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Having been lucky enough to spend Sunday with my own grandmother (a breast cancer survivor), my mother and my daughter, I am filled with joy. So I thought I would dedicate this blog to all the women out there who have faced the challenges of cancer while carrying a child. Or in the case of a recent woman I met, twins!
One of the first women I met when I was going through chemotherapy was 28 and seven months pregnant. Her doctor had advised her to end her pregnancy and instead, she was being treated with chemo in her last trimester and doing quite well. In 2002, this was still fairly experimental treatment. I remember her talking about the hope that the chemo would not harm her unborn child and her fear about the rapid growth of the cancer during her pregnancy.
Fast forward to 2009 and I meet a darling, bald woman at the doctor's office who has just had my exact same 15 hour surgery. Here's the great part – she had that surgery 6 weeks after the delivery of her healthy twins!
In my own case, I was not pregnant when I had cancer, but due to my "advance maternal age" and combination of chemotherapy drugs, I was given a less than 10 percent chance of having a child. I found this out on the day I was diagnosed. I remember in this four hour window I learned I had cancer, I thought I was going to die, I realized I might live after 9 months of chemo, surgery and radiation, and then I learned the harsh fact that I would probably never be a mother. I still have the conversation on tape in case I missed anything. Seven years later (almost to the day when I had that shocking conversation), I have never been able to bring myself to listen to the tape.
I didn't believe it then and now I have proof that it was not true. As I ran along the beach with my four year old daughter on Sunday, I realized there are so many of us women out there who were told that the dream of motherhood would be taken away from them because of cancer. I want to hear from all of you who beat those odds. Happy Mother's Day to you! And for all of you (my friends and family included) who have lost your mothers to cancer, I send you my heartfelt sadness at your losses.


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subset: commoncrawl


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Make sure the elevator or other conveyance in your building is safe. Use this handy search tool to look up the inspection history for an elevator, escalator and other conveyances in Washington State -- except for Spokane and Seattle.
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A list of elevator program-related meetings for the calendar year, elevator program bulletins, Safety Advisory Committee agenda's and minutes.
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Information regarding inspections on new installations, most frequently cited items on new inspections, temporary operation permits and alteration permits.
Building Owner Information
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Price from
Journey through the misty jungles of Rwanda and catch families of Mountain Gorillas playing, relaxing and eating in the foliage.
Trekking through the Rwandan jungle can be a strenuous experience, however the reward of coming face to face with a family of gorillas is a memory that will stay with you forever. After a night spent in our lodge, nestled in the scenic slopes of the Sabinyo Volcano, hike through thick bamboo forest, alpine moorland and dense jungle to the habitat of one of ten mountain gorilla families. Sit quietly and wait for these magnificent creatures to emerge from the wilderness – a truly breathtaking moment.
- Start
- Kigali, Rwanda
- Finish
- Kigali, Rwanda
- Destination
- Rwanda
- Style
- Peregrine
- Code
- Physical rating
- Ages
- Min 15
- Group size
- Min 1, Max 4
Why you'll love this trip
Come face-to-face with rare mountain gorillas on the ultimate wildlife adventure. Trek through Rwanda's steamy jungle and spend an unforgettable hour in the presence of these majestic creatures.
Stay in a boutique hotel nestled at the foot of the stunning Virunga Mountains. Get ready for breath-taking views.
Discover a different, darker side to the country at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre – a place to learn about and reflect on the atrocities the Rwandan people faced in the mid-90s.
Is this trip right for you?
Tracking gorillas in the dense forest can sometimes be wet, muddy and uncomfortable. The terrain is by no means easy either, so it can be pretty strenuous and often humid. But the sheer thrill in coming across a habituated group of gorillas, dominated by a great male silverback, more than outweighs any difficulty. You need to be prepared and fit enough to walk up to 4 hours - up and down hill. Perhaps pack some gardening gloves to assist in any up-hill climbs.
Although this is an Independent Experience, your gorilla trek will be a shared activity. You will be accompanied by other travellers, with a maximum of 8 people per gorilla family, plus your guides.
Our Independent Experiences have been designed for just one to three people, departing every day of the week for most experiences. You can mix and match to create your perfect trip combination, then we'll arrange the transport between each experience for you. You will have local guides at most destinations and activities. It's independent travel without the stress.
Upon your arrival you will visit the Genocide Museum, which was opened in 2004 to mark the tenth anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide. Whilst the genocide occurred as a result of a complex series of factors, it can only be seen as an absolute tragedy to Rwanda and its people. Time spent at the museum is sure to be emotionally moving, but it is an important way to understand the sheer courage and resilience of the people of this beautiful, tiny nation.
Then you travel towards the gorillas with a drive through the verdant rolling hills of Rwanda. You'll be staying in the Musanze region (formerly Ruhengeri).
Hotel facilities include a pool, restaurant, bar & lounge with fireplace and incredible views of the Volcanoes.
The Volcanoes National Park is the oldest national park in Africa, and it was specifically created to protect the habitat of the gorillas.
- Mountain Gorilla View Lodge or similar (1 night)
Included Activities
- Complimentary Airport Arrival Transfer
- Kigali - Genocide Memorial Audio Guide
- Kigali - Genocide Memorial Centre
Meals Included
- Dinner
Special InformationAn airport arrival transfer is included. Please provide your flight details at the time of booking, or at a minimum 15 days prior to travel so the transfer can be arranged.
Notes: Your gorilla trek will be a shared activity. You will be accompanied by other travellers, with a maximum of 8 people per gorilla group, plus your guides.
- Mountain Gorilla View Lodge or similar (1 night)
Included Activities
- Volcanoes National Park - Mountain gorilla trek & permit
Meals Included
- Breakfast
- Lunch
- Dinner
- Hôtel des Mille Collines or similar (1 night)
Optional Activities
- Volcanoes National Park - Dian Fossey's Memorial - USD90
- Volcanoes National Park - Golden Monkeys Trek Permit & guide (from price) - USD115
- Volcanoes National Park - Full Day Mt. Bisoke Hike - USD75
- Volcanoes National Park - Nature walk Rwanda - USD55
- Ruhengeri - Venge Village walk - USD35
- Volcanoes National Park - Additional Gorilla Trek Permit - USD1870
Meals Included
- Breakfast
- Lunch
Special InformationIf you are interested in the additional Gorilla Trek permit it is advised to pre-book this activity at time of purchase of the main tour, in order to ensure availability. Please note the prices of these options are not inclusive of transport costs to and from the activity. Please note that the roads leading to both of the above treks are not in the best condition, so be prepared for a rough and bumpy ride.
Included Activities
- Kigali - City Tour
Meals Included
- Breakfast
Special InformationYour international departure flights from Kigali today should not be booked to depart before 1pm.
Meals3 breakfasts, 2 lunches, 2 dinners
TransportPrivate vehicle
AccommodationHotel (1 night), Lodge (2 nights)
Included Activities
- Complimentary Airport Arrival Transfer
- Kigali - Genocide Memorial Audio Guide
- Kigali - Genocide Memorial Centre
- Volcanoes National Park - Mountain gorilla trek & permit
- Kigali - City Tour
Dates & availability
Trip search is unavailable.
There are currently no scheduled departures on our Mountain Gorillas of Rwanda Experience - Independent trip. If you are interested in other trips in the region visit one of the links below.
Jump to a departure month
Important notes
There is a minimum age of 15 years for the gorilla tracking.
This trip requires an additional non-refundable deposit ( AUD2400, USD2400, EUR1800, NZD2700, GBP1500, CAD2400, ZAR20000, CHF2000 ) in order to secure a gorilla trek permit. We also require passport details at time of booking.
All tourists requiring a Rwanda visa MUST pre-register for their visa prior to arrival in Rwanda. Details such as name, passport number, arrival port and arrival details need to be submitted on a form over the web. A pre-registration acceptance letter is then emailed to you which you need to print out and take with you to present on arrival in Rwanda.
Please note that lodge based activities on your Independent Experience will be on a join-in basis. This means that these activities may be shared with other guests at the property.
An airport arrival transfer is included. Please provide your flight details at the time of booking, or at a minimum 15 days prior to travel. Please ensure you arrive into Kigali prior to 1 pm on Day 1 for transfer to Ruhengeri. If you are unable to arrive by 1 pm you will need to arrive a day earlier and book accommodation in Kigali. This trip finishes in Kigali on Day 4. Please do not book any flights until after 1pm this afternoon.
Essential trip information
Want an in-depth insight into this trip? Essential Trip Information provides a detailed itinerary, visa info, how to get to your hotel, what's included - pretty much everything you need to know about this adventure and more.View Essential Trip Information


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In two prior posts, I outlined a problem that has been occurring with Google's Blogger program showing a weird font. Everything in the menus comes up in Amharic script. Here is a screen shot showing the Blogger menu bar in the foreign script:
You can click on any image to see it full size. OK, so after I wrote the two blog posts on this problem and sent Google a request for help and posted the problem in detail on the Google Help Forum, I got quite a few helpful suggestions. I also had some long discussions with programmers around the world.
I kept working on the problem and isolated some facts:
1. The problem is entirely confined to Blogger.
2. The problem is not with any one browser. All of the browsers see the same font problem. I have tried Internet Explorer on a PC, Safari, Opera and FireFox in addition to Chrome.
3. The problem is not confined to any one computer or operating system. It shows up on PCs running Windows 8.1 and on iPads running Apple iOS.
4. It does not involve a language selection issue. I have gone to every level of language selection available and made the selection to English and it makes no difference to the Blogger interface.
5. It does not involve a cookie or whatever. I have completely reset and removed all cookies and that also had no effect.
Now, I know what it is not, but I still had not identified what it was. Finally, my son-in-law, who is an Internet portal programmer, came to visit after Christmas. He went through all of my investigations and then started comparing the Blogger interface when someone else signed in to the interface on my account. He noticed that the URL in my account was missing an important element
That's what is missing. When you insert this code into the URL of my Blogger account, you get a restored menu screen:
However, the fix is only temporary. Apparently Blogger thinks my account is in Amharic and there seems to be no setting preferences that change its mind on the subject. The code has to be inserted in the URL before # and there needs to be a ? in the URL before the insertion point. If there is no ? then the code has to look like this:
So, the problem is with a command that is coming from the Blogger program thinking that I need Amharic.
Thanks so much to all those who have made suggestions so far. We still need to analyze how the program is omitting the code, but it does help to be able to clear up the menus temporarily.
When this first happened I thought it might be a malicious attack on my blog. But I began to be convinced that it was a settings problem. Now I am beginning wonder again if there isn't a code problem with Blogger that only Google can see. Of course Google has been absolutely no help at all and has not responded to my reported complaint.
Stay tuned for future developments.


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Lady Wu Edit: This is now the official general information thread for SGYYS. It has two parts: Cao Zhi's "Posting Guidelines" and my FAQ.
The SGYYS, like the other forums in the Academy Garden, is a mature place where one can discuss scholarly topics and receive feedback. It is a place where one must scrupulously observe the rules so a scholastic enviornment can be preserved. To that end, posters will observe the following guidelines before posting:
Proper attention to the Forum Rules regarding spam, flames, and trolling will be scrupulously observed.
Use your heads and follow the same format in posting that you would in preparing a formal paper for a professor or teacher. Mistakes are fine and are to be expected from time to time. But a dilligent effort at using the shift key and proper punctuation will be expected. Proper use of spelling and grammar will hold you in a much higher stead than will 'chat room talk'. This is a mature forum, therefore your posts must also be mature. Any instances of 'chat-room talk' will be squashed without question.
Please post in the proper forum. Discussions on Koei games must be made in their own respective forums.
Before you post, please make an attempt to see if your topic already exists. This can be done with a brief search or with a glance into the Index of Common Threads. New users are also encouraged to browse through the first four or five pages of the Symposium and to reply to some topics in order to get a feel for what has already been posted and what is currently being discussed before they start new threads of their own.
When posting, please describe your topic as accurately as you can in the title.
When posting your topic, give a background. This is so that people will have a good idea of what it is you are speaking and it will provide insight as to what you want answered or discussed.
If you need assistance or have a question, feel free to ask. This thread exists for brief questions.
Enjoy yourselves while you are here. Learn some new things, and challenge your mind!


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Why Do India's GDP Figures Keep Shifting?
By Anant Vijay Kala and Mukesh Jagota
Later Friday, India's government will announce its first official forecast of economic growth in the year to March 31.
But how seriously should we take these numbers?
Many governments around the world revise economic data. But India's revisions are particularly large. Last week, the government slashed growth for the year ending March 31, 2013, to 4.5% from 5.0%, but raised the estimate for the year before that to 6.7% from 6.2%. What was earlier thought to be a gradual growth slowdown, turned out to be a much bigger slide.
"Such data don't inspire much confidence about what is really happening in the economy," said Rajiv Biswas, chief economist for the Asia-Pacific region for research firm IHS. "India needs to improve its methods of data estimation."
What causes such large variations? Economists said it happens all over the world as statisticians update their numbers as they get better information.
In India's case, the way the government collects data contributes to the swings.
For instance, the government calculates initial GDP estimates using incomplete, monthly industrial production numbers. Subsequent GDP estimates use more-precise industrial data collected direct from each sector.
Listed companies, for example, announce their annual earnings and production for a fiscal year around May but it isn't until six months later that they are required to submit their audited results to the government. The government then takes another six months to start calculating the totals for each industry but doesn't use those numbers to tweak GDP figures until months after that. Thus the final government survey of what it calls the Annual Survey of Industries takes close to two years to complete, government officials said.
India isn't the only country that recalculates its GDP growth. The United States regularly announces big swings in estimates of what happened in quarters years ago. U.S. GDP growth estimates for the third quarter of 2009, for example, have been changed no less than seven times. What was initially estimated to be a 2.8% expansion that quarter was last downgraded last July to 1.3% growth.
India also has the disadvantage of dealing with millions of small firms in the informal part of the economy, many of which don't pay taxes. Tracking them isn't easy and government officials have to rely on surveys and statistical estimates.
There are similar difficulties in India's farm sector, which employs more than half of India's workforce. Most farmers own small tracts of land, making it difficult to determine who is growing what. Authorities rely on satellites to gauge crop production. But factors such as the rainfall can have a huge impact on actual crop output.
Former Reserve Bank of India Governor D. Subbarao highlighted the challenges last year.
He said the central bank could have begun tightening monetary policy earlier and proceeded more aggressively had India's GDP estimates correctly reflected the country's sharp recovery following the global financial crisis of 2008.
Mr. Subbarao raised the RBI's main lending rate 13 times between 2010 and 2011 but they failed to bring down inflation.
While policy makers aren't getting the kind of data needed for making effective decisions, the silver lining of the latest downgrade is that last year's lower-than-estimated GDP may mean India can record a small improvement in growth this fiscal year.


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Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, admitted recently that global warming is not a hoax, but that we needn't worry: "We have spent our entire existence adapting, OK? So we will adapt to this. Changes to weather patterns that move crop production areas around — we'll adapt to that. It's an engineering problem, and it has engineering solutions." Tillerson's buddies at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce added, "Populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of behavioral, physiological and technological adaptations."
Worldwide, a billion people are already dangerously malnourished, with the climate crisis playing a major role. But apparently those facing starvation should stop whining and look forward to "adapting" by "engineering" their bodies to not need food.
And here's how that "adaptation" thing is going in America. The average July temperature in the US this summer was 5.5 degrees hotter than in 1896. Record-breaking heat and drought are torching two thirds of the country. Natural disasters have been declared in 32 states, the most in our history. Much of the Midwest grain crop has "physiologically adapted" to this new climate, by dying. You and I will soon "financially adapt" by paying a lot more for food.
The wells supplying water to some MidWestern families are "adapting" by drying up. Mississippi River flow is at a 40 year low allowing, among other things, salt water from the Gulf of Mexico to creep north, threatening larger community water supplies.
Forty million acres of Western forests have "acclimatized" to the stress of heat and drought by expiring from pine beetle infestation — a direct result of climate warming. Since 2010, unprecedented wildfires have overwhelmed Western and Southern states. Oklahoma is currently enjoying its turn "adapting" to the new climate — 113-degree temperatures and explosive wildfires roaring across the state.
Warmer, more acidic oceans (from increases in heat-trapping CO2) are forcing the foundation of marine ecosystems — phytoplankton — to "acclimatize" by disappearing. These tiny organisms consume CO2 to produce half the world's oxygen, equaling that of trees and plants on land. Ocean phytoplankton has fallen 40 percent since 1950. Most of the coral reefs are now "adapting" by bleaching (the first stage of dying). Note to Tillerson and the Chamber: Land and ocean ecosystems are interdependent (Ecology 101). In fact the fossil and climate record shows strong evidence that if marine life is obliterated, land-based ecosystems, the basis for human survival, will "adapt" by collapsing from massive, toxic climate disruptions (see Under a Green Sky by University of Washington paleontology professor, Peter Ward).
Water temperature in Midwestern streams has soared this summer, causing millions of fish to "physiologically adapt" by floating to the surface, dead, including 40,000 sturgeon and numerous endangered species. So many fish died in one Illinois lake that the carcasses clogged a power plant's intake screen, forcing a partial shutdown.
Water hot enough to kill fish cannot adequately cool nuclear power plants, so they are also "technologically adapting" by becoming more dangerous. Last week, the temperature of the reservoir water used to cool the Illinois Braidwood nuclear power plant exceeded the safety limit of 98 degrees. The end result? Efficiency, safety and power output all drop during extreme heat. The same is true of coal-fired power plants.
The non-profit Electric Power Research Institute, scientists and engineers funded by the power-generating industries themselves, released a study that proponents of nuclear power should have to memorize like the pledge of allegiance. Their study specifically warned of the threat a warming climate posed to all thermoelectric power plants. No U.S. nuclear reactors were designed factoring in water temperatures as high as we are now seeing. All their owners have done so far is ignore the warnings and declare hotter cooling water "safe," as was the case at Braidwood last week and at other nuclear plants as well.
New nuclear reactors approved this year for construction in Georgia, and soon in South Carolina, don't address this problem, either. It turns out the nuclear industry is "technologically adapting" to our new, more dangerous climate — by ignoring it.
Fossil-fuel cheerleaders continue to claim that we have little to worry about. Apparently, Americans will "behaviorally adapt" to decimated agriculture, ecosystems and energy infrastructure by having our "engineers" help us invade Canada, where it's cooler.
Whew! That was easy.
"Adapting" to the Climate Crisis: That Was Easy
Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, admitted recently that global warming is not a hoax, but that we needn't worry: "We have spent our entire existence adapting, OK? So we will adapt to this. Changes to weather patterns that move crop production areas around — we'll adapt to that. It's an engineering problem, and it has engineering solutions." Tillerson's buddies at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce added, "Populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of behavioral, physiological and technological adaptations."
This is the world we live in. This is the world we cover.
Because of people like you, another world is possible. There are many battles to be won, but we will battle them together—all of us. Common Dreams is not your normal news outlet. We don't survive on clicks. We don't want advertising dollars. We want the world to be a better place. But we can't do it alone. It doesn't work that way. We need you. If you can help today—because every gift of every size matters—please do. Without Your Support We Won't Exist.
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PAX Australia 2014 tickets now on sale
Tickets are now on sale for PAX Australia 2014, which runs October 31 through November 2 at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre, a larger venue than this year's packed-out, queue-raddled event. Individual and three day passes are available, as well as a new international badge for those travelling in from overseas. Check out the […]
Melbourne headlines
PAX Australia 2014 dated, moving to Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre
PAX Australia 2014 will run October 31 through November 2, and will remain in Melbourne, although in the larger venue.
PAX Australia video discusses Melbourne's attractions
This video featuring Penny Arcade's Robert Khoo and Game Developers' Association of Australia CEO Tony Reed enthuses over PAX Australia's choice of host city.
PAX Australia issues new round of ticketing
PAX Australia has expanded its capacity in response to popular demand, securing a new exhibition space and issuing more tickets. Although individual day passes were still available, Saturday was completely sold out, making it difficult for those hoping to attend the whole show to grab tickets. The new Saturday passes are already running low so […]
PAX Australia three day passes sold out
Bad news, friends; PAX Australia three day passes have completely sold out. If you want to hit up the Melbourne show next year, which runs July 19 through 21, you'll have to pick up one day passes. Thanks, Kotaku.
PAX Australia tickets on sale now
Melbourne has been chosen as host city to PAX Australia in 2013 and 2014; register now to secure your pass.
PAX Australia to be held in Melbourne - rumour
PAX Australia – should it come to Sydney, the largest city? Or Brisbane, the traditional games industry hotspot? The latest on dit has it down for Melbourne, which is – well, it's certainly a place.
Melbourne: Fighters Festival kicks off tomorrow
Head down to the Solei bar and Lounge in Moonee ponds tomorrow after noon to see the nation's finest try to beat each other up – and even throw a few punches yourself.
Australia: Register for next week's Call of Duty XP tournament
Activision Australia has revealed the details of next week's Australian Qualifier for the September Call of Duty XP tournament in Los Angeles
Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer tourney to debut in Melbourne next week
The initial qualifier of the Call of Duty XP tournament to be announced sees Australians having first crack at what's almost certainly to be one of the biggest eSports events of the year.
Monday Shorts, overnight edition - Uncharted karting, Deus Ex birthday, more
It's quiet, brother. Too quiet. Digest these insignificant morsels while I investigate whether the industry was abducted over the weekend.
Melbourne latest
PAX Australia 2014 dated, moving to Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre
Australia: Register for next week's Call of Duty XP tournament
Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer tourney to debut in Melbourne next week
Monday Shorts, overnight edition – Uncharted karting, Deus Ex birthday, more


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Anyone want to disagree with me?
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Comic 474: Large Humor Collider
Anyone want to disagree with me?
18 comments:
- AnonymousSeptember 11, 2008 at 11:29 PM
This one didn't do it for me, it really isn't anything we haven't seen before. But I agree with you that this would be a nice one panel comic. As it stands, its:ReplyDelete
Panel One: Science Pick-Up Line
Panel Two: Serious rebuttal to stupid thoughts
Panel Three and Four: You can find love in strange places.
Honestly, it feels a lot like another "we're quirky...and so is our relationship!" Except they're more nerdy than quirky
Somehow it just seems like one of Randall's wet dreams
MORE LIKE, "WE'RE QUARKY, AND SO IS OUR RELATIONSHIP!"ReplyDelete
oh man I can't believe I didn't think of that before.
everyone make sure you get the joke, by the way, this comic is more obscure than usual - quarks come in 6 varieties (known as flavors), which are Top, Bottom, Up, Down, Charm, and Strange, and the idea is that Randall worked all those words, in some form, into the last panel. It took me a while, which is why I'm writing this.
- AnonymousSeptember 12, 2008 at 12:56 AM
Ah. I did not get that at all.ReplyDelete
I hope you're having fun writing about the latest comic; the people in LJ world are having a right panic because there is no alt-text.
I felt that "straight down" was an awkward turn of phrase. It should read:ReplyDelete
"So, you're down for a night with a charming stranger? . . . Two whiskey sours, straight up."
Possibly a little rearranging. Maybe I am the only person who uses 'down' in that context but it would have been less awkward than 'straight down.'
But yeah, without getting the joke this one was really kind of lackluster. And for the first time I actually found myself wondering 'uh... what's the joke?'
As for working well as a one-panel... perhaps, but I do like the 'LHC' context.
Also, isn't that bakery dude?
Oh I got the joke, but I still completely shut down on "Depends. Top or Bottom?" I know a lot of women, and I know a lot of women physicists. This is just not a question we'd ask a dude when we want to have sex with them. I also don't like how all the references are in the last panel. It fucks with the timing. IMO it would have been better to have three panels where she is saying weird things with "top, bottom, charm, strange, up, down", then the last panel reveals that she's a quantum physicist.ReplyDelete
And now that I think about it... why WASN'T the physicist a man? It would have made the strip much tighter. Of course, it doesn't seem like Randall writes much about gay people in his strips. Pretty heterocentrist.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousSeptember 12, 2008 at 7:30 AM
"Top" and "bottom" aren't just gay slang anymore. They're very widely used in the kink community, which is how I assumed Randall meant it until somebody with stronger physics-fu explained the joke to me. ;)ReplyDelete
Amanda - Same thing on the xkcd forums. People are idiots.ReplyDelete
Rob - There were a few things he could have done. I figure as long as they're discussing "top or bottom" he might has well have used the phrase "go down on."
Sarah - Once again, it appears Randall does not understand women. The question is, though, if the physicist were a man and asked the same question, wouldn't the woman just smack him and leave? And once again, this time in the field of accepting homosexuality, xkcd lags behind Dinosaur Comics.
Thanks for pointing out the 6 types of quarks, that adds a layer of credibility. I thought the only reference was through the title "Turn On," meaning the Hadron Collider has "turned on" all the women on earth.ReplyDelete
I also just realized that they are in a bar. I thought the woman was at a desk, and that the guy in the beret (bartenders wear berets??) was retrieving things from her desk. Beret-man's presence actually made me curious if Randall was subtly introducing a new character in the mix, one who's too busy getting things done to ask random people "top or bottom?"
- AnonymousSeptember 12, 2008 at 11:28 AM
The way the comic is organized, the quark joke is more like an aside. The other panels are a bit misleading for the pun. To me, the structure lends to the joke to seem like a cute addition to another science-sex comic.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousSeptember 12, 2008 at 11:31 AM
Yeah, I think the problem of trying to find the joke is that it's set up like another unfunny Randall comic. It does remind of the other times he's made a funny, but proved yet again he needs to work on his timing and spatial organizationReplyDelete
Thomas - you make me wonder about this guy in the beret. As I recall, he is obsessed with bakeries, apparently is a bartender (not the first food service industry job I would have assumed for him) and trying to take away people's dignity. I think it is no longer safe to assume that just because two characters look alike in xkcd, they are the same person. I don't know if this matters, I feel like it has been a point of debate before.ReplyDelete
I kinda liked the title...and I'm glad he didn't go for a Large Hardon joke.
Jim- I think the word "misleading" is a good way to describe it. Had he been able to make it a good joke without the puns, and had the puns at the end, it would have been a really great comic.
Stephen - I think the timing wasn't so bad in this one, at least compared to some recent ones. I think in general I like this comic a bit more than you guys do. Whatever. We will all hate the boomerang one together. I should get to work on that...
- AnonymousSeptember 12, 2008 at 4:59 PM
I dont have anything new to add, but i totally agree with you guys on most points: I didnt get the quark thing, im doing chem not physics! I had no idea they were in a bar until she orders a drink (btw, i agree with Rob, swapping up and down makes way more sense). Also, the first three panels just seem like an excuse to talk about the LHC, they dont actually have any content, they barely setup the last panel.ReplyDelete
And the thing that probably confused me the most was the third panel. It took me a two or three tries to notice that he was turned away, because of course you read the text before looking at the picture, the text is on top! I was like wtf, is she skitzo? It's difficult to tell what the stick figures are doing sometimes...
This comment has been removed by the author.ReplyDelete
Regarding the first two panels: Could the LHC be Randall's misunderstood furry of the day?ReplyDelete
Internet people: "He he, look, the Hadron Collider is going to destroy the planet!"
Blank Slate: "What's up with them?"
Randall's Dream Girl: "Forget those assholes. I study physics and like drunken sex and am totally willing after two lines from you."
See? It's a physics student and not a furry, so sex is ok. The comic is heterocentrically scientist.
- AnonymousSeptember 23, 2008 at 2:19 PM
I'm a physics grad student and I didn't notice the joke until I read Carl's post. It's clever, but it's not funny.ReplyDelete
Actually it's not clever. He had the idea of slipping quark flavors into a converstation, and then cooked up some contrived dialogue. Not exactly comedy gold.
What annoys me most about this comic is panel 2. Its sole purpose is to make it extra specially clear that Randall does not actually believes the LHC scare stories because, heaven forbid, we might mistake him for a stupid person. "Gimme a break" would have been sufficient to indicate her scepticism - and Randall's - but no, we get a patronising explanation to boot.
That's a good point with panel 2 Johnny. It's those subtle things that I think annoy me, often subconsciously.ReplyDelete
Hey, I think I could disagree with you about the three first panels: I think I like the sense of movement and activity it generates?ReplyDelete
I don't think I feel strongly about it either way so it doesn't really matter to me?
Oh, and what johnny and carl said.
Especially the subconcious thing.
I've talked with someone about those ultra-energetic cosmic ray collisions. If those LHC collisions would create tiny black holes, they wouldn't be as fast as those cosmic ray tiny black holes which can escape Earth's gravity faster than you could say xkcd: Overrated. So we still don't know if cosmic rays produce tiny black holes.


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Welcome to Autocade (beta), the international automotive database. It's a wiki that's global, rather than geographically biased; and, we believe, more carefully edited. It's aimed at motoring enthusiasts and the press who want a quick, accurate reference.
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You can search by typing a car name into the box at the top right of the page. If the car's not present, you'll see a page with a link where registered users can click to write a new article.
You can hop over to the 'All Pages' link to see what's here. Some marques and nameplates are listed.
Registered users can add and edit information on cars. All can read the content on this site. Read more about Autocade on the 'About' page.
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The Hong Kong Movie Database (HKMDB) is a place to freely look up highly detailed information about films made in Hong Kong, or films associated in some way with Hong Kong film production.
The HKMDB's usefulness and uniqueness comes from the data being completely bi-lingual. It is in the Chinese language (Traditional/Big5 encoding) as well as in English. And although the overall site is geared primarily toward English, the site's data is 100% based in the Chinese language. No films or persons are added to this database without first having a Chinese name.
The HKMDB data is meticulously maintained by the hard work and extreme dedication of Dennis Lee and Calros Sanchez, along with the Immortals and the Editors (Michael Kistner, williamwan, Gaijin84, Bearserk, MrBooth, Heinz, Magic Wong, Harlock, j.crawford, STSH, ewaffle, and others).
The site's *nix server, SQL database, back-end code, and markup, have been maintained by Bob Kasten since 2002.
(NOTE: at one time this location did host a Hong Kong film discussion forum. However it was eventually deemed best to dedicate the forum for use by the site's data maintainers. Other places are better suited for such discussions. Henceforth this public area of the site's forum will be used for announcements.)


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Welcome to Sunday Matinee, where we highlight classic car reviews or other longer videos I find on YouTube. Kick back and enjoy this blast from the past.
One of the most iconic wars in all of rallying was between Audi and Lancia. But one of the battles in that war was not just between Germany vs. Italy, but also of rear-wheel-drive versus all-wheel-drive. Simply put, the Audi Quattro had the goods, and the Lancia 037 didn't.
That's not to say the Lancia 037 wasn't a remarkable car, with its mid-mounted engine and square stance that gave it an angular shape that never seemed to properly coalesce. It was the last rear-wheel propelled car to win the World Rally Championship, in fact.
But it was completely outclassed by the technological evolution that was the idea to power all four wheels. You can see it here, at the 1984 Monte Carlo rally, with a thick coating of snow and ice everywhere, and the Lancia's sliding where the Audis scamper.
Oh, and there's some sweet Renault 5 Turbos, too. Because funky French hatchbacks are awesome.
The Powers That Be need to bring back Group B, if only for the crazy racecars the world saw. Sure, set a power limit at 300 horses or whatever, I don't really care. But if we ended up getting a new Lancia Montecarlo-based oddball to power through the hills above Monaco, it would totally be worth it.


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Antitrust Case Filings
Antitrust Case Filings
To filter the list of cases, select desired options from the left navigation pane.
View the list of NAICS and SIC industry codes used by the Division. To view all industry codes, visit Census.gov.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1
|Case Open Date
|Incident Date
|Case Type
|Federal Court
|Industry Code
|U.S. v. Cuisinarts, Inc.
|September 17, 1980
|Civil Non-Merger
|Connecticut, District of
|Electric Housewares and Fans, Heating Equipment (except Warm Air Furnaces) Manufacturing, Other Small Household Electric Appliances


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Marvell Wynne, Hunter Freeman going to the wire in Rapids contract talks
On a splashy day of MLS trades and transfers — Rapids fans are about to learn a whole new set of Salt Lake players to despise — Colorado crept in with some significant non-moves that may signal the club's direction this offseason.
The club said it is still negotiating contracts with Marvell Wynne, Hunter Freeman and Jamie Smith.
The Rapids also traded for Atiba Harris from Vancouver, in exchange for an international roster spot. But that is something to add depth to the roster, Harris is not likely to bump off a starting player.
The MLS on Monday also released the list of players eligible for the league's re-entry draft. Of the nine Colorado players on the list, six already have been discarded by the Rapids,


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Each time I try to make myself bigger, I get tinier;
Each time I want to make up for lost time, I lose it;
Each moment I delay embracing Eternity, I fall backwards;
Each morsel of life that I wish to rip and chew fattens only my ego.
Releasing my soul to the Soul and my heart to the Heart,
My will returns to the Will which first willed it to be;
And then when no longer my 'I' is raging, I find All resting quietly in me.
– Mignon Fahr


text:
The tender, issued by state utility ONEE, is for the development, financing, construction, operation and maintenance of the facilities under a build, own, operate and transfer (BOOT) contract. ONEE will buy the output for 20 years.
The five sites are located at Tangier (100MW), Essaouira (200MW), Midelt (150MW), Tiskrad (300MW) and Boujdour (100MW).
The tender also includes an option to supply and maintain turbines for the planned 200MW extension of the Koudia Al Baida plant near Tangier.
For the first time in Morocco, bidders must include some element of local manufacture. Also for the first time, the plant will be built under a public-private partnership with ONEE, the Energy Investment Company (SIE) and the Hassan II Fund for Economic & Social Development, all state owned. They will jointly hold a 35% in each of the five project companies.
ONEE, which estimates the total investment at EUR1.24 billion, said it has already raised EUR385 million in concessional finance.
Six entities are eligible to bid following a pre-qualification round: Gamesa with ACWA Power of Saudi Arabia; Acciona with Morocco's Al Ajial Funds; Vestas with GDF Suez Energy International; Siemens with Enel Green Power, Morocco's Nareva and Taqa of the United Arab Emirates; Alstom with EDF Energies Nouvelles and Mitsui; and GE. Sources report that GE subsequently dropped out, though the company has declined to confirm.


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Hybridization has produced double blooms with ruffles.
In the 1700s Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus named the daylily Hemerocallis. The name – combining the Greek words for "beauty" and "day" – refers to the fact that a daylily bloom is open for only one day. Although each bloom lasts only one day, each stalk usually has multiple buds that open over several days.
Daylilies have been called the "perfect perennial." They grow in a variety of hardiness zones, soil types, and pH ranges. Sunlight and adequate drainage are the main requirements for daylily success.
Daylilies have been a source of horticultural study and hybridization in the 20th century with more than 35,000 cultivars on the market today. Daylilies can be found as passalong plants or as collector's editions.
Daylilies are classified as evergreen, deciduous (also called dormant), or semi-evergreen. I have grown both evergreen and dormant varieties, but evergreen daylilies reportedly grow better in the warm Southern states.
Daylilies come in all colors except true blue.
Common Name: Daylily
Botanical Names: Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus (old yellow daylily); H. fulva (orange daylily)
Hardiness zones: 3-11
Type: Herbaceous perennial (evergreen, semi-evergreen, or dormant)
Light: Full to partial sun
Soil: Moist, fertile, well drained (crown will rot if drainage is not adequate)
Size: 1-4 feet
Spacing: At least 18 inches apart
Bloom Time: May to July, with some re-blooming varieties extending into the fall
Landscape Use: Excellent in a perennial border. Daylilies have more impact when planted in swaths of the same color.
Plant in swaths of the same color for maximum impact.
When I began growing daylilies, I had two wonderful mentors who grew rows of color-coordinated, named varieties. This was their recipe for success:
Full sun: Eight hours is best.
Friable loamy soil: Add decomposed mulched leaves.
Plant the crown: No more than 1½ inches below the soil.
Mulch to minimize weeds and increase moisture retention.
Adequate moisture: At least 1 inch per week or more during the summer.
Fertilize: Twice a year with a well-balanced fertilizer (10-10-10, fish emulsion, or composted chicken, cow, or rabbit manure. The first fertilization in spring – increased amount of phosphorus to promote more blooms; then at conclusion of bloom season – increased potassium for root development.
Divide: As the plants become crowded, usually every three to five years.
Daylily cultivars in the 12-18 inch category are excellent at the front of a border.
A version of this article appeared in Mississippi Gardener Volume 16 number 5.
Photography courtesy of Denise Pugh.


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August 4, 2019 - PBS NewsHour Weekend full episode
08/04/2019 | 24m 57s
On this edition for Sunday, August 4, terror and tragedy grip America with two deadly mass shootings in less than 24 hours. Also, the latest updates on the massacres in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, a look at the role of online forums and their links to domestic terrorism, and how the media may contribute to the rhetoric of white supremacists. Hari Sreenivasan anchors from New York.
Aired: 08/04/19
Expired: 09/03/19Video has closed captioning.
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Major corporate funding for the PBS NewsHour is provided by BNSF, Consumer Cellular, Leidos, Babbel, and Raymond James. Funding for the PBS NewsHour Weekend is provided by Mutual of America. For a complete list of funders for the PBS NewsHour and PBS NewsHour weekend, click here.


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Beyond Bounds: Holmgren's Hot On Tour & Here's A Good Reason WhyHow did swing-swinging golf phenom Jack Holmgren win not only the state MGA junior boys championship, but also the PGA junior title, too? Why does the 17-year-old already have a scholarship in hand to compete at Iowa? What's the back story to how the rising senior has been part of three – and nearly four – team state titles for Wayzata?


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This Newport Brass 2-549/24 Polished Gold Upper Arm Assembly is a genuine manufactured Newport Brass arm assembly perfect for residential and commercial applications. This product has been constructed out of a solid brass material to ensure that this is a durable and long lasting product. This product is part of Newport Brass famous Fairfield series. The Fairfield series is a group of coordinating kitchen accessories that add style and class for a reasonable price. This Newport Brass 2-549/24 Polished Gold Upper Arm Assembly is coated with an illustrious polished gold finish. This fixture has a beautiful lasting hue that helps to coordinate with nearly any bathroom decor; this stunning finish not only looks fantastic, but also protects this fixture's exposed metal parts from corrosion and any other water damage that may occur during use. This arm assembly is designed to go with Newport brass pot filler model number 9483. This Newport Brass 2-549/24 Polished Gold Upper Arm Assembly comes with a Limited ten year Newport Brass Warranty against tarnish and manufacturer defects.
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Sears Holdings Corp. announced late Monday that CEO Louis J. D'Ambrosio is stepping next month due to health issues involving his family.
The company, which operates Sears and Kmart stores, said D'Ambrosio will be replaced by company chairman and its largest shareholder, Edward Lampert. D'Ambrosio will remain on the board until the company's annual meeting in May.
The nature of the health issues affecting D'Ambrosio's family was not disclosed.
In a statement, Lampert said D'Ambrosio led Sears Holdings during a time of rapid industry change to become a more customer-focused company. Changes implemented under D'Ambrosio include giving sales staff almost 15,000 iPads and iPod Touch devices so they can research products and help customers check out wherever they are in a store. It's also improving displays and adding more high-tech washing machines and other appliances.
"The board greatly appreciates Lou's strong leadership in accelerating the transformation of Sears Holdings, and we understand and respect his personal decision to step down," Lampert said.
D'Ambrosio became Sears Holdings CEO in February 2011. He was previously president and chief executive officer of Avaya Inc., a communications company. Before joining Avaya, D'Ambrosio spent 16 years at IBM Corp.
Sears Holdings has been plagued by a yearslong decline in sales at its Sears and Kmart stores.
Last year it announced it is moving forward with plans to spin off its Hometown and Outlet stores as well as some hardware stores into a separate publicly traded company. The move is part of its effort to restore profitability by aggressively cutting costs, reducing inventory, selling off some assets and spinning off others.
But its sales are still declining. It said Monday that in the nine-week period ending Dec. 29, sales at its stores open at least a year fell 1.8 percent, largely due to sales declines in consumer electronics at both Sears and Kmart. The period included the crucial holiday season — when retailers can make up to 40 percent of annual revenue.
Sales at stores open at least a year is a key metric for retailers because it excludes revenue at stores that recently opened or closed.
Sears also gave an update on its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings. It said it expected to report a loss between $2.64 and $3.40 per share for the quarter ending Feb. 2. Excluding one-time items, it forecasts a profit of between $1.25 and $2 per share.
Sears operates more than 2,600 stores in the U.S. and Canada.
Shares in the Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based company rose nearly 2 percent in trading Monday before D'Ambrosio's departure was announced. In the past 12 months, they have risen almost 58 percent.
Sears Holdings Announces CEO Is Stepping Down
Sears Holdings Corp. announced late Monday that CEO Louis J. D'Ambrosio is stepping next month due to health issues involving his family.


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Fifty years ago, Rep. John D. Dingell stood next to President Lyndon B. Johnson as he signed the Civil Rights Act. He had already clocked in nearly a decade in the House at that point.
On Tuesday, Dingell and his longtime Michigan colleague, Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, will be honored with the LBJ Liberty & Justice for All Award from the Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation for years of public service in the name of the Texas POTUS' legacy of civil rights.


text: The Village of Mundelein recently was ranked one of America's "Top 100 Safest Cities" by Neighborhood Scout for 2015. The organization's researchers targeted cities across America with 25,000 or more people, based on the total number of crimes per 1,000 residents. Crimes include: burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, homicide, forcible rape, armed robbery, and aggravated assault. Data used for this research are the number of crimes reported to the FBI to have occurred in each city, and the population of each city. Neighborhood Scout obtained the research data for the analysis from the US Bureau of the Census. The Village of Mundelein ranked 42nd out of all cities across the country. "We were very pleased to hear the great news about being ranked one of the safest cities in the U.S. and we feel this recognition is a direct reflection of our hardworking, competent and dedicated team. While I am honored to have received this recognition, I know it's earned every day by the commitment all of our police officers give to their jobs," said Eric Guenther, Chief of Police. According to Neighborhood Scout's researchers, they take a comprehensive approach in their city safety analysis. "Since many cities are served by more than one law enforcement agency, our exclusive analysis includes crimes reported by all agencies. We accomplish this by collecting raw crime data from all 17,000 law enforcement agencies in America. Then we use a relational database built from the ground up to assign reported crimes from each agency to the city where it has law enforcement responsibility. This method provides an accurate representation of the complete number and types of crimes that truly occur within any city or town, not just crimes reported by a single municipal agency. We do this same process for every city in the United States," the company said in a prepared statement. "Once we have this complete and accurate count of crimes for every city in the nation, our analysis takes the total crimes for each city with 25,000 or more people, and divides them by the population of the city, divided by 1,000. This establishes a total crime rate per 1,000 population that is used to compare every city," Neighborhood Scout representatives explained. For more information: http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/neighborhoods/crime-rates/top100safest/


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Fox News strains to tie Obama administration to BP
Fox News pushed the tenuous suggestion that White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has unethical "ties" to BP because he once lived in the home of Stan Greenberg, a D.C. research strategist who has done work for the oil company. In fact, there is no evidence that Emanuel's relationship with Greenberg -- which dates back several decades -- has anything to do with BP or benefited BP in any way. Moreover, Brian Kilmeade falsely claimed BP donated $750 million to Barack Obama's presidential campaign, which would have amounted to the entirety of Obama's campaign haul.
Fox News seizes on Malcolm post that alleges "ties" between Emanuel and BP
LA Times' Malcolm suggests unethical "connection" and "ties" between BP and Emanuel because of Emanuel's living arrangements. In a June 7 post on the Los Angeles Times' blog Top of the Ticket, Andrew Malcolm suggested there are "ties that bind" Emanuel and BP because Emanuel reportedly stayed rent-free for five years in Greenberg's home, and Greenberg was an "adviser" to BP. Malcolm suggested that the connection somehow amounted to an unethical relationship between BP and Obama because "BP and its folks were significant contributors" to Obama's presidential campaign, and his administration "gave BP a safety award."
Fox & Friends says Emanuel's connection to Greenberg amounts to an "oil link" and that he is "connected" and "just two rungs removed from BP." From the June 10 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
STEVE DOOCY (co-host): Meanwhile, let's talk a little about this. Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff of the White House, turns out, according to the LA Times, had a sweetheart deal where he lived in an apartment in Washington, D.C., rent-free for five years. The landlord was a fellow congresswoman, and her husband, fella by the name of Stan Greenberg. Stan Greenberg was actually a BP adviser and consultant -- and, in fact, there he is right there. He is one of the guys who kind of was trying to rebrand BP as a green petroleum company. He's behind that whole BP, "Beyond Petroleum" campaign.
ALISYN CAMEROTA (co-host): Yeah, I'm more astounded by the story anybody let somebody live in their apartment for five years rent-free. My friends would not stand for that -- me sleeping on their sofa for five years rent-free. But this is the tangled web in Washington. You know, if you're Rahm Emanuel, by that time you're very plugged in, you know lots of people, you have lots of friends, people, you know, do favors for you. So Stan Greenberg was consulting for BP. So now he is connected, you know, just two rungs removed from BP.
During the segment, on-screen text appeared that said, "The ties that bind; Rahm lived rent-free at BP client's apartment," and, "Emanuel's oil link; landlord was Dem rep who consulted for BP." From the program:
Fox Nation: "Rahm's Landlord." The Fox Nation also linked to Malcolm's post with the headline, "Rahm's Landlord."
Greenberg and Emanuel's relationship has nothing to do with BP
Emanuel and Greenberg are reportedly longstanding friends. In his autobiography, Dispatches from the War Room, Greenberg writes that the pair first "bonded working on some of my first congressional races in Michigan" in the 1980s, and at one point calls Emanuel a "friend and colleague from the Clinton campaign." [pgs. 42 & 255]
It was Greenberg who brought Emanuel on to Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign. While describing the events leading up to the Democratic primary in 1992, Greenberg wrote that he "pushed to get Rahm, who we knew would suffer no fools when pursuing a goal, into the campaign." [p. 42]
Emanuel performed the marriage ceremony for Greenberg's daughter. The Chicago Tribune reported that Emanuel officiated at Greenberg's daughter's wedding. It said: "Emanuel's passion and loyalty won him the allegiance of others too. Stan Greenberg's daughter Anna, a friend of Emanuel's as well as his pollster, asked him to officiate at her wedding earlier this year. Emanuel studied hard, read sacred texts and consulted a rabbi."
Greenberg's work with BP is unrelated to lobbying
Greenberg Quinlan Rosner helped BP with "Beyond Petroleum" rebranding. There is no evidence the rebranding work Greenberg did for BP has anything to do with the Obama administration's approach to the oil spill or regulations. Greenberg is chairman and CEO of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a "premium research and strategic consulting firm," that does work for corporations, issue groups, and political campaigns. According to its website, the firm "helped BP plan and evaluate its successful re-branding campaign, focusing the company's branding on energy solutions, including the development of solar and other renewable energy sources." BP's "Beyond Petroleum" rebranding campaign began after it merged with Amoco in 2000.
Greenberg Quinlan Rosner has dozens of clients -- not just BP. BP is listed as only one of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner's dozens of clients, many of which are conservative, progressive, and nonpartisan. Those clients include, for example, United HealthCare, Coca-Cola, Monsanto, the Los Angeles Times, General Motors, Verizon, former British prime minister Tony Blair, Pacific Gas and Electric, the Detroit Lions, numerous foreign heads of state, and many environmental organizations.
Kilmeade falsely claims BP gave $750 million to Obama campaign
Kilmeade: There are "problems" with BP giving "$750 million to a campaign like they did to the Obama campaign" and "Emanuel staying there with a consulting firm for BP." During the segment, co-host Brian Kilmeade falsely claimed BP gave $750 million to Obama's presidential campaign:
KILMEADE: Sure. And when BP gives $750 million to a campaign like they did to the Obama campaign in the '07-'08 period, along with Rahm Emanuel staying there with a consulting firm for BP, you wonder if somehow there might be some problems.
DOOCY: Well, clearly this is a big story, Brian. So I would imagine the mainstream media is going to have this all over the front pages.
Contributions came almost entirely from BP employees -- not BP itself -- and totaled about $70,000, not $750 million
CRP: Money donated to Obama in 2008 election was entirely from BP employees, not the corporation; employees donated about $70,000 -- not $750 million. Contrary to Kilmeade's claim, $750 million is reportedly the amount Obama raised overall during the 2008 campaign, not what he received from BP. Moreover, the BP-linked donations came exclusively from BP employees -- not the corporation itself. In an email exchange with Media Matters for America, a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics confirmed that "the $71,051 that Obama received during the 2008 election cycle was entirely from BP employees. ... Obama did not accept contributions from political action committees, so none of this money is from BP's PAC."
CRP data shows BP's PAC contributed $1,000 to Obama's Senate campaign in 2004. According to the Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org database, BP's political action committee has made one contribution to an Obama campaign -- $1,000 in 2004, when Obama was running for U.S. Senate in Illinois. CRP reports that Obama received a total of $6,000 in contributions from BP's PAC and BP employees prior to 2008.
Donations from BP or its employees represents just .01 percent of Obama's total fundraising. As Media Matters senior fellow Jamison Foser has noted, Obama has raised more than $799 million for his federal election campaigns. The $77,051 he has received from BP's PAC and employees accounts for less than .01 percent of Obama's total campaign contributions.
Scherer: "People who run for President raise much more money, and received much more money from BP interests -- and just about every other interest." In a May 5 Swampland post, Time's Michael Scherer cited CRP's data and noted that "[i]t is true that ... Obama received slightly more money from BP's PAC and employees since 1990 than anyone else." Scherer went on to explain:
But there is a major a reason for that, which the story fails to mention: People who run for President raise much more money, and received much more money from BP interests -- and just about every other interest. The fourth highest recipient of BP money in the same time period is George W. Bush. The fifth highest recipient is John McCain. In the 2000 and 2004 cycles, Bush got the most money, albeit less than Obama received in 2008. But then one could adjust these numbers for campaign inflation: campaigns overall raised much less money in the 2000 and 2004 cycles than the record-smashing 2008 cycle.


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CTL Line at Frigoglass Supports Inhouse Blanking
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Tuesday, October 1, 2013
The speed and flexibility to respond to production demands, reduced toll-processing fees, reduced scrap and improved quality—all are reasons why beverage-cooler manufacturer Frigoglass North America, Spartanburg, SC, decided to install a new cut-to-length (CTL) line and bring blanking inhouse. The line, manufactured by Coe Press Equipment, Sterling Heights, MI, features a servo roll feed, straightener with 5-in. pinch rolls, and an integrated 60-in. hydraulic shear and single-station drop stacker. It can process coils to 60 in. wide by 20,000 lb., with the ability to handle prepainted steel to 0.078 in. thick at 60 in. wide, and 0.090 in. wide at 48 in. wide. Maximum speed is 30 strokes/min., 120 ft./min.
See also: Coe Press Equipment Corporation
Related Enterprise Zones: Coil Handling


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I was craving vegetables. It was a rainy summer day during my visit home to see my family in Saskatchewan. After being pummeled by rain and cleaning up puddled basements, I wanted to be in the kitchen, to cook and soothe souls. So I ended up in the grocery store.
I love shopping for groceries. We all need to eat, and I rarely feel guilty spending money at the grocery store. It is always justified in my head. A tasty tomato is worth the price. (At least that's how I think.)
While wandering the aisles, I waited for inspiration. I saw the eggplant first. Though I'm not a fan of this bitter vegetable, I love its purple suit and wondered if I tried it one more time if I might become a fan. So I googled: "best ratatouille recipe" on my phone in the middle of the produce aisle.
Ratatouille dates back to the 1800s and the region of Nice, France. [It requires that special French accent to pronounce (ra-tuh-TOO-ee). Just ask your daughters who are in French Immersion to pronounce it!]
The word Ratatouille actually comes from the French term "touiller," which means to toss food.
Back home, I prepared all the vegetables. A sharp knife is always good for this task, and thankfully, my parents had their knives sharpened before my visit. And then all that was left to do was sauté the ingredients separately (as the French like to do) and then together to build flavor. You must let each vegetable have its limelight. That's the French way. And it's the key to a non-mushy ratatouille.
The result: no mush but a collection of cooked but chunky summer vegetables. This is a keeper recipe of fresh summer vegetables bathed in tomato sauce. I served it over pasta (because my kids love pasta!), but it's good over couscous, rice or on its own.
Thanks, Marc! Click here for Marc's recipe.
Here is my version:
Rainy-Day, Comforting (Best) Ratatouille
1/4 c olive oil
4-5 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 medium red bell pepper, cored, seeded and chopped
6 medium tomatoes, cored and chopped
1 medium eggplant, chopped
1-2 medium zucchini, cut into 1/2-inch thick rounds
8 oz button mushrooms, sliced
1/4 packed cup parsley, roughly chopped
6-8 sprigs thyme
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 tsp salt, to taste
1 tsp pepper, to taste
Heat the olive oil in a large heavy bottomed pan and saute the garlic for 1 to 2 minutes.
Reduce the heat to low and add the onion and red bell pepper and saute for 3 to 5 minutes.
Add the tomatoes, cover and simmer until the tomatoes are soft the consistency of the mixture is not runny, but more stew-like.
Add the eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, parsley, thyme, salt and pepper. Stir to combine and then cover with a lid and cook until tender (about 30 to 40 minutes), stirring occasionally.
When the vegetables are soft, remove the lid, add the tomato paste and let the ratatouille continue to simmer until the excess liquid has evaporated and the stew is thick. Adjust the salt and pepper to taste and serve.
If you haven't seen Ratatouille, the movie, then add it to your list.
"Anyone can cook, but only the fearless can be great." – Chef Auguste Gusteau - in Ratatouille, the movie


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This is how we like our Sprint Cup: on a road course, and at a time we're supposed to be working.
Today's rain-delayed Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at The Glen (sigh) was wet and messy, and never more so than on the green-white-checkered finish. Kyle Bush led at the green but was quickly forced off the track by Brad Keselowski and Marcos Ambrose. Keselowki held the lead until being bumped and passed in the backstretch chicane.
Another caution came out with Ambrose in the lead, and he became the fifth first-time winner this year. Maybe as an Australian, the clockwise track felt normal to him.


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For a long time, the cure for diabetes type 1 and type 2 has relied on agonizing insulin shots for patients or insulin infusion via mechanical pumps. Regarding this, experts have been creating artificial pancreatic beta cells with the he…
This report studies the Glass Packaging market status and outlook of global, from angles of players, regions, product types and end industries; this report analyzes the top players in global market, and splits the Glass Packaging market by product type and application/end industries.
The global Glass Packaging market was XX million US$ in 2017 and is expected to XX million US$ by the end of 2025, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2017 and 2025.
Geographically, this report is segmented into several key regions, with sales, revenue, market share and growth Rate of Glass Packaging in these regions, from 2013 to 2025 (forecast), covering
- North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)
- Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia and Turkey etc.)
- Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam))
- South America (Brazil etc.)
- Middle East and Africa (North Africa and GCC Countries)
The major companies in this report including
- Owens-Illinois
- Ardagh Glass Group
- Veralia
- Vidrala
- BA Vidro
- Gerresheimer
- Vetropack
- Wiegand Glass
- Pochet Group
- Zignago Vetro
- Heinz GLass
- Stolzle Glas Group
- Piramal Glass
- Vitro Packaging,
- Nihon Yamamura
- Allied Glass
- Bormioli Luigi
- Vetrobalsamo
- Ramon Clemente
- Vetrerie Riunite
By the product type, the market is primarily split into
- Standard glass quality
- Premium glass quality
- Super premium glass quality
By the end users/application, this report covers the following segments
- Beverage Packaging
- Food Packaging
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- Personal Care Packaging


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Visit Vocations Toronto at www.vocationstoronto.ca, a resourceful site in answering these questions.
It is this love between Mary and Joseph that nurtured Jesus as a child. It
was their love for God and their love for Jesus that deepened the
relationship between Mary and Joseph. Jesus was obedient to His parents.
It is that same listening to parents that forms children today.
Perhaps there is more challenge today when so many marriages end in
divorce, when so many children are raised by single parents. Because the
ideal is, perhaps, less present now than in the past, does not mean that we
abandon the ideal. Many of us were raised in less than ideal families and
yet can still recognize what the ideal is and why we continue to work
towards that ideal.
The first reading today, from the Book of Sirach, expresses this ideal of
the family in terms that we can understand, even if we might not express
the ideal in the same way today. Mother, father and child. Relationships
of love and acceptance and care for one another.
The second reading, from the Letter to the Colossians, speaks of
forgiveness. In every family (and in every community) there must be
generous forgiveness of one another because we humans always fall short of
the ideal. It is in that falling short of the ideal that we also mature
and come to understand more profoundly why the ideal is there for us.
Today's Gospel tells us of the flight into Egypt and the return and why
Jesus is called a Nazorean. This speaks to the reality that in every
family there can be crises caused by external events and measures must be
taken to save one another.
Let us give thanks for the Holy Family and let us listen to the love
present in the Holy Family. Let us ask for the healing of all
relationships in our own families and in our communities. May Mary and
Joseph intercede for us. Jesus has come to save us. Alleluia.
Reflections are available for the following Sundays:


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I remember spending the week after our first date waiting for the phone to ring, or at least for it to ring with Alby on the other end. I had asked him out, after all, so now it was his turn. But the pain ... I thought about him while I was getting ready in the mornings and on the subway ride to school. I thought about him when I was sitting in my office, waiting for the next student to come in to piss and moan over a grade. When students did come in to talk to me, I nodded and grunted, and thought about Alby.
My thoughts consisted mainly of fantasies of the two of us. Walking through my neighborhood, me in my jeans and worn-out leather jacket, him in his ad agency suit, looking handsome and lanky, maybe in a cashmere overcoat. Or at dinner again, staring at each other, the candlelight flickering, reflected in our eyes. Or back in my apartment, sitting on my couch, drinking wine, then standing and walking toward the bedroom together. Adolescent images, probably, but how can you be rational when you're on the cusp of true love?
I was hooked on him.
This is stupid, I said to myself, you should call him. You are both men, nobody has been preordained to be chaser and chasee, even though somebody usually is and I thought it might as well be me. What would a phone call matter?
That evening, exactly six days after our first date, the phone rang. You're a love-stricken school child and you know that leads to tears and drama, I said to myself during those two seconds that occurred between picking up the phone, taking a deep breath, and uttering a hello that was deepened by an exhale of breath.
"Who else would be here?" I answered, recognizing his voice.
"It's Alby. And what do you mean who else? A handsome guy like you must have elses crawling out of the woodwork."
"The super sprayed last week."
It must have been obvious to him that I was excited. I again reminded myself that I was planning to be cool, but it was way beyond too late at this point. Yes, I was hooked. We made some small talk about how the week had gone. His agency was waiting for a decision on their new business presentation, he told me, and I told him the story of my successful Freud lecture that day.
"I'd love to see you teach, really watch you in action," he said. "You must be a killer."
"Well, I don't know. Usually I hope I can make it through a lecture without a few nod-offs."
"You're modest. I like that in a man."
We talked about getting together for dinner sometime soon. We volleyed some more conversation around. Yeah, we'll do that soon. Yeah, we have to get together. Yeah, right.
"How about Saturday?"
"Well..." He hesitated. "I may have to go into the office for awhile."
"So when you're ready, you'll call."
Here I go pushing again, I said to myself. But the words were out there and my guard was ripped open again. I mean, just what is second date etiquette and why should I have to wait?
That Saturday evening, after we had spent the day talking and walking and, finally grabbing some dinner, we ended up in front of the door to my apartment. I unlocked the door and turned on the light in the entryway. It cast just enough light to illuminate the living room and I didn't want to turn on any more of the lights. I walked in, with Alby following, and stood in front of the window overlooking the rooftops of the building across the alley, and on the next block over, an office high rise. Nothing spectacular, but at least it wasn't an air shaft. Alby stood behind me.
"If I were an artist, I'd want to paint this scene," he said.
"I don't know. The buildings just seem to go on forever. It's like being in a forest or a canyon or something. A concrete valley."
His voice was soft, almost sad, and I turned around to face him. He stepped back.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I know I've been holding back from you, making you do all the work. I'm not trying to be coy or anything. But I'm not ready for anything else yet. Is that okay?"
I was relieved in a way, that at least one of us was going to be rational enough to help me keep my promise not to jump into the whole sex thing.
"Sure," I answered. "But when?"
He patted me on the back a few times, good buddy style, and pulled away. "I'll let you know, after we do some talking."
"About what?" Visions of other boyfriends, or a reconciliation with his latest ex, flashed through my mind, and I reminded myself that I had to be careful here. "Is your white knight coming back on the scene?"
"No, it's not that. We just need to talk."
"Why do I feel like I'm going to hate this?" I asked. "Can't it wait?"
We had spent the day walking through the East Village, going from shop to shop, sitting in Tompkins Square Park, watching people and being watched. I was feeling even more comfortable with Alby. We made each other laugh. That's one of the things I liked doing with him the most, walking through the streets of New York, talking and laughing. It was as if there were two really important people in my world, Alby and me, and then there was the rest of the world, which we would deal with later.
Alby placed his hands lightly on my shoulders. I smiled and tried to think of something funny to say, but I couldn't.
"Let's get this over with," I said.
"I haven't always been perfect. In fact I never was."
"I don't expect that. Do you have unwanted children you haven't told me about?"
"Come on, Mike."
He hesitated again, sought my eyes out with his, and then leaned his face toward mine. "Mike, I'm HIV positive."
I felt my breath catch. No thoughts, images, fears, nothing. I was in the middle of an inhale, and it just caught in my throat as I felt my blood rushing toward my feet. I reached up and wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled him closer to me. I held him, tightly, to reassure him, or to reassure myself. This is no big deal, I kept repeating to myself. Nothing is proven. This means nothing. I said this over and over, in my mind, while I held on to him. We're just getting started together and nothing is going to fuck things up. Nothing.
"It's not a problem for me," I said finally. "It's not a problem."
I leaned back from him, and looked into his face again. He was expressionless, as if waiting to take his cue from me. I smiled at him, a smile that felt big and stupid and fake and I hoped the dusky lighting might keep him from seeing through me, and then pulled him toward me and wrapped my arms around him.
"I've been positive for a long time," he said. "Only my sister knows, and now you."
I tightened my grip. "I'm glad you told me. Now let's not fuck up the evening."
We held each other like this until he pulled away. We looked at each other.
I told myself that I felt relieved. It was out in the open. So what? He looked perfectly healthy. It seemed like a less insurmountable obstacle than if had told me he had another lover on the scene. And there was that other feeling, the one that I kept trying to push off, that vague sense of another kind of relief, maybe you could call it some kind of perverse feeling of security. He must need me. Yes, I would be there. Love would save the day. Or at least it would save us.
"We can pop in a video if you want," I said. "I've got the silent version of Metropolis. Have you seen it? It's really great."
"Do you want to talk anymore?" he asked.
I kissed him on the cheek. "About what?"
"There are other things you should know."
Before he could say anything else, I went to my bedroom closet to dig out the video. There was nothing more to say, I knew more than I wanted to. How would talking, or even thinking about it, accomplish anything? Maybe if we ignored it, the whole thing would fade away.
It was about midnight when the movie ended. We were sitting on the couch and he had his arm around me. The mood seemed right. There we were, with a couple of glasses of wine coursing through our systems, and no reason to get up early the next morning. I wanted him, with me, sleeping in my bed. I wanted to wake up with him. More than two dates before sex was probably a record with me ... all right, it was a record. I couldn't think of anything else that had to be proven.
I had kissed him -- smack on the lips -- earlier in the evening. It seemed important to show him that the HIV thing was no big thing. Not that I was sure if it was or not. I told myself I could think about that tomorrow, if at all.
"Do you want to stay tonight?" I asked. The videotape was on rewind; the lights were off, except for a couple of votive lights flickering in the windows. Very grad-school-first-date.
He smiled and rolled his eyes. "You're so subtle."
"Where would I sleep?"
I lifted my hand from his shoulder and patted the back of the couch.
"This sucker folds out. You'll have the best night's sleep you ever had."
He moved away from me, sitting sideways so that he could see my face better.
"I don't know if this is a good idea. You know."
"I do know," I said. "And I think it's a damned good idea."
"Horny Mikie."
The candles flickered as a breeze came in through the window, throwing a flash of light in his eyes. They were opened wide, searching for something in mine. Reassurance, maybe, or the real truth. And sad. He reached over and took my hand.
"Are you sure you really want to do this?" he asked.
"Absolutely sure," I wrapped my arms around him and pushed my head hard into his shoulder. "I've never been surer."
"More sure," he corrected me.
"That too."
He squeezed my hand. "We have to be careful. You know that."
"Let's go to bed," I said.
"I will if you let me stand up before you squeeze me to death."
"I'll release you, for a minute or two."
I let him go, and we both stood. I turned around to blow out the candles, then turned back toward him. I pulled up the shades, letting in enough of the street light for us to see what we were doing. He was standing, with his hands hanging at his sides.
"Don't you know what to do next?" I asked.
"Are you sure you want this to happen?"
I laughed, then took his hand. "I'm ready already."
I was still on that first-night euphoria when I went in to school Monday morning, and I wondered if my students thought my glazed eyes were the result of true love or a double dose of antihistimanes. I was teaching a three-hour psych lab which starred a dozen or so white rats, which I managed to get through with only two sneezing fits -- both mine, along with a few squeals of fear, from one of my male students and more than a few of the rats, followed by one good bite from a rat to a student. We were doing an experiment that required affectionately fondling the little heathens to see if it improved their ability to withstand the electric shock torture we would soon be submitting them to.
That morning, I felt like the results might hold the key to my future.
By the time I finally had a chance to scrub down and settle into my office, the euphoria was giving way to a free-floating angst. I sat at my desk and thumbed through the notes for the next day's lecture. I turned the pages, reading but not understanding, re-reading and still not able to concentrate. Finally, I got up from my desk, locked my door, turned out the lights, and settled in to let the angst flow over me for awhile.
I sat first with my arms folded across the desk, with my head resting on them. But as the mental pictures became more vivid and horrifying, I got up and sat on the floor, in my favorite spot, on a worn piece of carpet remnant in front of my bookshelf. With my back against the shelf, I was assaulted by one image after another.
First, I saw Alby, sitting across from me at dinner. We were looking at each other and talking in hushed, desperate voices. Decisions to be made. Or walking down the street laughing together like any other couple, but clutching each other's hands tightly as if a gale wind might blow through at any moment. Then he was in the hospital; I was holding his hand and trying to smile at him. "Hi buddy," I would say. "How are you, buddy?" Wringing my hands.
I went back through every relationship I had ever been in, the good times, bad times, the gradual growing apart in some, the emotionally wrenching arguments, and discoveries of infidelities in others. I thought about how each relationship had been tenuous, uncertain, in its own way. Even in the best of physical health, no promises that the next week, month, the next day, it would be as good as it was right at that moment. Never a guarantee that there would be a next day.
This is no different, I told myself. A car might hit him tomorrow, and the HIV status won't mean a damned thing. One might hit me too. Either way, life is uncertain, I couldn't promise him anything more than he could promise me.
Was I already in too deep? Was I about to be pulled under by a drowning man? It was early on in the relationship, not even really sexual yet. I had time to get out, somewhat unscathed. I could let him down easy, or just start pulling away. The door was open.
I wanted him to go away. I wanted to run. I wanted to be with him no matter what. I wanted him to run. I wanted to pretend I was in the middle of a bad video and hit rewind. But I also wanted Alby.
Dammit. It was not supposed to be this way.
I sat in my office for the remainder of the afternoon. Students came by occasionally, and I watched their shadows through the frosted glass as they stood in front of my door, reading my office hours and, seeing that I was supposed to be there, knocking. They checked their watches to make sure they had the right time and knocked again, only louder. A few of them repeated this a few times, as if the room were so cavernous I might not hear them on the first try. A couple of them left for a few minutes, then came back. I recognized their shadows, their knocks.
My eyes wandered toward a poster that hung over my desk of a bright turquoise ocean and a blue sky, a white boat with red sails. It was a joke on myself, in a way. I've been terrified of water since I was a third grader and my mother sent me to swimming lessons. The instructor, a high school jock, spent most of each class hitting on the female lifeguard. She was the one who busted me, told him I was cheating by wading across the pool and not kicking. He jumped in -- the only time he ever got wet -- and held my head underwater until I took big swallows of chlorine. He gave me a few seconds to swallow and gasp, then held me under again.
Aversion therapy, the behaviorists would call this poster. Torture yourself with something you're afraid of and maybe it will go away.
Alby loved water and had taken a few sailboat lessons in college. As I stared at the sailboat, I imagined the two of us standing with the boat, in shallow water, and slowly pushing it away from the shore. First the water was at my ankles, then my knees, then my waist.
"Is there enough breeze yet?" I asked Alby.
"Not yet," he said.
We went out further. The water was higher than my waist, then up to my armpits. I could feel myself beginning to hyperventilate.
"Jump in," Alby said. "Let's go."
"I can't," I replied. "I'm scared of the water."
"Then I'll have to go alone. Give me a push."
"No. Not yet. Give me some time."
I continued to stare at the poster as the hours passed. In the late afternoon, as the sun began to fade, the ocean started to look dark, like a storm was moving in. The sailboat faded, became a shadow.
I slipped away into that world of half-awake-half-asleep that, if you play it right, can keep you from away from reality but also away from dreaming. But then I must have dreamed about something, because I jerked into a sitting position, feeling as if I was suffocating. I gasped for air.
When I caught my breath, I found myself in the dark.
The building was silent, probably locked from outside. I could leave now and not have to worry about being accosted in the hallway. I stood up. There was just enough light coming through the frosted glass window to allow me to fumble around for my backpack and keys. I felt for the door handle, letting my hand slide past the wall switch for the ceiling light.
It was really darkness that I wanted. Just enough light to see my way out without having to look at any of the details.
Gary R. McClain is a writer living in New York City. This story is exerpted from his as yet unpublished novel, The Price of the Ticket_._


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Artist description:
For [Link] comp ^^ Reference is here~ [Link] at 1:41 ... And I know I didnt draw the "Ahhhhhhhhhhhh" :D Hope you like it anyway! Rate & Comment/feedback
Java Draw Created Oct 24, 2009 470 x 338px Unless noted Copyright 2009 Zanjux.
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Post a comment
luv da title haha, dis is so silly n i also like mikus priceless expression here rofl xD luv da colorin n hair 3;favie
Lol- it looks like Miku is yelling out that phrase in the title. :p You drew it better than the reference! xD Her turquoise hairstyle lookes especially lovely and the expression on her face is priceless. :D I adore her crown and nice bg. 5/5 and fav.
Whoa! I love this song : 3 BUT WOW. That looks exactly like the ref! :D 5 and favs!
lol this is funny! +faves+
oh damn, sorry mistake. thought this was for basia's comp
damn, all my chances of winning are demolished haha. :D i love this. great job 5/5
Lol..this is great...xD 5/5
awwww adorable ^^
love!!!!! added to collection! soo cute!


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text: Goal-scoring forward James visiting Vancouver this week - The Province October 1, 200812:00AM PDT Previous Next Marc Weber The Vancouver Whitecaps thought they had Marlon James this season. Now they're trying for next season. James, the St. Vincentian forward who scored 113 times in 134 games for Kedah FA of the Malaysian Super League, was at practice Tuesday and will check out the city this week. James -- who has expressed a strong desire to play for San Jose of MLS -- agreed to terms with Vancouver before the USL-1 roster freeze in August, but the international transfer wasn't approved because the 31-year-old played for Kedah after the signing deadline. "[Vancouver] has always been an option," he said. "They wanted me to come over and see how it is here and it's going to help my decision for next season." James heads to San Jose, Calif., for a week on Sunday. "I think he would like it here, fit into the group and the way we're playing," said Whitecaps coach Teitur Thordarson. - Whitecaps M Martin Nash was named to the USL-1 All-League First Team on Tuesday, while F Eddie Sebrango, D Wesley Charles and D Takashi Hirano earned second team honours. © The Vancouver Province 2008 Previous Next


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Questo effetto può generare un'immagine ad alta risoluzione
A visit to a famous art gallery is undoubtedly a great day out for members of public and art lovers alike. This is certainly true especially when the masterpieces on display are of yourself or someone you know! With the three painting effect you can display up to 3 different pictures of your choice or even one picture across all 3 paintings. Get your pictures on display at an art gallery admired by a gallery visitor and share it with your friends and family for more fun!