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So you're new to mountain biking and just bought a full suspension bike? Bad news. That rig is way too much bike for your skill and it won't make you a better rider.
Editor's Note: The Angry Singlespeeder is a collection of mercurial musings from contributing editor Kurt Gensheimer. In no way do his maniacal diatribes about all things bike oriented represent the opinions of Mtbr, RoadBikeReview, or any of their employees, contractors, janitorial staff, family members, household pets, or any other creature, living or dead. You can submit questions or comments to Kurt at [email protected]. And make sure to check out Kurt's previous columns.
My very first mountain bike was a fully rigid Giant Rincon that I loved going "muddin'" with. Muddin' was more about finding the biggest mud holes possible and trying to ride through them more than it was about actually mountain biking. Although my brother and I loved coming home covered head to toe in stinky Pennsylvania muck, my parents were none too pleased.
My first legitimate racing mountain bike was a pearlescent blue 1992 Diamond Back Axis made with True Temper OX II steel and full Shimano XT components, also fully rigid. As a sixteen year-old Pittsburgh kid, I cut my teeth – literally and figuratively – riding and racing that beloved Diamond Back all over the rocky, rooty, muddy and gnarly trails of Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Seven Springs, Moraine State Park, Canaan, Elkins, Babcock and Cooper's Rock were just a few of the places that practically rattled the molars out of my skull and permanently welded my clenched, cramped and white-knuckled hands to the handlebars. Mountain biking in the early 1990s was as much a test of enduring self-inflicted physical abuse as it was a measure of one's fitness.
Fed up with constantly feeling like I'd just been incessantly beaten over the head with a Bongo Bat, I begged and pleaded my parents for the hot, bling-bling fork of the day, a Manitou. My dad – who had no concept of or interest in mountain biking whatsoever – couldn't grasp the concept of $350 for a glorified pogo stick with elastomers attached to a wheel and refused to help fund my first suspension fork purchase. Although I didn't appreciate it at the time, refusing to help me get that Manitou was one of the best things pops did to build my skill as a mountain biker.
Riding a fully rigid bike forced me to learn how to ride a mountain bike properly. Picking clean lines and not allowing suspension to mask my errors were invaluable in building skill, and quickly. A couple years later I finally got a Manitou 2, which not only allowed me to take clean, safe lines faster, but also opened up doors for new lines that I could never before ride.
I have been asked numerous times by friends who are new to mountain biking what kind of bike they should get or what kind of bike would be right for their kid. My response is always the same – fully rigid. They look at me as if I have a gaping hole in the side of my head. Why in tarnation would they buy a fully rigid bike when there's a slew of awesome 150mm travel full-suspension trail bikes that soak up bumps and make riding a pleasure?
Because those bikes won't make you a better rider, they'll only mask your numerous beginner shortcomings.
Who the hell wants to suffer the beatings that I took as a newcomer to the sport more than 20 years ago? Well, for one, if you're serious about becoming a good rider who has exceptional technical skill, you'll learn on a fully rigid bike. Not only will you understand how to read the trail and pick smart, smooth lines, but also as your skill builds and you eventually step up to front suspension or even full suspension, your likelihood of crashing will be significantly lower. The combination of good riding habits, clean lines, cornering skill and suspension will take your riding expertise to new levels.
Besides, fully rigid bikes these days are light years more stable, confident, comfortable and forgiving than the bone-jarring 26-inch rigid bikes of 20 years ago. For the past month I've been riding a Vassago VerHauen, a fully rigid, steel 29er singlespeed outfitted with a carbon seatpost, handlebars and Whisky Parts Co. fork along with big, fat tubeless tires. When it comes to mountain bikes, it doesn't get any more stripped down and visceral than a fully rigid singlespeed. It's the perfect skill-building tool.
With the front Maxxis 2.35-inch tire aired down to 20 psi, the VerHauen is incredibly smooth and comfortable, even on rocky descents. The combination of a steel frame with carbon components is like mixing chocolate and peanut butter in a bowl; the result is magical. Because of its plush and comfortable ride – especially for a fully rigid bike – the Vassago has quickly become my go-to whip for all but the rockiest of rides. The Vassago rewards me for taking smooth, clean lines and only slightly wraps me on the wrist when I take a dumbass line, whereas the Diamond Back would have sent me headlong into a ditch.
Sure, I can't bomb downhill quite as fast and carelessly as I would like, but I can still keep up with and occasionally outrun many of my friends on full suspension bikes because the Vassago forces me to ride clean, smart and smooth. The greatest part about riding a fully rigid bike is when you park it and get on a full suspension rig. You feel like a cheetah unchained, but only if you've learned to ride a fully rigid bike first.
So whatever you want to call it – All-Mountain, Freeride or the new-fangled Enduro™ moniker – if you're new to mountain biking and you bought a full-suspension rig, you bought too much bike too soon, boss. It's like learning to drive a Formula One racecar before learning to drive a go-kart.
But there's no problem money can't fix. Just convince your significant other that in order to be a safer, better rider who will crash and injure yourself less, you need to go and pick up a fully rigid mountain bike.
The good news is that fully rigid mountain bikes like the Vassago cost a fraction of that full-sus wünderbike you just drained your bank account with. Besides, a rigid mountain bike is far cheaper than a visit to the ER after running out of talent trying to ride something well beyond your pay grade.


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Welcome to gis.iu.edu
The Indiana Spatial Data Portal (ISDP) provides access to more than 30 terabytes of Indiana geospatial data. Most datasets are available to the public for download and have no use restrictions. Indiana University's (IU) high performance networks and computing infrastructure support the ISDP which archives and provides web access to imagery provided by data partners within and outside IU. To learn more about discovering, downloading and viewing data from the ISDP, see the ISDP tutorials.
Available statewide datasets include aerial photos, topographic maps, LiDAR and elevation data, and Sanborn historic maps. In addition, the ISDP hosts several local datasets for Allen, Bartholomew, Boone, Dearborn, Gibson, Hamilton, Hancock, Hendricks, Johnson, Marion, Monroe, Morgan, Posey, Shelby and Wayne Counties.
This web site connects to Indiana University's Scholarly Data Archive (SDA) which provides long-term, disaster-tolerant data archival and distribution capabilities to hundreds of terabytes of IU data. The SDA archives data on tapes. When downloading files please be aware that you may experience a short delay (20 seconds to 1 minute) before the download begins. During this time a robotic system is locating and mounting a tape and transferring your file from tape to spinning disk.

subset: commoncrawl


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Search For Properties In Boniello Acres
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In the heart of Boca Raton, Boniello Acres real estate comprises an exclusive enclave of less than 30 residences secluded in a lush tropical landscape. With large-size properties at a minimum of one acre, Boniello Acres luxury homes for sale offer ample outdoor living spaces and are also ideal for the equestrian, with plenty of room for horses. Boniello Acres luxury real estate features impressive Mediterranean-inspired architectural designs, and some are nestled on peaceful lakes.
Located close to Delray Beach's Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, Boniello Acres homes for sale are just a short drive from magnificent ocean beaches as well as fine shopping and dining in both Boca Raton and Delray Beach. Boniello Acres is only about a 12-minute drive from Boca Raton's private executive airport, while Palm Beach International Airport is only about 30 minutes to the north.


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Honor Among Thieves - A Dishonored RP [Closed]
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The Laughing Hagfish was a small pub in one of the seedier parts of Dunwall. Coming in through the narrow door, one was hit by the smell of cheap cigarettes and even cheaper booze. The ceiling hung low and neither the floor nor the wooden tables had been cleaned properly in good over half a decade. Still, as soon as sundown neared, there were always people inside. Workers from the nearby whale oil refineries, their arms strong from cleaving through the blubber. Small-time thugs and crooks. Even a few older men whose worn-out coats told the story of clerks and accountants who had lost everything in Rudshore when the flood barriers broke. The poor and desperate came here to drown their sorrows. The district had recently been hit by the plague, but that didn't slow down business in the Hagfish. While only two blocks away, the dead counters were piling up the bodies, the two ugly barmaids were still serving and the owner still showed his pockmarked face behind the bar. The people here didn't have enough to lose to care.
One day, though, a person entered the pub who distinctively didn't belong. Six months had passed since the death of the Empress and strange figures never had been a rarity in this part of town, but this one looked too harmless to be a threat. His bright blue coat seemed like a single point of colour in the dark pub. He wore a fashionable hat and tried to hide his slim face behind a scented handkerchief. But nevertheless, everyone could see that the young man was nervous, frightened even. He had good reason to. More than one patron sized him up, but ultimately, they all seemed to decide that he wasn't worth the spilled beer. With a shudder, the man stepped to the bar, spoke with the owner and handed him a piece of paper. Then he left the pub in hurry. The barman took a short look at the paper, spit a big glob of slime on the floor, and then pinned the paper to a small board full of similar offers. It read:
"Looking for a group of people with experience in acquisition and logistics. Must be willing to work in hostile environments and late hours. Payment: 5000 Coins each. Appropriate bonuses will be paid for unexpected services. Payment also possible in form of a place on a ship leaving Gristol next month. In case of interest please come to the back room of the Laughing Hagfish tomorrow at sunset."
Accepted Characters
I'm interested but I've not play Dishonoured so for me and other people who might be in the same position could you explain more about the world? Specifically when you talk about powers, what exactly qualifies as ok and what qualifies as too powerful for this RP?
I'm sorry I hadn't though of that. I'll update my OP with a little bit of information about the world shortly. Until then, this could be used for reference:
Interested in this. I'll just wait for things to show a bit more interest before definitely committing anything.
So timeline wise this is running parallel to Corvo's story, correct?
Absolutely. As it is to Daud's story, too. I imagine there are a lot of people sneaking through the shadows in these days. There won't be huge intersections, but you may notice a few details here and there.
Since I was a fan of the game, I shall definitely express interest in this particular RP; might wait till a couple of sheets have arrived before I throw my hat into the ring, just so I can see what other people have come up with.
Colour me intrigued. I think I shall scheme on a character over the next little while and post a sheet in a bit.
Edit in with character sheet.
Name: Zelia Droite
Age: 39
Gender: Female
Appearance: Zelia Droite is of average build, with pale blonde hair tied back in a neat bun. A pair of custom-made glasses with smoked lenses fit snugly around her face, hiding her eyes from view. She wears a white, tailor-made suit with a black coat, white gloves and black shoes. Quite fancy, although the lack of her prior resources are starting to show. A closer look would show that they're starting to get a little worn in places.
Personality: Polite, affable and ambitious, Zelia is inclined to do her best to stay in the good books of those around her, a habit honed by her occupation. She's not above getting into morally unsound enterprises, but she prefers to have a measure of security. Desperate times however..
Abilities: A good talker and negociator, though her most unusual ability is one she acquired quite by accident in the process of examining a collection of whalebone charms prior to an auction. She is now possessed of perfect vision in darkness and low light. Much to her dismay however, she soon discovered that she was now almost blind in direct sunlight, necessitating her commissioning of her glasses to enable her to see during the daylight hours.
Equipment: Under more prosperous circumstances, very little of her current effects would be on her person constantly. These days, she carries a small pistol and a dagger for security, as well as two spare pairs of glasses and two hipflasks, one containing Sokolov's Elixir and one containing Piero's Remedy.
Biography: Born to a merchant family in Morley, Zelia and her parents moved to Dunwall when she was young as the business expanded. Growing up in Dunwall was relatively comfortable for the young Zelia. The family business made enough money on imported Morley goods to support the family's middle class lifestyle. In later years, her parents left Dunwall, retiring to Morley and Zelia took over the family business. Since then and prior to the financial district's flooding, she ambitiously expanded the business, gaining trading partners on the other islands in the empire, adding an auction house to the premises and as a result advancing both her wealth and social status by gaining a reputation as either having what you wanted or being able to get it. This did not stop at goods that were entirely legal either. On several occasions, the goods bid upon by collectors, nobles and other people with large amounts of coin in the more exclusive auctions were the sort of things the abbey might frown upon. So it was just as well that both her clients and Zelia herself were in possession of enough funds to persuade the abbey and the watch to turn a blind eye to what they might have heard. Unfortunately, the good life was not to last, as the flooding of the finanical district drowned her emporium and her business with it. Since then she's been living out of a small apartment she kept elsewhere in the city to occasionally store contraband goods, but with her source of funds destroyed, her emergency funds gradually dwindling and the city falling slowly into ruin, this isn't a long term solution. She's spent a large portion of her remaining funds stocking up Sokolov's Elixir and Piero's Remedy and acquiring 2 spare pairs of glasses. Now she's looking for a way out.
Reason for taking the job: Having lost most of her possessions and her business when the financial district became the flooded district, Zelia is keen to get out of Gristol as soon as possible and make contact either with some of her business associates on the other islands or her family back in Morley. The growing casualties of the rat plague have include many of her former employees and business contacts, so she has no intention of sticking around to see how long it will be before one of her wealthy clients joins the list of dead.
I like it. Nice concept, nothing too outlandish, good motivation. Though I'll warn you that her appearance could still raise some eyebrows in the Laughing Hagfish or other, seedier places.
Also, I'd like to remind everyone that if you have questions or ideas for characters you aren't completely sure of, just send me a PM.
Ah what the hell, I loved the game, love the setting. I'll give this a whirl. Give me a bit to get a sheet set up.
On an unrelated note is anyone else getting sick of the captcha's?Well here we go, tell me what you think and I can always edit, if needed.
Nice and simple, but you could certainly make her an interesting character. I don't see anything that needs immediate changing.
Excellent, I look foreward to the RP. I also plan to go home and play Dishonored again as well, partly to re-familiarize myself with the world again, partly cause reading this gave me an itch to play the game again.
Hmm this looks interesting, I have been meaning to get back to the game and finish my blink only run (side note how good is the dlc?). Could I have a street urchin kid character with a few (or maybe just one) outsider power(s)? I'm still working on the idea (and it is inspired by those lore vids from before the game came out) but at the moment I'm thinking rat summoning and/or animal possession/control, with the possibility of developing new powers later on.
Edit: Also considering windblast as a power, but only because I think it would be hilarious to have a little kid send a grown man flying through the air. Still mostly looking at the above two as they would fit the character I have in mind better.
Additional Edit: Because I feel like it would come up when discussed, the powers would be level 1 (as far as in game effects go) at least to start, there would be some drawbacks to them, likely in the form of troubled sleep and strange whisperings from the Outsider (like what you hear when approaching an outsider shrine), and he would not have as much mana to put behind the spells as Corvo does, being much younger, weaker and smaller.
Well, for one thing, I have problems imaginign that anyone would hire a little kid (let's say anyone who looks like they are younger than 16) for this kind of thing.
Yeah I read that and I realize its an unusual idea that might not fit, which is why I asked, I do have some other ideas. I could easily bump the age up to make him more employable. The idea is that he was the son of a whaler, who brought home a rune as a gift, but later died at sea leaving him an orphan, when the Overseers found his rune they brought him in, at which point the outsider gifted him some powers that let him escape. Windblast was mainly because it was a humorous image, thinking about it I will not take that one, possession was in part because of the aforementioned inspiration and also because I had the image of him possessing a rat to escape his cell, since its OP I suppose I could have him use animal control to get a rat to fetch the keys for him. At this point if I gave him any powers aside from the animal control it would be darkvision as a way of explaining how he found his way out.
Does this idea sound workable, or would you prefer I just scrap it and start working on a nonmagic char? It really wouldn't be much trouble to do so as I have a few ideas already.
Edit: I suppose since the outsider connection is too important lore-wise it could be made that he started to understand the whispers and try something, which worked, possibly having to carve the rune-symbol into his hand in the process.
You know, if you want to keep your backstory, you could. Maybe he really possesed a rat to escape from the Abbey, through a short intervention from the Outsider, but couldn't anymore after that. It's not like anyone would believe his story, anyway. In that case, he may have kept an affinity for rats (also, a disturbed mind?). So yeah, if you want to be the madman who talks to rats, you absolutely can be. Just write up that character sheet and I will look over it. If you want to do something else, that's fine as well.
That seems fine. Though, if the "best thief in Dunwall" wants to take this job, he would have to be quite desperate, wouldn't he?
Well he like to think he's the best thief in Dunwall. Weither or not he actually is, is up for debate.
Here it is, let me know if there are any problems.
Which just makes it more fun.
Interesting. I feel kind of sorry for having you have to jump through so many loops, but it seems like it was worth it.
Of course, of course. But then that's half the fun. And granted she can always wear something else if needs must but it's going to be considerable harder to get around the issue of those glasses. :D
Nah its fine, I'd rather have done so than have posted a char that wouldn't work.
You know, that's a pretty cool concept, but I don't really think this character would work with the idea of this RP.
My thinking is: use him as a distraction. He gets the guards to chase him for a while, then the rest of the team can slip in. He'd be the muscle of the group.
and every gang of thieves require the un-sneaky muscle! :D Of course I still have no say in the matter.
Yes... and also... if the group ends up stuck in a fight with a bunch of guards? Well, they'll need him to help level the playing field... since assassins and thieves aren't exactly going to be that great in an open fight. (look at how hard it is to survive an open fight against the guards in the actual game... for both Corvo and Daud)
Just wondering when closing date may be as I won't have time to write a sheet until this weekend?
I'll consider it. Though I don't really plan to throw tallboys in against them. If those sneaky characters are fighting an open, fair fight, they've obviously done something wrong ;)
I planned to choose the playing characters (I think I'll stick to four) tomorrow and then get the whole thing running friday or saturday. But if more people show interest or the given timeframe doesn't work for those who have already applied, I'll push it back a little bit.
Also, my character has a bit of a reputation among the nobility already. They already accept him as someone to expect having around. Therefore, they are likely to invite him in... as well as any friends he wants to bring along. Even though he has made it clear to the nobles that he doesn't really like attending their festivities, they keep inviting him... probably out of some kind of racist curiosity ('the mysterious foreign knight', sort of thing)... and he can be fairly charming when he wants to be... so his function is more to keep the guards and nobles looking the other way while the rest of the team does the actual sneaking... then when they're ready, he meets up with them, bullshitting his way to the vault... or whatever it is.
If its absolutely necessary... I can add a bit to his bio where he learned to pick up some skill at stealth, but not a lot... I am trying to keep him balanced here.
Alright then. You've already got a fine batch of RPers and I wouldn't want to delay the game just for my sake, so I'll withdraw my interest.
That's all fine and quite a good idea. As I said, I'll consider it. There's no need to change anything, your character is fine, but I'll have to think about how he could fit into the story.
Sorry, didn't mean to bug you.
And fair enough.
I dent out PMs to anyone I accepted, so we can start as soon as I get confirmation from everyone. Sorry for the little delay.
On the matter of time, as you may have noticed, I'm sitting in Germany. I'm also an university student. This means that I'll mainly be active during the European afternoon and evening. But I'm sure we'll find a way to make our timetables work out.
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Politics & Government
Threat of litigation looms over faulty Board of Equalization tower
Board of Equalization employee Luella Vaughn remembers her introduction to the department's notorious high-rise headquarters right after starting her job there seven years ago.
"I was on the fourth floor," she recalled. "And you could see the little brown spots. I was sitting right on top of a water leak."
Vaughn is one of 2,200 employees who work in this downtown building, 24 stories of chronic trouble. Over two decades, employees there have dealt with: Bats. Floods. Leaky windows. Toxic mold. Hazardous chemicals. Glass panels that pop off the building with no warning and shatter on the sidewalk. Fickle elevators. Corroded pipes. A broken fire system water pump. Even a hostage-taker's death.
"Of all the buildings that I've worked in," Vaughn said, "this is the worst. It looks good on the outside but the problems it has are horrendous. I've been with the state 20 years. I've never experienced anything like this."
Now, after $60 million in taxpayer-funded repairs, the Board of Equalization tower at 450 N St. remains riddled with defects, from its crumbling core plumbing to its concrete-and-glass exterior. Repairs will cost another $115 million, the tax-collecting board has estimated. All told, fixing the building could cost taxpayers more than twice its purchase price.
In the latest development, a Sacramento attorney filed a $50 million tort claim this month, a first step toward suing the tax-collecting department on behalf of employees who say their bosses downplayed the building's ailments and put workers' health at risk. The move promises years more in legal wrangling, court costs and potential settlements, all at taxpayers' expense.
Equalization officials are becoming more vocal in their concerns.
"Even though my lawyers told me not to say this, I don't think it's safe," board Chairman Jerome Horton said.
After learning that implementing the latest fixes could take five years – including two years just to do the paperwork – board member George Runner said the building represents "the great hypocrisy" of the state.
"If this building was owned by a private entity, the city would not allow it to be standing there with scaffolding around it," Runner said. "They'd insist it be fixed. But since this building is owned by the state, they can't."
Problems from the start
The agency might still be in its former headquarters across the street from the Capitol if not for the aligned interests of two powerful institutions – the Legislature and the California Public Employees' Retirement System.
For many years, the board's central unit worked at 1040 N St., across from the Capitol. Equalization officials, including longtime Chairman Ernest Dronenburg Jr., wanted more space.
"But there just wasn't any place downtown big enough," said Dronenburg, who served on the board from 1978 to 1998.
Lawmakers, however, coveted the office building for their own expanding operations. The Legislature took ownership of the building in 1989 and soon served notice that the board would have to get out.
Meanwhile, CalPERS was developing a downtown real estate investment – an 18-story tower on N Street between Fourth and Fifth streets – on behalf of its public employee beneficiaries. After CalPERS agreed to add more floors, Dronenburg recalled, the state made a deal and the board committed to moving in.
Construction on the site of a former Safeway started in 1991, and two years later, the board moved about 2,000 employees into what was called the Capitol Square Building. CalPERS spent $79.4 million on the project.
Almost immediately, the building drew complaints that it was built on the cheap and was ugly – in stark contrast to the relatively opulent $120 million Wells Fargo Building across the street.
Richard Hastings, Sacramento's design review director, blasted the board headquarters as "a repeat of a somewhat tired architectural design established in the 1950s" and noted the state government project was exempt from city zoning and design rules.
State officials countered that the tower was a good investment for CalPERS and a good deal for taxpayers footing the board's $1.60-per-square-foot lease – far less than the $2.50 per square foot commanded by the Wells Fargo tower. "There's a difference between a building that's your advertisement and one you're trying to make money on," CalPERS spokesman Craig Hartung said.
The new tower had been open for less than three months when Jim Ray Holloway arrived on the morning of March 26, 1993, carrying a shotgun, a rifle, two pistols, at least 200 rounds of ammunition – and a misplaced grudge.
After overpowering a security guard, Holloway took at least seven hostages on the building's 18th floor. He died in a storm of bullets after he leveled his shotgun at a police officer. No employees or police were hurt.
Witnesses said Holloway was angry over personal tax problems, but was probably confused about where he was. The Franchise Tax Board collects personal taxes. The Board of Equalization mostly collects business and excise taxes.
"He wasn't even looking for our people," said Dronenburg. "He got the wrong building."
The leaks begin
From its earliest days, the Equalization building leaked water during the winter.
Although documents obtained by The Sacramento Bee don't detail the first evidence of leaks, by 1994 CalPERS and other state officials were talking about water intrusion with the tower's builder, Colorado-based Hensel Phelps Construction, and Sacramento-based Dreyfuss & Blackford Architects, which designed the structure. After four years of talks and legal threats, CalPERS "was unable to resolve water intrusion issues," according to a state review of the building's history.
It is not clear why CalPERS did not sue. No one involved with the project remains at CalPERS, a fund spokeswoman said.
By 1998, water was coming into the tower via stairwells and an elevator serving the parking garage. The concrete-and-glass skin on the 23rd floor was leaking, too, along with a door on that same level. Planters on the 12th floor also allowed water into the structure.
Thomas E. Miller, a San Francisco attorney who specializes in construction-defect cases, said that such faults are common with high-rise structures, and often lead to other building failures.
"Nine times out of 10, it starts with a water-related problem," such as leaking windows, Miller said. "Improper slopes, corrosion, mechanical systems, improper ventilation. ... It's rare to find a building without some version of these problems."
Repairs and responsibility
Per the original lease agreement with CalPERS, the Department of General Services took over managing the building in 1999 and negotiated repairs with the builder and architect "in order to avoid the expense and uncertainty of litigation," according to a copy of a settlement agreement obtained by The Bee. In exchange, the state absolved both companies of responsibility for future problems.
General Services Acting Deputy Director Mike Courtney signed the deal, consigning taxpayers to picking up the tab for what have been tens of millions of dollars in subsequent repairs. Courtney now works as a project director for Sacramento-based Vanir Construction Management Inc. He declined to comment for this story.
Hensel Phelps, which recently won a $92 million construction bid for UC Irvine, didn't respond to requests for an interview.
The Dreyfuss architectural firm's art director, Raquel Urbani, responded to a request for an interview with an email: "We are not involved with (the building), you would need to speak to (General Services)."
Dreyfuss' website touts 65 public projects it has helped build, including the Sacramento Municipal Utility District headquarters, several courthouses and the CalPERS R Street expansion. It doesn't mention the Board of Equalization's headquarters.
Department of General Services spokesman Brian Ferguson said that officials at the time believed the agreement made sense because it would fix the tower's ailments.
"The contractor and architect completed all repairs in 2000 based on the best available knowledge at the time," Ferguson said. "They repaired all the known issues."
Miller, the construction-defect lawyer, said that the parties may have come to terms because insurance covering the work may have been exhausted – and that's if the companies had coverage at all.
"There's no requirement that builders have insurance," he said. "And we see situations where developers have minimum limits of liability insurance that don't cover their exposure. If those policies aren't enough to cover the risk, we wind up accepting that and moving on."
Even if the state hadn't settled, the government wouldn't have legal recourse now. California's statute of limitations for defective construction is four years or 10 years, depending on the type of defect. That clock ran out a dozen years ago.
State buys building
The state was in settlement negotiations with the builder and architect when an exterior glass panel popped off the building's east face on Sept. 1, 1999, and crashed on the sidewalk seven floors below. There were no injuries.
Eleven months later, two panels broke and threw off glass shards, one between floors seven and eight and the other between floors eight and nine. The following winter, rainwater leaked into the building below the 23rd floor.
Another panel fell from the tower's south side on New Year's Day, 2005. Four more broke from the seventh to 10th floors on Sept. 1 that year, flinging glass shards on the garage deck below. Officials ordered the building skirted with plywood-and-pipe scaffolding to protect pedestrians. Floor-by-floor construction disrupted state business when employees had to be moved out of repair zones.
The bats came in 2007, settling in on the 12th floor. A company brought in to control them never figured out how the bats got in.
Vaughn, who writes state contracts, started working in the tower that same year. Not long after, she was diagnosed with asthma, she said, and she attributes it to mold in the structure.
"They said they cleaned it," she said, "but people keep getting sick."
Sacramento attorney Perez filed tort claims against the board in 2007 alleging employees were getting ill from exposure to toxic mold. Eventually the state settled with 31 employees. The terms were not disclosed.
"From my first day on the job, I tried to move us out," said Bill Leonard, a former state legislator who served on the Board of Equalization from 2003 to 2010. He toured every floor of the tower, he said, and "started picking up horror stories from employees."
Despite all that, when an opportunity to buy the building emerged, Leonard supported it.
"We were paying an exorbitant interest rate," he said, and purchasing saved $31 million compared with a lease/purchase deal with CalPERS.
The state bought the building for $89,757,872.34, according to CalPERS records. When the fund closed the books on the project, it had earned a 12 percent annual return from the building's inception to its sale in November 2006.
No end in sight?
Leonard knew his way around the halls of the Capitol and tried to persuade former legislative colleagues and then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign off on moving the board's operations.
He and other public officials who have since pushed to relocate the board's headquarters have run up against the same fiscal roadblock. The state owes bondholders about $70 million from the 2006 purchase. The board's lease payments service the debt. If the building goes empty for total renovation or demolition, the bondholders must be paid off.
"Everyone told me, 'You're free to move as long as you find someone to take your place,' " Leonard said.
Finding new tenants would be hobbled by the building's sullied reputation. Even if one tenant or several could be persuaded to move in, the building would first have to be stripped to its bones and refurbished. A state estimate says that would take at least two years, cost unknown.
No one has suggested razing the structure, Runner said.
"What we've heard in conversations the building could be salvaged," Runner said, but it would need to be empty to give work crews complete access.
A half dozen bills in the last four years have proposed moving the agency to other facilities. The latest, by Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, authorizes $3 million for the state to find a location to build on or lease. Lawmakers would have to approve a move.
Dickinson said he's heard, however, that Gov. Jerry Brown may not sign it.
"The governor wants to look at managing existing assets first," Dickinson said. He said he hopes a state audit of the building due this summer will help swing the political pendulum in the other direction.
A spokesman for Brown declined to comment.
Equalization board members are tired of waiting. Republican Runner and Democrat Horton have been particularly pointed in their criticism of perceived bureaucratic foot-dragging.
"What frustrates me is the lack of attention from governor's offices," Runner said. "There are sexier ways to spend money than spending it on a building. ... But this isn't a political issue. It's a government efficiency issue. It's a health issue."
General Services spokesman Ferguson, however, said the tower "meets all government safety guidelines" and is regularly monitored for toxic substances.
"This is one of the most tested buildings in the state inventory," he said.
The costs to fix the tower continue piling up.
Inspections and lab tests have confirmed defects from the building's core to its outer shell. Pipes carrying wastewater from toilets and sinks are corroded throughout the tower. Inspectors say improper pipe angling and insufficient venting are to blame.
After another glass panel fell from the tower's east side more than two years ago, the scaffolding returned. About 2,000 suspect panels still need to be replaced. And the state is spending about $1 million a year to monitor air quality after trace amounts of carcinogens were discovered in the building and mold was detected in the ventilation system.
Last month officials found that a pump that directs water for the building's fire-sprinkler system was defective. The state fire marshal put the building under a "fire watch" until the pump could be repaired. The order forced the state to assign staff to walk the building looking for potential fire hazards.
And costly litigation looms unless the board settles the $50 million tort claim filed by Perez on July 2. Perez said he'll seek class-action status for the case, which claims employees remain exposed to hazardous substances in the building, despite assurances any danger has been contained.
"The claim asserts that management has told employees that the building is mold-free and safe," Perez said, "when in fact the building is not mold-free and is not safe."


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The effects of low natural-gas prices are rippling through La Plata County, a place where the energy industry has consistently served as a major pillar of the areas economy.
Gas prices fell from $5.72 per million cubic foot at the beginning of 2010 to $1.90 per mcf this month, said Christi Zeller, executive director of the La Plata County Energy Council, during a presentation last week about fracking. Nationally, current prices are at a 10-year low.
The natural-gas glut responsible for driving prices downward is forcing companies to make tough decisions about production. The Associated Press has reported that Chesapeake Energy, ConocoPhillips and Encana Corp., have announced plans to slow down drilling operations.
In La Plata County, energy companies are slowing production or moving their operations to oil-shale plays in other parts of the country, causing declines in local permit requests and natural-gas production volumes.
Ive been hearing from people talking about packing up and going to North Dakota or Texas, Zeller said in a February interview.
Since 2005, production of conventional and coal-bed methane countywide has fallen about 10 percent. The number of permits has declined from 328 in 2007 to 99 in 2011.
New projects focusing on shale gas have been tabled because production costs are much higher than the current rate of return.
WPX, the newly independent exploration and production branch of Williams, in February announced it would temporarily halt plans to drill in the Mancos Shale near Navajo Reservoir.
New technology has made shale gas an asset in our community, Zeller said. But the likelihood of companies drilling into the shale is zilch because of the price of gas, she said.
And as prices and production fall, so does the natural-gas industrys share of property taxes. In the mid-2000s, the natural-gas and oil industry carried between 60 and 65 percent of the countys property burden. In the fiscal year 2012, the number was about 49 percent.
And next year isnt looking good.
Next January, well feel the pain of last years low gas prices, said La Plata County Assessor Craig Larson in a January Durango Herald article.
The price of natural gas and production levels directly correlate with the amount of property tax revenue La Plata County receives, which affects budgeting decisions, said Joanne Spina, interim county manager.
Eyeing falling gas prices, Ignacio School District pushed hard last November for voters to approve a $50 million bond measure for the construction and remodeling of its schools.
One of the districts selling points was timing. The longer Ignacios voters waited to approve such a bond, the more the voters would have to shoulder the costs of the bond, rather than the oil and gas industry, said school board President Ed McCaw during community informational meetings about the project.
From an economic-development perspective, a lull in gas prices highlights the importance of diversification in the broader economy and within the natural-gas and oil industry.
Its important to recruit and retain companies that keep jobs here but can move and adapt their operations to whatever part of the energy industry is booming, or wherever it is booming, said Roger Zalneraitis, executive director of the La Plata Economic Development Alliance.
Companies that service natural-gas and oil operations, or those that are headquartered in La Plata County but have operations elsewhere, are valuable to the regions economy because they arent completely dependent on drilling in this area, Zalneraitis said.
We cant control natural-gas prices, he said. Instead, the key is to attract primary companies because hopefully their longevity is not as dependant on whats going on in the field in La Plata County.


text:
55.704660 13.191007
This entry was posted on torsdag, 28 juni, 2012 at 14:32 and is filed under Budapest, I like. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
"We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
― Richard Dawkins


text:
The Beechwood Hotel has hosted its share of stars.
Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence stayed at the Beechwood Hotel last year, when she was filming "American Hustle" in Worcester; so did Desmond Tutu, the South African peace activist, when he gave a speech in 2011 to a crowd at St. John's High School.
The 73-room boutique hotel at 363 Plantation St. in Worcester is a popular spot for functions in the business community. Its occupancy rate is 70 percent, considered healthy in the hotel industry.
Take a tour of the Beechwood with its owner, Dr. Charles Birbara, and his wife, Janet, and you can't help being impressed by his collection of architectural treasures that he and Janet have placed throughout the facility.
The beautiful, curved stained glass window in the hotel's restaurant, Ceres Bistro, came from a Boston home that was being torn down. The beautiful walnut fireplace in the lobby was salvaged from another private home.
Dr. Birbara can tell you the story behind every single piece of artwork on the walls of the place � because he found them, bought them and ordered where they should be placed. Don't get him started about the former City Hospital chapel he took apart, piece by piece, and had lovingly restored in the building's conference hall � at an exorbitant cost that he chooses to forget.
"It's a labor of love, this place," he said to me. "Every dime is plowed back into the business."
As we stopped to admire one of the dozens of antique posters that decorate the Beechwood, I joked with Charlie that he built the Beechwood as a kind of museum for his architectural finds. He smiled at me when I said it, not sure if I was joking or not. When I assured him that I was, indeed, joking, he laughed with me.
Charlie Birbara might be the only rheumatologist/boutique hotel owner in the country. He has a thriving medical practice that he works in during the day, then comes to the Beechwood to taste the latest offerings from the chef at Ceres, or to fuss over some minute detail of the business.
The Beechwood, which opened in 1989, is the only full-service hotel in Worcester. Its rooms range in price from $139 per night on some weekdays and Sundays, to as much as $600 per night for the presidential suite.
While the rooms have recently been renovated, and each room now has its own iPad, the hotel has a classy elegance that some travelers might consider old-fashioned. It is certainly a unique place.
The hotel is going through some changes.
In November, after 18 years in charge, longtime General Manager Mark Waxler left the Beechwood. Mr. Waxler, who was married in June, founded a private consulting group called the Waxler Hospitality Group. The company consults with hotels and restaurants, and also offers concierge/event planning services. Mr. Waxler, a Worcester resident, said he will still be part of the Worcester business community.
"I'm proud of what the Beechwood has become," Mr. Waxler told me last week. "I decided it was time to go on my own."
Replacing him is Mario A. Cuevas, a native of Mexico and naturalized U.S. citizen who grew up in Brownsville, Texas. He was most recently the general manager of the Park Plaza Hotel & Towers in Boston, and has been in the hotel business for more than 25 years. Since taking over at the Beechwood in November, he has moved his family to West Boylston.
Interesting fact about Mr. Cuevas: His father, Carlos, worked for 27 years as a warehouse supervisor at Norton Co.'s facility in Brownsville. Now Mr. Cuevas finds himself in Worcester, where Norton Co. was headquartered for many years before being bought by Saint-Gobain.
"It's funny how small the world is sometimes," he said.
The Beechwood recently signed up for the World Hotels reservation system, connecting it to other independent, four-star hotels around the world. The only other Massachusetts property in World Hotels is the Eliot Hotel in Boston.
But the Beechwood is still hampered by the fact that it does not belong to a national chain, and depends more on word-of-mouth and repeat customers than chain hotels do. With Worcester set to have hotels built at Gateway Park and CitySquare in the next two years, the Beechwood will have even more competition.
There are plans in the works to expand the Beechwood, but they are a year away. The plan is to build the addition off Ceres Bistro, and have 25 to 40 new rooms, including a grander, swankier presidential suite. There would also be an indoor pool and a spa.
Charlie told me that he has already started filling a storage container with architectural knickknacks for the hotel's addition � like the walnut wall paneling that once graced the executive suite at General Motors in downtown Manhattan.
"We will fit in there somehow," he told me.


text:
Contropussy, written by Emma Caulfield (Buffy's own Anya) and Camilla Outzen Rantsen and with art by Christian Meesey, is a very weird and incredibly exciting read. Contropussy follows the life of a cat: a housecat called Sonnet by day and a femme fatale by the name of Contropussy at night. Make no mistake, Contropussy is a contemporary embodiment of the attitude of exploitation films and underground comix of the '60s and 70s. Double O, a dog and the main love interest of Contropussy, appears exactly like Booga, TG's Kangaroo love interest, in the exploitation-style comic Tank Girl, and this homage brings to the forefront the controversy surrounding sexuality and sexual partners inherent in both comics. Because if Contropussy is sending any sort of political message, it's about who can do what with their sexuality, nay-sayers be damned.
Contropussy is brazen in its talk of sexuality, as the first introduction to the titular heroine involves her monologue about masturbation, having a one-night stand with a stray cat, and reminiscing about her break up with her partner, Double O. True to any spy-thriller, the story itself focuses on Contropussy's own adventures and mishaps, involving rescuing her friend from a cat brothel, international abductions, mind-control and the excitement and dangers of falling in love. Contropussy pushes the limits, in an often slightly-uncomfortable, maybe-don't-read-this-book-in-a-café kinda way. While it does hold back on explicit depictions of sex, it makes no qualms about what Contropussy gets up to (or who she gets down with) on her late night prowls.
While Contropussy is very true to form in imitating the comix style of an unapologetic "what can I get away with?" mindstate it is taking place in 2013 and not 1970, and the cultural implications of the gender dynamics and overt sexuality are at the forefront. Indeed, in Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature Charlies Hatfield describes Robert Crumb's "originality [as laying] in his use of such figures to express a vision at once self-regarding, almost solipsistic, yet socially aware, satirical, even politically astute." Comix, in their refusal to be censored or limited, create the perfect avenue for political play.
While Contropussy can absolutely be enjoyed for the animal-centric sexploitation romp it is, it is also hitting at some poignant issues surrounding the depiction of female sexuality. There is no escaping the reverberations of inverting and playing with typical gender dynamics, especially when using the James Bond spy-thriller genre as a framing device. This is where the exploitation element comes in: Caulfield and Rantsen show Contropussy getting down and dirty constantly, consistently and unapologetically.
The punning name "Contropussy" is a clear homage to th
e most famous Bond Girl names, such as Pussygalore and Octopussy. She is the hero of this tale, oozing sex appeal and commanding respect, while Double O is relegated to the position of a (fairly one-note) sex object. Sadly, the Double O character doesn't receive any in-depth characterization to flesh out this parody: throughout the narrative he remains the sex object, love interest and sometimes ally/sidekick for Contropussy. Despite this, towards the end of the graphic novel, Double O does provide one of the best laugh-out-loud situations when he attacks Todd Akin, who is spouting his infamous "legitimate rape" line, ultimately aligning Double O on the feminist side of the female sexuality debate. This isn't a question of what men can do with their sexuality, because they haven't faced the same shaming as women have. We admire James Bond, and slut-shame the Bond Girls. What Contropussy is wrangling with is inverting this to give the same level of respect to the feline and feminine version of Bond. It's exploitation at its finest: show Contropussy doing what Bond does, unabashedly and rather awesomely.
In exploitation genres, the brazenness that Contropussy embodies is what works. For example, in the 1970's exploitation movie TNT Jackson there is a great scene where the villain attempts to intimidate and torture TNT by threatening to burn her exposed breasts with a cigarette. The fact that the villain violently rips off her blouse shows this act is supposed to give him the power over her via controlling/threatening her sexuality. What follows is TNT handily defeating all the henchmen, wearing only panties. This scene is great and works so well in the exploitation genre because it shows TNT taking back the power that was being lorded over her: now she's showing that she can take these goons on despite being stripped, robbing the attempt of using her sexuality against h
er of any of its power. You get both: exposed breasts for titillation, but also a scene latent with a feminist backbone.
Contropussy achieves this same effect throughout the narrative. Caulfield offers Contropussy, a very sexualized character, who makes references and jokes about her preference for certain types of bondage, as a way to illustrate that sexual liberation is entirely different from sexual exploitation. Early on in the graphic novel, Contropussy saves her friends from a cat brothel (by defeating her arch-nemesis Evil Rabbit in a grindhouse-level-of-gross/in-your-face-kung-fu battle), showing that there is a difference between embodying sexuality and having that sexuality controlled, used and exploited (as further cemented through Double O's attacking of Todd Akin for his "legitimate rape" comments). Contropussy is very smart and works the exploitation/homage to the comix scene incredibly well. Caulfield and Rantsen lets Contropussy run rampant, showing that overt sexuality isn't shameful.
Beyond just the exploitation-style politics, Contropussy reads like an old-school film noir (another beloved genre the narrative is paying homage to while simultaneously inverting). For example, Contropussy describes a character who "
walks across the street like a slow, slow drag off a cigarette after a really long day." Contropussy parodies typical spy-thrillers like Hitchcock's North by Northwest, offering a narrative that shifts the power from women in spy-thrillers as just fetishized sex object to the sexy main protagonist. By inverting typical dynamics found in spy genres, and by using the exploitation style of the underground comix scene, Contropussy is designed to shock and delight. And if the name itself isn't a giveaway, there are plenty of shocks and boundaries being pushed. The use of animals works on an allergorical level, illustrating tensions found in the sexual relationships being exhibited, but it also provides shocks and laughs on a basic, literal level.
The stylized art is pitch-perfect for all of the intents of the narrative. Both realistic and exaggerated, Meesey's art evokes the glamour of thriller movies, while presenting raw, unapologetic visuals at home in comix. Rather than offering a structured narrative that centres around one achievable goal, Contropussy reads episodically, due to its origins as webcomic, where we get scenes and stories that are bound together through the reader's devotion to the characters, rather than a defining storyline. But this works, because it's not necessarily the story that matters, but how Caulfield and Rantsen are inverting typical gender dynamics and paying homage to the genres that have paved the way for anti-censorship in comics and films.
Sections of this post originally appeared on NerdSpan by Kaitlin Tremblay.


text: We've all been there: you've spent time getting ready, and are feeling pretty good, when someone takes out a camera and snaps a photo. No biggie. …until you glance at the back of the camera and can't help but notice that you're hunched over, have what looks like a triple-chin, […] Read More »


text:
Forty Under 40
Diana Golob, 31
Vice President, Ostendorf-Morris
Ten crystal awards — three of which are from NAIOP Northern Ohio, the commercial realty trade group — adorn the transom behind Diana Golob's desk at Ostendorf-Morris, where she is a vice president of corporate services and was the firm's top producer last year.
One NAIOP award, called the "Traveling Gun Award" for work outside the area, is from this year for work as part of a team that sold 55 acres in Thailand for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Others are for work on Goodyear's corporate headquarters in Akron for the woman who has done real estate deals in many foreign lands.
However, as much of an achievement is being one of the youngest agents to become an O-M vice president.
"In an industry that is male- dominated, she has risen through the ranks and currently serves as an officer of our firm, which is a fantastic example of the emerging talent in our city that thrives when given the opportunity," her supervisor, O-M partner David O'Neill, said.
With a desire to travel that took her to Florence, Italy, for a year of study through Kent State University, Ms. Golob, 31, very nearly did not land in Cleveland at all.
The Euclid native and graduate of Bowling Green State University, with a bachelor of arts in environmental policy, considered three top-ranked schools for her post-graduate work; she chose Cleveland State University's Levin College of Urban Affairs over colleges in Portland, Ore., and Madison, Wis. She did so partly because of its reputation and also because of the effort Dr. Wendy Kellogg, an associate dean, put into selling her on CSU.
"I was out of here before that," Ms. Golob said, because she wanted to travel widely and already was changing direction from a legal career. Urban affairs and later commercial brokerage, she decided, aligned closer to her interests.
After earning a master's in urban planning, Ms. Golob worked for the city of Cleveland's community development department before joining O-M.
She is all about efficiency, living on the Gold Coast in Lakewood because of its short commute. She is a board member and a programming committee member of the Commercial Real Estate Women of Cleveland trade group. She also runs and lifts weights.


text:
Taihe Wild Bunch will identify Chinese films with international potential and sell the Wild Bunch catalogue, including remake rights, into China.
Wild Bunch is joining forces with Chinese integrated entertainment group Taihe Media to create a new Beijing-based international sales and distribution company.
The new outfit, called Taihe Wild Bunch, will focus on the international sale and distribution of Chinese productions as well as the sale of the Wild Bunch catalogue, including remake rights, into China.
The new partners described the venture as the first international sales structure to operate out of Mainland China.
A key pole of its activities will be to identify Chinese talent and features with international potential.
"We've been keen to increase our involvement with the Chinese movie industry for some time and we feel we've found the right partner, both to develop our ability to expose Chinese movies abroad and to strengthen our distribution power in China," said Wild Bunch co-chief Vincent Maraval.
Founded in 2001, Taihe Media is one of the most influential entertainment group's in China.
Its subsidiaries include music company Taihe Rye, which created acts such as top Chinese boy band M.I.C.; TV and film powerhouse Pegasus & Taihe, which is currently producing the ambitious 3D docudrama Imperial City, Beijing, and Taihe Pictures, the recent credits of which include 1 Mile Above and Sino-German romantic comedy I Phone You.
"We also look forward to supplementary opportunities with our new partner in this very exciting market," added Maraval.
Chuck Zhang, general manager of Taihe Pictures, said the pact would create a much-needed opening for the Chinese film industry into the international market.
"The core of the Chinese film industry has limited contact with the international market and that is what we intend to address. We will seek to use international partners and to apply financially sound criteria to create a boutique catalogue," he said.
Paris-based sales and production powerhouse Wild Bunch has a long history of working with Chinese talent and features.
Wild Bunch co-chief Brahim Chioua co-produced Chen Kaige's 1998 Gong Li-starrer, $20m The Emperor and the Assassin, which at the time was one of the biggest Chinese productions to date.
Maraval executive produced Lou Ye's 2004 Purple Butterfly, set against the backdrop of 1930s Shanghai, just before the start of the Sino-Japanese War.
In the early days of Wild Bunch, the company produced and sold Hong Kong filmmaker Fruit Chan's Durian Durian.
Most recently, the company has handled the sale of Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmaster and is a co-producer and distributor on Jean-Jacques Annaud's upcoming Mongolia-set, 3D epic Wolf Totem.
Taiehe Wild Bunch will be based in Beijing and will be controlled by Taihe Pictures.
The management team has yet to be announced.


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Thank you for visiting our website! Below you will be able to find the answer to Close with force crossword clue which was last seen on NewsDay.com Crossword, March 13 2017. Our site contains over 2.8 million crossword clues in which you can find whatever clue you are looking for. Since you landed on this page then you would like to know the answer to Close with force. Without losing anymore time here is the answer for the above mentioned crossword clue:
We found 2 possible solutions in our database matching the query Close with force
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|Mosquito attack
|Skeptic's words
|Really like
|Casino city near Tahoe
|Strike, as at a mosquito
|Kris Kringle
|Bottom of a boot
|Playing surface for pro hockey
|Hair-salon goops
|Rebellious uprisings
|Cold Russian region
|Drop into the mailbox
|Gorilla or chimp
|Auntie's daughter
|Elaborate party
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|Disneyland shuttle
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|Manuscript enclosure: Abbr.
|Shade source
|Give off
|In a half-hearted manner
|Bring cheer to
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|Night before a holiday
|Maple or mahogany
|Zeus and Apollo
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|Opera solo
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|D.C. subway
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|Strong point
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|Tax-collecting agcy.
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|''Put a lid __!''
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|Color slightly
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|Reflections from mirrors
|Allowed by law
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|Swelled heads
|Butter portions
|Bike's wheel
|Jazz wind instrument
|Bank's addition into an acct.
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text:
Neither of us is in favour of the status quo. I support full legalisation and regulation; he - I hope this is a fair characterisation - supports harsher penalties and stringent enforcement aimed at near-eradication of recreational cannabis use.
My remarks are intended as a starting point for debate - I've drawn on three of Hitchens's blog posts and addressed a variety of points (his remarks, taken from the specified blog post in each case, are in bold), without pretending to present a comprehensive manifesto for cannabis legalisation.
My starting point is that we should presume that behaviours should be legal, and then ask - are there good reasons to make this behaviour a criminal offence? My answer is no. Ordinary cannabis users derive great enjoyment and – yes – pleasure from their indulgence in the weed. Many report taking it in modest quantities and find that it aids relaxation, enhances their appreciation of food, music, art and sex, and even stimulates creativity. To deny these benefits by more effective prohibition would involve far more oppressive measures, for the sake of preventing abusive overindulgence and the risk of cancer which accompanies smoking (though not as far as I know ingestion or inhalation of vapour). Those risks could be adequately mitigated, or in the case of the cancer risk, properly and – one might hope - honestly publicised, under legalisation and regulation.
Overblown claims about the dangers are rightly seen as ridiculous by those who know anything about it, which makes officialdom look foolish and means that even accurate information is likely to be disregarded. Legal regulated cannabis would be of known strength and free from such very harmful adulterants as wax, petrol, even plastic, which can be found in poor-quality illegal hashish. The current system already exposes users to criminal sanctions and means they must become involved at the margins of the criminal world to get hold of it, with the concomitant aversion to police and contempt for the law.
People need to be treated like adults, rather than infantilised by what some might refer to as the nanny state. Danger may be a reason for regulation, but with few exceptions like weapons, not for criminal sanctions on behaviour which need not be dangerous, and specifically not dangerous to others.
The ban on displaying cigarettes in shops will cause fewer people to smoke, as all the other measures have since the first health warning appeared on the first packet. And in time this strange, self-destructive habit, which is actually very new and only really invaded the civilised world during two disastrous wars, will be banished to the margins of life.
But this is not prohibition – it is regulation. A legalised cannabis would surely face the same – or stronger – restrictions. And that would, on the parallel used here, lead to its use being 'banished to the margins of life'. Prohibition – especially the thoroughgoing, stamp-it-out prohibition that is apparently required, is a very different matter, with criminal records, prison sentences (which impact on family of course) and a vastly expanded police operation.
Then we will have proof prohibition does sometimes work, if it is intelligently and persistently imposed. And the stupid, fashionable claim that there is no point in applying the laws against that sinister poison, cannabis, will be shown up for what it is – selfish, dangerous tripe. Where we can save people from destroying themselves, we must do so.
We will not have such proof, since this is not prohibition, and is also following rather than leading public attitudes (quite apart from other confounding factors which mean this is nothing like a controlled experiment).
In the case of cannabis and other illegal drugs, it is still quite possible, through enforcement, to discourage all but the most determined from taking up the use of drugs which are not part of our culture and which are widely (and justly) viewed with suspicion. For that, possession must remain an offence and be effectively prosecuted.
By the way, I really do hope those posting here who continue to deny the possibility of a link between cannabis and mental illness will soon grow up and start acting responsibly. Don't they realise that some young person, acting on their complacent, ill-informed advice, might end up needlessly in a locked ward? And it will be their fault. Can they really not face the infinitesimally small risk of prosecution, and the still smaller one of actual punishment, as the price of their nasty pleasure? In that case, are they really the bold revolutionaries they imagine themselves to be? Must they sacrifice others for it? And how long will they continue to expect that the rest of us will take their insistence that 'it never did me any harm' at face value? As I've pointed out before, they're not the ones to say. The self-regard of these people is limitless, and is perhaps a sign of the deeper damage done by this drug even to those who appear superficially to be unharmed by it.
I can't agree with this: the reason given for extending much harsher penalties to a substantial proportion of the population is that cannabis is 'not part of the culture' and 'widely (and justly) viewed with suspicion'. The justice of the suspicion is treated as an afterthought, despite being the important point.
If cannabis use is so harmful that we must attempt to stamp it out by the use of harsh penalties and vastly expanded detection efforts, rather than bringing it under regulatory control by legalisation, one would expect to be able to find good evidence of such extreme harmfulness (assuming that we are willing to accept that extreme social engineering should be brought to bear in any case). So where is this evidence? There actually doesn't seem to be any worth the name.
There is a burgeoning industry of producing studies that aim to find a link between cannabis and diagnoses of psychotic conditions, and of publishing those which do purport to find some evidence of such a link. But almost every such study includes a caveat stating that it has not been possible to establish a causal link from cannabis use to psychosis. The fact that those diagnosed with mental illness are much more likely to smoke tobacco, more likely to smoke cannabis and more likely to drink than the general population is not as far as I know in doubt among mental health professionals, and is generally regarded as a form of attempted self-medication. But of course there are no studies being done into the effects of alcohol or tobacco on psychosis, because this hasn't been rendered salient by the talking points of the pro-alcohol and other interest groups.
The fact that schizophrenia tends to emerge at around the age of twenty in the population at large, and that most people who start smoking cannabis do so in their late teens provides a ready source of bad statistics. Perhaps the most important kind of bad evidence adduced in support of this thesis is anecdote, often accepted by the general public because it is vivid and emotive and may come from a trustworthy individual who is not to be suspected of lying. But first, there a crashingly obvious selection bias here (as in the publication criteria for 'reefer madness' studies) - parents are not queueing up to testify that their offspring smoke a fair bit of cannabis without ill-effect, and if any were, their accounts would not be considered newsworthy. And second, there is a more personal source of bias - cannabis provides a handy exogenous explanation for a variety of ill-effects, from truancy to chronic paranoid schizophrenia.
The real division between me and the druggies - who can't see it because the concept that anything *they* do might be wrong is foreign to them - is this: I contend that it is morally wrong to stupefy yourself, and morally wrong to damage yourself or take a conscious risk of damaging yourself, with the aim of getting physical pleasure...in a period of moral weakness, relativism and uncertainty, such as we now live in, the law must intervene where personal self-restraint has failed, or the weak and gullible will suffer at the hands of the strong and greedy.
Stupefaction: that it is morally wrong does not of course entail that it should be subject to criminal sanction. The hoary example of adultery will do for one. Further, the claim that it is morally wrong in itself – rather than when done in some specifically irresponsible way such as when driving or in charge of children - is a hard one to justify. I confess to not really knowing where to start in rebutting thus argument – it just seems obvious to me that this isn't the case, and that's not going to convince anyone who disagrees with me. I suppose I would say the burden of proof, as with regard to the need for prohibition, lies on those who make the claim.
But certainly Peter Geach – an eminent philosopher who has examined the issue in depth from a traditionalist, Christian perspective - concludes in The Virtues that such a case can't be made out – a view shared by his wife Elizabeth Anscombe:
If drinking alcohol is wrong, the reason is not that it makes you less alert than you might possibly be, but that makes you less alert than you then and there ought to be; and the degree to which you ought to be alert varies very much… a man safe tucked up in bed has no duty for even the lowest degree of alertness, for he could lawfully just go to sleep. There are mediate cases, into the casuistry of which I will not enter.
If we may for the moment abstract from the question whether the law-breaking that may be involved is morally objectionable, then we ought, I think, to judge about cannabis indica much as we judge about alcohol…
I have only considered the relaxation of the intellect from the height of attentiveness; a height, let me repeat, that we have no obligation to try to maintain.
(I should add here that Geach slightly obfuscates his first formulation of the principle that drinking in bed is acceptable by making it conditional on the aim of self-healing by consumption of hot toddy – but he makes it clear that there is no obligation to remain fully alert. In eth section that follows he makes a curt and I think inadequate argument against 'blowing one's mind' with hallucinogenics, but that need not really concern us.)
Conscious risk: I would dispute the degree of risk, though of course for those who smoke cannabis rather than ingesting it or using a vaporiser there is a risk similar to that of smoking tobacco. But I would simply say that this seems a highly paternalistic doctrine, and recalling that the discussion is of imposing harsh penalties on users, it seems to grant unacceptable power to the state to regulate private conduct, by means of a 'cure' that would impose severe penalties and intrusive policing so as to be worse than the 'disease'.
Obviously this prohibition doesn't apply to pain-killers or anaesthetics properly used, since these do not have this trivial aim.
This is to rest a good deal of weight on one's assessment of what is a trivial aim – by this standard, who is to say that bungee jumping, hang-gliding, driving through country roads, watching television, playing scrabble do not have a trivial aim and merit prohibition? Are we really going to legislate this kind of question?
It does apply to people who smoke tobacco (on the wilful self-damage argument), hence my support for legal restrictions on its sale and use.
But not stamping it out by a comprehensive prohibition campaign.
It applies to some, but in my view not to all, drinking of alcohol. The distinctions here (unlike with cannabis) are usually a matter of quantity, so I support laws limiting the sale of alcohol and taxes and pricing policies intended to discourage public drunkenness, and acts of violence committed when drunk.
But alcohol is just as much a matter of quantity as cannabis. And again, alcohol gets regulation and laws directly addressing its ill-effects, while cannabis is to be eradicated if at all possible.
The rank injustice of criminalising weed-smokers while pubcos are allowed to churn out alcopops is notable. And the laws which regulate alcohol use are not notably successful in moderating its ill effects – effects which are absent in the case of cannabis. You don't get the A&Es full of dope-smokers at the weekends: you don't have dope-smokers crowding the city centres fighting and swearing and smashing the place up. You don't have wife beating-cannabis-smoker syndrome. You don't have people traumatising their children by being visibly psychotically drunk when they smoke dope.
It's worth mentioning too that cannabis is a competitor for alcohol as a way to spend the night - and to a large degree the later hours of the night out - which is much less damaging to the individual than heavy drinking and makes people more considerate and much less aggressive than a drunk while they're on it.
I also support the teaching as truth of the Christian religion, which specifically counsels moderation in drinking and by implication opposes the stupefaction provided by the illegal narcotics.
A law which failed to distinguish between the person who drank a couple of glasses of wine or beer with a meal, and the person who consumed several pints of strong lager followed by large quantities of vodka would be a silly law, because it treated wholly different actions as the same.
Whereas anyone who smokes dope or takes cocaine or heroin 'at all' is in the same category.
Again, this is incorrect.
Drugged, zonked, stupefied, self-deludingly euphoric and in some cases hallucinating. That's why they take these things, for heaven's sake.
See my introduction for an alternative – and of course I would say much more accurate – view.
Drunks know they are drunk. Dope-smokers often don't know that they are stoned, or how stoned they are, or that they are talking or writing gibberish.
Again, they do know they are stoned, and how stoned they are – and of course drinking alcohol has been known to make people talk nonsense, often aggressive nonsense – and this effect does not necessarily require a very heavy dose. But so what if people talk a bit of nonsense when they are having a smoke?
Of course the pro-legalisers have a lot of big money behind them, and one has to wonder where it comes from, given that the legalisation of the major narcotics would be an enormously lucrative business among the wealthy pleasure-seekers of Western Europe and the Anglosphere.
I don't think this is accurate, either. while at one point (in the 70s I believe) tobacco firms did prepare packaging for legal joints in case legalisation should become a reality, I'm not aware that anyone has found them to be lobbying directly for such legalisation, nor funding the pro-legalisation movement. On the contrary, cannabis being in large part a competitor with alcohol, the campaign against it is known to be supported financially by those with an interest in the big drinks companies. See e.g. http://blog.mpp.org/tax-and-


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wfaler necesitaba un nuevo diseño de botón o icono y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 11 diseños de 7 diseñadores freelance.
I'm a one man "software development shop" making Mac desktop applications, iphone applications and webapps.
This particular icon will be used as the main application and file icon for a Mac desktop application for small business accounting/bookkeeping and personal finance.
The target audience is Mac using individuals and small businesses looking for a simple application to use for their bookkeeping, accounting and/or tracking of personal finances.
The application uses a traditional ledger/double account entry metaphor to register bank account movements, expenses, income etc, though dramatically simplified (no double entry is actually required).
The icon needs to be delivered as a 128x128 pixel sized tiff image with a transparent background (unless the full space is used by the icon/image).
If you can deliver it in sizes of 512x512 and 256x256 as well, that would be a plus (so feel free to design it in 512x512 and scale it down, as long as it looks good scaled down).
The name of the product is "RecursiveBooks".
I will give designers relative freedom in terms of design, though I suspect the best metaphores for the icon would be something around book keeping, books, money, acconts, income-expenses etc, as that is the use of the application.