Stars".
The couple has known one another since childhood and work together on Jones' family owned race team. Jina currently works in the Buckshot Racing office located in Atlanta and plans to score for Jones' Winston Cup team in 1999. They will live in Spartanburg, S.C., where the Buckshot Racing Busch and Winston Cup Series shops are located.


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Large Beach Boat Print
Large Glicee fine art print of a fishing boat on the beach. Simple modern white frame
63 × 43
Product Specifications
- Dimensions
63 x 43
- Lead Time
- 0-3 Weeks (Quick Ship)
Nearby Showrooms
About English Country Home
Expect the unexpected and most diverse mix of contemporary and antique accessories and home furnishings that keep our customers coming back every week to be inspired.
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Silverlink is a project that invests in infrastructure projects. Make no mistake. Whether you're building a road, a subway system, a highway system, or some sort of interisland ferry network, you need financing.
Funding is crucial to infrastructure.
Last time we checked, infrastructure is not exactly cheap. In the United States and other parts of the world, infrastructure is a multi-decade affair.
You basically lay down the foundations and you set up a budget for replacing the foundations after so many years. That's why a lot of infrastructure, in many parts of the world and sadly, this also includes neglected parts of the United Sates, are actually falling apart.
Please understand that there is no shortage of engineering genius that went into this infrastructure items. You would look at a bridge for example, and it would look amazing. It's definitely well-built. It's built with the right materials and it has an amazing cutting-edge design.
We are
spread around
the world
The problem is there is no maintenance long-term plan so sooner rather than later, this bridge, as awesome as it may look now, will start falling apart. This is an all-too-common story that plays out all over the world and in many parts of the United Sates.Go to contact centre
We've been in
business since 1935
This is why it's really important for state and private actors to realize that there is a space for private infrastructure. This kind of arrangement goes under many different names.
One common name for it is a public-private partnership. Another label is a private-public initiative. Others use the phrase, common resources. Regardless of how you label it, it really all uses one of three different models.
Again, depending on the jurisdiction you are dealing with, some of this models will be more popular or politically acceptable than others. The first form of public-private partnership involves the public.
This is a big deal if you're building a road.
Last time I checked, buying hundreds of kilometres of road real estate costs a pretty penny. This is not an easy financial undertaking.
With this type of private partnership agreement, the government steps up and gives you the right of way for land so you don't have to purchase the land to put a road on it. In exchange for this right of way, your company builds the road and a toll booth or a toll system.
For every toll collected, a certain percentage goes to the state, a certain percentage goes to the private operator, and a certain percentage is dedicated to the upkeep of the system. This arrangement is guaranteed for a fixed period of time.
Another popular approach is the build, operate, and transfer system. What happens is the government will purchase the property and the private partner will create the infrastructure, operate it, and then, transfer after an extended period of time.
The hope is that the transfer period is long enough for the private partner to generate a profit to make the whole project worth it for them. Finally, there is the complete private system.
Basically, the government would say that they need certain roads done linking different state counties or local locations. What they would do is they would create a route over purely private land.
The private partner would then buy up this right of way with the express guarantee from the state that they would not allow competition. This is key because you would not want to invest precious capital only to have the road network profits taken out of the system because a competitor came up with a shortcut.
The state would guarantee that you will be the only one who could operate that network using your resources for a fixed period of time. The great thing about this purely private alternative is that the state does not spend money out of pocket.
This is all a purely private initiative. Your company buys the land, pays for the road, and puts up the toll ways and the road management system.
In exchange, the state would ask for a portion of the proceeds, but they would also insist that a certain verifiable budget will be set aside every single year for road maintenance. Regardless of how you cut it, private infrastructure can work.
It has worked efficiently in places like California and Malaysia. It's also used quite extensively in other parts of Southeast Asia.
From the public's perspective, it is easy to see why private infrastructure is so badly needed. For any economy to be maintained or improved, it would have to have the road structure and bridges needed to make that happen. Generally, governments are tasked to come up with the money for these. The state, after all, has taxing power. However, taxes can get too high and the citizenry can develop tax fatigue.
Over taxation leads to economic slowdowns and the discouragement of job formation because it slows down business formation. Sadly, the personnel costs of local, county, and state governments continue to go up and these eat into budgets that would otherwise go to roads and bridges. States are turning more and more to the private sector to deliver much needed infrastructure projects. The transition has not been smooth across the board but private funding and operation of what would otherwise be public projects is no longer seen as a 'foreign' or 'alien' idea.
Private infrastructure financing is a crucial part of this development because without financing, these big dollar projects won't be possible. Few companies have billions of dollars lying around.
They need financing. They need to do this on credit. This is where Silverlink trains come in. The financing options made possible take the form of direct cash credits or infrastructure inputs.
To put it simply, if you need subway trains for your project, we would buy the subway trains for you according to your specifications and then, you pay us an agreed amount for several months. That's how our financing agreements work.
There's really only two ways. Either you get cash upfront or in installments, or you get payment in-kind. We are happy to report that our infrastructure funding projects have produced quite a number of successes over the years.
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Well I had my plans worked out I would have been sitting on a full set of PRR Main Line signal photos taken from an eastbound run of the Pennsylvanian. Unfortunately, due to a joy ride by a private car I was left with a bunch of side window shots and some news, so I might as well share the news.
First off, the re-signaling project has climbed the east slope and is knocking at the doors of CP-AR/CP-UN with new cantilever signal hardware delivered to CP-MG. Not sure what NS is up to as I had figured they would have cut the new in the new signaling in stages, but for all I know they might try to get the whole thing cut over in one go.
In a severe bit of irony, CP-ANTIS is being re-re-signaled with new cantilevers and dwarf signals supporting the Rule 562 'C' lamps. New signals are up for both directions, which implies the auto on track 2 at CP-HOMER is on its way out. I did not see such new signals at CP-ALTOONA, but they may not have been visible from my point of view.
CP-ROCKVILLE and the eastbound signal at CP-MARY did not have 'C' boards attached, so the segments with non-cab signaled Buffalo Line traffic will also not be getting Rule 562 installed.
While it's not the name brand PRR Main Line, the new Rule 562 segment on the Main Line, Philadelphia to Washington, so far only has 'C' boards southbound at BACON and northbound at PRINCE. This will only means the demise of a couple of intermediate signals and is possibly a capacity expansion project on the double track segment that also sees a lot of slow freight traffic.
Well sorry for the short post, I've been real busy in the field gathering information and content. See ya next time!
A blog devoted to explaining the ins and outs of North American railroad signaling, past, present and future. This blog seeks to preserve through photo documentation the great diversity and technical ingenuity of 20th century signaling and interlocking hardware and technology. Related topics cover interlocking towers and railroad communications infrastructure.
Note, due to a web hosting failure some of the photos and links may be unavailable.
Friday, June 30, 2017
PRR Main Line Trip Report Supplemental
Posted by Jersey Mike at 8:31 PM
Labels: Amtrak, cab signals, Conrail, news, NS, position light, PRR, PRR main line
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© Woodhorn
- Woodhorn is a vibrant, exciting place to visit all year round with a great programme of activities and exhibitions for the whole family. Inspired by monster coal cutting machines once used deep underground, the stunning Cutter building and original listed colliery structures house fascinating, hands-on exhibitions and displays. Take an emotional journey through Coal Town and discover a proud mining community; explore the colliery buildings and imagine what it would have been like to work underground; hum along to the brass band at the Miners' Picnic, see the colourful banners and even design your own. Marvel at the original paintings of the Ashington Group – miners from the 1930s whose story has inspired remarkable play, Pitmen Painters, by Billy Elliot writer, Lee Hall. Woodhorn is home to Northumberland's public archive too.


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Seminars, Workshops, & Conferences
- Grant Writing Workshop
- Woman and Child Institute Spring Research Conference
Ongoing Research Events
- Research-in-Progress (RIP): Noon-1:00pm Monday, Williams Building 238A (September through May)
- General Pediatrics Work-in-Progress: 7:45am Wednesday, Williams Bldg. Conferences. Rm West 11, first Floor
- Neonatology K Club Sessions: Noon Thursday, Williams Bldg., West 6 Conferences. Rm
- CCTS K Club Sessions: Noon second Wednesday of each month, Williams Bldg. Conferences. Rm 223


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Subscribe on iTunesListen on SoundCloudListen on iHeartRadio
Subscribe on iTunesListen on SoundCloudListen on iHeartRadio What happened to Republicans on Election Day? What does Attorney General Ken Paxton hope to achieve in the next four years? Listen to the latest episode to find out.
Subscribe on iTunesListen on SoundCloudListen on iHeartRadio Join us to hear Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar talk about faith, family, football, the Texas economy, and the many responsibilities of the Texas Comptroller's office that affect Texans each and every day.
Subscribe on iTunesListen on SoundCloudListen on iHeartRadio In part two of our interview, hear how Texas State Representative, Pat Fallon, pushed through the pain to finish his seventh marathon in under four hours. And discover how he is continuing to raise money for pediatric cancer research so no other child gets cancer. In loving memory […]
Subscribe on iTunesListen on SoundCloudListen on iHeartRadio In part one of our interview with Texas State Representative, Pat Fallon, discover what led him to run seven marathons in seven days on seven continents.
Did you know Austin has a world class surf park? Listen to our interview with NLand Surf Park founder, Doug Coors, to learn more about all NLand has to offer! Surf the lagoon, float the moat, try a new beer at the NLand Brewing Company, attend trivia night, take a yoga or fitness class, and more!
The Trey Blocker Show is a weekly podcast dedicated to providing insight into the people who are shaping the world around us. From Texas politics, national and international affairs, to cultural icons, we make connections on a deeper level and give you access to voices the media often overlooks.
Please listen, please subscribe, and if you have questions or comments, please send them to firstname.lastname@example.com.
Thank you,
Trey Blocker is a 6th generation Texan with more than 20 years of political, legislative and legal experience. His extensive and in-depth knowledge of issues important to our state is matched only by the close personal relationships he has with the most powerful and influential political and business leaders of Texas. His clients include chief executives of Fortune 100 companies and major trade associations. Trey also serves as an ethics advisor to elected officials and candidates from both political parties, corporations, and PACs, helping them maintain compliance with the state's complex campaign finance and legislative ethics laws.


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We are glad to inform candidates who participated in the 2017/2018 Post-UTME Screening of the Univerity of Port Harcourt that the Uniport 2017/2018 first batch admission list is in progress.
To know more about Uniport Admission, you are here by advice to visit the Univerity of Port Harcourt official website for more information.
Read Also: Check 2017/2018 UniPort Post UTME Result From www.uniport.edu.ng
Vilevase.com is here to offer you the right information you need, that's why we have to publish this article so that you will not fall for scammers website.
NOTE: The UniPort first Merit admission list will be released soon.
Uniport 2017/2018 First Batch Admission List Not out Yet
However, the Univerity of Port Harcourt (uniport) Portal open for all new and old student to know what is going on and how to process their school fees.
How to Access Univerity of Port Harcourt – Uniport Website
- Go to www.uniport.edu.ng
- Click Okay button on your mobile phone or Enter keyboard on your computer.
- wait while the page is loading
- For those candidates who participated in the 2017/2018 Post-UTME Screening of the Univerity of Port Harcourt.
- On the Uniport Homepage, click on the "News and Events" at the top page bar
- List of Uniport news will appear on your screen,
- tap on the 2017/2018 Uniport admission process is in progress
- So after you might have done with the news, click on the link below to check your Uniport admission list.
Was this Article Helful? Don't forget to leave us your comment or ask us question concerning the Uniport admission list. Or when the 2017/2018 Uniport admission list will come out.
Don't hesitate to share this information with your friends on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram


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Leased Transaction:
Priscilla Duffy represented the buyer on this leased transaction on 10/06/2017
Wow! Check out this lovely 2 bedroom, 1 bath residence. Plenty of cabinet/counter space and island in kitchen. Refrigerator included. Spacious bedrooms. On site laundry center. Gas and water paid for by owner. Don't wait...won't last long. **High and dry! Property didn't flood during Harvey**
|Clear Creek
|Elementary School:
|League City Elementary School
|Middle School:
|Clear Creek Int
|High School:
|Clear Creek High School


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Yes, there's photos of faded diesels and random nameplates. There's signs from station doors on the doors you're not supposed to enter.
In places there are odd pieces; German carriage notices, panels stripped from a loco with its number on.
But there was always the capacity for more gricer porn.
So it's great to see that Ralph at the Alexandra in Derby has gone totally hatstand and installed a platform clock in the bar. It helped me time my consumption of Dark Star Revelation.
(as in: drink a pint, drink the next quicker. And repeat)


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Fun Kids Skull Printed Eye PatchCode: TY514
Only £1.49
Out Of Stock!
Fun Kids Skull Printed Eye Patch
Each eye patch is made from fabric and is printed with a skull and cross bones.
This item is CE marked and is not suitable for children under 3 due to small parts.
Each item is priced individually unless otherwise stated. Please note - When items are available in multiple designs or colours, at certain times due to low or uneven stock not all designs may be available.
Width 8cm Height 6cm Strap Length 38cm


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La musique
okay remember i told you about my very failed audition at the music conservatory last week? Well i'd forgotten all about this horrible experience and given up my hopes of being accepted. Well today they called with the results, and viola, i got accepted! Haha who would guess? well, i'm going to have individual, technique and orchestra classes which is great. I'll have my first rendez-vous tomorrow. I'M SO HAPPY!!


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Eliminate Inspection Obstacles - Exterior Lighting
I wrote recently about a troubled transaction I had this summer. The homeowner's had a difficult time selling the home because the inspection report scared off several buyers. It was a tough time for them. Hitting stumbling blocks like this after getting your home under contract can be frustrating.
An inspector is going to find something. The key is to have as few issues as possible. Many little things will begin to stack up. As the buyer reviews the report with the inspector, and the report gets longer and longer, the buyer's mind begins to see the home as being neglected.
I am beginning a series over the next months on some of the common items and issues found in an inspection report that can be easily remedied. This session focuses on exterior and landscape lighting.
Steps to make sure your exterior lighting is up to par....
Maintenance. Replace bulbs - Replace fixtures.
It sounds like a no brainer but go through all of your exterior lighting fixtures and make sure that the light bulbs are working. Replace the bulbs. Now, if any fixtures remain that are not working, have them repaired or replaced.
Consider updating your exterior flood lights with motion sensors and security cameras.
Experts recommend that you maintain your landscape lighting once a year. Here is a handy checklist:
- Cut back any shrubs or plants encroaching on the lighting
- Remove debris such as dirt, mulch, insects, and leaves from fixtures.
- Check for damage such as exposed wiring or corroded casings
- Replace bulbs
- Clean casing, replace caulking or sealer
- Check and adjust fixture positions
My story.
I am in the process of getting my home ready to sell. I started on the exterior of the home. My landscape lights had stopped working a few years ago. I thought this would be a simple DIY project but I was wrong. The light fixtures were so damaged and corroded I had to call in my favorite handy man with all the tools.
It was still a pretty inexpensive update and now my home looks great - day or night!
Looking for more tips on landscape lighting?
I've got a great article here on the latest lighting trends for 2017.
Let me know how you have improved your exterior lighting. Good luck!


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- Jack SmithAsked on September 17, 2011 at 12:02 AMI got an email with subject: JotForm Account Disabled to: firstname.lastname@example.com when I do "forgot password" on jotform and enter "email@example.com" as the email address, it says that no account exists with this email address.Please clarify what is going on here ASAP
- JotForm FounderaytekinAnswered on September 17, 2011 at 01:29 PM
Guest accounts have lower limits. To increase your limits, create a JotForm account. If you use the same email address you have on the guest account, your forms will be merged on your new account.


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Hey Shining Stars,
Last year, thanks to be people over at Jovago (now Jumia Travel) I got to visit Lagos as a tourist and do touristy things. Badagry was one of the places visited and we stayed at the Whispering Palms Resort.
Whispering palms is one of the first resorts to be built in Nigeria. Located in Badagry Lagos, it was built in the 1980's by a well-travelled Doctor who wanted to create a space for people who couldn't travel out of the country but still needed to relax and escape the hustle and bustle of the city. The resort boasts of a man-made beach, mini zoo, boat rides on the Lagos lagoon and many other activities.
We also got to go into Badagry town and a tour in the compound of a slave trader back in the days.
See the video of the experience here
Hope you get to visit it sometime


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Thursday, December 10, 2015
NFF releases statement, condoles Stephen Keshi over wife's death
"This is devastating. To lose a spouse is the equivalent of a tragedy. I pray that Almighty God will give you and the children the fortitude to bear this huge loss. Keshi is a Nigerian hero and we mourn deeply with him at this time. This has come like a big blow, but we pray that he receives divine strength to cope with the situation, and we also pray that the Almighty God will grant the departed eternal rest." NFF chairman Amaju Pinnick said


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Wondering if I've been selected as a contestant on a reality show.
Click through for a read... if you have a strong stomach.
Monday, February 6, 2012
At Hopeful Parents...
Posted by Valerie Foley at 1:45 AM
3 comments:
- Wendy said...
My heart goes out to you guys ...
- February 6, 2012 at 4:53 AM
- Di said...
Valerie, what Wendy said!
- February 6, 2012 at 9:22 AM
- Lisa B said...
Oh my! I don't know what else to say except like you did at Hopeful parents - ENOUGH!!!
- February 6, 2012 at 12:02 PM
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SMU football released its 12-game 2017 schedule on Thursday, consisting of seven home games and five road games. SMU will play a four-game non-conference schedule in September before starting American Conference play.
The Mustangs open up against an FCS team, Stephen F. Austin at Gerald J. Ford Stadium on Sept. 2. They then host North Texas, travel to TCU and return home to play Arkansas State, rounding out their non-conference schedule.
SMU's conference schedule begins September 30 against UConn, and is followed by games in Houston and Cincinnati, with a bye week sandwiched in between their road contests. The Ponies return home from Cincinnati to play Tulsa on a Friday night, with UCF coming in the next week. SMU will make its final regular season road trip on November 11 and 18 against Navy and Memphis, before finishing the regular season with a home game against Tulane. If SMU wins the AAC West Division, it will play for the conference title on December 2.
After suffering two dispiriting blowouts in non-conference play last year to Baylor and TCU, SMU has a good shot to head into conference play with a winning record this season. TCU is their only matchup against a power-five opponent.
Eight of SMU's 2017 opponents made bowl games last year, while only Arkansas State, Houston, Navy and Memphis finished the season with winning records.